The measurement of gamma-emitting radionuclides in beach sand cores of coastal regions of Ramsar,Iran using HPGe detectors

Radionuclides which present in different beach sands are sources of external exposure that contribute to the total radiation exposure of human. ²²⁶Ra, ²³⁵U, ²³²Th, ⁴⁰K and ¹³⁷Cs analysis has been carried out in sand samples collected at six depth levels, from eight locations of the northern coast of Iran, Ramsar, using high-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy. The average Specific activities of natural radionuclides viz., ²²⁶Ra, ²³⁵U, ²³²Th, ⁴⁰K and ¹³⁷Cs, in the 0–36 cm depth sand were found as: 19.2 ± 0.04, 2.67 ± 0.17, 17.9 ± 0.06, 337.5 ± 0.61 and 3.35 ± 0.12 Bq kg⁻¹, respectively. The effects of organic matter content and pH value of sand samples on the natural radionuclide levels were also investigated. Finally, the measured radionuclide concentrations in the Ramsar beach were compared with the world average values, as reported by UNSCEAR (2000). None of the studied beaches were considered as a radiological risk.     

Bioconcentration of triclosan and methyl-triclosan in marine mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) under laboratory conditions and in metropolitan waters of Gulf St Vincent,South Australia

The anti-microbial agent triclosan (TCS), and its derivative methyl-triclosan (Me-TCS), are discharged with treated effluents from wastewater treatment plants to receiving environments. We investigated the bioconcentration of TCS and Me-TCS in mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) exposed to TCS (100 ng L⁻¹) for 30 days in seawater aquaria (19 ± 2 °C) with fresh phytoplankton as a food source. Bioconcentration increased with time reaching a steady-state around 24–30 days. The bioconcentration factor (log BCF) for TCS were 2.81 L kg⁻¹ (dry weight) and 4.13 L kg⁻¹, when lipid normalised concentrations were used. Mussels were also deployed in cages at four marine locations receiving effluents from WWTPs. The mean (±SD) TCS and Me-TCS concentrations for mussels from these sites were 9.87 (±1.34) and 6.99 (±2.44) μg kg⁻¹. The study showed that mussels can be a useful tool for monitoring pollution of TCS and Me-TCS in marine and estuarine environments.     

Seismic analysis of dam-foundation-reservoir system including the effects of foundation mass and radiation damping

One of the main concerns in using commercial software for finite element analyses of dam-foundation-reservoir systems is that the simplifying assumptions of the massless foundation are unreliable. In this study, an appropriate direct finite element method is introduced for simulating the mass, radiation damping and wave propagation effect in foundations of damfoundation-reservoir systems using commercial software ABAQUS. The free-field boundary condition is used for modeling the semi-infinite foundation and radiation damping, which is not a built-in boundary condition in most of the available commercial software for finite element analysis of structures such as ANSYS or ABAQUS and thus needs to be implemented differently. The different mechanism for modeling of the foundation, earthquake input and far-field boundary condition is described. Implementation of the free-field boundary condition in finite element software is verified by comparing it with analytical results. To investigation the feasibility of the proposed method in dam-foundation-reservoir system analysis, a series of analyses is accomplished in a variety of cases and the obtained results are compared with the substructure method by using the EAGD-84 program. Finally, the massed and massless foundation results are compared and it is concluded that the massless foundation approach leads to the overestimation of the displacements and stresses within the dam body.     

Ground-roll attenuation using modified common-offset–common-reflection-surface stacking

We modified the common-offset–common-reflection-surface (COCRS) method to attenuate ground roll, the coherent noise typically generated by a low-velocity, low-frequency, and high-amplitude Rayleigh wave. The COCRS operator is based on hyperbolas, thus it fits events with hyperbolic traveltimes such as reflection events in prestack data. Conversely, ground roll is linear in the common-midpoint (CMP) and common-shot gathers and can be distinguished and attenuated by the COCRS operator. Thus, we search for the dip and curvature of the reflections in the common-shot gathers prior to the common-offset section. Because it is desirable to minimize the damage to the reflection amplitudes, we only stack the multicoverage data in the ground-roll areas. Searching the CS gathers before the CO section is another modification of the conventional COCRS stacking. We tested the proposed method using synthetic and real data sets from western Iran. The results of the ground-roll attenuation with the proposed method were compared with results of the f–k filtering and conventional COCRS stacking after f–k filtering. The results show that the proposed method attenuates the aliased and nonaliased ground roll better than the f–k filtering and conventional CRS stacking. However, the computation time was higher than other common methods such as f–k filtering.     

Rainfall-runoff modeling considering soil moisture accounting algorithm,case study: Karoon III River basin

In contrast to event based hydrologic models which reveal how a basin responds to an individual rainfall event, continuous ones synthesize hydrologic processes over a longer time period that includes both dry and wet conditions. With respect to the importance of infiltration method in Rainfall-Runoff (RR) modeling, the objective of this study was to assess HEC-HMS with Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) infiltration algorithm, considering several components of hydrologic cycle such as canopy interception, surface depression, infiltration into the soil profile storage, percolation to the ground water aquifer and base flow caused by available soil storage vs. maximum saturated capacity of soil layer, to model daily flows of Karoon III basin (Iran). The model showed satisfied performance by accounting initial moisture condition by SMA model with Nash-Sutcliffe (NS) coefficient of 0.76 and 0.64 for calibration and verification. Sensitivity analysis showed that saturated hydraulic conductivity (K), Clark storage coefficient (R) and time of concentration (t _c) were the most effective parameters on the simulated Peak Over Thresholds (POT). Results from this study assist in improving model accuracy and ability to predict future conditions based upon basin characteristic change.     

