Information policy and management framework for environmental protection organization with ecosystem conception

Rapid development of information technology has changed people’s attitudes towards information usage. To tender to the public’s expectation, information system must feature facilities to increase the efficiency of information usage using modern information technology. Facing this challenge, it is necessary to establish a sustainable information environment, including information policy, data quality regulations and information management framework to deal with the rapidly increasing environmental data and changing behavior related to data/information usage except upgrading the hardware and software devices. Taking the uniqueness and complexity of environmental data into account, this study proposes a systematic framework based on the principle of life cycle assessment to outline the elements and its associated guidance required for a sustainable information environment. Simultaneously, the concept of information ecology is also embedded into such a planning for the purpose of establishing a self-evolutional information environment. Finally, the environmental protection administration of Taiwan is used as a case study to explain the practice of proposed framework.     

Mercury: reusable metadata management, data discovery and access system

Mercury is a federated metadata harvesting, search and retrieval tool based on both open source packages and custom software developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). It was originally developed for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the consortium now includes funding from NASA, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Mercury is itself a reusable software application which uses a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach to capturing and managing metadata in support of twelve Earth science projects. Mercury also supports the reuse of metadata by enabling searches across a range of metadata specification and standards including XML, Z39.50, FGDC, Dublin-Core, Darwin-Core, EML, and ISO-19115. It collects metadata and key data from contributing project servers distributed around the world and builds a centralized index. The Mercury search interfaces allows the users to perform simple, fielded, spatial, temporal and other hierarchical searches across these metadata sources. This centralized repository of metadata with distributed data sources provides extremely fast search results (Table 1) to the user, while allowing data providers to advertise the availability of their data and yet maintain complete control and ownership of that data.     

VxOware: software for managing virtual observatory metadata

The recent Heliophysics Virtual Observatory (VxO) effort involves the development of separate observatories with a low overlap in physical domain or area of scientific specialization and a high degree of overlap in metadata management needs. VxOware is a content and metadata management system. While it is intended for use by a VxO specifically, it can also be used by any entity that manages structured metadata. VxOware has many features of a content management system and extensively uses the W3C recommendations for XML (Extensible Markup Language), XQuery (XML Query), and XSLT (Extensible Style Sheet Language Transformations). VxOware has features such as system and user administration, search, user-editable content, version tracking, and a wiki. Besides virtual observatories, the intended user-base of VxOware includes a group or an instrument team that has developed a directory structure of data files and would like to make this data, and its associated metadata, available in the virtual observatory network. One of the most powerful features of VxOware is the ability to link any type of object in the observatory to other objects and the ability for every object to be tagged.     

Earth system curator: metadata infrastructure for climate modeling

The Earth System Curator is a National Science Foundation sponsored project developing a metadata formalism for describing the digital resources used in climate simulations. The primary motivating observation of the project is that a simulation/model’s source code plus the configuration parameters required for a model run are a compact representation of the dataset generated when the model is executed. The end goal of the project is a convergence of models and data where both resources are accessed uniformly from a single registry. In this paper we review the current metadata landscape of the climate modeling community, present our work on developing a metadata formalism for describing climate models, and reflect on technical challenges we have faced that require new research in the area of Earth Science Informatics.     

Geological and environmental management of ceramic clay quarries: a review

This paper shows a contribution to the knowledge of the geological management of ceramic raw material. We have mainly focussed on the clays with a ceramic interest. The article begins with an introduction to the mineralogical determining factor of the ceramic sector. Then, it shows a development of the main steps that take place in the geological prospecting and it concludes with the criteria that must be followed when selecting the outcrops: geographical and environmental conditions, (1) legislation, (2) market and technology, (3) mineralogical and technological characterisation and (4) geological and mining characterisation.     

Monitoring system for environmental risk management of a landfill disposal site

A landfill disposal site can be described as “an artificial vessel” and must satisfy the following three demands (1) storage and disposal of waste; (2) protection of the environment; and (3) benefit for nearby residents by taking advantage of consequential effects. The concept of risk was effectively considered to emphasize the importance of monitoring systems in landfill disposal sites, especially to protect the environment. Because a part of the R&D was involved in creating a monitoring system for a landfill disposal site, the present development and future potential of a system which can detect the leakage of watershield sheets, was discussed.     

