Groundwater Unit Hydrograph Evaluation of Niriz Plain

Groundwater is one of the most important water resources in Fars province. Based on this study, 95 percent of the total annual water consumption in Fars is used for agriculture, whereas the percentages for domestic and industrial uses are 4 and 1 percent, respectively. Population growth, urban and industrial growth, and agricultural development in Fars have created a condition of water stress. In this province, farmers and other users are pumping groundwater faster than its natural replenishment rate, causing a continuous drop in groundwater tables and depletion of this resource. In this research variation of groundwater level, their effects and ways to help control groundwater levels in aquifer of the Niriz plains in Fars plain were evaluated .Excessive exploitation of groundwater in this aquifer caused the groundwater levels fall too fast or to unacceptable levels. The average drawdown of the groundwater level in this plain were 9.1 meters during 1997 to 2004. The purpose of this study is to evaluate water level changes in the Niriz Aquifer in the Fars province in order to determine the areas of greatest depletion, the cause of depletion, and predict the remaining life of the aquifer.

Hydrogen from Waste Tyres

Hydrogen is regarded to play an important role in future energy systems because it can be produced from abundant resources and its combustion only generates water. The disposal of waste tyres is a major problem in environmental management throughout the world. The use of waste materials as a source of hydrogen is particularly of interest in that it would also solve a waste treatment problem. There is much interest in the use of alternative feedstocks for the production of hydrogen since more than 95% of current production is from fossil fuels. The pyrolysis of waste tyres for the production of liquid fuels, activated carbons and gases has been extensively researched. However, combining pyrolysis with gasification is a novel process that can gasify the gaseous products from pyrolysis. In this paper, an experimental investigation into the production of hydrogen and other gases from the bench scale pyrolysis-gasification of tyres has been investigated. Experiments were carried using a two stage system consisting of pyrolysis of the waste tyres followed by catalytic steam gasification of the evolved gases and vapours in a second reactor. Experiments were conducted at a pyrolysis temperature of 500 °C using Ni/Al2O3 as a catalyst. The results showed that there was a dramatic increase in gas yield and the potential H2 production when the gasification temperature was increased from 600 to 900 oC. Overall, the process showed that high yields of hydrogen can be produced from waste tyres.

Effect of Cement-kiln Dust Pollution on The Vegetation in The Western Mediterranean Desert of Egypt

This study investigated the ecological effects of particulate pollution from a cement factory on the vegetation in the western Mediterranean coastal desert of Egypt. Variations in vegetation, soil chemical characters, and some responses of Atriplex halimus, as a dominant species in the study area, were investigated in some sites located in different directions from the cement factory between Burg El-Arab in the east and El-Hammam in the west. The results showed an obvious decrease in vegetation diversity, in response to cement-kiln dust pollution, that accompanied by a high dominance attributed to the high contribution of Atriplex halimus. Annual species were found to be more sensitive to cement dust pollution as they all failed to persist in highly disturbed sites. It is remarkable that cover and phytomass of Atriplex halimus were increased greatly in response to cement dust pollution, and this was accompanied by a reduction in the mature seeds and leaf-area of the plant. The few seeds of the affected individuals seemed to be more fertile and attained higher germination percentages and exhibited hardening against drought stress.

Review of a Real-Time Infectious Waste Management System Using QR Code

In the management of industrial waste, conversion from the use of paper invoices to electronic forms is currently under way in developed countries. Difficulties in such computerization include the lack of synchronization between the actual goods and the corresponding data managed by the server. Consequently, a system which utilizes the incorporation of a QR code in connection with the waste material has been developed. The code is read at each stage, from discharge until disposal, and progress at each stage can be easily reported. This system can be linked with Japanese public digital authentication service of waste, taking advantage of its good points, and can be used to submit reports to the regulatory authorities. Its usefulness was confirmed by a verification test, and put into actual practice.

