Groundwater quality and its change over a decade: An analysis of a coastal urban environment from the west coast of India

Mangalore, one of the fastest growing cities along the west coast of India has witnessed a leap in industrialisation and urbanisation during the last decade. This study focuses on the quality of the groundwater of Mangalore city. The results are compared with an earlier study to record the change in water quality over a decade. HCO₃ and Na were found exceeding the highest desirable limit of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Indian Standards Institute (ISI) standards for drinking water. The pH values at seven localities are not within the limits prescribed by WHO or ISI (highest desirable level or maximum permissible level). The present study shows that there has been an enrichment of chemical constituents during the last decade and that the Gurupur River, which flows parallel to the coast, plays an important role in impeding saltwater intrusion along the coast.     

城市热岛效应的研究进展与展望

随着世界各国城市化的进展,城市热岛效应已经成为一个跨学科领域的问题,受到包括大气环境、区域气候、水文和生态等多学科科学家的关注。在过去半个多世纪中,城市热岛问题的研究获得了相当丰富的研究成果,通过对这些成果的综合分析,归纳出城市热岛研究中采用的3类主要方法——观测(外场试验和遥感技术)、数值模拟以及实验室仿真法。系统地回顾了城市热岛效应的研究历史,重点对与城市热岛关系最密切的城市边界层、热岛环流与复杂地形的相互作用以及能量平衡研究所取得的成果进行了总结和评述。最后对城市热岛问题未来8个可能的研究方向进行了探讨,其中,包括沿海和复杂地形附近的城市热岛问题、城市群间热岛环流的相互作用、城市化与空气污染问题、城市热岛效应对平均降水的影响、城市化对雾和闪电的影响、城市天气预报的精细化、城市气候变化预测以及城市热岛效应减缓方案的制定,并对其发展前景进行了粗略的展望。     

Relating Urban Surface-layer Structure to Upwind Terrain for the Salford Experiment (Salfex)

Profiles of wind and turbulence over an urban area evolve with fetch in response to surface characteristics. Sodar measurements, taken on 22 April 2002 during the Salford Experiment in the UK (Salfex), are here related to upstream terrain. A logarithmic layer up to z = 65m was observed in all half-hour averaged profiles. Above this height the profile showed a different vertical gradient, suggesting a change in surface cover upstream. The drag coefficient varied by a factor of two over only a 20° direction change. Turbulence intensity (σ _x ) for each wind component (x) decreased with height, but the ratio suggested an underestimate of σ _u compared to previous results. Mean urban and suburban cover fraction within the source area for each height decreased sharply between z = 20 and 50m, increasing slightly above. The near-convergence of cover fractions thus occured for source areas of minimum length ≈ 2,200 m. In comparison, the mean length scale of heterogeneity L _P was calculated from surface cover data to be 1,284 m, and the corresponding mean blending height h _b was 175 m. Finally, the mean streamline angle, α, was negative and the magnitude decreased with height. An exponential fit to α for z ≤ 65m gave an e-folding height scale of 159 m. A simple relationship between this height scale and L _P was assumed, giving L _P ≈ 1,080 m, which is in reasonable agreement with the estimate from surface cover type. The results suggest that more emphasis is required on modelling and measuring surface-layer flow over heterogeneous urban canopies.     

Gap Filling and Quality Assessment of CO2 and Water Vapour Fluxes above an Urban Area with Radial Basis Function Neural Networks

Vertical turbulent fluxes of water vapour, carbon dioxide, and sensible heat were measured from 16 August to the 28 September 2006 near the city centre of Münster in north-west Germany. In comparison to results of measurements above homogeneous ecosystem sites, the CO₂ fluxes above the urban investigation area showed more peaks and higher variances during the course of a day, probably caused by traffic and other varying, anthropogenic sources. The main goal of this study is the introduction and establishment of a new gap filling procedure using radial basis function (RBF) neural networks, which is also applicable under complex environmental conditions. We applied adapted RBF neural networks within a combined modular expert system of neural networks as an innovative approach to fill data gaps in micrometeorological flux time series. We found that RBF networks are superior to multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks in the reproduction of the highly variable turbulent fluxes. In addition, we enhanced the methodology in the field of quality assessment for eddy covariance data. An RBF neural network mapping system was used to identify conditions of a turbulence regime that allows reliable quantification of turbulent fluxes through finding an acceptable minimum of the friction velocity. For the data analysed in this study, the minimum acceptable friction velocity was found to be 0.15 m s⁻¹. The obtained CO₂ fluxes, measured on a tower at 65 m a.g.l., reached average values of 12 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ and fell to nighttime minimum values of 3 μmol m ⁻² s⁻¹. Mean daily CO₂ emissions of 21 g CO₂ m⁻²d ⁻¹ were obtained during our 6-week experiment. Hence, the city centre of Münster appeared to be a significant source of CO₂. The half-hourly average values of water vapour fluxes ranged between 0.062 and 0.989 mmol m⁻² s⁻¹and showed lower variances than the simultaneously measured fluxes of CO₂.     

