Environmental Effects of Water Quality of Melendiz Stream and Mamasin Dam Site in Aksaray City in the Central Anatolia of Turkey

The main purpose of this study was to determine the changes in the water quality of Melendiz and Karasu streams, which recharge the Mamasin dam, and to evaluate its environmental impacts on the dam site that provides drinking water and irrigation demand in Aksaray city in the Central Anatolia of Turkey. The field researches were focused on estimating the main sources of contamination, determining and evaluating the changes in the water quality due to the direct wastewater discharges into the Melendiz and Karasu rivers, which recharge the Mamasin dam sites. During the study, water samples were collected from Melendiz and Karasu stream and Mamasin dam, and then, the physical and chemical analyses of water samples were conducted. The relevant in-situ and laboratory analyses were carried out during the dry and wet seasons. The results of the analyses showed that in term of the surface water quality criteria in terms of NO3-N value of both rivers and dam waters, the water quality is always considered as the 1st class in Melendiz stream, the 2nd class in Karasu stream and the 3rd class in Mamasin dam lake. Whereas, in terms of NO4-N values of both rivers and dam waters, the water quality is always considered as the 1st class in Melendiz stream, the 2nd-3rd class in Karasu stream. The total organic carbon （TOC） range for Karasu river is usually from 20 mg/L to 40 mg/L. The high value of organic matter in the Karasu stream can be explained by the availability of intensive green wetlands around this water resource. Finally, the Ministry of Forest and Water Authority give some suggestions for estimating protection zones of Melendiz stream and Mamasin basin＇s area, such as using the results of environmental tracers to investigate the agricultural contamination, including more sophisticated applications of multiple-tracer analyses to evaluate the travel time of contaminants and estimate the boundary of protection zones.

Water quality assessment in Qu River based on fuzzy water pollution index method

A fuzzy improved water pollution index was proposed based on fuzzy inference system and water pollution index. This method can not only give a comprehensive water quality rank, but also describe the water quality situation with a quantitative value, which is convenient for the water quality comparison between the same ranks. This proposed method is used to assess water quality of Qu River in Sichuan, China. Data used in the assessment were collected from four monitoring stations from 2006 to 2010. The assessment results show that Qu River water quality presents a downward trend and the overall water quality in 2010 is the worst. The spatial variation indicates that water quality of Nanbashequ section is the pessimal. For the sake of comparison, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation and grey relational method were also employed to assess water quality of Qu River. The comparisons of these three approaches＇ assessment results show that the proposed method is reliable.

Design and demonstration of a next-generation air quality attainment assessment system for PM_(2.5)and O_3

Due to the increasingly stringent standards, it is important to assess whether the proposed emission reduction will result in ambient concentrations that meet the standards. The Software for Model Attainment Test-Community Edition （SMAT-CE） is developed for demonstrating attainment of air quality standards of O3 and PM2.5. SMAT-CE improves computational efficiency and provides a number of advanced visualization and analytical functionalities on an integrated GIS platform. SMAT-CE incorporates historical measurements of air quality parameters and simulated air pollutant concentrations under a number of emission inventory scenarios to project the level of compliance to air quality standards in a targeted future year. An application case study of the software based on the U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards （NAAQS） shows that SMAT-CE is capable of demonstrating the air quality attainment of annual PM2.5 and 8-hour O3 for a proposed emission control policy.

Large inter annual variation in air quality during the annual festival ‘Diwali' in an Indian megacity

A network of air quality and weather monitoring stations was established under the System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research（SAFAR） project in Delhi. We report observations of ozone（O_3）, nitrogen oxides（NO_x）, carbon monoxide（CO） and particulate matter（PM_2.5and PM_（10）） before, during and after the Diwali in two consecutive years, i.e., November 2010 and October 2011. The Diwali days are characterised by large firework displays throughout India. The observations show that the background concentrations of particulate matter are between 5 and 10 times the permissible limits in Europe and the United States. During the Diwali-2010, the highest observed PM_（10） and PM_2.5mass concentration is as high as2070 μg/m^3 and 1620 μg/m3, respectively（24 hr mean）, which was about 20 and 27 times to National Ambient Air Quality Standards（NAAQS）. For Diwali-2011, the increase in PM_（10） and PM_2.5mass concentrations was much less with their peaks of 600 and of 390 μg/m^3 respectively, as compared to the background concentrations. Contrary to previous reports,firework display was not found to strongly influence the NO_x, and O_3 mixing ratios, with the increase within the observed variability in the background. CO mixing ratios showed an increase. We show that the large difference in 2010 and 2011 pollutant concentrations is controlled by weather parameters.

Spatial and temporal variation of particulate matter and gaseous pollutants in 26 cities in China

O3 and PM2.5 were introduced into the newly revised air quality standard system in February 2012, representing a milestone in the history of air pollution control, and China＇s urban air quality will be evaluated using six factors （SO2, NO2, O3, CO, PM2.5 and PM10） from the beginning of 2013. To achieve the new air quality standard, it is extremely important to have a primary understanding of the current pollution status in various cities. The spatial and temporal variations of the air pollutants were investigated in 26 pilot cities in China from August 2011 to February 2012, just before the new standard was executed. Hourly averaged SO2, NO2 and PMlo were observed in 26 cities, and the pollutants O3, CO and PM2.5 were measured in 15 of the 26 cities. The concentrations of SO2 and CO were much higher in the cities in north China than those in the south. As for O3 and NO2, however, there was no significant difference between northern and southern cities. Fine particles were found to account for a large proportion of airborne particles, with the ratio of PM2.5 to PMI0 ranging from 55% to 77%. The concentrations of PM2.5 （57.5 μg/m3） and PMlo （91.2 μg/m3） were much higher than the values （PM2.5：11.2μg/m3; PMI0：35.6 μg/m3） recommended by the World Health Organization. The attainment of the new urban air quality standard in the investigated cities is decreased by 20% in comparison with the older standard without considering O3, CO and PM2.5, suggesting a great challenge in urban air quality improvement, and more efforts will to be taken to control air pollution in China.