Atmospheric phenomena have an enormous influence on natural resources and human life. Lack of sufficient information and knowledge in regard to the management of natural areas and ecosystems will bring about a huge cost. Hamadan province according to the topography, geomorphology, and soil condition is known as a particular area. In this region, intense rains have brought about hillsides, runoffs, and floods annually destroying a large amount of foundations and eroding fertile soils. This study was conducted using rainfall average data from 35 synoptic stations and rain measurements between the years 1982 and 2012 (30 years). Geostatistical techniques are applied for zoning, such as kriging, co-kriging, inverse distance weighting (IDW), radial basis function, global polynomial interpolation, and local polynomial interpolation. For comparing and evaluating geostatistical methods, cross-validation and statistical parameters such as correlation coefficient and mean absolute relative error (MARE) were used. According to the results, it can be realized that simple co-kriging (exponential) technique with the highest correlation coefficient (.75) and the lowest MARE (.124) is the most appropriate geostatistical method to predict rainfall distribution. Also, it is realized that there is a correct correlation between the accuracy of co-kriging technique and elevation changes. However, IDW with power 5 is the least accurate technique.

The rapid growth in the use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture, excessive extraction of groundwater, and rise in the number of industries with inefficient waste disposal system have been some of the key factors in degradation of groundwater quality during the past years. Although groundwater is considered as a valuable natural resource, the quality control of this resource has systematically failed in India. Irrespective of rural or urban locations, the average sulphate contamination of groundwater in India has reached 90 to 150 mg/L. Such a borderline contamination concentration poses threat both to livelihood and to economy. In addition, the negative health effects of sulphate-contaminated drinking water can range from dermatitis to lung problems and skin cancer. The biostrategic manipulation of groundwater discussed in this article involves sulphate-reducing bacteria used in addition to a 3-step procedure involving constitutive aeration, filtration, and shock chlorination. With earlier use of a similar strategy in the United States and Europe proven to be beneficial, we propose a combinatorial and economical approach for processing of groundwater for removal of sulphur contamination, which still largely remains unnoticed and neglected.

The analysis of time series is essential for building mathematical models to generate synthetic hydrologic records, to forecast hydrologic events, to detect intrinsic stochastic characteristics of hydrologic variables, as well as to fill missing and extend records. To this end, various probability distribution models were fitted to river inflows of Kainji Reservoir in New Bussa, Niger State, Nigeria. This is to evaluate the probability function that is best suitable for the prediction of their values and subsequently using the best model to predict for both the expected maximum and minimum monthly inflows at some specific return periods. Three models, ie, Gumbel extreme value type I (EVI), log-normal (LN), and normal (N), were evaluated for the inflows and the best model was selected based on the statistical goodness-of-fit test. The values of goodness-of-fit test for Kainji hydropower dam are as follows: r = 0.96, R² = 0.99, SEE = 0.0087, χ² = 0.0054, for Gumbel (EVI); r = 0.79, R² = 0.85, SEE = 0.02, χ² = 0.31 for LN; and r = 0.0.75, R² = 0.0.68, SEE = 0.056, χ² = 1376.39 for N. For the Kainji hydropower dams, the Gumbel (EVI) model gave the best fit. These probability distribution models can be used to predict the near-future reservoir inflow at the Kainji hydropower dams.

The AERMOD dispersion model was evaluated for its performance in predicting 1-hour average nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) concentrations in the vicinity of the largest petrochemical industrial complex in Thailand during the period between January 2012 and December 2013. Measured data from 10 ambient air monitoring stations were intensively used to compare with modeled results. Model results indicated that the tier 1 approach (full conversion of NOx to NO₂) provided the most accurate results compared with other tiers. It also performed very well in predicting the extreme end of NO₂ concentrations. With an absence of emission data from mobile sources, tier 1 was concluded as the most appropriate scheme for prediction of ambient NO₂ ground-level concentrations in this study.

Regulatory agencies worldwide have developed regulatory guidance values (RGVs) for nearly 800 pesticides. Analysis of the residential surface soil guidance values applied to the most frequently regulated current-use agriculture, home, and garden pesticides is presented. Part I concentrates on values applied to atrazine, simazine, and trifluralin. These are unique among commonly used pesticides because they are generally considered to be human carcinogens. Their use has been banned in much of the world, but they are commonly used in the United States. Regulatory guidance values applied to these 3 pesticides vary by 8.6, 5.5, and 5.1 orders of magnitude. Risk model coefficient–bounded set uncertainty analysis is applied to help analyze this variability. Cancer risk model uncertainty bounds appear to contain 36.3%, 43.0%, and 49.5% of the RGVs. Most of the remaining values appear to exceed a lifetime cancer incidence risk of 1 × 10⁻⁶ and may not be adequately protective of human health.

