On-Farm Assessment of Biosolids Effects on Nitrogen and Phosphorus Accumulation in Soils

A field plot experiment in a calcareous soil with wheat and maize rotation was carried out for 2 yr. The study aimed to investigate the effects of biosolids （sewage sludge or chicken manure） application on nitrogen （N） and phosphorus （P） accumulation in soils and to develop a model for the effects of biosolids application on available P （Olsen-P） accumulation in soils, by which the quantities of biosolids that can be safely applied to agricultural soils were estimated. The results showed that heavy application of biosolids to agricultural soils based on the N requirement of a wheat-maize rotation cropping system will oversupply P. Soil total N was increased by 0.010 g kg-1 at application rate of 1 ton sewage sludge per hectare. The high ratio of N to P in grains of wheat and maize （from 4.0 to 7.6） and low ratio of N to P in biosolids （〈2） led to more surplus P accumulated in soils. Although plant yields and P uptake by plants increased with increasing quantities of applied biosolids in soils, there was still an average 2.87 mg kg-1 increase in Olsen-P in the plough layer treated with biosolids for every 100 kg P ha-1 surplus. A predictive model was developed based upon the initial Olsen-P in soils, P input rates, crop yield, soil pH, and cultivation time. From the model, it is suggested that sewage sludge could be applied to calcareous soils for 12 yr using the recommended application rate （9 tons ha-1 yr-1）. The field results will be helpful in achieving best management of biosolids application for agricultural production and environmental protection.

GIS SUPPORTED HEDONIC MODEL FOR ASSESSING PROPERTY VALUE IN WEST OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

A hedonic linear regression model is constructed in this paper to estimate property value, In our model, the property value （sales price） is a function of several selected variables such as the property characteristics, social neighborhoods, level of neighborhood environmental contaminations, level of neighborhood crimes, and locational accessibility to jobs or services, Definitions and calculation of these variables are approached by using Geographic Information System tools, For improving estimation, gravity model is employed to measure both levels of neighborhood toxic sites and crimes; and a time-based method is used to measure the loeational accessibility rather than simple straight-line distance measurement. This study discovers that the relationship between house value and its nearby highway is nonlinear, The methodology could help policy makers assess the external effects of a property. Our model also could be used potentially to identify the current and historic trends of development caused by neighborhood or environments change in the study area.

Hydrologic Modeling Impacts of Post-mining Land Use Changes on Streamflow of Peace River, Florida

Whether mining activity results in reduced flow of surface water in the Peace River Watershed of Florida has been the subject of much debate. With increased dependence of downstream users on surface water flow of the Peace River as a source of drinking water for four coastal counties in Southwest Florida and problems of water security, the debate has been intensified. It is possible to assess relationships of mining with streamflow in the upper reaches of the Peace River Basin using hydrologic modeling and identify mined sub-basins. In this work, land-use change impacts were simulated by the Hydrological Simulation Program--Fortran （HSPF） model based on geographical information system （GIS） tools, to compare pre- and post-mining streamflows at a study site of the Peace River in west-central Florida. The purpose of this study was to determine if land-use changes caused by mining have negatively impacted streamflow in the Peace River. Changes of land use were identified before and after mining activities. A coupled volume-water depth-discharge （V-h-Q） model based on stage/storage and stage/discharge was applied using HSPF for the pre-mining and post-mining models, respectively. Daily simulated post-mining hydrographs from HSPF were plotted with the calibrated pre-mining results and streamflow hydrographs from the 18 gauging stations, to compare timing of peaks, low fows and flow trends. Analyses of percent ex- ceedances of flow frequency curves of the streams indicated that most streams had similar distributions for mined （reclaimed） and pre- mining periods. In the streamflow change analysis, streamflows actually increased in mining-affected basins at nearly half the stations. Streamflows at other stations diminished. Overall from this comprehensive study, there were declines in streamflow at most gauging stations on the mainstem of the Peace River and its tributaries. The results of this study suggest that regional planning is urgently needed to propose reclamation schemes that enhance regional hydrology.

Discretization Approach in Integrated Hydrologic Model for Surface and Groundwater Interaction

The commonly used discretization approaches for distributed hydrological models can be broadly categorized into four types,based on the nature of the discrete components:Regular Mesh,Triangular Irregular Networks(TINs),Representative Elementary Watershed(REWs) and Hydrologic Response Units(HRUs).In this paper,a new discretization approach for landforms that have similar hydrologic properties is developed and discussed here for the Integrated Hydrologic Model(IHM),a combining simulation of surface and groundwater processes,accounting for the interaction between the systems.The approach used in the IHM is to disaggregate basin parameters into discrete landforms that have similar hydrologic properties.These landforms may be impervious areas,related areas,areas with high or low clay or organic fractions,areas with significantly different depths-to-water-table,and areas with different types of land cover or different land uses.Incorporating discrete landforms within basins allows significant distributed parameter analysis,but requires an efficient computational structure.The IHM integration represents a new approach interpreting fluxes across the model interface and storages near the interface for transfer to the appropriate model component,accounting for the disparate discretization while rigidly maintaining mass conservation.The discretization approaches employed in IHM will provide some ideas and insights which are helpful to those researchers who have been working on the integrated models for surface-groundwater interaction.

