Spatially filtered ridge regression (SFRR): A regression framework to understanding impacts of land cover patterns on urban climate

Understanding the impacts of land cover pattern on the heat island effect is essential for sustainable urban development. Conventional model fitting methods have restricted ability to produce accurate estimates of the land cover‐temperature association due to the lack of procedures to address two important issues: spatial dependence in proximal spatial units and high correlations among predictor variables. In this study, we seek to develop an effective framework called spatially filtered ridge regression (SFRR) to estimate the variations in the quantity and distribution of land surface temperature (LST) in response to various land cover patterns. The SFRR effectively integrates spatial autoregressive models and ridge regression, and it achieves reliable parameter estimates with substantially reduced mean square errors. We show this by comparing the performance of the SFRR to other widely adopted models using Monte Carlo simulation followed by an empirical study over central Phoenix. Results highlight the great potential of the SFRR in producing accurate statistical estimates, providing a positive step toward informed and unbiased decision‐making across a wide variety of disciplines. (Code and data to reproduce the results in the case study are available at: https://github.com/cfan13/SFRRTGIS.git .)     

SlugIn 1.0: A Free Tool for Automated Slug Test Analysis

The correct characterization of aquifer parameters is essential for water‐supply and water‐quality investigations. Slug tests are widely used for these purposes. While free software is available to interpret slug tests, some codes are not user‐friendly, or do not include a wide range of methods to interpret the results, or do not include automatic, inverse solutions to the test data. The private sector has also generated several good programs to interpret slug test data, but they are not free of charge. The computer program SlugIn 1.0 is available online for free download, and is demonstrated to aid in the analysis of slug tests to estimate hydraulic parameters. The program provides an easy‐to‐use Graphical User Interface. SlugIn 1.0 incorporates automated parameter estimation and facilitates the visualization of several interpretations of the same test. It incorporates solutions for confined and unconfined aquifers, partially penetrating wells, skin effects, shape factor, anisotropy, high hydraulic conductivity formations and the Mace test for large‐diameter wells. It is available in English and Spanish and can be downloaded from the web site of the Geological Survey of Spain. Two field examples are presented to illustrate how the software operates.     

An extreme wave event in eastern Yucatán,Mexico: Evidence of a palaeotsunami event during the Mayan times

The Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, has typically been considered a tectonically stable region with little significant seismic activity. The region though, is one that is regularly affected by hurricanes. A detailed survey of ca 100 km of the eastern Yucatán and Cozumel coast identified the presence of ridges containing individual boulders measuring >1 m in length. The boulder ridges reach 5 m in height and their origin is associated with extreme wave event activity. Previously modelled tsunami waves from known seismically active zones in the region (Muertos Thrust Belt and South Caribbean Deformed Belt) are not of sufficient scale in the area of the Yucatán Peninsula to have produced the boulder ridges recorded in this study. The occurrence of hurricanes in this region is more common, but two of the most destructive (Hurricane Gilbert 1988 and Hurricane Wilma 2005) produced coastal waves too small to have created the ridges recorded here. In this paper, a new tsunami model with a source area located on the Motagua/Swan Island Fault System has been generated that indicates a tsunami event may have caused the extreme wave events that resulted in the deposition of the boulder ridges.     

Rapid shoreline flooding enhances water turbidity by sediment resuspension: An example in a large Tibetan lake

Rapid water level rise due to climate change has the potential to remobilize loose sediments along shorelines and increase the turbidity of nearshore waters, thereby impacting water quality and aquatic ecosystem health. Siling Lake is one of the largest and most rapidly expanding lakes on the Tibetan Plateau. Between 2000 and 2017, this lake experienced an increase in water level of about 8 m and a doubling in water turbidity. Here, using this lake as a study site, we used a wave model and high-resolution remote sensing of turbidity (Landsat-8) to assess the potential connection between water-level rise, enhanced wind-driven sediment resuspension and water turbidity. Our analysis revealed that strong bottom shear stresses triggered by wind-generated waves over newly flooded areas were related to an increase in water turbidity. The spatial variability of Siling Lake turbidity showed a strong dependence on local wind characteristics and fetch. Two factors combined to drive the increase in turbidity: (1) high wave energy leading to high bottom shear stresses, and (2) flooding of unvegetated shallow areas. Using a new relationship between wave energy and turbidity developed here, we expect the increase in turbidity of Siling Lake to taper off in the near future due to the steep landscape surrounding the lake that will prevent further flooding. Our results imply that rising water levels along the coast are not only expected to influence terrestrial ecosystems but could also change water quality. The methodology presented herein could be applied to other shorelines affected by a rapid increase in water level. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the morphology of radial sand ridges

We use a hydrodynamic model applied to an idealized fan-shaped basin to explore the morphology and dynamics of radial sand ridges in a convergent coastal system. A positive morphological feedback between channel incision and flow redistribution is responsible for the formation of the channel-ridge pattern. The selection mechanism of bottom wavelength is associated with flow concentration in the deeper part of the channels. Our results are compared to sediment and hydraulic dynamics in the radial sand ridges (RSRs) in China. In a convergent, sloping basin the tangentially averaged tidal velocity peaks at 47 km from the apex. This distance is similar to the arc distance, 62 km, where the RSRs are most incised. An offshore shift in tidal phase results in stronger flows near the north coastline, explaining the presence of asymmetric channel patterns. A numerical stability analysis indicates that small radial oscillations with a wavelength of 10° to 15° maximize the velocity in the troughs. This oscillation wavelength also emerges in the RSRs, which display a peak in spectral energy at a radial wavelength between 25° to 37.5°. High-resolution numerical simulations in the RSRs confirm that flow concentration occurs in the deeper part of the channels, keeping them flushed. We therefore conclude that the RSRs display morphometric characteristics similar to other tidal incisions, like tidal inlets and intertidal channels. This result further supports the dominant role of tidal prism and related peak velocities in incising coastal landscapes. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Back‐barrier flooding by storm surges and overland flow

Low‐elevation areas within a sandy barrier island are subject to flooding via saturation overland flow following moderate storm surges and rainfall events. Using a high resolution topographic survey and simple hydrology models, we estimate the discharge and velocities from storm surge return flow and saturation overland flow. Results show that return flow velocities are of the same magnitude as the critical velocity necessary to mobilize sand when a hydraulic connection between the watershed and back‐barrier bay is present. Storms of moderate strength and rainfall intensity may be sufficient to keep the return channels open within the back‐barrier, thus providing natural conduits for water exchange from overwash events during extreme storm surges triggered by hurricanes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Earthquake dynamics on circular faults: a review 1970–2015

We review the development of earthquake dynamics taken from the point of view of the origin of seismic radiation instead of the detailed study of rupture propagation on complex surfaces. Many features of seismic radiation can be explained by simple models that serve as elementary canonical problems. Some of these properties are very well known like the fact that at low frequencies, the seismic spectrum is proportional to the seismic moment. At high frequencies, on the other hand, radiation is generated by the motion of the rupture front, in particular stopping phases and geometrical obstacles (barriers). A rupture front moving at constant speed does not produce far-field radiation. For many practical applications, for determining source size and stress drop, for example, it is not necessary to determine geometrical details of the rupture. For such cases, a simple circular crack model is quite sufficient. An improvement on this method is to do dynamic inversion on simple, elliptical-shaped sources and letting the rupture start arbitrarily from a point on the fault. This problem can be solved nowadays with finite differences and a variety of inversion techniques.