Sustainable Development of Water and Environment

The degradation of permafrost as a result of the development of destructive cryogenic processes leads to the fact that microorganisms, which for a long time were preserved in the permafrost strata, are carried out into modern aquatic biocenoses, belonging to earlier geological epochs with different climatic and ecological conditions than modern ones. The aim of the work was to study the influence of the metabolites of bacteria of the genera Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Listeria, isolated from the permafrost of the Subarctic zone of Russia, on the morphophysiological parameters of the unicellular hydrobionts Paramecium caudatum Ehrenberg. It has been shown that the secondary metabolites of bacteria of ancient natural cryolithozone ecosystems may have a negative effect on the physiological parameters of single-cell hydrobionts. The bacterial metabolites obtained at different temperatures vary in the severity of the effects on the biological parameters of Paramecium caudatum Ehrenberg. Secondary metabolites of bacteria, obtained at a temperature of +4 °C, in most cases have a less pronounced toxic effect. Considering global climate change in the direction of warming and anthropogenic conditions leading to the degradation of permafrost and subsequent removal of microorganisms into aquatic biocenoses, it is necessary to systematically monitor the aquatic environment to determine the biological activity of both microorganisms and their metabolites with the purpose of predicting possible environmental impacts.

The main sources of irrigation water for irrigating crops comes from major rivers. Usually these water sources which can be used for irrigating various crops could be very vulnerable to contamination. The aim of the study was to determine the physical, chemical and microbial water quality of the different irrigation sources in Tarlac and to compare it with the existing water quality guidelines stipulated in the DENR AO 08 Series of 2016. The water samples collected from the surface water of different rivers were subjected to laboratory analysis. Higher TSS was found to be during wet season as compared during the dry season. Higher COD was found both in dry and wet seasons in Benig river. All of the major rivers have a less than 0.05 mg/l lead and 0.0002 mg/l mercury based from the result of the laboratory analysis. The highest dissolved oxygen was found to be within the Tarlac River both during the dry and wet season. Comparing with the National standards from the DENR the major rivers of Tarlac surpasses the minimum standards of classification of water bodies with dissolved oxygen ranging from 2 to 6 mg/l. The lowest dissolved oxygen was found in Concepcion River during the dry season (5.0 mg/l) and in Rio Chico River (4.8 mg/l) during the wet season. Higher total dissolved solids were observed in the different rivers during the dry season which ranges from 300 to 560 mg/l as compared during the wet season which ranges from 169 to 540 mg/l respectively. The nitrate concentrations of the different rivers in Tarlac shows to be within the range of the National Standards of the DENR. Higher concentrations of E. coli and fecal coliform count were also noted within the different rivers of Tarlac.

In this study, the effects of UV-LED on the inactivation of Escherichia coli in water were studied. The effects of turbidity, humic acid and inorganic cation on this process were examined and a preliminary analysis of the mechanism by which UV-LED inactivates E. coli was performed. Our results showed that turbidity and HA had no significant effects on E. coli inactivation under a UV radiation dose of 24.48 mJ/cm². Cu²⁺ promoted UV-LED-mediated Escherichia coli inactivation while Ca²⁺ inhibited the process. Zn²⁺, Cl⁻, CO₃²⁻ and SO₄²⁻ had no significant effects on the inactivation of E. coli by UV-LED. Nucleic acids released in the system indicated that the bactericidal effect of UV-LED was primarily mediated through damage to the nucleic acids.

Sediment quality monitoring are amongst the highest priorities of environmental protection policy. Their main objective is to control and minimise the incidence of pollutant—oriented problems, and to provide for water of appropriate quality to serve various purposes such as drinking water supply, irrigation water etc. The present work aimed to investigate the pollutants levels of some heavy metals (Fe, Mn, Al, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb) in the sediments relate to acid mine drainage (AMD) producing from abandoned sulphide mine in Smolnik in eastern of Slovakia. Studies on environmental radioactivity in this area is scarce. Therefore, a baseline study of natural (238U, 226Ra, 40K) radionuclides was carried out on Smolnik Creek surface sediments and on their radiological significance. Grab surface sediment samples were collected from 5 stations and their radioactivity concentrations measured by gamma spectrometry. The estimated radionuclide activity index, total absorbed dose rate in air (D), radium equivalent activity (Raeq), external hazard index (Hex), annual effective dose equivalent (AEDE) and indicated no significant radiological risks from the sediment radioactivity concentrations.