A theoretical framework for a ‘spatially conscious’ economic analysis of environmental issues

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the integration of economic aspects and environmental aspects into the decision-making process for sustainable development strategies. The aim is integrate Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and environmental valuation methods in the structure of a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in order to better evaluate spatial concerns. The conceptual approach is augmented by a modest case study of a marina development in Santa Rosaliita on the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. This marina project is part of the proposed ‘Escalera Nautica’ an ambitious regional development scheme, which has caused controversy concerning its social, economic and environmental implications. The paper outlines the necessity to develop spatially conscious methodologies for a policy relevant research regarding sustainable regional development. Additionally, the paper contributes a spatial analytic perspective based on normative economic principles to the recent discussion on environmental economic geography.     

A conceptual framework for integrated management of disasters recovery projects

Natural Hazards - Following the increasing rate of disasters’ impacts on societies, more attention is being paid to recovery projects after these disasters. However, from the perspective of...     

Extreme events: a framework for assessing natural hazards

Natural Hazards - An attempt has been made in this study to evaluate the performance of a multi-model ensemble prediction system (MMEPS) in the extended range prediction of genesis and track of...     

A resilience framework for safety management of fossil fuel power plant

In the present study, cut slope stability assessment along ghat road section of Kolli hills was carried out by using various geotechnical parameters of rock and soil slope sections and structural kinematics of major discontinuities is presented. The rock slope (RS) stability assessment was carried out using Rock Mass Rating basic (RMR_basic) and Slope Mass Rating (SMR) classification systems. The type of failure and their Factor of Safety (FOS) for individual RS was calculated using Hoek and Bray method. In the case of soil slopes (SS), the FOS was calculated using Circular Failure Chart (CFC) and Limit Equilibrium (LE) methods. The input data for the slope stability analyses were collected through extensive field work followed by stereonet plotting and laboratory test. There are six rock slope sections, and five soil slope sections were taken into consideration for the cut slope stability analyses. The area depicts class II (RS-1, 2, & 6) and class III (RS-3, 4, & 5) of RMR classes. The SMR result depicts for RS-1, RS-2, and RS-6 are 64.40, 60.02, and 60.70, respectively, and falls in class II stable condition. The SMR values of RS-3 and RS-5 were 44.33 and 57, respectively, and come under the class III partially stable condition. The RS-4 with SMR value of 17.33 falls under the class I completely unstable condition. The FOS of planar failure case indicates that RS-3 (FOS = 0.22) is more unstable, while all other sections are having greater than 1 FOS. The calculated FOS values using CFC method reveals that the FOS is very close to 1 for all the SS sections that fall under completely saturated condition which indicates that these slope sections may fail during heavy rainfall. In LE method, the sections SS-3 and SS-4 are unsafe under partially and completely saturated (natural slope) condition. In average slope condition, all the SS sections are unsafe under partially or completely saturated conditions. The facets 2, 3, 4, and 5 required mitigation measures, to improve the stability of slopes. Site-specific mitigation measures were suggested for partially or completely unstable rock and soil cut slopes.     

Soil loss tolerance limits: an environmental management tool

Soil loss tolerance is defined as the maximum acceptable level of soil loss from an area which will allow a high level of productivity to be maintained. Furthermore the criteria which determines soil loss tolerance limits are discussed, and two methods currently in use in Southern Africa, i.e. those proposed by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services (DATS) and Skidmore are discussed. It is concluded that for various reasons the latter approach is more acceptable, and that it is imperative that a different T-value be determined for each soil series.Application of the principle of soil loss tolerance in the Tugela River Basin reveals that various areas are subjected to severe stress. Maps indicating areas with soil loss of more than 10 t/ha/yr; areas with a soil loss higher than its allocated soil loss tolerance limits; and soil loss as a percentage of its T-values are included. These maps reveal startling facts, and emphasize the need for swift action in order to combat the problem of soil erosion in the area.The conclusion is drawn that the technique by which soil loss tolerance limits are determied could be applied to large areas, and its representation on large scale maps could be very useful in environmental planning and management.     

