Arsenic in groundwater affected by phosphate fertilizers at São Paulo, Brazil

. This paper studies metalloid mobility in soils produced by conventional farming methods. The mobility of arsenic in soils depends on several factors including redox potential, soil mineralogy, pH, and the presence of other anions that compete with As for soil retention sites, for example, phosphate. Phosphate enhances the mobility of As in soils by competing for adsorption sites. Arsenic may accumulate in soil through the application of fertilizers. Ingestion of inorganic arsenic contained in drinking water is known to cause cancer. Studies were carried out in an area of Jundiaí, São Paulo in Brazil with high arsenic levels in natural water from domestic wells. The mobility of arsenic in the soil of Jundiaí was studied in the period 1998–2001. The application of phosphate fertilizers on a wide scale is a common agricultural practice. Based on data from the field and laboratory experiments, the deterioration of soil and groundwater quality is a result mainly of fertilizer use due to excessive P application, overdosing of soil with phosphate, and undesirable additions of arsenic in P fertilizers.     

Shaking table testing of an existing masonry building: assessment and improvement of the seismic performance

This paper aims to assess and improve the seismic performance of an existing masonry building with flexible floors, representative of a Portuguese building typology—‘gaioleiro’ buildings. The study involved seismic tests and dynamic identification tests of two models (nonstrengthened and strengthened) in the shaking table. Each model was subjected to several seismic tests with increasing amplitude. Before the first test and after each seismic test, the dynamic identification of the model was carried out, aiming at obtaining their seismic vulnerability curves based on a damage indicator obtained from the decrease of the frequencies of the modes. In the strengthened model, steel elements were used to improve the connection between walls and floors, together with ties in the upper stories. The results show that adopted strengthening technique is effective for reducing the seismic vulnerability of ‘gaioleiro’ buildings, namely for improving the out‐of‐plane behavior of the facades. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shaking table testing for masonry infill walls: unreinforced versus reinforced solutions

Several factors influence the behaviour of infilled frames, which have been a subject of research in the past with moderate success. The new generation of European design standards imposes the need to prevent brittle collapse of the infills and makes the structural engineer accountable for this requirement, yet it fails to provide sufficient information for masonry infills design. Therefore, the present work aims at understanding the seismic behaviour of masonry infill walls within reinforced concrete frames, using both unreinforced and reinforced solutions (bed joint reinforcement and reinforced plaster). For this purpose, three reinforced concrete buildings with different infill solutions were constructed at a scale of 1:1.5, all with the same geometry, and were tested on the shaking table of the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering, Portugal. All solutions performed adequately for the design earthquake, with no visible damage. Still, the experimental tests show that the double‐leaf‐unreinforced infill walls underperformed during a large earthquake, collapsing out of plane by rotating as rigid bodies with multiple configurations. Also the reinforced concrete buildings collapsed, because of the adverse interaction with the infill walls. The infill walls with bed joint reinforcement and reinforced plaster did not collapse out of plane, because of their connection to the concrete frame, which is an essential requirement. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evolution of earthquake losses in Portuguese residential building stock

The evolution of the expected earthquake losses in different Portuguese regions was studied in order to determine whether the natural regeneration of buildings could contribute to the mitigation of seismic risk, although the building exposure has increased over time in most analysed regions. To achieve this goal, five inter-related risk indicators were estimated, based on the Portuguese censuses’ surveys of residential buildings and inhabitants obtained in two different moments in time: 2001 and 2011. The FEMA (2008) approach was used to estimate the risk indicators, i.e., the Annualized Economic and Human earthquake Losses, either in absolute terms or normalised by building and population exposure. This study offers a perspective of the seismic risk in the Portuguese mainland, provides a comparison of risk levels between different epochs, and analyses the obtained results in order to compare the risk among Portuguese regions. It is important to mention that the comparison of economic losses based on the building stocks surveyed in 2001 and in 2011 took into account the Portuguese inflation rate in that time interval. The main findings of the study show that the natural regeneration of the residential housing stock contributes to the reduction of the expected seismic economic losses in Portugal, at an average rate of 14 % per 10 years, and to the reduction of the expected annualized human losses to almost one half after 10 years. The results support the conclusion that the natural regeneration of the residential housing stock contributed to the mitigation of the seismic risk in mainland Portugal, in the 10 year period under analysis, even though there was an increase of the building exposure in the region.     

Benthic foraminiferal assemblages of the South Brazil: Relationship to water masses and nutrient distributions

Using distributions of benthic Foraminifera and bottom-water variables (depth, salinity, temperature, oxygen, suspended matter, organic matter, phosphate, silicate, nitrite, and nitrate), we investigated movements of water masses on the South Brazilian Shelf (27–30°S) and assessed the seasonality of continental runoff on the distribution of shelf water masses. The data were obtained from water and sediment samples collected in the austral winter of 2003 and austral summer of 2004 in three transects. The terrestrial nutrient input was significantly reduced at stations away from the coast, but high values of nutrients were maintained in subsurface waters due the presence of South Atlantic Central Water (SACW) at greater depths. At shallow sampling stations the influence of freshwater runoff was related to (1) the dominance of calcareous benthic Foraminifera, such as lagoon-related Pseudononion atlanticum, Hanzawaia boueana, Bulimina marginata, Bolivina striatula, Elphidium poeyanum, together with several agglutinated species, including Arenoparrella mexicana, Gaudryina exilis, and Trochammina spp., common in coastal environments subject to wide salinity fluctuations. In contrast, smaller forms and higher species diversity characterized the assemblage at offshore stations. In winter, the presence of Buccella peruviana and Uvigerina peregrina at Santa Marta Cape suggest the possible transport of those species of Subantarctic Shelf Waters (SASW) origin. Foraminifera associated to Subtropical Shelf Water (STSW) were dominated by Globocassidulina subglobosa in both seasons. In summer, the occurrence of U. peregrina in the shallower stations suggested the influence of SACW nutrients brought up by upwelling of deeper waters.     

