A new era of flood control strategies from the perspective of managing the 2020 Yangtze River flood

Flood control of the Yangtze River is an important part of China’s national water security.In July 2020,due to continuous heavy rainfall,the water levels along the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River and major lakes constantly exceeded the warning levels,in which Taihu Lake exceeded its highest safety water level and some stations of Poyang Lake reached their highest water levels in its history.In August 2020,another huge flood occurred in the Minjiang River and the Jialing River in the upper Yangtze River,and some areas of Chongqing Municipality and other cities along the rivers were inundated,resulting in great pressure on flood control and high disaster losses.The 2020 Yangtze River flood has received extensive media coverage and raised concerns on the roles of the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs in flood control.Here we analyze the changes in the pattern of the Yangtze River flood control by comparing the strategies to tackle the three heavy floods occurring in 1954,1998,and 2020.We propose that the overall strategy of the Yangtze River flood control in the new era should adhere to the principle of"Integration of storage and drainage over the entire Yangtze River Basin,with draining floods downstream as the first priority"by using both engineering and non-engineering measures.On the basis of embankments,the engineering measures should use the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs as the major regulatory means,promote the construction of key flood detention areas,keep the floodways clear,and maintain the ecosystem services of wetlands and shoals.In terms of non-engineering measures,we should strengthen adaptive flood risk management under climate change,standardize the use of lands in flood detention areas,give space to floods,and promote the implementation of flood risk maps and flood insurance policies.The ultimate goal of this new flood control system is to enhance the adaptability to frequent floods and increase the resilience to extreme flood disasters.     

The soil Microbial Carbon Pump as a new concept for terrestrial carbon sequestration

Soil is a huge terrestrial carbon pool, which has higher carbon storage than the sum of atmospheric and terrestrial vegetation carbon. Small fluctuations in soil carbon pool can affect regional carbon flux and global climate change. As soil organic carbon plays key roles in soil carbon storage and sequestration, studying its composition, sources and stability mechanism is a key to deeply understand the functions of terrestrial ecosystem and how it will respond to climate changes. The recently-proposed concept of soil Microbial Carbon Pump(MCP) emphasizes the importance of soil microbial anabolism and its contributions to soil carbon formation and stabilization, which can be applied for elucidating the source, formation and sequestration of soil organic carbon. This article elaborates MCP-mediated soil carbon sequestration mechanism and its influencing factors, as well as representative scientific questions we may explore with the soil MCP conceptual framework.     

Geophysical evidence for thrusting of crustal materials from orogenic belts over both sides of the Yangtze Block and its geological significance

Based on deep geophysical detections, we have reconstructed the crustal structure from the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau to the Jiangnan-Xuefeng orogenic belt. The results suggest that the Yangtze Block was overthrusted by crustal materials in its NW direction from the eastern Tibetan Plateau but in its SE direction from the Jiangnan orogen. These overthrusting effects control the crustal structure from the western Sichuan to the western area of the Jiangnan orogen-Xuefeng orogenic belt. The eastward extruded materials from the eastern Tibetan Plateau were blocked by the rigid basement in the Sichuan Basin, where upper-middle crust was overthrusted whereas the lower crust was underthrusted beneath the Sichuan Basin. The underthrusted unit was absorbed by crustal folding, shortening and thickening in the Yangtze Block, forming the Xiongpo and Longquan Mountains tectonic belts and resulting in the NW-directed thrusting of the Pujiang-Chengdu-Deyang fault, and the western hillsiden fault in the Longquan Mountain. These results provide resolution to the controversy where the eastward extrusion material from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau had gone. Overall, that Yangtze Block was subjected to thrusting of the crustal materials from the orogenic belts over its both sides. This finding has implications for the study of the intracontinental orogenic mechanism in South China, the reconstruction of tectonic evolutionary history and the kinematics processes during the lateral extrusion of the Tibet Plateau.     

