Aluminium slag waste is a residue from aluminium recycling activities, classified as hazardous waste so its disposal into the environment without processing can cause environmental problems, including groundwater pollution. There are 90 illegal dumping areas for aluminium slag waste spread in the Sumobito District, Jombang Regency. This study aims to evaluate the quality of shallow groundwater surrounding aluminium slag disposal in the Sumobito District for drinking water. The methods applied an integrated water quality index ( WQI) and heavy metal pollution index ( HPI), multivariate analysis (principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA)), and geospatial analysis for assessing groundwater quality. The field campaign conducted 40 groundwater samples of the dug wells for measuring the groundwater level and 30 of them were analysed for the chemical contents. The results showed that some locations exceeded the quality standards for total dissolved solids ( TDS), electrical conductivity (EC), and Al 2+. The WQI shows that 7% of dug well samples are in poor drinking water condition, 73% are in good condition, and 20% are in excellent condition. The level of heavy metal contamination based on HPI is below the standard limit, but 13.3% of the water samples are classified as high contamination. The multivariate analysis shows that anthropogenic factors and natural sources/geogenic factors contributed to shallow groundwater quality in the study area. The geospatial map shows that the distribution of poor groundwater quality is in the northern area, following the direction of groundwater flow, and is a downstream area of aluminium slag waste contaminants.
The study analysed the relationship between the granulometric composition of grassland soils as determined by laser diffraction and their content of mineral forms of nitrogen and organic carbon. The content of mineral forms of nitrogen (NO 3-N and NH 4-N) in soil samples – after their extraction with 1% solution K 2SO 4, was determined by flow colourimetry. Soil organic carbon content was determined using the Tyurin method. The study examined soil samples collected from 169 control and measurement sites located in different regions of Poland in terms of conditions for agricultural production. Statistical analyses of the research results showed that the grain size of grassland soils had a significant effect on their ammonium nitrogen content but not on their nitrate nitrogen and organic carbon content. In this respect, it was found that there was a positive correlation between the share of the sand fraction and the content of ammonium nitrogen in soils and an opposite relation between the share of coarse silt, fine silt and clay and the content of the aforementioned component. Results of the analyses differ considerably from the results of studies by other authors on the influence of soil grain size distribution on the content of mineral nitrogen and organic carbon in soils based on classical methods of measurements of soil particle size distribution. There is a need to develop solutions to convert and compare results obtained by laser diffraction and standard methods.
Green roofs are increasingly popular in both new and modernised buildings. They significantly reduce the outflow of stormwater from buildings and change its composition. Wherever an urbanised area is equipped with a separate sewage system, usually stormwater goes directly to the receiver without treatment, which may affect the quality of water in the receiver. The article presents results of research carried out on the green roof of a building in Lodz, Poland. During rainfall, the flow rate from the roof was measured. With the use of the US EPA software Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) a model of the green roof was created and calibrated using rainfall data from the city’s pluviometric network. Based on the measurements of the roof runoff, as well as SWMM modelling, the degree of outfall reduction was determined. Samples of roof runoff were collected to study the characteristics of rainwater, including pH, electrical conductivity, organic compounds, nitrogen, phosphorus, and suspended solids. The results were compared with the quality of runoff from a traditional roof. Except ammonium nitrogen, values of the examined quality indicators was higher in the case of the green roof but the pollution load of almost all contaminants, except phosphorus, were lower due to a significant reduction in the volume of stormwater outflow (62–91%). The quality of stormwater discharged from the green roof improved with its age.
