High total organic carbon (TOC) and low clay content are two criteria to identify the "sweet spots" in shale gas plays. Recently, machine learning has been proved to be effective to estimate TOC and clay from well loggings. The remaining questions are what algorithm we should choose in the first place and whether we can improve the already built models. Automatic machine learning (AutoML) appears as a promising tool to solve those realistic questions by training multiple models and compares them automatically. Two wells with conventional well loggings and elemental capture spectroscopy are selected from a shale gas play to test the AutoML's ability in TOC and clay estimation. TOC and clay content are extracted from the Schlumberger's ELAN interpretation and calibrated to cores. Generalizability is proved in the blind test well and the mean absolute test errors for TOC and clay estimation are 0.23% and 3.77%. 829 data points are used to generate the final models with the train-test ratio of 75:25. The mean absolute test errors are 0.26% and 2.68% for TOC and clay, respectively, which are very low for TOC ranging from 0-6% and clay from 35-65%. The results show the AutoML's success and efficiency in the estimation. The trained models are interpreted to understand the variables effects in predictions. 235 wells are selected through data quality checking and feed into the models to create TOC and clay distribution maps. The maps provide guidance on where to drill a new well for higher shale gas production. / Master of Science / Locating "sweet spots", where the shale gas production is much higher than the average areas, is critical for a shale reservoir's successful commercial exploitation. Among the properties of shale, total organic carbon (TOC) and clay content are often selected to evaluate the gas production potential. For TOC and clay estimation, multiple machine learning models have been tested in recent studies and are proved successful. The questions are what algorithm to choose for a specific task and whether the already built models can be improved. Automatic machine learning (AutoML) has the potential to solve the problems by automatically training multiple models and comparing them to achieve the best performance. In our study, AutoML is tested to estimate TOC and clay using data from two gas wells in a shale gas field. First, one well is treated as blind test well and the other is used as trained well to examine the generalizability. The mean absolute errors for TOC and clay content are 0.23% and 3.77%, indicating reliable generalization. Final models are built using 829 data points which are split into train-test sets with the ratio of 75:25. The mean absolute test errors are 0.26% and 2.68% for TOC and clay, respectively, which are very low for TOC ranging from 0-6% and clay from 35-65%. Moreover, AutoML requires very limited human efforts and liberate researchers or engineers from tedious parameter-tuning process that is the critical part of machine learning. Trained models are interpreted to understand the mechanism behind the models. Distribution maps of TOC and clay are created by selecting 235 gas wells that pass the data quality checking, feeding them into trained models, and interpolating. The maps provide guidance on where to drill a new well for higher shale gas production.

Assimilable organic carbon (AOC) is a suspected contributor to growth of microbes, including pathogens, in plumbing systems. Two phases of research were completed to improve knowledge of AOC and other forms of organic carbon in premise plumbing. In the first phase, the AOC Standard Method 9217B was compared to a new luminescence-based AOC in terms of time, cost, convenience, and sources of error. The luminescence method was generally more accurate, as it better captured the peak growth of the test organisms. It was also less expensive and less time-consuming. A few approaches to improving the accuracy of the method and detect possible errors were also presented. In the second phase of research, the possibility of AOC generation in premise plumbing was reviewed and then tested in experiments. It has been hypothesized that removal of AOC entering distribution systems might be a viable control strategy for opportunistic premise plumbing pathogens (OPPPs), but if AOC was generated in premise plumbing systems this approach would be undermined. Possible sources of AOC creation in premise plumbing, which is herein termed "distribution system derived biodegradable organic carbon (DSD-BDOC)," include: leaching of organic matter from cross linked polyethylene (PEX) pipes, autotrophic oxidation of H2 generated from metal corrosion (e.g. sacrificial magnesium anode rods and iron pipes), rendering of humic substances more biodegradable by sorption to oxides such as Fe(OH)3, and accumulation of AOC on filters and sediments. The potential for various plumbing and pipe materials to generate AOC was compared in controlled simulated water heater experiments. Under the worst-case condition, generation up to 645 µg C/L was observed. IT was not possible to directly confirm the biodegradability of the generated organic carbon, and there were generally no correlations between suspected generation of organic carbon and either heterotrophic plate counts (HPC) or of bacterial 16S rRNA genes. DSD-BDOC was also explored in a simulated distribution system with two disinfectant types (chlorine and chloramine) and three pipe materials (PVC, cement, and iron). TOC increased with water age, probably due to leaching of organics from PVC and possibly the aforementioned DSD-BDOC due to autotrophic reactions of nitrifiers and iron-related bacteria. As before, relationships between the higher levels of organic carbon and either HPC or 16S were not observed. / Master of Science