Variations of widespread extreme cold and warm days in winter over China and their possible causes

The two leading modes of winter surface air temperature(SAT) over China during 1961–2017 are a spatially consistent pattern and a north-south dipole pattern. Based on the two leading modes, the characteristics of the extreme cold and warm days in the two patterns, defined by the standard deviation larger than 1.28 or smaller than-1.28 in the time series of the two leading modes, are analyzed. With the increase of winter SAT during 1961–2017, the number of spatially consistent extreme cold days decreased and their occurrence was restricted to late December to early January, whereas the number of spatially consistent extreme warm days increased significantly in January and February. Global warming is associated with an increase in the spatially consistent extreme warm days and a decrease in spatially consistent extreme cold days, but has little relation to the sum of extreme cold and warm days of either the spatially consistent or north-south dipole pattern. The Siberian High(SH) is the main factor controlling the sum of spatially consistent extreme warm and cold days. The strong(weak) SH before(after) the1990 s corresponds to an increase(decrease) in the sum of the spatially consistent extreme warm and cold days. The occurrences of extreme south-cold-north-warm and extreme south-warm-north-cold days are related to the north-south difference of the SH.When the center of the SH is in mid-high latitudes, the extreme south-warm-north-cold(south-cold-north-warm) days occur more(less) often. During the winters of 1961–2017, the total number of extreme cold and warm days of the north-south dipole pattern changes negligibly. The North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation(AMOC) may be the main factor affecting the sum of the extreme cold and warm days of the two types of SAT pattern in China.     

Coupled and splitting bedload sediment transport models based on a modified flux-wave approach

Numerical modeling of free-surface flow over a mobile bed with predominantly bedload sediment transport can be done by solving the shallow water and Exner equations using coupled and splitting approaches.The coupled method uses a coupling of the governing equations at the same time step leading to a non-conservative solution.The splitting method solves the Exner and the shallow water equations in a separate manner,and is only capable of modeling weak free-surface and bedload interactions.In the current study,an extended version of a Godunov-type wave propagation algorithm is presented for modeling of morphodynamic systems using both coupled and splitting approaches.In the introduced coupled method the entire morphodynamic system is solved in the form of a conservation law.For the splitting technique,a new wave Riemann decomposition is defined which enables the scheme to be utilized for mild and strong interactions.To consider the bedload sediment discharge within the Exner equation,the Smart and Meyer-Peter&Müller formulae are used.It was found that the coupled solution gives accurate predictions for all investigated flow regimes including propagation over a dry-state using a Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy(CFL)number equal to 0.6.Furthermore,the splitting method was able to model all flow regimes with a lower CFL number of 0.3.     

Detailed mapping of the surface rupture of the 12 February 2014 Yutian Ms7.3 earthquake,Altyn Tagh fault,Xinjiang, China