Being different from the traditional analysis of urban expansion in Shanghai from the perspective of humanities or urban geography, this study applies the Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) spatial information technologies to analyze the spatio-temporal characteristics and evolution of urban land expansion in Shanghai’s urbanization process. It provides a basis for further research on the mechanism of urbanization process. In this study, we processed and analyzed the multi-temporal remote sensing images (Landsat series) in Shanghai from 1995 to 2016. A multidimensional feature space was constructed. Then the image classification was carried out by the support vector machine (SVM). On the basis of classification results, the central city zone was extracted by method of regional connectivity. After analyzing the change of area, center of gravity, location and spatial distribution of the central city zone, the spatial layout and trend of urban expansion are obtained. Finally, the driving force of urban expansion in Shanghai is analyzed. The analysis results accurately reflect the process of Shanghai’s urban expansion.

The green and low carbon is a development trend of the city in the future. One of the ways to realize the green low carbon is the construction of roof garden. The roof garden plays an important role in improving the local microclimate to realize the sustainable development, such as improving the effect of urban heat island, beautifying the environment, reducing pollution, etc. The paper concluded the rule of the roof garden of green building in making low carbon city and beautifying the environment, and put forward a kind of innovative design pattern of roof garden scenery that can meet the needs of people.

Based on soapless emulsion polymerization and dispersion polymerization, two kinds of sulfonated polystyrene microspheres were synthesized. Taking them as carrier, four kinds of SPS@Ag microspheres were prepared, i.e. SPS₁@Ag(NaBH₄), SPS₁@Ag(PVP), SPS₂@Ag(NaBH₄), and SPS₂@Ag(PVP), by NaBH₄/PVP reduction methods. SPS₁@Ag(PVP) was the best one, the nZVAg was about 20 nm and uniformly supported on SPS; the loading capacity was maximum. SPS supported nZVFe/Ag (SPS@nZVFe/Ag) was successfully prepared by chemical reduction. Part of nZVI was homogeneously covered on the surface of SPS₁@nZVAg and others existed as particles with size of 30–100 nm. The loading content of nZVI was 0.254 g/g. Taking 3-chlorophenol (3-CP) as model pollutant, the reactivity of SPS@nZVFe/Ag was carefully studied. The influence of the mole ratio of Ag/Fe and initial solution pH on the reactivity of SPS@nZVFe/Ag were investigated. At optimal reaction condition, 97% 3-CP in 50 mL 20 mg/L 3-CP solution (pH = 5) was reduced into phenol by about 0.344 g SPS@nZVFe/Ag (Ag/Fe = 0.041) at 20 °C, under stirring (110 r/min) within 10 min. The reaction was agreed with the pseudo first-order kinetics model. The reaction rate was very fast and the K_obs was 0.684 min⁻¹, which should attribute to both the electrochemical effect between Fe⁰ and Ag⁰, and the good hydrophily of SPS@nZVFe/Ag due to the –HSO₃ group on the carrier. In generally, SPS@nZVFe/Ag showed excellent reductive activity which suggested SPS@nZVFe/Ag had high potential practical application value in the reductive degradation of chlorophenol pollutant.

Due to serious environmental impact from huge amount of energy and water resource consumption in industrial processes, the industries have been looking for new systems based on renewable energy. Performance of the directly-irradiated fluidized gas heater (50 mm-ID × 100 mm high) with silicone carbide particles has been determined for the application of exhaust steam reuse in the low- and medium temperature processes. The minimum fluidization velocity (U_mf) of SiC is 0.0054 m/s, where the solar receiver was operated for keeping the fluidization state. The bed temperature shows a maximum value of about 200 °C around 0.013–0.021 m/s of gas velocity. It is considered that a high gas temperature is obtained in the vicinity of the minimum bubbling velocity where small bubbles are formed. The produced heat energy increases up to 18 W with increasing gas velocity. The optimum condition in this study is around 0.050 m/s. The energy efficiency was calculated to be 14%. A possible improvement of the gas heater has been proposed based on the experimental results.

