INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (IJEST)
Year:2004 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:9

The ISI ® Journal Citation Reports (JCR ® Journal Citation Reports (ICR ® ) impact factor has moved in recent years form an obscure biblimetric indicator to become the chief quantitative measure of the quality of journal, its research papers, the researchers who wrote those papers, and even the institution they work in. This pamphlet looks at the limitation of the impact factor, how it can and how it should not be used.

Urban development plans have significant potential impacts on affected environment according to the various activities and due to their different construction and operation phases. Establishment and development of the new-established Municipality of Tehran District-22, with about 10,000 hectares area has been planned as the last limit of continuous extension of Great Tehran and as the largest urban city of the country. It is based on the general lay out of Tehran master development plan, ratified in 1970 and 1991. In terms of current facilities, it has been anticipated necessary spaces to establish various activities including residential, commercial and urban services, establishing green spaces, man-made lake and other necessary infrastructures of urban development. Griding method was used in order to determine the environment vulnerability of the development plan of the region. In this method, the studied district has been divided into 1 to 10 square kilometers grids. To improve the accuracy of the study, the grids dimension is smaller than the common size. After griding, the most appropriate layers out of the required layers have been used to determine the vulnerability. These layers are, land slope, geographical aspect, pedology, geology, plant density and ground water vulnerability. The limited codes of each layer have also been defined. Summary of the above-mentioned layers results have been analyzed in the map form 1:50,000 scale by Arc-View software in GIS system in order to determine the specification of impact units. After the determination of limitation, the most prevailing limited code of each grid was selected. The obtained results were transferred to excel program and the final amount of vulnerability were then calculated by using equation ? =? (a-b)/4. The final vulnerability was substitute by each grid code as a new data and the last map of vulnerability was set. Regarding to this map at the studied region affected by current limitation of environmental condition, the north part of the district especially A9, B10, B11, B12, C9, C11, C18, D12 and E14 showed the highest amount of vulnerability. According to the final vulnerability map, it is distinguished that the north parts of the district mainly in parts 1 or 2 vulnerability codes have had high vulnerability.

A large and detailed data set is used to examine the influence of airports and airport light paths on housing prices. The results indicate that individuals consider airport proximity and airport flight patterns in their housing purchases. This shows that there exist two distinct measurable price gradients that distinguish large airports from small airports. In addition, homes located under the flight path of a large airport have a price gradient that is significantly larger than homes located under the flight path of a small airport.

Air pollution is the presence of pollutants in the atmosphere from anthropogenic or natural substances in quantities likely to harm human, plant or animal life; to damage human-made materials and structures; to bring about changes in weather or climate; or to interfere with enjoyment of life or property (Cooper and Alley 1986; Elson 1987). With regard to the quality of air in most of the megacities of the world, vehicular air pollution plays an important role in deteriorating air quality. Air pollution in Tehran (Capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran) occurs in highly urbanized areas due to mobile anthropogenic sources which in-turn is hastened by unfavorable topographical and meteorological conditions. In general, the level of economic activities which is highly related to transportation sector is responsible for much of urban air pollution and can result in high ambient concentrations that harm people, structures, and environment. This paper examines and estimates the tonnage, concentrations and impacts of air pollutants along with control measures aimed at reducing the effect of pollutants released by transportation navigation, in Tehran.

Numerical modeling of salinity changes in marine environment of Persian Gulf is investigated in this paper. Computer simulation of the problem is performed by the solution of a convection-diffusion equation for salinity concentration coupled with the hydrodynamics equations. The hydrodynamic equations consist of shallow water equations of continuity and motion in horizontal plane. The effects of rain and evaporations are considered in the continuity equation and the effects of bed slope and friction, as well as the Coriolis effects are considered in two equations of motion. The cell vertex finite volume method is applied for solving the governing equations on triangular unstructured meshes. Using unstructured meshes provides great flexibility for modeling the flow problems in arbitrary and complex geometries, such as Persian Gulf domain. The results of evaporation and Coriolis effects, as well as imposing river and tidal boundary conditions to the hydrodynamic model of Persian Gulf (considering variable topology rough bed) are compared with predictions of Admiralty Tide Table, which are obtained from the harmonic analysis. The performance of the developed computer model is demonstrated by simulation of salinity changes due to inflow effects and diffusion effects as well as computed currents.

