Pulsatory characteristics of wind velocity in sand flow over typical underlying surfaces

Pulsatory characteristics of wind velocity in sand flow over Gobi and mobile sand surface have been investigated experimentally in the wind tunnel. The primary goal of this paper is to reveal the relation- ship between pulsatory characteristics of instantaneous wind speed in sand flow and the motion state of sand grains. For a given underlying surface, pulsation of wind velocities in sand flow on different heights has a good correlation. As the space distance among different heights increases, fluctuation of instantaneous wind speed presents a decreasing trend and its amplitude is closely related to the mo- tion state of sand grains and their transport. Pulsatory intensity increases with the indicated wind speed, but its relative value does not depend on it, only agrees with height.     

Evaluation of the effect of river style framework on water quality: application of geomorphological factors

The Tarwal River basin with an area of 6560.20 km² is located in the eastern part of Iranian Kurdistan Province. This river crosses the Qorveh and Dehgolan plains and joins the Ghezel Ozan River in Zanjan Province. The importance of this river as a source for drinking water and agricultural and industrial uses in the region necessitates the need for research in this field. The main purpose of this study is to identify the natural features of the riverbed from the perspective of river geomorphology and to investigate their impact on water quality and river self-purification capacity. To achieve this, the river style framework was employed. To investigate the effects of each style framework on the river, a total of 20 samples from the entrance and outlet of styles were obtained using Impact Assessment method and sampling standards which were later analyzed for their quality parameters including T, pH, EC, TDS, TSS, Na, Ca, Mg, K, Cl, F, NO₂, NO₃, SO₄, PO₄, DO, COD and BOD. The results indicated that the changes in the styles lead to changes in water quality and the impact of each style is greater on the physical parameters than the chemical parameters. The river self-purification capacity varied depending on the style. The maximum and the minimum self-purifications occurred in fine-grained Anabranching and low-sinuosity fine-grained styles, respectively.     

Holocene rockfalls in the southern Negev Desert,Israel and their relation to Dead Sea fault earthquakes

Rockfall ages in tectonically active regions provide information regarding frequency and magnitude of earthquakes. In the hyper-arid environment of the Dead Sea fault (DSF), southern Israel, rockfalls are most probably triggered by earthquakes. We dated rockfalls along the western margin of the DSF using terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides (TCN). At each rockfall site, samples were collected from simultaneously exposed conjugate boulders and cliff surfaces. Such conjugate samples initially had identical pre-fall (“inherited”) TCN concentrations. After boulder detachment, these surfaces were dosed by different production rates due to differences in post-fall shielding and geometry. However, in our study area, pre-rockfall inheritance and post-rockfall production rates of TCN cannot be evaluated. Therefore, we developed a numerical approach and demonstrated a way to overcome the above-mentioned problems. This approach can be applied in other settings where rockfalls cannot be dated by simple exposure dating. Results suggest rockfall ages between 3.6 ± 0.8 and 4.7 ± 0.7 ka. OSL ages of sediment accumulated behind the boulders range between 0.6 ± 0.1 and 3.4 ± 1.4 ka and support the TCN results. Our ages agree with dated earthquakes determined in paleoseismic studies along the entire length of the DSF and support the observation of intensive earthquake activity around 4–5 ka.     

Study of Metal Distribution in Raw and Screened Swine Manure

The growth of industrial swine production over the last few years has led to a growth in concern over effluents generated by the activity. Several elements, mainly toxic metals, can be present in swine wastewater and can have a serious environmental impact. It is important, therefore, to know the metal concentration before the discharge of wastewater. In this work the temporal metal distribution in swine manure and its potential reduction using coarse (2 mm) and fine (<0.45 μm) liquid‐solid separation techniques were investigated. In order to do this, different swine manure sample preparation methods for Al, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sr and Zn determination by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP OES) were tested. The acid mixtures used to digest the manure sample significantly affected the metal recovery. Good analyte recoveries were observed with nitric acid/hydrogen peroxide mixtures or nitric acid/perchloric acid mixtures. Sulfuric acid/hydrogen peroxide mixtures produced inconsistent results and poor recoveries, mainly for Ba and Pb. It was observed that metal concentrations in swine manure varied greatly with time, up to one order of magnitude, due to changes in swine production such as feed and animal numbers. Metals concentrations observed in the raw wastewater exceeded Brazilian limits for discharge into water bodies and recommendations for agricultural use. Results obtained from the liquid‐solid separation study showed that metals in the raw swine manure were not removed with coarse screening. However, the major fraction of metals were removed by filtration (0.45 μm), with the exception of Na, K and Sr. Thus, the use of liquid‐solid separation techniques that capture the fine solid fractions (and associated metals) from raw manure can have a favorable impact on the environment and contribute to swine production wastewater treatment.     