Nutrients Removal from Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluent using Eichhornia Crassipes

Water hyacinth has been used in aquatic systems for wastewater purification in many years worldwide. The role of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) species in polishing nitrate and phosphorus concentration from municipal wastewater treatment plant effluent by phytoremediation method was evaluated. The objective of this project is to determine the removal efficiency of water hyacinth in polishing nitrate and phosphorus, as well as chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia. Water hyacinth is considered as the most efficient aquatic plant used in removing vast range of pollutants such as organic matters, nutrients and heavy metals. Water hyacinth, also referred as macrophytes, were cultivated in the treatment house in a reactor tank of approximately 90(L) x 40(W) x 25(H) in dimension and built with three compartments. Three water hyacinths were placed in each compartments and water sample in each compartment were collected in every two days. The plant observation was conducted by weight measurement, plant uptake and new young shoot development. Water hyacinth effectively removed approximately 49% of COD, 81% of ammonia, 67% of phosphorus and 92% of nitrate. It also showed significant growth rate at starting from day 6 with 0.33 shoot/day and they kept developing up to 0.38 shoot/day at the end of day 24. From the studies conducted, it was proved that water hyacinth is capable of polishing the effluent of municipal wastewater which contains undesirable amount of nitrate and phosphorus concentration.

Ghazal Ozon River and Preserving the Existent Aquatics While Constructing the Siazakh Dam

The main purpose of the dam is to control the surface streams and rivers across the country. Dam construction and formation of river and big water reservoirs and resources happen in the glen is a big incident which would change its surrounding area considerably. In fact, constructing a dam the glen width is close and fishes don't migrate from upstream to downstream and ultimately it would led to their death. To resolve this, it seems necessity to create a passage for fishes during the construction of dam. It is provided establishing a set of stepped pools overlooking each other as a fish way or fish ladder a proper pathway for moving fishes. In this article we first examine the surrounding environment and then Ghazal Ozon River and preserving the aquatics.

Recovery of Copper and DCA from Simulated Micellar Enhanced Ultrafiltration (MEUF)Waste Stream

Simultaneous recovery of copper and DCA from simulated MEUF concentrated stream was investigated. Effects of surfactant (DCA) and metal (copper) concentrations, surfactant to metal molar ratio (S/M ratio), electroplating voltage, EDTA concentration, solution pH, and salt concentration on metal recovery and current efficiency were studied. Electric voltage of -0.5 V was shown to be optimum operation condition in terms of Cu recovery, current efficiency, and surfactant recovery. Increasing Cu recovery and current efficiency were observed with increases of Cu concentration while keeping concentration of DCA constant. However, increasing both Cu and DCA concentration while keeping S/M ratio constant at 2.5 showed detrimental effect on Cu recovery at DCA concentration higher than 15 mM. Cu recovery decreases with increasing pH while current efficiency showed an opposite trend. It is believed that conductivity is the main cause for discrepancy of Cu recovery and current efficiency observed at different pH. Finally, it was shown that EDTA had adverse effect on both Cu recovery and current efficiency while addition of NaCl salt had negative impact on current efficiency at concentration higher than 8000 mg/L.

Cost Optimized CO2 Pipeline Transportation Grid: A Case Study from Italian Industries

This paper presents the feasibility study of CO2 sequestration from the sources to the sinks in the prospective of Italian Industries. CO2 produced at these sources captured, compressed to supercritical pressures, transported via pipelines and stored in underground geologic formations such as depleted oil and natural gas reservoirs, un-minable coal seams and deep saline aquifers. In this work, we present the optimized pipeline infrastructure for the CO2 with appropriate constraints to find lower cost system by the use of nonlinear optimization software LINGO 11.0. This study was conducted on CO2 transportation complex network of Italian Industries, to find minimum cost network for transporting the CO2 from sources to the sinks.

