Climate change induced risk in water quality control problems

A modeling framework is presented in this paper, integrating hydrologic scenarios projected from a General Circulation Model (GCM) with a water quality simulation model to quantify the future expected risk. Statistical downscaling with a Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) is carried out to develop the future scenarios of hydro-climate variables starting with simulations provided by a GCM. A Multiple Logistic Regression (MLR) is used to quantify the risk of Low Water Quality (LWQ) corresponding to a threshold quality level, by considering the streamflow and water temperature as explanatory variables. An Imprecise Fuzzy Waste Load Allocation Model (IFWLAM) presented in an earlier study is then used to develop adaptive policies to address the projected water quality risks. Application of the proposed methodology is demonstrated with the case study of Tunga-Bhadra river in India. The results showed that the projected changes in the hydro-climate variables tend to diminish DO levels, thus increasing the future risk levels of LWQ. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Power allocation for interference channels

We propose power allocation algorithms for increasing the sum rate of two and three user interference channels. The channels experience fast fading and there is an average power constraint on each transmitter. Our achievable strategies for two and three user interference channels are based on the classification of the interference into very strong, strong and weak interferences. We present numerical results of the power allocation algorithm for two user Gaussian interference channel with Rician fading with mean total power gain of the fade Omega = 3 and Rician factor kappa = 0.5 and compare the sum rate with that obtained from ergodic interference alignment with water-filling. We show that our power allocation algorithm increases the sum rate with a gain of 1.66dB at average transmit SNR of 5dB. For the three user Gaussian interference channel with Rayleigh fading with distribution CN(0, 0.5), we show that our power allocation algorithm improves the sum rate with a gain of 1.5dB at average transmit SNR of 5dB.

Essays in optimal resource allocation under uncertainty with capacity constraints

This thesis brings together four papers on optimal resource allocation under uncertainty with capacity constraints. The first is an extension of the Arrow-Debreu contingent claim model to a good subject to supply uncertainty for which delivery capacity has to be chosen before the uncertainty is resolved. The second compares an ex-ante contingent claims market to a dynamic market in which capacity is chosen ex-ante and output and consumption decisions are made ex-post. The third extends the analysis to a storable good subject to random supply. Finally, the fourth examines optimal allocation of water under an appropriative rights system.

Study on Water Resources Regulation and Reservoir Operating Prediction for Suppression of Salt Water Intrusion in the Pearl River Estuary

Salt water intrusion occurred frequently during dry season in Modaomen waterway of the Pearl River Estuary. With the development of region's economy and urbanization, the salt tides affect the region's water supply more and more seriously in recent years. Regulation and allocation of freshwater resources of the upper rivers of the estuary to suppress the salt tides is becoming important measures for ensuring the water supply security of the region in dry season. The observation data analysis showed that the flow value at the Wuzhou hydrometric station on the upper Xijiang river had a good correlation with the salinity in Modaomen estuary. Thus the flow rate of Wuzhou has been used as a control variable for suppression of salt tides in Modaomen estuary. However, the runoff at Wuzhou mainly comes from the discharge of Longtan reservoir on the upper reaches of Xijiang river and the runoff in the interval open valley between Longtan and Wuzhou sections. As the long distance and many tributaries as well as the large non-controlled watershed between this two sections, the reservoir water scheduling has a need for reasonable considering of interaction between the reservoir regulating discharge and the runoff process of the interval open watershed while the deployment of suppression flow at Wuzhou requires longer lasting time and high precision for the salt tide cycles. For this purpose, this study established a runoff model for Longtan - Wuzhou interval drainage area and by model calculations and observation data analysis, helped to understand the response patterns of the flow rate at Wuzhou to the water discharge of Longtan under the interval water basin runoff participating conditions. On this basis, further discussions were taken on prediction methods of Longtan reservoir discharge scheduling scheme for saline intrusion suppression and provided scientific and typical implementation programs for effective suppression flow process at the Wuzhou section.

