scholarly journals Unusual Sydney dust storm and its mineralogical and organic characteristics

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rupak Aryal ◽  
Dheeraj Kandel ◽  
Durga Acharya ◽  
Meng Nan Chong ◽  
Simon Beecham
Keyword(s):  
Dust Storm ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
New South ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Organic Content ◽  
Drought Period ◽  
Dust Transport ◽  
South Wales

Environmental context In 2009, at the end of the longest drought period ever recorded in Australia, a major dust storm blanketed the cities of Sydney and Brisbane for more than 24 h. The source of the dust was inner New South Wales and South Australia, where large scale open-cut mining occurs together with agricultural practices. We report results of extensive mineralogical and chemical analyses of the dust, and discuss their significance in terms of the dust origins and potential human health risks. Abstract In a 24-h period from 23 to 24 September 2009, a dust storm passed over Sydney, Australia that produced a red sky and reduced the visibility to a few metres. It was Sydney’s worst dust storm since 1942. During this period, the PM10 (particles measuring 10 μm or less) value jumped from 50 to 11 800 µg m–3. The dust storm was sampled and its mineralogical and organic contents were analysed. Four major particle sizes (0.6, 4.5, 9.3 and 20 µm) were observed in the dust. A multimodal particle distribution indicated a long range of dust transport. Mineralogical analysis showed that the particles were mainly composed of crustal elemental oxides of Al and Si. The ratio of Al/Si was 0.39 and the organic content was 10.6 %, which was found to be enriched with humic-type substances. The high Al/Si ratio (>0.3) indicated that the dust originated from desert land whereas the high organic content indicated that the particles were also derived from eroded agricultural land. A fluorescence spectroscopic study on the organic matter at excitation and emission wavelengths of 245–265 and 330–350 nm indicated that biohazardous substances were unlikely to be present in the dust.

Offshore Migration and the Collapse of Outbreaks of the Australian Plague Locust (Chortoicetes Terminifera Walk.) In South-East Australia.

1975 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 569 ◽  
Author(s):  
RA Farrow
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New South ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Migration Patterns ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Nocturnal Migration ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Synoptic Circulation ◽  
Australian Plague Locust

High levels of night-flight activity of the Australian plague locust, Chortoicetes terminifera Walker, occurred on at least five separate occasions during the 1973-74 plague in south-east Australia and resulted in episodic, large-scale invasions at night of parts of southern New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia from more northerly breeding areas. The plague did not, however, reach the severe and damaging levels expected in the areas invaded, since on at least three out of five occasions nocturnal migration continued offshore and resulted in extensive mortality. The relationship between migration patterns and synoptic circulation is shown for each of the five situations, with special reference to the use and limitations of wind trajectories for estimating high-altitude displacement of locusts at night.

The Abundance of Kangaroos in Suboptimal Habitats: Wheat, Intensive Pastoral, and Mallee

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 221 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Short ◽  
GC Grigg
Keyword(s):  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Aerial Survey ◽  
Tree Cover ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Western Victoria

The densities of red and grey kangaroos in western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia were assessed by aerial survey. Much of the 133000-km2 area surveyed was farmed intensively for wheat and sheep but a significant proportion was largely unaltered mallee woodland or mallee heath. Of the total area, 85% had a density of less than one kangaroo per square kilometre, and 32% had a density of less than 0.01 km-2, values considerably lower than those reported for pastoral areas in New South Wales and South Australia. Low densities in settled areas are attributed to intensive agricultural practices, small landholdings and lack of tree cover. Low densities in mallee may be due to the lack of palatable grasses and the absence of permanent watering points.

Insect migration across Bass Strait during spring: a radar study

1981 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. A. Drake ◽  
K. F. Helm ◽  
J. L. Readshaw ◽  
D. G. Reid
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Insect Flight ◽  
New South ◽  
Light Trap ◽  
South Australia ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Insect Migration ◽  
Western Victoria ◽  
Trap Catches ◽  
North Western

AbstractAn entomological radar was used to observe insect flight activity at a coastal locality in north-western Tasmania during the spring of 1973. Insects were regularly observed to take off at dusk, and local movements from nearby islands were detected on several occasions. Large-scale southward movements of insects across Bass Strait were also observed and were found to be associated with the warm anticyclonic airflows which occur ahead of a cold front. Light-trap catches indicated that the insects were noctuid moths, with Persectania ewingii (Westw.), Heliothis punctiger Wllgr. and Agrotis munda Wlk. dominant. The movements appear to have originated mainly in Victoria and south-eastern South Australia, but it is tentatively suggested that the ultimate source of the moths was in the region stretching westwards from north-western Victoria and south-western New South Wales towards the shores of the Spencer Gulf, South Australia.

