Source Sector Contributions to Aerosol Levels in Pakistan

Urban air pollution in Pakistan is a serious challenge and it causes significant damage to human health and ecosystems. This paper presents a modelling study using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model coupled with Chemistry(WRF-Chem) to simulate the spatial distributions and temporal variations of aerosol concentrations over Pakistan, focusing on contributions of domestic emission sectors(transport, industry, residential, and energy) to mass concentrations of sulfate(SO2–4), nitrate(NO–3), ammonium(NH+4), black carbon(BC), and organic carbon(OC) during the months of January, April, July, and October in 2010. Sensitivity studies indicate that, averaged over January, April, July, and October of 2010, energy and industry sectors have the largest contributions to SO2–4 concentrations, each of which contributes about 10%?20% to SO2– 4over the polluted eastern Pakistan. The contributions from residential and transport sectors to NO–3 concentrations reach 40%?50% in central Pakistan. The residential sector has the highest contribution of 50%–80% to BC and OC loading in northeastern and southern Pakistan. Examination of sector contributions to aerosol levels in Lahore, the most polluted city in Pakistan, suggests that reductions in emissions in the residential sector should be an efficient measure for improving particulate matter air quality in this region.     

The co-location of offshore windfarms and decapod fisheries in the UK: Constraints and opportunities

The offshore wind sector in the UK is expanding rapidly and is set to occupy significant areas of the coastal zone, making it necessary to explore the potential for co-location with other economic activities. The presence of turbine foundations introduces hard substrates into areas previously dominated by soft sediments, implying that artificial reef effects may occur, with potential benefits for fisheries. This review focuses on the possibilities for locating fisheries for two commercially important decapods, the brown crab Cancer pagurus and the European lobster Homarus gammarus, within offshore wind farms.Existing understanding of habitat use by C. pagurus and H. gammarus suggests that turbine foundations have the potential to act as artificial reefs, although the responses of these species to noise and electromagnetic fields are poorly understood. Offshore wind farm monitoring programmes provide very limited information, but do suggest that adult C. pagurus associate with turbine foundations, which may also serve as nursery areas. There was insufficient deployment and monitoring of rock armouring to draw conclusions about the association of H. gammarus with offshore wind farm foundations. The limited information currently available demonstrates the need for further research into the ecological and socio-economic issues surrounding fishery co-location potential.     

Assessment of the dynamic behaviour of saturated soil subjected to cyclic loading from offshore monopile wind turbine foundations

The fatigue life of offshore wind turbines strongly depends on the dynamic behaviour of the structures including the underlying soil. To diminish dynamic amplification and avoid resonance, the eigenfrequency related to the lowest eigenmode of the wind turbine should not coalesce with excitation frequencies related to strong wind, wave and ice loading. Typically, lateral response of monopile foundations is analysed using a beam on a nonlinear Winkler foundation model with soil–pile interaction recommended by the design regulations. However, as it will be shown in this paper, the guideline approaches consequently underestimate the eigenfrequency compared to full-scale measurements. This discrepancy leads the authors to investigate the influence of pore water pressure by utilising a numerical approach and consider the soil medium as a two-phase system consisting of a solid skeleton and a single pore fluid. In the paper, free vibration tests are analysed to evaluate the eigenfrequencies of offshore monopile wind turbine foundations. Since the stiffness of foundation and subsoil strongly affects the modal parameters, the stiffness of saturated soil due to pore water flow generated by cyclic motion of monopiles is investigated using the concept of a Kelvin model. It is found that the permeability of the subsoil has strong influence on the stiffness of the wind turbine that may to some extent explain deviations between experimental and computational eigenfrequencies.     

巴基斯坦山达克矿区ASTER遥感数据蚀变信息提取及找矿预测

巴基斯坦查盖火山岩浆岩带属于特提斯成矿域的重要组成部分之一,是巴基斯坦境内最重要的斑岩型铜矿带,但目前其相关的遥感研究还较少,制约了对该成矿带的找矿潜力分析。本文以山达克矿床及其周边为研究区,对先进星载热辐射与反射辐射计(Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, ASTER)数据进行RBD (Relative absorption band depth)比值假彩色合成、主成分分析、光谱角制图等处理,获得蚀变遥感异常信息分布特征,通过对蚀变特征和主要控矿要素进行遥感研究,建立了山达克矿床遥感找矿模型并开展成矿预测,为该成矿带矿产勘查提供借鉴。根据建立的遥感找矿模型,圈定了找矿预测靶区10处。对矿区东矿体和矿区北部的2个靶区进行野外验证,证实了提取结果与实际地质事实吻合较好,对矿区岩石样品进行光谱实测,表明样品实测光谱曲线与标准矿物光谱曲线的吸收特征位置高度相似,证实了研究区绢云母化、青磐岩化等蚀变较强且分布较广。结果表明本次研究提取的矿化蚀变结果可信度较高,可为后续找矿勘查工作提供参考。     

Industry-academe linkages in the Philippines: Embedding foreign investors,capturing institutions?