Large-scale detailed mapping plays a key role in revealing the rupture characteristics and mechanisms of strong earthquakes.Relatively few studies have been performed on the surface ruptures of large earthquakes in central and western Tibet due to its remote nature and high elevation.Based on high-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)photography,we mapped the coseismic surface rupture of the 2014 Yutian M_s7.3 earthquake.Along the western Altyn Tagh fault system,the earthquake produced~37 km of surface rupture along the South Xor Kol fault(southern section S1),Xor Kol fault(central section S2)and Ashikule fault(northern section S3).Section S1 has a 16-km-long surface rupture with an average sinistral offset of 52±25 cm and a maximum offset of~90 cm,while section S3 has a 14.2-km-long surface rupture with an average sinistral offset of 36±21 cm and a maximum offset of~84 cm.A compilation of 5308 cracks yields an average crack width along the southern section of 85±71 cm and a maximum width of~700 cm;the average width along the central section is 39±21 cm,and the maximum width is 243 cm;and the average width along the northern section is 61±44 cm with a maximum of~340 cm.In addition,the average cumulative opening across rupture zone is 3.4±2.9 m along the southern section,with a maximum of~17 m;4.3±3.6 m along the central section,with a maximum of~13 m;and 1.7±1.6 m along the northern section,with a maximum of~6 m.Evidently,the average crack width and cumulative opening decrease towards bends and steps along the fault.A global synthesis of surface rupture distributions corresponding to strike-slip earthquakes indicates that the rupture zone is wider near the complex parts of fault geometries(such as bends,steps and fault bifurcations)than along straight sections,suggesting that the fault geometry has an obvious control on the surface rupture width.The widespread cracks at the intersection between the Xor Kol and South Xor Kol faults may indicate that an extensional regime is more likely to produce distributed offfault deformation,which provides an observational constraint for the numerical simulation of dynamic rupture on a fault.In addition to coseismic surface rupture,the Yutian earthquake also produced a large number of gravity-driven slides on alluvial fans with gentle slopes.The friction efficiency of the water-bearing salt layer beneath fans could decrease the sliding threshold and trigger instability under surface shaking.These distributed deformations and gravity-driven slides reflect the coupling between the rupture propagation and fault geometry and indicate that the rupture may have propagated in two directions along the Ashikule fault after passing through a step.Therefore,the investigation of coseismic surface rupture provides important observational constraints on the dynamic rupture process.     

Numerical simulations of shake-table experiment for dynamic soil-pile-structure interaction in liquefiable soils

A shake-table experiment on pile foundations in liquefi able soils composed of liquefi able sand and overlying soft clay is studied. A three-dimensional(3D) effective stress fi nite element(FE) analysis is employed to simulate the experiment. A recently developed multi-surface elasto-plastic constitutive model and a fully coupled dynamic inelastic FE formulation(u-p) are used to model the liquefaction behavior of the sand. The soil domains are discretized using a solid-fl uid fully coupled(u-p) 20-8 noded brick element. The pile is simulated using beam-column elements. Upon careful calibration, very good agreement is obtained between the computed and the measured dynamic behavior of the ground and the pile. A parametric analysis is also conducted on the model to investigate the effect of pile-pinning, pile diameter, pile stiffness, ground inclination angle, superstructure mass and pile head restraints on the ground improvement. It is found that the pile foundation has a noticeable pinning effect that reduces the lateral soil displacement. It is observed that a larger pile diameter and fi xed pile head restraints contribute to decreasing the lateral pile deformation; however, a higher ground inclination angle tends to increase the lateral pile head displacements and pile stiffness, and superstructure mass seems to effectively infl uence the lateral pile displacements.     

地震日常分析会商数据库管理软件

介绍了地震日常分析会商数据库管理软件研制的思路.该软件构建了最优的数据库表结构和Excel模板,实现了会商登记卡、震情监视报告、首都圈地区震情短临跟踪动态等信息的浏览、新添、删除、修改、保存、打印,具有首都圈地区各学科异常频次自动统计、绘图等功能.     

Biome reconstruction on the Tibetan Plateau since the Last Glacial Maximum using a machine learning method

Historical biome changes on the Tibetan Plateau provide important information that improves our understanding of the alpine vegetation responses to climate changes.However,a comprehensively quantitative reconstruction of the historical Tibetan Plateau biomes is not possible due to the lack of quantitative methods that enable appropriate classification of alpine biomes based on proxy data such as fossil pollen records.In this study,a pollen-based biome classification model was developed by applying a random forest algorithm(a supervised machine learning method)based on modern pollen assemblages on and around the Tibetan Plateau,and its robustness was assessed by comparing its results with the predictions of the biomisation method.The results indicated that modern biome distributions reconstructed using the random forest model based on modern pollen data generally concurred with the observed zonal vegetation.The random forest model had a significantly higher accuracy than the biomisation method,indicating the former is a more suitable tool for reconstructing alpine biome changes on the Tibetan Plateau.The random forest model was then applied to reconstruct the Tibetan Plateau biome changes from 22 ka BP to the present based on 51 fossil pollen records.The reconstructed biome distribution changes on the Tibetan Plateau generally corresponded to global climate changes and Asian monsoon variations.In the Last Glacial Maximum,the Tibetan Plateau was mainly desert with subtropical forests distributed in the southeast.During the last deglaciation,the alpine steppe began expanding and gradually became zonal vegetation in the central and eastern regions.Alpine meadow occupied the eastern and southeastern areas of the Tibetan Plateau since the early Holocene,and the forest-meadow-steppe-desert pattern running southeast to northwest on the Tibetan Plateau was established afterwards.In the mid-Holocene,subtropical forests extended north,which reflected the“optimum”condition.During the late Holocene,alpine meadows and alpine steppes expanded south.     

