Automatic Synthetic Aperture Radar based oil spill detection and performance estimation via a semi-automatic operational service benchmark

Today the health of ocean is in danger as it was never before mainly due to man-made pollutions. Operational activities show regular occurrence of accidental and deliberate oil spill in European waters. Since the areas covered by oil spills are usually large, satellite remote sensing particularly Synthetic Aperture Radar represents an effective option for operational oil spill detection. This paper describes the development of a fully automated approach for oil spill detection from SAR. Total of 41 feature parameters extracted from each segmented dark spot for oil spill and ‘look-alike’ classification and ranked according to their importance. The classification algorithm is based on a two-stage processing that combines classification tree analysis and fuzzy logic. An initial evaluation of this methodology on a large dataset has been carried out and degree of agreement between results from proposed algorithm and human analyst was estimated between 85% and 93% respectively for ENVISAT and RADARSAT.     

The IWAS-ToolBox: Software coupling for an integrated water resources management

Numerical modeling of interacting flow and transport processes between different hydrological compartments, such as the atmosphere/land surface/vegetation/soil/groundwater systems, is essential for understanding the comprehensive processes, especially if quantity and quality of water resources are in acute danger, like e.g. in semi-arid areas and regions with environmental contaminations. The computational models used for system and scenario analysis in the framework of an integrated water resources management are rapidly developing instruments. In particular, advances in computational mathematics have revolutionized the variety and the nature of the problems that can be addressed by environmental scientists and engineers. It is certainly true that for each hydro-compartment, there exists many excellent simulation codes, but traditionally their development has been isolated within the different disciplines. A new generation of coupled tools based on the profound scientific background is needed for integrated modeling of hydrosystems. The objective of the IWAS-ToolBox is to develop innovative methods to combine and extend existing modeling software to address coupled processes in the hydrosphere, especially for the analysis of hydrological systems in sensitive regions. This involves, e.g. the provision of models for the prediction of water availability, water quality and/or the ecological situation under changing natural and socio-economic boundary conditions such as climate change, land use or population growth in the future.     

Groundwater deterioration in Nankou—a suburban area of Beijing: data assessment and remediation scenarios

Since the 1980s, high-nitrate concentration in one of the groundwater sampling wells at the Nankou site, northwest of the Beijing Plain, has become a major concern for the local water authority. In a previous study (Sun et?al. in Environ Earth Sci 64(5):1323?C1333, 2011), a hydrogeological structural model was developed based on the borehole logs of this area and the steady, as well as transient groundwater-flow models, were calibrated using the measured hydraulic heads. In this paper, the potential pollution sources in this area are investigated. The chemical analysis of the groundwater is also presented. The results demonstrate that the most likely pollution source is the untreated wastewater discharge from a nearby fertilizer factory. Furthermore, a mass transport model is developed to reproduce the nitrate transport process in the aquifer at the Nankou site under different pollution sources, i.e., a fertilizer factory, river with wastewater and an agriculture field. The combined effects of the river and agriculture fields present a better understanding of the nitrate transport in the local aquifer. In addition, a pumping scenario is designed to clean up the current nitrate concentration. The pumping rate and the well location are first estimated with 2-D analytical solutions of the type curves method. Then a 3-D numerical model is used to calculate the nitrate-concentration changes after the pumping activities start. In the downstream direction of the regional groundwater flow, three pumping wells are set up for the clean-up strategy. The calculated pumping rate in each well is about 1,500 m³/day. After 1?year, the nitrate concentration in the observation well recedes to 68?mg/l from the initial value of 72.9?mg/l, and it will be lower than the limitation value (20?mg/l) after 5,400 days of groundwater extraction. The data assessment and clean-up scenarios reported in this paper are fundamental for the contaminated aquifer management in the future.     

An Electron-Balance Based Approach to Predict the Decreasing Denitrification Potential of an Aquifer

Numerical models for reactive transport can be used to estimate the breakthrough of a contaminant in a pumping well or at other receptors. However, as natural aquifers are highly heterogeneous with unknown spatial details, reactive transport predictions on the aquifer scale require a stochastic framework for uncertainty analysis. The high computational demand of spatially explicit reactive-transport models hampers such analysis, thus motivating the search for simplified estimation tools. We suggest performing an electron balance between the reactants in the infiltrating solution and in the aquifer matrix to obtain the hypothetical time of dissolved-reactant breakthrough at a receptor if the reaction with the matrix was instantaneous. This time we denote as the advective breakthrough time for instantaneous reaction (τ_inst ). It depends on the amount of the reaction partner present in the matrix, the mass flux of the dissolved reactant, and the stoichiometry. While the shape of the reactive-species breakthrough curve depends on various kinetic parameters, the overall timing scales with τ_inst . We calculate the latter by particle tracking. The effort of computing τ_inst is so low that stochastic calculations become feasible. We apply the concept to a two-dimensional test case of aerobic respiration and denitrification. A detailed spatially explicit reactive-transport model includes microbial dynamics. Scaling the time of local breakthrough curves observed at individual points by τ_inst decreased the variability of electron-donor breakthrough curves significantly. We conclude that the advective breakthrough time for instantaneous reaction is efficient in estimating the time over which an aquifer retains its degradation potential.