A framework toward developing a groundwater conceptual model

Developing an accurate conceptual model is the most important step in the process of a groundwater numerical modeling. Disorganized and limited available data and information, especially in the developing countries, make the preparation of the conceptual model difficult and sometimes cumbersome. In this research, an integrative and comprehensive method is proposed to develop groundwater conceptual model for an unconfined aquifer. The proposed method consists of six steps. A preliminary step (step 0) is aimed at collecting all the available data and information. The output of the first step as “controlling observations” is conceptual model version 00. This step should be rigorously checked due to its critical role in the controlling of final conceptual model. Step 2 determines the aquifer geometry. The output of this step is conceptual model version 01. Step 3 is responsible to determine hydrodynamic properties and its output develops conceptual model version 02. Step 4 evaluates the surface and subsurface interactions and lateral in/out groundwater flows. The output of this step is conceptual model version 03. Step 5 is to integrate the results from other steps and to deliver the final conceptual model version. The accuracy level of the conceptual model and the annual groundwater balance is also determined at this step. The presented groundwater conceptual model procedure was implemented for the Neishaboor plain, Iran. Results showed its usefulness and practicality in developing the conceptual model for the study area.     

Validating gap-filling of Landsat ETM+ satellite images in the Golestan Province,Iran

The Landsat series of satellites provides a valuable data source for land surface mapping and monitoring. Unfortunately, the scan line corrector (SLC) of the Landsat7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) sensor failed on May 13, 2003. This problem resulted in about 22 % of the pixels per scene not being scanned and has seriously limited the scientific applications of ETM+ data. A number of methods have been developed to fill the gaps in the incorrect images. Most of these methods have problems in heterogeneous landscapes. We applied and validated a simple and effective gap-fill algorithm developed by the US Geological Survey to a study area in the Golestan Province in the north of Iran. This algorithm operates under the assumption that the same-class neighboring pixels around the unscanned pixels have similar spectral characteristics, and that these neighboring and unscanned pixels share patterns of spectral differences between dates. For validation, unsupervised land use classification was performed on both gap-filled SLC-off data and the original “sound” data set. Classification results and accuracies were very comparable.     

Study and Simulation of Severe Dust Storms in the West and Southwest of Iran

In recent decades, the number of dust events has increased significantly in the west and southwest of Iran. In this research, a survey on the dust events during the period 1990–2013 is carried out using historical dust data collected from seven synoptic stations scattered across the west and southwest of Iran. Using statistical analysis of the observational data, two of the most severe dust storm events that occurred in the region on July 4–7, 2009 and June 17–20, 2012 were selected and analyzed synoptically. NCEP/NCAR reanalysis dataset was used to obtain the required fields including sea level pressure, surface wind field, geopotential height at 500 hPa, and wind and vertical motion at the 850 hPa level. Moreover, weather research and forecasting model coupled with chemistry (WRF-Chem) with two aerosol schemes, GOCART and MADE/SORGAM, were used to simulate the amount of particulate matter (PM10) and its transportation over the studied region. The initial and lateral boundary conditions of the model simulations are provided by Global Forecast System (GFS) data with the horizontal resolution of 0.5°. The calculations demonstrated that the MADE/SORGAM scheme predicted the values and trends of PM₁₀ better than GOCART. Dust plums are formed over Iraq and Syria and then transported to the west and southwest of Iran. Comparing the MODIS satellite images for July 4, 2009 and June 18, 2012 with the corresponding model output showed the good performance of WRF-Chem in simulating the spatial distribution of dust.     

Climate change outlook for water resources management in a semiarid river basin: the effect of the environmental water demand

Iran is a developing country with arid and semiarid regions. Poor management of water resources combined with the effects of climate change is leading to the drying of several rivers and wetlands. Several planned water development projects, primarily for agricultural expansion, will be implemented in the coming years which could worsen impacts on vulnerable aquatic ecosystems. Proper water resources management is essential to meet present and future residential, environmental, industrial, and agricultural demands in semiarid regions. This paper presents projections of how the availability of water resources will change in the Karkheh river basin of Iran for the period 2010–2059 employing sustainability criteria in the form of time-based reliability, volumetric reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability. This paper’s results show that consideration of environmental receptors as a stakeholder of water use places limitations on agricultural development within the Karkheh river basin.     

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction using biological markers for the Upper Triassic-Middle Jurassic sedimentary succession in Tabas Basin, central Iran

The Upper Triassic-Middle Jurassic sedimentary succession in the Tabas Basin, with a thickness of about 1600 m, provides a case showing geochemical property changes through the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. The studied section (Kamarmacheh Kuh) is composed of the marine Nayband Formation (Norian-Rhaetian) overlain by siliciclastic sediments of Ab-e-Haji Formation (Lower Jurassic-Aalenian). Detailed geochemical analyses were conducted on selected samples from both formations and the results were used to infer paleo-depositional conditions. Most of the studied samples contain <1 wt% TOC composed mostly of oxidized organic matter with insignificant generative potential. Extract analysis of four representative samples indicate that the rocks also contain minor amounts of preserved algal organic matter along with a secondary contribution of higher plant organic matter from the adjacent watershed. Biomarker analyses show subtle variations in the relative contribution of land plant material that are consistent with the widespread occurrence of coal seams in the upper parts of the Nayband and basal parts of the Ab-e-Haji formations. Although the samples from the Kamarmacheh Kuh Section have low source potential, the extractable hydrocarbons indicate that conditions existed that were conducive to organic matter preservation and that regions of the Tabas Basin with higher primary productivity or lower sedimentation rates may have greater potential.     

