Pollutant migration from deeply buried repositories

Semi-analytic solutions are developed for the migration of pollutants from cylindrical and spherical repositories buried deep in a homogeneous and isotropic soil in the presence of a uniform and unidirectional advection. The techniques adopted involves taking the Laplace transform of the governing equations, finding an analytic solution in transform space and then numerically inverting the transform to obtain the concentrations of the contaminants at selected positions and times. Numerical results are presented, and practical implications discussed.     

A comparison of nearby incremental ground level and in plant concentrations of air pollutants emitted from electronics facilities

Air dispersion modeling by was recently conducted to predict the incremental ground level and inplant concentrations of toxic organic chemicals due to stack and fugitive emissions from Sama Jaya Free Industrial Zone (SJFIZ), Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Simulations of organic air pollutants emitted from industrial facilities in SJFIZ from years 1996 to 2001 were carried out in September 2004 by members of Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). The results indicated that there were negligible amount of maximum incremental ground level concentrations of less than 3×10^?2 μg/m³ for 365-day average, and less than 18×10^?2 μg/m³ for 24 h. average. For in-plant maximum incremental concentrations, it is found that the simulated results were much lower than TWA values, except xylene. The predicted in plant concentration of xylene was 119.21 (parts per million) ppm as compared to ACGIH TLV-TWA of 100 ppm approximately 19% higher than ACGIH recommended values. From this study, it was concluded that both nearby population and in plant workers were not potentially at risk to exposing organic chemicals far lower than the threshold limit levels set by ACGIH.     

Unplanned urbanization: Assessment through calculation of environmental degradation index

Urbanization is an inevitable phenomena for the country like Bangladesh. The push and pull factors help to migrate people from rural area to urban area. As a result haphazard and unplanned urbanization create environmental degradation. Survey data reveals that inadequate solid waste disposal services, lack of adequate public water supply, traffic congestion, water logging, air pollution, noise pollution, hill cutting are the main problems in the city area. Concentration of dust as well as SOx, NOx exceeded the allowable limit at the selected points. Groundwater level of Sylhet city has a considerable lowering over the last few decades. It has lowered from 3380 mm below ground in 1982 to 7880 mm below ground. Sylhet is located in highly seismic risk zone but most of the buildings and other structures in this area are constructed without considering earthquake risk. Environmental degradation index was calculated based on economical condition of the country.     

Holocene stratigraphy-of the Lower Ganges-Brahmaputra River delta in Bangladesh

Major part of the Holocene Ganges-Brahmaputra delta occupies the southern and southwestern part of Bangladesh with a smaller part extending beyond the international boundary in the west. Five facies assemblages are documented in the lower deltaic plain in five different depositional environments: levee or levee complex, bil or depression, abandoned meander belt, interdistributary plain and estuarine plain. The thickness of the Holocene sediments ranges from 30 m to 70 m in the deltaic plain, usually floored by the Pleistocene stiff clays, with the exception of the abandoned meander belt deposit where Holocene channel sand deposited directly on the Pleistocene sand. Radiocarbon dates indicate that low-rate sedimentation has occurred in the northern part, where 4-6 m thick sediments were deposited since the mid-Holocene, whereas 10-30 mthick sediments were deposited in the southern part during the same span of time. In addition, significant coastal subsidence (3 mm/a on average), added by sea-level rise (1.5 mm/a, conservative rate) occurs in the study area, which serves as a negative factor in degrading the coastal plain of Bangladesh in the future, while taking into consideration the weaker sedimentation in the area.     

Multicriteria decision analysis in water resources management: the malnichara channel improvement

Multicriteria decision analysis tool is used in many water resources and environmental management projects. The Malnichara is one of the natural channels in Sylhet city (Bangladesh) responsible for storm runoff conveyance to the downstream Surma river. The channel is found to be encroached at many locations of the city and found to be very vulnerable. The authority has taken decision to improve natural channels by a traditional approach, e.g. constructing box culvert. In most cases, stakeholders’ participation is ignored in such type of decision making. Hence, efforts were made to evaluate three common alternatives viz. sodding natural channel, lined natural channel and box culvert for the channel improvement. The channel is hydrologically divided into two parts: the upper portion (Choukidekhi-Kanishail) and the lower portion (Kanishail-Topoban). Both parts were separately analyzed. Small groups of stakeholders were interviewed for the selection of criteria and for the assignment of weighed factor and scores. Experts’ opinions were also taken through consultation. Nine criteria from four categories such as technical, economic, environment and social aspects were selected. The relative performances of alternatives were evaluated using the weighed sum technique of multicriteria decision analysis. It was found that the sodding natural channel is the best alternative for both portions of the channel. However, the choice is very sensitive to the social criteria.     

