QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF HEAVY METALS IN COAL-FIRED POWER PLANT’S WASTE WATER

Coal-fired power plants are water intensive sources of energy generation. Waste water dumped by these coal-fired power plants is significant threat to our environment and human health. The electric power sector is the major source of toxic wastes in Pakistan, due to coal ash and coal waste, which contain toxic heavy metals such as Cr, Co, Cu, Pb, Mn, Ni, Zn, Hg, Ag, and As. Different Environmental report shows nearly all power plants in Pakistan discharge toxic coal ash or wastewater into public water. This paper provides a brief overview about how badly Coal Industry is poisoning water and later on the characteristics of wastewater discharge from coal based thermal plants are discussed. The study presented in this paper quantitavely evaluates the heavy metals like Cr, Ni, Hg, As, Cd, Pb, Mn and Co emissions in coal ash or waste water of a coal power plant. 1 MW capacity plant was selected for the study and the results showed such a plant will produce Cr 33.7g/kWh, Pb 44.9g/kWh, As 44.9g/kWh and Hg 0.6g/kWh respectively. At the end, some plausible recommendations are suggested for government of Pakistan to mitigate the effects of these power plants.&nbsp

Quality and Homogeneity Analysis of Precipitation Data in North Cyprus

This study aims to reveal procedures for testing and creating a set of complete, quality-controlled, and homogeneous precipitation data sets in North Cyprus. Database involves 37 daily precipitation series which are uniformly distributed throughout the study area with observation periods ranging from 1976 to 2015. As a first step of the procedures, the estimation of the missing values is carried out considering a range of distances with various estimation methods based on neighboring stations. Secondly, the quality assessment of the complete series is performed in terms of detection of unreasonable values and outliers. Thirdly, the two-step approach including the computation of four homogeneity methods and classification of the results is used to check the presence of inhomogeneities in series. As a result of applied procedures, the outliers exceeding the threshold value at monthly scale are observed as expected particularly in summer and early autumn covering the hot and dry periods. Additionally, some stations named as Mehmetçik and Boğaz are flagged as discordant according to the discordancy measures relying on L-moment ratios. In homogeneity analysis, daily precipitation series are analyzed through the testing variables such as, total annual precipitation, monthly maximum precipitation, annual wet days, and seasonal total precipitation. Tatlısu, Yeşilırmak, and Çayönü stations are found as inhomogeneous based on the four absolute homogeneity tests and in conclusion, 33 out of 37 precipitation stations are assessed and proven to be reliable

Modeling of Morphou Flood and Remedial Measures

Flash floods are known to result in excessive damage and loss of lives due to lack of early warning systems. In this study, characteristics of a flash flood occurred in Morphou region in North Cyprus on 18th of January, 2010 are studied and some remedial measures are proposed. Hydrologic and hydraulic modeling of this flood event has been developed for decision-making concerning type and degree of implementation of these measures. Since there is no any stream flow gauging station along the creeks in the study area, the synthetic unit hydrograph is developed by using the US Soil Conversation Service method to obtain design flood hydrographs. Two remedial alternatives are eventually tested. Based on cost analyses, the one that is to build a detention basin for storing water and a lateral channel for diverting extra flow from Bostanci Creek to Fabrika Creek, is found to be feasible. In addition, flow carrying capacities of the creeks are improved

Regional frequency analysis of precipitation using time series clustering approaches

A regional frequency analysis using L-moments was performed with time series clustering approaches to identify homogeneous regions using dynamic data sets in Northern Cyprus. In this context, the conventional approach, based on station characteristics and different time series clustering approaches, classified as shape-based, feature-based, and model-based, were compared. Hierarchical Ward's method with the correlation-based similarity measure of the feature-based approach was determined as the best method regarding the results of the jackknife validation procedure, which was performed for assessment of clustering approach uncertainty. Therefore, the cluster analysis ended up with five homogeneous subregions, and according to the goodness-of-fit measure, the Pearson Type III, generalized logistic, and generalized normal distributions were chosen as the best fit for different subregions. The accuracy of the estimated quantiles was evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations and, consequently, the quantiles for different return periods were estimated, which demonstrated spatial consistency in terms of increasing trend from the low-lying Mesaoria Plain toward the north coastal strip, including the Kyrenia Mountains and the Karpass Peninsula

Quality control, homogeneity analysis, and trends of extreme precipitation indices in Northern Cyprus

In this study, the annual and seasonal changes in extreme precipitation indices were investigated in Northern Cyprus by using the non-parametric Mann–Kendal trend test and Sen’s slope estimator. To this end, quality control of data procedure including estimation of missing data, detection of unreasonable values, and outliers were applied to 36 daily precipitation series to identify different errors. In order to test the homogeneity of the daily series, a two-step approach with four homogeneity tests and overall classification were used. The investigation of trends for extreme precipitation indices indicated that the trends were mostly nonsignificant and increasing in scale annually. On seasonal scale, the percentage of stations with increasing trend was almost the same with the percentage of stations with decreasing trend in autumn and spring. Besides, the upward trend was observed at more than 77% of the stations in winter with 11% having significantly increasing trends. Generally, there was no spatial coherence as well as a mixed pattern of trends changing from station to station