A study of groundwater irrigation water quality in south-central Bangladesh: a geo-statistical model approach using GIS and multivariate statistics

Southern Bangladesh’s irrigation and drinking water is threatened by saline intrusion. This study aimed to establish an irrigation water quality index (IWQI) using a geostatistical model and multivariate indices in Gopalganj district, south-central Bangladesh. Groundwater samples were taken randomly (different depths) in two seasons (wet-monsoon and dry-monsoon). Hydrochemical analysis revealed groundwater in this area was neutral to slightly alkaline and dominating cations were Na⁺, Mg²⁺, and Ca²⁺ along with major anions Cl^? and HCO₃ ^?. Principal component analysis and Gibbs plot helped explain possible geochemical processes in the aquifer. The irrigation water evaluation indices showed: electrical conductivity (EC) >750 µS/cm, moderate to extreme saline; sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), excellent to doubtful; total hardness (TH), moderate to very hard; residual sodium bicarbonate, safe to marginal; Kelly’s ratio >1; soluble sodium percentage (SSP), fair to poor; magnesium adsorption ratio, harmful for soil; and IWQI, moderate to suitable. In addition, the best fitted semivariogram for IWQI, EC, SAR, SSP, and TH confirmed that most parameters had strong spatial dependence and others had moderate to weak spatial dependence. This variation might be due to the different origin/sources of major contributing ions along with the influence of variable river flow and small anthropogenic contributions. Furthermore, the spatial distribution maps for IWQI, EC, SSP, and TH during both seasons confirmed the influence of salinity from the sea; low-flow in the major river system was the driving factor of overall groundwater quality in the study area. These findings may contribute to management of irrigation and/or drinking water in regions with similar groundwater problems.     

Redefining homogeneous climate regions in Bangladesh using multivariate clustering approaches

Natural Hazards - The knowledge of the climate pattern for a particular region is important for taking appropriate actions to alleviate the impact of climate change. It is also equally important...     

Macrophytes’ Performance in Floating Treatment Wetlands for the Remediation of Ciprofloxacin-Contaminated Water

The presence of trace antibiotics in domestic and industrial effluents poses a risk of toxicity to fauna and flora. The application of floating treatment wetlands (FTWs) is a low-cost and sustainable approach to remediate wastewater. In this study, the performance of different macrophytes vegetated in FTWs for the remediation of ciprofloxacin (CIP)-contaminated water is investigated. Six macrophytes, Brachia mutica, Typha domingensis, Phragmites australis, Canna indica, Cyperus laevigatus, and Leptochloa fusca, are vegetated in FTWs for the removal of CIP (50 mg L⁻¹) from water. The FTWs show the potential to remove 30–43.58 mg L⁻¹ CIP from water in 28 days. They also reduce the chemical oxygen demand (118–138 mg L⁻¹) and biochemical oxygen demand (35–45 mg L⁻¹) of water. Among the macrophytes, C. indica removes maximum (43.58 mg L⁻¹) and T. domingensis minimum (30 mg L⁻¹) CIP. Canna indica and T. domingensis exhibit the maximum and minimum increase (30% and 12% of dry biomass) in growth, respectively. This study reveals that the FTWs vegetated with different plant species exhibit varying performances in removing CIP from water. This investigation is a step forward toward sustainable bioremediation of water contaminated with antibiotics.     

Mass-size distribution of PM10 and its characterization of ionic species in fine (PM2.5) and coarse (PM10−2.5) mode, New Delhi, India