Two types of Shrimp Chitin derivatives and two types of Iranian natural Zeolite derivatives (Firuzkooh Clinoptiliolite) were studied for adsorption and treatment of low-level radioactive liquid waste (LLW). Chitin with lowers than 10% and Chtiosan with higher than 90% deacetylation factor were selected as natural organic adsorbents. Natural Cliniptilolite of Firuzkooh area and Na form derivatives of it were selected as natural inorganic adsorbents. The static and dynamic ion exchange experimental results show that the adadsorption efficiency depend on particle size, PH, adsorbent type, deacetylation factor (in Chitin adsorbents) and cation type. The best Cs adsorption occurred in Na form Clinoptilolite. Nevertheless Chitin derivatives, particularly Chitosan, are more efficient than Zeolite adsorbents for removing of radionuclides such as 137Cs, 54Mn, 90Sr and 60Co. Adsorption performance was discussed and compared with each other.

A pilot scale study was set up to investigate the principle design parameters of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors for treating wastewater of small communities in the tropical regions of Iran. A steel pipe with a diameter of 600 mm and a height of 3.6 m was used as the reactor in which a digestion and a 3-phase separator element had a volume of 0.848 and 0.17 m3 respectively. During this study, which lasted for 203 days, two distinct phases were carried out according to the ambient temperature. The temperature of the wastewater entering the reactor was naturally ranged from 22 to 26 0C and no heat exchanger was used. The hydraulic retention times including 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 hours with various loading rates of 0.95 to 5.70 kg COD/m3/day for colder period and from 1.35 to 6.40 kg COD/m3/day for warmer period were examined. On the basis of the results the optimal hydraulic retention time for warmer period with a 2.20 kg COD/m3/day organic loading rate was 6 hours which BOD5, COD and TSS removal efficiency were 71, 63 and 65 percent respectively. During the colder period the removal ratio of BOD5, COD and TSS with an optimal hydraulic retention time of 8 hours and organic loading rate of 1.22 kg COD/m3/day were 54, 46 and 53 percent respectively.

During very considerable progress in industry and industrial centres development in late 20th and early 21st century, air pollution has become one of the most significant problems of mega cities. Thus, air pollution survey to exert abatement methods has a very important role. Various methods are available for air pollution monitoring which are very costly. Air pollution monitoring by susceptible plants as biological indicators are not only economic but also simple. In this paper, vast studies were done on the plants of around each Queensland Environmental Protection Agency (QEPA) monitoring sites. Around these sites susceptible plants to air pollution were neither available nor exist in all monitoring sites. Therefore, it seemed the best method is the portable exposure benches application with automatic watering system in five sites among all studied locations. In this research different varieties of tobacco like Weather fleck, Bel-B, Bel-W3, Dynes, ZZ100 were used to measure the impact of ozone as a pollutant on them. Parsley cv. Frizz and Leek cv. Vertina were selected as nitogen oxides indicators. In general, the above-mentioned plants were exposed to the ambient air in five sites around Brisbane from April 1997 to May 1998. The susceptible variety leaves of Bel-W3 showed injuries just in two sites. The reason for this is the high level of ozone and the effects of climatic factors in production and dispersion of it during the experiments. The survey results represent that ozone with elevated concentrations is available as far as 30km radius from Brisbane city centre. Within this area only the most susceptible plants` leaves would be liable to suffer injury.

Around the globe, developing countries have reported different cases of successfully implemented Renewable Energy (RE) program supported by bilateral or multilateral funding. In developing countries subsidy has played a big role in RE program marketing and whether this will lead to sustainable development is yet to be determined. The adoption of implementation strategies that will support sustainable development and overcoming barriers that hinder expansion of Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) still remains as a big challenge to stakeholders involved in promotion of RE resources in developing countries. In this respect, developing countries need to re-examine their environmental policy for promotion of RETs in order to define its role in revitalization of their economies. This paper reviews the policy incentives for promotion of RETs in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Setting-up international collaborative business ventures between local industry in Iran and RE companies in developed countries is proposed as an implementation strategy that will appropriate diffusion of RETs in the country. An organizational framework that may help to attain this objective is discussed and a structural model for RE business partnership is presented. It is concluded that with appropriate policy formulations and strategies, RETs can bring about the required socio-economic development in Iran.