Volume 1 Issue 5
Authors: Mohd Saiful Samsudin; Hafizan Juahir; Sharifuddin M. Zain; Nur Hazirah Adnan
Abstract: Environmetric techniques, cluster analysis (CA), discriminant analysis (DA) and principle component analysis (PCA) were applied to the data on water quality of Perlis River Basin, generated from 2003 until 2007. There are eleven monitoring stations with different sites for 30 parameters. Three spatial clusters are designated as downstream and upstream of Perlis River regions. Forward and backward stepwise DA managed to discriminate ten and thirteen water quality variables, respectively, from the original 30 variables. The final results for this study showed that hydrological observations are supported by principle component analysis (PCA). Additionally, this joint analysis makes it possible to observe the significance of the pollutent sources which contribute to pollution. Nine PCs with eigenvalues greater than 1 explaining 77% of the total variance in the water-quality data set. The investigation from PCA showed nine main pollution sources on Perlis River which are a mineral component of the river water, surface runoff sources, anthropogenic pollution sources, municipal sewage and wastewater treatment plants, leachate from industrial activities, seasonal impact of discharge and temperature, agricultural waste, oil waste from restaurant and road runoff. Finally, the application of environmetric methods can result in significant cost reduction and will allow more effective and efficient river quality management activities.
Keywords: Environmetric; Perlis River; Water quality; Cluster analysis; Discriminant analysis; Principle component; factor analysis
Authors: A.G. Murugesan; K. Mophin-Kani
Abstract: The river Tamirabarani is one of the perennial rivers in India which feed two major districts (Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi) of Tamil Nadu, India. Due to high anthropogenic activities, urbanisation practices, irrigational and livestock activities along the river bank habitations increases pollution threat. The present study was carried out to assess the quality of water and to classify the river stretches using multiplicative aggregation function. The results showed water quality deterioration during the month of April whereas remaining periods showed the quality upto fair level. Excellent quality of water was recorded at 21.53 %, very good quality at 28.47 %, good quality at 33.33 %, fair quality at 13.89 % and marginal quality at 2.78 % of sampling sites during the study tenure. Correlation study between physicochemical properties also reveals significant negative relationship with the Water Quality Index (WQI) scores. The index function makes easy interpretation of results which in-turn increases the effectiveness of management strategies to bringing back the originality of the river.
Keywords: Water Quality Index; Tamirabarani; Sub Index; Correlation; Urbanisation
Authors: Beneberu Shimelis
Abstract: Empirical knowledge about urban solid waste is essential for planning and implementation of proper waste management systems. Thus, the objective of this study is to characterize the solid waste generated in a rapidly growing town of Aweday. For this, randomly selected samples of 93 Households (HHs), 23 Khat Rooms, 17 street Shops and a Khat Market centre were involved in the study. Wastes, collected from all these sources, were characterized for a week. The finding showed waste generation rates were 5.55 kg HH-1 day-1, 5.48 kg shop-1 day-1, 67.15 kg Khat-room-1 day-1 and 11,745 kg Khat-market-1 day-1. Moreover, the finding indicated that about 57,039 kg of total waste generated daily in Aweday town. Household waste formed the highest average daily amount (51%) and the Khat Rooms ranked second (25%) while those from the Market (21%) and Shops (3%) followed. The wastes from each source were categorized into 11 components. Mixed leaves of Khat, garaba, constituted the largest (75%), followed by miscellaneous materials (14%) and plastics (3.3%). Bones, glasses, leathers and metals wastages were minor fractions across generators. The generation of waste positively correlated with family size, monthly income and educational levels of the households. The results indicts the high organic content of the waste spotlight the necessity for frequent collection as well as an opportunity to give top priority to the recycling of the organic waste materials through composting as waste management approach in Aweday. An addition, the charge of waste collection and disposal should be fixed according to the quantity of waste generated.
Keywords: Urban solid waste; Khat, waste generation rate; waste composition; waste management; Ethiopia
Authors: Mirna Yolanda Sabido Perez; Nain Elvira Antonio; José del Carmen Zavala Loria; Silvia del Carmen Campos García; Yunuen Canedo López; Alejandro Ruiz Marin
Abstract: City of Carmen is located within the natural reserve of Terminos Lagoon; Nevertheless, the high activity hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation and urban have increased in the last years and consequence a high generation of wastewater that flows into the beaches and the Terminos Lagoon. Therefore it is necessary studies of monitoring and hydrology for the ecosystem protection. This study evaluated and analyzed the variation hydrological present during the season characterized by strong winds, droughts and rains in beaches near the discharge of urban effluents. During north and rainy season the salinity decreased from 16-20 spu with better conditions for the survival of faecal coliforms (FC). A higher concentration of bacteria (790- 1700 MPN 100 ml-1) for rainy season was observed that dry season (30 to 120 MPN 100 ml-1). Similarly, higher levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) was for north season (2.8 – 4.6 mg l-1) that for dry season (0.1 – 1.7 mg l-1). The high content of chlorophyll a and nitrogen during the dry season showed an important relationship; suggesting the contribution of nitrogen by the decomposition of organic matter from wastewater effluent of the channel Caleta, which received a high amount of wastewater. Despite that the BOD and bacteria concentrations exceed the acceptable levels during north season, suggesting a limited use of the beaches for recreational purpose; this is probably that the environmental conditions allow the dilution and dispersion of organic matter and bacteria, but the transportation of such pollutants can affect the adjacent beaches.
