Assessment of pollution levels and human health risk of heavy metals in dust deposited on Yerevan’s tree leaves (Armenia)

The total concentrations of Cd, As, Pb, Cr, Ni, Co, Zn, Cu, Ag, Hg, and Mo were determined in the atmospheric dust of the city of Yerevan by atomic absorption spectrometry (AAnalyst PE 800). Heavy metal pollution levels were evaluated by calculating geo-accumulation (I _geo ) and summary pollution (Z_c) indices. Potential human health risk was assessed using the United States Environmental Protection agency’s human health risk assessment model. The results show that mean contents of all elements tested except Ni and Cr were substantially higher than local geochemical background values. According to the I _geo , Yerevan territory is strongly-to-extremely polluted by As, Ag, Hg, Mo, and Cd. The Z_c assessment indicated that very high pollution was detected in 36 % of samples, high in 32 %, average in 12 %, and low in 20 %. The health risk assessment revealed a non-carcinogenic risk (HI >1) for children at 13 samplings sites and for adults at one sampling site. For children the risk was due to elevated levels of Mo, Cd, Co, and As, while for adults, only Mo. Carcinogenic risk (>1:1,000,000) of As and Cr via ingestion pathway was observed in 25 and 14 samples, respectively. This study, therefore, is the base for further detailed investigations to organize problematic site remediation and risk reduction measures.     

Susceptibility evaluation and mapping of China’s landslides based on multi-source data

Landslides are occurring more frequently in China under the conditions of extreme rainfall and changing climate, according to News reports. Landslide hazard assessment remains an international focus on disaster prevention and mitigation, and it is an important step for compiling and quantitatively characterizing landslide damages. This paper collected and analyzed the historical landslide events data of the past 60 years in China. Validated by the frequencies and distributions of landslides, nine key factors (lithology, convexity, slope gradient, slope aspect, elevation, soil property, vegetation coverage, flow, and fracture) are selected to construct landslide susceptibility (LS) empirical models by back-propagation artificial neural network method. By integrating landslide empirical models with surface multi-source geospatial and remote sensing data, this paper further performs a large-scale LS assessment throughout China. The resulting landslide hazard assessment map of China clearly illustrates the hot spots of the high landslide potential areas, mostly concentrated in the southwest. The study implements a complete framework of multi-source data collecting, processing, modeling, and synthesizing that fulfills the assessment of LS and provides a theoretical basis and practical guide for predicting and mitigating landslide disasters potentially throughout China.

     

Assessment of cement’s dust impact on the soil using principal component analysis and GIS

To evaluate the impact of the cement’s dust emitted by the eastern Moroccan cement factory (Oujda Holcim) and deposited on the soil of the Ain Lahjar commune, 58 samples of soil were collected around the factory on a radius of 3 km approximately. The physicochemical analyses of the upper 3 cm of the soil surface samples correspond to the pH, electrical conductivity, the chlorides and the oxides of Ca, Al, Fe, K, Mn, S and Si which were analyzed by the fluorescence of X-rays. The preliminary results demonstrate that this dust are especially basic and contain a high free lime (43% CaO). The principal component analysis (applied on the 58 samples of soil) allows deducting that the free lime and the sulfur oxide are the tracer elements of this form of pollution. Furthermore, the spatial projection of the factor scores of the principal component analysis using the geographical information system permits to determine the spatial distribution of more polluted areas of soils as well as to estimate their surface (63.3% of the survey zone).     

Groundwater recharge and evolution of water quality in China’s Jilantai Basin based on hydrogeochemical and isotopic evidence

We investigated major ions, stable isotopes, and radiocarbon dates in a Quaternary aquifer in semi-arid northwestern China to gain insights into groundwater recharge and evolution. Most deep and shallow groundwater in the Helan Mountains was fresh, with total dissolved solids <1,000 mg L^?1 and Cl^? <250 mg L^?1. The relationships of major ions with Cl^? suggest strong dissolution of evaporites. However, dissolution of carbonates, albite weathering, and ion exchange are also the major groundwater process in Jilantai basin. The shallow desert groundwater is enriched in δ¹⁸O and intercepts the local meteoric water line at δ¹⁸O = ?13.4 ‰, indicating that direct infiltration is a minor recharge source. The isotope compositions in intermediate confined aquifers resemble those of shallow unconfined groundwater, revealing that upward recharge from intermediate formations is a major source of shallow groundwater in the plains and desert. The estimated residence time of 10.0 kyr at one desert site, indicating that some replenishment of desert aquifers occurred in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene with a wetter and colder climate than at present.     