Seismic performance of a rectangular subway station with earth retaining system

Much effort has been made in investigating the seismic response and failure mechanism of rectangular subway stations,however,the influence of earth retaining systems has generally been ignored in previous studies.This paper presents a numerical study on the seismic performance of a rectangular subway station with/without earth retaining systems by taking fender piles as the example,and aims to illustrate how the existence of fender piles affects seismic responses on subway stations.The loading conditions of subway stations and their surrounding soils prior to earthquakes are discussed.Next,seismic responses of subway stations with or without fender piles were simulated.Afterward,earthquake-induced deformations of stations and surrounding soils,as well as the internal forces and damage modes of the structural components,were systematically studied.Consequently,the seismic performance of the stations was affected by the existence of fender piles.In addition,earthquake intensity is illustrated.The study showed that deformation modes of surrounding soils and damage modes of stations were different with regard to the existence of fender piles.Meanwhile,earthquake intensity influencing the seismic performance of stations with or without fender piles were found to be opposite.     

大同—阳高地震前山西地下水动态异常

山西井网建成观测以来,首次遇到强震群,工作表明震前水动态有短期与临震异常,该资料具有参考价值。     

太湖流域水质型缺水问题和对策

在对太湖流域水质状况进行分析的基础上,指出因水污染造成的水质型缺水问题在太湖流域十分严重,正常年份流域优质水资源缺水量在(20-35)×108m3之间. 如今后水质型缺水问题长期得不到解决,有可能影响流域经济社会可持续发展. 针对流域水质型缺水的特点,提出在加强流域水污染治理同时,太湖流域宜选择以长江、太湖和山区水库为主要水源地的长期供水格局,当前要抓紧建设“引江清水通道”,调引长江优质水资源入太湖. 同时鉴于太湖流域水环境承载能力有限的情况,建议流域沿江、沿海、沿杭州湾城镇的生活污水在二级处理的前提下,应实施流域尾水截流外排管道工程.     

EU shipping in the dawn of managing the ballast water issue

After almost two decades of intensified research, regulatory and political activities focussed on the prevention of harmful organisms and pathogen transfers around the world in 2004 the International Convention on the Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments (BWM Convention) was adopted to provide a common and globally uniform ballast water management (BWM) approach. Nevertheless, regionally different BWM approaches are developing. By now, many countries around the world seem to be aware of the ballast water issue and its management limitations. In the EU, different approaches have been identified at regional and national scales. The first voluntary BWM requirements at the regional level have been introduced by the HELCOM and OSPAR countries, Adriatic countries have prepared a common approach considering a new legal framework for implementation, and some national level requirements have also been identified. However, a common EU wide BWM approach has not yet clearly emerged. In this paper the authors review the BWM approaches developing in Europe, and describe the EU response on BWM. The authors further provide recommendations which may be considered when developing BWM measures in the EU. This contribution focuses on the BWM issue in European seas in light of the EU Maritime Policy and EU Marine Strategy. The Caspian Sea was also considered.     

