Dynamics of inorganic nutrient species in the Bohai seawaters

Within the frame of a Sino-German Joint Research Program, two cruises of “R/V Dong Fang Hong 2” were carried out in September–October 1998 and April–May 1999, respectively, to understand the dynamics of nutrients in the Bohai. Nutrient species (NO₃⁻, NO₂⁻, NH₄⁺, PO₄³⁻ and SiO₃²⁻) are determined colorimetrically on board for five anchor and 30 grid stations. In situ incubation experiments are performed to determine planktonic nutrient uptake and benthic exchange flux. Nutrient concentrations display short-term variability and seasonal change in the Bohai, with higher levels in shallow coastal waters than in the Central Bohai. The influence of riverine discharge on nutrient levels can be seen from salinity isopleths, nutrient distribution and species ratios. Near-bottom (nb) waters have similar nutrient concentrations as to the surface waters in the Central Bohai, whereas stratification takes place in the Bohai Strait and North Yellow Sea. In situ incubation experiments provide evidence that the uptake ratio (i.e. N, P) by phytoplankton is proportional to the ratios among nutrient species in ambient waters. Based on the data of this study and previously publications, a preliminary estimate of nutrient budgets via riverine input and atmospheric deposition is established. The results indicate that atmospheric deposition gains importance over rivers in delivering nutrients into the Bohai and sustain the new production, following recent decrease in riverine inflow caused by drought periods in North China and damming practices. A historical review of nutrient data indicates that concentrations of nitrogen increase and phosphorus and silica decrease in the Central Bohai over last 40 years. This potentially has an important influence on the health of ecosystem in Bohai (e.g. food web and community structure), though further study is needed to examine the scenario in more detail.     

青藏铁路中小站区生态大棚污水处理技术

结合青藏铁路中小站区生活污水的特点,提出采用生态大棚系统,在青藏高原恶劣的自然环境中建立适宜常规污水生物处理工艺的人工小环境,为生活污水的生物处理提供必需的热平衡、O2CO2循环平衡和水循环平衡。利用有限元分析软件进行热平衡仿真计算,设计生态大棚。通过在实验室对2种常规的污水生物处理工艺进行比选,确定采用好氧生物—土地处理工艺进行青藏铁路中小站区生活污水处理的现场实验。现场实验表明:在生态大棚内部采用4级生物转盘与土地处理相结合的工艺,经过处理的生活污水达到了国家1级排放标准,CODCr去除率达到87.3%以上,可有效保护青藏铁路运营后的高原环境。     

Attitudes to transport modes for shopping purposes in Singapore

A review of the retailing and transportation literature shows that there is an apparently large research gap in the understanding of shoppers’ attitudes towards transport modes for shopping purposes. In particular, not many studies have been done to examine shoppers’ detailed and disaggregated attitudinal image structures of the various transport modes for shopping purposes. Using Singapore as a study area, this paper has attempted to investigate shoppers’ image structure of transport modes and their comparative perception ratings for the various modes of transportation for shopping purposes. Using principal component analysis, the research has unveiled the perceptions of five transport modes for shopping purposes. While some of the factors are unique to certain transport modes, other factors, namely ‘suitability’, ‘practicality’, ‘ease of travel’ and ‘cost’, are common to all modes of transportation. By way of the weighted‐factor rating, the study found that the car recorded the highest overall perception rating while the bus rated the lowest. In addition, the shoppers have reasonably good perception of public transport modes in Singapore.     

核动力舰船生物屏蔽技术

核动力舰船生物屏蔽不同陆上核动力装置生物屏蔽,其重量、体积受到极大限制,屏蔽空间也极度不规则。如何设计出经济上合理、技术上可行、体积小、重量轻、相对性能最佳的生物屏蔽,是一项复杂的系统工程。本文概述了核动力舰船生物屏蔽设技术的特点和要求;总结了核动力舰船生物屏蔽设计的一般方法、设计流程和生物屏蔽材料研制及应用情况;提出了将点核积分法同蒙特卡罗方法相结合的核动力舰船生物屏蔽设计方法,可为核动力舰船生物屏蔽设计提供参考。     