Strategies and Compromises: Towards an Integrated Energy and Climate Policy for Egypt

Until recently, energy security and climate change were considered separate issues to be dealt with by policymakers. The two issues are now converging, challenging the security and climate communities to develop a better understanding of how to deal with both issues simultaneously. Although Egypt is not a major contributor to the world's total GHG emissions, it is particularly vulnerable to the potential effects of global climate change such as rising sea levels and changed patterns of rainfall in the Nile Basin. Climate change is a major threat to sustainable growth and development in Egypt, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Egypt-s capacity to respond to the challenges of climate instability will be expanded by improving overall resilience, integrating climate change goals into sustainable development strategies, increasing the use of modern energy systems with reduced carbon intensity, and strengthening international initiatives. This study seeks to establish a framework for considering the complex and evolving links between energy security and climate change, applicable to Egypt.

Effect of Temperature on the Performance of Multi-Stage Distillation

The tray/multi-tray distillation process is a topic that has been investigated to great detail over the last decade by many teams such as Jubran et al. [1], Adhikari et al. [2], Mowla et al. [3], Shatat et al. [4] and Fath [5] to name a few. A significant amount of work and effort was spent focusing on modeling and/simulation of specific distillation hardware designs. In this work, we have focused our efforts on investigating and gathering experimental data on several engineering and design variables to quantify their influence on the yield of the multi-tray distillation process. Our goals are to generate experimental performance data to bridge some existing gaps in the design, engineering, optimization and theoretical modeling aspects of the multi-tray distillation process.

Analysis of Temperature Change under Global Warming Impact using Empirical Mode Decomposition

The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) represents any time series into a finite set of basis functions. The bases are termed as intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) which are mutually orthogonal containing minimum amount of cross-information. The EMD successively extracts the IMFs with the highest local frequencies in a recursive way, which yields effectively a set low-pass filters based entirely on the properties exhibited by the data. In this paper, EMD is applied to explore the properties of the multi-year air temperature and to observe its effects on climate change under global warming. This method decomposes the original time-series into intrinsic time scale. It is capable of analyzing nonlinear, non-stationary climatic time series that cause problems to many linear statistical methods and their users. The analysis results show that the mode of EMD presents seasonal variability. The most of the IMFs have normal distribution and the energy density distribution of the IMFs satisfies Chi-square distribution. The IMFs are more effective in isolating physical processes of various time-scales and also statistically significant. The analysis results also show that the EMD method provides a good job to find many characteristics on inter annual climate. The results suggest that climate fluctuations of every single element such as temperature are the results of variations in the global atmospheric circulation.

Climate Change Finger Prints in Mountainous Upper Euphrates Basin

Climate change leading to global warming affects the earth through many different ways such as weather (temperature, precipitation, humidity and the other parameters of weather), snow coverage and ice melting, sea level rise, hydrological cycles, quality of water, agriculture, forests, ecosystems and health. One of the most affected areas by climate change is hydrology and water resources. Regions where majority of runoff consists of snow melt are more sensitive to climate change. The first step of climate change studies is to establish trends of significant climate variables including precipitation, temperature and flow data to detect any potential climate change impacts already happened. Two popular non-parametric trend analysis methods, Mann-Kendal and Spearman-s Rho were applied to Upper Euphrates Basin (Turkey) to detect trends of precipitation, temperatures (maximum, minimum and average) and streamflow.

Using Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) to Assess and Manage Environmental Risks of Pipelines in GIS Environment: A Case Study ofa Near Coastline and Fragile Ecosystem Located Pipeline

