Estimating longitudinal dispersion in rivers using Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers

The longitudinal dispersion coefficient (D) is an important parameter needed to describe the transport of solutes in rivers and streams. The dispersion coefficient is generally estimated from tracer studies but the method can be expensive and time consuming, especially for large rivers. A number of empirical relations are available to estimate the dispersion coefficient; however, these relations are known to produce estimates within an order of magnitude of the tracer value. The focus of this paper is on using the shear-flow dispersion theory to directly estimate the dispersion coefficient from velocity measurements obtained using an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP). Using tracer and hydrodynamic data collected within the same river reaches, we examined conditions under which the ADCP and tracer methods produced similar results. Since dead zones / transient storage (TS) are known to influence the dispersion coefficient, we assessed the relative importance of dead zones in different stream reaches using two tracer-based approaches: (1) TS modeling which explicitly accounts for dead zones and (2) the advection–dispersion equation (ADE) which does not have separate terms for dead zones. Dispersion coefficients based on the ADE tend to be relatively high as they describe some of the effects of dead zones as well. Results based on the ADCP method were found to be in good agreement with the ADE estimates indicating that storage zones play an important role in the estimated dispersion coefficients, especially at high flows. For the river sites examined in this paper, the tracer estimates of dispersion were close to the median values of the ADCP estimates obtained from multiple datasets within a reach. The ADCP method appears to be an excellent alternative to the traditional tracer-based method if care is taken to avoid spurious data and multiple datasets are used to compute a distance-weighted average or other appropriate measure that represents reach-averaged conditions.     

基于Google API的地震信息地图发布系统

Google Map及相关工具功能强大,是可二次开发的地理信息平台。介绍运用Google MapAPI技术,实现动态实时更新的地震信息发布系统,并简单应用。     

地电场布极方式研究

针对南京地震台地电场无斜道测量的布极方式,从地电场的矢量特性着手,经过对观测数据的分析,认为目前普遍采用地电场斜道观测的方式可以取消,增加NS测道和EW测道的测量,加大地震前兆数据的采集,为地震预报提供更多的前兆观测数据。     

Significance and Microscopic Analysis of Deformation in the Cultural Remains of Western Zhou Dynasty-Late Spring and Autumn Period at Daijiayuan Ruins in Huoshan,Anhui Province,China

During an excavation survey to the Daijiayuan vestige of the Western Zhou Dynasty-Late Spring and Autumn Period at Huoshan in Western Anhui,a ground crack related to tectonic movement and filled with silty fine sand was found. This phenomenon was initially confirmed to be due to seismic liquefaction. Many microscopic seismic relics,such as load structure,flow structure,cutoff plane and flotation of organic matter were found in the directional microscopic analysis of deformation. These discoveries and cognitions prove that there were two earthquake events taking place in the Western Zhou Dynasty-Late Spring and Autumn Period in this area. Above-mentioned works enrich and develop the research methods to identify prehistoric earthquake event in eastern China area to a certain extent.     

华东地区M_L≥4.0地震平静预测意义分析

用统计学上的χ~2检验方法对华东地区M_L≥4.0地震平静进行了统计检验,得出在较高的置信概率下可以将平静时间T≥140天作为平静异常的判别标准。总结了华东地区自1970年以来出现的平静异常,并分析了其对应中强地震的情况。研究表明,M_L≥4.0地震平静异常是华东地区中强震前的一种普遍现象。62.5%的平静异常后发生了M_S≥4.5地震;绝大多数平静异常前存在着地震活动的增强过程,多次活动增强后连续发生了平静异常且之后发生了M_S≥5.0地震。     

A new method for the estimation of oceanic mixed-layer depth using shipboard X-band radar images

Shipboard X-band radar images acquired on 24 June 2009 are used to study nonlinear internal wave characteristics in the northeastern South China Sea. The studied images show three nonlinear internal waves in a packet. A method based on the Radon Transform technique is introduced to calculate internal wave parameters such as the direction of propagation and internal wave velocity from backscatter images. Assuming that the ocean is a two-layer finite depth system, we can derive the mixed-layer depth by applying the internal wave velocity to the mixed-layer depth formula. Results show reasonably good agreement with in-situ thermistor chain and conductivity-temperature-depth data sets.     

