Prediction in hydrogeology: two case histories

An inherent aspect of hydrogeology is the dynamic character of groundwater flow within the more passive lithospheric medium. Prediction therefore requires insight into the spatial pattern of aquifer properties as well as the dynamic character of groundwater flow systems. Both aspects together determine hydrogeological system behaviour in space and time. The spatial characteristics of an aquifer are mainly based on geological and geomorphological structure, whereas the dynamics of the system result predominantly from climate and topography; knowledge of paleoconditions are a prerequisite for sound understanding of present systems. The integration of exploration and forecast is illustrated by two case studies. The first study focuses on an assessment of groundwater resource and their sustainable development in semi-arid Botswana. The second study concerns the impact of land and water management in the Netherlands coastal area on the groundwater regime and its future development, including the redistribution of salt and fresh groundwater on a long time scale.     

An efficient knowledge-based approach for random variation interpretation in NDVI time series

Nowadays, detecting and interpreting random variation extracted from satellite image time series is a far-reaching real-world issue. A more adequate approach should be designed to deal with this challenge. In this paper, we propose an efficient knowledge-based approach for vegetation monitoring using normalized derivation vegetation index time series. First, a decomposition process is designed to separate seasonal, trend and remainder components. Then, a genetic based schema is proposed to generate association rules. The extracted knowledge is intended to interpret the remainder component extracted during the previous phase by discovering the hidden link between random variation and climate observations. For validation purpose, a database covering the regions in Northwestern Tunisia is used for a period starting from 2000 to 2012. The data have been derived from Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and fused with ground climate data (temperature and precipitation) in the form of fuzzy association rules. The obtained results show the efficiency of the proposed approach by reducing the non-stationarity effect.     

Lessons learned from two case histories of seismic microzonation in Italy

The prediction of the variability of the seismic ground motion in a given built-up area is considered an effective tool to plan appropriate urban development, to undertake actions on seismic risk mitigation and to understand the damage pattern caused by a strong-motion event. The procedures for studying the seismic response and the seismic microzonation of an urban area are well established; nevertheless, some controversial points still exists and are discussed here. In this paper, the selection of a reference input motion, the construction of a subsoil model and the seismic response analysis procedures are discussed in detail, based on the authors’ experience in two Italian case histories: the seismic microzonation of the city of Benevento, which was a predictive study, and the simulation of seismic response and damage distribution in the village of San Giuliano di Puglia, which was a retrospective analysis.     

Approaches to strategic monitoring: A case study approach

The monitoring of plans in a strategic context aims to do more than accumulate and corroborate breadth and depth of all information requirements of a complex organisation. Strategic monitoring, whilst including the quantitative role of gathering facts to improve analytical decision-making, is necessarily qualitatively involved with the fostering of relationships with various tiers of authorities and associations, and with environmental groups. The system requirements of qualitative monitoring are not always as reliant upon specialised, sophisticated computer monitoring as upon flexible organisations of internal staff who are encouraged, at the earliest phases of decision-making, to investigate the deficiencies and criticisms of county plans. Qualitative monitoring is a more sensitive instrument for determining how politics affects planning, and vice versa, and for gradually reconciling conflicts. The nature and extent of both approaches to monitoring are here examined in the cases of two U.K. county planning departments.     

A new approach to monitoring seismic activity: California case study

Preliminary work on the creation of a method for monitoring of seismic activity, on the basis of discrete mathematical analysis for further seismic hazard assessment of a territory, is presented. The method developed is tested for the territory of California and adjacent areas of the United States. The results obtained are analyzed for the period of 1980–2015. The nonrandomness of the results is shown by means of an error chart.     