Understanding indigenous people’s perception on climate change and climatic hazards: a case study of Chakma indigenous communities in Rangamati Sadar Upazila of Rangamati District, Bangladesh

This study explores the relationship between perception on climate change as well as climatic hazards and socio-demographic characteristics such as age, gender, occupation, exposure to mass media, amount of land, education, and income. Following simple random sampling technique, a total of 384 households were sampled from Rangamati Sadar Upazila of Bangladesh and were interviewed through a predesigned semistructured questionnaire. The findings of the study reveal that a substantial number of respondents (61 %) perceive that climate is changing moderately over the years. The bivariate results indicate that age, gender, education, occupation, income, amount of land, and access to mass media are significantly associated with perception on climate change as well as climatic hazards. In addition, age, education, and exposure to mass media are also found as significant predictors of climate change perception. Education has been found as the single best predictor.     

Assessment of Cyclone Lehar’s impact on seagrass meadows in Ross and Smith Islands,North Andaman

Cyclonic storms are large-scale disturbances which cause extensive damage in coastal ecosystems. On 25 November 2013, Cyclone Lehar made a significant impact on the coastal areas of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. We observed the pre- and post-Lehar cyclonic effects on the seagrass meadows at Ross and Smith Island, North Andaman. The study indicates that the seagrass meadows are composed of Halodule uninervis, Halophila ovalis, Halodule pinnifolia and Thalassia hemperichii species. Seagrass beds of approximately 1.96 ha (approx. 63 %) were destroyed in the cyclone.     

Assessment and mapping of slope stability based on slope units: A case study in Yan’an,China

Precipitation frequently triggers shallow landslides in the Loess Plateau of Shaanxi, China, resulting in loss of life, damage to gas and oil routes, and destruction of transport infrastructure and farmland. To assess the possibility of shallow landslides at different precipitation levels, a method to draw slope units and steepest slope profiles based on ARCtools and a new method for calculating slope stability are proposed. The methods were implemented in a case study conducted in Yan’an, north-west China. High resolution DEM (Digital Elevation Model) images, soil parameters from in-situ laboratory measurements and maximum depths of precipitation infiltration were used as input parameters in the method. Next, DEM and reverse DEM were employed to map 2146 slope units in the study area, based on which the steepest profiles of the slope units were constructed. Combining analysis of the water content of loess, strength of the sliding surface, its response to precipitation and the infinite slope stability equation, a new equation to calculate infinite slope stability is proposed to assess shallow landslide stability. The slope unit stability was calculated using the equation at 10-, 20-, 50- and 100-year return periods of antecedent effective precipitation. The number of slope units experiencing failure increased in response to increasing effective antecedent rainfall. These results were validated based on the occurrence of landslides in recent decades. Finally, the applicability and limitations of the model are discussed.     

China’s regional meteorological disaster loss analysis and evaluation based on grey cluster model

To evaluate the regional meteorological disaster loss of China, this paper analyzed the different types of meteorological disasters, including droughts, floods, tropical storms, snowstorms and hail disasters. Based on the analysis about Chinese geographical features, the historical characteristics of different meteorological disasters are analyzed. In particular, these meteorological disasters influence to agriculture production are discussed. According to the analysis of data from 2004 to 2010, we know that the distribution characteristics are very different about different disasters. Provinces like Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Shanxi and Yunnan are serious affected areas of drought influence. And Anhui, Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Sichuan and Heilongjiang are serious affected areas by floods and heavy rain. While Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Shandong are mainly affected by tropical storms, Henan, Hebei, Hunan and Hubei are serious affected by snowstorms and hail disasters. Then, a novel method based on grey cluster model is constructed and combined with the regional meteorological disaster loss evaluation index system. A total of 31 provinces are considered to evaluate the integrated meteorological disaster losses. The results indicated that Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Xizang, Qinghai and Ningxia belong to the lighter loss grey class. Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Hainan, Sichuan and Gansu belong to the serious loss grey class. Other regions belong to the general loss grey class that the influence caused by meteorological disasters not better than the lighter loss grey class and not worst than the serious loss grey class.     