Sustainable environmental and resource management futures for Sub-Saharan Africa

Reports

MEDACTA '93 Modern Educational Technologies     

Re-thinking rural-amenity ecologies for environmental management in the Anthropocene

The migration of lifestyle-orientated landholders (amenity migrants) to rural landscapes is resulting in the production of new rural ecologies. To date, the future implications of these ecologies for environmental management have been framed largely in ‘traditional’ conservation biology terms, focusing on how we can conserve or restore natural environments to a past ecological benchmark. However, the Anthropocene provides an opportunity to critically examine how we can progress environmental management in a way that locates ecologies as emergent products of human–environment interaction through time. We extend from Tim Ingold’s work on wayfaring to position people and plants in environmental management as cohabitants who are traversing a world that is continually in the making. We conducted qualitative research in the hinterlands of Melbourne, Australia, involving narrative interviews with landholders and walking their property with them, using a form of participant observation called the ‘walkabout’ method. We found that the conservation aspirations of amenity migrants were mediated by the landscape histories that were embodied in the plants they engaged with on their property. These embodied landscape histories served to structure the trajectory of ecological emergence in which landholders were a part. We develop the concept of ‘landscape legacy’ to explain how past actions and future aspirations come together in management practice to produce novel and often unanticipated ecologies. Landscape legacy grounds the Anthropocene in everyday environments, capturing the need to progress environmental management as a wild experiment in rural-amenity landscapes, focusing on ecological form, function, relationship and process.     

A service-based framework for the OAIS model for earth science data management

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), in 2002, released their first version of a Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). In 2003, the model was adopted by the International Standards Organization (ISO) as ISO 14721:2003. The CCSDS document was updated in 2012 with additional focus on verifying the authenticity of data and developing concepts of access rights and a security model. The OAIS model is the basis of research data management systems across institutions and disciplines around the world. The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), in 2006, released their first version of a Reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). OASIS defines the SOA as “a paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains.” Systems designed around the SOA model benefit from improved scalability, flexibility, and agility. This paper applies the SOA model to the OAIS repository to describe how repositories can be implemented and extended through the use of services that may be internal or external to the host institution, including the consumption of network- or cloud-based services and resources. We use the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) design paradigm to describe a set of potential extensions to OAIS Reference Model: purpose and justification for each extension, where and how each extension connects to the model, and an example of a specific service that meets the purpose.     

Landslide catastrophes and disaster risk reduction: A GIS framework for landslide prevention and management

A detailed and accurate inventory map of landslides is crucial for quantitative hazard assessment and land planning. Traditional methods relying on change detection and object-oriented approaches have been criticized for their dependence on expert knowledge and subjective factors. Recent advancements in high-resolution satellite imagery, coupled with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, particularly data-driven deep learning algorithms (DL) such as convolutional neural networks (CNN), have provided rich feature indicators for landslide mapping, overcoming previous limitations. In this review paper, 77 representative DL-based landslide detection methods applied in various environments over the past seven years were examined. We analyze the structures of different DL networks, discuss on five main application scenarios, and assess both the advancements and limitations of DL in geological hazard analysis. The results indicated that the increasing number of articles per year reflects growing interest in landslide mapping by artificial intelligence, with U-Net-based structures gaining prominence due to their flexibility in feature extraction and generalization. Finally, we explored the hindrances of DL in landslide hazard research based on the above research content. Challenges such as black-box operations and sample dependence persist, warranting further theoretical research and future application of DL in landslide detection.     

Towards an integrated management framework for emerging disaster risks in Japan

An integrated framework for disaster risk management is presented to cope with the risk of low-probability high-consequence (LPHC) disasters in urban communities. Since the 2000 Tokai flood in Japan, there has been a shift in the management strategy from disaster prevention with a presumed zero risk to disaster reduction with an acceptable risk. The framework consists of: (i) integration of a different categories of risk reduction options in terms of structural and nonstructural measures, regulation and market-oriented measures, (ii) strengthening of the capacity of local communities to make their own management choices for LPHC-type disaster risks, and (iii) promoting the participation of stakeholders throughout the entire cycle of risk management. The interdisciplinary framework is discussed with reference to lessons learned from two recent major flood disasters (the 2000 Tokai flood and the 2004 Niigata flood). To implement the goals of the integrated framework, a participatory platform for disaster risk communication called “Pafrics” has been developed. Preliminary results of the pilot study of participation and risk communication supported by Pafrics are presented.     

TISS: a decision framework for tailing impoundment site selection

Tailing dam is one of the most important mining operations interface with surrounding environment even as long as many years after ore reserve exhausted. Therefore, appropriate design and management respect to future limitations of environmental regulations is required. Recently, effect of multiple criteria on tailing impoundment site selection makes it complex as the conventional procedures unable to answer. The systematic approach of multi attribute decision-making helps decision-makers select the most preferable decision and provide the basis of a decision support system. This paper developed new strategy based on fuzzy multi attribute group decision-making methods including: technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution and analytical hierarchy process in fuzzy group environment. A hypothetical case is processed to demonstrate the strategy’s efficiency and results are compared and ranked so that the most preferable option is identified.