A geostatistical approach for assessing population exposure to NO2 in a complex urban area (Beirut,Lebanon)     

N. Badaro-Saliba  J. Adjizian-Gerard  R. Zaarour  M. Abboud  W. Farah  A. N. Saliba  A. Shihadeh 《Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (SERRA)》2014,28(3):467-474

Few studies in the Middle East region estimated the spatial distribution of air pollutants for exposure studies. This paper presents a geostatistical approach to assess background NO₂ spatial distribution and the associated exposed population in a Mediterranean city with a complex topography, Beirut. Such modeling gave an accurate mapping of the 2010 yearly background average value of NO₂: it varies between 35 and 67 μg m^?3 with a mean of 53 μg m^?3. The mean SD of the estimated error was about 3 μg m^?3. The results showed that the spatial distribution of NO₂ follows a nested structuring, with a major structure related to topoclimatic characteristics (interaction topography/atmospheric flow at large scale) and a minor one linked to micro-environment and micro-climatic characteristics (interactions urban morphology/atmospheric flows at fine scale). The probability for the city’s inhabitants to be exposed to NO₂ levels exceeding 40 μg m^?3 threshold limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that Beirut city has a real sanitary risk to the NO₂ pollution. 93 % of the population (around 358,459 people) is 100 % sure to be exposed to a yearly average exceeding 40 μg m^?3. This knowledge will be certainly useful for developing a tool for decision support in order to implement policies of reducing air pollution in Beirut, which is, given the results, very urgent.  相似文献   

Two dimensional electromagnetic shock structures in dense electron-positron-ion magnetoplasmas     

W. Masood  H. Rizvi  S. Hussain 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2011,332(2):287-299

Linear and nonlinear analysis of low frequency magnetoacoustic waves propagating at an angle θ with the ambient magnetic field are investigated in dense electron-positron-ion (e-p-i) plasmas using the quantum magnetohydrodynamic (QMHD) model. In this regard, a quantum Kadomtsev-Petviashvili-Burgers (KPB) equation is derived in the small amplitude limit. The stability of KPB equation is also presented. The variation of the nonlinear fast and slow magnetoacoustic shock waves with the positron concentration, kinematic viscosity, obliqueness parameter θ, and the magnetic field, are also investigated. It is observed that the aforementioned plasma parameters significantly modify the propagation characteristics of two dimensional nonlinear magnetoacoustic shock waves in dissipative quantum magnetoplasmas. The relevance of the present investigation with regard to dense astrophysical environments is also pointed out.  相似文献   

Sea Level Variations and Geomorphological Changes in the Coastal Belt of Pakistan     

Tariq Masood Ali Khan  D. A. Razzaq  Qamar-Uz-Zaman Chaudhry  Dewan Abdul Quadir  Anwarul Kabir  Majajul Alam Sarker 《Marine Geodesy》2013,36(1-2):159-174

The UNEP in its regional seas program in 1989 has included Pakistan in a group of countries which are vulnerable to the impact of rising sea level. If the present trend of sea level rise (SLR) at Karachi continues, in the next 50 years the sea level rise along the Pakistan Coast will be 50 mm (5 cm). Since the rising rates of sea level at Karachi are within the global range of 1-2 mm/year, the trends may be treated as eustatic SLR. Historical air temperature and sea surface temperature (SST) data of Karachi also show an increasing pattern and an increasing trend of about 0.67°C has been registered in the air temperature over the last 35 years, whereas the mean SST in the coastal waters of Karachi has also registered an increasing trend of about 0.3°C in a decade. Sindh coastal zone is more vulnerable to sea level rise than Baluchistan coast, as uplifting of the coast by about 1-2 mm/year due to subduction of Indian Ocean plate is a characteristic of Baluchistan coast. Within the Indus deltaic creek system, the area nearby Karachi is more vulnerable to coastal erosion and accretion than the other deltaic region, mainly due to human activities together with natural phenomena such as wave action, strong tidal currents, and rise in sea level. Therefore, The present article deals mainly with the study of dynamical processes such as erosion and accretion associated with sea level variations along the Karachi coast and surrounding Indus deltaic coastline. The probable beach erosion in a decade along the sandy beaches of Karachi has been estimated. The estimates show that 1.1 mm/year rise in sea level causes a horizontal beach loss of 110 mm per year. Therefore, coast eroded with rise in sea level at Karachi and surrounding sandy beaches would be 1.1 m during a period of next 10 years. The northwestern part of Indus delta, especially the Gizri and Phitti creeks and surrounding islands, are most unstable. Historical satellite images are used to analyze the complex pattern of sediment movements, the change in shape of coastline, and associated erosion and accretion patterns in Bundal and Buddo Islands. The significant changes in land erosion and accretion areas at Bundal and Buddo Islands are evident and appear prominently in the images. A very high rate of accretion of sediments in the northwestern part of Buddo Island has been noticed. In the southwest monsoon season the wave breaking direction in both these islands is such that the movement of littoral drift is towards west. Erosion is also taking place in the northeastern and southern part of Bundal Island. The erosion in the south is probably due to strong wave activities and in the northeast is due to strong tidal currents and seawater intrusion. Accretion takes place at the northwest and western parts of Bundal Island. By using the slope of Indus delta, sea encroachment and the land area inundation with rising sea level of 1 m and 2 m have also been estimated.  相似文献   

