Addressing Scottish rural fuel poverty through a regional industrial symbiosis strategy for the Scottish forest industries sector

Tackling fuel poverty is central to the delivery of the Scottish Executive’s commitment to social justice. Many Scottish rural households are not linked into the mains gas network and rely on expensive alternatives, despite being surrounded by plentiful supplies of low-cost renewable wood biomass. A regional study was undertaken to establish the potential market for pelletised wood fuel, available as a low-value by-product from the rapidly expanding Scottish forest industry sector. The wider implications of the research findings are analysed by extending the principles of industrial symbiosis from a site-specific to a regional scale. Promoting an indigenous pellet-based wood fuel market for rural Scotland would fulfil important Scottish Executive economic, social and environmental sustainability objectives. Adding off-site social symbiotic elements increases the potential for on-site technical symbiosis in nascent Scottish forest industry clusters. At present, market failure is preventing the realisation of these benefits, and the paper concludes by identifying ways in which market intermediation, through wood fuel energy service companies, might overcome the current barriers to exploiting such symbiosis.     

Experimental and modeling study on Cr(VI) transfer from soil into surface runoff

With the development of modern agriculture, large amount of fertilizer and pesticide outflow from farming land causes great waste and serious pollution to surface water and groundwater, and threatens ecological environment and even human life. In this paper, laboratory experiments are conducted to simulate adsorbed Cr(VI) transfer from soil into runoff. A two-layer in-mixing analytical model is applied to analyze laboratory experimental results. A data assimilation (DA) method via the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is used to update parameters and improve modeling results. In comparison with the experimental data, DA updated modeling results are much better than those without the updating. To make predictions better, the inflation method with a constant inflation factor via DA method was used to compensate the fast decrease of ensemble spread partially related to filter inbreeding. Based on the used rainfall and relevant physical principles, the updated value of the incomplete mixing coefficient γ is about 14.0 times of the value of the incomplete mixing coefficient α in experiment 1 and about 7.4 times in experiment 2, while the difference between the flow rate of runoff and infiltration is not so large even after reaching stable infiltration condition. The results indicate the loss of Cr(VI) in soil solute is mainly due to infiltration, rather than surface runoff. With the increase of mixing layer depth, soil adsorption capacity will increase and the loss of soil solute will decrease. The study results provide information for reducing and even preventing the agricultural nonpoint source pollution.     

Using Sequential Self-Calibration Method to Identify Conductivity Distribution: Conditioning on Tracer Test data

An iterative inverse method, the sequential self-calibration method, is developed for mapping spatial distribution of a hydraulic conductivity field by conditioning on nonreactive tracer breakthrough curves. A streamline-based, semi-analytical simulator is adopted to simulate solute transport in a heterogeneous aquifer. The simulation is used as the forward modeling step. In this study, the hydraulic conductivity is assumed to be a deterministic or random variable. Within the framework of the streamline-based simulator, the efficient semi-analytical method is used to calculate sensitivity coefficients of the solute concentration with respect to the hydraulic conductivity variation. The calculated sensitivities account for spatial correlations between the solute concentration and parameters. The performance of the inverse method is assessed by two synthetic tracer tests conducted in an aquifer with a distinct spatial pattern of heterogeneity. The study results indicate that the developed iterative inverse method is able to identify and reproduce the large-scale heterogeneity pattern of the aquifer given appropriate observation wells in these synthetic cases.     

Origin of the Blue Ridge escarpment along the passive margin of Eastern North America

The Blue Ridge escarpment is a rugged landform situated within the ancient Appalachian orogen. While similar in some respects to the great escarpments along other passive margins, which have evolved by erosion following rifting, its youthful topographic expression has inspired proposals of Cenozoic tectonic rejuvenation in eastern North America. To better understand the post‐orogenic and post‐rift geomorphic evolution of passive margins, we have examined the origin of this landform using low‐temperature thermochronometry and manipulation of topographic indices. Apatite (U–Th)/He and fission‐track analyses along transects across the escarpment reveal a younging trend towards the coast. This pattern is consistent with other great escarpments and fits with an interpretation of having evolved by prolonged erosion, without the requirement of tectonic rejuvenation. Measured ages are also comparable specifically to those measured along other great escarpments that are as much as 100 Myr younger. This suggests that erosional mechanisms that maintain rugged escarpments in the early post‐rift stages may remain active on ancient passive margins for prolonged periods. The precise erosional evolution of the escarpment is less clear, however, and several end‐member models can explain the data. Our preferred model, which fits with all data, involves a significant degree of erosional escarpment retreat in the Cenozoic. Although this suggests that early onset of topographic stability is not required of passive margin evolution, more data are required to better constrain the details of the escarpment's development.     