The purpose of this study has been to determine the effect of fertilisation with urea-ammonium nitrate (UAN) solution enriched with P, Mg or S on the content of macronutrients in the grain and straw of maize. The following fertilisers were tested in the field experiment: ammonium nitrate, urea, UAN – 32% N; RSM+S – 26% N + 3% S; RSM+P(Medium) – 26% N and 4.80% P; RSM+P(Starter) – 21% N and 7.86% P; UAN + Mg – 20% N + 4% Mg. In each year of the experiment, significant differentiation in the contents of P, K, Ca, Mg and S in maize grain and straw was observed, depending on the applied nitrogen fertilisation. However, considering the average values from each treatment achieved over the three years, it was demonstrated that the fertilisation significantly changed only the content of P and S in grain and K and Ca in straw of maize. The removal of nutrients was the highest in the second year of the research and amounted in kg∙ha –1: P – about 100, K – about 350, Ca – about 80, Mg – about 35 and S – about 31, which in turn were differentiated over the years of the experiment in the three years. The removal of P, K, Mg and S also significantly depended on fertilisation. Significant differences, however, most often concerned the control treatment relative to the fertilised ones. The contribution of grain to the accumulation of nutrients also varied significantly in the three years of the experiment. Significantly the lowest share of grain in terms of P and S accumulation was noted in maize grown without N fertilisation.
The objective of this experimental study was to examine whether an assisting layer of lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA) of the granulation 1–4 mm, introduced into a subsoil, is able to improve an efficiency of removal of total nitrogen and total phosphorus from domestic wastewater. In the investigations, an assisting 0.10 and 0.20 m thick LECA layer was applied. It has been observed that the effectiveness of removal of total suspended solids (TSS), total nitrogen and total phosphorus from wastewater as well as the level of biochemical oxygen demand ( BOD5) and chemical oxygen demand ( COD) is in accordance with the Polish standards on wastewater disposal into grounds and surface water. The performed experiments showed that the effectiveness of raw wastewater purification for the medium sand soil bed with the 0.20 m thick assisting LECA layer is higher than for the 0.10 m thick assisting layer. In the medium sand soil bed with the 0.20 m thick assisting LECA layer, the removal efficiency regarding total nitrogen increased by 20.6%, total phosphorus by 5.2%, ammonium nitrogen by 8.8% and TSS by 5.3%, and reduction efficiency regarding BOD5 increased by 1.7% and COD by 2.3% with relation to the 0.10 m thick assisting LECA layer (all percentages – in average). The results of the experiment showed that the LECA with the granulation 1–4 mm can be used to assist in removal of total nitrogen and total phosphorus from wastewater with application of infiltration drainage.
Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW, Institute of Environmental Engineering, Department of Hydraulics and Sanitary Engineering, Nowoursynowska 159, 02-776 Warsaw, Poland
Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW, Institute of Civil Engineering, Department of Mechanics and Building Structures, Warsaw, Poland
A recent study revealed that the amount of rainfall on the Kapuas River has increased over the last 30 years. The increase in rainfall increases the possibility of high discharge events, which might lead to destructive flooding of the Kapuas River and its tributaries. Hence, the ability to characterise the pattern of high discharge events is compulsory for the development and management of the Kapuas River watershed. The main objective of this study was to assess and characterise flood patterns in the Kapuas River watershed. To achieve this objective, we utilised information and complexity measures that consisted of mean information gain ( MIG), effective measure complexity ( EMC) and fluctuation complexity ( FC) in daily water level records from 2002 to 2011 from a gauging station in Sanggau, West Kalimantan Province. The results revealed that flood events in the Kapuas River were mainly generated by the Indo-Australian monsoon, which occurred from December to March. The anomaly in 2010, when intense flood events were observed during the dry season, can be identified as the effect of a strong negative El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Additionally, the analysis of the information and complexity measures indicates that: (i) EMC, which reflects the length of flood events, tends to increase along with greater discharge, and (ii) MIG and FC, which denote the degree of randomness and fluctuation of flood events, respectively, tended to have higher values when the number of months without high discharge was less.