Surface soil regulatory guidance values (RGVs) are available worldwide for nearly 800 pesticides. Part I of this study examined values applied to commonly used carcinogenic pesticides. Part II examines RGVs applied to 12 commonly used noncarcinogenic pesticides: 2,4-D, carbaryl, carbofuran, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, dicamba, diuron, glyphosate, malathion, MCPA, metolachlor, and picloram. The RGVs applied by 38 nations vary by as much as 9.3 orders of magnitude, but the RGV distributions do not fit the lognormal random variable model as well as those reported for other contaminants, and there are value clusters in each distribution. The largest clusters contain values similar to current or previous US Environmental Protection Agency, Australian national, and former USSR values. Because these pesticides are used worldwide, it is important that their RGVs protect human health. Analysis indicates that this goal has not yet been achieved for chlorpyrifos and MCPA.

Airborne mineral dust is thought to have a significant influence on the climate through absorbing and scattering both shortwave and longwave radiations and affecting cloud microphysical processes. However, a knowledge of long-term dust emissions is limited from both temporal and spatial perspectives. Here, we have developed a quantitative climatology: the column-integrated mass of the dust aerosol loading in Central Asia by incorporating the dust module (DuMo) into the Weather Research and Forecasting coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model and accounting for regional climate and Land-Cover and Land-Use Changes for the 1950-2010 period in April. This data set is lowly to moderately correlated (0.22-0.48) with the satellite Aerosol Optical Depth in April of the 2000s and lowly correlated (0.02-0.11) with the Absorbing Aerosol Index in April of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The total dust loading is approximately 207.85 Mton per month in April during the recent decade (2000-2014) over dust source regions. Although only the month of April was simulated, results suggest that trends and magnitudes are captured well, using the WRF-Chem-DuMo.

The Santa Lucia River basin provides drinking water to 60% of Uruguay population. The input of excessive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus both from point and nonpoint sources could impair surface water quality and prevent its use for human consumption. The objective of this work was to evaluate surface water quality in small catchments under agricultural use located within this river basin. To this end, 5 streams and 4 small polders were surveyed between September 2008 and December 2009. The median concentrations of total phosphorus and total nitrogen in the streams across all sites and periods were 770 and 1659 µg L⁻¹, respectively, exceeding in the case of total phosphorus national and international thresholds. Furthermore, soluble phosphorous, the most readily available form to algae, represented 88.3% of total phosphorus. Concentrations of phosphorous and nitrogen in polders were also high. The eutrophication process of this water bodies could be linked to the intensive agricultural land use in the area because the nutrient input from cities and industries was not relevant in these catchments.

Hazardous bleaching and dyeing units are rapidly increasing in developing countries due to growing global demand of textile products. The aim of the study is to assess long-term respiratory effect of air pollution generated from textile bleaching and dyeing industries on the residents living in such industrial setting. Such types of long-term (2012-2016) studies have been conducted first time in this area. The control area of Chatta and Kalikapur under Maheshtala textile cluster (10.45°N latitude to 75.90°E longitude) has been identified for the study. Ambient air monitoring with particulate matters (PMs; PM_2.5 and PM₁₀), NO₂, and SO₂ of 72 air samples has been done with air sampler machine during different seasons. The concentrations of PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ have been found higher than Central Pollution Control Board (India) and World Health Organization norms. Using data on 73 respondents on age, education, occupation, and income, impact on different causes of respiratory ailments has been examined. The survey shows that 67% of total population are having different respiratory complaints. The regression analysis (R² = 0.9998) and correlation matrix show that cold, cough, bronchitis, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have a strongly significant positive correlation with fever (r = 0.98, P < 0.05); breathing trouble has a significant strong positive correlation with cold, cough, bronchitis, asthma, COPD, and fever (r = 0.877, P < 0.05); high blood pressure has a negative correlation with cold and fever (r = −0.655, P < 0.05); cardiovascular problem has a strong positive correlation with high blood pressure (r = 0.989, P < 0.05) and strong negative correlation with cold, cough, asthma, bronchitis, and cold-related fever (r = −0.54, P < 0.05) due to PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ concentration. About 56% of villagers who have opted for this occupation have school-level education (class I-IV) with annual income of Rs 60 000 ($870) only. Studies express present scenario of air pollution in the subject area which is still unnoticed and propose to take control of air pollution.

Despite government’s repeated assertions for the sustainable mining extraction and development of rural and tribal communities living near the vicinity of mining areas, these have not been converted into implementable solutions. The natural resources from rural and tribal areas are being exploited to meet the ever-increasing requirements and aspirations of the affluent groups. With the above background, this article, taking both experimental and control villages into account, tried to explore the impact of coal mining on local environment. Although dealing with local environment, it has mostly focused on sociological impact of mining in air, water, and noise pollution. The data collected show that the suspended particulate matter concentration is alarmingly high in few sampling locations, whereas respirable suspended particulate matter concentration which once used to be within acceptable limits is now gradually approaching its standard acceptable value of 300 µg/m³. Along with uncovered coal transportation, lack of water spraying system and movement of heavy vehicles have brought an addition to air pollution to the locality. The extraction of mining has influenced the water table. The data collected from State Pollution Control Board, Bhubaneswar, show that suspended sediments and chemical oxygen demand in most of the mining areas and biological oxygen demand in few cases have crossed the specific standard. Along with this, household survey was conducted by covering 6 villages and 600 households. The study was undertaken by following experimental design where 450 households were taken from experimental, ie, mining villages, and 150 households have been selected from nonmining areas. Of the 450 households, around 96.44% villagers responded that Mahanadi Coalfields Limited is not taking any mitigation measures to apprehend the pollution caused by mining operations.

