Journal of Environmental Studies
Year:2013 | Volume:39 | Issue:2 (66)|Papers Count:16

IntroductionUrban landscape is experiencing rapid changes which put all urban domains under pressures. These processes revolutionize urban landscape into spaces without ecologic values. The sustainability of green patches and corridors has been scathed by lack of ecological approaches in planning and design. Therefore, urban green spaces structures and functions have been damaged. Green spaces have been changed into isolated, fragile and unsustainable areas. Controlling green spaces changes process, decrease fragility and improvement of sustainability are vital for green spaces in urban contexts. Utilizing and wide use of ecological frameworks in planning and design is compulsory and inevitable in these conditions.

IntroductionNowadays, landscape recounts the land components, elements and components which each alone and together have a key role in building and shaping the natural environment and consequently the natural landscape and eventually the built environment and landscape. Although humans connection with its surrounding is achieved through different senses, but still more than 80% of its connection is achieved by observing. Therefore, landscape observation and its perception by human, plays an important role in environment recognition and perception and also determining whether a landscape is aesthetically appropriate or not.

IntroductionNowadays, the main environmental economy subject, which is almost publicly accepted, is the fact that the environment is inseparable from the economy and any changes in one may affect directly the other one. In other words, no economic decision is made without influencing the natural and artificial environment and no environmental change occurs without economic influences.United States and Europe countries focus on CV method to determination of recreation values. Lee has determined recreation values of South Korea national park 10.54$ per year. Applying CVM, calculated the recreation values of ecosystem service 67.44 $ per year of family for Bursa State in Turkey. Baral et al (2008) determined recreation value by using CV. Given this backdrop, the main purpose of this research is the determination of recreation values of Jamshidieh Park in Tehran by Using Contingent Valuation Method and SHAZAM software on 2011. Partial goals are including: 1- Determination of Demographic characteristics of Jamshidieh Park visitors.2- Determination of effective Factors on willingness to pay for Jamshidieh park visitors.3-Determination of recreation values of Jamshidieh Park and estimation of WTP as Park admission fee.

IntroductionThe chemical characteristic of groundwater as a major source of water supply for human life is an important factor in determining the usage of it for agriculture, industry and drinking. Useful techniques and different methods of studying the chemical composition of groundwater such as correlation coefficient, descriptive statistics, factor analysis and cluster analysis provide an understanding of the main factors that contribute to groundwater salinity and also sources of contamination. Shannon proposed entropy as a measure of uncertainly, a theory recently applied in various fields. Although the ability of the entropy theory has quantified to evaluate uncertainty for hydrological variables and parameters in models of water resources systems, studies have not fully explored its application for describing and evaluating large-scale characteristics of groundwater quality. The three objectives of this study included: (1) applying cluster analysis and GIS technique to recognition of spatial classification of groundwater resources; (2) using factor analysis to interpret major factors that affect groundwater quality in Lenjanat, and (3) investigating the stability and spatial variation of influential factors.

IntroductionOne of the most vulnerable water resources against contamination is ground water table. These resources are exposed to contamination in various forms. Identifying and controlling contamination in these resources are more difficult and costly than surface waters. Also because of the persistence of contamination in these resources, the best way to prevent their contamination is to identify contaminant sources and vulnerable media, providing vulnerability zoning maps and adopting perfect managerial policies. Providing the maps that characterize the vulnerable or sensitive zones to contamination is the best way to manage ground water. For the first time, the concept of “ground water vulnerability” was put forward, in late 1960 in France, to warn about water contamination.

IntroductionOil storage tanks are one of the most important industrial facilities that are exposed to risks of toxic substances release, fire and explosion. Fire is a common risk and explosion is the most important risk at the oil storage tanks and petroleum products. In research with applications in chemical risk assessment that was published in 2007, Causes risk in the hands of the industries affected by three factors: human error, equipment failure and other factors (natural and intentional acts of terrorism) is enumerated and evaluated.

IntroductionEnergy and environmental issues are two common concerns of modern societies. Fossil fuels consumption is believed to be the primary factor contributing to severe environmental problems, such as global warming, climate change and acid rain, which are a serious threat to the world’s ecosystems. In order to stabilize the earth’s climate and prevent further global warming, the earth requires a 70% cut in present carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. In the executive summary of IEA (2006), it claims “Beyond 2020, the role of renewable energy in global energy supply is likely to become much more important”. Among these, biomass can be defined as all the biological materials produced and existing within an ecological system and as sources of renewable energy can be converted directly into energy or energy carrier materials.Regarding to biomass assessment, researchers estimated the sustainable energy potential of biomass resources in Thailand including: (i) agricultural residues, (ii) animal manure, (iii) fuel-wood saving potential through improvement of efficiency, (iv) possibility of fuel-wood saving through substitution by other fuels, (v) municipal solid wastes, and (vi) wastewater. The potential of each source was estimated for the reference year 1997 and for the years 2005 and 2010. The total energy potential of these sources in 1997, 2005 and 2010 were 525, 702 and 821 PJ, respectively. In Iran, Khorasan Razavi province is known as an important region of biomass production in the country including: crops, livestock and poultry. Hence, in this study the potential of biomass and its distribution were evaluated.

