Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International

Aims: The aim of the study is to determine the impact of the water content in the forming of the ecological condition of the rivers of Siverskyi Donets Basin (Ukraine) based on chemical and physico-chemical observations.

Study Design: The ecological condition of rivers is determined by their water contents and anthropogenic loading. Therefore, this study focused on the identification of the main trends in the changes of the quality of river water in the conditions of global warming impact.

Place and Duration of Study: The study addressed the industrial Chuhuiv, Zmiiv, Lysychansk cities located along the main river, the Udy River (discharges of municipal and industrial wastewater of the Kharkiv City), Kazennyi Torets, Kryvyi Torets, Bakhmutka (discharges of mine water from Donetsk coal basin) and Luhan (industrial and agricultural waste water) for 26 years from 1990 to 2015.

Methodology: Relationships between the indicators of water quality and the characteristics of water content were established from regression analysis. Determination of the ecological condition of the rivers was in the form estimated as a complex index of the ecological condition of their water, that based on the chemical and physico-chemical variations generated from many years of observations for them in the water.

Results: The study findings show that the indices of mineralization block and sanitary-toxicological block are increasing as the water content decreases, and the indices of toxicological and fishery blocks are increasing. The relationship between the indices of the ecological-sanitary block and water content was not found to be statistically significant. The overall index of the ecological condition of the rivers water steadily increases as the water content increases.

Conclusion: The water quality the rivers of the Siverskyi Donets Basin puts them into the categories of "polluted" and "very polluted" rivers. The analysis of the block indices of water quality generated in this study revealed that the substances of toxicological block (ammonium, nitrites, SSAS, heavy metals) and fishery block (petroleum products, phenols) are the most impacting on the water quality of the rivers of the Siverskyi Donets Catchment.

Gamo highland have experienced drastic cover dynamics of land resource resulted from historic settlement, heavy concentration of human and livestock population, and obsolete farming practices. The aim of this study was to examine the dynamics of the land use/land cover and its consequent environmental impacts in Kulfo watershed located in South Western Ethiopia. Historic spatial and socio-economic data were used in GIS and Remote Sensing environment to analyze and map the research data. The result of this study revealed that the Land use/ cover change analysis conducted in three periods (1986, 1999 and 2017) showed a remarkable dynamics and modification over varying cover types. In 1986 the dominant land use land covers were cultivated land (42%) followed by pasture land (23%) and forest land (18.3%). After 32 years (2017), cultivated land (71%), shrub land (7.5%) and bare lands (6.2%) were the three dominant land uses/cover types in the study area. During the study period, cultivation encroached to marginal steep slopes (with gradient more than 60%) and mountain grasslands where once used as a place of celebrating traditional festivals and grazing lands. Such a dramatic change in three-decade period has further increased degraded lands and raised erosion vulnerable areas to 97.2%, the resultant effects of which has greatly threatened the livelihood of communities in the watershed. The land use in the study watershed is not as of the land capability, excess forest, shrub and grasslands were unnecessarily brought under agriculture. Therefore, it is recommended that land has to be used as per its capability and conservation measures shall give attention to erosion prone areas.

The increasing demand for petroleum products has posed a challenge to the search for oil and gas. This search for hydrocarbon has developed due to advances in computational techniques to evaluate the probability of hydrocarbon proneness of a basin, thereby limiting the risk factor associated with hydrocarbon. This study was therefore designed to assess the hydrocarbon potential and generate a static reservoir model of UDI Field, Onshore Niger Delta.

Well, the correlation was carried out to establish stratigraphic continuity of the reservoir sand bodies. The identified potential reservoir intervals were tied to the seismic data using available check shot survey data. With a good match achieved, seismic events were interpreted through paying attention to reflection continuity, amplitude and frequency. Interpreted horizons were converted to surfaces using a convergent interpolation algorithm. Faults within the Field showed a dominant East-West trend with two (2) major faults and five (5) minor ones. A Pixel-based facies model was built based on the normal distribution of the upscaled lithofacies log using the Sequential Indicator Simulation algorithm. Petrophysical models were built by constraining the petrophysical logs to the facies models using Sequential Gaussian simulation algorithm. 

Four potential reservoir intervals, A100, A125, A150 and A200 were delineated. Average petrophysical parameters were computed for all the four intervals and the results revealed the reservoir intervals to be of good quality. Sand A100 has the highest average porosity value of 29.4%, while Sand A200 has the lowest value of 25.3%. Net-to-gross ratio also follows the pattern of decreasing value with depth. Sand A150 has the highest average gross thickness value, 170.4 m, while Sand A200 has the least thickness of 80.5 m. The net-to-gross ratio preserved the pattern of gross thickness and this resulted in Sand A150 still having the highest Net thickness and Sand A200 having the least Net sand thickness. The relatively large net sand thicknesses, high net-to-gross ratio values and the high porosity values all support the reservoir intervals within UDI Field to be of good quality.

Extrapolations of reservoir properties away from good control honored the geological interpretation of reservoir Sand A125 thereby reducing the subsurface reservoir uncertainties.

The availability of pressure data of the reservoir will help in establishing whether the reservoir is compartmentalized and hence the model can be updated to accommodate the effect of compartmentalization.

Aims: Concerted efforts are made to deceive the public into falsely believing the jet-emplaced tropospheric aerosol trails, called chemtrails by some, are harmless ice-crystal contrails from aircraft engine exhaust-moisture. Our objective is to use radiometric measurements in the range 250-300 nm to show that a typical chemtrail is not a contrail, and to generalize that finding with additional data. 

Methods: We utilized International Light Technologies ILT950UV Spectral Radiometer mounted on a Meade LXD55 auto guider telescope tripod and mount assembly.