Keywords: Wastewater; beach pollution; BOD and faecal coliforms; Terminos Lagoon
Authors: Sutapa Chaudhuri; Debanjana Das; Sayantika Goswami; Anirban Middey
Abstract: The purpose of the present study is to develop a model to forecast the concentrations of some important atmospheric pollutants over Kolkata (22° 32′N; 88° 20′E), India during the period from 1st April 2009 to 30th November 2010 with considerable accuracy and adequate lead time. The pollutants considered in this study are respiratory suspended particulate matter (RSPM), nitrogen oxide (NOx), and sulphur oxide (SOx). The auto regressive (AR) models with different orders and radial basis function network (RBFN) model are developed to attain the objective. The skill of both the models is compared. The results of the study reveal that the 3rd order Auto-Regressive Model, AR (3) represents the best statistical model for the prediction of concentrations of all the three different pollutants over Kolkata. The study thus, depicts that the pollutants can be predicted with considerable accuracy and 3 days or 72 hours lead time using AR (3) model. The skill of the AR (3) model is compared with RBFN model. The result further reveals that the percentage error in forecast with 72 hours lead time is much less with RBFN model than AR model.
Keywords: Concentration of pollutants; prediction; AR model; RBFN model
Authors: Kun-Jung Hsu
Abstract: This paper examines the variation of the primary energy factor and the emission factor of electricity generation from 1982 to 2009 in Taiwan. Results of the analysis show that the major effect of the aggregated primary energy factor of electricity was the generation mix effect. The pure primary energy coefficient effect on the change ratio of the primary energy factor of electricity was positive too, but the effect was limited. The major effect of the aggregated emission factor of electricity was the fossil fuel generation share effect of fossil fuel generation. The emission coefficient effect also had a positive effect on the change of the aggregated emission factor of electricity, but the effect was also limited in scope.
Keywords: primary energy use; greenhouse gases emissions; global warming potential (GWP); electricity generation; Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index
Authors: Nor Salwani Hashim; Fatimah De’nan
Abstract: The structural action of a beam is predominantly bending, with other effects such as shear, bearing and buckling also being present. Due to the more application of corrugated section in steel design, this paper develops a three-dimensional finite element model using LUSAS 14.3 to investigate the effects of web corrugation angle on bending behavoiur of Triangular Web Profile (TRIWP) steel sections. A TRIWP steel section is a built-up steel section made up of two flanges connected to a web plate of triangular profile. This TRIWP steel section is a modified section from trapezoidal web profile steel section where the eccentric stiffeners of trapezoidal section was eliminated and changed to slanting stiffeners. Thin shell element was chosen to represent the element type of the model. Two sizes of flat webs (FW) as control specimens and two sizes of TRIWP which is 200×100×6×3 mm and 180×75×5×2 mm section were used. Each of beam section was modeled using several spans such as 3 m, 4 m and 4.8 m and different corrugation angle (150,300,450,600 and 750). It was noted that deflection of 450 and 750 web corrugations angle be the lowest deflection value either in minor or major axis of TRIWP steel section. It means that the TRIWP steel section is stiffer when the web corrugation angle is 450 or 750. In other word, TRIWP steel section has a higher resistance to bending in minor and major axis when the web is used in both corrugation angles. It can be concluded that the changes of eccentric stiffeners to slanting stiffeners is significant to the bending behaviour of the TRIWP steel section. The introduction of slanting stiffeners shows a greater strength compare to corrugated section by using trapezoidal web.
Keywords: Finite Element Model; Bending; Triangular Web Profile
Authors: Adebayo A. Otitoloju; Adeolu O. Aderemi; Olubunmi A.Otubanjo; Victoria A.Oriaku
Abstract: The genotoxic effects of textile effluent were investigated in Clarias gariepinus and Allium cepa using the micronucleus assay and induction of chromosomal aberration in respectively. The aim of the study is to provide genotoxic endpoints that can serve as biomarkers of exposure to textile effluents in the environment. The physico-chemical characterization of the effluent revealed high levels of chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and total suspended solids (TSS) above the standards set by regulatory body. Exposure of Clarias gariepinus to sub-lethal concentrations of effluent resulted in a dose-dependent and significant (P<0.05) increase in the formation of micronuclei and nuclear anomalies in blood erythrocytes. The textile effluent also caused a significant (P<0.5) reduction in mean root length and increased chromosomal aberrations such as vagrant, sticky chromosomes, binucleus and c-tumors in exposed Allium cepa compared to control. The results obtained from this study indicate the textile effluent being discharged into the Lagos lagoon have genotoxic potential and is capable of causing significant ecological disruption in the receiving environment.
Keywords: textile effluent; genotoxic effects; Clarias gariepinus; Allium cepa