New urban map of Eurasia using MODIS and multi-source geospatial data

Urban areas are of paramount significance to both the individuals and communities at local and regional scales. However, the rapid growth of urban areas exerts effects on climate, biodiversity, hydrology, and natural ecosystems worldwide. Therefore, regular and up-to-date information related to urban extent is necessary to monitor the impacts of urban areas at local, regional, and potentially global scales. This study presents a new urban map of Eurasia at 500 m resolution using multi-source geospatial data, including Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data of 2013, population density of 2012, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) nighttime lights of 2012, and constructed Impervious Surface Area (ISA) data of 2010. The Eurasian urban map was created using the threshold method for these data, combined with references of fine resolution Landsat and Google Earth imagery. The resultant map was compared with nine global urban maps and was validated using random sampling method. Results of the accuracy assessment showed high overall accuracy of the new urban map of 94%. This urban map is one product of the 20 land cover classes of the next version of Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organizations.     

Modeling and assessing the effects of land use changes on runoff generation with the CLUE-s and WetSpa models

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Land use change is an important determinant of hydrological processes and is known to affect hydrological parameters such as runoff volume, flood frequency,...     

Photogrammetric Capabilities of the Kodak DC40, DCS420 and DCS460 Digital Cameras

The aim of this study is to assess the impact of sensor size and resolution of different digital camera sensors upon the accuracy and precision of three dimensional data derived by photogrammetry. Kodak DC40, DCS420 and DCS460 digital cameras were used to produce digital images of retroreflective targets in a 4 m three dimensional test field. The image locations of the targeted points were automatically measured using an off the shelf image processing software package. Two different sub-pixel measurement approaches were examined: centre of gravity and weighted mean. From the automated sub-pixel measurement of the targeted points, results indicate that the high resolution DCS460 camera produces optimum results using either the weighted mean or centre of gravity approaches. Although this was perhaps expected, the far lower resolution DC40 camera performed better than was originally anticipated, suggesting potential for the cheaper DC40 for many applications.     

Urban steeplands in the tropics: an environment of accelerated erosion

The developing countries at present have a high urban growth rate that is likely to continue for at least another quarter-century. In addition, many of these urban centres are located in the Neogene plate boundary zones and are subject to multiple earthquake and volcanic hazards. Slope failures and accelerated surface and channel erosion are particularly severe in cities near active plate margins, and in areas affected also by tropical cyclones. We discuss two extreme cases: Singapore and Kingston (Jamaica). Singapore is located in a stable environment and the urbanization related problems of flood and slope instability have been reduced by proper building and drainage practices at a considerable cost. In Kingston, the external disturbances are repetitive, large-scale, and very difficult to control. The fast-growing cities in the tropics need to be carefully monitored, especially when located in an unstable physical environment. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Regional bivariate modeling of droughts using L-comoments and copulas

The regional bivariate modeling of drought characteristics using the copulas provides valuable information for water resources management and drought risk assessment. The regional frequency analysis (RFA) can specify the similar sites within a region using L-comoments approach. One of the important steps in the RFA is estimating regional parameters of the copula function. In the present study, an optimization-based method along with the adjusted charged system search are introduced and applied to estimate the regional parameters of the copula models. The capability of the proposed methodology is illustrated by copula functions on drought events. Three commonly used copulas containing Clayton, Frank and Gumbel are employed to derive the joint distribution of drought severity and duration. The result of the new method are compared to the method of moments and after applying several goodness-of-fit tests, the results indicate that the new method provides higher accuracy than the classic one. Furthermore, the results of the upper tail dependence coefficient indicate that the Gumbel copula is the best-fitted copula among the other ones for modeling drought characteristics.     

Spatial correlation for horizontal and vertical components of acceleration from northern Iran seismic events

The evaluation of seismic risk of spatially distributed systems requires the spatial correlation model for ground motion intensity measures. This study investigates the spatial correlation of four earthquakes recorded in northern Iran. The intra-event spatial correlation for both horizontal and vertical components of spectral acceleration at eight periods in the range of 0.0–3.0 s is estimated using geostatistical tools. An exponential form is chosen to fit experimental semivariograms, and the correlation ranges of spectral accelerations as a function of period are derived. The results show similar trend of correlation ranges for both components. It should be mentioned that the ranges for the vertical component, in general, are higher than those observed for the horizontal one. For both components, the correlation ranges as a function of period are divided into three segments. The first and the third one are increasing while the second one is decreasing with increasing period.     

Travel time computations using a compact eikonal equation for vertical transverse isotropic media

Eikonal solvers often have stability problems if the velocity model is mildly heterogeneous. We derive a stable and compact form of the eikonal equation for P‐wave propagation in vertical transverse isotropic media. The obtained formulation is more compact than other formulations and therefore computationally attractive. We implemented ray shooting for this new equation through a Hamiltonian formalism. Ray tracing based on this new equation is tested on both simple as well as more realistic mildly heterogeneous velocity models. We show through examples that the new equation gives travel times that coincide with the travel time picks from wave equation modelling for anisotropic wave propagation.     