Emergy Assessment of a Wheat-Maize Rotation System with Different Water Assignments in the North China Plain

Sustainable water use is seriously compromised in the North China Plain (NCP) due to the huge water requirements of agriculture, the largest use of water resources. An integrated approach which combines the ecosystem model with emergy analysis is presented to determine the optimum quantity of irrigation for sustainable development in irrigated cropping systems. Since the traditional emergy method pays little attention to the dynamic interaction among components of the ecological system and dynamic emergy accounting is in its infancy, it is hard to evaluate the cropping system in hypothetical situations or in response to specific changes. In order to solve this problem, an ecosystem model (Vegetation Interface Processes (VIP) model) is introduced for emergy analysis to describe the production processes. Some raw data, collected by investigating or observing in conventional emergy analysis, may be calculated by the VIP model in the new approach. To demonstrate the advantage of this new approach, we use it to assess the wheat-maize rotation cropping system at different irrigation levels and derive the optimum quantity of irrigation according to the index of ecosystem sustainable development in NCP. The results show, the optimum quantity of irrigation in this region should be 240-330 mm per year in the wheat system and no irrigation in the maize system, because with this quantity of irrigation the rotation crop system reveals: best efficiency in energy transformation (transformity = 6.05E + 4 sej/J); highest sustainability (renewability = 25%); lowest environmental impact (environmental loading ratio = 3.5) and the greatest sustainability index (Emergy Sustainability Index = 0.47) compared with the system in other irrigation amounts. This study demonstrates that application of the new approach is broader than the conventional emergy analysis and the new approach is helpful in optimizing resources allocation, resource-savings and maintaining agricultural sustainability.

Defoliation, nitrogen, and competition: effects on plant growth and resource allocation of Cleistogenes squarrosa and Artemisia frigida

Two species, Artemisia frigida Willd. (C-3, semishrub, and dominant on overgrazed sites) and Cleistogenes squarrosa (Trin.) Keng (C-4, perennial bunchgrass, and dominant or codominant on moderately grazed sites) were studied to determine the effects of defoliation, nitrogen (N) availability, competition, and their interactions on growth, biomass, and N allocation in a greenhouse experiment. The main treatments were: two nitrogen levels (NO = 0 mg N pot(-1), N1 = 60 mg N pot(-1)), two defoliation intensities (removing 60% of total aboveground biomass and no defoliation), and three competitive replacement series (monocultures of each species and mixtures at 0.5:0.5). Our results were inconsistent with our hypothesis on the adaptive mechanisms of A. frigida regarding the interactive effects of herbivory, N, and competition in determining its dominant position on overgrazed sites. Cleistogenes squarrosa will be replaced by A. frigida on over-grazed sites, although C. squarrosa had higher tolerance to defoliation than did A. frigida. Total biomass and N yield and N-15 recovery of C. squarrosa in mixed culture were consistently lower than in monocultures, whereas those of A. frigida grown in mixtures were consistently higher than in monocultures, suggesting higher competitive ability of A. frigida. Our results suggest that interspecific competitive ability may be of equal or greater importance than herbivory tolerance in determining herbivore-induced species replacement in semi-arid Inner Mongolian steppe. In addition, the dominance of A. frigida on overgrazed sites has been attributed to its ability to shift plant-plant interactions through (lap colonization, root niche differentiation, and higher resistance to water stress.

Critical Success Factors for Transfer-Operate-Transfer Urban Water Supply Projects in China

Over the years, build-operate-transfer (BOT) has continuously attracted research interests. Many studies on BOT have been carried out. Variations of BOT such as build-own-operate-transfer and build-own-operate have also been reported in some relevant publications. However, few investigations thus far have been conducted for transfer-operate-transfer (TOT). Therefore, there is a knowledge gap in this particular field. TOT is a new model that is suitable for existing infrastructure and public utility projects formerly funded by the governments and currently operated by state-owned enterprises. It refers to the transfer of a running public project to a foreign business or domestic private entity. Based on four case studies carried out in the Chinese water supply industry, this paper examines why there is an increasing need for TOT projects and identifies the distinctive features of TOT practice in China. This is followed by an introduction of a framework of critical success factors (CSFs) for TOT projects. The most important factors include project profitability, asset quality, fair risk allocation, competitive tendering, internal coordination within government, employment of professional advisors, corporate governance, and government supervision. The identification of CSFs provides a useful guidance to project parties planning to participate in TOT practice.

