Lessons learnt from Typhoons Fitow and In-Fa: implications for improving urban flood resilience in Asian Coastal Cities

Natural Hazards - Frequent typhoons significantly affect many coastal cities via intensive rainstorms, tidal surges and strong wind. Natural factors induced by human disturbance such as climate...     

Geologic urban hindplanning: An example from a hellenistic-byzantine city,stobi, Yugoslavian macedonia

Stobi flourished between about 400b.c. anda.d. 600, and, like modern cities, was afflicted by several environmental-geologic difficulties. A large Christian church was built upon poorly compacted artificial fill, resulting in severe foundation problems. An earthquake did extensive damage to the Roman theatre between two stages of its construction. A catastrophic mudflow destroyed structures lying below a cliff of flysch sandstone and shale. After the third or fourth centurya.d. severe desiccation of the climate set in, leading to devegetation, flooding, and dust storms. Structures on the flood plain were buried in several meters of fine sediment. Stobi finally was abandoned, and the structures eventually were buried by wind-blown dust accumulating at the rate of about 1 meter per millenium.     

Implementing post-earthquake reconstruction plans in China: a resilience perspective

This paper offers a critical investigation on the implementation of reconstruction plans in China following Wenchuan Earthquake through the lens of disaster resilience. The analysis is built upon a resilience in planning framework which consists of nine attributes. Empirical cases of two typical towns in Wenchuan County, Weizhou and Yingxiu, are discussed and compared. This paper upholds an evolutionary perspective of resilience and argues that reconstruction planning is a contested and politically laden field for different stakeholders, such that social aspect resilience is key to understanding plan implementation.

     

An approach to studying heavy metal pollution caused by modern city development in Nanjing, China

 Nanjing is currently one of the fastest developing regions in terms of construction and economy in China. Heavy metal pollution is becoming more serious with the expansion of production and life scales. Four environmental units (highway, refinery, rubbish dumps associated with human daily life, and shoal of the Yangtse River) were selected from the region according to the geneses of the pollution to study and evaluate the distribution and mechanism of the contamination, the speciations of the polluting elements, and the geneses of the pollution in the soils and sediments. The purposes of the study are to understand generally the current situation and the cause of the pollution, and to provide a scientific basis to prevent and solve the pollution problem. At the same time, it would be helpful to probe the effective way of studying heavy metal pollution resulting from the development of modern cities and to accumulate data. It is indicated by the study that the heavy metals contained in the soil of the environmental unit of the highway are Pb, Co and Cr; in the soil of the refinery Cr, V, Pb, Ni, and Co; in the soil of the rubbish plot Co, Cu, and Sb; in the sediments of the shoal Pb, Co, Cu, and Ni. Fe-Mn oxide is given the first place to the speciations in polluting heavy metals transmitted by air. Carbonate is more in speciations of polluting heavy metals transmitted by water than in speciations of the metals transmitted by air. In the ten elements studied, Pb is most directly poisonous to the plants in the region; Co and Cu are the next, and Ni is the least. Heavy metal pollution has been occurring in the soils and sediments of the region and the situation will worsen if some effective measures are not taken. Received: 18 October 1997 · Accepted: 3 February 1998     

Alcohol-related crime and disorder across urban space and time: evidence from a British city

Using a Police recording system containing new forms of information on the role of alcohol consumption, this paper focuses on the space and time dimensions of alcohol-related crime and disorder, and situates the patterns in the context of the functions of different urban spaces. Data for Worcester in 1999 show that alcohol is noted as a contributory factor in 8% of recorded crime, but that the recorded role of alcohol is far higher for certain crime types: 48% of all harassment crimes; 36% of violent crime and 16% of criminal damage (other). Most recorded alcohol-related crimes occur in the city centre and at night, while at a more detailed level the main urban spaces are the city centre night-time leisure zones, and the spaces which act as routeways for the night-time revellers. The combined crime and disorder data sets, supported by interview evidence, indicate subsidiary alcohol-related daytime clusters in the shopping area and associated with specific city centre functions. By exploring the patterns, important clues to the immediate contributory factors emerge, but a more comprehensive explanation requires further research. Places, particularly in the night-time leisure zone, where alcohol-related crime is less pronounced, are as important to our understanding as those where crime/disorder is clustered. A detailed knowledge of the variety of spaces and times of alcohol-related crime and disorder is key to the development of appropriate urban design, planning and licensing policies, and can be used to inform a more closely targeted policing strategy.     

Integrated natural disasters urban resilience evaluation: the case of China

Natural Hazards - China is one of the countries affected most by natural hazards. With the rapid urbanization process, the susceptibility of Chinese cities to natural disasters increases. In this...     

