China Environ Prot (EP) Industry, Technology, Solid Waste Mgt, Liquid Treat: News & Discussions

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100,000 IoT Sensors Monitor a 1,400-Kilometer Canal in China
By Tracy Staedter
Posted 11 Jan 2018 | 15:50 GMT

Photo: Construction and Administration Bureau of South-to-North Water Diversion Middle Route Project

As an engineering feat, China’s massive South-to-North Water Diversion Project is a stunner. Three artificial canals, each more than 1000 kilometers long, are in various stages of completion and designed to reroute water from the country’s rainy south to its parched north.

The massive internet-of-things (IoT) network that has been quietly overseeing the middle route is impressive in its own right. More than 100,000 individual sensors stud the 1400-kilometer waterway, which connects the Danjiangkou reservoir to Beijing and Tianjin. For the last year, it’s been scanning the canal for structural damage, tracking water quality and flow rates, and watching for intruders, whether humans or animals.

“This system benefits more than 50 million people daily, not mentioning the people along the project,” says the IoT network’s technical lead, Yang Yang, Director of the CAS Key Lab of Wireless Sensor Network and Communication at the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He says what they learn from the network will likely be applied to other massive infrastructure projects, including the Eastern and Western Routes of the water transfer system, as well as more modest endeavors, like monitoring the glass facades of skyscrapers.

Planning for the IoT network started back to 2012. Yang and his team, including Dr. Wuxiong Zhang, Associate Professor at SIMIT, Chinese Academy of Sciences, spent two weeks traveling the length of canal, assessing its needs.

They saw many challenges. The water traversed regions prone to earthquakes, making infrastructure vulnerable to damage. The water’s flow would need to be controlled so that none of it would go to waste. Its quality would also need to be checked periodically to ensure no pollutants or toxins made their way into city drinking water supplies. In some places, local villagers scaled the fence to fish or swim in the water. That created safety risks.

Yang and his team grouped the challenges they saw into three broad categories—infrastructure, water, and security—and, after some discussions, settled on more than 130 different kinds of internet-connected sensors to install along the canal. Infrastructure sensors measuring stress, strain, vibration, displacement, earth pressure, and water seepage, were embedded in the ground adjacent to the canal and in the concrete banks and bridges as well as the 50 dams built to control the water’s flow.

Photo: Construction and Administration Bureau of South-to-North Water Diversion Middle Route Project
Internet-connected sensors installed along the canal include video cameras (left), as well as intrusion detection (top right) and water level sensors (bottom right).

Probes that measure water quality and flow rate were attached to the steel support columns that hold up the bridges. Video cameras were spaced every 500 meters along the entire structure.

With all these sensors placed, the question emerged: how to send the data once it was collected? Although some sections of the canal had access to a fiber optic internet connection, other areas had no access and passed through remote areas with spotty or absolutely no cellular network service. As a solution, Yang and his team developed the so-called Smart Gateway to receive data continuously from local sensors and then transmit it to a cloud server using whatever signal was available at the moment. That could include fiber, Ethernet, 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, or Zigbee.

“The Smart Gateway can learn the availability of the connection to the cloud. After a successful transmission, it will follow that network next time. Otherwise, it will try another one,” says Zhang.

Photo: Construction and Administration Bureau of South-to-North Water Diversion Middle Route Project
The Smart Gateway transmits data from the individual sensors to one of the 47 regional branch servers, such as this control room in Yishui North, Hebei Province.

The Smart Gateway periodically transmits data to the nearest server, which may be any one of 47 regional branch servers in counties along the canal. Under normal circumstances, the transmissions occur at intervals of five minutes, thirty minutes or once a day, depending on location and water resources in the area. If some special event happens such as an earthquake or a chemical spill, the data will be sent immediately and continuously to the cloud. From there the data is stored or forwarded to any of the five administrative servers in provincial cities between the Danjiangkou reservoir and Beijing, to ultimately reach the main server center in Beijing.

Yang and his team designed a web platform and interface, which allows people working at the server stations to read the data and respond to any alerts via a website, thus enabling the central management team in Beijing always learn the latest developments at remote sites and make right decisions in real time. Because the network is isolated from the World Wide Web, says Zhang, the date has less risk of being hacked by outsiders.

“To me, this is a good example of IoT applied to critical infrastructure,” says Adam Drobot, Chair of the IEEE IoT Activities Board and Chairman of Open Tech Works, an internet security and IT consultancy firm. “You build it so it’s protected to begin with and not as an afterthought.”

Yang says that the biggest challenge facing the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is a large, 4-km tunnel about 7 meters in diameter, which goes underneath the Yellow River. He would like to see underwater robots developed eventually that can monitor and survey the tunnel more effectively and efficiently.

Yang is also working to turn more lab-developed IoT technologies into new products and services. For example, his team is developing a network to monitor the integrity of the glass facades of skyscrapers. Should a glass pane become weak or cracked, the IoT network would sense it, alert a maintenance operator of not only the vulnerable, but the exact size and shape of the glass pane that needs to be replaced, all before the panel cracked and crashed to the street below.

“We now have more and more sensors and more and more methods to make our environment smarter,” says Yang.


100,000 IoT Sensors Monitor a 1,400-Kilometer Canal in China - IEEE Spectrum

 

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China builds ‘world’s biggest air purifier’ (and it seems to be working)
A 100-metre high air purification tower in Xian in Shaanxi province has helped reduce smog levels in the city, preliminary results suggest

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 16 January, 2018, 6:45am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 16 January, 2018, 10:26am
Comments: 23

Stephen Chen

An experimental tower over 100 metres (328 feet) high in northern China – dubbed the world’s biggest air purifier by its operators – has brought a noticeable improvement in air quality, according to the scientist leading the project, as authorities seek ways to tackle the nation’s chronic smog problem.