River intermittence was studied based on data from hydrological monitoring in Poland. We screened the entire state database and two another data sources applying the criterion for zero-flow event: discharge less than 0.0005 m 3∙s –1, and found five intermittent rivers with catchment area from 9.2 to 303.7 km 2. We aimed at finding associations between intermittence and climatic driving forces (temperature and precipitation), and between intermittence and anthropogenic activity. We used the Spearman correlation coefficient, circular statistics, and statistical tests for trend. The concentration of zero-flow days, mostly in summer, and the decreasing trend in the standardised precipitation evapotranspiration index ( SPEI) in all catchments at various aggregation levels, and an increasing trend in the total number of zero-flow days and in the maximum length of zero flow events in two rivers, were detected. The strong negative correlation (–0.62 ≤ ρ < 0) between intermittence and the SPEI backward lagged in time showed that intermittence resulted from prolonged deficits in climatic water balance due to increasing evapotranspiration. The reaction of the Noteć catchment, amplified by the anthropogenic pressure (brown coal mines), was reflected in the atypical shape of the rose diagram and in inhomogeneities in river discharges. The results show that the rose diagram can serve as an indicator of the degree of anthropogenic impact on runoff conditions.
Artificial neural network models (ANNs) were used in this study to predict reference evapotranspiration ( ETo) using climatic data from the meteorological station at the test station in Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate as inputs and reference evaporation values computed using the Penman–Monteith (PM) equation. These datasets were used to train and test seven different ANN models that included different combinations of the five diurnal meteorological variables used in this study, namely, maximum and minimum air temperature ( Tmax and Tmin), dew point temperature ( Tdw), wind speed ( u), and precipitation (P), how well artificial neural networks could predict ETo values. A feed- forward multi-layer artificial neural network was used as the optimization algorithm. Using the tansig transfer function, the final architected has a 6-5-1 structure with 6 neurons in the input layer, 5 neurons in the hidden layer, and 1 neuron in the output layer that corresponds to the reference evapotranspiration. The root mean square error ( RMSE) of 0.1295 mm∙day –1 and the correlation coefficient ( r) of 0.996 are estimated by artificial neural network ETomodels. When fewer inputs are used, ETo values are affected. When three separate variables were employed, the RMSE test values were 0.379 and 0.411 mm∙day –1 and r values of 0.971 and 0.966, respectively, and when two input variables were used, the RMSE test was 0.595 mm∙day –1 and the r of 0.927. The study found that including the time indicator as an input to all groups increases the prediction of ETo values significantly, and that including the rain factor has no effect on network performance. Then, using the Penman–Monteith method to estimate the missing variables by using the ETo calculator the normalised root mean squared error ( NRMSE) reached about 30% to predict ETo if all data except temperature is calculated, while the NRMSE reached about of 13.6% when used ANN to predict ETo using variables of temperature only.
This study analyses and presents a technical comparison of seepage estimation from 11 empirical equations with measured seepage losses by the inflow-outflow method from two lined and unlined secondary irrigation canals sub-divided into different reach lengths. A significant margin of error was observed between empirical and inflow- outflow methods, hence modifications in empirical equations were performed. Results reveal that the average seepage losses observed in unlined and lined canals by inflow-outflow method were 9.15 and 3.89%, respectively. Moreover, only the Chinese equation estimated seepage losses for an unlined canal as similar to observed losses (0.11 m 3∙s –1) whereas the Indian equation estimated similar results for a lined canal to those observed in the field (0.09 m 3∙s –1). However, the rest of empirical equations were modified in accordance with error percentage with regard to the observed losses. The empirical equations were then observed to estimate reliable results of seepage.
The paper presents the results of theoretical calculations in terms of the G4MP2 composite method for cyprodinil–α-cyclodextrin (C 0@α-CD) and cyprodinil–β-cyclodextrin (C 0@β-CD) systems. Studies also covered analogous systems consisting of the anion (C −) and the cation (C +) of cyprodinil. The geometries of the cyprodinil molecule and ions were optimized on the basis of the DFT theory, using hybrid (B3LYP, PBE0), pure (B97-D) and “meta” (M06-2X) GGA functionals for selected Pople basis sets [6-311++G(d,p), 6-311++G(2d,p), 6-311++G(2d,2p)] and Dunning basis set (aug-cc-pVDZ). The research results suggest that the affinity of “guest” molecules for “hosts” is relatively low. Theoretical studies of the “guest-host” systems allow to predict the properties of the designed preparations.