Evaluating Natural Attentuation with Spreadsheet Analytical Fate and Transport Models

Superposition techniques can extend the capabilities of relatively simple analytical fate and transport models. Complex source geometries, simple aquifer boundaries, and electron acceptor limited biodegradation can be simulated by using superposition techniques in computer spreadsheets. Spreadsheet models are an easily used tool for interpreting sampling results and for estimating attenuation and degradation rates in relatively homogeneous aquifers. Analytical spreadsheet models are based on the Domenico analytical model and can provide results that are in close agreement with the numerical model UIOPLUMH II.     

Investigation and Remediation of Petroleum Product Releases from Residential Storage Tanks

Releases of petroleum products from leaking residential storage tanks are a growing problem in the stale of New Jersey. Approximately two releases per day have been reported to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Product releases may cause aquifers to become contaminated, may affect surface water, or cause vapor problems inside households. As of 1992, there arc no federal or state regulations pertaining to the maintenance and monitoring of residential petroleum storage tanks. Regulations are essential for protecting drinking water supplies. The regulations must address installation procedures, lank materials, monitoring, and tank location.     

Field Studies on the Fate and Transport of Pharmaceutical Residues in Bank Filtration

Bank filtration and artificial ground water recharge are important, effective, and cheap techniques for surface water treatment and removal of microbes, as well as inorganic, and some organic, contaminants. Nevertheless, physical, chemical, and biological processes of the removal of impurities are not understood sufficiently. A research project titled Natural and Artificial Systems for Recharge and Infiltration attempts to provide more clarity in the processes affecting the removal of these contaminants. The project focuses on the fate and transport of selected emerging contaminants during bank filtration at two transects in Berlin, Germany. Several detections of pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) in ground water samples from bank filtration sites in Germany led to furthering research on the removal of these compounds during bank filtration. In this study, six PhACs including the analgesic drugs diclofenac and propyphenazone, the antiepileptic drugs carbamazepine and primidone, and the drug metabolites clofibric acid and 1-acetyl-1-methyl-2-dimethyl-oxamoyl-2-phenylhydrazide were found to leach from the contaminated streams and lakes into the ground water. These compounds were also detected at low concentrations in receiving public supply wells. Bank filtration either decreased the concentrations by dilution (e.g., for carbamazepine and primidone) and partial removal (e.g., for diclofenac), or totally removed PhACs (e.g., bezafibrate, indomethacine, antibiotics, and estrogens). Several PhACs, such as carbamazepine and especially primidone, were readily transported during bank filtration. They are thought to be good indicators for evaluating whether surface water is impacted by contamination from municipal sewage effluent or whether contamination associated with sewage effluent can be transported into ground water at ground water recharge sites.     

Use of Potential Foreshocks to Estimate the Short-term Probability of Large Earthquakes, Tohoku, Japan

This study seeks to construct a hazard function for earthquake probabilities based on potential foreshocks. Earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 and larger that occurred between 1976 and 2000 in an offshore area of the Tohoku region of northeast Japan were selected as events for estimating probabilities. Later occurrences of multiple events and aftershocks were omitted from targets. As a result, a total of 14 earthquakes were employed in the assessment of models. The study volume spans 300 km (East-West) × 660 km (North-South) × 60 km in depth. The probability of a target earthquake occurring at a certain point in time-space depends on the number of small earthquakes that occurred per unit volume in that vicinity. In this study, we assume that the hazard function increases geometrically with the number of potential foreshocks within a constrained space-time window. The parameters for defining potential foreshocks are magnitude, spatial extent and lead time to the point of assessment. The time parameter is studied in ranges of 1 to 5 days (1-day steps), and spatial parameters in 20 to 100 km (20-km steps). The model parameters of the hazard function are determined by the maximum likelihood method. The most effective hazard function examined was the following case: When an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 to 6.5 occurs, the hazard for a large event is increased significantly for one day within a 20 km radius surrounding the earthquake. If two or more such earthquakes are observed, the model expects a 20,000 times greater probability of an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 or greater than in the absence of such events.     