Source water protection is important to maintain public health by keeping harmful pathogens out of drinking water. Non-point source pollution is often times a major contributor of pollution to surface waters, and this form of pollution can be difficult to quantify. This study examined physical, chemical, and microbiological water quality parameters that may indicate pollution and may help to identify sources of pollution. These included measures of organic matter, particles, and indicator organisms (fecal coliforms and E. coli). The parameters were quantified in the West Boylston Brook, which serves as a tributary to the Wachusett Reservoir and is part of the drinking water supply for the Metropolitan Boston area. Water quality was determined over four seasons at seven locations in the brook that were selected to isolate specific land uses. The water quality parameters were first analyzed for trends by site and by season. Then, a correlation analysis was performed to determine relationships among the water quality parameters. Lastly, ANOVA analyses were used to determine statistically significant variations in water quality along the tributary.

I Fredriksdalsvikens naturreservat i Kristianstads kommun skedde omfattande metalläckage efter en översvämning sommaren 2007 som orsakade skador på djur- och växtliv. De kraftiga metalläckagen misstänks härledas till sura sulfatjordar. Sura sulfatjordar tillhör de miljöskadligaste jordarna i världen på grund av de kraftiga metalläckagen och försurningen som jordarna orsakar till omgivningen. Mot bakgrund till humusämnens centrala roll för metalltransport i naturliga miljöer, syftade denna studie till att kartlägga hur organiskt kol är fördelat, sprids samt hur det kan förklaras i ett område nära det drabbade naturreservatet. Studien är en del av ett pågående forskningsprojekt i området som bedrivs på Linnéuniversitetet. I studiens undersökningsområde dominerar jordbruksmark som dräneras av ett dikessystem från norr till söder. Vattnet som avleds i dikessystemet pumpas slutligen till en våtmark i Fredriksdalsvikens naturreservat. I studien analyserades jord från åkermark, dikessediment, porvatten och dikesvatten från området på totalt organiskt kol med metoderna glödförlust och kyvett-test. Totalhalterna jämfördes med pH och grundvattennivå i åkermark. Resultat och slutsatser av studien är att högst halter löst organiskt kol uppmättes i dikesvattnet uppströms i dikessystemet och beror troligtvis på bottenfauna som inte växer i andra delar av systemet. I dikessediment ökar den organiska halten nedströms i dikessystemet och kan förklaras genom tillförsel av organiskt kol från två diken som dränerar åkermark rik på organiskt kol. De högsta halterna organiskt kol i jord beror på ett tunt torvlager. I åkermark visar inte resultaten någon tydlig statistisk korrelation mellan pH och totalt organiskt kol, men kraftig pH-sänkning tillsammans med höga totalhalter organiskt kol i torvjord beror troligtvis snarare på humusämnen än på sur sulfatjord. I åkermark väster om dikessystemet ökar den organiska halten med djupet under grundvattenytan. I samma åkermark ökar halterna av totalt organiskt kol lateralt mot dikessystemet, parallellt med att pH sjunker som troligen påverkas av starkare bindningsmekanismer till mineral, lägre mikrobiell aktivitet och minskad urlakning av löst organiskt kol. Men fler undersökningar i området krävs då markanvändning, erosion, jordarternas textur och sammansättning samt vattnets spridningsvägar också är avgörande faktorer för fördelning och spridning av organiskt kol i naturliga miljöer. / In the nature reserve Fredriksdalsviken in Kristianstad municipality, extensive metal leakage occurred after a flood in the summer of 2007 that caused damage to wildlife and plant life. The heavy metal leaks are suspected to be derived from acid sulphate soils in the area. Acid sulphate soils are among the most environmentally harmful soils in the world due to its extensive acidification and leaching of metals to the environment. In the light of humic substances key role for metal transport in natural environments, this study aimed to investigate how organic carbon is distributed, spread and how it can be explained in an area near the affected nature reserve. The study is part of an ongoing research project in the area conducted at Linnaeus University. The study area is dominated by agriculture land which is drained by a ditch system from north to south. The drained water in the ditch system is finally pumped to a wetland in the Fredriksdalsviken nature reserve. In the area, total organic carbon was analysed on soil from arable land, ditch sediment, pore water and ditch water with the methods loss of ignition and cuvette-test. Total levels were compared with pH and the groundwater level in arable land. The results and conclusions of the study are that the highest content of dissolved organic carbon in the ditch water upstream the ditch system is probably due to benthic fauna that doesn’t grow in other parts of the system. In the ditch sediment, the organic content increases downstream in the ditch system and can be explained by the supply of organic carbon from two ditches that drain arable land rich in organic carbon. In arable land are the highest levels of organic carbon due to a thin peat layer. The results does not show a clear statistical correlation between pH and total organic carbon in soil, but a sharp decrease in pH together with high total levels of organic carbon in peat soil is probably due to humic substances rather than to acid sulphate soil. In the western arable land of the ditch system, levels of total organic carbon increase laterally towards the ditch system at the same time as the pH decreases, which is probably affected by stronger binding mechanisms to minerals, lower microbial activity and reduced leaching of dissolved organic carbon. However, more research is required in the study area, since land use, erosion, soil texture and constitution together with the flow paths of water also are crucial factors for the distribution and pathways of organic carbon in natural environments.

