Toxicity of a secondary-treated sewage effluent to marine biota in Bass Strait, Australia: development of action trigger values for a toxicity monitoring program

Melbourne Water's Eastern Treatment Plant (ETP) produces a secondary-treated sewage effluent which is chlorinated and discharged into Bass Strait at Boags Rocks, Victoria, Australia. Disappearance of the sensitive brown seaweed Hormosira banksii from rock platforms immediately adjacent to the shore-line discharge was identified in the early 1990s. Subsequently, Melbourne Water and CSIRO undertook an environmental impact assessment and review of land and marine effluent disposal options, which included ambient water quality monitoring, biological monitoring, bioaccumulation studies and toxicity testing of existing effluent to assess the nature and magnitude of the environmental effects. This paper presents data from the toxicity monitoring programs since 2001. Chronic toxicity testing using macroalgal germination and cell division (H. banksii), microalgal growth rate (Nitzschia closterium) and scallop larval development (Chlamys asperrima), confirmed that ammonia was the major cause of effluent toxicity. Results from this toxicity monitoring program were used to develop action trigger values for toxicity for each species, which were then used in a refined monitoring program in 2005-2007. An upgrade of the ETP is in progress to improve nitrification/denitrification in order to reduce ammonia concentrations and the toxicity of the effluent. Toxicity testing with a simulated upgraded effluent confirmed that ammonia concentrations and toxicity were reduced. Estimated "safe" dilutions of effluent, calculated using species sensitivity distributions, decreased from 1:140-300 for existing ETP effluent to 1:20 for nitrified effluent, further confirming that treatment improvements should reduce the impact on marine biota in the vicinity of the discharge.     

MINVIT: Multi Instrumental Visualization Tool for Solar Physics

In recent years much effort has been devoted to constructing systems for sharing resources within the solar physics community. Several advanced archives and data analysis systems do exist, but there is low availability of data visualization tools for displaying simultaneous multi instruments/wavelengths solar data. Meanwhile map server technology has received great attention by the IT researcher and geophysical community. In this paper we discuss a possible use of an open source environment for building spatially enabled Internet applications for the visualization and analysis of solar physics data sets. We present the preliminary status of the MINVIT (Multi Instrumental Visualization Tool) project, which shall be able to merge images and information produced by different instruments in a single/synoptic image available on-line. Moreover, the tool is designed in order to allow the visualization of the temporal evolution of data. We further discuss the possible integration into the grid framework, focusing on a middleware able to query EGSO resources such us UOC and SEC in order to include data from several space and ground-based solar observatories.     

Heat flux apportionment to heterogeneous surfaces using flux footprint analysis

Heat flux data collected from the Baiyangdian Heterogeneous Field Experiment were analyzed using the footprint method. High resolution （25 m） Landsat-5 satellite imaging was used to determine the land cover as one of four surface types： farmland, lake, wetland, or village. Data from two observation sites in September 2005 were used. One site （Wangjiazhai） was characterized by highly heterogeneous surfaces in the central area of the Baiyangdian： lake/wetland. The other site （Xiongxian） was on land with more uniform surface cover. An improved Eulerian analytical flux footprint model was used to determine “source areas” of the heat fluxes measured at towers located at each site from surrounding landscapes of mixed surface types. In relative terms results show that wetland and lake areas generally contributed most to the observed heat flux at Wangjiazhai, while farmland contributed most at Xiongxian. Given the areal distribution of surface type contributions, calculations were made to obtain the magnitudes of the heat flux from lake, wetland and farmland to the total observed flux and apportioned contributions of each surface type to the sensible and latent heat fluxes. Results show that on average the sensible heat flux from wetland and farmland were comparable over the diurnal cycle, while the latent heat flux from farmland was somewhat larger by about 30-50 W m-2 during daytime. The latent and sensible fluxes from the lake source in daytime were about 50 W m-2 and 100 W m-2 less, respectively, than from wetland and farmland. The results are judged reasonable and serve to demonstrate the potential for flux apportionment over heterogeneous surfaces.     

Arsenic — a Review. Part II: Oxidation of Arsenic and its Removal in Water Treatment

In natural waters arsenic normally occurs in the oxidation states +III (arsenite) and +V (arsenate). The removal of As(III) is more difficult than the removal of As(V). Therefore, As(III) has to be oxidized to As(V) prior to its removal. The oxidation in the presence of air or pure oxygen is slow. The oxidation rate can be increased by ozone, chlorine, hypochlorite, chlorine dioxide, or H₂O₂. The oxidation of As(III) is also possible in the presence of manganese oxide coated sands or by advanced oxidation processes. Arsenic can be removed from waters by coprecipitation with Fe(OH)₃, MnO₂ or during water softening. Fixed‐bed filters have successfully been applied for the removal of arsenic.The effectiveness of arsenic removal was tested in the presence of adsorbents such as FeOOH, activated alumina, ferruginous manganese ore, granular activated carbon, or natural zeolites. Other removal technologies are anion exchange, electrocoagulation, and membrane filtration by ultrafiltration, nanofiltration or reverse osmosis.     