Quantitative Assessment of Impacts of Regional Climate and Human Activities on Saline-alkali Land Changes： A Case Study of Qian＇an County, Jilin Province

Interdecadal and interannual variations of saline-alkali land area in Qian’an County, Jilin Province, China were comprehensively analyzed in this paper by means of satellite remote sensing interpretation, field flux observations and regional climate diagnosis. The results show that on the interannual scale, the impact of climate factors accounts for 71.6% of the total variation of the saline-alkali land area, and that of human activities accounts for 28.4%. Therefore the impact of climate factors is obviously greater than that of human activities. On the interdecadal scale, the impact of climate factors on the increase of the saline-alkali land area accounts for 43.2%, and that of human activities accounts for 56.8%. The impact of human activities on the variation of saline-alkali land area is very clear on the interdecadal scale, and the negative impact of human activities on the environment should not be negligible. Besides, changes in the area of heavy saline-alkali land have some indication for development of saline-alkali land in Qian’an County.     

The statistical and numerical study of the global distribution of coronal plasma and magnetic field near 2.5 Rs over a 10-year period

The basic characteristics of the global distribution for the corona plasma and magnetic field near 2.5 Rs are analyzed with the statistical and numerical methods for 136 Carrington Rotations (CRs) covering four different phases of solar activity. By using the observational data and the velocity distribution model in the corona, the statistical average distribution of the magnetic field, density and the coronal mass outputs are analyzed for the four different phases. Then, a numerical study of the global distribution near 2.5 Rs has been made by solving a self-consistent MHD system. Finally, the solar wind speed at 1 AU is given by mapping the speed at 2.5 Rs to that near 1 AU, and the comparison of the numerical results with the observational measurements and the simulation result of the Wang–Sheeley–Arge (WSA) model are made during more than 5 years. The numerical results indicate that the global distributions on the source surface of 2.5 Rs at different phases of solar activity could be used to predict the change of the solar wind in interplanetary space.     

A transfer pathway modeling template for radiological environmental risk assessment

As radioactive human doses are calculated through food chain and exposure pathways, it is important to take a pathway analysis to determine all pathway contributions for further radiological environmental risk assessment. A challenge of contaminant fate and environmental pathway analysis is to handle a large number of environmental components and to assign proper calculation models to linked component pairs. This paper presents a model template called transfer pathway model template (TPMT) that stores transfer models to environmental class pairs. When a site-specific calculation scenario is built, a source–receptor transfer matrix (SRTM) is defined by the scenario. Then the calculation loops through all source–receptor component pairs in SRTM and apply proper models stored in TPMT to calculate the transfer factors. TPMT can be used as the component pathway verification template and model allocation template. This structure is used in an environmental risk assessment (ERA) application called IMPACT that has been applied for a number of nuclear power plants and uranium mines in Canada.     

Storm surge simulation along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts using a multi-scale numerical model approach

The effectiveness of simulating surge inundation using the Eulerian–Lagrangian circulation (ELCIRC) model over multi-scale unstructured grids was examined in this study. The large domain model grid encompasses the western North Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea to appropriately account for remote and resonance effects during hurricane events and simplify the specification of the open boundary condition. The U.S. East and Gulf Coasts were divided into 12 overlapping basins with fine-resolution (up to 30 × 30 m) grids to model overland surge flooding. These overlapping basins have different fine-resolution grids near the coastal region, but have an identical coarse-resolution grid in the offshore region within the large model domain. Thus, the storm surge prediction can be conducted without reducing computation efficiency by executing multiple model runs with local fine-resolution grids where potential hurricane landfalls may occur. The capability of the multi-scale approach was examined by simulating storm surge caused by Hurricanes Andrew (1992) and Isabel (2003) along the South Florida coast and in the Chesapeake Bay. Comparisons between simulated and observed results suggest that multi-scale models proficiently simulated storm surges in the Biscayne Bay and the Chesapeake Bay during two hurricanes. A series of sensitivity tests demonstrated that the simulation of surge flooding was improved when LiDAR topographic data and special bottom drag coefficient values for mangrove forests were employed. The tests also showed that appropriate representation of linear hydrologic features is important for computing surge inundation in an urban area.