Organic carbon in atmospheric precipitation in the urbanized territory of the South of Western Siberia, Russia

This paper presents the results of studying the contents of total (TOC) and dissolved (DOC) organic carbon in atmospheric precipitation and their deposition fluxes on the territory of the city of Barnaul. Samples of atmospheric precipitation (rain and snow) were collected from May 2016 to December 2020 in the city center, additionally at the end of winter 2018–2019 samples of snow cover were taken in the territory of the city and its environs. The studies showed a significant content of organic carbon (OC) in atmospheric precipitation: the weighted average concentrations for the study period were 7.2 ± 0.6 and 4.2 ± 0.4 mg/L for TOC and DOC, respectively. The annual flux of OC deposition with atmospheric precipitation on the territory of Barnaul over the past three years has varied within 2.4–3.9 t/km2 for TOC and 1.4–2.1 t/km2 for DOC. To visualize the spatial distribution of organic matter over the territory of Barnaul, simple kriging was used, implemented in the Geostatistical Analyst module (ArcGIS® Desktop). The flow of organic carbon input into the snow cover during the winter period was used as data for the geostatistical model. According to the model, the deposition of OC from the atmosphere occurs unevenly throughout the urban area and depends on the location and intensity of pollution sources.

Mosaicking Weather Radar Retrievals from an Operational Heterogeneous Network at C and X Band for Precipitation Monitoring in Italian Central Apennines

Meteorological radar networks are suited to remotely provide atmospheric precipitation retrieval over a wide geographic area for severe weather monitoring and near-real-time nowcasting. However, blockage due to buildings, hills, and mountains can hamper the potential of an operational weather radar system. The Abruzzo region in central Italy’s Apennines, whose hydro-geological risks are further enhanced by its complex orography, is monitored by a heterogeneous system of three microwave radars at the C and X bands with different features. This work shows a systematic intercomparison of operational radar mosaicking methods, based on bi-dimensional rainfall products and dealing with both C and X bands as well as single- and dual-polarization systems. The considered mosaicking methods can take into account spatial radar-gauge adjustment as well as different spatial combination approaches. A data set of 16 precipitation events during the years 2018–2020 in the central Apennines is collected (with a total number of 32,750 samples) to show the potentials and limitations of the considered operational mosaicking approaches, using a geospatially-interpolated dense network of regional rain gauges as a benchmark. Results show that the radar-network pattern mosaicking, based on the anisotropic radar-gauge adjustment and spatial averaging of composite data, is better than the conventional maximum-value merging approach. The overall analysis confirms that heterogeneous weather radar mosaicking can overcome the issues of single-frequency fixed radars in mountainous areas, guaranteeing a better spatial coverage and a more uniform rainfall estimation accuracy over the area of interest.

Experimental Study of Steel Shot and Lead Shot Transformation Under the Environmental Factors

This paper presents the results of an experimental study of the patterns of steel and lead shot transformation under the impact of environmental factors (two types of shot exposed alone and in combination with each other). The analyzed environmental factors include atmospheric precipitation of various acidity and soil solutions with a higher content of organic acids. This research demonstrated that steel shot is characterized by a high transformation rate that is an order of magnitude higher on average than the transformation rate of lead under the same conditions. The prevalence of the suspended iron form (excluding the interaction with organic acids) presents risks for such environmental components as soils and sediments and may be hazardous to the ambient air and natural waters in case of wind erosion and surface runoff from the catchment area. Furthermore, the joint presence of steel and lead shot mutually accelerates the corrosion of both metals, thus increasing the environmental risks.

ASSESSMENT OF THE CURRENT STATE AND EXPECTED CHANGES IN AGRO-CLIMATIC RESOURCES OF THE GUBA-KHACHMAZ ECONOMIC REGION OF THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN

