Potentially harmful metals,and health risk evaluation in groundwater of Mardan,Pakistan: Application of geostatistical approach and geographic information system

This study investigates the values of pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), elevation, oxidative reduction potential (ORP), temperature, and depth, while the concentrations of Br, and potentially harmful metals (PHMs) such as Cr, Ni, Cd, Mn, Cu, Pb, Co, Zn, and Fe in the groundwater samples. Moreover, geographic information system (GIS), XLSTAT, and IBM SPSS Statistics 20 software were used for spatial distribution modeling, principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA), and Quantile-Quantile (Q-Q) plotting to determine groundwater pollution sources, similarity index, and normal distribution reference line for the selected parameters. The mean values of pH, TDS, elevation, ORP, temperature, depth, and Br were 7.2, 322 mg/L, 364 m, 188 mV, 29.6 °C, 70 m, 0.20 mg/L, and PHMs like Cr, Ni, Cd, Mn, Cu, Pb, Co, Zn, and Fe were 0.38, 0.26, 0.08, 0.27, 0.36, 0.22, 0.04, 0.43 and 0.86 mg/L, respectively. PHMs including Cr (89%), Cd (43%), Mn (23%), Pb (79%), Co (20%), and Fe (91%) exceeded the guideline values set by the world health organization (WHO). The significant R² values of PCA for selected parameters were also determined (0.62, 0.67, 0.78, 0.73, 0.60, 0.87, ?0.50, 0.69, 0.70, 0.74, ?0.50, 0.70, 0.67, 0.79, 0.59, and ?0.55, respectively). PCA revealed three geochemical processes such as geogenic, anthropogenic, and reducing conditions. The mineral phases of Cd(OH)_2, Fe(OH)_3, FeOOH, Mn₃O_4, Fe₂O_3, MnOOH, Pb(OH)_2, Mn(OH)_2, MnO_2, and Zn(OH)₂ (?3.7, 3.75, 9.7, ?5.8, 8.9, ?3.6, 2.2, ?4.6, ?7.7, ?0.9, and 0.003, respectively) showed super-saturation and under-saturation conditions. Health risk assessment (HRA) values for PHMs were also calculated and the values of hazard quotient (HQ), and hazard indices (HI) for the entire study area were increased in the following order: Cd>Ni>Cu>Pb>Mn>Zn>Cr. Relatively higher HQ and HI values of Ni, Cd, Pb, and Cu were greater than one showing unsuitability of groundwater for domestic, agriculture, and drinking purposes. The long-term ingestion of groundwater could also cause severe health concerns such as kidney, brain dysfunction, liver, stomach problems, and even cancer.     

基于静稳天气下气球探空实验的中国沙漠地区沙尘气溶胶的垂直分布（英文）

塔克拉玛干沙漠是亚洲沙尘气溶胶的重要源地。为探讨塔克拉玛干地区沙尘气溶胶的理化特性与时空变化,研究其环境与气候效应,本文分析了四个季节在中国敦煌(塔克拉玛干沙漠内)取得的探空气球观测数据,包括气溶胶的数浓度、粒径分布、质量浓度及在西风主导下的水平输送通量。气溶胶数浓度的垂直廓线显示,来自沙漠地区的矿物粒子对局地环境与气候有重要影响,且所有季节都存在长距离输送。粒子谱分布显示局地有大量粗粒子输入。结果说明,源于塔克拉玛干沙漠的沙尘气溶胶的背景输送有着重要的科学意义,需进一步研究其对东亚和西太平洋地区环境与气候的影响。     

Wide‐azimuth angle gathers for anisotropic wave‐equation migration

Extended common‐image‐point gathers (CIP) constructed by wide‐azimuth TI wave‐equation migration contain all the necessary information for angle decomposition as a function of the reflection and azimuth angles at selected locations in the subsurface. The aperture and azimuth angles are derived from the extended images using analytic relations between the space‐ and time‐lag extensions using information which is already available at the time of migration, i.e. the anisotropic model parameters. CIPs are cheap to compute because they can be distributed in the image at the most relevant positions, as indicated by the geologic structure. If the reflector dip is known at the CIP locations, then the computational cost can be reduced by evaluating only two components of the space‐lag vector. The transformation from extended images to angle gathers is a planar Radon transform which depends on the local medium parameters. This transformation allows us to separate all illumination directions for a given experiment, or between different experiments. We do not need to decompose the reconstructed wavefields or to choose the most energetic directions for decomposition. Applications of the method include illumination studies in complex areas where ray‐based methods fail, and assuming that the subsurface illumination is sufficiently dense, the study of amplitude variation with aperture and azimuth angles.     