The diversity of resilience: contributions from a social science perspective

The paper presents contributions to the widespread resilience paradigm from a social science perspective. Certain aspects of social systems, especially their symbolic dimension of meaning, need to be taken into account in the endeavor to research coupled social–ecological systems. Due to the symbolic dimension, disasters are defined as the failure of future expectations, and social resilience is defined as the social system property of avoiding or withstanding disasters. In relation to this, three capacities of social systems (adaptive, coping, and participative) that constitute resilience are presented. The adaptive capacity is the property of a system in which structures are modified to prevent future disasters, whereas the coping capacity is the system’s property of coping with calamitous processes that occurred in the past. The participative capacity is a measure of the system’s ability to change its own structures with regard to interventions by other systems, decreasing the system’s resilience. The concept of resilience provides important epistemological and political insights and can help overcome an orientation tied together with the concept of vulnerability that blocks social capacities for the mitigation of disasters.     

Household vulnerability and resilience in flood hazards from disaster-prone areas of Punjab,Pakistan

Natural Hazards - An environmental variation has caused Pakistan an alarming portrait of vulnerability in flood disasters. The government has focused on a number of realistic actions, heartening...     

Observation and analysis of the urban heat island effect on soil in Nanjing, China

The heat island effect in urban meteorology has received significant attention in the recent years. In order to investigate the heat island effect on urban soil, two observation stations were built, respectively, in an urban area and a rural area of Nanjing city, China. The temperatures of underground soil (0?C300?cm depth) were recorded continuously for 1?year from June 2009 to June 2010. The data show that the urban soil temperature is generally higher than the rural soil temperature, and reveal an obvious heat island effect in urban soil with average intensity of 2.02°C over the 1-year period. The intensity varies between days, months and seasons: the daily urban heat island intensity (UHII) of soil ranges from 0.37°C to 3.98°C; the monthly UHII of soil ranges from 1.34°C (November) to 3.05°C (July); the order of seasonal UHII is summer (2.45°C)?>?winter (2.03°C)?>?spring (1.63°C)?>?autumn (1.53°C). The temperature data indicate that the maximum influence depth of daily synoptic events on the subsurface temperature is approximately 60?cm; the UHII generally increases with increasing depth. In addition to soil temperature, the temporal?Cspatial variation of soil moisture in a 100?cm profile depth was also investigated in this study. It is found that the moisture content of urban soil is generally lower than that of rural soil, which reveals an obvious dry island effect with average intensity of ?7.2% over the 1-year period; the maximum single-day urban dry island intensity (UDII) in soil is ?28.0%; the maximum average monthly UDII is ?19.1%, observed in July; the seasonal UDII shows a tendency of summer (?13.8%)?>?spring (?6.3%)?>?autumn (?5.2%)?>?winter (?3.7%). In profile, soil moisture content generally increases with increasing depth, and the maximum UDII is ?25.8% at 40?cm depth. In addition, the large-scale measurement results of 600 general points also confirm that the heat island and dry island effects are exist in urban soil.     

基于RS/GIS的城市财产保险洪灾损失评估研究

如何快速,有效地进行投保户洪涝灾害损失评估是保险行业急需解决的一个重要课题.从洪涝灾害的成灾机理出发,针对保险公司对具体受灾体理赔需求,提出了计算每个投保户洪灾损失率方法,建立基于遥感(RS)和地理信息系统(GIS)的城市财产保险洪涝灾害损失评估模型.建模时较全面地考虑了与投保物性质有关的承灾体易损度和与投保物所处环境有关的地基承载力等因素,并使用RS/GIS将其定量化提取.最后使用广东省深圳市洪灾数据进行模型检验.验证结果表明,模型对于各个投保户均能得到较好的精度.     

中国城市洪涝问题及成因分析

随着经济社会的发展,中国步入城镇化快速发展的阶段,城镇化率已由2000年的36.22%增加到2014年的54.77%。在全球气候变化与快速城镇化背景下,中国城市洪涝灾害日益严重。阐述了全球气候变化及城镇化对城市降水和极端暴雨的影响机制,并从流域产汇流角度分析了城镇化对洪水过程的影响,系统剖析了中国城市洪涝频发的主要原因。在成因分析的基础上,进一步提出了中国城市洪涝防治的应对策略,主要包括:①以低影响开发理念为指导,加强城市基础设施建设,建设海绵城市;②建立城市洪涝立体监测、预报预警和实时调度系统,强化城市洪涝科学决策能力;③健全和完善城市洪涝应急预案,强化应急管理能力,完善灾害救助和恢复机制。     

地球系统论视角下的我国城市地质调查范式与实现路径

基于地球系统科学理论可知,对于我国城市发展中的资源与环境不匹配引发的诸多问题,需要通过城市地质调查与评价,重新认知城市发展模式,为后城市化时代的城市生态宜居发展提供决策支撑.利用文献综述法与案例分析法,系统梳理了我国城市发展面临的问题、机遇与挑战,提出基于"城市发展阶段识别-城市建设尺度分析-城市地质资源环境联合效应评...     

