Characteristics of Sulfide Removal by Hydrogenovibrio thermophilus Strain TT in Mariculture System

To biologically inhibit the production of highly toxic sulfide in the aquaculture area, one bacterium, designated as Hydrogenovibrio thermophilus strain TT, was isolated from sediment in Jiaozhou Bay, China. The strain was found to be microaerobic mixtrophic, employing both carbon dioxide and organic carbons, e.g. citrate, lactate, glucose, and peptone as carbon sources. When it oxidized the sulfide and thiosulfate, oxygen was the optimal electron acceptor, followed by nitrite and nitrate, which benefited to removal of sulfide under low-oxygen mariculture environment. In addition, the strain TT exhibited remarkable tolerance of sulfide and thiosulfate in seawater, and it was able to oxidize 18.52 mmol L~(-1) S~(2-) in 12 h or 45 mmol L~(-1) S_2O_3~(2-) in 24 h at initial pH 7.0-9.0, 30-40℃. Therefore, this strain showed a quite promising application for biological remediation of sulfide-contaminated mariculture system.     

Purification and Characterization of a Novel Hydrolase That Can Specifically Degrade the Polysaccharide Isolated from Green Seaweed Ulva prolifera

The extracellular polysaccharide hydrolase-producing strain EP-1 was isolated from seawater and identified as Paenibacillus pabuli. Furthermore, a homogeneous extracellular polysaccharide hydrolase from Paenibacillus pabuli EP-1 was purified by combining ion-exchange chromatography and size exclusion chromatography with a purification fold of 90.69 and recovery of 16.23%. Characterization of the purified polysaccharide hydrolase revealed a molecular mass of 38 k Da and optimum activity at 45℃ and pH 6.0. The polysaccharide hydrolase maintained its stability within a wide range of pH(3.0–12.0) and thermal stability when the temperature was below 50℃. The presence of Hg²⁺, Fe²⁺, Mn²⁺, Co²⁺ and SDS notably decreased hydrolase activity, and organic solvents such as formaldehyde, acetone, DMF and acetonitrile completely inhibited hydrolase activity. The purified hydrolase had no activity on agar, carrageenan, gellan gum, sodium alginate, or starch, but effectively hydrolyzed the polysaccharide from Ulva prolifera. The Km and Vmax values of this hydrolase were 43.84 mg m L^-1 and 4.33 mg m L^-1 min^-1, respectively. The sequence analysis with quantitative time-of-flight mass spectrometry indicated that the hydrolase was an endoglucanase.     

GIS-based landslide susceptibility mapping using hybrid integration approaches of fractal dimension with index of entropy and support vector machine

The loess area in the northern part of Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, China is a region with frequently landslide occurrences. The main aim of this study is to quantitatively predict the extent of landslides using the index of entropy model(IOE), the support vector machine model(SVM) and two hybrid models namely the F-IOE model and the F-SVM model constructed by fractal dimension. First, a total of 179 landslides were identified and landslide inventory map was produced, with 70%(125) of the landslides which was optimized by 10-fold crossvalidation being used for training purpose and the remaining 30%(54) of landslides being used for validation purpose. Subsequently, slope angle, slope aspect, altitude, rainfall, plan curvature, distance to rivers, land use, distance to roads, distance to faults, normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI), lithology, and profile curvature were considered as landslide conditioning factors and all factor layers were resampled to a uniform resolution. Then the information gain ratio of each conditioning factors was evaluated. Next, the fractal dimension for each conditioning factors was calculated and the training dataset was used to build four landslide susceptibility models. In the end, the receiver operating characteristic(ROC) curves and three statistical indexes involving positive predictive rate(PPR), negative predictive rate(NPR) and accuracy(ACC) were applied to validate and compare the performance of these four models. The results showed that the F-SVM model had the highest PPR, NPR, ACC and AUC values for training and validation datasets, respectively, followed by the F-IOE model.Finally, it is concluded that the F-SVM model performed best in all models, the hybrid model built by fractal dimension has advantages than original model, and can provide reference for local landslide prevention and decision making.     