Structural softening,mesh dependence,and regularisation in non-associated plastic flow

A severe dependence of numerical simulations on the mesh density is usually attributed to the presence of strain softening in the constitutive relation. However, other material instabilities, like non-associated plastic flow, can also cause mesh sensitivity. Indeed, loss of ellipticity in quasi-static analyses is the fundamental cause of the observed mesh dependence. It has been known since long that non-associated plastic flow can cause loss of ellipticity, but the consequence for mesh sensitivity, and subsequently, for the difficulty of the equilibrium-finding iterative procedure to converge have remained largely unnoticed. We first demonstrate at the hand of a biaxial test structural softening and a marked mesh dependence for an ideally plastic material equipped with a non-associated flow rule. The phenomena are then analysed in depth using an infinitely long shear layer. Finally, it is shown that the mesh effect disappears when the standard continuum model is replaced by a Cosserat continuum, a well-known regularisation method for strain-softening constitutive relations.     

Ultrafast removal of heavy metals by tin oxide nanowires as new adsorbents in solid-phase extraction technique

In the present research, the removal of lead(II) and copper(II) from aqueous solutions is studied, using SnO₂ nanowires as new adsorbent on solid-phase extraction disk and compared with pine core and buttonwood as biosorbents. Batch adsorption experiments were performed as a function of pH, adsorption time, solute concentration and adsorbent dose for biosorbents. Also, the pH, transfer rate of solution and metal concentration were selected as experimental parameters for the removal of heavy metals by SnO₂ nanowires. All of the parameters were optimized by experimental design method for sorbents. The experimental equilibrium adsorption data are tested for the Langmuir and Freundlich equations. Results indicate the following order to fit the isotherms: Langmuir > Freundlich, in case of lead and copper ions. The removal of Cu(II) and Pb(II) was performed by selected sorbents in the presence of interferences ions. This led to no remarkable decrease in the removal efficiency of SnO₂ nanowires. Using the SnO₂ nanowires in the wastewater treatment indicated 96.8 and 85.28% removal efficiency in only 7 min for Pb(II) and Cu(II), respectively. SnO₂ nanowires were found as reusable sorbent. Therefore, SnO₂ nanowires have a good potential for application in environmental protection.     

Sedimentary and organic facies investigation of the Gurpi Formation (Campanian–Paleocene) in southwest of Zagros,Iran

The Gurpi Formation in the southwest of Iran has been studied for microfacies and bulk organic geochemistry in order to elucidate its depositional environment and petroleum source rock characteristics. The obtained results ended up with four types of organic facies and three types of microfacies through the formation. Three microfacies types differentiated including Pelagic mudstone Wackstone, microbioclast Packstone and bioclastic Packstone reflect a distal outer ramp or basinal environment. Combination of palynofacies and organic geochemistry resulted in differentiation of four organic facies corresponding to organic facies B, BC, C and CD of Jones 1987. Detailed organic facies shows that the formation is characterized by low values of TOC, high percentages of amorphous organic matter and black phytoclasts, rare marine algae thereby representing a mixture of terrestrial and marine kerogen that confirm the formation was deposited in a distal anoxic to oxic condition. The formation shallows upward to the Microbioclast Packstone facies below the Lopha Member reaching its minimum depth in boundstones of this member in uppermost Campanian and then is followed by stagnant condition and high contents of organic matter in suboxic to anoxic condition that favoured accumulation of organic matter in early Maastrichtian. Organic geochemical and petrographical data indicate that the formation is not potentially suitable for petroleum production except for the minor interval (organic facies 2) in early Maastrichtian. Tmax values vary between 340 and 440 °C confirming immaturity trends indicated by Rock-Eval data.     

Landfill site selection using integrated fuzzy logic and analytic network process (F-ANP)

Locating a suitable place to dispose the municipal solid wastes hygienically (sanitary landfill) is one of the fundamental subjects relating the environmental stability of cities and, in general, the human settlements. This final stage of solid waste management requires observance of a series of principles and criteria mainly including environmental, social, economical, and general acceptance criteria. The set of these criteria along with their sub-criteria causes some complexities in decision making for landfill site selection. Considering effective parameters and criteria, we developed an integrated fuzzy logic and analytic network process (i.e. F-ANP) to locate a suitable location for landfilling municipal solid wastes generated in Kahak Town, Qom, Iran. Our findings revealed that integration of fuzzy logic and ANP can give better idea compared with other models like AHP, fuzzy logic, and ANP (individually). Therefore, this model can be applied in site selection for landfill of other similar places.     

Kinematics of the eastern Caucasus near Baku, Azerbaijan

The potential for large, shallow earthquakes and their associated seismic hazard in the eastern Caucasus, an area of dense population and sensitive industrial infrastructure, remains speculative based on historical precedent and current geologic and seismologic observations. Here we present updated and expanded results from a GPS network between the northern edge of the Lesser Caucasus and Greater Caucasus, providing geodetic constraints to the problem. A significant strain rate is observed in a profile over a distance of about 150?km across the Kura Basin. We attribute this to inter-seismic strain accumulation on buried fault structures and present simple elastic dislocation models for their plausible geometry and slip rate based on the known geology, seismicity and the GPS velocities. Due to the close proximity of the strain anomaly to Baku, further observations are needed to determine whether observed contraction is due to inter-seismically locked faults and, if so, implications for the seismic hazard in the region.