The tower has been built in Xian in Shaanxi province and is undergoing testing by researchers at the Institute of Earth Environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The head of the research, Cao Junji, said improvements in air quality had been observed over an area of 10 square kilometres (3.86 square miles) in the city over the past few months and the tower has managed to produce more than 10 million cubic metres (353 million cubic feet) of clean air a day since its launch. Cao added that on severely polluted days the tower was able to reduce smog close to moderate levels.

The system works through greenhouses covering about half the size of a soccer field around the base of the tower.

Polluted air is sucked into the glasshouses and heated up by solar energy. The hot air then rises through the tower and passes through multiple layers of cleaning filters.

“The tower has no peer in terms of size … the results are quite encouraging,” said Cao.

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Xian can experience heavy pollution in winter, with much of the city’s heating relying on coal.

The tower’s operators say, however, that the system still works in the cold months as coatings on the greenhouses enable the glass to absorb solar radiation at a much higher efficiency.

Cao’s team set up more than a dozen pollution monitoring stations in the area to test the tower’s impact.

The average reduction in PM2.5 – the fine particles in smog deemed most harmful to health – fell 15 per cent during heavy pollution.

Are China’s new green taxes tough enough to fight pollution?

Cao said the results were preliminary because the experiment is still ongoing. The team plans to release more detailed data in March with a full scientific assessment of the facility’s overall performance.

The Xian smog tower project was launched by the academy in 2015 and construction was completed last year at a development zone in the Chang’an district. The purpose of the project was to find an effective, low cost method to artificially remove pollutants from the atmosphere. The cost of the project was not disclosed.

What was previously thought to be the largest smog tower in China was built last year by Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde at 798, a creative park in Beijing.

The seven-metre (23-feet) tall tower produced about eight cubic metres (282.5 cubic feet) of clean air per second. It was entirely powered by electricity, most of which is generated by coal-fired power plants in China.

Cao, however, said their tower in Xian required little power to run.

“It barely requires any power input throughout daylight hours. The idea has worked very well in the test run,” he said.

From ionising towers to bicycles, Dutchman’s smog-removing inventions stand to clear the air in polluted China

Several people in Xian told the South China Morning Post they had noticed the difference since the tower started operating.

A manager at a restaurant about 1km (0.62 miles) northwest of the facility said she had noticed an improvement in air quality this winter, although she was previously unaware of the purpose of the tower. “I do feel better,” she said.

A student studying environmental science at Shaanxi Normal University, also a few hundred metres from the tower, said the improvement was quite noticeable.

“I can’t help looking at the tower each time I pass. It’s very tall, very eye-catching, but it’s also very quiet. I can’t hear any wind going in or out,” she said. “The air quality did improve. I have no doubt about that.”

However, a teacher at the Meilun Tiancheng Kindergarten on the edge of the 10-square-kilometre (3.86-square-mile) zone said she had felt no change. “It’s just as bad as elsewhere,” she said.

The experimental facility in Xian is a scaled-down version of a much bigger smog tower that Cao and his colleagues hope to build in other cities in China in the future.

A full-sized tower would reach 500 metres (1,640 feet) high with a diameter of 200 metres (656 feet), according to a patent application they filed in 2014.

The size of the greenhouses could cover nearly 30 square kilometres (11.6 square miles) and the plant would be powerful enough to purify the air for a small sized city.


China builds ‘world’s biggest air purifier’ (and it seems to be working) | South China Morning Post

 

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CORRESPONDENCE | 18 January 2018
China’s ban on imported plastic waste could be a game changer

Tony R. Walker

China’s ban on imports of recycled plastic from developed countries takes effect this month. It could be a game changer if it weans us off plastic and forces us to seek sustainable alternatives.

With no suitable strategies in place for dealing with this extra unexpected plastic, countries must quickly devise and implement alternative waste-management solutions (see also C. M. Rochman et al. Nature 494, 169–171; 2013). Many jurisdictions have legislation that prohibits dumping of plastic waste into landfill. And stockpiling plastic refuse is ill-advised, given the fire risk at storage sites (see, for example, go.nature.com/2dh3mbg).

Moves to change consumer behaviour and implement strategies to cut plastic usage are gaining momentum. International policies and financial disincentives to curb the proliferation of single-use plastics (plastic bags and microbeads) are already showing positive results (D. Xanthos and T. R. Walker Mar. Pollut. Bull. 118, 17–26; 2017). These should be extended to include a ban on other items such as plastic drinking straws, and by widely introducing deposit-and-return schemes for plastic bottles.


China’s ban on imported plastic waste could be a game changer | Nature

 

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2017 sees warmest ocean on record
Source: Xinhua| 2018-01-19 00:01:53|Editor: yan



BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The temperature of oceans in 2017 reached a record high, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said Thursday.

According to the CAS Institute of Atmospheric Physics, compared to 2015, the year with the second warmest ocean on record, the extra heat in the upper two kilometers of sea water across the globe in 2017 represented 700 times as much as energy as China's electricity use in 2016.

The Atlantic and Antarctic oceans warmed up the fastest, as warming has already taken place in most of the other seas.

The marine ecosystems remains in jeopardy as a result, with coral reefs and the creatures that live on them threatened, researchers at the institute said.

The expansion caused by warming contributes to rising of sea levels, while more sea ice and ice shelves will melt and ocean currents will be affected.

The heat content of the ocean is a key indicator of climate change. Due to its high specific heat capacity, sea water contains the main signals, as it stores 90 percent of the energy for global warming.

2017: the Warmest Year on Record for Global Oceans---Chinese Academy of Sciences

 

[JSCh]

NEWS AND VIEWS 22 January 2018
Satellite images show China going green
Large-scale tree-planting projects have taken place in regions of China prone to soil erosion. Satellite imagery reveals the effects of this work, and shows that a predicted vegetation decline didn’t occur during a period of drought.