Soil erosion of unpaved loess roads subjected to an extreme rainstorm event: a case study of the Jiuyuangou watershed on the Loess Plateau,China

Rainfall can cause serious soil loss in the Loess Plateau hilly and gully region, but little focus has been placed on the extreme rainstorm effects on unpaved loess road soil erosion. A field survey method was used to investigate the erosional effects of the "7·26" heavy rainfall event on unpaved loess roads in the Jiuyuangou watershed of the Loess Plateau, China. The results showed that the average and maximum widths of the eroded gullies that formed on the unpaved roads were 0.65-1.48 m and 1.00-3.60 m, respectively. The average and maximum depths of theeroded gullies were 0.42-1.13 m and 0.75-4.30 m, respectively. The average width-to-depth ratio was 1.31, indicating that the widening effect was greater than the downcutting effect in the eroded gullies. In addition, the gully density ranged from 0.07 to 0.29 m m~(-2), and the road surface dissection degree ranged from 0.03 to 0.41 km~2 km~(-2). Eroded gullies generally developed at the slope toe of the cut bank side. The average eroded gully width and depth at turns in the road were 1.47-2.64 times and 1.30-3.47 times greater, respectively, than those in other road sections. The road erosion modulus increased from the upper section to the lower section of the roads. The average road erosion modulus of the study catchment was 235,000 t km~(-2). Turns in the road were associated with collapses, sinkholes and other gravitational erosion phenomena. The amount of road erosion under extreme rainfall conditions is mainly related to the interactions among road length, width, slope and soil bulk density. Our results provide a useful reference for developing further measures for preventing road erosion on the Loess Plateau.     

Evaluation of the integrated multi-satellite retrievals for global precipitation measurement over the Tibetan Plateau

The availability of high-resolution satellite precipitation measurement products provides an opportunity to monitor precipitation over large and complex terrain and thus accurately evaluate the climatic, hydrological and ecological conditions in those regions. The Global Precipitation Measurement(GPM) mission is an important new program designed for global satellite precipitation estimation, but little information has been reported on the applicability of the GPM’s products for the Tibetan Plateau(TP). The object of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of the Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for GPM(IMERG) Final Run product under different terrain and climate conditions over the TP by using 78 ground gauges from April 2014 to December 2017. The results showed the following:(1) the 3-year average daily precipitation estimation in the IMERG agrees well with the rain gauge observations(R~2=0.58, P0.01), and IMERG also has a considerable ability to detect precipitation, as indicated by a high probability of detection(78%-98%) and critical success index(65%-85%);(2) IMERG performed better at altitudes from 3000 m to 4000 m with a small relative bias(RB) of 6.4%. Precipitation change was not significantly affected by local relief;(3) the climate system of the TP was divided into four climate groups with a total of 12 climate types based on the K?ppen climate classification system, and IMERG performed well in all climate types with the exception of the arid-desert-cold climate(Bwk) type. Furthermore, although IMERG showed the potential to detect snowfall, it still exhibits deficiencies in identifying light and moderate snow. These results indicate that IMERG could provide more accurate precipitation data if its retrieval algorithm was improved for complex terrain and arid regions.     

Mechanism of toppling and deformation in hard rock slope: a case of bank slope of Hydropower Station,Qinghai Province,China

Recently, various toppling slopes have emerged with the development of hydropower projects in the western mountainous regions of China. The slope on the right bank of the Laxiwa Hydropower Station, located on the mainstream of the Yellow River in the Qinghai Province of Northwest China, is a typical hard rock slope. Further, its deformation characteristics are different from those of common natural hard rock toppling. Because this slope is located close to the dam of the hydropower station, its deformation mechanism has a practical significance. Based on detailed geological engineering surveys, four stages of deformation have been identified using discrete element numerical software and geological engineering analysis methods, including toppling creep, initial toppling deformation, intensified toppling deformation, and current slope formation. The spatial and time-related deformation of this site also exhibited four stages, including initial toppling, toppling development, intensification of toppling, and disintegration and collapse. Subsequently, the mechanism of toppling and deformation of the bank slope were studied. The results of this study exhibit important reference value for developing the prevention–control design of toppling and for ensuring operational safety in the hydropower reservoir area.     

Rockfall seismic features analysis based on in situ tests:frequency,amplitude, and duration

In the seismic event classification,determining the seismic features of rockfall is significantly important for the automatic classification of seismic events because of the huge amount of raw data recorded by seismic stations in continuous monitoring. At the same time, the rockfall seismic features are still not completely understood.This study concentrates on the rockfall frequency content, amplitude(ground velocity), seismic waveform and duration analysis, of an artificial rockfall test at Torgiovannetto(a former quarry in Central Italy). A total of 90 blocks were released in the test, and their seismic signals and moving trajectories were recorded by four tri-axial seismic stations and four cameras, respectively. In the analysis processing,all the artificial rockfall signal traces were cut separately and the seismic features were extracted individually and automatically. In this study, the relationships between a) frequency content and impacted materials, b) frequency content and the distance between block releasing position and seismic station(source-receiver distance) were discussed. As a result, we found that the frequency content of rockfall focuses on 10-60 Hz and 80-90 Hz within a source-receiver distance of 200 m, and it is well correlated with impacted material and source-receiver distance. To evaluate the difference between earthquake and rockfall, 23 clear earthquake signals recorded in a seven month-long continuous seismic monitoring, carried out with the four seismic stations, were picked out, according to the Italian national earthquakes database(INGV). On these traces we performed the same analysis as in the artificial rockfall traces, and two parameters were defined to separate rockfall events from earthquake noise. The first one, the amplitude ratio, is related to the amplitude variation of rockfall between two stations and is greater than that of earthquakes, because of the higher attenuation occurring for rockfall events, which consists in high frequencies whereas for earthquakes it consists in low frequencies. The other parameter, the shape of waveform of signal trace, showed a significant difference between rockfall and earthquake and that could be a complementary feature to discriminate between both. This analysis of artificial rockfall is a first step helpful to understand the seismic characteristics of rockfall, and useful for rockfall seismic events classification in seismic monitoring of slope.     

