Spatial heterogeneity and temporal stability of throughfall under individual Quercus brantii trees

Spatio‐temporal patterns of throughfall (TF) have often been studied under forest canopies. Few reports, however, have been made on small‐scale TF variability in deciduous forest stands. In the present research, the spatial heterogeneity and temporal stability of TF under five individual persian oak trees (Quercus brantii var. Persica) was quantified. The research site was in the Zagros forests in western Iran, where mean annual precipitation and temperature are equal to 587.2 mm and 16.9 °C, respectively. Data from 23 rainfall events were aggregated to assess the spatial correlation of TF. Variograms for TF beneath two of the five trees reached a stable sill at the range of 5–6 m. The redistribution of TF within the canopy was highly variable in time, attributable to seasonal variation in canopy foliation and meteorological factors. As the length of the sampling period increased, the spatial variability of TF decreased and the temporal stability of the TF pattern increased. Time stability plots of TF normalized with respect to mean and variance showed a moderate general persistence for all individual trees. We conclude that single trees modify the spatial distribution of TF reaching the forest floors. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stable isotope (O and C) geochemistry of non-sulfide Zn–Pb deposits; case study: Chah-Talkh non-sulfide Zn–Pb deposit (Sirjan,south of Iran)

The study of oxygen and carbon isotopic ratios has gained importance to determine the origin of ore-bearing fluids, carbon origin, and also to determine the formation temperature of non-sulfide Pb and Zn minerals. In order to determine the origin of fluids and carbon existing in Zn carbonate minerals in Chah-Talkh deposit, initially the amounts of δ¹⁸O_SMOW and δ¹³C_PDB changes in various zinc minerals in important deposits in Iran and the world were studied, and then by comparing these values in Chah-Talkh deposit with those of other deposits, the origin of fluids responsible for ore forming, carbon, and formation temperature of Chah-Talkh deposit was determined. The range of δ¹⁸O_SMOW changes in smithsonite mineral in non-sulfide lead and zinc deposits varies from 18.3 to 31.6 ‰, and δ¹⁸O_SMOW in hydrozincite mineral varies from 7.8 to 27 ‰. Due to the impossibility of smithsonite sampling from Chah-Talkh deposit (due to it being fine-grained and dispersed), hydrozincite minerals which have high isotopic similarities with smithsonite are used for the isotopic analysis of carbon and oxygen. The range of δ¹⁸O_SMOW changes in hydrozincite mineral of Chah-Talkh deposit varies from 7.8 to 15.15 ‰, which places in the domain of metamorphic water. The extensiveness of δ¹⁸O_SMOW changes in Chah-Talkh indicates the role of at least two fluids in the formation of non-sulfide minerals. The obtained formation temperature of non-sulfide minerals (hydrozincite) in Chah-Talkh deposit is 70 to 100 °C, which indicates the role of metamorphic fluids in the formation of deposit. Complete weathering of sulfide minerals to a depth of 134 m confirms the role of rising metamorphic fluids in the formation of non-sulfide minerals. The δ¹³C_PDB values of Chah-Talkh deposit are set in the range of atmospheric CO₂ and carbonate rocks, in which the existence of atmospheric CO₂ indicates the role of atmospheric fluids, and the existence of carbonate carbon rock indicates of the role of metamorphic fluids in the precipitation of non-sulfide Zn minerals.     

Automatic Method for Identifying Photospheric Bright Points and Granules Observed by Sunrise

In this study, we propose methods for the automatic detection of photospheric features (bright points and granules) from ultra-violet (UV) radiation, using a feature-based classifier. The methods use quiet-Sun observations at 214 nm and 525 nm images taken by Sunrise on 9 June 2009. The function of region growing and mean shift procedure are applied to segment the bright points (BPs) and granules, respectively. Zernike moments of each region are computed. The Zernike moments of BPs, granules, and other features are distinctive enough to be separated using a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. The size distribution of BPs can be fitted with a power-law slope ?1.5. The peak value of granule sizes is found to be about 0.5 arcsec². The mean value of the filling factor of BPs is 0.01, and for granules it is 0.51. There is a critical scale for granules so that small granules with sizes smaller than 2.5 arcsec² cover a wide range of brightness, while the brightness of large granules approaches unity. The mean value of BP brightness fluctuations is estimated to be 1.2, while for granules it is 0.22. Mean values of the horizontal velocities of an individual BP and an individual BP within the network were found to be 1.6 km?s^?1 and 0.9 km?s^?1, respectively. We conclude that the effect of individual BPs in releasing energy to the photosphere and maybe the upper layers is stronger than what the individual BPs release into the network.     