Water pollution is one of the most significant environmental issues in China and the world. Electron beam (EB) treatment of water, which is a new technology for water treatment, provides a new way to remove the pollutants that can’t be degraded by traditional water treatment technology. For the past few decades, the biological and chemical effect of electron beam (EB) on wastewater has been studied a lot. Comparatively less attention has been paid on the hydrodynamic behavior of the flow reactors for water treatment by electron beam (EB reactors). The hydrodynamic behavior of EB reactor is crucially important for EB treatment efficiency. In this paper, EB reactors were analyzed and compared, the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of EB reactors were briefly reviewed. Previous studies on EB reactors mainly focus on the experimental study on velocity, depth and mean absorbed dose of the flow formed by EB reactors, ignoring the detailed hydrodynamics of the EB reactor and its effect on the absorbed dose distribution. Further research area on EB reactors was proposed. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) method should be used to study the velocity, depth and density distribution of the flow formed by EB reactors. The Monte Carlo method, integrated with the CFD simulation result, should be used to study the absorbed dose distribution of EB reactors and therefore optimize the EB reactors to make the absorbed dose evenly distributed.

Environmental assessment of buildings and materials’ impacts is of great importance because of reduction of the negative influence of construction sector to the environment. The paper presents a study of the environmental evaluation of the vertical structures made of brick, aerated concrete and reinforced concrete as core wall materials. Two types of the insulation materials were considered whereas the material composition of the walls was designed to ensure the same thermal performance of the structure. For each material composition, the following environmental indicators were calculated per 1 m² of the structure: the primary energy (PEI), the global warming potential (GWP) and the acidification potential (AP). The calculation was based on the unit data originating from a selected Life cycle analysis (LCA) data-base. Multi-criterial analysis was applied to identify the most appropriate composition when considering also the physical parameters of the walls. The findings revealed that the most environmentally sound wall composition was represented by aerated concrete insulated by graphite polystyrene.

With the rapid development of economy, the quality of atmospheric environment is gradually getting worse, and the frequent occurrence of haze weather has seriously affected people’s lives. Taking Jinan City as the research object, this paper adopts the method of principal component analysis, and selects 13 indexes such as regional gross product, secondary industry proportion, motor vehicle ownership, central heating area, etc. Based on the data from 2007 to 2016, this paper analyzes the haze pollution situation in Jinan City. The results show that from 2007 to 2015, the haze pollution situation in Jinan City showed an upward trend. In 2015, the haze pollution in Jinan City reached its peak. After that, the haze pollution change showed a downward trend until 2016, and the atmospheric environment gradually improved. Two principal components were extracted from the results of principal component analysis. Among them, the socioeconomic factors with variance contribution rate of 65% contributed the most to the haze pollution in Jinan City, followed by the natural environment factors.

In order to make a comprehensive assessment of adsorption performance for oil sorbent, a three-level indicator system is set up, which consists of three second class indicators, namely static adsorption property, spot operation property, energy saving and environment protection property and nine third class indicators like oil absorption rate, water absorption rate, oil-holding rate and so on. According to the five class evaluation principle, the score comparison table, can be derived based on the test results of oil sorbent. Weights for indexes at every level are calculated with analytic hierarchy process. Through the above-mentioned evaluation methods, eight alternative oil sorbents are sorted, which offers scientific decision-making basis for enterprise enterprise.

