Ecoterra, 2018, 15(1):1-9
Rajendran Sobha Ajin
Geomatics Division, GeoVin Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
Ana-Maria Loghin
Faculty of Hydrotechnical Engineering, Geodesy and Environmental Engineering, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania
Padmakumari Gopinathan Vinod, Aryappallil Ramankutty Ramachandra Menon
Geomatics Division, GeoVin Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
Mathew Karumamkottu Jacob
Department of Geology, Dr. Palpu College of Arts and Science, Pangode-Puthussery, Kollam, Kerala, India
Forests are invaluable natural resources for the sustenance of terrestrial as well as atmospheric environment. Forests are often threatened by factors like deforestation and global warming. Past records have shown that one major cause of loss of forests is fires. A forest fire whether natural or human induced can pose serious threat to the fragile ecological and environmental stability of a region. The present study area, Mannarkkad forest division in Kerala is a part of the Western Ghats and is prone to forest fires. In this study, an attempt has been made to delineate and map the fire risk zones in Mannarkkad forest division using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System techniques. Thematic layers such as vegetation type, road networks, human settlements, and contours were derived from satellite images and topographic maps. The Fire Risk Index method is used for the delineation of risk zones. The study area is divided into five risk zones ranging from ‘very low’ to ‘very high’. The prepared forest fire risk zone map is validated with the fire incidence data. The result of the study is found to be in strong agreement with actual fire affected sites. The study shows that most of the fires are due to natural forces. This risk zone map can serve as a valuable data for the officials of forest and disaster management departments to take effective preventive and mitigation measures for better fire risk management.
Ecoterra, 2018, 15(1):10-17
Gabriel-Cristian Dobrei
Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, “Constantin Cosma” Radon Laboratory, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Cristian Maloș, Gheorghe Roșian
Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Ancuța Țenter, Arthur Tunyagi
Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, “Constantin Cosma” Radon Laboratory, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
The general purpose of this study is to identify sustainable technologies for peripheral rural settlements and quantify the cost of implementing them. An attempt was made to identify sustainable technologies in the fields of electric energy generation, wastewater management, waste disposal, recycling and composting. The costs taken into account for this study were the ones presented on official sites of manufacturers and service provider’s websites. We have devised two different scenarios for hypothetical settlements composed of 20, 50 and 100 households (corresponding to isolated and peripheral settlements). We limited this study to the basic needs of people that are not fulfilled or are fulfilled in an inadequate manner: electric energy generation, running water, wastewater management, waste disposal, recycling and composting in order to create the base for sustainable settlements development in rural areas. The study also aims to draw attention that creating sustainable development requires investments from individuals and/local communities. The study will assist the population and the local administration in decision making regarding sustainable technologies implementation. It is worth mentioning that the electric energy generation, wastewater treatment and composting parts can be implemented by individuals/groups of individuals. This is an advantage to the point that an individual household can become in some degree sustainable without waiting for the implementation of collective measures. On the other hand current water and waste disposal and recycling need to be implemented by the administration as they are large scale infrastructure and the costs are high. Also, we consider and recommend that the infrastructure related to current water and waste disposal and recycling needs to be over dimensioned as to eliminate the need for future upgrades to the system. Finally we encourage the local communities to apply more sustainable technologies (heat pumps, solar water heating, in pipe hydropower, etc.) in individual households and in larger scale project as they contribute to overall sustainable development.
Ecoterra, 2018, 15(1):18-26
Tamás Magyar
Dél-Konstrukt Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Sándor Nagy, Janka Őrsi, Richárd Zoltán Papp
University of Miskolc, Miskolc, Hungary
Nowadays, more than 70 chemical elements are used in screen, battery, electronics and casing of smartphones caused by the accelerated technological development. Organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology is a promising new technology which can be applied as a light source in the smartphones as well as in TVs, monitors or car lights. In the present paper, chemical and material characterization was determined of the given “Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo” smartphone. Dismantling results showed that the major units of the selected smartphone are back cover (casing), frames and foils (~54 w%), multitouch panel (~27 w%), PCBs (~13 w%) and OLED screen (~ 6 w%). The plastic casing and frames were identified as polyamide (PA) and polycarbonate (PC) by FT-IR measurements. SEM analysis resulted that approximately 50 w% of silver and 3 w% of indium can be found in the investigated layer of OLED screen.