National survey of viruses in pastures of subterranean clover. III. Equipment for large scale screening of viruses by ELISA

1993 ◽  
Vol 44 (8) ◽  
pp. 1883 ◽  
Author(s):  
LB Hulse ◽  
K Helms ◽  
PM Waterhouse
Keyword(s):  
Immunosorbent Assay ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New South ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Subterranean Clover ◽  
Trifolium Subterraneum ◽  
Nationwide Survey ◽  
Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Large Scale Screening

Equipment for large scale enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed for a 3 year nationwide survey of the incidence of four viruses in pastures of Trifolium subterraneum (subterranean clover) in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. Instruments were designed to (a) automate quantitatively the addition of buffer to plant samples passing through a sap extractor, (b) standardize the washing of plates in the various stages of the ELISA protocol, and (c) replace hand pipetting with a pneumatic foot-operated pipette.

In A Fix: Fixed-Term Parliaments in the Australian States

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-298
Author(s):  
Peter Congdon
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Constitutional Amendments ◽  
South Wales

Constitutional systems of Westminster heritage are increasingly moving towards fixed-term parliaments to, amongst other things, prevent the Premier or Prime Minister opportunistically calling a ‘snap election’. Amongst the Australian states, qualified fixed-term parliaments currently exist in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria. Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia have also deliberated over whether to establish similar fixed-term parliaments. However, manner and form provisions in those states' constitutions entrench the Parliament's duration, Governor's Office and dissolution power. In Western Australia and Queensland, unlike Tasmania, such provisions are doubly entrenched. This article considers whether these entrenching provisions present legal obstacles to constitutional amendments establishing fixed-term parliaments in those two states. This involves examining whether laws fixing parliamentary terms fall within section 6 of the Australia Acts 1986 (Cth) & (UK). The article concludes by examining recent amendments to the Electoral Act 1907 (WA) designed to enable fixed election dates in Western Australia without requiring a successful referendum.

scholarly journals Dust Transport from Inland Australia and Its Impact on Air Quality and Health on the Eastern Coast of Australia during the February 2019 Dust Storm

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Emilie Aragnou ◽  
Sean Watt ◽  
Hiep Nguyen Duc ◽  
Cassandra Cheeseman ◽  
Matthew Riley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Dust Storm ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
The State ◽  
Dust Storms ◽  
Eastern Coast ◽  
Storm Event ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Dust Storm Event

Dust storms originating from Central Australia and western New South Wales frequently cause high particle concentrations at many sites across New South Wales, both inland and along the coast. This study focussed on a dust storm event in February 2019 which affected air quality across the state as detected at many ambient monitoring stations in the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) air quality monitoring network. The WRF-Chem (Weather Research and Forecast Model—Chemistry) model is used to study the formation, dispersion and transport of dust across the state of New South Wales (NSW, Australia). Wildfires also happened in northern NSW at the same time of the dust storm in February 2019, and their emissions are taken into account in the WRF-Chem model by using Fire Inventory from NCAR (FINN) as emission input. The model performance is evaluated and is shown to predict fairly accurate the PM2.5 and PM10 concentration as compared to observation. The predicted PM2.5 concentration over New South Wales during 5 days from 11 to 15 February 2019 is then used to estimate the impact of the February 2019 dust storm event on three health endpoints, namely mortality, respiratory and cardiac disease hospitalisation rates. The results show that even though as the daily average of PM2.5 over some parts of the state, especially in western and north western NSW near the centre of the dust storm and wild fires, are very high (over 900 µg/m3), the population exposure is low due to the sparse population. Generally, the health impact is similar in order of magnitude to that caused by biomass burning events from wildfires or from hazardous reduction burnings (HRBs) near populous centres such as in Sydney in May 2016. One notable difference is the higher respiratory disease hospitalisation for this dust event (161) compared to the fire event (24).