The human right to water - normative foundations and ethical implications

La présente contribution examine les fondements normatifs ainsi que les implications éthiques du droit à l’eau, tel qu’il fut reconnu en 2002 par le comité onusien des droits économiques, sociaux et culturels. Il sera défendu que le droit à l’eau potable peut être justifié en tant que droit moral fondamental, de par son caractère indispensable en vue de la garantie des conditions basiques de survie. Cet état de fait, cependant, s’avère moins évident au vue d’un droit à l’eau d’usage non-domestique. Ici, la discussion se rapproche des débats accompagnant le concept beaucoup plus complexe des droits sociaux et économiques. Par rapport à ce groupe de droits, la question de l’allocation est des plus controversées: à qui incombe-t-il de garantir leur respect? Dans le but d’éviter cette problématique d’allocation, le présent essai soulèvera la question de savoir, si la limitation de l’accès à l’eau peut être conçue comme une violation d’autres droits moraux: bien qu’il y ait des cas où des entreprises transnationales déploient des activités nuisibles à l’égard des populations pauvres en polluant sciemment leurs ressources en eau ou en initiant et en exécutant des stratégies de privatisation les privant de leurs droits, la crise globale de l’eau ne saura être rattachée uniquement aux effets de la mondialisation. Plutôt, l’on reconnaîtra la nécessité d’efforts positifs et soutenus de la part des pays développés en vue de la réalisation d’un approvisionnement suffisant en eau pour tous.

Allocation rules on networks

When allocating a resource, geographical and infrastructural constraints have to be taken into account. We study the problem of distributing a resource through a network from sources endowed with the resource to citizens with claims. A link between a source and an agent depicts the possibility of a transfer from the source to the agent. Given the supplies at each source, the claims of citizens, and the network, the question is how to allocate the available resources among the citizens. We consider a simple allocation problem that is free of network constraints, where the total amount can be freely distributed. The simple allocation problem is a claims problem where the total amount of claims is greater than what is available. We focus on consistent and resource monotonic rules in claims problems that satisfy equal treatment of equals. We call these rules fairness principles and we extend fairness principles to allocation rules on networks. We require that for each pair of citizens in the network, the extension is robust with respect to the fairness principle. We call this condition pairwise robustness with respect to the fairness principle. We provide an algorithm and show that each fairness principle has a unique extension which is pairwise robust with respect to the fairness principle. We give applications of the algorithm for three fairness principles: egalitarianism, proportionality and equal sacrifice.

Integrated visual vocabulary in latent Dirichlet allocation-based scene classification for IKONOS image

Scene classification based on latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is a more general modeling method known as a bag of visual words, in which the construction of a visual vocabulary is a crucial quantization process to ensure success of the classification. A framework is developed using the following new aspects: Gaussian mixture clustering for the quantization process, the use of an integrated visual vocabulary (IVV), which is built as the union of all centroids obtained from the separate quantization process of each class, and the usage of some features, including edge orientation histogram, CIELab color moments, and gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM). The experiments are conducted on IKONOS images with six semantic classes (tree, grassland, residential, commercial/industrial, road, and water). The results show that the use of an IVV increases the overall accuracy (OA) by 11 to 12% and 6% when it is implemented on the selected and all features, respectively. The selected features of CIELab color moments and GLCM provide a better OA than the implementation over CIELab color moment or GLCM as individuals. The latter increases the OA by only ∼2 to 3%. Moreover, the results show that the OA of LDA outperforms the OA of C4.5 and naive Bayes tree by ∼20%. © 2014 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) [DOI: 10.1117/1.JRS.8.083690]

Physiological response to extreme fasting in subantarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus tropicalis) pups : metabolic rates, energy reserve utilization, and water fluxes

Physiological response to extreme fasting in subantarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus tropicalis) pups: metabolic rates, energy reserve utilization, and water fluxes. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 297: R1582–R1592, 2009. First published September 23, 2009; doi:10.1152/ajpregu.90857.2008.— Surviving prolonged fasting requires various metabolic adaptations, such as energy and protein sparing, notably when animals are simultaneously engaged in energy-demanding processes such as growth. Due to the intermittent pattern of maternal attendance, subantarctic fur seal pups have to repeatedly endure exceptionally long fasting episodes throughout the 10-mo rearing period while preparing for nutritional independence. Their metabolic responses to natural prolonged fasting (33.4 ± 3.3 days) were investigated at 7 mo of age. Within 4–6 fasting days, pups shifted into a stage of metabolic economy characterized by a minimal rate of body mass loss (0.7%/day) and decreased resting metabolic rate  (5.9 ± 0.1 ml O₂ ·kg^-1·day^-1) that was only 10% above the level predicted for adult terrestrial mammals. Field metabolic rate (289 ± 10 kJ·kg^-1 ·day^-1) and water influx (7.9 ± 0.9 ml·kg^-1 ·day^-1) were also among the lowest reported for any young otariid, suggesting minimized energy allocation to behavioral activity and thermoregulation. Furthermore, lean tissue degradation was dramatically reduced. High initial adiposity (>48%) and predominant reliance on lipid catabolism likely contributed to the exceptional degree of protein sparing attained. Blood chemistry supported these findings and suggested utilization of alternative fuels, such as β-hydroxybutyrate and de novo synthesized glucose from fat-released glycerol. Regardless of sex and body condition, pups tended to adopt a convergent strategy of extreme energy and lean body mass conservation that appears highly adaptive for it allows some tissue growth during the repeated episodes of prolonged fasting they experience throughout their development.