Results: Radiometric solar irradiance spectra data that included the transit of a typical tropospheric aerosol trail between radiometer-sensor and the solar disc showed significant absorption during    the transit period. The during-transit absorption is wholly inconsistent with the almost negligible adsorption by ice, but is wholly consistent with absorption by aerosolize particulates, including coal fly ash. This result is consistent with other aerosol-trail physical phenomena observations.

Conclusions: The public and the scientific community have been systematically deceived into falsely believing that the pervasive, jet-sprayed ‘chemtrails’ are harmless ice-crystal contrails. We have presented radiometric measurements which unambiguously prove the falsity of that characterization for one specific, but typical instance. We show in a more general framework that the physical manifestations of the aerial trails are inconsistent with ice-crystal contrails, but entirely consistent with aerosol particulate trails. We describe potential reasons for the deception, and cite the extremely adverse consequences of the aerial particulate spraying on human and environmental health. For the sake of life on Earth, the modification of the natural environment by aerial particulate spraying and other methodologies must immediately and permanently end.

Geophysical studies was carried out at a proposed dam site across Osuworowo stream in Arochukwu, south eastern Nigeria to investigate the depth to bedrock, possible geologic structures and foundation conditions of the dam axis.  The study area is located between latitudes 5°23.58”N and 5°23.707”N and longitude 7°53.93”E and 7°53.97”E. Its elevation ranges from 90 ft to 149 ft. Six Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) were carried out along the stream course using ABEM SAS 1000 TERRAMETER and this was done using Schlumberger configuration with maximum half current electrode separation of 55m able to reveal deep seated structures. The ip2win software was used to model the VES data to give resistivities which vary between 258 Ωm and 39000 Ωm with three and four geoelectric layer combinations of sand, sandstone, sandyshale, shalysand and ale units. The high resistivities of the geoelectric layers sand thickness and dip showing high gradient in elevation differences are indications that the site is suitable for the dam construction. The geological result shows the presence of faults this is confirmed by change in strike and dip.

Ignimbritic flow deposits which derived from pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) are mostly observed in West-Cameroon Highlands located in the central portion of the Cameroon Volcanic Line (CVL), especially in Bambouto (21.12 - 0.50 Ma) and Bamenda (27.40 - 0 Ma) volcanoes. These deposits covering approximately 27% (≈195 km²) of the volcanoes surface with thickness ranging from 30 to 200 m representing a total volume estimated at 20 km³. Because of the intense weathering of the ignimbritic formations after their setting up and being buried by basaltic and trachtytic flows, the initial volume of these pyroclastic deposits is really much larger. Soil fertility has fostered an important population growth (more than 1,200,000 people) in these volcanoes. The economic and agropastoral activities on the flanks and inside the caldera of the volcanoes are estimated at about $US7.5 billion. In this paper, we evaluate and realize cartography of the hazards associated to ignimbritic eruptions which are most disastrous in term of volcanic process in this region. Magnetic studies, specifically, Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility (AMS) method has been utilized for the determination of flow directions in visually nearly isotropic ignimbritic deposits outcrops. The AMS data reported from the Bamenda and Bambouto volcanoes ignimbrites produced significant informations about the depositional scheme of the PDCs. In most sites, magnetic lineations and principally magnetic foliation are reliably parallel to downhill directions, frequently with an upslope imbrication. Inferred palaeoflow directions based on the field indicators, orientation of minerals and other objects in oriented thin sections and the directional AMS data show that Bambouto caldera, Oku crater and Santa-Mbu caldera are the sources of main PDCs of Bambouto and Bamenda volcanoes. These AMS results have aided us to produce a hazard and risks maps related to potential future pyroclastic flows on these volcanoes. The assessment of risks in these volcanoes was based on populations in the study area, infrastructures (houses and roads) and average income of breeding activity.

An evaluation of irrigation quality of groundwater from shallow aquifers within Wamba Sheet 210 in Nasarawa State, North Central Nigeria was carried out. The area is located between Latitudes 8°30’N and 9°00’N, and Longitudes 8°30’E and 9°00’E, covering about 3,025 Km². It is underlain by rocks belonging to the Basement Complex, the Younger Granites, and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks. The results of field tests and laboratory analysis were used in assessing the suitability of groundwater found in the area for irrigation. Values obtained for Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR), Soluble Sodium Percentage (SSP), Magnesium Adsorption Ratio (MAR) and Kellys Ratio (KR) were 0.97 - 3.43, 8.18 - 81.76%, 8.03 - 80.22 and 0.04 - 3.43 respectively. These indices are largely within the safe limits for irrigation with very little likelihood that salinity hazards will develop.

Charcoal is used as fuel in cooking for household, large food consumption and also in some industries especially those involved in casting bronze and other metals. It can be produced year round which involves woodland exploitation that contributes to deforestation with various negative consequences like loss of valuable resources and environment, drives climate change through the release of greenhouse gases, it also reduces the bio-productivity of ecosystems by disrupting the habitats of thousands of species, transforms forest lands into barren deserts and exposes bare surfaces which are susceptible to soil erosion, thus making the entire ecosystem unstable.

These are among the major threats to forest reserves and contributes highly to deforestation with 0.038 hectare of savanna woodland depleted for production of a single 15 kg capacity bag of charcoal in the study area and this had led to forest degradation which 96.2% of the respondents attested. The study was to determine the impacts of charcoal production to the forest reserves and also the public perceptions of the environmental effect of unplanned cutting of tree for Charcoal Production and it recommended awareness, prudent forest management and getting involve the private sectors, combined with proactive actions and policies.