Numerical Modeling of Shallow Water Table Behavior with Lisse Effect

Air entrapment is an important consideration in environments with shallow water tables and sandy soil, like the condition of highly conductive sandy soils and flat topography in Florida, USA. It causes water table rises in soils, which are significantly faster and higher than those in soils without air entrapment. Two numerical models, Integrated Hydrologic Model (IHM) and HYDRUS-1D (a single-phase, one-dimensional Richards′ equation model) were tested at an area of west central Florida to help further understanding the shallow water table behavior during a long term air entrapment. This investigation employed field data with two modeling approaches to quantify the variation of air pressurization values. It was found that the air pressurization effect was responsible at time up to 40 cm of water table rise being recorded by the observation well for these two models. The values of air pressurization calculated from IHM and HYDRUS-1D match the previously published values. Results also indicated that the two numerical models did not consider air entrapment effect (as the predictive parameters remain uncertain) and thus results of depth to water table from these models did not compare to the observations for these selected periods. Incorporating air entrapment in prediction models is critical to reproduce shallow water table observations.

Influence of plant coverage and environmental variables on pollen productivities:evidence from northern China

Pollen productivity is a critical parameter in the interpretation of pollen-vegetation relationships,and in the quantitative reconstructions of past vegetation from fossil pollen records.One-year monitoring records were collected for 143 pollen traps in various parts of northern China,together with modern vegetation data.Absolute Pollen Productivity Estimates(APPE)were calculated for 11 taxa using the ratio of pollen influx to plant coverage at each applicable sampling site,in which the plants of the target taxon were present.Relative Pollen Productivity Estimates(RPPE)were calculated for the 11 taxa(taking Poaceae as the reference taxon)at those sites in which each taxon occurred together with Poaceae.Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae were found to have the highest RPPEs and the largest RPPEs ranges,while Pinus and Quercus also had higher RPPEs than Poaceae;Abies,Betula,Larix,Picea and Cyperaceae had relatively low RPPEs.Variations in RPPE between different areas may be explained by variations in climatic conditions,plant coverage and land use practices which might influence plant growing situation.Marked effect that variations in pollen productivity can have on vegetation reconstructions was demonstrated by applying these distinct RPPEs to reconstructions of Holocene vegetation in the Lake Daihai area(northern China),such as a large range of RPPE produces a large range of plant coverage.Variations in RPPEs within a single taxon,related to vegetation coverage and climatic conditions,therefore need to be considered in future vegetation reconstructions.

Investigating the dynamics of wetland landscape pattern in Beijing from 1984 to 2008

The landscape pattern of Beijing wetlands has undergone a significant change as a result of natural and artificial elements.Supported by remote sensing and GIS technology,using multi-temporal TM images from 1984 to 2008 in Beijing,this paper analyzed the dynamic characteristics of wetlands landscape pattern through selected typical indices including patch area,patch average area,fractal dimension index,diversity,dominance,contagion indices and the spatial centroids of each wetlands type were calculated.Finally,the paper explored the evolution mode and driving factors of wetland landscape pattern.The results were obtained as follows：the total wetland area increased during the period 1984-1996,then decline from 1996 to 2004.The wetland area in 1994 accounted for only 47.37% of that in 2004.The proportion of artificial wetland area was larger than that of natural wetland.The proportion of reservoir wetland was 33.50% to 53.73% and had the maximum average area.pond and paddy field wetland type with the least average area accounted for 16.46% to 45.09% of the total wetland area.The driving forces of the natural river wetland were mainly natural elements;its fractal dimension index was greater than the others.The Shannon diversity index of wetland landscape increased from 1.11 in 1992 to 1.34 in 2004,indicating that the difference between proportions of each wetland type decreased and areas of each wetland type were evenly distributed.The contagion index went down from 65.59 to 58.41,indicating that the connectivity degraded.Miyun Reservoir had the largest area and its area change had a great impact on the location of the centroid.Wetland resources degenerated gradually from the joint effects of natural and artificial factors.During the period 2006-2008,the precipitation increased and the drought condition was relieved.The government implemented series of positive policies to save water resources,and the wetland area increased.