Size distribution of PM₁₀ mass aerosols and its ionic characteristics were studied for 2 years from January 2006 to December 2007 at central Delhi by employing an 8-stage Andersen Cascade Impactor sampler. The mass of fine (PM_2.5) and coarse (PM_10?2.5) mode particles were integrated from particle mass determined in different stages. Average concentrations of mass PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 were observed to be 306 ± 182 and 136 ± 84 μg m^?3, respectively, which are far in excess of annual averages stipulated by the Indian National Ambient Air Quality Standards (PM₁₀: 60 μg m^?3 and PM_2.5: 40 μg m^?3). The highest concentrations of PM_10?2.5 (coarse) and PM_2.5 (fine) were observed 505 ± 44 and 368 ± 61 μg m^?3, respectively, during summer (June 2006) period, whereas the lower concentrations of PM_10?2.5 (35 ± 9 μg m^?3) and PM_2.5 (29 ± 13 μg m^?3) were observed during monsoon (September 2007). In summer, because of frequent dust storms, coarse particles are more dominant than fine particles during study period. However, during winter, the PM_2.5 contribution became more pronounced as compared to summer probably due to enhanced emissions from anthropogenic activities, burning of biofuels/biomass and other human activities. A high ratio (0.58) of PM_2.5/PM₁₀ was observed during winter and low (0.24) during monsoon. A strong correlation between PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 (r ² = 0.93) was observed, indicating that variation in PM₁₀ mass is governed by the variation in PM_2.5. Major cations (NH₄ ⁺, Na⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺) and anions (F^?, Cl^?, SO₄ ^2? and NO₃ ^?) were analyzed along with pH. Average concentrations of SO₄ ^2? and NO₃ ^? were observed to be 12.93 ± 0.98 and 10.33 ± 1.10 μg m^?3, respectively. Significant correlation between SO₄ ^2? and NO₃ ^? in PM_1.0 was observed indicating the major sources of secondary aerosol which may be from thermal power plants located in the southeast and incomplete combustion by vehicular exhaust. A good correlation among secondary species (NH⁺, NO₃ ^? and SO₄ ^2?) suggests that most of NH₄ ⁺ is in the form of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate in the atmosphere. During winter, the concentration of Ca²⁺ was also higher; it may be due to entrainment of roadside dust particles, traffic activities and low temperature. The molar ratio (1.39) between Cl^? and Na⁺ was observed to be close to that of seawater (1.16). The presence of higher Cl^? during winter is due to western disturbances and probably local emission of Cl^? due to fabric bleaching activity in a number of export garment factories in the proximity of the sampling site.     

Spatial modelling of site suitability assessment for hospitals using geographical information system-based multicriteria approach at Qazvin city,Iran

Due to the population growth and continuous migration of people from rural areas to urban areas, it is important to identify the suitable locations for future development in order to find suitable sites for various kinds of facilities such as schools, hospital and fire stations for new and existing urban areas. Site suitability modelling is a complex process involving various kinds of objectives and issues. Such a complex process includes spatial analysis, use of several decision support tools such as high-spatial resolution remotely sensed data, geographical information system (GIS) and multi criteria analysis (MCA) such as analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and in some cases, prediction techniques like cellular automata (CA) or artificial neural networks (ANN). This paper presents a comparison between the results of AHP and the ordinary least square (OLS) evaluation model, based on various criteria, to select suitable sites for new hospitals in Qazvin city, Iran. Based on the obtained results, proximity to populated areas (0.3) and distance to air polluted areas (0.23–0.26) were the two highest important criteria with high weight value. The results show that these two techniques not only have similarity in size (in m²) for each suitability class but they also have similarity in spatial distribution of each class in the entire study area. Based on calculations of both techniques, 1–2%, 25%, 40–43%, 16–20% and 14% of study areas are assigned as ‘not suitable', ‘less suitable', ‘moderately suitable', ‘suitable' and ‘most suitable' areas for construction of new hospitals. Results revealed that a 75% similarity was found in the distribution of suitability classes in Qazvin city using both techniques. Nineteen per cent (19%) of the study area are assigned as ‘suitable' and ‘most suitable' by both methods, so these areas can be considered as safe or secure areas for clinical purposes. Moreover, almost all (99.8%) suitable areas are located in district 3, because of its higher population, less numbers of existing hospitals and large numbers of barren land plots of acceptable size.     

Improving the Representation of the Nocturnal Near-Neutral Surface Layer in the Urban Environment with a Mesoscale Atmospheric Model

A new approach to improve the representation of surface processes in the Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) atmospheric model associated with the exchanges between the urban canopy and the atmosphere is presented. Effects of the urban canopy on the evolution of surface-layer wind, temperature, moisture, and turbulence are directly parametrized in order to allow realistic interactions between the canopy elements (i.e., roofs, roads, and walls) and the atmosphere at GEM’s multiple vertical levels that are positioned inside the canopy. Surface energy budgets as implemented in the Town Energy Balance (TEB) scheme have been used to determine temperatures of the urban canopy elements for the proposed multilayer scheme. Performance of the multilayer scheme is compared against standard implementations of the TEB scheme for one nighttime intensive observation period of the Joint Urban 2003 experiment held in Oklahoma City, USA. Although the new approach is found to have a negligible impact on urban surface-layer wind profiles, it improves the prediction of near-neutral nocturnal profiles of potential temperature close to the surface. The urban heat island effect is simulated with a better accuracy by the multilayer approach. The horizontal temperature gradient across the central business district of the city along the direction of flow is also reasonably well captured by the proposed scheme.     