Rehabilitation of industrial areas: case histories from England and Germany

 Contaminated and possibly hazardous ground represents a problem in all of the industrialized countries of the world. The investigation of a site that is suspected of being contaminated differs somewhat from a routine site investigation. Sampling of soils, groundwater and gas-producing material may be required. Various precautions may be necessary in doing this and operatives may have to wear protective clothing. Four case histories have been chosen to illustrate different aspects of the rehabilitation of abandoned contaminated land, namely, investigation, assessment, ground treatment and redevelopment. The first comes from Leeds in West Yorkshire, England, and outlines how a site investigation was undertaken and the nature of the contamination present, together with a note on the suggested redevelopment. The remaining three case histories are taken from the heavily industrialized district of the Ruhr in Germany, where extensive mining of coal and associated industries were developed from the mid-19th century onwards. The first considers the site of the former Graf Moltke mine near Essen. In this instance, the somewhat novel methods of data assessment and ground treatment are dealt with. The Mont Cenis site at Herne-Sodingen is one of the more notable old mining/industrial sites undergoing redevelopment in the state of North Rhine Westphalia. Hence, the case history concentrates of this aspect of rehabilitation. This involves not only the construction of new and interesting structures but an attempt to reduce energy consumption in an attempt to effect the concept of sustainable development of an urban area. The last example deals with the abandoned site of the Minister Achenbach mine at Lünen, where the ground conditions were further complicated by the presence of old bomb craters that had been filled with a variety of materials. In addition, because of the suspected presence of former foundation structures in the ground an electromagnetic survey was carried out across part of the site, the areas of high conductivity suggesting their presence. Received: 15 September 1999 · Accepted: 14 March 2000     

Human-induced changes on wetlands: a study case from NW Iberia

Wetlands are exceptional ecosystems that contribute to biodiversity and play a key role in the hydrological and carbon cycles. Knowledge of their long-term ecology is essential for a proper understanding of these valuable ecosystems. We present the application of multi-proxy analyses to a 115 cm-thick core from La Molina mire (Alto de la Espina) located in NW Iberia, with a chronology spanning since ～500 BC. The mire is located in an area intensively mined for gold during the Roman period, and close to a water-canalization system used for mining operations at that time. Our aim was to get insights into the development of the wetland by combining palynological records of hydro-hygrophytes, non-pollen palynomorphs and geochemical analyses, supported by ¹⁴C datings and multivariate statistics. The results indicate a complex pattern of ecological succession. During the local Iron Age the wetland was minerotrophic. Since ～20 AD it was subjected to dramatic hydrological changes due to a rise of the water-table, fluctuating between the presence of open water and phases of drawdown. Finally, by ～745 AD, the wetland experienced a rapid evolution towards ombrotrophic conditions. High grazing pressure was detected for the last decades. The significant change occurred during Early Roman Empire seems to have been the consequence of the direct use of the wetland as a water-reservoir of the canalisation system used for gold-mining. Thus, the current nature of the mire may be the result of human impact, although multiple human- and climate-induced causes were potentially linked to the detected shifts. However, the system seems to have been resilient, successfully buffering the changes without substantial alterations of its functioning. Our investigation shows that palaeoecological research is necessary to understand modifications in the structure of wetland ecosystems, their long-term ecology and the role of human-induced changes.     

海塘渗压监测分析的时间序列组合模型

海塘堤防渗压是反映海塘安全状态的重要指标,其监测资料的分析关系到堤防及堤内生命财产安全,为了提高渗压资料的建模拟合精度,更好地进行渗压预报,在对监测资料进行分析时,以谐量回归分析为基础,再对回归拟合残差序列进行时序分析,以此建立谐量回归-时序组合模型,并依此组合模型进行短期实时预报。以某海塘实测资料建立了高精度的组合模型,同时采用等维新息模型成功实现了工程实际应用中的渗压实时拟合预报。     

基于小波的时序改进法在深基坑监测中的应用

结合润扬长江公路大桥南汊悬索桥南锚碇采用排桩冻结法新技术的工程实际,对深基坑支撑轴力监测数据提出了基于小波技术的时间序列改进法,将时间序列分析的多步预报功能与小波对信号精加工的功能相结合,研究结果表明,采用小波改进时间序列分析方法建立的时间序列动态预测模型,其预测精度大大提高,为基坑的安全施工提供了保障,为基坑的信息化施工提供了依据。     

An approach to interpretation of step drawdown tests

To understand the behaviour of drawdown with discharge under site-specific conditions, a step drawdown test (SDT) was conducted on a tubewell in alluvium near Delhi, India, and the data were analyzed to find the value of well efficiency. The entrance velocity of groundwater into the well screen was computed to see if it exceeded the safety limit of 0.03 m/s. Reynold's number (Re) was also calculated to study the nature of flow at the well screen. The decrease in efficiency of the well at higher discharge was attributed to an increase in turbulence and curvature of the flow path of water. An alternative, more efficient approach has been put forward, using a spreadsheet programme to fit a polynomial trend line on a plot of drawdown versus discharge and deriving a polynomial trend line equation. This equation predicts the behaviour of drawdown with discharge under site-specific conditions. The calculated efficiency of the tubewell can, at best, be regarded as a reflection of head loss on account of the laminar flow from the aquifer.     