The effect of providing probabilistic information about a tornado threat on people’s protective actions

National Weather Service issues deterministic warnings in a tornado event. An alternative system is being researched at National Severe Storms Laboratory to issue Probabilistic Hazard Information (PHI). This study investigated how providing the uncertainty information about the tornado occurrence through PHI changes people’s protective actions. In an experiment, visual displays of the probabilistic information and deterministic warnings were presented to fifty participants to report their expected protective actions in different scenarios. It was found that the percentage of people who expected to immediately take shelter right after receiving the weather information increased exponentially as their proximity to the threat decreased. When there was more chance that the information about occurrence of a particular tornado was false rather than true, in scenarios that the likelihood of the threat occurrence was less than 50%, providing it through PHI lowered the percentage of people who immediately took shelter. The ordinal logistic regression models showed that the probability of taking protective actions significantly changes by providing the uncertainty information when people have less than 20 min lead time before getting impacted by the threat. When the lead time is less than 10 min, the probability of immediately taking shelter increases to 94 from 71%, and when the lead time is more than 10 but less than 20 min, that probability increases from 53 to 70%, if they are provided with the probabilistic information. Presenting the likelihood of any tornado formation in the area did not have significant effect on the people’s protective actions.     

Optimizing the routing of ship’s tropical cyclone avoidance based on the numerical forecasts

In this paper, an algorithm to design a shortest-time route for a ship to avoid a tropical cyclone (TC) is proposed. The proposed algorithm takes into account the influence of the changing winds and sea waves on ship’s speed and the corresponding risk using the forecasts from a numerical weather prediction model. Experimental results show that the new algorithm is able to save more time comparing with the traditional sector diagram typhoon avoidance method. In the application of the new algorithm to the navigation practice, the distance between adjacent alternative waypoints should be adjusted to meet the navigational needs, and the route should be updated simultaneously with TC forecasts from a numerical weather prediction model.     

Assessment of fire danger vulnerability using McArthur’s forest and grass fire danger indices

We present a field survey and a number of simulations of the local Persian Gulf tsunami of 19 March 2017 at Bandar Dayyer, Iran, which resulted in one death, five persons missing and significant damage to the port. The field survey defined the inundated area as extending \(\sim\, 40\) km along the coast, with major effects concentrated on an \(\sim\, 8\) km stretch immediately west of Dayyer, a maximum run-up of 3 m and maximum inundation reaching 600 m. In the absence of significant earthquakes on that day, we first test the possibility of generation of a landslide; however, our simulations for legitimate sources fail to reproduce the distribution of run-up along the coast. We prefer the model of a meteorological tsunami, triggered by Proudman resonance with a hypothetical weather front moving at 10 m/s in a NNW azimuth, which could be an ancillary phenomenon to a major shamal wind system present over the Persian Gulf on that day. More detailed simulations of the Dayyer tsunami would require an improved bathymetric grid in the vicinity of the relevant coastal segment.     

Study on temporal and spatial evolution of China’s oil supply and consumption

To begin with, energy flow chart is used to analyze the status of China’s oil supply and consumption. Moreover, the temporal and spatial evolution of the oil production and oil products consumption in China is studied based on the gravity model. Finally, the decoupling index combined with the log mean Divisia index method is used to explore the contribution of the factors which influence terminal oil product consumption in China over the period 1991–2010. This paper draws the following results: (1) China’s net oil import dependency soared from 7.5 % in 1993 to 58.63 % in 2010. (2) The center of gravity for crude oil production and oil products consumption is an overall movement toward the southwest. (3) The economic activity effect is the critical factor in the growth of oil products consumption in China. However, industrial energy intensity effect plays the dominant role in decreasing oil products consumption. (4) The value of the decoupling index represented a re-coupling effect in 1996–1997 and 2003–2004. The other time interval showed weak decoupling effect.     