Unified bounding surface model for monotonic and cyclic behaviour of clay and sand

Acta Geotechnica - This paper presents a constitutive model enabled to simulate monotonic and cyclic behaviour of clay and sand in a unified framework. The bounding surface concept has been...     

Decision making under uncertainty using a qualitative TOPSIS method for selecting sustainable energy alternatives

Multi-criteria decision-making methods support decision makers in all stages of the decision-making process by providing useful data. However, criteria are not always certain as uncertainty is a feature of the real world. MCDM methods under uncertainty and fuzzy systems are accepted as suitable techniques in conflicting problems that cannot be represented by numerical values, in particular in energy analysis and planning. In this paper, a modified TOPSIS method for multi-criteria group decision-making with qualitative linguistic labels is proposed. This method addresses uncertainty considering different levels of precision. Each decision maker’s judgment on the performance of alternatives with respect to each criterion is expressed by qualitative linguistic labels. The new method takes into account linguistic data provided by the decision makers without any previous aggregation. Decision maker judgments are incorporated into the proposed method to generate a complete ranking of alternatives. An application in energy planning is presented as an illustrative case example in which energy policy alternatives are ranked. Seven energy alternatives under nine criteria were evaluated according to the opinion of three environmental and energy experts. The weights of the criteria are determined by fuzzy AHP, and the alternatives are ranked using qualitative TOPSIS. The proposed approach is compared with a modified fuzzy TOPSIS method, showing the advantages of the proposed approach when dealing with linguistic assessments to model uncertainty and imprecision. Although the new approach requires less cognitive effort to decision makers, it yields similar results.     

Sorption Behaviour of Phenols on Natural Sandy Aquifer Material during Flow‐through Column Experiments: The Effect of pH

Flow‐through column experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of pH on the sorption of three phenols (2‐methyl‐4, 6‐dinitrophenol, 2, 4, 6‐trichlorophenol, pentachlorophenol) onto a natural sandy aquifer material collected from a bank filtration site of River Elbe, Germany. For the phenols investigated, an increase in sorption (retardation) with decreasing pH is observed indicating a stronger sorption of the neutral species in comparison to that of the anions formed by dissociation. The anions of 2‐methyl‐4, 6‐dinitrophenol and 2, 4, 6‐trichlorophenol do not show significant sorption. On the contrary, pentachlorophenol showed sorption not only in neutral form but also in ionic form significantly which should be taken into account while assessing the fate and transport of such compound. A linear model based on the degree of protonation (calculated from pH and pK_a) can be used to resolve the apparent (observed) sorption coefficient (K_{d, app}) into its neutral (K_{d, n}) and ionised (K_{d, i}) components. Knowing pK_a, K_{d, n}, and K_{d, i} the apparent sorption coefficient for pH values other than experimentally investigated can be predicted.     

Effective environmental factors in the distribution of vegetation types in Poshtkouh rangelands of Yazd Province (Iran)

The objective of this research was to study the relationships between environmental factors and vegetation in order to find the most effective factors in the separation of the vegetation types in Poshtkou rangelands of Yazd province. Sampling of soil and vegetation were performed with randomized-systematic method. Vegetation data including density and cover percentage were estimated quantitatively within each quadrat, and using the two-way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN), and vegetation was classified into different groups. The topographic conditions were recorded in quadrat locations. Soil samples were taken in 0–30 and 30–60 cm depths in each quadrat. The measured soil variables included texture, lime, saturation moisture, gypsum, acidity (pH), electrical conductivity, sodium absorption ratio, and soluble ions (Na⁺, K⁺, Mg²⁺, Cl⁻, CO₃²⁻, HCO₃⁻ and SO₄²⁻). Multivariate techniques including principal component analysis (PCA) and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) were used to analyse the collected data. The results showed that the vegetation distribution pattern was mainly related to soil characteristics such as salinity, texture, soluble potassium, gypsum, and lime. Totally, considering the habitat conditions, ecological needs and tolerance range each plant species has a significant relation with soil properties.