Marc Macias-Fauria

The effects of human activities on Earth’s vegetation have tended to be negative, mostly because of deforestation1. Restoration efforts are often restricted to small, localized scales. Large ecological-engineering projects aimed at producing regional-scale effects are few, and among these, China’s mega-projects — most notably, the Grain for Green Project (GGP)2 — stand out because of their unparalleled scale (27.8 million hectares of forest re-established as of 2013 across 26 Chinese provinces3). Writing in Nature Sustainability, Tong et al.4 report that the positive effects of these tree-planting projects on vegetation growth can be detected using remote-sensing satellite imagery of a large region of southwestern China (the provinces of Guizhou, Guangxi and Yunnan), in an area associated with highly erodible landscapes called karst. The authors note that these projects, which require considerable investment, will be justified only if the modification of ecosystem properties can be achieved on a large scale.

The government-run GGP, intended to halt soil erosion and desertification2, began in 1999. The project’s goal was to convert land on mountainous terrain prone to erosion (cropland or scrubland) into forested landscapes (Fig. 1). Such forest would be classified as ecological if trees might eventually be logged (subject to permission) as part of a timber quota, and as economical if it contained orchards, or plantations of trees for medical use. Ecological forest accounted for 80% of the planting area, with economical forest making up the remaining 20%4. The GGP was developed partly in response to the consequences of land-use changes during the time of Chairman Mao Zedong, notably the huge areas logged to provide fuel and construction materials during the Great Leap Forward programme, and large-scale conversions of often marginal, sloping land to agricultural use in the 1960s and 1970s to enhance local self-sufficiency — a change that caused severe erosion problems5.

Figure 1 | Trees planted as part of an ecological-engineering project in China. Tong et al.4 report an analysis of the effects of a large-scale tree-planting project, called the Grain for Green Project, on mountainous regions of southwestern China that are associated with high levels of soil erosion. Shown here are some trees planted as part of this project in the Wolong Nature Reserve in the southwestern Sichuan province.Credit: Michigan State University Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

To assess the effects of the tree-planting projects, Tong and colleagues use three independent lines of evidence, and the consistency of the findings convincingly demonstrate the robustness of their results. One approach was the analysis of two complementary properties of vegetation. Satellite-imaging data from 1982 to 2015 allowed the researchers to measure the area of vegetation cover present per square metre of ground (known as the leaf-area index). Other satellite data collected between 1992 and 2012 enabled the authors to assess plant biomass in units of above-ground carbon biomass. Plant biomass can be inferred by converting vegetation optical depth (a property captured by microwave observations that are sensitive to the water content of vegetation) to total carbon using an approach based on the carbon density of above-ground, living, woody vegetation.

Over time, both of these properties revealed a marked transition in the amplitude and/or direction of vegetation trends around the main implementation period of the tree-planting project, between 2000 and 2006. The authors’ calculations indicate that the southwestern region of China that they studied acted as a carbon sink after the GGP implementation, providing a considerable amount of the entire country’s net carbon sequestration. The authors also observed negative vegetation trends in the provinces’ growing urban areas, such as in the cities of Kunming and Nanning. This provides an indirect validation of the team’s satellite-data approach.

The second line of investigation taken by Tong et al. involved the use of dynamic ecosystem modelling to explore what might have happened in the absence of the tree-planting project. The model took into account the effect of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide on vegetation during the time frame studied. This modelling exercise highlighted the divergence between the simulated trend of vegetation decrease projected if the tree-planting intervention had not occurred — linked to a long-lasting drought during the previous decade — and the vegetation increase that was observed.

The third approach taken by the researchers was an analysis of the number of hectares on which tree-planting actions were implemented in each of the 295 counties within the 3 provinces studied. These GGP-inventory data showed a correspondence between actions at the county level and positive vegetation trends, as well as stark differences between China’s provinces and the neighbouring countries of Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, in which the vegetation assessed by satellite imagery decreased over the same period.

Tong and colleagues’ results are encouraging in regard to the large-scale effects of the GGP on vegetation, but should not be taken as a proof of its overall success. As the authors mention, the satellite trends were not validated by measurements taken on the ground. No erosion assessment was undertaken, so one of the main GGP goals was not evaluated directly. Furthermore, the time span of satellite analysis, and of the programme itself, might still preclude the detection of long-term dynamics related to the long lifespan of trees, or might not take into account the role of large but infrequent erosion or disturbance events such as those linked to torrential rains or pest outbreaks.

Most crucial for the overall assessment of the success of the GGP as an ecological restoration project is the fact that satellite data do not distinguish biological composition, such as the presence of different species, and so cannot be used to assess the project’s effects on biodiversity. The GGP focused on the planting of non-native, fast-growing monocultures, which might render the resulting forests more vulnerable to pests3,4. The GGP thus used a narrow view of ecosystem services (the role of vegetation in reducing erosion and desertification rates) that had the additional (and possibly unplanned) benefit of a net carbon-storage outcome. Furthermore, the rationale for GGP actions was based not on previous ecological states or projected overall ecological benefits, but on the potential to reduce the erosion rates on the target land and for the programme to generate income for farmers2.

In the absence of a China-wide assessment of the GGP’s environmental and ecological impacts2, an analysis of data from China based on 258 publications3 identified limited biodiversity benefits of the GGP. This was mainly because the dominant non-native, fast-growing monoculture plantations were linked to a decrease in floral diversity, associated with bee and bird population declines, as observed in Sichuan province. This report3 strongly recommends using native trees when establishing plantations, or at least the establishment of plantations composed of several tree species.