Reconstructing deep‐time histories from integrated thermochronology: An example from southern Baffin Island,Canada

We present a multi‐chronometric approach for reconstructing deep‐time thermal histories using southern Baffin Island as a case study. This continuous thermal history begins with the Palaeoproterozoic Trans‐Hudson Orogeny and is derived from inverse and forward models that integrate thermochronometers spanning some 500°C: new apatite U–Pb ages and K‐feldspar ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar multi‐diffusion domain data, published (U–Th)/He zircon ages and new multi‐kinetic fission‐track results. Integration of data from a wider temperature range reduces ambiguities in thermal‐history modelling and permits us to constrain the timing of geological processes including, extended post‐orogenic cooling, enhanced later Proterozoic cooling, and then episodic burial and exhumation in the Palaeozoic–Mesozoic.     

Complex geometry of the Cenozoic magma plumbing system in the central Sahara,NW Africa

Topographic uplifts in the central Sahara occur in the Hoggar-Aïr and Tibesti-Gharyan swells that consist of Precambrian rocks overlain by Cenozoic volcanic rocks. The swells and associated Cenozoic volcanism have been related either to mantle plumes or to asthenospheric upwelling and to partial melting due to rift-related delamination along pre-existing Pan-African mega-shears during the collision between Africa and Europe. The Cenozoic volcanic rocks in the Hoggar generally range from Oligocene tholeiitic/transitional plateau basalts, which occur in the centre of the dome, to Neogene alkali basalts characterized by a decrease in their degree of silica undersaturation and an increase in their La/Yb ratios. The alkali basaltic rocks occur mainly along the margins of the dome and typically have less radiogenic Nd and Sr isotopic ratios than the tholeiitic/transitional basalts. The geochemistry of the most primitive basaltic rocks resembles oceanic island basalt (OIB) tholeiitic – in particular high-U/Pb mantle (HIMU)-type – and is also similar to those of the Circum-Mediterranean Anorogenic Cenozoic Igneous (CiMACI) province. These characteristics are consistent with, but do not require, a mantle plume origin. Geophysical data suggest a combination of the two mechanisms resulting in a complex plumbing system consisting of (a) at depths of 250–200 km, an upper mantle plume (presently under the Aïr massif); (b) between 200 and 150 km, approximately 700 km northeastward deflection of plume-derived magma by drag at the base of the African Plate and by mantle convection; (c) at approximately 150 km, the magma continues upwards to the surface in the Tibesti swell; (d) at approximately 100 km depth, part of the magma is diverted into a low S-wave velocity corridor under the Sahara Basin; and (e) at approximately 80 km depth, the corridor is tapped by Cenozoic volcanism in the Hoggar and Aïr massifs that flowed southwards along reactivated Precambrian faults.     

时间序列InSAR技术在矿区地表形变监测中的应用

针对露天矿区与城区地表相干性不一的特征,提出一种改进的时序InSAR(合成孔径雷达干涉测量)技术对霍林河矿区及周围城区地表进行形变监测。首先,通过增加时间采样密度控制相干性来筛选矿区周边具备一定相干点密度的干涉数据;其次,采用经过参数优化的分布式散射点选取方法选取分布式目标并使用传统方法提取永久散射体;最后,将分布式目标与永久散射体目标混合构建Delaunay三角网进行两次回归分析得到研究区域地表形变速率。实验结果显示,霍林河矿区边坡最大形变速率达到?630 mm/a,矿区周边道路地面最大沉降速率达到71 mm/a,霍林郭勒市地表沉降速率最大达到15 mm/a,与同期GPS监测结果进行对比,证明改进的时序InSAR技术方法适用性良好,对矿业城市地表形变监测提出了一种新的InSAR监测方法。     

A new approach to use AHP in landslide susceptibility mapping: a case study at Yenice (Karabuk, NW Turkey)

