Estimation of Hardgrove grindability index of Turkish coals by neural networks

In this research, different techniques for the estimation of coal HGI values are studied. Data from 163 sub-bituminous coals from Turkey are used by featuring 11 coal parameters, which include proximate analysis, group maceral analysis and rank. Non-linear regression and neural network techniques are used for predicting the HGI values for the specified coal parameters. Results indicate that a hybrid network which is a combination of 4 separate neural networks gave the most accurate HGI prediction and all of the neural network models outperformed non-linear regression in the estimation process.     

Hydrochemical and microbiological quality of groundwater in West Thrace Region of Turkey

The aim of this study was to do a preliminary assessment of the hydrochemical and microbial groundwater quality of the West Thrace region. Forty samples of groundwater collected from Edirne (Site 1) to Gelibolu (Site 2) were assessed for their suitability for human consumption. As³⁻ was non-detectable in all the groundwater and Zn²⁺, Pb²⁺, F⁻, Cu²⁺, NH₄⁺, Cn⁻ PO₄³⁻ and Cl⁻ were all below their respective European Union drinking water directive (EU-DWD) and Turkish food codex-drinking water directive (TFC-DWD). Maximum Acceptable Concentrations (MAC) Ni²⁺, Pb²⁺, Cd²⁺, Mg²⁺, Mn²⁺, and Ca²⁺ levels were detected in upper maximum acceptable concentrations 77.5, 42.5, 35.0, 50.0, 50.0, and 32.5% of the groundwater samples, respectively. However, in terms of Cr³⁺, Ni²⁺ and Pb²⁺, the differences between groundwaters of Sites 1 and 2 were significant (p < 0.05). Eight water samples (20%) had HPC exceeding the EU and Turkish water directive limit 20 CFU (Colony Forming Unit)/ml in drinking water and the maximum bacteria count recorded was 44 CFU/ml. Total coliforms, thermotolerant coliforms, E. coli, Enterococcus spp., Salmonella sp., Staphylococcus spp. and P. aeruginosa were detected in 25, 17.5, 15, 47.5, 15, 27.5, and 15% of the groundwater samples, respectively. Furthermore, heavy metals and trace elements were found after chemical analyzes in most samples. The pollution of groundwater come from a variety of sources, Meric and Ergene rivers, including land application of agricultural chemicals and organics wastes, infiltration of irrigation water, septic tanks, and infiltration of effluent from sewage treatment plants, pits, lagoons and ponds used storage.     

Use of interactive multisensor snow and ice mapping system snow cover maps (IMS) and artificial neural networks for simulating river discharges in Eastern Turkey

Basins located in Eastern Turkey are largely fed by snowmelt runoff during spring and early summer seasons. This study investigates the efficiency of artificial neural networks (ANNs) in snowmelt runoff generation. Although ANNs have been used for streamflow simulating/forecasting in the last two decades, using satellite-based snow-covered area (SCA) maps and meteorological observations as inputs to ANN provides a novel basis for estimating streamflow. The proposed methodology is implemented over Upper Euphrates River Basin in Eastern Turkey. SCA data was acquired from Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) for an 8-year period from February 2004 to September 2011. Meteorological observations including daily cumulative precipitation and daily average air temperatures were obtained from Turkish State Meteorological Services. The simulation results are promising with coefficient of correlation varying from 0.67 to 0.98 among proposed models. Past days discharge was found to substantially improve the forecast accuracy. The paper presents the expected basin discharge for 2011 water year based on meteorological observations and SCA input.     

A new approach to use AHP in landslide susceptibility mapping: a case study at Yenice (Karabuk, NW Turkey)

This study aimed to investigate the parameter effects in preparing landslide susceptibility maps with a data-driven approach and to adapt this approach to analytical hierarchy process (AHP). For this purpose, at the first stage, landslide inventory of an area located in the Western Black Sea region of Turkey covering approximately 567?km² was prepared, and a total of 101 landslides were mapped. In order to assess the landslide susceptibility, a total of 13 parameters were considered as the input parameters: slope, aspect, plan curvature, topographical elevation, vegetation cover index, land use, distance to drainage, distance to roads, distance to structural elements, distance to ridges, stream power index, sediment transport capacity index, and wetness index. AHP was selected as the major assessment methodology since the adapted approach and AHP work in data pairs. Adapted to AHP, a similarity relation?Cbased approach, namely landslide relation indicator (LRI) for parameter selection method, was also proposed. AHP and parametric effect analyses were performed by the proposed approach, and seven landslide susceptibility maps were produced. Among these maps, the best performance was gathered from the landslide susceptibility map produced by 9 parameter combinations using area under curve (AUC) approach. For this map, the AUC value was calculated as 0.797, while the others ranged between 0.686 and 0.771. According to this map, 38.3?% of the study area was classified as having very low, 8.5?% as low, 15.0?% as moderate, 20.3?% as high, and 17.9?% as very high landslide susceptibility, respectively. Based on the overall assessments, the proposed approach in this study was concluded as objective and applicable and yielded reasonable results.     