Indirect Effects of Salinity and Temperature on Kuwait’s Shrimp Stocks

Discharge of the Shatt Al-Arab is believed to be a dominating component of the northern Arabian Gulf’s ecology and largely responsible for productivity of Kuwait’s fisheries. With major construction of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Turkey, river discharge has been substantially reduced, and flooding essentially eliminated. We attempted to relate river flow and shrimp landings indirectly by correlating 19 years of salinity and temperature data from Kuwait’s waters with corresponding annual shrimp landings. For green tiger prawns (Penaeus semisulcatus), the combination of October salinities and January temperatures provided the best correlation (r = 0.67) with landings in the following shrimping season. For the combined landings of jinga and kiddi shrimps (Metapenaeus affinis and Parapenaeopsis stylifera, respectively), December salinity during season and May temperature prior to season resulted in the best correlation (r = 0.87). Landings of these two species also correlated well with spring and summer temperatures. Under normal conditions, late winter or early spring temperatures prior to fishing season influence recruitment of the green tiger prawn, whereas December salinities during harvest season influence the abundance of jinga–kiddi shrimps. With further reductions in the Shatt Al-Arab discharge and the elimination of flood events, Kuwait’s shrimp landings will most likely decrease over time.     

Intergenerational relations and the power of the cell phone: Perspectives on young people’s phone usage in sub-Saharan Africa

Cell phones present new forms of sociality and new possibilities of encounter for young people across the globe. Nowhere is this more evident than in sub-Saharan Africa where the scale of usage, even among the very poor, is remarkable. In this paper we reflect on the inter-generational encounters which are embedded in young people’s cell phone interactions, and consider the wider societal implications, not least the potential for associated shifts in the generational balance of power. An intriguing feature of this changing generational nexus is that while many young people’s phone-based interactions, from their mid-teens onwards, are shifting away from the older generation towards friendship networks in their own age cohort, at the same time they are repositioning themselves – or becoming repositioned – as family information hubs, as a consequence of their phone expertise. The paper draws on mixed-methods research with young people aged c. 9–25 years and in-depth interviews with older age-groups in 24 sites (ranging from high density poor urban to remote rural) across Ghana, Malawi and South Africa.     

The effects of trust in government on earthquake survivors’ risk perception and preparedness in China

Natural Hazards - The accumulation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in ambient air affects air quality through the generation of surface level ozone and secondary organic aerosol. A study of...     

Assessment of provincial waterlogging risk based on entropy weight TOPSIS–PCA method

Natural Hazards - Over the past few years, urban waterlogging disasters have caused serious losses to the national economy of China; therefore, creating technology for assessing waterlogging risk...     

Time and frequency domains response analyses of April 2015 Greece’s earthquake in the Nile Delta based on GNSS-PPP

Earthquake response characteristic and sensitivity of 1-Hz Global Navigation Satellite System - precise point positioning (GNSS-PPP) for a seismic response in time and frequency domains are the main objectives of this study. The Delta and Cairo areas, Egypt, experiencing the shock of the Greece earthquake occurring on April 16, 2015 (18:50 hours), is presented in this study. The results of this study reveal that the seismic wave effect is very small and can be neglected inside the Delta region and the strong motion occurred in an upward direction for the whole monitoring area. Furthermore, the time-frequency analysis illustrates the ability of the time and frequency domains to use and analyze the surface motion based on a 1-Hz sampling frequency and to detect the small- and high-strength motions of seismic waves.     

Risk evaluation of China’s natural disaster systems: an approach based on triangular fuzzy numbers and stochastic simulation

To deal effectively with the evaluation problem of natural disaster risk system affected by many uncertain factors, a multivariate connection number expression is presented. This expression is based on the index samples and evaluation grade criterions of natural disaster risk system and is capable of describing the hierarchy property and fuzziness of membership relationship between index samples and evaluation grade criterions. In this proposed method, the fuzzy evaluation grade criterion problem is resolved by combining triangular fuzzy numbers with multivariate connection number theory, and triangular fuzzy numbers are used to express the discrepancy degree coefficients of connection number and evaluation index weights. Accordingly, a connection number-based evaluation method for the natural disaster system of China (named CN-TFN for short) is established using triangular fuzzy numbers and stochastic simulation. The application results show that the spatial distribution of natural disaster risk grades of China has the trend of aggrandizement from west to east of China. The economically developed and densely populated coastal areas are very likely to have a high level of natural disaster risk grade or above; thus, these areas are the key regions of the natural disaster risk management of China. The results also show that the CN-TFN is able to reflect practical conditions of the evaluation problem of natural disaster system and to provide more reliability information as compared to the existing evaluation methods. This is as a result of its comprehensive usage of various information of subjective and objective uncertainties in the evaluation process of natural disaster risk system and its expression by confidence intervals. Due to the simplicity and generalization, the CN-TFM is applicable to comprehensive risk grade evaluation of various natural disaster systems.