压载水UV处理装置优化设计及实验研究

IMO制定的压载水处理D2标准已对颗粒物和细菌及微生物的数量等做了明确的规定,利用紫外线杀菌具有高效、洁净、方便的特点。提出了对原有的UV处理装置内增加了进出口导流板和筒体内平面导流板,它改善了UV处理装置内的流场分布和辐照剂量的均匀性。模拟结果显示,优化后的装置它的平均流速为1.18m/s,低于原先的2.43m/s平均流速,使辐照时间增加了1.030s,辐照剂量呈正态分布。通过生物实验测试,验证了优化后的装置能将10~50μm生物数量控制为平均0.02cfu/ml,50μm以上生物数量控制为2.33cfu/m3。在紫外灯管数量及功率未增加情况下,它节约了处理时的能耗,达到了理想的杀菌效果。     

复合式膜生物反应器处理生活污水的特性研究

复合式膜生物反应器与A/O工艺相结合处理生活污水,使反应器兼具活性污泥法、生物膜法、膜分离3种处理过程,系统出水稳定.膜出水COD平均去除率达85.3%,含量小于50 mg/L;氨氮平均去除率为69.1%,含量20 mg/L以下;总氮平均去除率为50.8%,出水水质符合国家生活杂用水水质标准.     

Phytoplanktonic nutrient utilisation and nutrient signature in the Southern Ocean

The separation in Southern Ocean provinces of silicate excess at nitrate exhaustion and of nitrate excess at silicate exhaustion was already introduced by Kamykowski and Zentara (Kamykowski, D., Zentara, S.J., 1985. Nitrate and silicic acid in the world ocean: patterns and processes. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 26, 47–59; and Kamykowski, D., Zentara, S.J., 1989. Circumpolar plant nutrient covariation in the Southern Ocean: patterns and processes. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 58, 101–111) and our investigations of the silicate to nitrate uptake ratios confirm the earlier distinction. Oligotrophic antarctic waters mainly exhibit proportionally higher silicate removal what induces a potential for nitrate excess. The nitrogen uptake regime of such areas is characterised by low absolute as well as specific nitrate uptake rates throughout. Maximal values did not exceed 0.15 μM d⁻¹ and 0.005 h⁻¹, respectively. Corresponding f-ratios ranged from 0.39 to 0.86. This scenario contrasts strikingly to the more fertile ice edge areas. They showed a drastic but short vernal increase in nitrate uptake. Absolute uptake rates reached a maximum value of 2.18 μM d⁻¹ whereas the maximal specific uptake rate was 0.063 h⁻¹. In addition to an optimal physical environment for bloom development, accumulation of ammonium stimulated nitrate uptake in a direct or indirect way. Since ammonium build-up in surface waters traces enhanced remineralisation, release of other essential compounds during degradation of organic matter might have been the main trigger. This peak nitrate utilisation during early spring led to the observed potential for silicate excess. With increasing seasonal maturity the nitrate uptake became inhibited by the presence of enhanced ammonium availability (up to 8% of the inorganic nitrogen pool), however, and after a short period of intensive nitrate consumption the uptake rates drop to very low levels, which are comparable to the ones observed in the area of nitrate excess at silicate exhaustion.     

Succession of the ecosystems of the Aral Sea during its transition from oligohaline to polyhaline water body