Agricultural Land Management Options Following Large-Scale Environmental Contamination: Evaluation for Fukushima Affected Agricultural Land

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hildegarde Vandenhove
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Management Option ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Fukushima Daiichi ◽  
Agricultural Land Management

The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has raised questions about the accumulation of radionuclides in soils, the transfer in the foodchain and the possibility of continued restricted future land use. This paper summarizes what is generally understood about the application of agricultural countermeasures as a land management option to reduce the radionuclides transfer in the food chain and to facilitate the return of potentially affected soils to agricultural practices in areas impacted by a nuclear accident.

The Relation Between the Food of the Australian Barracouta, Thyrsites atun (Euphrasen), and Recent Fluctuations in the Fisheries

1957 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Blackburn
Keyword(s):  
Population Distribution ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Downward Trend ◽  
Small Fish ◽  
Fish Diet ◽  
Upward Trend ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
South Wales

The diet of surface-swimming Australian barracouta was studied from over 10,000 stomachs. The principal prey organisms in Bass Strait are the euphausiid Nyctiphanes australis Sars, the anchovy Engraulis australis (White), and young barracouta, in that order; and in eastern Tasmania Nyctiphanes, Engraulis, and the sprat Clupea bassensis McCulloch, in that order. The pilchard Sardinops neopilchardus (Steindachner) is not an important item of the diet in these regions although it is so in New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia. The jack mackerel Trachurus declivis Jenyns is a significant item in eastern Tasmania and New South Wales but not in Bass Strait. These and other features of the fish diet of the barracouta reflect actual availability of the various small fish species in the waters. Barracouta eat Nyctiphanes by herding them into dense masses (or finding them already concentrated) and swallowing them. The movements of the anchovy make it unavailable to Bass Strait and eastern Tasmanian barracouta for much of the summer and autumn period, when the barracouta are thus dependent upon Nyctiphanes for the bulk of their food. A close positive relationship between the availability of barracouta and Nyctiphanes might therefore be expected at those seasons. There is evidence of such a relationship between mean availability (catch per boat-month) of barracouta and mean percentage of barracouta stomachs containing Nyctiphanes, at those seasons, from year to year. For southern Victorian coastal waters both show a downward trend from 1948-49 to 1950-51 and then an upward trend to 1953-54; for eastern Tasmania both show a downward trend (for autumn only) from 1949-50 through 1952-53. The records of catch per boat-month furnish independent evidence that the main variations in this index were effects of availability (population distribution or behaviour) rather than abundance (population size), at least for southern Victoria. It is therefore considered that when scarcity of barracouta occurs in summer and autumn in the coastal fishing areas it may be due to scarcity of Nyctiphanes, forcing the fish to go offshore for this food which is known to be available there. This would take the fish out of range of the fishermen.

Factors affecting post-fire seedling establishment of selected mallee understorey species

2000 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Cohn ◽  
R. A. Bradstock
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
New South ◽  
Eucalyptus Species ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Acacia Species ◽  
Introduced Herbivores ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Rabbit Grazing ◽  
Seedling Germination

Factors affecting the survival of post-fire germinants in mallee communities, in central western New South Wales, were examined. Experiments compared the relative effects of native and introduced herbivores (kangaroos, goats, rabbits), after small- and large-scale fires (20–50 and > 10 000 ha, respectively), with particular emphasis on edge effects, seedling clustering, topography and eucalypt canopy presence. The experiments (1985–1997) focused on common understorey species Acacia rigens Cunn. ex Don, A. wilhelmiana F.Muell. and Triodia scariosa N.T.Burb. subsp. scariosa, in mallee dominated by Eucalyptus species. Following a large fire (1985), high spring rainfall and rabbit grazing on A. rigens only, survival of Acacia species and T. scariosa remained relatively high 4 years later (60–70%). After small burns (1987, 1988), low spring rainfall and grazing by rabbits and kangaroos, survival of Acacia species declined to between 0 and 30% of the germinants by the second summer. In most cases, local extinction had occurred within 8 years. After small burns (1988, 1989) and low spring rainfall, the survival of T. scariosa declined to between 0 and 35% of germinants by the second summer (effect of grazing unknown). No consistent effect of edge, topography and eucalypt canopy was found. Survival of clustered Acacia seedlings was between 10 and 20% lower than unclustered seedlings. Given the high frequency of low rainfall and its interaction with grazing, prescribed burning of mallee for wildfire control and nature conservation may require the local elimination of rabbits and a reduction in kangaroo numbers, especially in the first spring and summer following seedling germination.

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