The global sourcing of services from developing countries has made human capital a key local asset for attracting foreign direct investment. This paper analyses to what extent individual companies engage in linkages and collaborations with universities and how the education sector responds to the new demands of the knowledge economy. Offshore services are generally recognised as ‘footloose’ investments with limited local linkages. A case study of industry-academe linkages in the growing business process outsourcing sector in the Philippines finds that foreign investors engage in active embedding and develop linkages with human resource providers, leading to increased territorial embeddedness. This paper investigates the kind of linkages created, which actors engage in them and their motivations, to understand the resulting implications for local economic development. Interviews with foreign investors and higher education institutions reveal that most collaboration is initiated by large call centre companies and focuses on entry-level skills development for their operations. I argue that multinational corporations have been able to capture local institutions and introduce changes in the education system to supply mainly lower-end skills. While increasing the available talent pool and raising the competitiveness for further investments, this presents challenges for upgrading into higher value-added services and potentially transforms the country into a dependent market economy.     

Displacement transfer from fault-bend to fault-propagation fold geometry: An example from the Himalayan thrust front

The leading edge of the ENE-trending Himalayan thrust front in Pakistan exhibits along-strike changes in deformational style, ranging from fault-bend to fault-propagation folds. Although the structural geometry is very gently deformed throughout the Salt Range, it becomes progressively more complex to the east as the leading edge of the emergent Salt Range Thrust becomes blind. Surface geology, seismic reflection, petroleum well, and chronostratigraphic data are synthesized to produce a 3-D kinematic model that reconciles the contrasting structural geometries along this part of the Himalayan thrust front. We propose a model whereby displacement was transferred, across a newly-identified lateral ramp, from a fault-bend fold in the west to fault-propagation folds in the east and comparable shortening was synchronously accommodated by two fundamentally different mechanisms: translation vs. telescoping. However, substantially different shortening distribution patterns within these structurally contrasting segments require a tear fault, which later is reactivated as a thrust fault. The present geometry of this S-shaped displacement transfer zone is a combined result of the NW–SE compression of the lateral culmination wall and associated tear fault, and their subsequent modification due to mobilization of underlying ductile salt.     

The stable aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonist potency of United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS) offshore produced water effluents

The in vitro aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) agonist potency of offshore produced water effluents, collected from the United Kingdom Continental Shelf, was determined using the dioxin responsive (DR)-chemically activated luciferase expression (CALUX) assay. Octadecylsilane (C18) solid phase extraction (SPE) extracts of produced water were exposed to DR-CALUX cells for 24 h in order to investigate the contribution in potency from compounds that are stable to metabolism by the CALUX cells during exposure. The stable AhR agonist potency determined over 24 h was highly variable and ranged from 1 to 430 ng TCDD TEQ_CALUX l⁻¹. These data reflect the highly variable composition of produced water discharges from different production fields. It is recommended that further work be performed to characterise the full range of stable dioxin like AhR agonists present in offshore produced water discharges using techniques such as bioassay-directed analysis.     

The mud volcanoes of Pakistan

Marine-geologic investigations on the Arabian Sea by Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR) in 1995 and 1998, and land expeditions in 1998 and 1999 to the coastal regions of the Makran Desert/Pakistan have extended the knowledge of the aerial distribution of mud volcanoes. These structures rise from under-compacted formations within the regional accretionary prism, which is built by the subduction of the oceanic crust of the Arabian Sea and its km-thick sedimentary load. The occurrence of mud volcanoes is limited to the abyssal plain near the accretionary front, to the coastal region of the Makran Desert and to a region in the interior of the Desert to the south to southeast of the so-called Hinglay Synform. The location of mud volcanoes in Pakistan is clearly tied to fault systems. Mud volcanoes are conspicuously absent on the lower slope of the accretionary prism, where thick gas hydrate layers have developed. The presence of large gas plumes emerging from the seafloor landward of the gas hydrate stability zone at water depths of less than 800 m points to a redirection of fluids from depth, which might explain the absence of mud volcanoes along the lower slope.     

Accessibility for High Asia： Comparative Perspectives on Northern Pakistan＇s Traffic Infrastructure and Linkages with Its Neighbours in the Hindukush-Karakoram- Himalaya

Starting with a discussion of development concepts which were applied in practice and which followed the developmentalist paradigm the expansion of traffic infrastructure in colonial and post-colonial periods is presented for the High Asian mountain rim. Selective railways and roads are the major feature of this development, which aimed first on serving the convenience of hill station visitors and followed strategic considerations later on. This bias between regional planning and implementation remains a characteristic feature. At the same time traffic infrastructure without asphalt roads is important for the mountain areas, thus breaking up the strong correlation between development and asphalt roads.     

Entering the field: Examining the relevance of political ecology to the agrarian struggle of Anjuman Muzareen Punjab in Pakistan

The widening empirical and theoretical scope of political ecology has been accompanied by discussions on the coherence and content of the field. While these evaluations necessarily focus on what is included in the conceptual boundaries of political ecology, little is said about what is left out. This paper considers the struggle for land rights by Anjuman Muzareen Punjab, a movement of tenant farmers in Pakistan, to illustrate how changing research priorities, difficulties in crossing theoretical and conceptual boundaries, and geopolitics and research access can hinder the visibility of particular forms of socioenvironmental events in mainstream political ecology scholarship.