Oceanographical patterns during a summer upwelling–downwelling event in the Northern Galician Rias: Comparison with the whole Ria system (NW of Iberian Peninsula)

Summer upwelling and downwelling processes were characterized in the Northern Galician Rias during July and August 2008 by means of sampling carried out onboard R/V Mytilus (CSIC) and R/V Lura (IEO). Thermohaline variables, dissolved oxygen, nutrients, chlorophyll, phytoplankton, ciliates and zooplankton abundances were measured at sections located in the Rias of Viveiro, Barqueiro and Ortigueira and their adjacent shelves. Ekman transport was calculated from QuikSCAT satellite, upwelling intensity estimated with upwelling index from the average daily geostrophic winds, and SST maps obtained from NASA GHRSST satellite. Ekman transport and SST behaviour showed two different patterns: (i) offshore and upwelling favourable conditions on 13–22nd of July; (ii) onshore and downwelling favourable conditions from 23rd July to 19th August. During upwelling, TS diagram showed an intrusion of Eastern North Atlantic Central Water affecting the continental shelf but not the rias. Nutrient salt concentrations increased with depth, reaching their maximum values near the mouth of Ortigueira Ria. During downwelling, coastal water increased its temperature (18.5–19.8 °C) and was retained inside rias; nutrients were nearly depleted, except for the innermost ria (estuarine zone) due to fluvial nutrient inputs. In this inner area, the maximum of chlorophyll-a (Barqueiro Ria) was observed. Low phytoplankton abundances were measured in both cases, even though a short increase in the plankton biomass was observed inside rias during upwelling, while under downwelling a small red tide of Lingulodinium polyedrum was detected. During the upwelling period Northern Rias tend to be mesotrophic systems as revealed by nutrient concentrations, chlorophyll levels and plankton abundances. On the contrary, in similar situations, the Western Rias behaves as eutrophics.     

Evaluation of seismic risk and mitigation strategies for the existing building stock: application of LNECloss to the metropolitan area of Lisbon

Decisions to mitigate seismic risk require a consistent approach to evaluate the effects of future earthquakes on population, on civil engineering structures and infra- structures. The mathematical and probabilistic methods that are the support to those approaches are generally called Risk Analysis; in the particular case of seismic events and mitigation strategies it will be named Seismic Risk and Mitigation Analysis, SRMA. The paper will address the subject of estimating the seismic risk and evaluate mitigation strategies for the existing building stock of the metropolitan area of Lisbon by describing the methods and showing preliminary results obtained with LNECloss numerical tool. Even though such a sophisticated tool needs validation on some parameters to become more reliable, it is shown that it is possible to compare results of different mitigation strategies.     

On the dissipation rates for Alfvén waves in the solar transition region

The present paper concerns Alfvén waves, in a resistive and viscous atmosphere, under a steep temperature gradient (Section 1). The dissipative Alfvén wave equation is deduced assuming uniform vertical background magnetic field, and allowing for arbitrary profiles of Alfvén speed, and viscous and resistive diffusivities as functions of altitude (Section 2). A three-parameter family of temperature profiles, allowing for independent choice of initial and asymptotic temperature, and of initial temperature gradient, is used to re-write the wave equation, with the temperature as the independent variable, instead of altitude (Section 3). It is shown that, for the conditions prevailing in the solar transition region between the chromosphere and corona, two approximations of the dissipative wave equations may be considered, the simplest leading to solution in terms of Gaussian hypergeometric functions (Section 4). The exact analytical solution allows calculation of the (i) velocity and (ii) magnetic field perturbations, (iii) kinetic, (iv) magnetic and (v) total energy density, (vi) energy flux, (vii) rate-of-strain and (viii) electric current, and (ix) viscous, (x) resistive and (xi) total rate of dissipation (Section 5). These are plotted versus temperature, across the transition region from the chromosphere to the corona, for the quiet and active Sun (Section 6). The feasibility of heating of the transition region by dissipation of Alfvén waves is discussed (Section 7), by comparing empirical heating rates, with theoretical values for a range of physical conditions, including initial velocity perturbations 5 to 15 km s ^–1, background magnetic field 12 to 120 G, wave periods 60 to 300 s, thickness of the transition region 100 to 300 km, resistive and anomalous diffusivities to 100 and viscous and turbulent diffusivities to 100 . The conclusion is that dissipation of Alfvén waves is not an effective heating mechanism for the transition region and corona, although it may be for the chromosphere (see Campos and Mendes, 1995, and references therein).     

Simulation of cyclonic wave conditions in the Gulf of Oman

Natural Hazards - This study presents a detailed assessment of wave conditions in the Gulf of Oman based on numerical simulations during the passage of three cyclones that have caused severe...