Efficient use of resources: urban waste ash and soil fertility on the Jos Plateau, Nigeria

Waste disposal constitutes an acute problem in numerous African cities. One solution could lie in the recycling of the nutrient-rich waste into agriculture taking place in and around cities. Farmers involved in vegetable production around Jos, Nigeria, have developed a sophisticated soil fertility management strategy combining inorganic fertilizers, manure and urban waste ash. This paper: (1) investigates the socio-economic constraints linked to obtaining scarce organic inputs, particularly urban waste ash and the health hazards (particularly heavy metal contamination of soil and crops) caused by using this ash and (2) suggests ways to improve use of this important resource.     

北京城市建设的地质环境问题

在论述地质环境与北京城市建设关系和分析北京地区地质环境特点的基础上，提出城市建设与保护地质环境的个人建议。     

杭州城区“最具出游力”人群休闲旅游障碍性因素的实证分析

休闲旅游作为一种旅游方式和休闲活动内容越来越受到重视，通过对杭州市“最具出游力”人群调查，运用旅游地理学分析方法发现，影响他们进行休闲旅游的因素最重要的是时间因素、交通因素和学习因素，传统观点中的经济因素地位明显下降；同时分析了不同职业、性别和年龄人员中各因素作用的差异。这种实证性的调查分析方法和结论对于休闲旅游理论和杭州市休闲产业的发展都有一定意义。     

基于城市体系的长江三角洲旅游地域系统研究

首先分析了长江三角洲旅游资源的分布格局及长三角旅游发展的整体性现状，认为长三角旅游整体发展的协调性不足。然后从城市体系与区域旅游整体发展耦合的角度出发，引入了长江三角洲城市体系的规模结构、空间结构、交通网络结构和城市群内部经济联系的分析研究，并以此划分出了长三角两个层次的旅游地域系统，给出了长三角地域旅游城市网络体系的空间组织。最后提出了长三角区域旅游产业联动发展的对策和建议。     

洱海环境演变与大理城市发展的关系研究

针对洱海特殊的生态环境和对大理城市发展所起的举足轻重的作用，2002年通过实地环境调查和系列历史及动态资料分析进行了洱海和大理城市之问人地关系的互动研究。概括出大理城市发展的5个阶段，结果表明人类生存场所发展的总趋势是从高处往低处下移，从山前台地向下迁往山缘冲积洪积扇平原，直至湖滨平原地带。并着重分析了变迁的原因和人类活动的影响状况，从而使人们在开发利用洱海的同时，促进人类活动和城市发展建设相得益彰，并建议选择旅游和供水为主的和谐可持续发展道路，强化政府的宏观管理，增大科技投入。     

中国城市职能分类研究综述

城市职能分类的研究一直以来就是城市地理学研究的重要领域。在简要回顾中国城市职能分类研究的主要成果和观点的基础上，从研究的阶段性角度将城市职能分类分为研究初步展开、研究发展、研究逐步完善3个时期；并提出为适应新形势的发展，城市职能分类研究将在拓展研究对象、创新研究方法、完善数据指标体系、充分利用研究成果等方面得到完善和提高。     

Chemical effects of a near-to-nature detention pond on a small urban headwater

The near-to-nature approach has been established as best practice for stormwater management. However, pollutant mobility within such systems and its impact on small receiving waters are partly unexplained. The study takes place in an urbanised headwater catchment in south-western Germany with an area of 0.4 km². Runoff from roofs, roads, parking lots and gardens is collected in wells or trenches and stored in private and public dry detention basins. Accordingly, this study investigates pollutant input to a detention pond, removal efficiency and the associated effects on the receiving water.Grab samples with high temporal resolution of the receiving water (16 flood events with 315 samples and 41 baseflow samples), the three inflows of the detention basin and its outflow (four flood events with 64 samples) were taken. The outflow of the dry pond is recovered in the hydro- and chemographs of the receiving water. Runoff from roads with increased traffic volume caused the highest PAH inputs and runoff from the residential area showed the highest zinc concentrations, which partly infringe European Environmental Quality Standards. Yearly pollutant inputs (DOC, TSS, PAH, nutrients, metals) from the settlement into the tributary are reduced in the detention pond by up to 80%.     