Biological filtration (Biofiltration) processes have been used first in Europe and then in North America for decades, however currently there is not a good overall parameter to guide biofiltration design and operation except adopting parameters from traditional particle- removal filtration process. On the basis of the biofilm model developed by Rittmann and McCarty (1980a) and the pseudo-analytical solution for the model, Zhang and Huck (1996a) obtained an analytical solution for PF (plug flow) reactors (which can be used for biofilters approximately) after demonstrating that axial dispersion could be reasonably ignored and developed a new parameter, X*, which incorporates considerations of physical contact time, filter media particle size, kinetics, etc. A small-scale application on peers’ engineering/research data by Huck (1999) demonstrated it was a better indicator than other parameters for biofiltration performance. By collecting, screening and investigating literature on AOC, BDOC and odorous compounds removal by biofiltration process, this thesis applied the X* concept to the collected investigations to assess process performances among different target parameters, different filters and different investigations. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first such attempted comprehensive comparison of literature studies, interpreted in terms of a common parameter (X*). The wide ranges of particle sizes, EBCTs, temperatures and high diversity of pre-treatment and operation conditions for the collected cases were considered to be able to well represent biofiltration practices for studied removal targets. No significant relationship between EBCTs and removal percentages were found, indicating that EBCT alone is not able to guide biofiltration design and operation. Based on kinetics parameter comparison, BDOC removal-X* relationship was established. A new parameter, θα, was developed in this thesis to refer to estimated X* values only considering EBCT and particle size. θα parameter values were estimated by comparison of ratios of θα products ((θα)’) based on the properly chosen calculation bases. Distribution of the θα values for temperature-favored (i.e. temperature ≥15°C) AOC and BDOC removal biofiltration processes matched the established removal-X* relationship reasonably. Given the exploratory nature of this research and the complexity of attempting quantitations, fits were assessed based on visual comparison. With the assistance of supporting information and by adopting available temperature activity coefficients, temperature-adjustment coefficients for θα values were determined for the different temperature ranges. Temperature-adjusted AOC and BDOC removal-θα relationships were developed and temperature-adjusted θα parameter values for AOC and BDOC removal were also estimated. Comparisons were conducted, showing fair matches based on visual examinations, for most of the temperature ranges. No relationships were found between ozone dosages and AOC/BDOC removal percentages and the statistical analysis indicated there was significant difference of removal efficiencies between ozonated and non-ozonated influents for biofilters, suggesting ozonation may not only increase the amount of BOM for following biofilter and increase the biodegradability of bulk water; it may also increase the biodegradability of AOC and BDOC themselves. It may not be realistic to obtain the estimated θα values for MIB and geosmin removal by biofiltration. However, plotting θα product vs. removal percentage for the collected MIB and geosmin removal cases shows more positive co-relationships than EBCT-removal percentage relationships visually. A utilization factor η was proposed to guide biofilter design and operation and to assess “over-design” and “under-operated”. Biofilter over-design or under-operated is common for the collected cases. In general, examining X* (or θα, a parameter incorporating the physical components of X*) provided useful information in terms of evaluation and prediction of biodegradable organic compounds removal by biofiltration, which confirms that X* is a better parameter for biofiltration design and operation than other parameters, such as EBCT.