Ecoterra, 2018, 15(1):27-34
Gheorghe Roșian
Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Csaba Horvath
Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Liviu Muntean, Nicolae Baciu, Viorel Arghiuș, Cristian Maloș, Vlad Măcicășan
Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Landslides represent one of the most important hazardous geomorphological phenomena in the Someşan Plateau. Geographically this unit it is positioned on the north-western part of the Transylvanian Basin. For the landslides distribution analysis, we used five criteria: geology, slope, altitude, exposition and the local administrative units. We must have this type of studies, on one hand to find out how the current landslides are distributed, and on the other hand to identify the areas which are prone to this type of hazardous geomorphological phenomena. By investigating the study area’s ortophotoplans and topographic maps, 1892 landslides were vectorized to create a landslide inventory map. The study shows that lithologic conditions (the presence of friable rocks such as marls, clays, sand) and the land use (mostly agricultural lands) are the most defining factors for landslide to develop, it is believed that in the future landslides will appear on similar slope, orientation and geological conditions etc. In this situation, knowing the susceptible areas to landslides is beneficial for the territorial planning actions and also to avoid the building and rising other civil engineering constructions on lands which are prone to landslides.
Ecoterra, 2018, 15(1):35-43
Afrodita Zendelska, Mirjana Golomeova, Blagoj Golomeov, Boris Krstev
Faculty of Natural and Technical Sciences, Goce Delcev University, Stip, R. of Macedonia
Zeolite bearing tuff (stilbite 27%) from Vetunica deposit, localized in northern marginal parts of the Kratovo-Zletovo volcanic area in Republic of Macedonia was investigated as an adsorbent for removal of copper, zinc, manganese and lead ions from synthetic aqueous solutions and acid mine drainage from Sasa lead - zinc mine in Republic of Macedonia. In order to determine the metals uptake at equilibrium a series of experiments were performed under batch conditions from single ion solutions. Experiments were carried out at different initial concentration of metal ions, at initial pH = 3.5, temperature of 20±1oC and agitation time up to 360 min. The adsorption isotherm of the metal ions on the adsorbent was determined and correlated with the Langmuir and the Freundlich adsorption isotherm models. The Langmuir isotherm exhibited a better fit for the adsorption data for copper, lead and manganese ions, but adsorption of zinc ions is fitting by the Freundlich isotherm. According to the maximum adsorption capacity (qe) it was determined the selectivity of zeolite bearing tuff for the respective heavy metal ions. The selectivity series was Pb2+ > Cu2+ > Zn2+ >Mn2+. The adsorption of copper, zinc, manganese and lead ions from diluted solution and acid mine drainage on to zeolite bearing tuff occurs efficiently.
Ecoterra, 2018, 15(1):44-56
Marta Moldoveanu
Doctoral School of Geography, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
This article aims to pull an alarm trigger to the whole local and national administration, in order to protect our treasures, because there are many threats. In the following article, we will see how important anthropic factor is and how much people can influence things around them. People can influence even the fauna and flora through their actions. That's why we need to be careful not to hurt ourselves. We will study the Lăpuș river water consistency from its spring through the river gorge area. Important data we have obtained throughout the study and we must be aware of how important the element that keeps us alive is, and that's water. Water is the most important element in human, animal and plant life. We will study its quality on the above-mentioned segment and we will and we will show recent disasters caused by the anthropic factor. Besides all this, we will also point out the fact that this region deserves to be promoted and deserves increased tourist potential. We will analyze the strengths of this area and the manner how we can emphasize the qualities of the Lăpuș Land.
Ecoterra, 2018, 15(1):57-62
Marius D. Roman
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Building Services Engineering Department, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
The main aim of this research is to analyze the potential for energy recovery from Cluj-Napoca wastewater treatment plant by anaerobic digestion with biogas utilization. This manuscript uses data from the wastewater treatment plant and data presented by Burton equation. The results obtained from Cluj-Napoca plant indicates a biogas energy factor, between 0.092 to 0.133 kWh/m3 which increases with increasing wastewater inflow. These energy recovery strategies could help offset the electricity consumption of the wastewater sector and represent possible areas for sustainable energy policy implementation.
