A practical approach for the interpretation of flowing well tests

Flowing well test is one of the tools employed to identify transmissivity and storage coefficient of a confined aquifer where the potentiometric surface is located above the ground surface, so that the groundwater flows naturally from the well without pumping. During a flowing well test, constant hydraulic head is preserved at the well while the discharge from the well decreases with time and the temporal variation of discharge provides significant information about aquifer characteristics. In this study, a simple and straightforward approach is presented as an alternative to a number of graphical or error minimization-based techniques available in the literature for analyzing data from flowing well tests. The proposed method employs a polynomial regression equation to establish a link between observed discharge and the theoretical dimensionless discharge that is introduced in the analytical solution, so as to retrieve the aquifer parameters. The method is tested with a vast number of synthetically generated data sets as well as a real data set reported in the literature. Besides its simplicity, the present method is seen to produce highly accurate and reliable estimations.     

The light transmission and seiche depth of Izmir Bay,western Turkey

Izmir Bay is one of the most polluted estuaries in the whole Mediterranean Sea. The inner part of the Bay (Inner Bay) is heavily affected by domestic and industrial discharge. As a result of these loads, strong eutrophication occurs in the Inner Bay, which is temporally anaerobic. The ecologically sensitive approach of the local authorities during the last decade has given rise to a wide variety of monitoring and research studies on this bay. On the other hand, the municipality of Izmir started to operate wastewater treatment facilities since January 2000. The Institute of Marine Sciences and Technology — Izmir (IMST) with its research vessel R/V K Piri Reis has been conducting an intensive monitoring program since 1988 and especially during the recent few years. These investigations provide an opportunity for the evaluation of the performance of the wastewater treatment plant in terms of the change in the optical properties of Izmir Bay water in a positive manner. The turbidity values measured in these monitoring studies indicate that the values have changed drastically after January 2000. Their spatial variation indicates that the values decrease from the Inner Bay towards the Aegean Sea. The turbidity (light transmission) values are measured with an automatic CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth) system during each cruise. The seiche disc depth measurement is carried out only occasionally. The accuracy of the seiche disc depth is dependent on certain daylight conditions and depends on the operator. The seiche disc depth (D _s) is an important parameter to estimate primary production of organic matter (hereafter called production). A relation between light transmission (turbidity) value and seiche disc depth (D _s) is found with very good agreement. The correlations are very high (approximately 0.94) with slight seasonal variation.     

Responsibility, opportunity, and vision for higher education in urban and regional carbon management

This is a summary of the conversation among scholars attending the special session on "Responsibility, Opportunity, and Vision for Higher Education in Urban and Regional Carbon Management" at the First International Conference on Carbon Management at Urban and Regional Levels: Connecting Development Decisions to Global Issues in Mexico City Sept. 4–8, 2006. It includes The Declaration for Carbon Management Education, agreed upon by the participants. Obstacles to such a vision were discussed along with exemplar models of transdisciplinary curricula and suggestions for scholarship.     

Assessment of pollution in the West Black Sea Coast of Turkey using biomarker responses in fish

Aim of this study was to determine the extent of pollution in the West Black Sea Coast of Turkey by measuring CYP1A associated EROD activity, phase II enzyme, glutathione S-transferase and antioxidant enzymes, catalase and glutathione reductase activities and immunochemical detection of CYP1A protein level in the liver of mullet. The fish samples were caught from six locations having a varying degree of pollution in the West Black Sea Region of Turkey in August 2005, 2006 and 2007. Mullets caught from Zonguldak Harbour, Ere?li Harbour and Gülüç Stream’s Mouth displayed 6–9-fold higher EROD, 2–4-fold higher glutathione S-transferase and 2–3-fold higher catalase activities than the reference site, Amasra. Total polyaromatic hydrocarbon levels in mullets caught from these locations were also significantly higher (2–4-fold) than Amasra. The results of this study indicate that Zonguldak Harbour, Ere?li Harbour and Gülüç Stream are highly polluted by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and related contaminants.     

Identification of aquifer and well parameters from step-drawdown tests

A new analysis technique has been proposed for interpreting transient step-drawdown test data. The proposed method is based on taking the derivative of the drawdown with respect to time for the entire pumping test period to eliminate the time-independent well-loss terms. The derivative function is subsequently integrated to obtain the time-dependent aquifer drawdown as a continuous function. The well-loss parameters are then obtained with higher accuracy once the aquifer behavior is identified. The proposed method is applicable for analyzing data obtained not only from ideal confined aquifers but also from other aquifer types (i.e. unconfined) and non-ideal aquifers (i.e. heterogeneous). The technique was tested for synthetically generated and field data; the proposed approach was noted to provide accurate aquifer and well-loss parameter estimates. The results of the proposed method were compared with those of some of the existing methods for analyzing step-drawdown test data and were found to be more reliable and robust.     

Separation and Preconcentration of Cobalt Using a New Schiff Base Derivative on Amberlite XAD‐7

In this study, a new solid‐phase extraction procedure has been developed for preconcentration and determination of Co ions in different water samples by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). Cobalt was preconcentrated as N,N′‐bis(pyridine‐2‐yl‐methyl)benzene‐1,4‐diamine (Co‐BPMBDA) from sample solutions using a column containing Amberlite XAD‐7 and was determined. In order to achieve the best performance for the method, effects of several parameters such as pH, concentrations of ligand, sample flow rate, eluent, and matrix ions on the method efficiency were investigated. Under optimum conditions, the preconcentration factor was found to be 200 for 1000 mL waters samples. Detection limit based on the 3S_b criterion was calculated as 0.24 µg/L for 100 mL of sample solution and relative standard deviation was found to be 1.8%. The method was applied to determine the trace amounts of cobalt in water samples.     

Assessment of advective–dispersive contaminant transport in heterogeneous aquifers using a meshless method

Groundwater solute transport phenomena typically occur in water-bearing zones with heterogeneous solute dispersive characteristics and/or media hydraulic properties. A radial basis function collocation method (RBFCM)-based numerical method was developed in order to investigate the ability of RBFCM to accurately portray solute transport phenomena under heterogeneous conditions. Simulations were performed for 1-D and 2-D transport scenarios in which scale-dependent dispersivity fields were taken into consideration and compared with available analytical solutions. Different radial basis functions (RBFs) were employed for assessing the sensitivity of the present method on the selected RBFs. The simulation results were also compared with the results of MT3DMS which is a modular three-dimensional transport model with alternative solution schemes including the method of characteristics, the implicit central finite difference and the third order total variation diminishing finite volume. The proposed model was also used to simulate a real case condition where solute transport through a two-layer soil medium had been investigated experimentally. The results showed that RBFCM represented a powerful tool for predicting the solute transport occurrence under heterogeneous conditions with high accuracy.