The Use of Radar and Gauge Measurements to Estimate Areal Precipitation for Several Czech River Basins

Two methods estimating areal precipitation for selected river basins in the Czech Republic are compared. The methods use radar precipitation (the radar-derived precipitation estimate based on column maximum reflectivity) and data from 81 on-line rain gauges routinely provided by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute. Data from a dense network of climatological rain gauges (the average inter-station distance is approximately 8 km), the measurements of which are not available in real time, are utilized for the verification. The mean areal precipitation, which is used as the ground truth, is obtained by the weighted interpolation of the dense rain gauge network. The accuracy of the methods is evaluated by the root-mean-square-error.The first, pixel-related method merges radar precipitation with rain gauge data to obtain adjusted pixel values. The adjusting procedure combines radar and gauge values in one variable that is interpolated into all radar pixels. The adjusted pixel precipitation is calculated from radar precipitation and from the value of the combined variable. The areal estimates are determined by adding the corresponding pixel values. The second method applies a linear regression model to describe the relationship between the areal precipitation (dependent variable) and its estimates, which are determined from (i) non-adjusted radar precipitation and (ii) on-line rain gauge measurements interpolated into pixels. Classical linear regression, ridge regression and robust regression models are tested.Both the methods decrease the average areal error in comparison with the reference method, which uses the on-line rain gauge data only. The decrease is about 10% and 15% for the pixel-related and regression methods, respectively. When the estimates of the pixel-related method are included as predictors into the regression method then the improvement of accuracy is almost 25%.     

西秦岭北缘断裂带特征地震平均复发间隔的确定和地震危险性评价

时间相依的地震危险性概率评估方法是最近10a来逐渐发展起来的，是一种将已获得的定量地质资料运用于活动断裂中—长期地震潜势概率评估的方法，从而使得在缺乏历史记载或仪器记录资料，但已获得断层平均滑动速率、同震位错、古地震年代序列等资料的活动断裂段上评估未来的发震概率成为可能。在定量计算活动断裂未来地震危险性的过程中，作为输入参数之一的特征地震平均复发间隔是一个至关重要的参数，它的确定将直接影响到概率计算的结果。对研究断裂上已获得的历史地震资料(H)、地质资料(G)和古地震资料(P)，笔采用了时间可预报(T)和准周期(Q)两种模式分别计算其平均复发间隔，比单一的只假定一种复发模式计算更具有完善性和可靠性。在叙述该方法的同时，以西秦岭北缘断裂为例，详细阐述了该断裂上特征地震平均复发间隔的确定，并在此基础上对西秦岭北缘断裂未来地震潜势作了定量评估。     

基于R值和统计分布检验的年度地震危险区个数评估

针对年度地震危险区划定的个数问题开展了一些尝试性研究,旨在从统计学角度给出危险区个数的最佳估值,对年度地震预测实践给出一定参考意见。通过R值评分算法反推出年度地震危险区个数的估算公式,同时改进了传统聚类算法用于识别空间距离较近的地震“丛集区”,在此基础上分别统计中国大陆地区1950—2019年满足目标震级的年度地震发生个数、地震“丛集区”和“孤立发生地震”的个数之和,最后进行多种统计分布模型拟合与检验,结合置信区间确定危险区个数的合理上限。结果表明,由两种统计结果得出的年度危险区个数的参考值也略有差别,第一种基于中国大陆地区东部(107°E以东)M_S5.5、西部(107°E以西)M_S6.0以上地震年度发生率的危险区个数参考值为9个,适用于稍大震级的判定;第二种基于中国大陆地区年度M_S5.0以上地震“丛集区”识别结果的危险区个数参考值为13个,与目前中国地震台网中心使用的个数一致,对判定年度M_S5.0以上地震具有较好的应用实效。     

Use of Statistical Models to Analyze Periodic Seismicity Observed for Clusters in the Kanto Region, Central Japan

—A periodic pattern of seismicity has been reported for the Kinugawa cluster in the Kanto region, where several earthquake clusters are observed at depths between 40 and 90 km. To analyze this periodicity, statistical studies are performed for the Kinugawa cluster together with eight other clusters. Hypocentral parameters of the earthquakes with magnitudes 4.5 and larger for the period between 1950 and 1995 are taken from the JMA catalogue. The simple sinusoidal function, the exponential of sinusoidal function and the stress release model are applied as the intensity function. Model parameters are determined by the maximum likelihood method and the best model for each cluster is selected by using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). In six cases the sinusoidal model or the exponential of the sinusoidal model is selected as the best option and achieves AIC reductions of values between 2.4 and 13.2 units from the simple Poisson model. The stress release model is selected for two clusters. The three clusters, the Kinugawa, Kasumigaura, and Choshi clusters, have a similar optimal period of about 10 years, and align in the northwest–southeast direction at a similar depth range of 40 to 70 km. A model modified from the stress release model is applied to the three clusters so to analyze the relationship among them. In the modified model, an earthquake occurrence in one zone increases the stress in the other zone, which is different from the original stress release model which assumes a linear increase with time. Applying the modified model to the Kinugawa cluster, an AIC reduction from the Poisson model is significantly larger than the value obtained with the sinusoidal model. This suggests that the periodic seismicity observed for the Kinugawa cluster can be explained with the more comprehensive model than the sinusoidal model.     