Spatio-temporal characteristics of aftershocks and seismogenic structure of the 2011 M_W9.0 Tohoku earthquake,Japan          下载免费PDF全文

Jisheng Zhao  Yanqiong Liu  Zhenghua Zhou  Farah Lazzali 《地震科学（英文版）》2012,25(3):219-227

The Tohoku megathrust earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011 and had an epicenter that was 70 km east of Tohoku, Japan, resulted in an estimated ten's of billions of dollars in damage and a death toll of more than 15 thousand lives, yet few studies have documented key spatio-temporal seismogenic characteristics. Specifically, the temporal decay of aftershock activity, the number of strong aftershocks (with magnitudes greater than or equal to 7.0), the magnitude of the greatest aftershock, and area of possible aftershocks. Forecasted results from this study are based on Gutenberg-Richter's relation, Bath's law, Omori's law, and Well's relation of rupture scale utilizing the magnitude and statistical parameters of earthquakes in USA and China (Landers, Northridge, Hector Mine, San Simeon and Wenchuan earthquakes). The number of strong aftershocks, the parameters of Gutenberg-Richter's relation, and the modified form of Omori's law are confirmed based on the aftershock sequence data from the M_W9.0 Tohoku earthquake. Moreover, for a large earthquake, the seismogenic structure could be a fault, a fault system, or an intersection of several faults. The seismogenic structure of the earthquake suggests that the event occurred on a thrust fault near the Japan trench within the overriding plate that subsequently triggered three or more active faults producing large aftershocks.  相似文献   

Hydrochemical investigation and quality assessment of ground water in rural areas of Delhi,India   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Masood Alam  Sumbul Rais  Mohd Aslam 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2012,66(1):97-110

The suitability of groundwater quality for drinking and agricultural purposes was assessed in the rural areas of Delhi based on the various water quality parameters. A total of 50 ground water samples were collected randomly from different sources viz. hand pump, tube well, boring and analyzed for major ion chemistry to understand the operating mechanism of geochemical processes for ground water quality. The quality analysis is performed through the estimation of pH, EC, TDS, total hardness, total alkalinity, Na, K, Cl, NO₃, SO₄, DO, BOD, Cu, Cr, Cd, Ni, Zn and Pb. Hydrochemical facies were identified using Piper, Durov and Chadha diagram. Chemical data were also used for mathematical calculations (SAR, %Na, RSC, PI, KI, and chloroalkaline indices) for better understanding the suitability of ground water for irrigation purposes. The results of saturation index shows that all the water samples were supersaturated to undersaturated with respect to carbonate minerals and undersaturated with respect to sulphate and chloride minerals. According to USSL diagram, most of the samples fall in the field of C₃S₁, indicating medium salinity and low sodium water which can be used for almost all types of soil with little danger of exchangeable sodium. Assessment of water samples from various methods indicated that majority of the ground water in the study area is chemically suitable for drinking and agricultural uses.  相似文献   

Role of women as risk communicators to enhance disaster resilience of Bandung,Indonesia     

Mulyasari  Farah  Shaw  Rajib 《Natural Hazards》2013,69(3):2137-2160

This study addresses the need for women risk communication and highlights the potential role of Women Welfare Associations (WWAs) of Bandung, Indonesia, as risk communicators. A risk communication framework is modeled for women’s risk communication process. A set of indicators in social, institutional, and economic resilience activities (SIERAs), with a scope of 45 activities covering three different disaster periods, were developed to characterize the delivery process of risk information by women in WWAs through their activities at sub-district and ward levels. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey method using the risk communication SIERA approach. Women’s leaders at wards were surveyed concerning their perceptions on these 45 scopes of SIERA, ongoing activities, and their risk information source and dissemination process. Correlation analysis was applied to determine the relationship between the variables such as periods of disaster, types of activities (social, institutional, economic), and attributing factors (location, population, and education institution) in finding variations in risk communication activity that functions for women and communities. Five risk communication processes of WWAs are identified and implemented that work for women in Bandung. When their perceptions and ongoing activities are compared, activities such as dissemination of disaster risk information, conveying early warnings to their peers, and involvement of the local government have been confirmed to match the risk communication plans and implementation of WWAs. These indicate that WWAs’ activities in Bandung implement a certain degree of risk communication that is embedded in their activities. The results confirm that women through their social networks can become active agents of change and thus act beyond their usual domestic roles and responsibilities in order to contribute to the overall enhancement of community resilience.