Characterizing and classifying urban watersheds with compositional and structural attributes

Current land-use classifications used to assess urbanization effects on stream water quality date back to the 1980s when limited information was available to characterize watershed attributes that mediate non-point source pollution. With high resolution remote sensing and widely used GIS tools, there has been a vast increase in the availability and precision of geospatial data of built environments. In this study, we leverage geospatial data to expand the characterization of developed landscapes and create a typology that allows us to better understand the impact of complex developed landscapes across the rural to urban gradient. We assess the ability of the developed landscape typology to reveal patterns in stream water chemistry previously undetected by traditional land-cover based classification. We examine the distribution of land-cover, infrastructure, topography and geology across 3876 National Hydrography Dataset Plus catchments in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, USA. From this dataset, we generate metrics to evaluate the abundance, density and position of landscape features relative to streams, catchment outlets and topographic wetness metrics. While impervious surfaces are a key distinguishing feature of the urban landscape, sanitary infrastructure, population density and geology are better predictors of baseflow stream water chemistry. Unsupervised clustering was used to generate a distinct developed landscape typology based on the expanded, high-resolution landscape feature information. Using stream chemistry data from 37 developed headwater catchments, we compared the baseflow water chemistry grouped by traditional land-cover based classes of urbanization (rural, low, medium and high density) to our composition and structure-based classification (a nine-class typology). The typology based on 22 metrics of developed landscape composition and structure explained over 50% of the variation in NO₃⁻-N, TDN, DOC, Cl⁻, and Br⁻ concentration, while the ISC-based classification only significantly explained 23% of the variation in TDN. These results demonstrate the importance of infrastructure, population and geology in defining developed landscapes and improving discrete classes for water management.     

Three dimensional numerical simulation of residential building on shrink–swell soils in response to climatic conditions

Shrink–swell soils can cause distresses in buildings, and every year, the economic loss associated with this problem is huge. This paper presents a comprehensive system for simulating the soil–foundation–building system and its response to daily weather conditions. Weather data include rainfall, solar radiation, air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed, all of which are readily available from a local weather station or the Internet. These data are used to determine simulation flux boundary conditions. Different methods are proposed to simulate different boundary conditions: bare soil, trees, and vegetation. A coupled hydro‐mechanical stress analysis is used to simulate the volume change of shrink–swell soils due to both mechanical stress and water content variations. Coupled hydro‐mechanical stress‐jointed elements are used to simulate the interaction between the soil and the slab, and general shell elements are used to simulate structural behavior. All the models are combined into one finite element program to predict the entire system's behavior. This paper first described the theory for the simulations. A site in Arlington, Texas, is then selected to demonstrate the application of the proposed system. Simulation results are shown, and a comparison between measured and predicted movements for four footings in Arlington, Texas, over a 2‐year period is presented. Finally, a three‐dimensional simulation is made for a virtual residential building on shrink–swell soils to identify the influence of various factors. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of daily stream water temperatures with a Bayesian regression approach

Stream water temperature plays a significant role in aquatic ecosystems where it controls many important biological and physical processes. Reliable estimates of water temperature at the daily time step are critical in managing water resources. We developed a parsimonious piecewise Bayesian model for estimating daily stream water temperatures that account for temporal autocorrelation and both linear and nonlinear relationships with air temperature and discharge. The model was tested at 8 climatically different basins of the USA and at 34 sites within the mountainous Boise River Basin (Idaho, USA). The results show that the proposed model is robust with an average root mean square error of 1.25 °C and Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient of 0.92 over a 2‐year period. Our approach can be used to predict historic daily stream water temperatures in any location using observed daily stream temperature and regional air temperature data.