Recent Sea Level and Sea Surface Temperature Changes Along the Maldives Coast

Maldives, a South Asian small island nation in the northern part of the Indian Ocean is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of Sea Level Rise (SLR) due to its low altitude from the mean sea level. This artricle attempts to estimate the recent rates of SLR in Maldives during different seasons of the year with the help of existing tidal data recorded in the Maldives coast. Corresponding Sea Surface Temperature (SST) trends, utilizing reliable satellite climatology, have also been obtained. The relationships between the SST and mean sea level have been comprehensively investigated. Results show that recent sea level trends in the Maldives coast are very high. At Male, the capital of the Republic of Maldives, the rising rates of Mean Tidal Level (MTL) are: 8.5, 7.6, and 5.8 mm/year during the postmonsoon (October-December), Premonsoon (March-May) and southwest monsoon (June-September) seasons respectively. At Gan, a station very close to the equator, the increasing rate of MTL is maximum during the period from June to September (which is 6.2 mm/year). These rising trends in MTL along the Maldives coast are certainly alarming for this small developing island nation, which is hardly one meter above the mean sea level. Thus there is a need for careful monitoring of future sea level changes in the Maldives coast. The trends presented are based on the available time-series of MTL for the Maldives coast, which are rather short. These trends need not necessarily reflect the long-term scenario. SST in the Maldives coast has also registered significant increasing trend during the period from June to September. There are large seasonal variations in the SST trends at Gan but SST and MTL trends at Male are consistently increasing during all the seasons and the rising rates are very high. The interannual mode of variation is prominent both in SST as well as MTL. Annual profile of MTL along the Maldives coast is bimodal, having two maxima during April and July. The April Mode is by far the dominant one. The SST appears to be the main factor governing the sea level variations along the Maldives coast. The influence of SST and sea level is more near the equatorial region (i.e., at Gan). There is lag of about two months for the maximum influence of SST on the sea level. The correlation coefficient between the smoothed SST and mean tidal level at Gan with lag of two months is as high as ~ +0.8, which is highly significant. The corresponding correlation coefficients at Male with the lags of one and two months are +0.5 and +0.3, respectively. Thus, the important finding of the present work for the Maldives coast is the dominance of SST factor in sea level variation, especially near the region close to the equator.     

Sea Level Changes Along Bangladesh Coast in Relation to the Southern Oscillation Phenomenon

Interannual variations of sea level along the Bangladesh coast are quite pronounced and often dominate the long-term sea level trends that are taking place. The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) induced variation is an important component of interannual mode of variations. The present article deals with the relationship between the sea level variations along the Bangladesh coast and the Southern Oscillation phenomenon. The mean tide level data of monsoon season (June to September) pertaining to Hiron Point (in Sundarbans) and Char Changa (on the mouth of Meghna River) have been analyzed and correlated to the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). The annual variation of mean tide level in the coastal areas of Bangladesh reveals that the tide level reaches its peak during the monsoon season. The maximum tide level during the calendar year is recorded in August. Thus, it is not surprising that the inundation of the coastal belt of Bangladesh due to the floods is most common during the summer monsoon season, especially from July to September. Therefore, the sea level variations during the monsoon are of paramount importance to Bangladesh. The results of the present study show that both at Hiron Point and Char Changa there is a substantial difference between the mean tide level during the El Niño and La Niña monsoons. The mean tide level at Hiron Point is higher by about 5 cm during August of La Niña years as compared to that during the El Niño years. The difference at Char Changa, which is located at the mouth of Meghna River, is much higher. This is probably due to the increased fresh water discharge into the Meghna River during La Niña years. Thus at the time of crossing of a monsoon depression, the chances of widespread inundation are higher during a La Nin~a year as compared to that during an El Niño year. The Correlation Coefficients (CCs) between Mean Tide Levels (MTLs) at Hiron Point and Char Changa and the SOI during September (at the end of monsoon) are +0.33 and +0.39 respectively. These CCs are statistically significant at 90% and 95% levels, respectively. These results may find applications in the preparedness programs for combating sea level associated disasters in Bangladesh.     

Research Note: Full‐waveform inversion of the unwrapped phase of a model

Reflections in seismic data induce serious non‐linearity in the objective function of full‐ waveform inversion. Thus, without a good initial velocity model that can produce reflections within a half cycle of the frequency used in the inversion, convergence to a solution becomes difficult. As a result, we tend to invert for refracted events and damp reflections in data. Reflection induced non‐linearity stems from cycle skipping between the imprint of the true model in observed data and the predicted model in synthesized data. Inverting for the phase of the model allows us to address this problem by avoiding the source of non‐linearity, the phase wrapping phenomena. Most of the information related to the location (or depths) of interfaces is embedded in the phase component of a model, mainly influenced by the background model, while the velocity‐contrast information (responsible for the reflection energy) is mainly embedded in the amplitude component. In combination with unwrapping the phase of data, which mitigates the non‐linearity introduced by the source function, I develop a framework to invert for the unwrapped phase of a model, represented by the instantaneous depth, using the unwrapped phase of the data. The resulting gradient function provides a mechanism to non‐linearly update the velocity model by applying mainly phase shifts to the model. In using the instantaneous depth as a model parameter, we keep track of the model properties unfazed by the wrapping phenomena.     

