Mortar composite based on wet oxidative degraded cellulosic spinney waste fibers

Textile industry has become an essential part of modern society, and waste production is an inevitable outcome of the developmental activities. Present paper outlines a direct approach toward a real problem of managing spinney waste fibers generated during textile industry. Simultaneously, shortage in landfill disposal space is another trouble associated with dumping of these hazardous wastes. Direct incorporation of these wastes into cementitious materials faces some disadvantages, so a partial oxidative degradation treatment was performed for those wastes in laboratory-scale experiments. Slurry resulted from the degradation process was incorporated into a mixture of cement/sand as hydrating agent to produce a mortar composite. Mechanical integrity and weight stability of the mortar composite produced were evaluated at the end of setting and hardening period under different variables. Based on the experimental results, the nominated mortar composite could be considered as an added-value product suitable for various applications, for example inert matrix for immobilization of some low and intermediate levels radioactive wastes, decorative tiles, building bricks, light concrete.     

Geochemical assessment of groundwater contamination with special emphasizes on fluoride,a case study from Midyan Basin,northwestern Saudi Arabia

Water samples for chemical analyses were collected in January 2012. A total of 72 samples of groundwater were collected from 72 boreholes in the Midyan Basin, northwestern Saudi Arabia. Samples were collected in polyethylene bottles and preserved and the used analytical techniques were in accordance with the standard methods from American public health association. Geochemical analyses of the groundwater samples from Midyan Basin reveal the concentration of fluoride (F) between 0.98 and 2.1 mg/l. Other parameters, e.g, pH, EC, TDS, HCO₃, SO₄, NO₃, Cl, K, Na, Mg, and Ca have been found in a variable proportion. Among them, the concentration of EC, HCO₃, K, Na and Mg is higher than the permissible limits. According to thermodynamical considerations, most of the analysed samples are graded under-saturated with respect to calcite and fluoride, while saturation has been observed in some samples. The under-saturation could probably be attributed to low concentration of calcite and fluoride in the studied wells. Fluoride concentration shows weak positive correlation with EC, TDS, Na, Cl, and SO₄. Factors controlling the concentration of fluoride (F) in the studied samples are the area climate, water chemistry and the presence of accessory minerals in the rocks through which groundwater is circulating, besides the anthropogenic activities in the area.     

Forecasting areas vulnerable to forest conversion using artificial neural network and GIS (case study: northern Ilam forests,Ilam province,Iran)

Forest conversion due to illegal logging and agricultural expansion is a major problem that is hampering biodiversity conservation efforts in the Zagros region. Yet, areas vulnerable to forest conversion are unknown. This study aims to predict the spatial distribution of deforestation in western Iran. Landsat images dated 1988, 2001, and 2007 are classified in order to generate digital deforestation maps which locate deforestation and forest persistence areas. Meanwhile, in order to examine deforestation factors’ investigation, deforestation maps with physiographic and human spatial variables are entered into the model. Areas vulnerable to forest changes in the Zagros forest region are predicted by a multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) with a Markov chain model. The results show that about 19,294 ha forest areas are deforested in the last 19 years. The predictive performance of the model appears successful, which is validated using the actual land cover map of the same year from Landsat data. The validated map is found to be 94 % accurate. The validation is also tested using the relative operating characteristic approach which yielded a value of 0.96. The model is then further extended to predict forest cover losses for 2020. The MLPNN approach was found to have a great potential to predict land use/land cover changes because it permits developing complex, nonlinear models.     

Drought risk assessment using remote sensing and GIS techniques

Beginning with a discussion of drought definitions, this review paper attempts to provide a review of fundamental concepts of drought, classification of droughts, drought indices, and the role of remote sensing and geographic information systems for drought evaluation. Owing to the rise in water demand and looming climate change, recent years have witnessed much focus on global drought scenarios. As a natural hazard, drought is best characterized by multiple climatological and hydrological parameters. An understanding of the relationships between these two sets of parameters is necessary to develop measures for mitigating the impacts of droughts. Droughts are recognized as an environmental disaster and have attracted the attention of environmentalists, ecologists, hydrologists, meteorologists, geologists, and agricultural scientists. Temperatures; high winds; low relative humidity; and timing and characteristics of rains, including distribution of rainy days during crop growing seasons, intensity, and duration of rain, and onset and termination, play a significant role in the occurrence of droughts. In contrast to aridity, which is a permanent feature of climate and is restricted to low rainfall areas, a drought is a temporary aberration. Often, there is confusion between a heat wave and a drought, and the distinction is emphasized between heat wave and drought, noting that a typical time scale associated with a heat wave is on the order of a week, while a drought may persist for months or even years. The combination of a heat wave and a drought has dire socio-economic consequences. Drought risk is a product of a region’s exposure to the natural hazard and its vulnerability to extended periods of water shortage. If nations and regions are to make progress in reducing the serious consequences of drought, they must improve their understanding of the hazard and the factors that influence vulnerability. It is critical for drought-prone regions to better understand their drought climatology (i.e., the probability of drought at different levels of intensity and duration) and establish comprehensive and integrated drought information system that incorporates climate, soil, and water supply factors such as precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, snow pack, reservoir and lake levels, ground water levels, and stream flow. All drought-prone nations should develop national drought policies and preparedness plans that place emphasis on risk management rather than following the traditional approach of crisis management, where the emphasis is on reactive, emergency response measures. Crisis management decreases self-reliance and increases dependence on government and donors.     