A 3D model was constructed to optimize the remediation scheme of groundwater environment which was contaminated through leaching from the municipal solid waste landfill. Based on groundwater sampling test results, potassium permanganate index (COD_Mn) was selected as a pollution indicator with high concentration. Two scenarios were predicted in this study. Scenario 1 is assigned for the combination of a horizontal landfill barrier covers by high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and monitored natural recovery (MNR). Scenario 2 is resulted from the combination of horizontal and vertical barrier technology and pumping treatment (P-T). The results showed that the leachate could be well controlled by Scenario 2. Applying of Scenario 2 plays an important role of restoring the quality of groundwater to its nature after 2000 days as compared to Scenario 1, which needs more than 6000 days. The usefulness of anti-seepage measures regarding leachate control in landfill has been put forwarded, and findings could be applied according to the evaluation of actual contamination sites. This study will provide a scientific basis to utilize the groundwater resources sustainably in the study area.

The Indus River plays an important role in both India and Pakistan’s food and energy security through irrigation and hydropower. Despite the presence of an international agreement, the Indus Water Treaty, tensions between the two states over the river have persisted since partition. As such, the Indus has come to be governed along nationalistic and technocratic lines, with little coordination or cooperation between the two dominant riparian countries. This approach has resulted infrastructure construction and engineers being prioritised over environmental or social considerations on both sides of the border. By taking a discourse based approach, the transboundary water governance of the Indus River is unpacked to demonstrate how actors in both India and Pakistan utilise discursive tactics to maintain this policy approach. As such, discourse is shown to be ‘stuck’ in a state termed as discourse inertia. This inertia prevents the introduction of new actors and management approaches into the discourse, allowing both states to seek to control the river through an infrastructure-orientated and technocratic approach. Such an approach tends to results in negative social and environmental externalities as well as increased regional tensions.

With rapid socio-economic developments, significant exploitation of groundwater has emerged as a serious environmental concern. In order to alleviate groundwater over-exploitation and determine a reasonable mining layout, a groundwater numerical simulation model was used in this study for the years 2014 to 2023. Simulations were conducted for various scenarios, including current conditions, agricultural water saving, groundwater replacement, and a comprehensive scenario. The results showed that under the current mining scenario, the groundwater level in the entire area decreased with a water budget of −0.45 × 10⁸ m³/a. Agricultural water saving can raise the groundwater level in most areas and groundwater replacement can efficiently control the drawdown funnels. However, the effect of a single measure is not comprehensive. Therefore, a utilisation coefficient of irrigation water at 0.7 and a 100% replacement of groundwater sources was established as a comprehensive scenario which resulted in groundwater level recovery and the disappearance of drawdown funnels by the end of 2023. Additionally, the groundwater flow returned to its natural direction from south to north and the northern water level was simulated to be higher than 0 m which would effectively prevent seawater intrusion. The conclusion can provide a reasonable reference for other areas facing similar challenges.

This paper establishes a solution for describing the mechanical behavior of low-permeability rock considering fluid-solid coupling. The proposed model is applied in numerical method to explore the stability of underground water sealed cave by considering the hydro-mechanics of low-permeability rock during excavation. This paper draws the following findings: Fluid seepage causes the increasing of the displacement of caverns, especially for the displacement at the bottom of caverns. Fluid seepage causes the reduction of stress in surrounding rock around water sealed caverns during excavation, whereas the plastic strains of surrounding rock increase due to the effect of fluid seepage.

A new humidification-dehumidification seawater desalination system combined with the solar chimney is proposed in the present study. The proposed system consists of the solar collectors, two-tower solar chimney updraft wind system and the sea water condensers. Mathematical models are built to analyze the solar collector, the chimney and the condensers respectively. The performance of the system is simulated. The monthly fresh water generation is calculated. It is found from the study that, the system with the similar dimension of the Spanish solar chimney power plant prototype can averagely generate fresh water of 1.51 kg/h, when the average solar radiation is 598.66 MJ/m².

