Unsiting Nuclear Power Plants: Decommissioning Risks and Their Land Use Context*

Nuclear power plant siting provided the first significant public opportunity to examine nuclear safety and to affect nuclear policy. These discussions were prompted and fueled by perceptions of nuclear risk. Now, as we begin the process of nuclear decommissioning, we are finding that power plant removal—unsiting–is also likely to attract public interest. This paper presents a preliminary survey of how we are likely to react to this emerging theme, applying these findings within a land use context to see if it is likely to produce issues salient to the public. In so doing it also examines how these issues could affect decommissioning timing and type. It suggests that the most likely prospect is that power plants will remain on the landscape long after they are closed.     

Modelling of soil temperature profiles using data from the pilot experiment at Anand

We present some preliminary results from a multi-layer soil temperature finite-difference model using the data set obtained during the pilot experiment on land surface processes at Anand. We hope that the present results will prove useful during the final field experiments scheduled for the coming monsoon season.     

Conservation tillage and input use

 There continues to be a question as to the overall effectiveness of conservation tillage practices in reducing the impact of agricultural production on the environment. While it is generally recognized that water runoff and soil erosion will decline further, as tillage and mulch tillage systems are not used more extensively on cropland, what will happen to pesticide and fertilizer use remains uncertain. To gain some insight into this, the conservation tillage adoption decision is modelled. On the assumption that the decision to adopt conservation tillage is a two-step procedure, the first decision is whether or not to adopt a conservation tillage production system and the second concerns the extent to which conservation tillage should be used – appropriate models of the Cragg and Heckman (dominance) type are estimated. Based on farm-level data on corn production in the United States for 1987, the profile of a farm on which conservation tillage was adopted is that the cropland had above-average slope and experienced above-average rainfall, the farm was a cash grain enterprise, and it had an above-average expenditure on pesticides and a below-average expenditure on fuel and custom pesticide applications. Additionally, for a farm adopting a no-tillage production practice, an above-average expenditure was made on fertilizer. Received: 18 September 1995 · Accepted: 6 December 1995     

Causes of Land Subsidence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The occurrence of land subsidence in the Kingdom Saudi Arabia is either natural or man-made. Natural land subsidence occurs due to the development of subterranean voids by a solution of host rocks in carbonate and evaporite terrains, over many areas of Saudi Arabia. Man-induced land subsidence is either due to the removal of groundwater in the agricultural areas or to wetting of unstable soils. Therefore, earth fissures and a lowering of the ground surface in unconsolidated sediments took place in alluvial plains and volcanic vent terrains. Unstable soils include Sabkha soils and loess sediments. These types of soils occur in coastal plains, desert areas and volcanic terrains. When this soil is wetted either during agricultural activities, waste disposal or even during a rain storm, subsidence takes place due to either the removal of salts from the Sabkha soil or the rearrangement of soil particles in loess sediments.     

我国北方农牧交错带的环境演变

中国北方农牧交错带在１０～８．５ｋａＢ．Ｐ．经历了三次阶段性增暖后进入全新世暖期。８．５～８．０ｋａＢ．Ｐ．和４～３．５ｋａＢ．Ｐ．暖期的开始与结束事件中降水变化落后于温度变化３００～５００ａ；暖期盛期时的年均温较现代高２～３℃，降水多１００ｍｍ左右；暖期中存在多次短期寒冷事件，年均温最冷时较现代低３℃以上。３．５ｋａＢ．Ｐ．以来冷干趋势之上叠加着大致由３００ａ稳定与５００ａ波动构成的约８００ａ的周期性变化。全新世暖期原始农业文化的阶段性发展与暖期内环境波动相对应；暖期结束时发生了由农业向牧业文化转换的事件；暖期以后的冷干期为农牧交错文化时期，农业经济随冷干程度的变化而兴衰     

破坏性地震应急预案管理子系统的开发构想

本文阐述了以地震应急指挥流程为框架并基于WEB的管理系统的实现方案 ,对管理系统的使用和维护提出了相关建议。     

Simulation Experiments of Land Surface Physical Processes and Ecological Effect over Different Underlying Surface

Based on the existing Land Surface Physical Process Models(Deardorff, Dickinson, LIU, Noilhan, Seller, ZHAO), a Comprehensive Land Surface Physical Process Model (CLSPPM) is developed by considering the different physical processes of the earth‘s surface-vegetation-atmosphere system more completely. Compared with SiB and BATS, which are famous for their detailed parameterizations of physical variables, this simplified model is more convenient and saves much more computation time. Though simple, the feas...     

建设用地地质灾害危险性评估中几个问题的思考

结合工作实践，就建设用地地质灾害危险性评估及其成果审查工作中经常遇到的5个问题——评估灾害类型的确定原则，评估区环境条件分析深度的把握，现状、预测及综合地质灾害危险性评估内容的侧重点，土地适宜性评价的依据以及优秀评估成果的判定标准，提出了个人的理解和认识。供从事类似工作的同志参考。     

Method of high-density seismic imaging ex-ploration and application samples

Introduction Now, shallow seismic reflection wave technique has been used extensively in geological ex-plorations of bridge, dam, high building and so on. Since shallow seismic reflection wave tech-nique is often implemented in industrial zone or city with dense population, the background dis-turbance including industrial noise, life noise, etc is very serious. Furthermore, the disturbance of seismic source is also serious due to short array length and offset of the method. In general, shal-lo…     

An experimental study on seismic responses of multifunctional vibration‐absorption reinforced concrete megaframe structures

Two models are tested on a shake‐table. One of the models is a normal reinforced concrete megaframe structure and the other is a multifunctional vibration‐absorption reinforced concrete megaframe structure in which the laminated rubber bearings are placed between the major frame and the minor frames. Two earthquake motions (the El Centro wave and the Taft wave) are used during the test. This paper presents the dynamic characteristic, the seismic responses and the failure mechanism of these two models under varying peak acceleration levels for each of the earthquake motions. The test results demonstrate that the aseismic behavior of a multifunctional vibration‐absorption reinforced concrete megaframe structure is much better than that of a normal reinforced concrete megaframe structure. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.