A Simplified Failure Criterion for Intact Rocks Based on Rock Type and Uniaxial Compressive Strength

The uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of intact rock, which can be estimated using relatively straightforward and cost-effective techniques, is one of the most practical rock properties used in rock engineering. Thus, constitutive laws to represent the strength and behavior of (intact) rock frequently use it, along with additional intrinsic rock properties. Although triaxial tests can be employed to obtain best-fit failure criterion parameters that provide best strength predictions, they are more expensive and require time-consuming procedures; as a consequence, they are often not readily available at early stages of a project. Based on the analysis of an extensive triaxial test database for intact rocks, we propose a simplified empirical failure criterion in which rock strength at failure is expressed in terms of confining stress and UCS, with a new parameter which can be directly estimated from the UCS for a specified rock type in the absence of triaxial test data. Performance of the proposed failure criterion is then tested for validation against experimental data for eight rock types. The results show that strengths of intact rock estimated by the proposed failure criterion are in good agreement with experimental test data, with small discrepancies between estimated and measurements strengths. Therefore, the proposed criterion can be useful for preliminary (triaxial) strength estimation of intact rocks when triaxial tests data are not available.     

Magnetic susceptibility and VLF-R investigations for determining geothermal blowout contaminated area: a case study from Alaşehir (Manisa/Turkey)

Western Turkey is one of the most spectacular regions of widespread, active continental extension in the world. The most prominent structures of this region are E–W trending Gediz and Büyük Menderes Grabens. Geothermal activity around city of Manisa in Gediz Graben has been investigated by many researchers and many geothermal boreholes were drilled in order to produce electricity. In the middle of May 2012, a geothermal blowout occurred 150 m away from the deep drilling (depth 1,100 m), in Alkan village of Ala?ehir resort in city of Manisa. After that, four big blowouts took place at the same area and thermal water had been diverted to Alkan stream for almost 4 months. The boron (B) and Fe levels of thermal water are 87 and 11.2 ppm where the background B and Fe values of topsoil vary between 0.2–1.5 ppm and 3.08–5.63 ppm, respectively. The objective of this study was to utilize joint magnetic susceptibility and VLF-R investigations to determine possibly contaminated area with B, related to high Fe level on the topsoil and thermal water in the subterranean layers. It is observed that magnetic susceptibility values vary between 500 and 790 cgs (×10^?6) in the vicinity of blowouts and 150–340 cgs (×10^?6) at a distance of 50 m around, where the background average value is 20 cgs (×10^?6), by using the data collected at 346 stations. Besides, the VLF-R studies were carried out along 18 profiles at three different frequencies. Laterally constrained two-layer inversion was applied to each station; in addition to the inversion of all profiles for each frequency, all lines were stacked, 2-D resistivity maps were obtained, and the contaminated area was determined approximately as 35,000 m². The results show not only satisfactory agreement between magnetic susceptibility and VLF-R data, but also provide fast and valued interpretation of geochemical and geophysical properties of the geothermal contaminated area.     

Reciprocal influence of Kürtün Dam and wastewaters from the settlements on water quality in the stream Harşit,NE Turkey

This paper aims to reveal the reciprocal influence of Kürtün Dam and wastewaters from the settlements on the water quality in the stream Har?it, NE Turkey. Several key water-quality indicators were measured: water temperature (T), pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), electrical conductivity, water hardness, chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonium nitrogen (NH₄ ⁺–N), nitrite nitrogen (NO₂ ^?–N), nitrate nitrogen (NO₃ ^?–N), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), total nitrogen (TN), orthophosphate phosphorus (PO₄ ^3?–P), and methylene blue active substances (MBAS). The monitoring and sampling studies were conducted every 15 days from March 2009 to February 2010 at two stations selected in the upstream and downstream of the Kürtün Dam. It was concluded that the Kürtün Dam Lake had a high-quality water in terms of T, pH, DO, COD, NH₄ ⁺–N, NO₂ ^?–N and NO₃ ^?–N values, but slightly polluted water with respect to TKN, PO₄ ^3?–P, and MBAS according to the Turkish Water Pollution Control Regulation. The dam improved the stream water quality by increasing the DO concentration, and decreasing the NO₂ ^?–N and PO₄ ^3?–P concentrations thanks to its hydraulic residence time despite the wastewater discharge by the nearby settlements. However, the wastewater discharge deteriorated the stream water quality increasing the COD, NH₄ ⁺–N, NO₃ ^––N, and TN concentrations.