Sodium chloride, NaCl, is commonly used as a proxy for sea spray aerosols. However, field work has demonstrated that sea spray aerosols also often contain a significant organic component. In this work, we examine the effect of amino acids on the hygroscopic properties of NaCl aerosols using a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer coupled to a flowcell apparatus. It is found that the effect can be drastically different depending on the nature of the amino acid. More hydrophilic amino acids such as glycine lead to continuous hygroscopic growth of internally mixed NaCl-amino acid aerosols generated from an equimolar precursor solution. However, more hydrophobic amino acids such as alanine do not significantly alter the hygroscopicity of NaCl aerosols. The hydropathy scale is found to be a good qualitative diagnostic for the effect that an amino acid will have on the hygroscopicity of NaCl.
Designing urban residential landscapes in arid regions requires careful consideration of water use and costs. Landscape performance assessment at the residential scale has historically been limited to esthetic preferences. Landscapes provide many more services. Quantifying these services allows a comprehensive understanding of the costs and benefits of landscapes. Landscape architecture decisions impact urban planning goals like water-use efficiency, yet the links between planning and planting criteria are rarely evaluated in design decisions. To address these deficiencies, this paper presents a Landscape Decision Assessment Tool (LDAT), a multicriteria, geometrically explicit, multiresolution modeling framework. Its use is targeted to urban planning and water engineering departments in arid regions as well as design practitioners. It aims to improve the multicriteria design of villa landscapes to explicitly include beauty, privacy, shade, views, and water conservation. Results from a typical parcel-level case study in the United Arab Emirates identify substantial opportunities to improve water efficiency without compromising residential design criteria by adjusting landscape configurations. Multiple configurations perform nearly equally well indicating a range of choices for households to choose from based on the household weighting of criteria.
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