Temporal and spatial changes of blue water and green water in the Taihang Mountain Region,China, in the past 60 years

ABSTRACT

Appropriate allocation of limited freshwater resources to humans and ecosystems is an important issue hampering sustainable development in mountainous regions. The Taihang Mountain Region (TMR), including the Yellow and Hai river basins, is an important water source area for the North China Plain. The distributed hydrological model Water and Energy transfer Processes in Large river basins (WEP-L) was used to simulate the water cycle processes and to summarize the temporal and spatial changes in the blue and green water in the TMR from 1956 to 2015. The results show that in the period 2011–2015 the annual average blue water decreased by 7.31 × 10⁹ m³, while the annual average green water increased by 13.60 × 10⁹ m³ compared to 1956–1960. At the inter-annual time scale, the blue water exhibited a downward trend while the green water exhibited an upward trend. The amount of seasonal blue water in the TMR is ranked in descending order: summer, autumn, spring and winter, while for green water, the rank is summer, spring, autumn and winter. The amounts of blue and green water are higher on the windward than on the leeward slopes. The blue water yield is generally higher in forests and grasslands than in farmland, while the green water exhibits the opposite response. A greater emphasis should be placed on the widening gap between blue water and green water due to climate warming, and on soil and water conservation measures.     

Estimation of the Budyko model parameter for small basins in China

At the mean annual scale, water availability of a basin is substantially determined by how much precipitation will be partitioned into evapotranspiration and run-off. The Budyko framework provides a simple but efficient tool to estimate precipitation partitioning at the basin scale. As one form of the Budyko framework, Fu's equation has been widely used to model long-term basin-scale water balance. The major difficulty in applications of Fu's equation is determining how to estimate the curve shape parameter ω efficiently. Previous studies have suggested that the parameter ω is closely related to the long-term vegetation coverage on large river basins globally. However, on small basins, the parameter ω is difficult to estimate due to the diversity of controlling factors. Here, we focused on the estimation of ω for small basins in China. We identified the major factors controlling the basin-specific (calibrated) ω from nine catchment attributes based on a dataset from 206 small basins (≤50,000 km²) across China. Next, we related the calibrated ω to the major factors controlling ω using two statistical models, that is, the multiple linear regression (MLR) model and artificial neural network (ANN) model. We compared and validated the two statistical models using an independent dataset of 80 small basins. The results indicated that in addition to vegetation, other landscape factors (e.g., topography and human activity) need to be considered to capture the variability of ω on small basins better. Contrary to previous findings reached on large basins worldwide, the basin-specific ω and remote sensing-based vegetation greenness index exhibit a significant negative correlation. Compared with the default ω value of 2.6 used in the Budyko curve method, the two statistical models significantly improved the mean annual ET simulations on validation basins by reducing the root mean square error from 114 mm/year to 74.5 mm/year for the MLR model and 70 mm/year for the ANN model. In comparison, the ANN model can provide a better ω estimation than the MLR model.     

太湖流域地表水资源分质评价及水质型缺水形势分析

太湖流域水资源供需矛盾主要体现为"水质型缺水"问题,如何对"水质型缺水"进行定量描述,在太湖流域是一个难题.本文提出了"分质水资源量"的概念,以流域水资源四级分区为单元,以分区水质监测资料结合水资源量进行分析,分别统计分区分质水资源量.分析表明:太湖流域142×10⁸ m³的地表水资源量中,Ⅲ类以上的适合于饮用水源和一般工业用水的优质水为35.8×10⁸ m³,占25.2%;适合于电力冷却用水、农业灌溉的Ⅳ-Ⅴ类水为46.4×10⁸ m³,占32.6%;不可利用的劣Ⅴ类水有59.9×10⁸ m³,占42.2%.流域内优于Ⅴ类(含Ⅴ类)的地表水资源量为82.2×10⁸ m³,占地表水总资源量的57.8%.而浅层地下水己基本被污染.需要指出,Ⅰ-Ⅲ类优质水虽仍有35.8×10⁸ m³,但目前流域内对Ⅰ-Ⅲ类水的需求量己达60.6×10⁸ m³,如将此两数对比,则优质水缺额为24.8×10⁸ m³,但实际上,优质水的需求主要集中在流域中下游,而可供优质水水源则主要集中在流域上游地区山区水库和中游太湖湖心区、东部湖区和太浦河,供需两者的空间分布有较大出入,因此优质水资源缺额将更大,由此可见太湖流域水质型缺水形势十分严峻.     