Arsenic — a Review. Part I: Occurrence,Toxicity, Speciation,Mobility

In natural waters arsenic concentrations up to a few milligrams per litre were measured. The natural content of arsenic found in soils varies between 0.01 mg/kg and a few hundred milligrams per kilogram. Anthropogenic sources of arsenic in the environment are the smelting of ores, the burning of coal, and the use of arsenic compounds in many products and production processes in the past. A lot of arsenic compounds are toxic and cause acute and chronic poisoning. In aqueous environment the inorganic arsenic species arsenite (As(III)) and arsenate (As(V)) are the most abundant species. The mobility of these species is influenced by the pH value, the redox potential, and the presence of adsorbents such as oxides and hydroxides of Fe(III), Al(III), Mn(III/IV), humic substances, and clay minerals.     

Spatio-Temporal Evolution and North–South Asymmetry of Quasi-Biennial Oscillations in the Coronal Fe <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">xiv</Emphasis> Emission

In this work, we apply multichannel singular spectrum analysis (MSSA), a data-adaptive, multivariate, non-parametric technique that simultaneously exploits the spatial and temporal correlations of the input data to extract common modes of variability, to investigate the intermediate quasi-periodicities of the Fe xiv green coronal emission line at 530.3 nm for the period between 1944 and 2008. Our analysis reveals several significant mid-term periodicities in a range from about one to four years that are consistent with the so-called quasi-biennial oscillations (QBOs), which have been detected by several authors using different data sets and analysis methods. These QBOs display amplitudes varying significantly with time and latitude over the six solar cycles (18 to 23) covered by this study. A clear North–South asymmetry is detected both in their intensity and period distribution, with a net predominance of spectral power in the active-region belt of the northern hemisphere. On the other hand, while the QBOs with periods \(\gtrsim1.7\) years are particularly intense around the polar regions and therefore related to the global magnetic field, the ones with shorter periods are mainly generated at mid-latitudes, in correspondence with the emergence of active regions. Our findings indicate that the North–South asymmetry manifested in the uneven latitudinal distribution of QBOs is a fundamental, albeit puzzling, characteristic of solar activity.     

Hydrous olivine alteration on Mars and Earth

Hydrous alteration of olivine macrocrysts in a Martian olivine phyric basalt, NWA 10416, and a terrestrial basalt from southern Colorado are examined using SEM, EPMA, TEM, and µXRD techniques. The olivines in the meteorite contain linear nanotubes of hydrous material, amorphous areas, and fluid dissolution textures quite distinct from alteration identified in other Martian meteorites. Instead, they bear resemblance to terrestrial deuteric alteration features. The presence of the hydrous alteration phase Mg‐laihunite within the olivines has been confirmed by µXRD analysis. The cores of the olivines in both Martian and terrestrial samples are overgrown by unaltered rims whose compositions match those of a separate population of groundmass olivines, suggesting that the core olivines are xenocrysts whose alteration preceded crystallization of the groundmass. The terrestrial sample is linked to deep crustal metasomatism and the “ignimbrite flare‐up” of the Oligocene epoch. The comparison of the two samples suggests the existence of an analogous relatively water‐rich magmatic reservoir on Mars.     

Speciation of Arsenic Using Chelation Solvent Extraction and High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Research interest in speciation of arsenic stems from its species dependent behavior in the environment and in living organisms. The complexity of the matrix to be analyzed and low concentrations of target arsenic species that may be labile or difficult to chromatogram, indicate that a suitable pre‐treatment methodology is required. This study investigated the usefulness of chelation solvent extraction – high performance liquid chromatography (CSE‐HPLC) for the speciation of arsenic in water. It involved reacting arsenic with the chelant known for its affinity towards arsenic, followed by extraction, separation, and identification of the arsenic‐chelant‐arsenic complex. Arsenic species having different physicochemical properties were investigated. Species, such as, As₂O₃, As₃O₅, KH₂AsO₄, Na₂HAsO₄, and NaAsO₂ were detected as a group of closely eluted peaks with different retention times and spectral properties, whereas, the organic arsenic species CH₃Na₂AsO₃, o‐arsanilic acid, roxarson and triphenyl arsine separated quite well on the EnviroseP‐CM HPLC column. Key method parameters, such as, type of HPLC column, composition of mobile phase and organic solvents affecting peak resolution and sensitivity were optimized. Real environmental matrices contaminated with arsenic were analyzed under varying wavelengths (λ_max = 190, 210, 220, 234, 244, and 282 nm), with good precision. Different arsenic species were detected in these samples with excellent background and signal‐to‐noise ratios demonstrating the robustness of the method. The detection limit, reproducibility, selectivity, accuracy, and dynamic range of the calibration curves were evaluated.