Volcanological and petrological evolution of Nyiragongo volcano,Virunga volcanic field,Zaire

Three major phases are distinguished during the growth of Nyiragongo, an active volcano at the western limit of the Virunga Range, Zaire. Lavas erupted during phase 1 are strongly undersaturated melilitites characterized by the presence of kalsilite phenocrysts, perovskite, and the abundance of calcite in the matrix. Such lavas crop out mainly on the inner crater wall and progressively evolve toward more aphyric melilite nephelinites well represented on the flanks of the volcano. Adventive vents lying at the base of the cone developed along radial fracture systems and erupted olivine and/or clinopyroxene – rich melilitites or nephelinites. Stage 2 lavas are melilite-free nephelinites. Clinopyroxene is the main phenocryst and feldspathoids are abundant in the lavas exposed on the crater wall. These flows result from periodic overflowing of a magma column from an open crater. Extensive fissure flows which erupted from the base of the cone at the end of this stage are related to widespread draining out of magma which in turn induces the formation of the summit pit crater. Magmas erupted during stage 3 are relatively aphyric melilite nephelinites and the main volcanological characteristic is the permanent lava lake observed into the pit crater until the 1977 eruption. Fluctuations of the level of the lava lake was responsible for the development of the inner terraces. Periodic overflowing of the lava lake from the central pit formed the nepheline aggregate lava flows. Petrography and major element geochemistry allow the determination of the principal petrogenetic processes. Melilitites and nephelinites erupted from the summit crater are lavas derived, via clinopyroxene fractionation, from a more primitive melt. The abundance of feldspathoids in these lavas is in keeping with nepheline flotation. Aphyric melilite nephelinites covering the flanks and the extensive fissure flows have a homogeneous chemical composition; rocks from the historical lava lake are slightly more evolved. All these lavas differentiated in a shallow reservoir. Lavas erupted from the parasitic vents are mainly olivine and/or clinopyroxene-phyric rocks. Rushayite and picrites from Muja cone are peculiar high-magnesium lavas resulting from the addition of olivine xenocrysts to melilitic or nephelinitic melts. Fluid and melt inclusions in olivine and clinopyroxene phenocrysts indicate a crystallization depth of 10–14 km. A model involving two reservoirs located at different depths and periodically connected is proposed to explain the petrography of the lavas; this hypothesis is in accordance with geophysical data. Received: July 8, 1993/Accepted: September 10, 1993     

Crowdsourced approaches for stage measurements at ungauged locations using smartphones

ABSTRACT

The growing availability of smart devices with advanced sensors has increased the opportunities for citizen science applications for environmental monitoring. Accurate and widespread monitoring of river stage is vital for modeling water resources. Reliable data points are required for model calibration and validation in forecast studies. While current embedded monitoring systems provide accurate measurements, the cost to replicate these systems on a large domain is prohibitively expensive, limiting the quantity of data available. This project describes a new method to accurately measure river levels using smartphone sensors. Pictures of the same point on the river’s surface are taken to perform calculations based on the GPS location and spatial orientation of the smartphone. The proposed implementation is significantly more accessible than existing water measuring systems while offering similar accuracy. A case study is performed to evaluate the accuracy and sensitivity of the measurements to changes in distance.     

Seismic resilience of retrofitted RC buildings

Existing buildings can be at a greater seismic risk due to non-conformance to current design codes and may require structural retrofitting to improve building performance. The performance of buildings is measured in terms of immediate consequences due to direct damage, but the continuing impacts related to recovery are not considered in seismic retrofit assessment. This paper introduces a framework of retrofit selection based on the seismic resilience of deficient buildings retrofitted with the conventional mitigation approaches. The assembly-based methodology is considered for the seismic resilience assessment by compiling a nonlinear numerical model and a building performance model. The collapse fragility is developed from the capacity curve, and the resulting social, economic, and environmental consequences are determined. The seismic resilience of a building is assessed by developing a downtime assessment methodology incorporating sequence of repairs, impeding factors, and utility availability. Five functionality states are developed for the building functionality given investigated time interval, and a functionality curve for each retrofit is determined. It is concluded that seismic resilience can be used as a performance indicator to assess the continuing impacts of a hazard for the retrofit selection.     

Why the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Euler</Emphasis> scheme in particle tracking is not enough: the shallow-sea pycnocline test case

During the last decades, the Euler scheme was the common “workhorse” in particle tracking, although it is the lowest-order approximation of the underlying stochastic differential equation. To convince the modelling community of the need for better methods, we have constructed a new test case that will show the shortcomings of the Euler scheme. We use an idealised shallow-water diffusivity profile that mimics the presence of a sharp pycnocline and thus a quasi-impermeable barrier to vertical diffusion. In this context, we study the transport of passive particles with or without negative buoyancy. A semi-analytic solutions is used to assess the performance of various numerical particle-tracking schemes (first- and second-order accuracy), to treat the variations in the diffusivity profile properly. We show that the commonly used Euler scheme exhibits a poor performance and that widely used particle-tracking codes shall be updated to either the Milstein scheme or second-order schemes. It is further seen that the order of convergence is not the only relevant factor, the absolute value of the error also is.