In order to study the ability of emergent hydrophytes on the water restoration of Wuliangsu Lake in Inner Mongolia by chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrogen and phosphorus, three macrophytes species (Typha latifolia L., Zizania latifolia Turcz. and Iris pseudacorus L.) were treated with various concentrations of TN/TP/COD (T1: 2.0/0.4/40 mg L⁻¹, T2: 4.0/0.8/80 mg L⁻¹ and T3: 320/60/8 mg L⁻¹). The results showed that planting emergent hydrophytes were more effective at reducing concentrations of COD, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) than unplanted. Under the same treatment, the removal of TN was the best after planting Zizania latifolia Turcz., and the removal of TP was the best after planting Iris pseudacorus L. The removal effect of COD on each planting emergent hydrophytes were about 50%. However, the difference between treatments is not significant.

With the acceleration of China’s urbanization process, the expanding city scale has caused serious damage to the urban water system and natural water processes, which has led to the increasingly serious urban rainfall flood disasters. Developed countries have more experience in urban diseases, so the research on urban stormwater management and utilization has been Relatively well. For the study of the impact mechanism of green land demurrage, foreign countries have a relatively complete theoretical system and a large number of case practice tests. These rich practical experiences can be used as a reference for China. However, combined with China’s special national conditions and regional characteristics, we still need to carry out deeper and more local research. While domestic research on green land rain and flood detention is concentrated in water conservancy, plant protection and other disciplines, lacking different environmental characteristics for the city, In the perspective of macro-planning, the quantitative calculation of green space depletion efficiency capacity based on factors such as soil conditions, vegetation types, rainfall conditions.Urban green space is the main natural carrier of the rain stagnant. It is the main part of the construction of the sponge city. However, the currently attention of urban green space planning more focus on the ecological function such as oxygen release. It is relatively insufficient on the evaluation and planning studies on the efficacy of green area rainwater stagnation. By establishing the quantitative relationship between the characteristics of rainfall, runoff, soil, vegetation and other factors and the stagnant capacity of green space rainwater, the comprehensive impact mechanism is evaluated, and the artificial measures of rainwater control are combined to adjust the spatial pattern of urban green space, which is to improve the green storage efficiency. The use of indispensable content is also an inevitable development trend in the application of rainwater flood management in future urban green space depletion efficiency.

In this paper, the InVEST model was applied to simulate the quantity of water supply of the source area of the Yellow River, China based on land use data of 1990, 2000 and 2010 extracted from the Landsat TM imageries. The CA-Markov model was then used to simulate the land cover in 2020, and the water supply in 2020 was predicted based on land cover of 2020. The results suggested that the primary land cover type of the source area of the Yellow River was grassland from 1990 to 2000, and the land cover changed mainly from higher ecological level to lower one at a rapid speed in the early stage. But from 2000 to 2010, the decline of vegetation area slowed greatly, which indicated a change from degradation to recovery. The rank of water supply capacities per unit area of different land cover types were shrub, construction land, high coverage grassland, middle coverage grassland, bare land, forest land, low coverage grassland, cultivated land, and wetland. The distribution of the water supply capacity was from the high-value zone in Southeast Ruoergai and Hongyuan County to the low-value area in the Northwest of Qumalai, Chengduo and Maduo county. The supply quantity of water source in the source area of the Yellow River showed an increasing trend from 1990 to 2010, and the ecological water supply capacity of the region was predicted to increase in 2020, and showed higher increase trend in Southeast and lower trend in Northwest.

The 1923 km long Jiulongjiang River is located at the southwest of Fujian Province, China. It is one of the typical climate zone representative of humid subtropical monsoon in the similar latitude. Based on Geographic Information System and the spatial relationships, natural and social environments in Jiulongjiang river watershed, the river structure and the spatial pattern of Jiulongjiang River were studied. The results showed: (1) A seven hierarchy established in Jiulongjiang watershed, with first order rivers contributing up to 50% of the watershed. (2) River orders and lengths changed among ecological function regions. (3) Altitude change range, average elevation, slope change range and average slope decreased with steam orders. (4) Along river orders, the population density and gross domestic products changed, which was the higher river orders and the bigger population densities and gross domestic products. Combining parameters, such as height, slope, population, gross domestic products and hierarchy of river with field investigation, results showed that the river nets exhibited typical spatial differential features, which was related to the natural factors and affected by the social factors. This meant that Hierarchical Management Strategy should be applied to river management.