Nevertheless, Tong and colleagues’ work clearly shows a large-scale effect of the GGP on vegetation in southwestern China. This important result needs to be complemented by ground-based studies. Understanding of the GGP’s functional and biodiversity effects is needed to assess its success, and might also identify other interventions that have the potential to enhance or generate wider positive effects of the GGP as an ecological-restoration mega-project. The task set out by Tong and colleagues for how the effects of such massive initiatives can be tested on an adequate scale is valuable and very welcome.


Satellite images show China going green | Nature

 

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CGTN 今天 13:31 来自 微博 weibo.com
【在屋顶唱着你的歌~在屋顶开心收着菜~

】A lush rooftop oasis has sprouted atop an elementary school in Hangzhou City, east China’s Zhejiang Province. The eco-friendly farm consists of an orchard, a sunflower garden, crop plantations and even a paddy field supporting pisciculture. The 1,300-square-meter "hanging farm" is a witness to modern agricultural technology.

 

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COMMENT 30 JANUARY 2018
Steps to the digital Silk Road
Sharing big data from satellite imagery and other Earth observations across Asia, the Middle East and east Africa is key to sustainability, urges Guo Huadong.

Guo Huadong

The ancient Silk Road trade routes connecting Asia, Europe and Africa lay behind the development of many great civilizations. Today, solar panels and smartphones have replaced silk, and trains and aeroplanes have superseded camels. But the Silk Road spirit of peace, mutual benefit and learning has been revived in an ambitious plan to bridge East and West, launched in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The ‘Belt and Road’ initiative promises more than US$1 trillion of Chinese investment in some 60 countries (see ‘Belt and Road’). All other nations are welcome to join in. The main aim is socio-economic development through improving the routes for land and sea trade. The initiative will also boost science and technology across the region, for example through research into artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing and smart cities (see go.nature.com/2mvfec6).

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But protecting the environment while supporting economic growth will be challenging. The Belt and Road region is home to more than 65% of the world’s population. It includes 18 cities that have populations of greater than 10 million, such as Beijing, Cairo, Moscow, Manila and Istanbul.

Environments are diverse and fragile. Conditions range from the snow, ice and permafrost of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau to the forests and steppes of Russia and the deserts of Mongolia. Coasts and seas are threatened by rising sea levels, overfishing and pollution. Access to water is a big problem across central Asia. For example, the volume of water in the Aral Sea has shrunk by around 90% in the past 50 years, mainly because the sea and its rivers have been tapped for irrigation.

World Heritage Sites designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) are endangered by construction, logging, overexploitation and climate change. These include Sumatra’s tropical rainforests; Uzbekistan’s historic centre of Shakhrisyabz; and the world’s second-largest raised coral atoll, in the Solomon Islands at the eastern end of Rennell Island.

Development encroaches on the pyramids at Giza.Credit: ESA

The economies of many developing countries are rural, with agriculture accounting for more than 25% of gross domestic product. Often, more than 40% of a developing country’s workforce is involved in farming. Food supplies can be unreliable.

Natural hazards are another threat. Belt and Road nations experience about 85% of the world’s major earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, floods, droughts and heatwaves. For example, more than 86,000 people were killed or reported as missing in a massive earthquake in Wenchuan, China, in May 2008. And the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people. Seven of the top ten countries that saw major losses from disasters between 1995 and 2014 are in this region.

If we do nothing, sensitive environments will be lost and exposure to risks will rise.

Wildfires threaten boreal forests in Russia.Credit: ESA

To address these problems, a combination of accurate, reliable and timely scientific observations of the state of terrestrial and marine ecosystems is essential — from space, the air and on the ground. However, coverage and infrastructure are poor. Many countries cannot afford to train experts in Earth-observing techniques or install ground stations to monitor soil nutrients or air quality. For example, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have no Earth-observing satellites or facilities for mass data processing. Local data are rarely shared and are often locked away in government or university archives.

I chair the Digital Belt and Road Program (DBAR) initiated in 2016 by Chinese scientists in cooperation with experts from 19 countries and 7 international organizations. Our aim is to improve environmental monitoring, promote data sharing and support policymaking using big data on Earth observations. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is investing more than 200 million yuan (US$32 million) in the next 5 years to support DBAR.

The programme will monitor different types of ecosystem and their evolution, including grasslands, forests, glaciers, urban areas, farmland and coastal regions. Environmental and socio-economic information will be shared through a platform for big Earth data, scheduled for roll-out between 2016 and 2026. This open-access gateway will allow researchers, policymakers and the public to track changes, development and trends. The programme will investigate indices and indicators to feed into the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Musa Bay in Iran faces ecological damage from shipping.Credit: ESA

Here we set out the main scientific challenges and priorities for DBAR. These were presented and discussed in December 2017 at the second DBAR conference in Hong Kong1.

Proof of concept

There are four main obstacles to a strategy on big Earth data for the Belt and Road region: poor access to data; a digital divide between developed and developing countries; a lack of awareness among some policymakers, local scientists and practitioners of the potential of Earth observations; and too little collaboration. These are long-standing problems — they also slowed emergency responses during and after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, for example.

DBAR’s main approach is to work towards a platform that can handle a wide variety of information. Data sets and infrastructure are being assembled, and services should start to become available by the end of 2018. Eight key challenges are being targeted: adapting to climate and environmental change; mitigating disaster risk; managing water supplies; increasing agriculture and food security; protecting natural and cultural heritage; sustainable development of urban areas and infrastructure; managing coasts and marine areas; and understanding changes in high mountains and the Arctic.

For example, in agriculture, the main difficulty faced by most food-insecure countries of the region is a lack of up-to-date information about the supplies, yields and management of crops. DBAR is expanding the cloud-computing-based system CropWatch for monitoring and managing the availability of maize (corn), rice, wheat and soya-bean products. Launched by CAS in 1998, CropWatch provides users from 143 countries or regions with easy access to agricultural information.