Operation of two major reservoirs of Iran under IPCC scenarios during the XXI century

We assess the effects of prospective climate change until 2100 on water management of two major reservoirs of Iran, namely, Dez (3.34 × 10⁹ m³) and Alavian (6 × 10⁷ m³). We tune the Poly‐Hydro model suited for simulation of hydrological cycle in high altitude snow‐fed catchments. We assess optimal operation rules (ORs) for the reservoirs using three algorithms under dynamic and static operation and linear and non‐linear decision rules during control run (1990–2010 for Dez and 2000–2010 for Alavian). We use projected climate scenarios (plus statistical downscaling) from three general circulation models, EC‐Earth, CCSM4, and ECHAM6, and three emission scenarios, or representative concentration pathways (RCPs), RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5, for a grand total of nine scenarios, to mimic evolution of the hydrological cycle under future climate until 2100. We subsequently test the ORs under the future hydrological scenarios (at half century and end of century) and the need for reoptimization. Poly‐Hydro model when benchmarked against historical data well mimics the hydrological budget of both catchments, including the main processes of evapotranspiration and streamflows. Teaching–learning‐based optimization delivers the best performance in both reservoirs according to objective scores and is used for future operation. Our projections in Dez catchment depict decreased precipitation along the XXI century, with ?1% on average (of the nine scenarios) at half century and ?6% at the end of century, with changes in streamflows on average ?7% yearly and ?13% yearly, respectively. In Alavian, precipitation would decrease by ?10% on average at half century and ?13% at the end of century, with streamflows ?14% yearly and ?18% yearly, respectively. Under the projected future hydrology, reservoirs' operation would provide lower performance (i.e., larger lack of water) than now, especially for Alavian dam. Our results provide evidence of potentially decreasing water availability and less effective water management in water stressed areas like Northern Iran here during this century.     

Issues in Eulerian–Lagrangian modeling of sediment transport under saltation regime

The saltation regime is very important for understanding the sediment transport mechanism. However,there is no consensus on a model for the saltation regime. This study answers several questions raised with respect to the Eulerian-Lagrangian modeling of sediment transport. The first question is why the previous saltation models that use different combinations of hydrodynamic forces yielded acceptable results? The second question is which shear lift model(i.e. a shear lift expression and its coefficient) is more appropriate? Another important question is which hydrodynamic forces have greater contributions to the saltation characteristics of a sediment particle? The last question is what are the contributions of the turbulence fluctuations as well as effects of using two-and three-dimensional(2 D and 3 D) models on the simulation results? In order to fairly answer these questions, a systematic study was done by considering different scenarios. The current study is the first attempt to clearly discuss these issues. A comprehensive 3 D saltation model for non-cohesive sediment was developed that includes all the hydrodynamic forces acting on the particle. The random nature of sediment transport was included using turbulent flow and bed-particle collision models. The eddy interaction model was applied to generate a3 D turbulent flow field. Bed-particle collisions were considered using the concept of a contact zone and a corresponding contact point. The validation of the model was done using the available experimental data for a wide range of sediment size(0.03 to 4.8 cm). For the first question, the results indicated that some of the hydrodynamic effects show opposing trends and some have negligible effects. With these opposing effects it is possible to adjust the coefficients of different models to achieve acceptable agreement with the same experimental data while omitting some aspects of the physics of the process. A suitable model for the shear lift force was developed by linking the lift coefficient to the drag coefficient and the contributions of the hydrodynamic forces and turbulence fluctuations as well as the consequences of using of 2 D and 3 D models were studied. The results indicate that the shear lift force and turbulent flow fluctuations are important factors for the saltation of both sand and gravel, and they cannot be ignored.     

Uncertainty analysis of urban sewer system using spatial simulation of radar rainfall fields: New York City case study

The goal of this study is to investigate the uncertainty of an urban sewer system’s response under various rainfall and infrastructure scenarios by applying a recently developed nonparametric copula-based simulation approach to extreme rainfall fields. The approach allows for Monte Carlo simulation of multiple variables with differing marginal distributions and arbitrary dependence structure. The independent and identically distributed daily extreme rainfall events of the corresponding urban area, extracted from nationwide high resolution radar data stage IV, are the inputs of the spatial simulator. The simulated extreme rainfall fields were used to calculate excess runoff using the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s approach. New York City is selected as a case study and the results highlight the importance of preserving the spatial dependence of rainfall fields between the grids, even for simplified hydrologic models. This study estimates the probability of combined sewer overflows under extreme rainfall events and identifies the most effective locations in New York City to install green infrastructure for detaining excess stormwater runoff. The results of this study are beneficial for planners working on stormwater management and the approach is broadly applicable because it does not rely on extensive sewer system information.