The Effect of Stratification on the Aerodynamic Roughness Length and Displacement Height

The roughness length, z _0u , and displacement height, d _0u , characterise the resistance exerted by the roughness elements on turbulent flows and provide a conventional boundary condition for a wide range of turbulent-flow problems. Classical laboratory experiments and theories treat z _0u and d _0u as geometric parameters independent of the characteristics of the flow. In this paper, we demonstrate essential stability dependences—stronger for the roughness length (especially in stable stratification) and weaker but still pronounced for the displacement height. We develop a scaling-analysis model for these dependences and verify it against experimental data.     

Large-Eddy Simulation of Flows over Random Urban-like Obstacles

Further to our previous large-eddy simulation (LES) of flow over a staggered array of uniform cubes, a simulation of flow over random urban-like obstacles is presented. To gain a deeper insight into the effects of randomness in the obstacle topology, the current results, e.g. spatially-averaged mean velocity, Reynolds stresses, turbulence kinetic energy and dispersive stresses, are compared with our previous LES data and direct numerical simulation data of flow over uniform cubes. Significantly different features in the turbulence statistics are observed within and immediately above the canopy, although there are some similarities in the spatially-averaged statistics. It is also found that the relatively high pressures on the tallest buildings generate contributions to the total surface drag that are far in excess of their proportionate frontal area within the array. Details of the turbulence characteristics (like the stress anisotropy) are compared with those in regular roughness arrays and attempts to find some generality in the turbulence statistics within the canopy region are discussed.     

Source attribution of urban smog episodes caused by coal combustion

Stable weather conditions together with extensive use of coal combustion often lead to severe smog episodes in certain urban environments, especially in Eastern Europe. In order to identify the specific sources that cause the smog episodes in such environments, and to better understand the mixing state and atmospheric processing of aerosols, both single particle and bulk chemical characterization analysis of aerosols were performed in Krakow, Poland, during winter 2005.Real-time measurements of the bulk PM10 aerosol during a severe smog episode (PM10 mass > 400 µg m^− 3) showed a stable concentration of black carbon in the aerosol, and an increase in the sulphate and chlorine mass contributions towards the end of the episode. Chemical characterization of single particles further helped to identify residential coal burning as the main source that caused this severe smog episode, consisting of single particles with major signals for carbon with simultaneous absence of sulphate, chlorine and calcium. Particles from industrial coal combustion gained importance towards the end of that episode, after residential coal combustion was switched off, indicated by an increase of the percentage of sulphate and chlorine containing particles. Traffic was not a significant source during the severe smog episode. During a lighter smog episode, residential and industrial coal combustion was still predominant, with an increased contribution of traffic and processed/aged aerosols. On a clean day, particle classes containing nitrate were the most abundant. In addition, the aerosol was more internally mixed showing that there were more sources contributing to the total aerosol population.     

On the Derivation of Input Parameters for Urban Canopy Models from Urban Morphological Datasets

Two techniques are analysed to derive mean street width and mean building width from morphological data of real cities: one based on a two-dimensional simplified morphology, and the other based on a three-dimensional regular simplified morphology. For each simplified morphology (two-dimensional and three-dimensional), the sky-view factors (street-to-sky) are computed and compared with the sky-view factors derived from the real morphology for selected districts of three European and two North American cities. The two-dimensional simplified morphology reproduces the real sky-view factors better than the three-dimensional morphology. Since many urban canopy parameterizations represent the city using simplified morphologies, this can be useful information for the derivation of input parameters for urban canopy parameterizations from real morphological data.     

昆明城市热岛效应变化特征研究

利用昆明周边多个自动气象站观测的2004~2012年温度序列,研究了昆明城市热岛效应的日、季节和年际变化特征,并分析了昆明城市热岛水平分布和变化趋势。昆明城市热岛强度具有明显的日变化,夜间较强,白天较弱。城市热岛强度一般在早上08:00(北京时间,下同)达到最大值,在午后14:00减弱或消失。城市热岛强度在冬季最强,春、秋季次之,夏季最弱。昆明城市热岛强度多年平均值为1.27°C,在2004~2009年期间表现为逐年递减的趋势,其年际变化的主要影响因子是云量。2004~2007年昆明城市热岛中心主要分布在主城区。2008年以后,由于中小城镇经济和人口的迅速发展,昆明城市热岛面积不断扩大,并出现热岛中心向呈贡、石林一带偏移的现象。     

下垫面对雹云形成发展的影响

利用中尺度模式WRF(Weather Research and Forecasting)对2005年5月31日发生在北京地区的一次强冰雹天气过程进行了数值模拟研究,并与观测的雷达回波、冰雹云移动路径和冰雹落区进行比较,在此基础上探讨了城市和农田两种下垫面对雹云的影响。结果表明,由于"城市热岛"效应的作用,城市下垫面的地面感热通量显著增加,有利于雹云的发展增强和大冰雹的形成,使地面累积降雹量增加,但对雹云移动路径影响不大。农田下垫面具有较大的潜热通量,局地蒸发强,有利于大量小冰雹的形成,云中冰雹含量增加,但降雹强度较弱,地面累积降雹量小。