Abstract The performance of stormwater treatment trains and of their individual green infrastructures was evaluated near Montreal, Canada. Three treatment trains were studied: Train 1 – five bioretention cells in series with a wet retention pond; Train 2 – an infiltration trench in series with a dry detention pond; and Train 3 – Train 2 in series with a wet retention pond. A total of 47 rain events were monitored to quantity the hydrological performance, while water quality samples were taken during 24 rainfall events. During the summer, the bioretention cells led to a reduction in runoff volumes varying from 8 to 100%. Overall, the three studied treatment trains and all of the individual infrastructures, except for the dry pond, provided reductions in the mean concentrations of total suspended solids, chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen and total phosphorous. Results also showed that the use of a train of stormwater infrastructures can be more effective to reach Quebec's legislated targets than single infrastructures, but only if the infrastructures are sequenced properly. Indeed, the addition of a dry basin at the end of Train 2 affected negatively the removal efficiency of the four studied contaminants.

Abstract Industrial effluents are usually one of the major industries polluting the environment and surface water. It is estimated that the worldwide production of dyes is about 70 tons/year. To overcome this problem, innovative processes are suggested for the treatment of industrial effluents containing dyes and heavy metals. The goal of the processes is often to reduce the toxicity of these pollutants in order to meet treatment standards. Recently, great attention has been paid to innovative processes for physical and chemical removal techniques such as adsorption on new adsorbents, biomass adsorption, membrane filtration, irradiation, and electrochemical coagulation. In this study, the application of adsorbents in the adsorption process to remove dye pollutants from industrial effluents has been studied. Factors affecting dye adsorption such as pH, temperature, initial dye concentration, and adsorbent amount are also presented. The obtained results revealed that more than 80% of the dye adsorption on the surface of adsorbents are endothermic processes and more than 95% of the processes obey the pseudo-second-order kinetic model.

Abstract Transverse mixing coefficient (TMC) is known as one of the most effective parameters in the two-dimensional simulation of water pollution, and increasing the accuracy of estimating this coefficient will improve the modeling process. In the present study, genetic algorithm (GA)-based support vector machine (SVM) was used to estimate TMC in streams. There are three principal parameters in SVM which need to be adjusted during the estimating procedure. GA helps SVM and optimizes these three parameters automatically in the best way. The accuracy of the SVM and GA-SVM algorithms along with previous models were discussed in TMC estimation by using a wide range of hydraulic and geometrical data from field and laboratory experiments. According to statistical analysis, the performance of the mentioned models in both straight and meandering streams was more accurate than the regression-based models. Sensitivity analysis showed that the accuracy of the GA-SVM algorithm in TMC estimation significantly correlated with the number of input parameters. Eliminating the uncorrelated parameters and reducing the number of input parameters will reduce the complexity of the problem and improve the TMC estimation by GA-SVM.

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Abstract In recent decades, many algorithms have been developed for the retrieval of water quality parameters using remotely sensed data. However, these algorithms are specific to a certain geographical area and cannot be applied to other areas. In this study, feature-orientated principal component (PC) selection, based on the Crosta method and using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) for the retrieval of water quality parameters (i.e., total suspended sediment concentration (TSM) and chlorophyll a (Chla)), was carried out. The results show that feature-orientated PC TSM, based on the Crosta method, obtained a good agreement with the MERIS-based TSM product for eight Landsat TM images. However, the Chla information, selected using the feature-orientated PC, has a poor agreement with the MERIS-based Chla product. The accuracy of the atmospheric correction method and MERIS product may be the main factors influencing the accuracy of the TSM and Chla information identified by the Landsat TM images using the Crosta method. The findings of this study would be helpful in the retrieval of spatial distribution information on TSM from the long-term historical Landsat image archive, without using coincident ground measurements. This article has been made Open Access thanks to the kind support of CAWQ/ACQE (https://www.cawq.ca).

