Contamination and distribution of heavy metals in urban and suburban soils in Zhangzhou City,Fujian, China

The urban environment is of growing concern as its continued population increase in China. Due to the urbanization and industrialization, heavy metals have been continuously discharged into the soil recently, and creating the anthropogenic contamination. This study investigated heavy metals contamination in urban and suburban soils in Zhangzhou City, Fujian, China. Multivariate analysis and geographical information system technology were employed in source identification and contamination assessment of heavy metals in the city soils. The survey results indicated that the urban soils were contaminated by heavy metals, especially by Hg, Cd and Pb. The multivariate analysis demonstrated that the distribution of Cu, Zn, Cr and Ni was controlled by pedogenesis, Cd and Pb had been disturbed by industrialization in some urban locations, and Hg was mainly influenced by the hot-spring in some urban park sites. The distribution of heavy metals and soil pollution index suggested the soils of Zhangzhou City have been affected by human activities.     

Comparison of numerical models of two debris flows in the Cortina d’ Ampezzo area,Dolomites, Italy

The accurate prediction of runout distances, velocities and the knowledge of flow rheology can reduce the casualties and property damage produced by debris flows, providing a means to delineate hazard areas, to estimate hazard intensities for input into risk studies and to provide parameters for the design of protective measures. The application of most of models that describe the propagation and deposition of debris flow requires detailed topography, rheological and hydrological data that are not always available for the debris-flow hazard delineation and estimation. In the Cortina d’Ampezzo area, Eastern Dolomites, Italy, most of the slope instabilities are represented by debris flows; 325 debris-flow prone watersheds have been mapped in the geomorphological hazard map of this area. We compared the results of simulations of two well-documented debris flows in the Cortina d’Ampezzo area, carried on with two different single-phase, non-Newtonian models, the one-dimensional DAN-W and the two-dimensional FLO-2D, to test the possibility to simulate the dynamic behaviour of a debris flow with a model using a limited range of input parameters. FLO-2D model creates a more accurate representation of the hazard area in terms of flooded area, but the results in terms of runout distances and deposits thickness are similar to DAN-W results. Using DAN-W, the most appropriate rheology to describe the debris-flow behaviour is the Voellmy model. When detailed topographical, rheological and hydrological data are not available, DAN-W, which requires less detailed data, is a valuable tool to predict debris-flow hazard. Parameters obtained through back-analysis with both models can be applied to predict hazard in other areas characterized by similar geology, morphology and climate.     

Extraction of Alteration Mineral Information from Moderate Remote Sensing Images Using MPS Method

Although alteration minerals related to metallogenesis is very important in mineral exploration, information of alteration mineral is weakly expressed in remote sensing imagery, which is often subject to interfering noise and sometimes limited in spectral and spatial resolutions. Because of easy access, moderate images are the main sources of alteration mineral information. Therefore, it is very important to develop alteration mineral information extraction methods from remote sensing images. In this paper, a combined method based on Mask, principal component analysis (PCA) and support vector machine method (SVM) was used to extract alteration mineral information from Enhanced thematic mapper plus remote sensing data with limited spectral and spatial resolutions. First, a mask image of the remote sensing imagery was created to remove interference information such as vegetation, shadow and water. Then, PCA was employed to collect sample data relating to iron, argillic, and carbonatization alteration. Finally, SVM was used to deal with alteration anomaly and build a feature extraction model of high accuracy. The Mask-PCA-SVM model is used to extract alteration mineral information from remote sensing images of Hatu area, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regions, China. The results show that the new methods proposed in this paper can coincide well with known deposits occurrences, rate reached 86.51%. While, the consistent rate with known deposits of the ratio model, PCA model and Spectral angle mapper model were only 3.37, 65.08 and 69.05% respectively. This suggests that the proposed model can find the actual distribution of mineral deposits more effectively by reducing interference to a greater degree.     

Meridional Motion and Reynolds Stress from Debrecen Photoheliographic Data

The Debrecen Photoheliographic Data catalogue is a continuation of the Greenwich Photoheliographic Results providing daily positions of sunspots and sunspot groups. We analyse the data for sunspot groups focussing on meridional motions and transfer of angular momentum towards the solar equator. Velocities are calculated with a daily shift method including an automatic iterative process of removing the outliers. Apart from the standard differential rotation profile, we find meridional motion directed towards the zone of solar activity. The difference in measured meridional flow in comparison to Doppler measurements and some other tracer measurements is interpreted as a consequence of different flow patterns inside and outside of active regions. We also find a statistically significant dependence of meridional motion on rotation velocity residuals confirming the transfer of angular momentum towards the equator. Analysis of horizontal Reynolds stress reveals that the transfer of angular momentum is stronger with increasing latitude up to about \(40^{\circ}\), where there is a possible maximum in absolute value.     