Results from the first ballast water sampling study in the Mediterranean Sea - the Port of Koper study

The ongoing transfer of harmful organisms by shipping, especially via ballast water transport, may result in a change of biodiversity, alteration of ecosystems, negative impacts on human health and economic loss. Species introductions which cause irreversible consequences to receiving environments and economies call for particular attention. One critical issue is a need to evaluate the quantities and processes of species introductions. Consequently ballast water was sampled on 15 ships calling at the Port of Koper, Slovenia. This was the first ballast water sampling study in the Mediterranean Sea. This paper summarises the sampling results. Samples were analysed for all types of aquatic organisms including bacteria. The results may be considered as background information for an initial risk assessment of future species introductions - an important tool for the implementation of ballast water management measures.     

太湖流域上游平原河网区水质空间差异与季节变化特征

在太湖流域上游的宜溧—洮滆水系主要河道设置67个监测点,分别于2014年1月(冬季)、4月(春季)、8月(夏季)、11月(秋季)进行水质监测,采用多元统计方法分析了水质的空间差异性和季节性变化,并利用水质标识指数法对水环境质量进行评价.结果表明,宜溧—洮滆水系污染程度较严重,总氮(TN)、总磷(TP)和高锰酸盐指数(CODMn)浓度年均值分别为4.93、0.26和7.63 mg/L;单因素多元方差分析和聚类分析显示污染物浓度具有显著时空差异性,时间上冬、春季污染程度较高而夏、秋季较低,空间上无锡和常州氮、磷污染较为严重,宜兴和溧阳市有机污染程度较高;水质标识评价结果显示流域内水质基本为IV类或V类,其中TN、TP及CODMn是关键污染指标.     

太湖河湖水系连通需求评价初探

水系连通需求分析是河湖水系连通战略研究的重要内容.水系连通需求指人类社会经济发展对水资源调配、防洪排涝、改善生态环境等方面的需求及对河湖水系健康的维护,它源于水系能够提供各种水生态系统服务功能的生态学特性.通过分析水系连通需求、水生态系统服务功能和水系连通工程之间的内在关系,认为水系连通需求评价可转化为对水生态系统服务功能的评价.运用水当量评价方法,建立了河湖水系连通需求评价的方法体系,并以河网地区的典型代表——太湖为例,定量评价了太湖在水资源调配、调蓄洪水、水环境净化和维持生境等方面的连通需求.结果表明,太湖水系年均连通需求最大的是净化入湖废污水需水量,其次为水资源调配需水量,而太湖调蓄洪水的需求减少;湖水自身净化需水量较大,且为一次性需水.水环境净化的需求需要通过降低污染物入湖量,进行湖泊生态修复等主要措施以及引清水增加环境容量这一辅助连通措施共同完成.水系连通需求的定量评价可为水系连通战略及工程的规划设计提供理论基础.     

珠江广州段水环境问题与保护对策

珠江广州河段是广州市的主要水体,其日趋严重的水污染所导致的水质性缺水,已成为制约广州市可持续发展的一个重要因素.本文通过珠江广州河段的水环境现状评价,分析了珠江广州河段水环境污染的成因,并依此提出了珠江广州河段水环境的保护对策,即加快生活污水处理系统建设,调整工业布局和结构,推行清洁生产,重视畜禽养殖业污水的治理,实施环境水利工程,加大监督和执法力度,加强宣传教育,提高全民节约用水和环保意识.