Potable water for a city: a historic perspective from Bruges,Belgium

Contributing to the optimisation of drinking-water supplies is a key responsibility for professional hydrogeologists. Thus, it is interesting to look back and put current-day practices in the framework of historic evolution and past achievements. The water supply of Bruges (Belgium), with an innovative supply system already established by the end of the 13th century, forms an interesting case study. The supply system consisted of an underground network of pipes feeding public and private wells. A special construction, the Water House, was built to overcome a topographical height difference. Population growth and industrial expansion during the 19th century increased the water demand and new solutions were necessary. Tap water became available from 1925 onwards and, as a stopgap measure to meet demand, deep groundwater was used. This invoked a lively debate among the city council, scientists and entrepreneurs, whereby both water quality and quantity were discussed. Although based on a lack of modern understanding of the groundwater system, some arguments, both pro or contra, look very familiar to current-day hydrogeologists.     

An ensemble risk assessment model for urban rainstorm disasters based on random forest and deep belief nets: a case study of Nanjing,China

Natural Hazards - Effective management of rainstorm risk is essential for reducing regional rainstorm disaster risks and losses. In this paper, we discussed the influencing factors of urban...     

Assessing factors affecting drought,earthquake, and flood risk perception: empirical evidence from Bangladesh

Natural Hazards - Understanding household disaster risk perception is crucial to formulate and apply disaster risk reduction strategies. Using survey data from 300 households from three highly...     

Rethinking the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation from a disaster risk perspective

Vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation are three fundamentally inter-related concepts among such research communities as global environmental/climatic change, social–ecological and disaster risk science. However, their mutual relationships are still unclear so far particularly in the field of disaster risk reduction, which to some extent blocks the reasonable risk analysis and scientific decision making. This paper performed a brief overview on the basic definitions and evolution processes of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, and tentatively categorized past diverse thoughts of their relationships into three modalities, such as, vulnerability preference, resilience preference, and overlapped relationships. From a “hit-damage-recovery-learning cycle” insight and based on an empirical case study, we put forward two conceptual frameworks to address the relationships of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation within the disaster risk domain, and we further discussed their broader implications in terms of disaster risk management and social–ecological sustainability. In an attempt to bring together the analytical frameworks of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, this study indicates that a sustainable adaptation strategy to the unavoidable disasters or changes should not only seek to reduce the vulnerability of a social–ecological system, but also to foster its resilience and adaptive capacity to future uncertainties and potential risks.     

Accumulation and sources of heavy metals in urban topsoils: a case study from the city of Xuzhou, China

The knowledge of the variability, the anthropogenic versus natural origin and corresponding environmental risk for potentially harmful elements in urban topsoils is of importance to assess human impact. The aims of the present study were: (1) to assess the distribution of heavy metals (Sn, Li, Ga, Ba, Fe, Mn, Co, Be, Ti, Al, Hg, Cr, Sb, As, Bi, Pd, Pt, Au, Ni, Cd, Zn, Cu, Pb, Se, Mo, Sc and Ag) in urban environment; (2) to discriminate natural and anthropogenic contributions; and (3) to identify possible sources of pollution. Multivariate statistic approaches (principal component analysis and cluster analysis) were adopted for data treatment, allowing the identification of three main factors controlling the heavy metal variability in Xuzhou urban topsoils. Results demonstrate that Hg, Cr, Sb, As, Bi, Pd, Pt, Au, Ni, Cd, Br, Zn, Cu, S, Pb, Se, Mo, Sc and Ag could be inferred to be tracers of anthropogenic pollution, whereas Al, Ti, Ga, Li, V, Co, Pt, Mn and Be were interpreted to be mainly inherited from parent materials. Iron, Ba, Sn, Pd and Br were interpreted to be affected by mixed sources.     

Modelling the impact of sea-level rise on urban flood probability in SE China

Urban drainage systems in coastal cities in SE China are characterized by often complex canal and sluicegate systems that are designed to safely drain pluvial flooding whilst preventing tidal inundation.However, the risk of coastal flooding in the region is expected to increase over the next 50-100 years, as urban areas continue to expand and sea-levels are expected to rise. To assess the impact of projected sealevel rise on this type of urban drainage system, a one-dimensional model and decision support tool was developed. The model indicated that although sea-level rise represents a significant challenge, flood probability will continue to be most influenced by rainfall. Events that are significant enough to cause flooding will most likely be minimally impacted by changes to the tidal frame. However, it was found that a sea-level rise of up to 1.2 m by 2010 would result in increased drainage times and higher volumes of over-topping when flooding occurs.