Driving forces analysis of reservoir wetland evolution in Beijing during 1984-2010

The reservoir wetland, which is the largest artificial wetland in Beijing, constitutes one of the important urban ecological infrastructures. Considering two elements of natural environment and socio-economy, this paper established the driving factor indexing system of Beijing reservoir wetland evolution. Natural environment driving factors include precipitation, temperature, entry water and groundwater depth; social economic driving factors include resident population, urbanization rate and per capita GDP. Using multi-temporal Landsat TM images from 1984 to 2010 in Beijing, the spatial extent and the distribution of Beijing reservoir wetlands were extracted, and the change of the wetland area about the three decade years were analyzed. Logistic regression model was used to explore for each of the three periods： from 1984 to 1998, from 1998 to 2004 and from 2004 to 2010. The results showed that the leading driving factors and their influences on reservoir wetland evolution were different for each period. During 1984-1998, two natural environment indices： average annual precipitation and entry water index were the major factors driving the increase in wetland area with the contribution rate of Logistic regression being 5.78 and 3.50, respectively, and caused the wetland growth from total area of 104.93 km 2 to 219.96 km 2 . From 1998 to 2004, as the impact of human activities intensified the main driving factors were the number of residents, groundwater depth and urbanization rate with the contribution rate of Logistic regression 9.41, 9.18, and 7.77, respectively, and caused the wetland shrinkage rapidly from the total area of 219.96 km 2 to 95.71 km 2 . During 2004-2010, reservoir wetland evolution was impacted by both natural and socio-economic factors, and the dominant driving factors were urbanization rate and precipitation with the contribution rate of 6.62 and 4.22, respectively, and caused the wetland total area growth slightly to 109.73 km 2 .

Effects of rape straw and red mud on extractability and bioavailability of cadmium in a calcareous soil

Screening of cost-effective soil amendments is important to develop ＂in situ＂ remediation techniques for cadmium （Cd） contaminated soils. In this study, different soil amendments, including red mud, a by-product of the alumina industry, and acid-treated, nano-treated by nanoparticle milling, nano and acid-treated red muds, zeolite, corn straw, and rape straw, were evaluated to immobilize Cd in two added levels （2 and 5 mg Cd·kg^-1 soil） in a calcareous soil by single and sequential extractions and by cucumber （Cucumis sativus L.） pot experiments. Results indicated that cruciferous rape straw significantly decreased the concentrations of water soluble, extractable Cd in soils, and Cd in cucumber plants, and it was more effective than gramineous corn straw. Also, red mud generally decreased the extractability and bioavailability of Cd added to calcareous soils more effectively than zeolite. Furthermore, the efficiency of red mud could be increased by the treatment of nano-particle milling due to the increase in specific surface area of red mud. It is potential to use rape straw and red mud as soil amendments to develop a cost-effective and efficient ＂in situ＂ rernediation technology for Cd mildly contaminated calcareous soils.

Genotypic variations in the accumulation of Cd exhibited by different vegetables

It is an important approach to use the Cd-contaminated soils properly by growing low accumulator or excluder plants for Cd to produce safe foods. To find the suitable vegetable species for growing in Cd-contaminated soils, in the present study the variations in the Cd accumulation for twenty eight vegetable species and several cultivars of five common vegetables （cowpea, kidney pea, bitter gourd, cucumber and squash） were investigated in two soil Cd levels （1 and 2 mg/kg Cd）. Experimental results showed that highly significant differences in Cd concentration were evident among 28 vegetables. For example, spinach Cd concentrations were 110-fold and 175-fold higher than that of sweet pea under the 1 and 2 mg/kg Cd exposures, respectively. For Cd accumulation, the order of vegetable species was： leafy vegetables solanaceous vegetables kale vegetables root vegetables allimus melon vegetables legumes. Distinctive differences were also identified when comparing different cultivars of the five common vegetables with an average range of 0.003–0.094 mg/kg Cd. Our results indicated that a large genotypic variation existed among vegetable species or cultivars when subjected to Cd exposure. Therefore, it is important and feasible to elect/breed vegetable species/cultivars with low accumulation of Cd, especially in mildly Cd-contaminated soils.

Improving the quality of pollen-climate calibration-sets is the primary step for ensuring reliable climate reconstructions

Pollen-based climate reconstructions have been widely applied in China [1,2]as an essential way to investigate quantitatively past climate change,which is necessary to improve the reliability of future climate predictions [3].However,their usefulness is often doubted,particularly for those regions with a long history of civilization (e.g.East China),where both the modern and past vegetation are heavily disturbed by human activities [4-6].Which factors influence the integrity of pollen-based climate reconstructions and how to improve their reliability are rigorous challenges for palynologists.Previous work focusing on these two questions has used modern pollen data from China or eastern continental Asia and mainly concludes that past climate reconstruction is quite sensitive to the clualitv of the calibration-set [2,7].