Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
Unsaturated bentonite–sand mixtures (BSMs) are accepted generally as ideal buffer/backfill materials in geologic repositories because of its excellent performance. Water retention characteristics are the important factor that affect the engineering properties of BSMs, but little attention has been devoted to that of Gaomiaozi (GMZ) BSMs under contr...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The most populous city of the world’s largest watershed (Manaus, Amazon Basin, Brazil) is experiencing an extensive urban expansion since the early 1970s, with an attendant cost in environmental degradation. The upland area of the Manaus municipality is characterized by several streams. In this work, we aim to gradually measure the anthropogenic ef...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The city of Azazga is facing extensive and damaging landslide hazard. The aim of this study was to investigate the inventory mapping, the deformation characteristics, the controlling factors and the failure mechanisms of the landslides in the urban area of Azazga based on field surveys, aerial photographs/satellite images interpretation and the exp...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The present editorial 2020 continues the series of status reports in Environmental Earth Sciences (EES) in previous years 2017 and 2019 (Kolditz et al. in Environ Earth Sci 77: 8, 2018, Kolditz et al. in Environ Earth Sci 79: 11, 2020). The year 2020 coming to an end was heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic affecting all areas of life includ...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The large amount of end-of-life (EoL) reverse osmosis (RO) membrane modules needed in desalination processes represents an important opportunity for material valorization. Alternative waste management routes are being developed worldwide to give them a second life within the Circular Economy (CE) principles. The aim of this study is the potential l...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The Sundarbans, a UNESCO world heritage site, is of immense importance for its ecological and economic utilities. This paper attempts to identify, assess and classify the degree of vulnerability along the 269 km coastal stretches of Indian Sundarbans using GIS-based composite index. This study implies five physical and one social variable (geomorph...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The aim of this work is to provide a complete data set of direct shear tests and to propose a corresponding simulation approach. Tests have been conducted on crystalline rock samples applying constant normal load (CNL) and constant normal stiffness (CNS) boundary conditions. A physical consistent algorithm which explicitly calculates the forces act...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The urban heat island (UHI) effect is an important issue in urban planning. In this study, the framework of the land surface temperature (LST) and UHIindex for urban development land (UDL) based on urban planning in China was proposed to examine the spatiotemporal evolution of the LST and the UHIindex for the whole city as well as the LST and the U...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The crosslinked biopolymer structure constructed by blending different biopolymers or adding crosslink agent to biopolymers was studied. The rate of crosslink reaction was estimated with rheological measurements, such as elasticity and viscosity, glass transition temperature, crosslinking density, and gelation. Intermolecular and intramolecular ass...
Published in Environmental Earth Sciences
The present research assesses the chemical fractionation of cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), and lead (Pb) detected in saline soil samples of Hyderabad Pakistan. Based on the reagents used in the BCR three-step conventional sequential extraction (CSE) for partitioning Cd, Cr, and Pb in saline soil samples, a Microwave induced single-step extraction (MS...