The old alluvium of Singapore and the extinct drainage system to the South China Sea

In both sand quarry faces and boreholes the Old Alluvium of Singapore is a matrix supported pebbly sand with minor beds of better sorted sands and clays. The beds can be grouped into four textural classes (pebbles, coarse sand with fine pebbles, medium to coarse sand, clay, and silt), each with characteristic sedimentary structures. The deposit appears to be the proximal facies of an ancient braided river alluvium of possible Pleistocene age. This widespread but scattered alluvium is found both on land and offshore on the Sunda Shelf in Southeast Asia. It is believed to have been deposited during low sea levels. In Singapore, the mineralogy of the grains forming the Old Alluvium suggests a mixed provenance of granitic and low-grade metamorphic origin. The volume and freshness of the deposited material indicate an environment of considerable relief, seasonal rainfall, and extremely active erosional processes, conditions considerably different from the current ones. The Old Alluvium was probably deposited by seasonal rivers which experienced periodic large floods. Such regional conditions could have prevailed over much of Southeast Asia at the time of deposition of the Old Alluvium.     

Prediction of climate change in Brunei Darussalam using statistical downscaling model

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Climate is changing and evidence suggests that the impact of climate change would influence our everyday lives, including agriculture, built environment,...     

The Perception and Impact of Natural Hazards on Fishing Communities of Kutubdia Island,Bangladesh

Natural hazards lead to unexpected and often dire situations for people who have few resources and little control over the environment in which they live. Kutubdia, an island in the southeastern part of Bangladesh, experiences frequent natural hazards that impact the livelihoods of its people and put them in vulnerable situations. The research elaborated here is the result of 300 household surveys collected from persons in Kutubdia's fishing communities. The surveys investigated the perception and consequences of natural hazards on the fishing communities. The results indicated that the experience of natural hazards—cyclones, erosion, and flooding are examples—have increased over the years. Coastal erosion displaced seventy‐two (24 percent) fishers, forcing them to relocate their houses several times and imposing multiple challenges on their lives. Literacy was not associated with perceptions of environmental changes or changes in fishing. However, young fishers—less than forty years of age—perceived that environmental changes had affected fish catch more than their older colleagues.     

Cylindrical and spherical positron-acoustic Gardner solitons in electron-positron-ion plasmas with nonthermal electrons and positrons

A theoretical investigation has been performed on the nonlinear propagation of nonplanar (cylindrical and spherical) Gardner solitons (GSs) associated with the positron-acoustic (PA) waves in a four component plasma system consisting of nonthermal distributed electrons and hot positrons, mobile cold positrons, and immobile positive ions. The well-known reductive perturbation method has been employed to derive the modified Gardner (MG) equation. The basic features (viz. amplitude, polarity, speed, etc.) of nonplanar PA Gardner solitons (GSs) have been examined by the numerical analysis of the MG equation. It has been observed that the properties of the PA GSs in a nonplanar geometry differ from those in a planar geometry. It has been also investigated that the presence of nonthermal (Cairns distributed) electrons and hot positrons significantly modify the amplitude, polarity, speed, and thickness of such PA GSs. The results of our investigation should play an important role in understanding various interstellar space plasma environments as well as laboratory plasmas.     

Application of Monte Carlo simulation technique for flood estimation for two catchments in New South Wales,Australia

The currently adopted rainfall-based design flood estimation method in Australia, known as design event approach (DEA), has a flaw that is widely criticized by the hydrologists. The DEA is based on the assumption that a rainfall depth of a certain frequency can be transformed to a flood peak of the same frequency by adopting the ‘representative values’ of other model input variables, such as temporal patterns and losses. To overcome the limitation associated with the DEA, this paper develops stochastic model inputs to apply Monte Carlo simulation technique (MCST) for design flood estimation. This uses data from 86 pluviograph stations and six catchments from eastern New South Wales (NSW), Australia, to regionalize the distributions of various input variables (e.g., rainfall duration, inter-event duration, intensity and temporal patterns and loss and routing characteristics) to simulate thousands of flood hydrographs using a nonlinear runoff routing model. The regionalized stochastic inputs are then applied with the MCST to two catchments in eastern NSW. The results indicate that the developed MCST provide more accurate flood quantile estimates than the DEA for the two test catchments. The particular advantage of the new MCST and stochastic design input variables is that it reduces the subjectivity in the selection of model input values in flood modeling. The developed MCST can be adapted to other parts of Australia and other countries.