Regionalization of precipitation characteristics in Iran’s Lake Urmia basin

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Lake Urmia in northwest Iran, once one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world, has shrunk by almost 90% in area and 80% in volume during the last four...     

Improving microbial oil production with standard and native oleaginous yeasts by using Taguchi design

Production of microbial oil has attracted a great attention in recent years. The potential of lipid production by the yeast strains is the reason for using microorganisms for biodiesel production. Microbial lipid has high similarity to the oil obtained from plants and animals in type and composition. Production of oil from yeasts must be economical, so optimization of the cultivation condition to reach higher production must be done. Native oleaginous yeast, Cryptococcus albidus, was isolated from soil by the nitrogen-limited medium and screened by Nile red staining. Yarrowia lipolytica DSM 8218 was used for lipid production as a standard strain. C. albidus was an excellent oleaginous yeast, and the lipid quantity, dry biomass and lipid productivity of this strain were 11.81 g/l, 19.65 g/l and 60.1 %, respectively, in shaking flask cultivation at 150 rpm and 25 °C in nitrogen-limited medium containing per liter 75 g glucose, 1 g (NH₄)₂SO₄, 1 g yeast extract, 3 g KH₂PO₄, 1.5 g MgSO₄.7H₂O, 0.15 g CaCl₂, 0.06 g MnSO₄.H₂O, 0.02 g ZnSO₄.7H₂O and 0.15 g FeCl₃.6H₂O with pH adjusted to 6.5. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used for analyzing and confirming the production of microbial oil in this study.     

Modeling the effects of controlled drainage at a watershed scale using SWATDRAIN

The recently developed SWATDRAIN model was employed to assess the impact of controlled drainage on the water table dynamics, subsurface drainage, and surface runoff in an agricultural watershed in Ontario, Canada. Controlled drainage was defined with a depth of 1.0 m to restrict flow at the drain outlet to maintain the water table at 0.5 m below the surface level during the winter (November–April) and at 0.6 m during the summer (June–August) months. The effects of the absence, or implementation, of drainage water management were predicted for the 3-year period of 1991–1993. Implementing controlled drainage resulted in a 16 % reduction in the mean annual drain flow, while increasing surface runoff by as much as 71 %. This indicates that overall watershed hydrology could be significantly impacted by the implementation of controlled drainage. This research demonstrates the SWATDRAIN model’s ability to predict the controlled drainage in small agricultural watersheds.