The article discusses some issues of assessing the current state and expected changes in agro-climatic resources of the Guba-Khachmaz economic region. Research methods are selected and substantiated. The issues of interpretation of agro-climatic information are considered to determine modern "norms" of agro-climatic indicators and assess the impact of regional climate change on these resources. To assess the impact of climate change on agroclimatic resources, such indicators as the date of the transition of the average daily air temperature above 10 °C in the spring and below 10 °C in the fall, the length of the warm period, the sum of active air temperatures above 10 °C, the sum of precipitation and the hydrothermal coefficient Selyaninov for the warm season. For example, it is shown that with the expected increase in air temperature by 2 °C, the beginning of the warm period will begin in the lowland, foothill and mid-mountain zones by 8-10 days, and in the highlands by 22 days earlier than in the modern period. In autumn, the end of the warm period is expected 11-15 days later; the length of the warm period is expected to increase by 20-23 days in the lowland, foothill and mid-mountain zones and by 37 days in the high-mountain zone. It is also expected that the sum of active temperatures will increase by 581-665 °C for the warm period. It was revealed that the most susceptible to the influence of an increase in global air temperature by 2 °C will be medium and high mountain zones. With an increase in air temperature in the future by 4 °C and a decrease in atmospheric precipitation by 20 %, the frequency of occurrence of the 1st group of drought with height will increase from 6 % to 33 %, the frequency of occurrence of the 2-nd group will change from -14 % to + 50 %, and the first group will decrease by 13-57 %. With an increase in air temperature in the future by 2 °C and a decrease in atmospheric precipitation by 20 %, the frequency of occurrence of various groups of drought will be similar to the previous variant. Also, an assessment was made of possible changes in the frequency of drought with different intensities.

Assessment of Mercury Concentrations and Fluxes Deposited from the Atmosphere on the Territory of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area

The problem of mercury input and its further distribution in the Arctic environment is actively debated, especially in recent times, due to the observed processes of permafrost thawing causing the enhanced release of mercury into the Arctic atmosphere and further distribution in the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem. The atmospheric mercury deposition occurs via dry deposition and wet scavenging by precipitation events. Here we present a study of Hg in wet precipitation on the remote territory of the Russian Arctic; the data were obtained at the monitoring stations Nadym and Salekhard in 2016–2018. Mercury pollution of the Salekhard atmosphere in cold time is mainly determined by regional and local sources, while in Nadym, long-range transport of mercury and local fuel combustion are the main sources of pollutants in the cold season, while internal regional sources have a greater impact on the warm season. Total mercury concentrations in wet precipitation in Nadym varied from <0.5 to 63.3 ng/L. The highest Hg concentrations in the springtime were most likely attributed to atmospheric mercury depletion events (AMDE). The contributions of wet atmospheric precipitation during the AMDE period to the annual Hg deposition were 16.7% and 9.8% in 2016/2017 and 2017/2018, respectively. The average annual volume-weighted Hg concentration (VWC) in the atmospheric precipitation in Nadym is notably higher than the values reported for the remote regions in the Arctic and comparable with the values obtained for the other urbanized regions of the world. Annual Hg fluxes in Nadym are nevertheless close to the average annual fluxes for remote territories of the Arctic zone and significantly lower than the annual fluxes reported for unpolluted sites of continental-scale monitoring networks of the different parts of the world (USA, Europe, and China). The increase of Hg deposition flux with wet precipitation in Nadym in 2018 might be caused by regional emissions of gas and oil combustion, wildfires, and Hg re-emission from soils due to the rising air temperature. The 37 cm increase of the seasonally thawed layer (STL) in 2018 compared to the 10-year average reflects that the climatic changes in the Nadym region might increase Hg(0) evasion, considering a great pool of Hg is contained in permafrost.

Trends in the content of acidifying and eutrophying compounds in atmospheric precipitation in an urbanized area

The trends in changing the content of sulfur and nitrogen in atmospheric precipitation in the territory of Minsk over an 18-year period are characterized on the basis of the analysis of the monitoring results of the chemical composition of atmospheric precipitation at the experimental site. A downtrend in the sulfur and nitrogen content combined with an uptrend in the precipitation acidity was identified. An average decrease (trend) in the content of sulfur in atmospheric precipitation for 2002–2019 was 0.019 mg S/dm3/year, of oxidized nitrogen – 0.008 mg/dm3, of reduced nitrogen – 0.019 mg/dm3. Over an 18-year period, the changes in the content of sulfur and nitrogen in atmospheric precipitation decreased the deposition of sulfur on average by 31.3 kg/km2/year, of oxidized nitrogen – by 15.4 kg/km2/year, of reduced nitrogen – by 25.6 kg/km2/year. It is shown that for the period from 2005 to 2012, the acidification potential of the natural environment decreased parallel to the reduction of the sulfur and nitrogen deposition; in the subsequent period, the trend of the acidification potential basically follows the trend of the precipitation of the main cations. It is revealed that the rates of average reduction in the content of oxidized sulfur and oxidized nitrogen in atmospheric precipitation in Minsk for the period from 2002 to 2017 are comparable to the rates of reduction of these compounds at the stations of the EMEP Program in Europe, and exceed those for reduced nitrogen.