Assessment of the Present State and Future Fate of River Saraswati,India: Water Quality Indices and Forecast Models as Diagnostic and Management Tools

Water quality assessment is key to the conservation and management of rivers. River Saraswati, a distributary of the river Ganga, serves as a lifeline to many villages in the district Hooghly in West Bengal, India. As the river is gradually dying due to diverse man-made pollution, ten water quality parameters in two sampling spots (PR-1 and PR-2) in the river are monitored month-wise from March 2017 to February 2020,  and these are compared with those from a reference pond. The water quality index (WQI) is determined for the two riverine spots and the reference pond based on the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment WQI (CCMEWQI) and weighted arithmetic WQI, respectively. In addition to actual observations, three different forecasting methods, exponential smoothing, autoregressive integrated moving average, and artificial neural network, are used to predict WQI for the next two years. This study indicates that free CO₂, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity are the key parameters to evaluate this river's anthropogenic stress and health. The actual and forecasted results reflect the precipitous degradation of CCMEWQI in PR-2. Therefore, the immediate intervention of all stakeholders is required to adopt an integrated and comprehensive river management plan to save the river from utter obliteration.     

Analytical solutions to global and local problems of electromagnetic induction in the earth

This review of analytic solutions is divided into two parts. The first part reviews electromagnetic induction in radially symmetric distributions of conductivity, and is appropriate to the study of global problems. In the second part, local problems of a specific nature are considered, the model being a half-space conductor with at least one lateral discontinuity separating regions of different uniform conductivities. In some problems, an approximate surface-boundary condition is used, and it is shown that the accuracy of the solutions has yet to be determined satisfactorily.     

On the Use of Hydrological Models and Satellite Data to Study the Water Budget of River Basins Affected by Human Activities: Examples from the Garonne Basin of France

Natural and anthropogenic forcing factors and their changes significantly impact water resources in many river basins around the world. Information on such changes can be derived from fine scale in situ and satellite observations, used in combination with hydrological models. The latter need to account for hydrological changes caused by human activities to correctly estimate the actual water resource. In this study, we consider the catchment area of the Garonne river (in France) to investigate the capabilities of space-based observations and up-to-date hydrological modeling in estimating water resources of a river basin modified by human activities and a changing climate. Using the ISBA–MODCOU and SWAT hydrological models, we find that the water resources of the Garonne basin display a negative climate trend since 1960. The snow component of the two models is validated using the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer snow cover extent climatology. Crop sowing dates based on remote sensing studies are also considered in the validation procedure. Use of this dataset improves the simulated evapotranspiration and river discharge amounts when compared to conventional data. Finally, we investigate the benefit of using the MAELIA multi-agent model that accounts for a realistic agricultural and management scenario. Among other results, we find that changes in crop systems have significant impacts on water uptake for agriculture. This work constitutes a basis for the construction of a future modeling framework of the sociological and hydrological system of the Garonne river region.     

Variations of the Present-Day Annual and Seasonal Runoff in the Far East and Siberia with the Use of Regional Hydrological and Global Climate Models

A method of spatial calibration and verification of regional numerical physically based models of river runoff formation, incorporating runoff formation processes in the main river channel and its tributaries, was used to obtain a statistical estimate of the quality of river runoff calculation by conventional and alternative criteria focused on runoff reproduction in different phases of water regime and the characteristics of its variations. The analysis of the simulation quality of the annual and mean monthly river runoff (average runoff, standard deviation, and the coefficient of variation) at the near-mouth gages over the historical period with boundary conditions represented by data of global climate models showed the results to be satisfactory. This allows the proposed combination of climate and hydrological models to be used to study physically based regional variations of water regime under different physiographic and climatic conditions in the examined river basins with flood runoff regime (the Amur R.) and the predominant snowmelt runoff during spring flood (the Lena R.).