Output-only identification of the modal and physical properties of structures using free vibration response

The viability of a complete structural characterization of civil structures is explored and discussed. In particular, the identification of modal (i.e. natural frequencies, damping ratios and modal shapes) and physical properties (i.e. mass and stiffness) using only the structure’s free decay response is studied. To accomplish this, modal analysis from free vibration response only (MAFVRO) and mass modification (MM) methodologies are engaged along with Wavelet based techniques for optimal signal processing and modal reconstruction. The methodologies are evaluated using simulated and experimental data. The simulated data are extracted from a simple elastic model of a 5 story shear building and from a more realistic nonlinear model of a RC frame structure. The experimental data are gathered from shake table test of a 2-story scaled shear building. Guidelines for the reconstruction procedure from the data are proposed as the quality of the identified properties is shown to be governed by adequate selection of the frequency bands and optimal modal shape reconstruction. Moreover, in cases where the structure has undergone damage, the proposed identification scheme can also be applied for preliminary assessment of structural health.     

A contrast of two typical LUCC processes and their driving forces in oases of arid areas: A case study of Sangong River Watershed at the northern foot of Tianshan Mountains

Aerial photographs taken in 1978 and 1987, Landsat TM images in 1998 as well as soil, hydrology and socio-economic data for the oases in Sangong River Watershed were processed by Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS). There are two typical agricultural land uses in oases, Farm-based Land Use with large-scale intensified agricultural activities (FLU) and Household Responsibility-based Land Use with small-scale activities (HRLU). The Index Model of Land Use/Land Cover Change (LUCC), Weighted Index Sum (WIS) and logistic stepwise regression model were established to contrast the two typical LUCC processes and their driving forces. The land use patterns were dominated by cropland and grassland for the entire region, and cropland, residential and industrial land were increasing stably. In the HRLU areas, woodland and grassland declined dramatically, but in the FLU areas, grassland decreased only by 12.0%, whereas woodland increased by 13.7%. LUCC was stronger in the earlier stage (1978–1987) than in the later stage (1987–1998) for the entire region. LUCC was more intense in the HRLU areas than in the FLU areas during the entire period (1978–1998). Policy was a key factor in the land use change, and water resources were a precondition in land use. Under the control of policy and water resources, the main human driving factors included population and economy, and the main natural restrictions were soil fertility and groundwater depth. Human driving factors controlled the land change in the HRLU areas, but natural restriction factors dominated in the FLU areas. In the mean time, intensification of LUCC in the region had some spatiotemporal implications with a fluctuation of impact factors.     

Simplification and Validation of a Spectral-Tensor Model for Turbulence Including Atmospheric Stability

A spectral-tensor model of non-neutral, atmospheric-boundary-layer turbulence is evaluated using Eulerian statistics from single-point measurements of the wind speed and temperature at heights up to 100 m, assuming constant vertical gradients of mean wind speed and temperature. The model has been previously described in terms of the dissipation rate \(\epsilon \), the length scale of energy-containing eddies \(\mathcal {L}\), a turbulence anisotropy parameter \(\varGamma \), the Richardson number Ri, and the normalized rate of destruction of temperature variance \(\eta _\theta \equiv \epsilon _\theta /\epsilon \). Here, the latter two parameters are collapsed into a single atmospheric stability parameter z / L using Monin–Obukhov similarity theory, where z is the height above the Earth’s surface, and L is the Obukhov length corresponding to \(\{Ri,\eta _\theta \}\). Model outputs of the one-dimensional velocity spectra, as well as cospectra of the streamwise and/or vertical velocity components, and/or temperature, and cross-spectra for the spatial separation of all three velocity components and temperature, are compared with measurements. As a function of the four model parameters, spectra and cospectra are reproduced quite well, but horizontal temperature fluxes are slightly underestimated in stable conditions. In moderately unstable stratification, our model reproduces spectra only up to a scale \(\sim \) 1 km. The model also overestimates coherences for vertical separations, but is less severe in unstable than in stable cases.