For disaster relief and risk reduction, DBAR is developing a platform for sharing Earth-observation imagery. The value of such information in quickly assessing the impacts of extreme events has been proved in China and developed countries, and needs to be opened to others. For example, following the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, Chinese rescuers were alerted to 700 people trapped in a village after seeing aerial imagery of “SOS700” written on top of a building.

The processes that shape urbanization need to be understood. Earth observations can reveal trends in the growth of cities and help planners to overcome traffic congestion, energy shortages, urban sprawl and poor basic services. For example, DBAR scientists are modelling the growth of Moscow to inform development in Beijing. The programme is also monitoring the impacts of some big infrastructure projects, including the Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, Colombo Port City and the Malaysia–China Kuantan Industrial Park.

Beijing’s urban development can be tracked from space.Credit: ESA

The entire landscapes of World Heritage Sites — including human influences — need to be protected, not just their monuments2. For example, at Angkor in Cambodia, Earth observations that included airborne laser scans revealed the remains of multiple cities aged 900 to 1,400 years old lying beneath the tropical forest floor3. Deforestation and urban sprawl are the main risks that should inform a broader management strategy.

Way forward

We plan to focus on five priority areas at DBAR.

Enhance infrastructure. An open platform with shared data, codes and algorithms is urgently needed for analysing the vast amounts of Earth-observation data, which are already daunting and will only increase. The European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite, launched in October 2017, takes 20 million observations of air pollutants and gases each day — 10 times more than previous missions. Cloud computing must therefore be core4. It would currently take 1,200 years for one computer to process 3 million planetary-scale satellite scenes; a cloud-computing facility could do it in 45 days5. Earth-observing satellite data from upcoming missions will need to be incorporated.

Promote data sharing and interoperability. Data need to be openly exchanged if everyone in the region is to benefit. This will require decisions about suitable formats, information and support for handling them, as well as methodologies and tools to maximize exploitation of the data.

Extend applications to more people. Development across the Belt and Road region is uneven. To close these gaps, it is necessary to improve common solutions provided by big Earth data6. Access to tools such as CropWatch needs to be extended. Use of the digital cloud can allow anyone to access services anywhere across the region, and to accelerate the development of applications for various users.

Identify research opportunities. Knowledge could be discovered within the huge multidisciplinary data sets. For example, studying changes in the land surface of the Yellow River Delta from space over the past 40 years has increased our understanding of how its evolution depends on land use, precipitation and water flows. Researchers must help to raise awareness of the scientific potential and solutions provided by big Earth data, especially in less-developed countries.

Strengthen international collaboration. Belt and Road nations should set up bilateral or multilateral arrangements and stronger links with international scientific programmes and organizations. These include UNESCO, the UN Environment Programme, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology, the Pan-Eurasian Experiment and the Group on Earth Observations.

To help bridge the technical divides between richer and poorer nations, DBAR should set up joint programmes, laboratories and international centres of excellence for gathering experts from participating countries. The programme has already established eight centres of excellence, in Pakistan, Thailand, Finland, Italy, Russia, Morocco, Zambia and the United States.

DBAR has embarked on an ambitious journey to build a digital Silk Road for sustainable development — we invite even more natural and social scientists to join this shared endeavour.

Nature 554, 25-27 (2018)

doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-01303-y


Steps to the digital Silk Road | Nature

 

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China helps Kyrgyzstan with drinking water safety research
Source: Xinhua| 2018-01-30 20:09:34|Editor: Zhou Xin


URUMQI, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have helped their counterparts in Kyrgyzstan finish an initial assessment of drinking water pollution in the Central Asian country.

The study is part of an ongoing joint program aimed at addressing grave safety concerns about drinking water in Kyrgyzstan.

Researchers completed the tests of 184 samples collected from over 20 major rivers, said Li Yaoming with the research institute of ecology and environment of Central Asia under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

In addition to the water quality assessment, researchers will work to improve water supply networks and promote water purification technology.

With an abundance of snow-covered peaks and glaciers, Kyrgyzstan is called the "water tower" of Central Asia. However, the country's water quality in many places fails to meet drinking standards, Li said.

Its urban water supply networks are outdated, while rural areas lack such facilities. Rural residents fetch water from rivers, some contaminated by mining waste, and shallow wells. This water has excess levels of heavy metals, organic matter or microorganisms.

Kyrgyzstan lacks capacity and funding for research in the field, Li said.

Researchers will advise the government on solutions to water pollution, use of rainwater, waste water treatment and recycling, and will help train professionals in these areas.

In Kyrgyzstan, CAS has also taken part in joint studies of soil, lakes, farm produce and mines.

China has advanced scientific and technological cooperation with countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.

 

[JSCh]

PUBLIC RELEASE: 13-FEB-2018
APSOS in Tibet: Probing the whole atmosphere
INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

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The world-class ground-based atmospheric research facility, APSOS, illustrated on the cover of Issue 3 of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences in 2018. Three green laser beams at the wavelength of 532 nm pointing into the night sky in zenith, eastward, and southward directions for measuring the range-resolved profiles of atmospheric temperature, wind, aerosol, and cloud. The cover art is reproduced from a photo taken by Dr. Xuewu CHENG at YBJ International Cosmic Ray Observatory in Tibet, on Oct. 10, 2017 (UTC+8).
CREDIT: ADVANCES IN ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES

For decades, satellites have been monitoring the atmosphere to support research on the global climate, weather, and environment. However, strong demand still exists for ground-based observations of the whole atmosphere. An NSFC (National Natural Science Foundation of China) funded research facility named the "Atmospheric Profiling Synthetic Observation System" (APSOS), aimed at deepening our understanding on the interactions within the whole (neutral) atmosphere layers, was built at the Yangbajain (YBJ) International Cosmic Ray Observatory in Tibet, China, in late 2017 and is now in full operation.