Having a very many number of pipelines all over the country, Iran is one of the countries consists of various ecosystems with variable degrees of fragility and robusticity as well as geographical conditions. This study presents a state-of-the-art method to estimate environmental risks of pipelines by recommending rational equations including FES, URAS, SRS, RRS, DRS, LURS and IRS as well as FRS to calculate the risks. This study was carried out by a relative semi-quantitative approach based on land uses and HVAs (High-Value Areas). GIS as a tool was used to create proper maps regarding the environmental risks, land uses and distances. The main logic for using the formulas was the distance-based approaches and ESI as well as intersections. Summarizing the results of the study, a risk geographical map based on the ESIs and final risk score (FRS) was created. The study results showed that the most sensitive and so of high risk area would be an area comprising of mangrove forests located in the pipeline neighborhood. Also, salty lands were the most robust land use units in the case of pipeline failure circumstances. Besides, using a state-of-the-art method, it showed that mapping the risks of pipelines out with the applied method is of more reliability and convenience as well as relative comprehensiveness in comparison to present non-holistic methods for assessing the environmental risks of pipelines. The focus of the present study is “assessment" than that of “management". It is suggested that new policies are to be implemented to reduce the negative effects of the pipeline that has not yet been constructed completely

Use of Pesticides and Their Role in Environmental Pollution

Insect pests are the major source of crop damage, yield and quality reduction in Pakistan and else where in the world. Cotton crop is the most hit crop in Pakistan followed by rice and the second most important foreign exchange earning crop. A wide variety of staple, horticultural and cash crops grown, reflect serious problems of many types of insect pests. To overcome the insect pest problem, pesticide use in Pakistan has increased substantially which has now been further intensified. Pesticides worth more than billions of rupees are imported every year. This paper reviews the over all pesticide use in Pakistan in relation to pesticide prices, support price of cotton and rice, pesticide use in different provinces of Pakistan on different crops and their impact on crop productivity. The environmental pollution caused by the use of pesticides, contamination of soil and water resources and the danger associated with the disposal of their empty containers is also discussed in detail.

Nitrogen Removal in a High-efficiency Denitrification/Oxic Filter treatment System for Advanced Treatment of Municipal Wastewater

Biological treatment of secondary effluent wastewater by two combined denitrification/oxic filtration systems packed with Lock type(denitrification filter) and ceramic ball (oxic filter) has been studied for 5months. Two phases of operating conditions were carried out with an influent nitrate and ammonia concentrations varied from 5.8 to 11.7mg/L and 5.4 to 12.4mg/L,respectively. Denitrification/oxic filter treatment system were operated under an EBCT (Empty Bed Contact Time) of 4h at system recirculation ratio in the range from 0 to 300% (Linear Velocity increased 19.5m/d to 78m/d). The system efficiency of denitrification , nitrification over 95% respectively. Total nitrogen and COD removal range from 54.6%(recirculation 0%) to 92.3%(recirculation 300%) and 10% to 62.5%, respectively.

Applicability of Diatom-Based Water Quality Assessment Indices in Dari Stream, Isparta- Turkey

Diatoms are an important group of aquatic ecosystems and diatom-based indices are increasingly becoming important tools for the assessment of ecological conditions in lotic systems. Although the studies are very limited about Turkish rivers, diatom indices were used for monitoring rivers in different basins. In the present study, we used OMNIDIA program for estimation of stream quality. Some indices have less sensitive (IDP, WAT, LOBO, GENRE, TID, CEE, PT), intermediate sensitivities (IDSE, DESCY, IPS, DI-CH, SLA, IDAP), the others higher sensitivities (SID, IBD, SHE, EPI-D). Among the investigated diatom communities, only a few taxa indicated alfa-mesosaprobity and polysaprobity. Most of the sites were characterized by a great relative contribution of eutraphent and tolerant ones as well as oligosaprobic and betamesosaprobic diatoms. In general, SID and IBD indices gave the best results. This study suggests that the structure of benthic diatom communities and diatom indices, especially SID, can be applied for monitoring rivers in Southern Turkey. 