Dynamic changes in lakes in the Hoh Xil region before and after the 2011 outburst of Zonag Lake

Zonag, Kusai, Hedin Noel and Yanhu Lakes are independent inland lakes in the Hoh Xil region on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In September2011, Zonag Lake burst after the water level had increased for many years. Floods flowed through Kusai and Hedin Noel Lakes into Yanhu Lake; since then, the four small endorheic catchments merged into one larger catchment. This hydrological process caused the rapid shrinkage of Zonag Lake and continuous expansion of Yanhu Lake. In this study,based on satellite images, meteorological data and field investigations, we examined the dynamic changes in the four lakes and analyzed the influencing factors. The results showed that before 2011, the trends in the four lake areas were similar and displayed several stages. The change in the area of Zonag Lake corresponded well to the change in annual precipitation(AP), but the magnitude of the change was less than that of a non-glacier-fed lake. Although increased precipitation was the dominant factor that caused Zonag Lake to expand, increased glacier melting and permafrost thawing due to climate warming also had significant effects. After the 2011 outburst of Zonag Lake, due to the increasing AP and accelerating glacier melting, the increases in water volume of the three lakes were absorbed by Yanhu Lake, and Yanhu Lake expanded considerably. According to the rapid growth rates in water level and lake area, Yanhu Lake is likely to burst in 1-2 years.     

Detecting and attributing vegetation changes in Taihang Mountain,China

Attributing vegetation changes provide fundamental information for ecosystem management,especially in mountainous areas which has vulnerable ecosystems. Based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI) data, the spatial-temporal change of vegetation was detected in Taihang Mountain(THM) from 2000 to 2014. The topographical factors were introduced to interpret the response of vegetation variation to climate change and human activities. Results showed that the avegaged NDVI during growing season showed a single-peak curve distribution, with the largest value(0.628) among 1600-1800 m. A significant greening trend was detected in THM, with the largest increasing rate(0.0078 yr~(-1)) among the elevation of1600-1800 m and slope gradient between 3~5°. The partial correlation and multiple correlation analyses indicated that vegetation variation in more than81.8% pixels of the THM was mainly impacted by human activities. In the low elevation zones less than1000 m, increasing precipitation is the principle factor promoting vegetation restoration, whereas in the high elevation zones of THM, temperature is the restricted factors impacting vegetation variation.Considering the dramatic climate change in the future,further studies should be conducted to explore inherent mechanism of vegetation growth to dynamic environment changes.     

Assessing effects of “source-sink” landscape on non-point source pollution based on cell units of a small agricultural catchment

Ascertaining the relationship between "source-sink" landscape and non-point source(NPS) pollution is crucial for reducing NPS pollution, however, it is not easy to realize this target on cell unit scale. To reveal the relationships between "sourcesink" landscape and NPS pollution based on cell units of a small catchment in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region(TGRR), the runoff and nutrient yields were simulated first by rainfall events on a cell unit scale based on the Annualized AGricultural Non-Point Source Pollution Model(AnnAGNPS). Landscape structure and pattern were quantified with "sourcesink" landscape indicators based on cell units including landscape area indices and locationweighted landscape indices. The results showed that:the study case of small Wangjiagou catchment highlighted a good prediction capability of runoff and nutrient export by the AnnAGNPS model. Throughout the catchment, the spatial distribution trends of four location-weighted landscape indices were similar to the trends of simulated total nitrogen(TN) and total phosphorus(TP), which highlighted the importance of spatial arrangement of "source" and "sink" landscape types in a catchment when estimating pollutant loads. Results by Pearson correlation analysis indicated that the location-weighted landscape index provided a more comprehensive account of multiple factors, and can better reflect NPS-related nutrient loss than other landscape indices applied in single-factor analysis. This study provides new findings for applying the "source-sink" landscape indices based on cell units in small catchments to explain the effect of "source-sink" landscape on nutrient export based on cell unit, and helps improve the understanding of the correlation between "source-sink" landscape and NPS pollution.