Search results for "0208 environmental biotechnology"
showing 10 items of 551 documents
An Approach to Delineate Groundwater Bodies at Risk: Seawater Intrusion in Liepāja (Latvia)
2018
Groundwater quality in coastal areas is frequently affected by seawater intrusion as a consequence of intensive water consumption. To achieve “good chemical status” of a groundwater body according to Water Framework Directive the effects of saline or other intrusions should not be observed. Groundwater pumping in former decades has caused a significant seawater intrusion into confined aquifer in Liepāja and has led to deterioration of relatively wide coastal area of the third largest city in Latvia. However, the area affected by seawater intrusion is a small part of groundwater body F1 which overall chemical status is good. Thus, no specific management measures have been applied to explore …
A New Water Governance Model Aimed at Supply–Demand Management for Irrigation and Land Development in the Mendoza River Basin, Argentina
2019
This study aimed at achieving an organizational solution for improving the governance of water and land use and, consequently, improving the supply&ndash
Generation of Natural Runoff Monthly Series at Ungauged Sites Using a Regional Regressive Model
2016
Many hydrologic applications require reliable estimates of runoff in river basins to face the widespread lack of data, both in time and in space. A regional method for the reconstruction of monthly runoff series is here developed and applied to Sicily (Italy). A simple modeling structure is adopted, consisting of a regression-based rainfall–runoff model with four model parameters, calibrated through a two-step procedure. Monthly runoff estimates are based on precipitation, temperature, and exploiting the autocorrelation with runoff at the previous month. Model parameters are assessed by specific regional equations as a function of easily measurable physical and climate basin descriptors. Th…
Comparative Analyses between the Zero-Inertia and Fully Dynamic Models of the Shallow Water Equations for Unsteady Overland Flow Propagation
2018
The shallow water equations are a mathematical tool widely applied for the simulation of flow routing in rivers and floodplains, as well as for flood inundation mapping. The interest of many researchers has been focused on the study of simplified forms of the original set of equations. One of the most commonly applied simplifications consists of neglecting the inertial terms. The effects of such a choice on the outputs of the simulations of flooding events are controversial and are an important topic of debate. In the present paper, two numerical models recently proposed for the solution of the complete and zero-inertia forms of the shallow water equations, are applied to several unsteady f…
Application of EMI and FDR Sensors to Assess the Fraction of Transpirable Soil Water over an Olive Grove
2018
Accurate soil water status measurements across spatial and temporal scales are still a challenging task, specifically at intermediate spatial (0.1–10 ha) and temporal (minutes to days) scales. Consequently, a gap in knowledge limits our understanding of the reliability of the spatial measurements and its practical applicability in agricultural water management. This paper compares the cumulative EM38 (Geonics Ltd., Mississauga, ON, Canada) response collected by placing the sensor above ground with the corresponding soil water content obtained by integrating the values measured with an FDR (frequency domain reflectometry) sensor. In two field areas, characterized by different soil clay conte…
Turbulence in River and Maritime Hydraulics
2018
Understanding of the role of turbulence in controlling transport processes is of paramount importance for the preservation and protection of aquatic ecosystems, the minimisation of deleterious consequences of anthropogenic activity, and the successful sustainable development of river and maritime areas. In this context, the present Special Issue collects 15 papers which provide a representation of the present understanding of turbulent processes and their effects in river and maritime environments. The presented collection of papers is not exhaustive but it allows for highlighting key priority areas and knowledge gaps in this field of research.
Artificial Neural Networks for Predicting the Water Retention Curve of Sicilian Agricultural Soils
2018
Modeling soil-water regime and solute transport in the vadose zone is strategic for estimating agricultural productivity and optimizing irrigation water management. Direct measurements of soil hydraulic properties, i.e., the water retention curve and the hydraulic conductivity function, are often expensive and time-consuming, and represent a major obstacle to the application of simulation models. As a result, there is a great interest in developing pedotransfer functions (PTFs) that predict the soil hydraulic properties from more easily measured and/or routinely surveyed soil data, such as particle size distribution, bulk density (&rho
Biogenic Fenton process - A possible mechanism for the mineralization of organic carbon in fresh waters.
2020
To explore the mechanisms that mineralize poorly bioavailable natural organic carbon (OC), we measured the mineralization of OC in two lake waters over long-term experiments (up to 623 days) at different pH and iron (Fe) levels. Both the microbial and photochemical mineralization of OC was higher at pH acidified to 4 than at the ambient pH 5 or an elevated pH 6. During 244 days, microbes mineralized up to 60% of OC in the 10-mu m filtrates of lake water and more than 27% in the 1-mu m filtrates indicating that large-sized microbes/grazers enhance the mineralization of OC. A reactivity continuum model indicated that the acidification stimulated the microbial mineralization of OC especially i…
Carbon Budget and Molecular Structure of Natural Organic Matter in Bank Infiltrated Groundwater
2021
Groundwater : : journal of the Association of Ground-Water Scientists and Engineers, a division of the National Ground Water Association (2021). doi:10.1111/gwat.13087
Pharmaceuticals in processing of municipal sewage sludge studied by grab and passive sampling
2018
Abstract Concentrations of pharmaceuticals, consisting of four anti-inflammatory and one antiepileptic drug, were studied in the aqueous and solid phase of municipal sewage sludge, collected from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in central Finland. The samples included untreated municipal sludge from the biological wastewater treatment, digested sludge and sludge before and after composting. First, samples were taken as grab samples to study the bioavailable part in aqueous phase but also the part in solid fraction. Later, the long-term concentrations were studied by passive sampling with styrene divinylbenzene-reverse phase sulfonated (SDB-RPS) disks. In the untreated solid sludge, the …