The key instruments of APSOS are five lidars (i.e., laser radars), a cloud radar, a terahertz radiometer, and a telescope assembly of four Φ1200 mm mirrors. It can provide range-resolved profiles of temperature, wind, water vapor, aerosol, cloud, ozone, NO2, SO2, and CO2. In addition, there is a data management and validation platform for data retrieval, comparison, and validation.

APSOS is the world's first ground-based facility for profiling atmospheric variables and multiple constituents in the whole (neutral) atmosphere, covering the altitudes of the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and the lower thermosphere, according to APSOS team member Dr. Weilin PAN, a researcher with the Institute of Atmosphere Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In a recently published article in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, reviewing the recent progress of APSOS, PAN describes how APSOS will be making long-term measurements and establishing the first whole-atmosphere measurement database over the Tibetan Plateau.

"International collaborations are strongly encouraged," PAN says.



APSOS in Tibet: Probing the whole atmosphere | EurekAlert! Science News

 

[JSCh]

NEWS | 06 MARCH 2018
China tests giant air cleaner to combat smog
The prototype offers an innovative solution to a major public-health problem.

David Cyranoski

​

Inside a chimney that releases filtered air, part of a pilot project to reduce smog in Xi'an, China.Credit: David Cyranoski/Nature

A 60-metre-high chimney stands among a sea of high-rise buildings in one of China’s most polluted cities. But instead of adding to Xian’s smog, this chimney is helping to clear the air. The outdoor air-purifying system, powered by the Sun, filters out noxious particles and billows clean air into the skies. Chinese scientists who designed the prototype say that the system could significantly cut pollution in urban areas in China and elsewhere.

The technology has excited and intrigued researchers — especially in China, where air pollution is a daily challenge. Early results, which are yet to be published, are promising, says the project's leader Cao Junji, a chemist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Key Laboratory of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics in Xian in central China.

“This is certainly a very interesting idea,” says Donald Wuebbles, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has heard about the system but not seen it in action. “I am not aware of anyone else doing a project like this one.”

The prototype, built with US$ 2 million in funding from the provincial government, has also caught the attention of the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bai Chunli, who visited the site last month. Cao says Chinese leaders are eager for innovative solutions to air pollution because it creates such a widespread public-health problem. The Global Burden of Disease Study for 2015, a comprehensive effort to map the world's diseases, found that pollution contributed to 1.1 million premature deaths in China in that year alone.

Cao has submitted a proposal for another 300-metre tower in Xian. He is also negotiating proposals with cities in Guangzhou, Hebei and Henan.

But the technology has its sceptics, who say that there are much cheaper ways to reduce air pollution.

Stack effect

The concrete chimney sits atop a large open structure with a glass roof. Solar radiation hitting the glass heats the air, causing it to rise towards the base of the tower. The air then passes through a wall of industrial filters before billowing out the chimney. The system is inspired by renewable-energy power plants that generate electricity from solar heat.

“This is a very well-designed and well-made prototype,” says Renaud de Richter, a chemical engineer at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier, who has worked on solar-energy towers. Richter says Cao’s success could help to convince investors to support other applications based on the flow of solar-powered air through chimneys, a technology known as solar updraft.

Pollution peaks during winter and Cao chose this time to conduct his first test of the systems’ air filters over two weeks in January. At the tower and at 10 monitoring stations across a 10 square-kilometre area, he placed monitors that measured particulate matter under 2.5 micrometres in diameter (PM2.5), a type of pollution that has plagued Chinese cities.

Cao found that the tower expels between 5 million and 8 million cubic metres of filtered air a day in winter. During the study period, the surrounding air monitors registered a 19% decrease in PM2.5 concentrations compared with monitors in other parts of the city. Cao is preparing the results for peer review.

Cao says the prototype’s impact was local, so he proposes creating arrays of about half a dozen larger chimneys distributed around urban centres. He has also designed a 500-metre-tall tower. “The influence of one system is small. We need multiple systems so that significant reduction of air pollution concentration can be achieved,” he says.

Cheaper alternatives

Neil Donahue, who studies atmospheric particles at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, says there is little doubt that pulling a large volume of air through high-efficiency particulate filters will clean it. But Donahue wonders whether the benefits will be worth the environmental damage caused by building and running such facilities. “I would like to see an assessment of the power and resource use for the filtration,” he says. Turning the same amount of power into clean electricity, or not emitting the pollution in the first place, might achieve the same goal of reducing pollution, says Donahue.

Wuebbles also worries that the chimney would filter only particulate matter and not precursors to particulate matter, such as sulfur dioxide gas and nitrogen oxides, which are also dangerous to human health, or secondary gaseous pollutants such as ozone. “So while the sky may look cleaner, the air quality can still be really awful,” he says.

Cao says that the system already removes nitrogen oxides, one of the major precursors in the formation of ultra-fine particles and ozone. He also says that concerns about the economics are overblown. He estimates the running costs of the pilot project to be about $30,000 a year.

Despite some reservations, researchers — such as atmospheric scientist Jose Jimenez, at the University of Colorado Boulder — see an advantage in pursuing the technology. “I’d definitely say it is worth exploring it more, though I am not convinced either way at this point,” he says.

Nature 555, 152-153 (2018)

doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-02704-9


China tests giant air cleaner to combat smog | Nature

 

[JSCh]

China 'winning' war on smog, helping life expectancy: study
13 MAR 2018

AFP / NICOLAS ASFOURI
The Chinese government has been waging a battle to clear its skies of smog that has cut life expectancy in some regions​

China appears to be "winning" its war on air pollution, making so much progress that life expectancy could rise by more than two years, according to a US university study.