Land surface coupling in regional climate simulations of the West African monsoon

Coupling of the Community Land Model (CLM3) to the ICTP Regional Climate Model (RegCM3) substantially improves the simulation of mean climate over West Africa relative to an older version of RegCM3 coupled to the Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS). Two 10-year simulations (1992–2001) show that the seasonal timing and magnitude of mean monsoon precipitation more closely match observations when the new land surface scheme is implemented. Specifically, RegCM3–CLM3 improves the timing of the monsoon advance and retreat across the Guinean Coast, and reduces a positive precipitation bias in the Sahel and Northern Africa. As a result, simulated temperatures are higher, thereby reducing the negative temperature bias found in the Guinean Coast and Sahel in RegCM3–BATS. In the RegCM3–BATS simulation, warmer temperatures in northern latitudes and wetter soils near the coast create excessively strong temperature and moist static energy gradients, which shifts the African Easterly Jet further north than observed. In the RegCM3–CLM3 simulation, the migration and position of the African Easterly Jet more closely match reanalysis winds. This improvement is triggered by drier soil conditions in the RegCM3–CLM3 simulation and an increase in evapotranspiration per unit precipitation. These results indicate that atmosphere–land surface coupling has the ability to impact regional-scale circulation and precipitation in regions exhibiting strong hydroclimatic gradients.     

Altitudinal trends in δ<Superscript>13</Superscript>C value,stomatal density and nitrogen content of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pinus tabuliformis</Emphasis> needles on the southern slope of the middle Qinling Mountains,China

In this study, a coniferous tree species (Pinus tabuliformis Carr.) was investigated at a moderate-altitude mountainous terrain on the southern slope of the middle Qinling Mountains (QLM) to detect the trends in carbon isotope ratio (δ¹³C), leaf nitrogen content (LNC) and stomatal density (SD) with altitude variation in north-subtropical humid mountain climate zone of China. The results showed that LNC and SD both significantly increased linearly along the altitudinal gradient ranging from 1000 to 2200 m, whereas leaf δ¹³C exhibited a significantly negative correlation with the altitude. Such a correlation pattern differs obviously from that obtained in offshore low-altitude humid environment or inland high-altitude semi-arid environment, suggesting that the pattern of increasing δ¹³C with the altitude cannot be generalized. The negative correlation between δ¹³C and altitude might be attributed mainly to the strengthening of carbon isotope fractionation in plants caused by increasing precipitation with altitude. Furthermore, there was a remarkable negative correlation between leaf δ¹³C and LNC. One possible reason was that increasing precipitation that operates to increase isotopic discrimination with altitude overtook the LNC in determining the sign of leaf δ¹³C. The significant negative correlation between leaf δ¹³C and SD over altitudes was also found in the present study, indicating that increases in SD with altitude would reduce, rather than enhance plant δ¹³C values.     

Indigenous Australians’ knowledge of weather and climate

Although the last 200 years of colonisation has brought radical changes in economic and governance structures for thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders living in remote areas of northern Australia, many of these Indigenous people still rely upon, and live closely connected to, their natural environment. Over millennia, living ‘on country’, many of these communities have developed a sophisticated appreciation of their local ecosystems and the climatic patterns associated with the changes in them. Some of this knowledge is recorded in their oral history passed down through generations, documented in seasonal weather calendars in local languages and, to a limited degree, transcribed and translated into English. This knowledge is still highly valued by these communities today, as it is used to direct hunting, fishing and planting as well as to inform many seasonally dependant cultural events. In recent years, local observations have been recognised by non-Indigenous scientists as a vital source of environmental data where few historic records exist. Similar to the way that phenological observations in the UK and US provide baseline information on past climates, this paper suggests that Indigenous observations of seasonal change have the potential to fill gaps in climate data for tropical northern Australia, and could also serve to inform culturally appropriate adaptation strategies. One method of recording recent direct and indirect climate and weather observations for the Torres Strait Islands is documented in this paper to demonstrate the currency of local observations of climate and its variability. The paper concludes that a comprehensive, participatory programme to record Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge of past climate patterns, and recent observations of change, would be timely and valuable for the communities themselves, as well as contributing to a greater understanding of regional climate change that would be useful for the wider Australian population.     