One of the major issues for semidistributed models is calibration of sensitive parameters. This study compared 3 scenarios for Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for calibration and uncertainty. Roodan watershed has been selected for simulation of daily flow in southern part of Iran with an area of 10 570 km². After preparation of required data and implementation of the SWAT model, sensitivity analysis has been performed by Latin Hypercube One-factor-At-a-Time method on those parameters which are effective for flow simulation. Then, SWAT Calibration and Uncertainty Program (SWAT-CUP) has been used for calibration and uncertainty analysis. Three schemes for calibration were followed for the Roodan watershed modeling in calibration analysis as evolution. These include the following: the global method (scheme 1), this is a method that takes in all globally adjusted sensitive parameters for the whole watershed; the discretization method (scheme 2), this method considered the dominant features in calibration such as land use and soil type; the optimum parameters method (scheme 3), this method only adjusted those sensitive parameters by considering the effectiveness of their features. The results show that scheme 3 has better performance criteria for calibration and uncertainty analysis. Nash-Sutcliffe (NS) coefficient has been obtained 0.75 for scheme 3. However, schemes 1 and 2 resulted in NS 0.71 and 0.74, respectively, between predicted and observed daily flows. Moreover, percentage bias (P-bias) obtained was 6.7, 5.2, and 1.5 for schemes 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The result also shows that condition of parameters (parameter set) during calibration in SWAT-CUP program model has an important role to increase the performance of the model.

Safe drinking water is crucial for the well-being of current and future generations. This study aims to evaluate the quality of potable water in Baghdad city. Furthermore, this study compares the quality of tap and bottled water. Baghdad city was divided into 4 districts based on the water source, and 40 water samples were collected from each district. Moreover, the most popular bottled water brands were sampled and compared with the tap water samples. The quality of the analyzed potable water samples varied based on the water source. The total dissolved solid (TDS) levels exceed the palatable (>600 ppm) water levels in some districts. In addition, the concentration of sulfate was relatively high in both tap and bottled water and ranged from 200 to 330 ppm. The bottled water quality was within the acceptable limits set by the World Health Organization, but the TDS levels were relatively high. The hardness, Cl⁻, Pb²⁺, and bacteria contents in both tap and bottled water were within the standard limits. Finally, it is important to conduct radiological analyses in the future to investigate the effect of wars on Iraqi water resources.

This study examined the water quality of Saguling Reservoir as potential raw water for Bandung metropolitan area. Determination of water quality in this study consisted of trophic status determination based on total phosphorus, total nitrogen (ammonia and nitrate), and water clarity. Data were obtained 4 times a year for 16 years (1999-2013). We determined the overall water quality status by comparing data with criteria specified in Ministerial Regulation (Permen) of the Environment Number 28 of 2009 on the Water Pollution Load Capacity of Lakes or Reservoirs. Data from 11 stations were analyzed, which indicated a hypertrophic state with very high pollution. Nanjung Post (upstream of the reservoir) had the highest levels of total P, total N, and chlorophyll a compared with the Muara Ciminyak Post and Muara Intake Post (the middle and downstream regions of the reservoir). Seasonal changes had no effect on the trophic status, regardless of dry, normal, or wet conditions.

In this study, systematic measurement of activity concentrations of ⁴⁰K, ²²⁶Ra, and ²³²Th and radon exhalation rate has been done in soil samples of Cauvery River environment. The activity was measured using HPGe gamma-ray spectrometer, and the mean values of ⁴⁰K, ²²⁶Ra, and ²³²Th in the soil samples were found to be 182 ± 4, 34 ± 2, and 19 ± 1 Bq kg⁻¹, respectively. The radon exhalation rate was measured by “Can technique” using SSNTD (LR-115) films. The mean values of radium concentration, surface exhalation, and mass exhalation rate were found to be 118.95, 293.61, and 108.53 mBq kg⁻¹ h⁻¹, respectively. The radiological hazard indices due to natural radioactivity were calculated and compared with international recommended values, which are lower than the recommended level. The radon exhalation rate is lower than the recommended level.

The aerosols loading and retention over West Africa have grave effect on life-forms through the impact on health, farming, rainfall pattern, cloud formation, and regional climate. Bolgatanga can be found on the latitude and longitude of 10.78°N and 0.85°W, respectively. This research is focused on an investigative consideration of the negative effect of atmospheric aerosols over Bolgatanga in Ghana through a conceptual model using analytical and descriptive statistical methods with MATLAB curve-fitting tool. The model was verified using aerosol optical depth data set from satellite imagery—multi-angle imaging specto-reflectometer (MISR)—obtained over a period of 13 years. The highest percentage increase of aerosol retention was 64.27% over the research site. The model was used to estimate the atmospheric constants as 0.67, tuning constants as 0.24, and phase difference as ±π4. The physical interpretation of the results was analyzed systematically.