The Chinese government has been waging a battle to clear its skies of smog that has cut life expectancy in some regions and prompted its citizens to buy masks and air purifiers to protect themselves during peak pollution days.

The University of Chicago says in its study released Monday that while the world's biggest polluter faces a long road to reach national and international air quality standards, the results "suggest the country is winning its war on pollution".

Based on daily data from more than 200 monitors across China from 2013 to 2017, the analysis found that cities have cut levels of PM 2.5 -- the tiny airborne particles considered most harmful to health -- by an average of 32 percent in just four years.

If sustained, such reductions would increase the life expectancy of the average Chinese citizen by 2.4 years relative to 2013. PM 2.5 can play a role in heart disease, stroke, and lung ailments such as emphysema and cancer.

Another study published by the university last year had found that air pollution in northern China had cut life expectancy by three years compared with the south of the country.

"We don't have a historical example of a country achieving such rapid reductions in air pollution. It's remarkable," Michael Greenstone the economist and director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago who conducted the studies, told AFP Tuesday.

By contrast, it took the US a dozen years and a severe recession to attain similar improvements in air quality after it enacted its 1970 Clean Air Act, he noted.

"What these last four years have demonstrated quite loudly is that things can change and they can change rapidly –- it just requires political will," he said.

As public discontent mounted over the country's choking smog, China's ruling Communist Party made clean air a priority.

In 2013, it launched an ambitious air pollution action plan that sought to slash PM 2.5 levels in key regions such as the northern Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin area and the Yangtze River Delta by up to a quarter.

In 2014, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang declared "war" on pollution.

Since then, teams of inspectors have been deployed across major cities in north China to ensure compliance with pollution standards.

Highlighting the challenge facing the country, Beijing's skies were a dismal grey on Tuesday, as PM 2.5 levels soared to 270 micrograms per cubic cubic metre, more than 10 times the maximum recommended by the World Health Organization for a 24-hour period.

- Social costs -

But the capital and other places have made progress.

Beijing cut PM 2.5 levels by 35 percent between 2013 and 2017, increasing lifespans of its 20 million residents by 3.3 years, the study found. Baoding, China's most polluted city as of 2015, cut pollution by 38 percent, adding 4.5 years of life.

AFP/File / FRED DUFOURA
University of Chicago study suggests China 'is winning its war on pollution'

"China's not held up as a democratic regime, and yet here we have a clear example of the public demanding something and the government delivering it," said Greenstone.

Yet the war on smog has come with social costs.

To clear the skies, authorities ordered thousands of polluting factories to leave urban centres, displacing hundreds of thousands of migrants.

They also designated "no-coal zones" that pushed more than three million households in the region around Beijing to abruptly switch over to gas or electric heating, often removing coal boilers before new systems were functional.

In December, schools in Hebei province made headlines after pupils suffered frostbite from attending class outside. Delays to installations of the new electric heating systems meant it was slightly warmer in the weak winter sunshine than in the frigid classrooms.

Greenstone said he hoped to see China move towards more market-based environmental regulations. He recommended measures such as setting up cap-and-trade markets for particulates and beefing up pollution taxes.


China 'winning' war on smog, helping life expectancy: study | AFP.com

 

[JSCh]

Feature: Scientist eyes Chinese satellites to help world tackle air pollution
Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-14 22:40:33|Editor: Lifang


BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Five years ago, Zhang Xingying first used Chinese polar-orbiting satellites to detect and measure smog, looking for ways to tackle air pollution.

Now as China makes progress in clearing its skies, the meteorologist hopes the technology can also be shared to brighten the future for all, both at home and overseas.

"Smog may be on the retreat at the moment but remains a problem that cannot be ignored, not only in China but in many other countries," said Zhang, 40, chief scientist of atmosphere composition remote sensing at the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).

Zhang was speaking on the sidelines of the first session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body.

As one of China's most important annual political events, the session brings together thousands of CPPCC members from various backgrounds including scientists, officials, entrepreneurs, and religious figures to discuss government policy and put forward suggestions.

Zhang, a political advisor, wants his voice to be heard both in China and beyond. "Our satellites can help more countries with air pollution."

His remarks stem from his research on particulate matter, which he has been involved in since 2001, when the pollutant was largely unknown to the public.

The thick, grey haze that frequently descends on eastern and northern China prompted the government to begin to purify the air, with hunting down polluters the most urgent task.

Zhang and his team modelled the evolution of smog from 1979 to 2013 and then used satellites equipped with ultraviolet sensors to predict long-term trends and variations. "The geostationary orbit satellite Fengyun-4, launched in December 2016, can take clear pictures of the movement of smog that enable us to track the sources of pollution and improve forecasting."

Thanks to numerous scientists like Zhang, the skies over Chinese cities have started to turn bluer, even in winter. The PM2.5 index in Beijing and environs has fallen by 39.6 percent since 2013.

For Zhang, however, the battle is far from over. "From India to Egypt, smog has spread throughout developing countries in the middle of modernization."

China has started to provide other countries with pollutant monitoring services, helping them establish their own remote sensing networks.

The Fengyun series of meteorological satellites cover 42 countries and regions along the Belt and Road. In 2017, the CMA trained nearly 400 specialists and awarded 71 scholarships to meteorological and hydrological students, all from abroad.

"We share the same environment and the same earth. Helping others is actually helping ourselves. That's what 'a community with shared future' means," Zhang said, who is also chief China scientist for an EU-funded remote sensing research program.

The CPPCC session runs almost parallel to the annual session of the 13th National People's Congress, the national legislature. At the "two sessions," political and economic developments, and new policies are reviewed, discussed, adopted or discarded by nearly 3,000 legislators and more than 2,100 political advisors.