No description available.

Biological filtration (Biofiltration) processes have been used first in Europe and then in North America for decades, however currently there is not a good overall parameter to guide biofiltration design and operation except adopting parameters from traditional particle- removal filtration process. On the basis of the biofilm model developed by Rittmann and McCarty (1980a) and the pseudo-analytical solution for the model, Zhang and Huck (1996a) obtained an analytical solution for PF (plug flow) reactors (which can be used for biofilters approximately) after demonstrating that axial dispersion could be reasonably ignored and developed a new parameter, X*, which incorporates considerations of physical contact time, filter media particle size, kinetics, etc. A small-scale application on peers’ engineering/research data by Huck (1999) demonstrated it was a better indicator than other parameters for biofiltration performance. By collecting, screening and investigating literature on AOC, BDOC and odorous compounds removal by biofiltration process, this thesis applied the X* concept to the collected investigations to assess process performances among different target parameters, different filters and different investigations. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first such attempted comprehensive comparison of literature studies, interpreted in terms of a common parameter (X*). The wide ranges of particle sizes, EBCTs, temperatures and high diversity of pre-treatment and operation conditions for the collected cases were considered to be able to well represent biofiltration practices for studied removal targets. No significant relationship between EBCTs and removal percentages were found, indicating that EBCT alone is not able to guide biofiltration design and operation. Based on kinetics parameter comparison, BDOC removal-X* relationship was established. A new parameter, θα, was developed in this thesis to refer to estimated X* values only considering EBCT and particle size. θα parameter values were estimated by comparison of ratios of θα products ((θα)’) based on the properly chosen calculation bases. Distribution of the θα values for temperature-favored (i.e. temperature ≥15°C) AOC and BDOC removal biofiltration processes matched the established removal-X* relationship reasonably. Given the exploratory nature of this research and the complexity of attempting quantitations, fits were assessed based on visual comparison. With the assistance of supporting information and by adopting available temperature activity coefficients, temperature-adjustment coefficients for θα values were determined for the different temperature ranges. Temperature-adjusted AOC and BDOC removal-θα relationships were developed and temperature-adjusted θα parameter values for AOC and BDOC removal were also estimated. Comparisons were conducted, showing fair matches based on visual examinations, for most of the temperature ranges. No relationships were found between ozone dosages and AOC/BDOC removal percentages and the statistical analysis indicated there was significant difference of removal efficiencies between ozonated and non-ozonated influents for biofilters, suggesting ozonation may not only increase the amount of BOM for following biofilter and increase the biodegradability of bulk water; it may also increase the biodegradability of AOC and BDOC themselves. It may not be realistic to obtain the estimated θα values for MIB and geosmin removal by biofiltration. However, plotting θα product vs. removal percentage for the collected MIB and geosmin removal cases shows more positive co-relationships than EBCT-removal percentage relationships visually. A utilization factor η was proposed to guide biofilter design and operation and to assess “over-design” and “under-operated”. Biofilter over-design or under-operated is common for the collected cases. In general, examining X* (or θα, a parameter incorporating the physical components of X*) provided useful information in terms of evaluation and prediction of biodegradable organic compounds removal by biofiltration, which confirms that X* is a better parameter for biofiltration design and operation than other parameters, such as EBCT.

Diploma thesis is focused on changes of organic carbon (OC) in surface waters in headwater areas. Thesis is in its theoretical part focused on the literature study of currently published research results of the issue. The important part is finding the possible causes of OC variability, especially landcover and soil environment. The practical part is devoted to research in experimental basins of KFGG, namely in the upper Vydra, Blanice and Rolava. The aim of this work is to clarify the relationships between organic matter concentrations and discharge rates regarding to hydrological extremes. Furthermore, the influence of river basin size and various landcover and variability of concentrations and relationship with other indicators of biogeochemism is studied. The relationship between OC and discharge rate is positive and in most river basins strong or very strong. The weakest relationship was monitored on the profiles with the highest proportion of peatlands in the river basin. In these catchments, the highest average concentrations of OC were determined in autumn, in catchments with the lower proportion of peatlands it is in summer. Analysis of rainfall-runoff events confirmed the positive relationship of OC and discharge. The lag time of the maximum OC concentration beyond the maximum discharge...

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