Bright side? The impacts of Three Gorges Reservoir on local ecological service of soil conservation in southwestern China

Three Gorges Reservoir in China was running since June 2003, and its impacts on soil erosion (SE) and soil conservation (SC) have attracted major public attentions. We quantified the soil conservation service of ecosystems in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) based on a GIS platform using the universal soil loss equation. We revealed the changes of spatial and temporal patterns of soil conservation (SC) and soil erosion (SE) after project construction as well as impact factors on local SE and SC. Results showed that the total amounts and mean capacity of soil conservation services in the TGRA were 15.38-billion t a^?1 and 2134.73 t ha^?1 a^?1, respectively. Northeast reservoir area owned better services than the southwest, and the regions with a capacity of >5000 t ha^?1 a^?1 were primary located in mountain areas. An increasing trend in SC appeared in the TRGA and “with increasing SC” totaled 22690.5 km² (38.9%), while the areas “with decreasing SC” amounted to 3460.4 km² (5.9%) between 2000 and 2010. Moreover, the pattern of changing SC was continuous in this area. The spatial characteristics of soil conservation service in the TGRA were primarily affected by slope, climate and terrain features. In addition, the reforestation and/or forest protection would contribute to soil erosion control in the TGRA. The results revealed a great spatial heterogeneity of soil conservation service in this region, which may provide useful suggestions for land management, soil erosion control and ecosystem protection in the TGRA in China.     

Prestack exploding reflector modelling and migration for anisotropic media

The double‐square‐root equation is commonly used to image data by downward continuation using one‐way depth extrapolation methods. A two‐way time extrapolation of the double‐square‐root‐derived phase operator allows for up and downgoing wavefields but suffers from an essential singularity for horizontally travelling waves. This singularity is also associated with an anisotropic version of the double‐square‐root extrapolator. Perturbation theory allows us to separate the isotropic contribution, as well as the singularity, from the anisotropic contribution to the operator. As a result, the anisotropic residual operator is free from such singularities and can be applied as a stand alone operator to correct for anisotropy. We can apply the residual anisotropy operator even if the original prestack wavefield was obtained using, for example, reverse‐time migration. The residual correction is also useful for anisotropic parameter estimation. Applications to synthetic data demonstrate the accuracy of the new prestack modelling and migration approach. It also proves useful in approximately imaging the Vertical Transverse Isotropic Marmousi model.     

The role of visual saliency in the automation of seismic interpretation

In this paper, we propose a workflow based on SalSi for the detection and delineation of geological structures such as salt domes. SalSi is a seismic attribute designed based on the modelling of human visual system that detects the salient features and captures the spatial correlation within seismic volumes for delineating seismic structures. Using this attribute we cannot only highlight the neighbouring regions of salt domes to assist a seismic interpreter but also delineate such structures using a region growing method and post‐processing. The proposed delineation workflow detects the salt‐dome boundary with very good precision and accuracy. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed workflow on a real seismic dataset acquired from the North Sea, F3 block. For the subjective evaluation of the results of different salt‐dome delineation algorithms, we have used a reference salt‐dome boundary interpreted by a geophysicist. For the objective evaluation of results, we have used five different metrics based on pixels, shape, and curvedness to establish the effectiveness of the proposed workflow. The proposed workflow is not only fast but also yields better results as compared with other salt‐dome delineation algorithms and shows a promising potential in seismic interpretation.     

Singularity. A manifesto for incomparable geographies

This paper is a methodological response to the challenge of decolonizing geographical knowledge. It mobilizes post‐ and de‐colonial critiques of geographical knowledge production and conceptual work, suggesting how such work unwittingly disfigures the precise contours of the places and socio‐spatial formations on which geographers work, drawing them into implicit and reductive forms of comparison. Drawing on research and sources from South Asia, the paper moves instead toward more uncertain engagements with, and dispositions to, the production of geographical knowledge; ones attuned to the poetics of planetary difference. The paper speculates on five intellectual and methodological resources, or tactics, aimed toward producing geographical scholarship attuned to the tableaux of heterogeneous and incomparable singularities at large across the world: theory and reading; friction and fragments; translation/untranslatability; abiding by; and poetics.