Sensitivity Analysis for Determining Priority of Factors Controlling SOC Content in Semiarid Condition of West of Iran

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a key role in soil fertility, hydrology, contaminants control and acts as a sink or source of terrestrial carbon content that can affect the concentration of atmospheric CO2. SOC supports the sustainability and quality of ecosystems, especially in semi-arid region. This study was conducted to determine relative importance of 13 different exploratory climatic, soil and geometric factors on the SOC contents in one of the semiarid watershed zones in Iran. Two methods canonical discriminate analysis (CDA) and feed-forward back propagation neural networks were used to predict SOC. Stepwise regression and sensitivity analysis were performed to identify relative importance of exploratory variables. Results from sensitivity analysis showed that 7-2-1 neural networks and 5 inputs in CDA models output have highest predictive ability that explains %70 and %65 of SOC variability. Since neural network models outperformed CDA model, it should be preferred for estimating SOC.

Phytoremediation of Wastewater Using Some of Aquatic Macrophytes as Biological Purifiers for Irrigation Purposes

An attempt was made for availability of wastewater reuse/reclamation for irrigation purposes using phytoremediation “the low cost and less technology", using six local aquatic macrophytes “e.g. T. angustifolia, B. maritimus, Ph. australis, A. donax, A. plantago-aquatica and M. longifolia (Linn)" as biological waste purifiers. Outdoor experiments/designs were conducted from May 03, 2007 till October 15, 2008, close to one of the main sewage channels of Sulaimani City/Iraq*. All processes were mainly based on conventional wastewater treatment processes, besides two further modifications were tested, the first was sand filtration pots, implanted by individual species of experimental macrophytes and the second was constructed wetlands implanted by experimental macrophytes all together. Untreated and treated wastewater samples were analyzed for their key physico-chemical properties (only heavy metals Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu with particular reference to removal efficiency by experimental macrophytes are highlighted in this paper). On the other hand, vertical contents of heavy metals were also evaluated from both pots and the cells of constructed wetland. After 135 days, macrophytes were harvested and heavy metals were analyzed in their biomass (roots/shoots) for removal efficiency assessment (i.e. uptake/ bioaccumulation rate). Results showed that; removal efficiency of all studied heavy metals was much higher in T. angustifolia followed by Ph. Australis, B. maritimus and A. donax in triple experiment sand pots. Constructed wetland experiments have revealed that; the more replicated constructed wetland cells the highest heavy metal removal efficiency was indicated.

Groundwater Quality Improvement by Using Aeration and Filtration Methods

An experiment was conducted using two aeration methods (water-into-air and air-into-water) and followed by filtration processes using manganese greensand material. The properties of groundwater such as pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and heavy metal concentration (iron and manganese) will be assessed. The objectives of this study are i) to determine the effective aeration method and ii) to assess the effectiveness of manganese greensand as filter media in removing iron and manganese concentration in groundwater. Results showed that final pH for all samples after treatment are in range from 7.40 and 8.40. Both aeration methods increased the dissolved oxygen content. Final turbidity for groundwater samples are between 3 NTU to 29 NTU. Only three out of eight samples achieved iron concentration of 0.3mg/L and less and all samples reach manganese concentration of 0.1mg/L and less. Air-into-water aeration method gives higher percentage of iron and manganese removal compare to water-into-air method.

Reducing Humic Acid and Disinfection By-products in Raw Water using a Bio-activated Carbon Filter

For stricter drinking water regulations in the future, reducing the humic acid and disinfection byproducts in raw water, namely, trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) is worthy for research. To investigate the removal of waterborne organic material using a lab-scale of bio-activated carbon filter under different EBCT, the concentrations of humic acid prepared were 0.01, 0.03, 0.06, 0.12, 0.17, 0.23, and 0.29 mg/L. Then we conducted experiments using a pilot plant with in-field of the serially connected bio-activated carbon filters and hollow fiber membrane processes employed in traditional water purification plants. Results showed under low TOC conditions of humic acid in influent (0.69 to 1.03 mg TOC/L) with an EBCT of 30 min, 40 min, and 50 min, TOC removal rates increases with greater EBCT, attaining about 39 % removal rate. The removal rate of THMs and HAAs by BACF was 54.8 % and 89.0 %, respectively.