This study aimed to investigate the parameter effects in preparing landslide susceptibility maps with a data-driven approach and to adapt this approach to analytical hierarchy process (AHP). For this purpose, at the first stage, landslide inventory of an area located in the Western Black Sea region of Turkey covering approximately 567?km² was prepared, and a total of 101 landslides were mapped. In order to assess the landslide susceptibility, a total of 13 parameters were considered as the input parameters: slope, aspect, plan curvature, topographical elevation, vegetation cover index, land use, distance to drainage, distance to roads, distance to structural elements, distance to ridges, stream power index, sediment transport capacity index, and wetness index. AHP was selected as the major assessment methodology since the adapted approach and AHP work in data pairs. Adapted to AHP, a similarity relation?Cbased approach, namely landslide relation indicator (LRI) for parameter selection method, was also proposed. AHP and parametric effect analyses were performed by the proposed approach, and seven landslide susceptibility maps were produced. Among these maps, the best performance was gathered from the landslide susceptibility map produced by 9 parameter combinations using area under curve (AUC) approach. For this map, the AUC value was calculated as 0.797, while the others ranged between 0.686 and 0.771. According to this map, 38.3?% of the study area was classified as having very low, 8.5?% as low, 15.0?% as moderate, 20.3?% as high, and 17.9?% as very high landslide susceptibility, respectively. Based on the overall assessments, the proposed approach in this study was concluded as objective and applicable and yielded reasonable results.     

Moment tensors of the January 1997 earthquake swarm in NW Bohemia (Czech Republic): double-couple vs. non-double-couple events

We investigated moment tensors (MTs) of 70 events of the earthquake swarm which occurred in January 1997 in NW Bohemia. A refined location using the master-event procedure shows that all the foci clustered in a volume of less than 0.5 km³ comprising two compact clusters—the southern and northern ones. The results of single-source, absolute-moment tensor inversion of the P- and SH-peak amplitudes reveal two types of the source mechanisms, A and B in our denotation, which dominated in the swarm. Type A implies an oblique normal faulting with a nearly pure double-couple (DC) source. For the B type, an oblique-thrust faulting and a combined source [double-couple combined with the isotropic (ISO) and compensated linear-vector dipole (CLVD) components] are typical. Magnitudes of the non-double-couple components of MT appear unrelated to the M_L magnitude of the event. The proximity of hypocentres of A and B events guarantees the non-double-couple source mechanisms of the B events not to be an artefact of a mismodelling of the medium. To exclude finiteness of the focus or station-site effects as possible causes of spurious non-double-couple components of MTs of the B events, the residuals of the peak amplitudes across the set of the B events were analysed and the jack-knife test was applied. The A and B events separate in time and space. Consequently, three major phases of swarm activity can be distinguished. In the first, only the southern cluster was active and A events prevailed, while B events dominated in the northern cluster in the third phase. Both A and B events occurred (the former in the southern cluster, the latter in the northern one) during the second phase. The initiation of the B events in the northern cluster are reflected in a pronounced increase in the non-double-couple components of the MTs, which points to tensile-source mechanisms as a consequence of a hypothesised fluid injection.     

A geometric approach to two-dimensional finite strain compatibility: interpretation and review

The purpose of this paper is to collect, clarify, augment and modify the authors' previous work on the subject of finite strain compatibility. The derivations of the fundamental equations are reviewed so that the geometric meaning of each step can be explained. Besides providing a basis for the geological interpretations of the equations, these derivations also lead to a useful new form of the strain compatibility equations.We begin by showing that compatibility is a geometric property of continuous and smooth coordinate grids, and we derive and explain the coordinate grid compatibility equations. We then use the fact that every finite deformation may be described by two coordinate grids to derive finite strain compatibility equations in principal coordinates and Cartesian coordinates. The resulting strain compatibility equations are not easily solved for general strain fields in any coordinate system. Nonetheless, we show that many common geological strain patterns have simple geometries for which the compatibility equations can be interpreted. For example, if a deformation has constant strain in one direction, as most shear zones do, then compatibility provides an iterative method for determining the strain throughout the deformed region if the strain is initially known at any one point. Some of the other strain geometries to which we apply compatibility in this paper include simple shear, inhomogeneous pure shear, parallel and similar folding.     

水文时间序列周期识别的新思路与两种新方法

针对水文序列周期识别的困难,提出首先对原序列处理,再识别周期的新思路,同时提出两种新方法:一种是模拟延长序列法,即通过建模延长原序列,再应用最大熵谱分析法(MESA)对延长序列识别周期;另一种方法是构建主频序列法,应用小波重构法重构原序列主频部分,然后应用MESA对重构序列进行周期识别。结合实例,运用多种方法对同一序列进行周期识别。分析结果表明:由于受序列长度偏短、偏态性、复杂随机成分等因素的影响,传统单一处理方法(周期图法、FFT、MESA、小波分析)周期识别效果并不理想,而使用两种新方法可以有效地减小或消除上述因素的影响,周期识别效果有明显改善。