Sampling and Characterizing Rare Earth Elements in Groundwater in Deep-Lying Fractures in Granitoids Under In Situ High-Pressure and Low-Redox Conditions

Several countries are preparing to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste deep underground in crystalline rock. This type of bedrock is commonly extensively fractured and consequently carries groundwater that serves as a medium for transporting metals and radionuclides. A group of metals of particular interest in this context is the rare earth elements (REEs), because they are analogues of actinides contained within radioactive waste and are tracers of hydrological pathways and geochemical processes. Concentrations of REEs are commonly low in these groundwaters, leading to values below detection limits of standard monitoring methods, particularly for the heavy REEs. We present a new technical set-up for monitoring REEs (and other trace metals) in groundwater in fractured crystalline rock. The technique consists of passing the fracture groundwater, commonly under high pressure and containing reduced chemical species, through a device that maintains the physicochemical character of the groundwater. Within the device, diffusive gradient in thin-film (DGT) discs are installed in triplicate. With this set-up, we studied REEs in groundwater in fractures at depths of approximately ?144, ?280, and ?450 m in granitoids in the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in southern Sweden. The entire REE suite was detected (concentrations down to 0.1 ng L^?1) and was differently fractionated among the groundwaters. The shallowest groundwater, composed of dilute modern Baltic Sea water, was enriched in the heavy REEs, whereas the deeper groundwaters, dominated by old saline water, were depleted in the heavy REEs. Deployment periods varying from 1 to 4 weeks delivered similar REE concentrations, indicating stability and reproducibility of the experimental set-up. The study finds that 1 week of deployment may be enough. However, if the overall setting and construction allow for longer deployment times, 2–3 weeks will be optimal in terms of reaching reliable REE concentrations well above the detection limit while maintaining the performance of the DGT samplers.     

Thermal diffusivity of olivine

The thermal diffusivity of a naturally occurring polycrystalline olivine (Fo₉₁Fa₀₉) was measured by the Flash technique in the temperature range of 450–1500 K. At 450 K the thermal diffusivity was 10.7 × 10^?7 m²/s and decreased as a function of reciprocal temperature to 7.0 × 10^?7 m²/s at 800 K. From that temperature, the values gradually increased to a maximum of 7.8 × 10^?7 m²/s at 1000 K, and then steadily decreased to 5.6 × 10^?7 m²/s at 1500 K. The unusual decrease above 1000 K was caused by a reduction of the previously oxidized samples. The olivine's oxidation state plays a significant role in the value of thermal diffusivity at high temperatures.     

Use of high spectral resolution remote sensing to determine leaf palatability of eucalypt trees for folivorous marsupials

In this study we assess the feasibility of remotely measuring canopy biochemistry, and thus the potential for conducting large-scale mapping of habitat quality. A number of studies have found nutrient composition of eucalypt foliage to be a major determinant of the distribution of folivorous marsupials. More recently it has been demonstrated that a specific group of secondary plant chemicals, the diformylphloroglucinols (DFPs), are the most important feeding deterrents, and are thus vital determinants of habitat quality. We report on the use of laboratory spectroscopy to attempt to identify one such DFP, sideroxylonal-A, in the foliage of Eucalyptus melliodora, one of the few eucalypt species browsed by folivorous marsupials. Reflectance spectra were obtained for freeze-dried, ground leaves using near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and for both oven-dried and fresh whole leaves using a laboratory-based (FieldSpec) spectroradiometer. Modified partial least squares (MPLS) regression was used to develop calibration equations for sideroxylonal-A concentration based on the reflectance spectra transformed as both the first and second difference of absorbance (Log 1/R). The predictive ability of the calibration equations was assessed using the standard error of calibration statistic (SECV). Coefficients of determination (r²) were highest for the ground leaf spectra (0.98), followed by the fresh leaf and dry leaf spectra (0.94 and 0.87, respectively). When applied to independent validation sub-sets, sideroxylonal-A was most accurately predicted from the ground leaf spectra (r² = 0.94), followed by the dry leaf and fresh leaf spectra (0.72 and 0.53, respectively). Two spectral regions, centred on 674 nm and 1394 nm, were found to be highly correlated with sideroxylonal-A concentration for each of the three spectral data sets studied. Results from this study suggest that calibration equations derived from modified partial least squares regression may be used to predict sideroxylonal-A concentration, and hence leaf palatability, of Eucalyptus melliodora trees, thereby indicating that the remote estimation of habitat quality of eucalypt forests for marsupial folivores is feasible.     

Evaluation and Monitoring of Service Quality: Discussing Ways to Meet INSPIRE Requirements

Service oriented architectures (SOA) are widely used nowadays. As the name implies such architectures rely on services. Germany developed a marine‐specific service oriented data infrastructure (MDI‐DE – Marine Dateninfrastruktur Deutschland) from 2010 to 2013. The services in MDI‐DE can contribute to fulfilling reporting commitments for various European and national legislation. The services of MDI‐DE (just like other services affected, for instance, by INSPIRE) have to meet specific requirements regarding performance, availability and conformity (quality of service, QoS). Although SOA is an important field in scientific research there are very few publications and studies available on QoS, especially regarding INSPIRE requirements. The services of MDI‐DE were analyzed using various existing tools. Their usefulness to reflect where either the aspect's performance, availability or conformity needs improvement was partly verified. Due to varying results and the neglect of some services for various reasons it can be stated that the more tools are used, the more conclusive the outcome. Furthermore, service quality was not coherent when measured with different tools. This means that measuring QoS in terms of INSPIRE will be very difficult to do in the future and there is the danger that people will choose the tools with which their services perform best.