Pre- and post-seismic displacements associated with the Aswan 2011 earthquake (M = 4.2) derived from recent geodetic GPS data

Due to the importance of Aswan area, Egypt, it has been selected for the present study. Since 1982, after the main shock of November 14, 1981 with M?=?5.6, several study programmes were initiated for monitoring seismicity and crustal movements at Aswan area (Tealeb 1996). Starting from 1997, GPS geodetic networks were established and observed many times in different campaigns. The observations are repeated twice a year. At the beginning of 2012, a moderate earthquake has occurred in the Aswan region with magnitude of 4.2 located at the southwest of the High Dam along Kalabsha fault. Before and after this event, these local geodetic networks were measured using GPS. Regional, Kalabsha-Sayal and Kalabsha networks were used in the present work. GPS data were processed using Bernese 5.0. The collected data before and after this event have shown that the area southwest of the High Dam and Kalabsha area suffered from stress and strain. The behaviour of the areas has changed after earthquake for pre-earthquake.     

A new velocity field from the analysis of the Egyptian Permanent GPS Network (EPGN)

For studying recent crustal movements and their relation to earthquake occurrence in large scales, the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), Helwan, Cairo, Egypt started in 2006 the establishment of the Egyptian Permanent GPS Network (EPGN). Beginning with 4 stations in 2007, 15 stations were operational at the end of 2011. In addition, a station in Alexandria of the French “Centre d'Études Alexandrines” (CEALX) was added as station to the EPGN. Nowadays, 16 stations are operational and an extension to 20 in the near future is expected. The collected EPGN data of the last 6 years are used in this work to throw light upon the present state of recent crustal movement of the whole of Egypt. Bernese software V. 5.0 was used for processing the collected data according to the IGS standards. In addition, selected IGS, AFREF, and EPN sites are processed for reference frame definition. In this first comprehensive analysis of the permanent network, a complete and consistent evaluation resulted in the first estimates of present day horizontal velocities and coordinate time series.     

Efficient and accurate edge‐preserving smoothing for 3D hexagonally sampled seismic data

The automatic detection of geological features such as faults and channels is a challenging problem in today's seismic exploration industry. Edge detection filters are generally applied to locate features. It is desirable to reduce noise in the data before edge detection. The application of smoothing or low‐pass filters results in noise suppression, but this causes edge blurring as well. Edge‐preserving smoothing is a technique that results in simultaneous edge preservation and noise suppression. Until now, edge‐preserving smoothing has been carried out on rectangular sampled seismic data. In this paper, an attempt has been made to detect edges by applying edge‐preserving smoothing as a pre‐processing step in the hexagonally sampled seismic‐data spatial domain. A hexagonal approach is an efficient method of sampling and has greater symmetry than a rectangular approach. Here, spiral architecture has been employed to handle the hexagonally sampled seismic data. A comparison of edge‐preserving smoothing on both rectangular and hexagonally sampled seismic data is carried out. The data used were provided by Saudi Aramco. It is shown that hexagonal processing results in well‐defined edges with fewer computations.     

Impaired Functions in Nile Tilapia,Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus, 1757), from Polluted Waters

Oreochromis niloticus is an endemic species in the River Nile and represents the main object of fishery in the Nile Delta Lakes of which Lake Maryût is the smallest and most polluted. Due to current pollution problems, fish production in the lake greatly declined. Besides fish biology, this study considered a wide array of water databases in selected sites along the lake. Hydrologic and biologic data were compared to that of a reference fish hatchery. Water concentrations of ammonia, manganese, nickel, cadmium, lead and mercury proved hazardous to fish, whereas chromium, copper, iron, zinc, pH, alkalinity, hardness, phosphate, nitrate, and nitrite always fell within acceptable levels. Physiologic evaluation of O. niloticus pointed out improper growth, protein inadequacy, and functional impairment in fish inhabiting polluted sites, in particular the lake main basin. These were reflected by data of specific formulae as RNA/DNA and the relative RNA content (r) in cells of the liver and gill arches as well as by the relative mobilization of serum protein fractions. It seems, however, that growth competence is additionally affected by the stress impact exerted upon fish by massive population numbers in some cramped commercial ponds.     

Effects of urbanization on river morphology of the Talar River,Mazandarn Province,Iran

In the present study, we investigate the effects of urbanization growth on river morphology in the downstream part of Talar River, east of Mazandaran Province, Iran. Morphological and morphometric parameters in 10 equal sub-reaches were defined along a 11.5 km reach of the Talar River after land cover maps were produced for 1955, 1968, 1994, 2005 and 2013. Land cover types changed extremely during the study period. Residential lands were found to have increased in area by about 1631%, while forest land and riparian vegetation decreased in by approximately 99.9 and 96.2%, respectively. The results of morphometric and morphological factors showed that average channel width (W) for all 11.5 km of the study river decreased by 84% during the study period, while the flow length increased by about 2.14%.