New findings for the equilibrated enstatite chondrite Grein 002

Abstract— We report new petrographic and chemical data for the equilibrated EL chondrite Grein 002, including the occurrence of osbornite, metallic copper, abundant taenite, and abundant diopside. As inferred from low Si concentrations in kamacite, the presence of ferroan alabandite, textural deformation, chemical equilibration of mafic silicates, and a subsolar noble gas component, we concur with Grein 002's previous classification as an EL4‐5 chondrite. Furthermore, the existence of pockets consisting of relatively coarse, euhedral enstatite crystals protruding large patches of Fe‐Ni alloys suggests to us that this EL4‐5 chondrite has been locally melted. We suspect impact induced shock to have triggered the formation of the melt pockets. Mineralogical evidence indicates that the localized melting of metal and adjacent enstatite must have happened relatively late in the meteorite's history. The deformation of chondrules, equilibration of mafic silicates, and generation of normal zoning in Fe, Zn‐sulfides took place during thermal alteration before the melting event. Following parent body metamorphism, daubreelite was exsolved from troilite in response to a period of slow cooling at subsolidus temperatures. Exsolution of schreibersite from the coarse metal patches probably occurred during a similar period of slow cooling subsequent to the event that induced the formation of the melt pockets. Overall shock features other than localized melting correspond to stage S2 and were likely established by the final impact that excavated the Grein 002 meteoroid.     

Total Solar Irradiance Variation During Rapid Sunspot Growth

Large sunspot areas correspond to dips in the total solar irradiance (TSI), a phenomenon associated with the local suppression of convective energy transport in the spot region. This results in a strong correlation between sunspot area and TSI. During the growth phase of a sunspot other physics may affect this correlation; if the physical growth of the sunspot resulted in surface flows affecting the temperature, for example, we might expect to see an anomalous variation in TSI. In this paper we study NOAA active region 8179, in which large sunspots suddenly appeared near disk center, at a time (March 1998) when few competing sunspots or plage regions were present on the visible hemisphere. We find that the area/TSI correlation does not significantly differ from the expected pattern of correlation, a result consistent with a large thermal conductivity in solar convection zone. In addition we have searched for a smaller-scale effect by analyzing white-light images from MDI (the Michelson Doppler Imager) on SOHO. A representative upper-limit energy consistent with the images is on the order of 3×10³¹ ergs, assuming the time scale of the actual spot area growth. This is of the same order of magnitude as the buoyant energy of the spot emergence even if it is shallow. We suggest that detailed image analyses of sunspot growth may therefore show `transient bright rings' at a detectable level.     

Organic carbon mobilization in a Bangladesh aquifer explained by seasonal monsoon-driven storativity changes

Currently, the most widely accepted hypothesis to explain high As concentrations in Bangladesh groundwaters is that dissolved organic C (DOC) reduces solid Fe (hydr)oxides and mobilizes sorbed arsenate. The nature of the DOC and its release mechanism are still controversial. Based on weekly to biweekly sampling over the course of one monsoon cycle at six monitoring wells of different depths, it is proposed that storativity changes drive natural DOC release from clay–peat layers to the adjacent aquifers. With a decrease in hydraulic heads during the dry season, total mineralization and DOC concentrations increased. With the onset of the rainy season and an increase in hydraulic heads, release of clay–peat derived components stopped and vertical water displacement due to groundwater recharge from rainwater occurred, causing aquifer flushing and a decrease in total mineralization and DOC concentrations. Total As and DOC concentrations correlated over depth. However, at the depth of maximum concentrations, the As peak was observed during the rainy season. At present, the reason for this inverse seasonal trend between As and DOC is unclear. Higher mineralization or DOC concentrations could lead to increased As sorption or the increased arsenite release is a time-lag abiotic or microbial response to the DOC peak. The vulnerability of the Pleistocene aquifer towards increased As concentrations was found to be much higher than previously assumed. Though sorption capacities were determined to be higher than in the Holocene aquifer, probably due to intact Fe (hydr)oxides, long-term continuous As input from overlying clay and peat layers by the proposed seasonal storativity changes has led to increased aqueous As concentrations of 85 μg/L, considerably higher than drinking water standards. Until now, aquifer and especially aquitard and aquiclude hydraulics have not been considered sufficiently when attempting to explain As mobilization in Bangladesh.     

Determinants of farmers’ choice of adaptation methods to climate change in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia

This study identifies the major methods used by farmers to adapt to climate change in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia, the factors that affect their choice of method, and the barriers to adaptation. The methods identified include use of different crop varieties, tree planting, soil conservation, early and late planting, and irrigation. Results from the discrete choice model employed indicate that the level of education, gender, age, and wealth of the head of household; access to extension and credit; information on climate, social capital, agroecological settings, and temperature all influence farmers’ choices. The main barriers include lack of information on adaptation methods and financial constraints.