During 22 field trips from 1990 to 2002 (mainly the western basin of the Large Aral) data on salinity, phytoplankton, zooplankton, zoobenthos and fish fauna have been collected. In 2002, the salinity of the western basin reached 75 ppt, while that in the eastern basin, 150 ppt. In 1999–2002, 159 species of planktonic algae have been recorded. This is approximately twice as low as recorded before. The diversity of Cyanophyta, Pyrrhophyta and Chlorophyta in particular has dropped in the past few years. As before, currently Bacillariophyta is the most diverse plankton. However, the composition of dominants has changed. Once previously dominant species, Actinocyclus ehrenbergii, vanished from the plankton of the Aral Sea and was replaced by such diatoms as Amphora coffeaformis, A. coffeaformis var. acutiuscula and Synedra tabulata var. parva.Since 1970s, a gradual decrease in the diversity of zooplankton has been taking place. Since 1997, the formerly dominant Calanipeda aquaedulcis vanished, which apparently was the reason for the emergence of Moina salina and Artemia parthenogenetica. Since 2000, artemia has been dominant in the plankton of the Aral Sea, constituting 99% of the zooplankton biomass.In the 1970–1980s, a rapid decrease in the biodiversity of the zoobenthos was observed. In the 1990s, most aboriginal and introduced species became extinct. Currently, the bivalve mollusk Syndosmya segmentum, the ostracod Cyprideis torosa and larvae of the dipteran Chironomus salinarius can still be recorded in the western basin. In the eastern basin no benthos is observed.By 1998, in the Large Aral, only five fish species survived: baltic herring Clupea harengus membras, flounder Platichthys flesus luscus, atherine Atherina boyeri caspia and bullheads Neogobius fluviatilis and Potamoschistus caucasicus. Since 2002, only flounder and atherina have been recorded in the western basin of the Large Aral. No fish have been recorded in the eastern part of the Aral Sea in 2002.With increasing salinity and transition of the Aral Sea from an oligohaline to a polyhaline water body, its biota is becoming drastically poorer. Almost all local species became extinct in the Aral; however, some still survive (including some endemics) in some lakes around the Aral Sea. In the near future, artemia will be the only animal in the Aral Sea.     

Numerical prediction of the dilution process and its biological impacts in CO2 ocean sequestration

 In order to investigate the biological impacts of the ocean sequestration of CO₂ (carbon dioxide), the dilution processes of CO₂ were investigated near injection points in the deep ocean. From a combined fluid-dynamics, chemical, and biological approach, a two-phase computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method with mass transfer was developed to predict droplet plume flow, the dissolution of CO₂ from droplets into seawater, and the advection–diffusion of dissolved CO₂ (DCO₂) in the deep ocean. Changes in pH due to the concentration of DCO₂ were also calculated. In addition, the isomortality concept of Auerbach et al. was incorporated to predict the lethal damage to marine organisms caused by DCO₂. The simulation results suggested that the biological impacts of CO₂ sequestration were insignificant in terms of mortality in both small-scale field experiments and the real-life cases we propose. Received: October 3, 2001 / Accepted: December 14, 2001     

Effects of small-scale turbulence on the growth of two diatoms of different size in a phosphorus-limited medium

The effect of turbulence on the nutrient flux towards osmotrophic cells is predicted to be size dependent. This should translate into growth. We experimentally followed and modelled the growth of two marine diatoms of different size (Thalassiosira pseudonana, 6 μm in diameter and Coscinodiscus sp., ca. 109 μm in diameter) under still water and turbulent conditions, using a shaker table. Experiments were done with phosphorus-limited cultures and lasted for ca. 5 days. Turbulence enhanced the growth of Coscinodiscus sp. in agreement with theory but not the growth of T. pseudonana, which was actually slightly lower under turbulence. At the end of the experiments there were about 1.7 times as many Coscinodiscus sp. cells in the turbulent treatment than in the still treatment, while for T. pseudonana almost the same cell concentration was found in both conditions. In addition, the Coscinodiscus sp. cells growing under still conditions presented a higher specific alkaline phosphatase activity than those growing in turbulence which indicates a higher need for phosphorus in the still cultures. A simple dynamic model, based on Michaelis–Menten nutrient uptake kinetics, needed nearly no optimisation other than using observed initial conditions of phosphate and cell concentrations. The model showed how an increased nutrient flux towards the cells translates non-linearly into cell growth, most likely by affecting the half-saturation constant (K_M). However, since Coscinodiscus sp. experienced significant mortality and cells partially settled to the bottom of the containers, unequivocal support for the size-dependent effect of turbulence on nutrient uptake will require further experiments and more sophisticated modelling. The mechanisms to connect an increased nutrient flux towards cells with population growth and whether this process is size dependent are important in parameterizing the effects of turbulence on marine plankton in coupled physical–biological models.