Zhang brought a proposal on commercial use of satellite data. "It can be used for a wide variety of purposes, such as steering ocean-going freighters around storms, predicting grain output and in carbon trading."

"Without increased consumption of resources, the green economy will create new growth points for China and the world," Zhang said.

 

[JSCh]

Chinese tree planters greening desert
New China TV
Published on Mar 27, 2018

Tree planters in north China's Linze County, Gansu Province, have been trying to turn a desert into an oasis over the years. Click to find out their battle against desertification.

 

[TaiShang]

China won’t change course in trash import ban

By Chen Qingqing Source:Global Times Published: 2018/3/26 20:33:39

International environmental treaty provides solid ground for move

A customs official in Nanning in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region showcases plastic garbage smuggled from overseas in February. Photo: VCG

Graphics: GT

China will firmly carry out the ban on imports of such items as waste plastic and paper, and the claim that this policy breaches WTO obligations is groundless, industry representatives told the Global Times on Monday.

When it comes to global waste trade, the claim about China seeming to violate WTO obligations is groundless and hypocritical, Hua Chunying, spokeswoman of the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a press briefing on Monday.

"Why it is legitimate that the US can curb exports of high-technology and value-added products to China while is it illegal for China to restrict imports of garbage?" she said

The US claimed on Friday that China's import restrictions on recycled commodities have caused a fundamental disruption in global supply chains for scrap materials, according to Reuters.

A US official also pointed a finger at China, which seemed to be breaching its WTO obligations by treating domestic and foreign waste differently while also employing an overly trade-restrictive policy, Reuters noted.

Any country has the right to "say no" to hazardous wastes, following international treaties and adjustment of its own policies, said Zheng Tianlu, an expert with the China Plastics Processing Industry Association.

"China was the world's recycling bin for decades. While China generated huge volumes of plastic every year, the country has faced mounting pressure in recycling waste composed of plastic," he said, noting that China has to reduce dependence on imports of plastic scrap.

The State Council, China's cabinet, unveiled the ban on imports of "foreign garbage" in July 2017, with the aim of further developing the recycling industry and enhancing environmental protection. It said that as of the end of 2017, imports of trash such as plastic waste from daily use sources, unsorted waste paper and textiles would be all banned.

The Chinese government will also gradually reduce the categories of imported solid waste and further crack down on illegal trading of foreign garbage.

The US is the largest exporter of major recycled commodities including plastic scrap, recovered paper, ferrous scrap and copper scrap, according to data compiled by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc.

For instance, the country exported 2.04 million tons of plastic scrap in 2015, followed by Japan and Germany, which shipped 1.61 million tons and 1.38 million tons to overseas markets, respectively.

In spite of questions raised on China's ban on trash imports "the Chinese government will not change course," said Huo Jianguo, senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization.

"The recent claim by the US about global waste trade aims to make trouble for China amid China-US trade war tensions," Huo said.

Under WTO rules and obligations, members can adopt trade-related measures aimed at protecting the environment, he noted. "It's fully reasonable that China is heading toward this direction in terms of environmental protection."

China saw rapid growth in its waste imports over the past two decades, which led to serious environmental pollution, Li Ganjie, Minister of Ecological Environment, told a press conference on March 17 during the two sessions.

"The government will further adjust categories of waste imports," he said, noting that the total import volume of garbage declined 12 percent last year annually and will continue to drop this year.

In October 2017, five WTO members questioned China's import ban on solid waste, particularly for certain scrap materials, at a meeting of the WTO Committee on Import Licensing, according to the WTO's website. The US, the EU, Australia, Canada and South Korea expressed concern that the restrictions might hurt their own industries as well as traders.

Under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes, an international treaty that allows countries to reject hazardous waste trade, China has the right to refuse foreign garbage, Wang Wang, secretary-general of the China Scrap Plastics Association, told the Global Times on Monday.

"China has taken too much responsibility for recycling trash from all over the world, and it is reasonable that it will no longer bear this responsibility, considering the damage to our environment," Wang said.

However, a one-size-fits-all import ban will raise concerns among traders, Huo noted. "While the government won't change course in forbidding foreign trash, some measures can be adopted in a more flexible way to make sure the ban will not affect production that needs recycled commodities as auxiliary materials," he said.

 

[JSCh]

China's carbon trading pilot boosts emissions control
Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-27 17:23:20|Editor: Mengjie


SHANGHAI, March 27 (Xinhua) -- China's carbon trading system has enabled the country to reach its 2020 carbon emissions target in 2017, China's special representative on climate change has said.

Xie Zhenhua said at the Green Carbon Summit held here Monday that by the end of 2017, China had cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 46 percent from the 2005 level, fulfilling its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 40 to 45 percent from the 2005 level by 2020.

From 2005 to 2015, China's economy grew by 1.48 times, and at the same time, the carbon intensity dropped by 38.6 percent. In 2016, the rate continued to fall by 6.6 percent year on year.

According to China's commitment to the Paris Agreement, it will have to cut carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65 percent by 2030 from the 2005 level.

The carbon emissions trading system was initiated in 2011 and includes power generation, iron and steel production and cement manufacturing sectors in seven provinces and municipalities including Shanghai, Xie said.

Transactions totalling 200 million tonnes of carbon emissions quotas had been completed via the platform by the end of 2017, with total turnover hitting 4.7 billion yuan (751 million U.S. dollars).

The National Development and Reform Commission launched a nationwide carbon emissions trading system in the power generation industry in December last year.

Under the scheme, enterprises are assigned emissions quotas and those producing more than their share of emissions are allowed to buy unused quotas on the market from those that cause less pollution.

Xie said the system is a step toward establishing a national carbon market. Relevant departments should take measures to facilitate the registration, trade settlements, and accounting to better regulate the carbon market.