IntroductionPopulation growth, increasing consumption of natural energy sources, the increasing use of fossil fuels, especially the oil and gas industry in recent years with the energy imbalance management has led to emergence of global energy crisis. Moreover, rapid urbanization and industrialization have substantially increased the amount of high-strength wastewater being produced, which in turn increases the amount of pollution in receiving waters. Dairy industries which have a high percentage of organic substrates in their wastewater are considered to be one of the most contaminated food industries. Organic compounds existing in milk as (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) account for a large amount of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) found in dairy industries wastewaters and can have important effects on municipal waste treatment plants. With regard to the discharge of dairy industries wastewater in the environment, as a result of the presence high level of nitrogen and phosphor, the eutrophication occurs in receiving waters especially in lakes and rivers with small waves.

IntroductionBecause of population growth, human needs to produce raw materials have increased. Different industries have developed that discharge pollutants into the environment. One type of the contaminants is heavy metals that are abundant in municipal and industrial waste waters. These compounds aren’t capable of biological degradation and in certain quantities are considered toxic to many aquatic animals. Heavy metals may be accumulated in the various parts of the ecosystem and organism tissues along the food chain. Transfer of these pollutants may eventually lead to human health threat.

IntroductionPersian Gulf is a warm, hyper saline, shallow and semi-enclosed sea with low hydrodynamic energy and ideal conditions for deposition of particle materials.Qeshm Island is the largest island of Persian Gulf, in the mouth of strategic Hormoz Strait. Every day, many tankers and ships that transport oil production of Persian Gulf throughout the world, cross near this island. Thus, Qeshm and Mangrove forests located on northwest of it, are continually subjected to oil contamination.

IntroductionSuitability of groundwater for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes depends upon its quality. Changes in groundwater quality are due to variation in climatic conditions, residence time of water with aquifer materials and inputs from soil during percolation of water. Multivariate statistical methods are one of the common and important methods for hydro geochemistry study. Saturation index (SI) of minerals in order to get an explanation of the chemical evolution of groundwater. Saturation index can be used to predict responses to groundwater subsurface mineralogical reactions, without rock and soil samples collection and petrographic analysis. This research tries to investigation of this method and makes use of it for hydro chemical studding of groundwater resources of Khoy Plain.Materials and methodsKhoy plain is situated in the north of West Azerbaijan province, northwest on Iran. The study area has a cold and arid climate with the annual mean precipitation about 344 mm. Qhotur and Aland Rivers are mainly surface water resources of the area (figure 1).In this study it has been tried to use the PHREEQC software for calculate saturation indices of Khoy plain formations mineral. Groundwater samples were collected from 36 groundwater wells that sampling procedures and chemical analysis were carried out as per the standard methods.Unstable hydro chemical parameters including pH and EC were measured during sampling on site and also with major ions (Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, Potassium, Chloride, Sulfate, Carbonate and bicarbonate), minor ions (nitrate and fluoride) were analyzed in hydro geological laboratory of Tabriz University. Groundwater samples have two types, Ca-HCO3 water type and Na-Cl. Generally, groundwater type is Na-Cl in the south and east area and Ca-HCO3 in west and north (figure 2).Results and discussionAccording to Piper diagram the majority of samples (recharge area) are fresh water with a temporary hardness (figure 3). EC investigation in area shows that electrical conductivity increase from Southwest to Northeast and East which coincided is in the direction of groundwater flow. In the EC values in east and northeast (output of groundwater) are higher than the other parts of the plain, due to the discharge, evaporation of groundwater, evaporative formations and pumping water from the wells.Totally, three main effective factors were found on study area hydro chemicaly (figure 4). The first and second factors show the effect of geological formations and general groundwater trend on hydrochemistry of the area. The third factor is influence of human activities. Dissolution of evaporative and carbonate minerals have a main role in groundwater hydrochemistry in addition weathering of minerals controls the concentration of major ions such as calcium and magnesium. Calculation of main minerals saturation index in groundwater also show the rock-water interaction and defined the effect of geological formation minerals such as Miocene and Pliocene on increase of water anions and cations (figure 5).ConclusionFirst and second factors show the effect of geological formations and general groundwater trend on hydrochemistry of the area. The third factor is influence of human activities. Calculation of main minerals saturation index in groundwater also show the rock-water interaction and defined the effect of geological formation minerals such as Miocene and Pliocene on increase of water anions and cations.

Dust is a significant environmental medium that can provide information about the level, distribution and fate of contaminants present in the surface environment. Dust could be an indicator of pollutants such as heavy metal in the atmosphere. Furthermore, the elemental composition and concentrations in dust reflects the characteristics of short and long term activities in the area. Atmospheric dust is investigated as an important source of heavy metals in urban and industrial areas. Heavy metals can accumulate in dust and disperse in large scale. Thus, in these areas dust contains considerable amount of heavy metals. Both dust and heavy metals may cause human health issues and adverse environmental effects.Various and conventional methods have been used to determine heavy metal contamination in soil, dust, water, and sediment. Almost all of these methods are based on chemical analysis and particularly acid digestion. In recent years, researchers have used magnetic susceptibility (MS) technique as an acceptable approach to identify pollution sources. Magnetic measurements are fast, cost-effective, non-destructive, sensitive and informative. Strong correlation between heavy metal concentration and magnetic susceptibility in dust can be used for fast assessment of heavy metals contamination and their spatial distribution. Studies have shown that magnetic susceptibility is a useful tool to identify industrial pollutants, traffic pollutants and other atmospheric pollutants.