Search

The application of biochar can effectively enhance soil organic matter (SOM) and improve soil structure. Biomass power plant ash (BPPA) is also rich in essential nutrients for plants, with similar carbon content. Considering production cost and agricultural waste recycling, it is beneficial to apply BPPA to improve soil fertility and quality. However, it remains unclear whether its ameliorative effects surpass those of biochar in alkaline soils. In the study, we set up seven pot experiments of faba beans in sandy alkaline soils from the ancient region of the Yellow River, including the controls (CK), different amounts of acid-modified BPPA (A1, A2, A3), and the same amounts of acid-modified biochar (B1, B2, B3), to compare their effects on soil physiochemical properties and bacterial community structure. The results indicate that the application of both biochar and BPPA can improve soil physiochemical properties. At the same dosage, the biochar application outperformed BPPA treatment in terms of soil physical properties such as bulk density (BD), maximum water-holding capacity (FC), and soil capillary porosity (SP2). Conversely, BPPA treatment displayed advantages in chemical properties such as readily oxidizable organic carbon (ROOC), total nitrogen (TN), alkaline nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), available potassium (AK), and electrical conductivity (EC). All the treatments enhanced the richness and diversity of bacterial communities, increasing the relative abundance of eutrophic groups such as Bacteroidota and Firmicutes while decreasing that of oligotrophic groups like Actinobacteriota. BPPA also increased the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, while the opposite was observed for biochar. Correlation analysis showed that the environmental factors such as soil pH, EC, TN, AK, SOM, and SP2 emerged as primary factors influencing the bacterial community structure of alkaline soils, significantly affecting their diversity and abundance. Among them, SP2 and SOM were the dominant physical and chemical factors, respectively. Overall, the application of both acid-modified BPPA and biochar can enhance the physiochemical properties of sandy alkaline soils, while the application of BPPA is superior for improving soil nutrient content and enhancing bacterial community structure. The study explores the potential mechanisms through which the application of acid-modified BPPA affects soil characteristics and microbial features, providing new insight into developing optimizing fertilization strategies for enhancing soil quality in the ancient region of the Yellow River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study established a WRF/WRF-Hydro coupled forecasting system for precipitation–runoff forecasting in the Daqing River basin in northern China. To fully enhance the forecasting skill of the coupled system, real-time updating was performed for both the WRF precipitation forecast and WRF-Hydro forecasted runoff. Three-dimensional variational (3Dvar) multi-source data assimilation was implemented using the WRF model by incorporating hourly weather radar reflectivity and conventional meteorological observations to improve the accuracy of the forecasted precipitation. A deep learning approach, i.e., long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, was adopted to improve the accuracy of the WRF-Hydro forecasted flow. The results showed that hourly data assimilation had a positive impact on the range and trends of the WRF precipitation forecasts. The quality of the WRF precipitation outputs had a significant impact on the performance of WRF-Hydro in forecasting the flow at the catchment outlet. With the runoff driven by precipitation forecasts being updated by 3Dvar data assimilation, the error of flood peak flow was decreased by 3.02–57.42%, the error of flood volume was decreased by 6.34–39.30%, and the Nash efficiency coefficient was increased by 0.15–0.52. The implementation of LSTM can effectively reduce the forecasting errors of the coupled system, particularly those of the time-to-peak and peak flow volumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biochar combined with fertilizer as a soil amendment benefits to improving soil fertility, especially soil organic carbon and crop yield. However, the effect of biochar on the improvement of soil properties and crop yield was varied from soil properties and limited for medium–low‐yield farmland in the North China. During the completely randomized field experiment, SIX treatments (biochar applied as 0, 15 and 30 t·ha‐1, under 240 and 300 kg N ha‐1 nitrogen fertilizer) were applied in wheat season and examined to reveal changes in the SOC and other properties of 0‐ to 10‐cm and 10‐ to 20‐cm soil layers. The results showed that two years after the application of biochar, a significant increase in the SOC was observed, ranging from 19.52% to 97.50% (p < 0.05) in the 0‐ to 20‐cm soil layer. Wheat yield and SOC content increased with increasing amount of biochar applied under the same amount of nitrogen fertilizer. The content of soil available potassium increased significantly under 30 t·ha‐1 biochar application (p < 0.05). Both biochar and nitrogen fertilizer application could increase wheat yield, and the effect of biochar application for increasing wheat yield was better than that of nitrogen fertilizer. Wheat yield and SOC content increased with increasing nitrogen fertilizer at the same amount of biochar application. The principal component analysis results showed that biochar input, SOC, available potassium and total nitrogen were the key factors affecting wheat yield. Biochar application is a fast and effective measure to improve SOC and wheat yield in medium‐ and low‐yield farmlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic developments and a lack of surface water resources often result in the overexploitation of the groundwater, which lead to groundwater funnels, land subsidence, groundwater pollution and other environmental geological disasters. This phenomenon is particularly serious in developing countries. In such circumstances, to accurately calculate the regulation storage of the underground aquifers, evaluate the capacity of an underground reservoir and to restore the groundwater funnels are of great significance to the control of groundwater overexploitation at a global scale. In this paper, a calculation method for regulation storage of an underground reservoir is introduced, and the storage capacity is determined. First, the groundwater overdraft and hydrogeological materials are collected, and the geological structure to partition the hydrogeological units is analyzed. The representative drills are chosen, and profiles are drawn to describe the spatial distributions of the aquifers. Then, based on the lithology, the study area is divided into different hydrogeological units. Finally, the regulation storage is calculated using the volumetric method. In addition, using Surfer software, the second method is used to verify the calculation results. Through the establishment of a comprehensive evaluation index system for the underground reservoir regulation capacity, a gray correlation analysis of the index system is conducted, and the indices are reduced to six. Then, the regulation capacity is evaluated using the projection pursuit model. Taking Weifang of northern China as an example, the regulation storage is calculated and the regulation capacity is evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]