Advanced Materials Research Vols. 518-523

Abstract: The sustainability of a nation’s social and economic development is fundamentally determined by how much the nation’s environmental system is strained by human activities, which is in turn determined by the pressure/burden created by human activities and the carrying capacity of the nation’s environment. Based on the material flows of an economy’s metabolism and the carrying capacity of the environment, two new aggregate indicators are proposed and formulated, one being the “total domestic environmental loading” which measures the gross environmental burden imposed on the domestic environment by human activities, and the other the “total environmental stress” which measures the intensity of environmental pressure on a nation’s environment. The indicators are applied to six nations, namely, China, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Japan, and The United States, for a number of years. Results show that, during the years from 1990 to 2002, China’s total environmental stress ranged from 57 to 82 metric tons per global hectare, exhibiting a trend of first rise, then fall and then rise again. The tendency of rebound in China’s total environmental stress after 2000 is a warning sign of further environmental degradation and should be taken seriously. During the comparison period (1993-1996), the ranking of the six nations with respect to total environmental stress, in a descending order, is China, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, The United States, and Austria. The total environmental stress values of the 5 industrial nations either remained relatively stable or declined, indicating that the environmental stress of these nations exhibited various degrees of “decoupling ” from their economic growth. China’s total environmental stress, however, experienced a steady increase in the same period and has a tendency of increase after 2002.

Abstract: A glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified with multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for electrochemical square-wave stripping voltammetric (SWV) determination of antimony (III) was introduced. Various experimental parameters, such as the amounts of carbon nanotubes, the deposition potential and time, the electrolyte solution, etc, were thoroughly optimized and discussed. Under the optimum experimental conditions, the MWCNTs-modified GCE exhibited well linear behaviour in the antimony(III) concentration range from 0.04 to 0.26 mg/L (R=0.9983) with a detection limit of 3.20×10^-4 mg/L (S/N=3) under a 360 s accumulation. The proposed electrode also exhibited encouraging properties for measurements of simulated water samples.

Abstract: Dahuangpu Wetland is the nature reserve of Tianjin City. The nitrogen, phosphorus and heavy metals contents and releasing of sediment in Dahuangpu Natural Wetland were studied in this paper. The results indicated that the contents of TN and TP in the wetland sediment were lower than the Lowest Effect Level (LEL) in the Guidelines for the Protection and Management of Aquatic Sediment Quality in Ontario, Canada (PSQGs), which means the sediment had no great eco-toxicity on dwelling organisms. Meanwhile the contents of heavy metals, namely Cr, As, Zn, Ni, Pb, Cu, Hg and Cd, in Dahuangpu Wetland sediment were lower than LEL of PSQGs and lower than primary standard of Environmental quality standard for soils (GB15618-1995). Moreover the influence of nitrogen, phosphorus and heavy metals releasing on wetland water qualities were trivial.

Abstract: The variations of the atmospheric particles mass concentration, their pollution condition, and their relationships to visibility and wind speed have been studied by using the continuous concentration data of monitoring instrument GRIMM180 from Fushun air component monitoring station in 2009. The results show that the mean mass concentrations about PM10 and PM2.5 are respectively 0.073 ㎎/m3 and 0.048 ㎎/m3, and their daily average concentration has a large variation range. The ratio above air quality standard about PM10 daily average concentration is 5.9%, and the atmospheric particles exist mainly in the form of fine particles. The atmospheric particles mass concentration and the visibility show negative correlation, and the finer the particles are, the more they affect visibility. In general, the atmospheric particles mass concentration will gradually decrease with the rising of the wind speed. When the wind speed is more than 1.0 m/s, there is an obvious dilution effect on particles mass concentration, and when larger than 4.5 m/s, the relevance is not highly apparent.

Abstract: Surface ozone in the air boundary layer is one of the most harmful air pollutants produced by photochemical reaction between nitrogen oxides and volatile hydrocarbons, which causes great damage to human beings and environment. The prediction of surface ozone levels plays an important role in the control and the reduction of air pollutants. As model-driven statistical prediction models, hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are rich in mathematical structure and work well in many important applications. Due to the complex structure of HMM, long observation sequences would increase computational load by geometric ratio. In order to reduce training time, wavelet decomposition is used to compress the original observations into shorter ones. During compression step, observation sequences compressed by different wavelet basis functions keep different information content. This may have impact on prediction results. In this paper, ozone prediction performance of HMM based on different wavelet basis functions are discussed. Shannon entropy is employed to measure how much information content is kept in the new sequence compared to the original one. Data from Houston Metropolitan Area, TX are used in this paper. Results show that wavelet basis functions used in data compression step can affect the HMM model performance significantly. The new sequence with the maximum Shannon entropy generates the best prediction result.

Abstract: A forest environmental monitoring system based on GPRS communication network and ZigBee sensor network was researched and designed. The article described the architecture of the system, also discussed the framework of the sensor nodes using CC2430 as main chip and the gateway node based on MC35i.The data collection of sensor nodes, the protocol conversion of gateway node, and the implementation process of the monitoring center software were introduced in the article. With advantages of low cost, strong robustness and always online, the system can be widely used in a wide range for forest environmental parameters monitoring.

Abstract: To have analysis and forecast towards the tendency of the forest fire appealing accurately and rapidly. The system transmits the fire scene environmental information to form the tendency of the forest fire appealing via Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), which provides decision basis for the headquarters, and meanwhile safeguards the firemen’s life safety via the vital sign monitoring. This paper offers detailed introduction and discussion about the physical framework, logical framework and key technologies of the system.

Abstract: Investigated at the intersection of zhongshan east road and xilin road in Hohhot, the total quantity of vehicle in morning, noon and evening peak hours is 19,793. Pollutant concentrations and weather parameters are investigated, vehicular emission density in the intersection is calculated by the Nichoson box model, and each pollutant concentration in the intersection is measured by the exhaust gas analyzer. The result shows that the concentration of CO in the intersection is still lower than the limit value, but the concentration of NOX is far higher than the limit value. Pollution is very serious.

Abstract: Since the inception of concrete face rock-fill dam, the dam’s leakage and void deformation issue has been always there. The safety of the dam determine the safety of lives and property, in order to ensure the safe operation of the dam, rock-fill dam’s void deformation monitoring is particularly important. This paper conducted a detailed description on the rock-fill dam’s void deformation monitoring through a specific project, and monitoring results are summarized and analyzed.

Abstract: In order to predict the main species of veterinary drugs in the environment, cyromazine (CY), sulfonamides (SAs) and tetracyclines (TCs) were studied in animal wastewater and soil by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. In the method, the reversed-phase column of C8 column, the HLB solid phase extraction column, the 0.1% formic acid acetonitrile-water solution mobile phase with gradient elution were used. The flow rate was 0.30 mL/min, the detection mode was multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) with positive ion electro spray ionization and the injection volume was 10 μL. The quantification limit of the method (MQL) was 5ng/L for CY, 25ng/L for SAs, and 50 ng/L TCs in animal wastewater samples. In soil samples, MQL was 25µg/kg for CY, 40µg/kg for SAs, and 50µg/kg for TCs. The correlation coefficient was higher than 0.99. Recoveries of CY, SAs and TCs at fortified levels were higher than 61%, with relative standard deviation of 0.84%-6.49%.