Model for the formation of arsenic contamination in groundwater. 1. Datong Basin,China

Mineral equilibria were analyzed in the system As-bearing rock-meteoric water. It was shown that carbonate rocks are the most probable source of As and Sr in the waters of the Datong Basin (People's Republic of China). The reason for groundwater enrichment in As is the shift of the equilibrium FeCO₃ (siderite) + H₂O = FeOOH(goethite) + CO₂(g) + H₂(g) to the left (toward siderite formation) owing to organic matter oxidation by atmospheric oxygen and an increase in the equilibrium partial pressure of CO₂, while the Eh of the system remains below ?0.30 ± 0.06 V.     

Contribution of rock magnetism to stratigraphy and palaeoenvironment of the Karaïn cave infill,Antalya, Turkey

The magnetic properties of the infill of the Karaïn cave in Turkey were compared to the results of a sedimentological study on three longitudinal sections. The sediments of this site, namely cavity E, cover a period of ca. 500 ka and correspond to a large part of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. The evolution observed for the various magnetic parameters is mainly related to climatic changes which followed one another during the infilling history of the cave. Two preconditions are necessary to understand the environmental magnetism, namely both the identification and the quantification of different magnetic phases (components) in the sediments, expressed by the ratio of the various magnetic parameters and the analysis of the magnetization curves. The results obtained through the study of the different magnetic parameters (low-field initial bulk (κ_lf) and mass (χ_lf) magnetic susceptibility, frequency dependence of the magnetic susceptibility (χ_fd), anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM), hysteresis parameters, anhysteretic susceptibility, ...) on 171 samples allowed us: 1 — to follow the nature, size and source of the grains at each level, and 2 — to identify six alternating levels, having different magnetic susceptibility signatures during warm, damp periods, in which the contribution of prehistorical hominidae (Homo Sapiens or Homo Neandertalensis) and animals, could have modified the original sedimentary structures.This study, in agreement with the sedimentological results, suggests a significant difference between sandy or sandy-silty levels (3 and 5) and those rich in clays and concretions. The sandy or sandy-silty levels are mainly characterized by a low amount of antiferromagnetic type grains, likely goethite and hematite, dominated by single-domain size (SD) and a small content of ferrimagnetic type grains, likely magnetite of multidomain size (MD), inherited from the host rock. Antiferromagnetic grains did not develop and were a priori drifted by the wind. They could be contemporaneous with a cold climate.The clays and clayey-silty levels are characterized by a large amount of superparamagnetic (SP) and SD grains, and a high content of low coercivity magnetic grains (magnetite, maghemite and Ti-magnetite). The saturation remanent magnetization (SIRM) of clayey levels is 5 to 10 times higher than that of sandy levels. The clayey levels are contemporaneous with a humid climate, which favoured the formation of secondary iron oxides, of stalagmitic floors and calcite concretions and of the emplacement of local pedogenesis phenomena, mainly at the top of the infill, i.e. in Level 6.     

Lava flow hazard at Nyiragongo volcano,D.R.C.

The 2002 eruption of Nyiragongo volcano constitutes the most outstanding case ever of lava flow in a big town. It also represents one of the very rare cases of direct casualties from lava flows, which had high velocities of up to tens of kilometer per hour. As in the 1977 eruption, which is the only other eccentric eruption of the volcano in more than 100 years, lava flows were emitted from several vents along a N–S system of fractures extending for more than 10 km, from which they propagated mostly towards Lake Kivu and Goma, a town of about 500,000 inhabitants. We assessed the lava flow hazard on the entire volcano and in the towns of Goma (D.R.C.) and Gisenyi (Rwanda) through numerical simulations of probable lava flow paths. Lava flow paths are computed based on the steepest descent principle, modified by stochastically perturbing the topography to take into account the capability of lava flows to override topographic obstacles, fill topographic depressions, and spread over the topography. Code calibration and the definition of the expected lava flow length and vent opening probability distributions were done based on the 1977 and 2002 eruptions. The final lava flow hazard map shows that the eastern sector of Goma devastated in 2002 represents the area of highest hazard on the flanks of the volcano. The second highest hazard sector in Goma is the area of propagation of the western lava flow in 2002. The town of Gisenyi is subject to moderate to high hazard due to its proximity to the alignment of fractures active in 1977 and 2002. In a companion paper (Chirico et al., Bull Volcanol, in this issue, 2008) we use numerical simulations to investigate the possibility of reducing lava flow hazard through the construction of protective barriers, and formulate a proposal for the future development of the town of Goma.