Application of novel technologies in water reclamation, reuse and recycle

Water reuse has become an integral element of the "total water resources planning and management" along with the other elements such as water conservation, water use efficiency and management of the allocation of existing water sources. Researchers are working actively on the following aspects of water reuse: identification and characterization of different wastewaters that could be reclaimed, development of treatment technologies and effluent standards, quantification of potential gains due to recycling and risk management. The wastewaters that can be reclaimed are domestic and industrial wastewaters, grey water, black water, stormwater and rain water and their potential reuse lies in agriculture, aquaculture, industries, non-potable use in residential and community fronts and indirect and direct potable use. The treatment of wastewater ranges from secondary treatment to advanced treatment, which produces different "Classes" of reclaimed water. This paper evaluates the current status of the research on the above-mentioned important aspects of water reuse with relevant case studies and the future demand for reuse water. The direction in which the future-reuse schemes should be formulated so that they are safe, environmentally sustainable and cost effective are also discussed.

Biochemical and physiological responses of sugarcane cultivars to soil water deficiencies

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Tolerance to water deficiency between two soybean cultivars: transgenic versus conventional

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Evaluation of tropical water sources and mollusks in southern Brazil using microbiological, biochemical, and chemical parameters

Florianopolis, a city located in the Santa Catarina State in southern Brazil, is the national leading producer of bivalve mollusks. The quality of bivalve mollusks is closely related to the sanitary conditions of surrounding waters where they are cultivated. Presently, cultivation areas receive large amounts of effluents derived mainly from treated and non-treated domestic, rural, and urban sewage. This contributes to the contamination of mollusks with trace metals, pesticides, other organic compounds, and human pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and protozoan. The aim of this study was to perform a thorough diagnosis of the shellfish growing areas in Florianopolis, on the coast of Santa Catarina. The contamination levels of seawater, sediments, and oysters were evaluated for their microbiological, biochemical, and chemical parameters at five sea sites in Florianopolis, namely three regular oyster cultivation areas (Sites 1, 2, and oyster supplier), a polluted site (Site 3), and a heavily polluted site (Site 4). Samples were evaluated at day zero and after 14 days. Seawater and sediment samples were collected just once, at the end of the experiment. Antioxidant defenses, which may occur in contaminated environments in response to the increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by organisms, were analyzed in oysters, as well as organic compounds (in oysters and sediment samples) and microbiological contamination (in oysters and seawater samples). The results showed the presence of the following contaminants: fecal coliforms in seawater samples (four sites), human adenovirus (all sites), human noroviruses GI and GII (two sites), Hepatitis A viruses (one site), JC Polyomavirus in an oyster sample from the oyster supplier, Giardia duodenalis cysts, and Cryptosporidium sp oocysts (one site). Among organochlorine pesticides, only DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and HCH (hexachlorocyclohexane) were detected in some sediment and oysters samples in very low levels; site 4 had the highest concentrations of total aliphatic hydrocarbons. PAHs, and linear alkylbenzenes (LABs) found either in oysters or in sediment samples. The major concentration of fecal sterol coprostanol was found at site 4, followed by site 3. After 14 days of allocation in the four selected sites, there was a significant difference in the enzymes analyzed at the monitored spots. The detection of different contaminants in oysters, seawater, and sediment samples in the present study shows the impact untreated or inadequately treated effluents have on coastal areas. These results highlight the need for public investment in adequate wastewater treatment and adequate treatment of oysters, ensuring safe areas for shellfish production as well as healthier bivalve mollusks for consumption.