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Sorption of lead by chemically modified rice bran     

T. Fatima  R. Nadeem  A. Masood  R. Saeed  M. Ashraf 《International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology》2013,10(6):1255-1264

In this work, the effectiveness of native and chemically modified rice bran to remove heavy metal Pb(II) ions from aqueous solution was examined. Chemical modifications with some simple and low-cost chemicals resulted in enhancement of the adsorption capacities and had faster kinetics than native rice bran. Experiments were conducted in shake flasks to monitor the upshot of parameters over a range of pH, initial Pb(II) concentrations and contact times using a batch model study. The sorption capacities q (mg g^?1) increased in the following order: NaOH (147.78), Ca(OH)₂ (139.08), Al(OH)₃ (127.24), esterification (124.28), NaHCO₃ (118.08), methylation (118.88), Na₂CO₃ (117.12) and native (80.24). The utmost uptake capacity q (mg g^?1) was shown by NaOH-pretreated rice bran. The results showed that, using NaOH-modified rice bran, the chief removal of Pb(II) was 74.54 % at pH 5, primary Pb(II) concentration 100 mg L^?1 and contact time 240 min. Equilibrium isotherms for the Pb(II) adsorption were analyzed by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The Langmuir isotherm model, showing Pb(II) sorption as accessible through the high value of the correlation coefficient (R ² = 0.993), showed a q _max value of 416.61 mg g^?1. The kinetic model illustrated adsorption rates well, depicted by a second order, which gives an indication concerning the rate-limiting step. Thermodynamic evaluation of the metal ion ?G ^o was carried out and led to the observation that the adsorption reaction is spontaneous and endothermic in nature. NaOH chemically modified rice bran was a superb biosorbent for exclusion of Pb(II) and proved to be excellent for industrial applications.  相似文献   

Dust drift shock waves with non-Maxwellian ion population in nonuniform collisional dusty plasmas in planetary environments     

W. Masood  H. Rizvi  Haseeb Hasnain  N. Batool 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2013,345(1):49-55

Linear and nonlinear propagation of dust drift waves are investigated in the presence of Cairns and Kappa distributed ion population and Boltzmannian electrons. It is found the frequency of the dust drift wave is greatest for the Cairns, intermediate for Kappa and the least for the Maxwellian distributed ions. Using the drift approximation, a nonlinear equation is derived for the dust drift shock waves which reduces to a Korteweg-de Vries-Burgers (KdVB)-like equation in the comoving frame of reference. The solution of the KdVB-like equation is obtained using the tanh method. It is found that the non-Maxwellian ion population, dust neutral collision frequency as well as the inverse dust density scale length inhomogeneity alter the propagation characteristics of the nonlinear dust drift shock waves. Interestingly, it is found that the non-Maxwellian ion population modifies the scale lengths over which the nonlinear structures are formed. The work presented here may be useful to understand the low frequency electrostatic shock waves in inhomogeneous dusty plasmas such as those found in planetary environments.  相似文献   

Fast magnetoacoustic solitary waves in dense magnetoplasmas in a cylindrical geometry     

W. Masood  A. Mahmood  H. Rizvi 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2013,343(1):273-277

Nonlinear properties of the quantum magnetoacoustic wave are studied in electron-ion magnetoplasmas. In this regard, cylindrical Korteweg deVries (CKdV) equation is derived for small amplitude perturbations. The solution of the planar KdV equation is obtained using the tanh method and is subsequently used as an initial profile to solve the CKdV equation. It is found that the system under consideration admits compressive solitary structures. Finally, it is found that the amplitude as well as the width of the nonplanar magnetosonic solitary structure increases with the increase in the magnetic field whereas a decrease is observed with the increase in number density of the system. The present study may be beneficial to understand the nonlinear wave propagation in nonplanar geometries in dense plasmas.  相似文献   

Sources of groundwater recharge at the confluence of the Niles, Sudan     

E. A. Farah  E. M. A. Mustafa  H. Kumai 《Environmental Geology》2000,39(6):667-672

 Due to the rapid expansion of the Sudanese capital city far away from its three Niles, it has become a necessity to estimate the sustainability of the groundwater resources in this arid area. The purpose of this study – based on the stable-isotopic composition of groundwater – is to identify the sources of recharge and their relative contribution. The results show that groundwater infiltrated from the Niles under the present prevailing arid climate, with greater contribution from the White Nile compared to the Blue Nile, occupies an extension of 12 km from the Niles within the two main aquifers. Paleogroundwater of meteoric origin, infiltrated in the cooler pluvial earlier Holocene, occupies the outer zones beyond the Niles' effect. A rational utilization policy is recommended to preserve the finite groundwater resources. Received: 27 August 1998 · Accepted: 2 March 1999  相似文献