Abstract Both anthropogenic activities and natural factors affect river water in quantity and quality, while anthropogenic activities have been often blamed to cause water quality temporal degradation. In addition, riverine water quality displays intra-annual/seasonal variations, which are often more prominent than inter-annual variations. The intra-annual variations in water quality, which are attracting the attention of managers and policy-makers, beg the question of how to better manage riverine water quality at a finer time resolution. The natural factors, in particular, the hydro-meteorological variables, could be the primary drivers of the intra-annual variations of riverine water quality. Therefore, this paper examined the association between riverine water quality and one hydro-meteorological variable (flow) with the focus on their relationship at the intra-annual timescale on three selected rivers in Alberta, Canada. The results demonstrated that flow drives intra-annual variation of riverine water quality in general. Moreover, some water quality parameters responded to flow distinctively at three flow regimes (low, medium, and high flows). Water quality parameters were categorized into eight groups according to their responses to flow at the flow regimes. These implied the challenges in water quality management while providing insight into how to formulate more effective water management strategies.

Abstract Through a simple grinding method, AgI/TiO2 composites were successfully synthesized. The as-prepared AgI/TiO2 composites were used as photocatalysts for Rhodamine B (RhB) degradation under visible light irradiation and exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance. In the presence of composites, almost 100% RhB was decomposed after 60 min. The photocatalytic activity of AgI/TiO2-0.5 composite was optimal, which was 9.5 times higher than that of pristine TiO2, and 15.6 times higher than that of AgI. Moreover, experimental results revealed that the improved photocatalytic activity was not only ascribed to the loading AgI but also resulted from the method that enabled the exposure of more active sites in the composites. In addition, the intimate interfacial contact obtained by this method could also promote the efficient separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. Moreover, the possible photocatalytic active species and the stability of the photocatalyst were investigated in detail.

Abstract Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a proven technology for energy production from the stabilization and reduction of sewage waste. The AD and impact of ultrasonic pretreatment of four waste activated sludges (WASs) from conventional and three non-conventional municipal wastewater treatment plants were investigated. WAS from a conventional activated sludge (CAS) system, a rotating biological contactor (RBC), a lagoon, and a nitrifying moving-bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) were pretreated with ultrasonic energies of 800–6,550 kJ/kg total solids to illustrate the impact of sludge type and ultrasonic pretreatment on biogas production (BGP), solubilization, and digestion kinetics. The greatest increase in BGP over the control of pretreated sludge did not coincide consistently with greater sonication energy but occurred within a solubilization range of 2.9–7.4% degree of disintegration and are as follows: 5% ± 3 biogas increase for CAS, 12% ± 9 for lagoon, 15% ± 2 for nitrifying MBBR, and 20% ± 2 for RBC. The effect of sonication on digestion kinetics was inconclusive with the application of modified Gompertz, reaction curve, and first-order models to biogas production. These results illustrate the unique response of differing sludges to the same levels of sonication energies. This article has been made Open Access thanks to the kind support of CAWQ/ACQE (https://www.cawq.ca).

Abstract Forests play an important role in water conservation. It is important to study the relationship between forest water conservation (FWC) and forestry investment. Based on official statistics and ecological network observation data in China from 1999 to 2013, this paper for the first time uses correlation analysis and regression analysis methods to analyze the relationship between FWC and forest silviculture investment in fixed assets (FSIFA). Results show that FWC and FSIFA have a strong correlation and a strong influence, correlation coefficient is around 0.96. The amount of annual forest water conservation is increased with an increase in investment in fixed assets. The study also found that FSIFA affecting annual FWC lags more than 1 year, showing that FSIFA cannot play a role in water conservation immediately. The research also discussed other affecting factors on FWC, such as forest coverage rate, economic development level and forest quality improvement, etc. Their effects were also found to lag 1–5 years. Finally, the paper predicts the amount of annual FWC from 2014 to 2020 and gives some suggestions to strengthen investment in forest fixed assets and improve management of forest resources so as to promote the development of benefits of FWC.