Analysis of the Causes of the Collapse of a Deep-Buried Large Cross-Section of Loess Tunnel and Evaluation of Treatment Measures

To address the problem of the collapse of the roof of the Bailuyuan tunnel during construction, the causes of collapse were analyzed, targeted treatment measures were proposed, and the effects of the treatment measures were evaluated through on-site monitoring and three-dimensional numerical simulations. The results showed that the particular characteristics of loess and the synergy of groundwater were the internal causes of the tunnel’s collapse as well as, to a certain extent, atmospheric precipitation. Therefore, the combination of multiple factors contributed to the tunnel’s collapse. Untimely monitoring and measurement, as well as the low initial support parameters, reflect a lack of human understanding of the collapse. Based on the analysis of the causes of the collapse, comprehensive treatment measures for inside and outside the tunnel are proposed, which are shown to be effective and to be capable of preventing the occurrence of further collapses. After the collapse treatment, the measured maximum settlement of the tunnel vault was 65.1 mm, the maximum horizontal convergence was 25 mm, the maximum surrounding rock pressure was 0.56 MPa, and the maximum stress on the steel arch frame was 54.34 MPa. Compared with the original design plan, the vertical stress, horizontal stress, and shear stress of the surrounding rock obtained from numerical simulation after the collapse treatment were greatly reduced, the reduction rate at the vault reached 50%, and the safety factors of the initial support positions after treatment met the specification requirements. The research results can provide engineering guidance for the design and construction of large-section tunnels crossing deep-loess strata, and they are of important engineering significance.

Assessment of the influence of the Viriva granite quarry on the condition of the surface and ground waters within the Vyry village

Analyzed the results of their own research to assess the impact of the Vyrovsky granite quarry on the state of surface and ground waters within the village of Vyry, Sarny district, Rivne region of Ukraine. Research methods: hydrogeological, sanitary-chemical, analytical. It has been established that the technological process of extracting granite and producing construction crushed stone does not involve the use of a large amount of water. Pit water is used as process water without additional intake of surface or groundwater. The main problems during the exploitation of the car, which are found on the enterprises, are connected with water. The stench is overwhelmed by the surging of ground and surface waters and the need for input for the safety of normal minds of their exploitation. Significant watering of the area's surface is due to the abundance of atmospheric precipitation, relatively flat relief, the presence of a small thickness of sedimentary rocks covering the crystalline massifs. So, the chemical and biological pollution of the river. The extraction by quarry waters does not occur, since the results of laboratory studies of the quarry water did not show its contamination. In general, the Vyrovsky granite quarry does not affect the volume of the river flow. Alignment, for a long time of operation of the Vyrovsky granite quarry, the groundwater levels of the aquifer have already been established and currently remain relatively stable. Further development of the open pit area will not affect the lowering of the groundwater level within the village. Vyry. Decrease in water levels in wells and wells within the village. Vyry in recent years (2015-2020) is associated with climatic changes, which led to a decrease in precipitation, an increase in temperature and evaporation and, as a consequence, a very low water content in rivers practically throughout Ukraine.

An Overview of Hydrogeological Works at Nabeghlavi Mineral Water Deposit and Replenishment of the Natural Resources of the Deposit by Atmospheric Precipitation

Mineral waters are very important resources of the country. Their moderate consumption and protection is possible through sustainable and efficient management. The paper presents an overview of hydrogeological works carried out on the Nabeghlavi carbonic mineral water deposit. Information on calculation of the natural resource replenishment coefficient with atmospheric precipitation based on the hydrogeological and meteorological data and characterization of geological-technical condition of exploitation drill holes is described. Coefficient of replenishment of the Nabeghlavi mineral water resources with infiltrated atmospheric precipitation has been determined by Darcy’s method. According to the reference historic data, back in 1986, the magnitude of the coefficient was 25,307 m3/ day, whereas in 2000-2020 it has equated 28,125 m3/day. Conventional average of these values made 26,715 m3/day, which is 90 times higher than the current approved operating reserve (296 m3/day) of the deposit.

Building Ceramics of the Ancient Settlement of Akchakhan-Kala

The Akshakhan-kala is located on the right bank of the Amu Darya, in the Biruni district of the Republic of Karakalpakstan. Over the years of archaeological study of the site, a large ceramic material was collected, dating back to the 3rd cent. BCE - 5th cent. AC. In the archaeological collection of the site, a group of finds is distinguished, attributed to the category of building ceramics. The article is devoted to the analysis of this collection and an attempt to determine the field of application of certain types of building ceramics. Among the building ceramics of the Akshakhan settlement stand out spillway pipes and ceramic tiles. The use of fragments of ceramic vessels in the construction was also recorded. The obtained analysis results suggest that in ancient Khwarezm, ceramic building materials were used to solve such problems as protecting structures from atmospheric precipitation, improving settlements and increasing the strength of adobe structures.