Landslide deposits as stratigraphical markers for a sequence‐based glacial stratigraphy: a case study of a Younger Dryas system in the Eastern Alps

Detailed ¹⁰Be and ¹⁴C dating and supporting pollen analysis of Alpine Lateglacial glacial and landslide deposits in the Hohen Tauern Mountains (Austria) constrain a sequence‐based stratigraphy comprising a major landslide (13.0±1.1 ka) overlain by till and termino‐lateral moraines of an advancing (12.6±1.0 ka) and retreating (11.3±0.8 ka) glacier in turn overlain by a minor landslide (10.8±1.1 ka). These results define glacier activity during the Younger Dryas age Egesen stadial bracketed by landslide activities during the Bølling‐Allerød interstadial and the Preboreal. In contrast to recent studies on Holocene glaciation in the Alps, no traces of any Holocene glacier advance bigger than during the Little Ice Age are documented. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the advantages of using an allostratigraphical approach based on unconformity‐bounded sedimentary units as a tool for glacial stratigraphy in formerly glaciated mountain regions, rather than a stratigraphy based on either isolated morphological features or lithostratigraphical characteristics.     

Effects of pore water pressure dissipation on rate dependency of shear strength in localised failure of soils

The paper presents analytical solutions for the evolution of excess pore pressures in the vicinity of a shear band in a rate‐dependent, strain‐softening permeable soil, with the aim to explore, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the potential variation of failure shear stress in the shear band. The solutions encompass both dissipation of a pre‐existing pore pressure regime within the main soil domain, and the effects of generation of additional pore pressure within the shear band itself. The simplified analytical solutions were checked by numerical inversion of exact solutions in Laplace transform space, confirming their high accuracy. The solutions show that it is possible for the failure shear stress to rise initially because of short‐term dissipation of the pre‐existing excess pore pressure at a faster rate than generation of new excess pore pressure within the shear band. This apparent strain hardening in a strain‐softening soil can be misleading in that it can temporarily slow down the sliding mass and create a false sense of stabilization of the slope. It can also result in additional temporary shear resistance for sliding foundations or pipelines on the seabed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast multipole displacement discontinuity method (FM‐DDM) for geomechanics reservoir simulations

The displacement discontinuity method (DDM) is frequently used in geothermal and petroleum applications for modeling the behavior of fractures in linear‐elastic rocks. The DDM requires O(N²) memory and O(N³) floating point operations (where N is the number of unknowns) to construct the coefficient matrix and solve the linear system of equations by direct methods. Therefore, the conventional implementation of the DDM is not computationally efficient for very large systems of cracks, often limiting its application to small‐scale problems. This work presents an approach for solving large‐scale fracture problems using the fast multipole method (FMM). The approach uses both the DDM and a kernel‐independent version of the FMM along with a preconditioned generalized minimal residual algorithm to accelerate the solution of linear systems of equations using desktop computers. Using the fundamental solutions for constant displacement discontinuity in a two‐dimensional elastic medium, several numerical examples involving fracture networks representing fractured reservoirs are treated. Numerical results show good agreement with analytical solutions and demonstrate the efficiency of the FMM implementation of the DDM for large‐scale simulations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of the Clean Development Mechanism in the Sanitation Sector: “Proof of Concept”

Greenhouse gas emissions from the waste sector account for only 4% of the total production, with wastewater management accounting for accurately 8 to 10% of this contribution. Wastewater disposal and treatment activities, mainly contributes to non‐CO₂ gases such as methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O). Capturing or avoiding these emissions is thus both a concern and an opportunity. The clean development mechanism (CDM) offers an instrument to internalize global climate concerns into the design of wastewater treatment facilities. Properly designed facilities could improve effluent quality and optimize the abatement of greenhouse gas emissions, thus ensuring additional revenues to pay for capital, operation and maintenance costs and possibly justify higher levels of wastewater treatment. This document summarizes the experience of the “Rio Frio CDM project” in Colombia, as an example of what is achievable through the CDM application in wastewater treatment upgrade in developing countries. This document summarizes the scope of the project, the methodology used to establish current greenhouse emissions and future reductions, and the estimated financial results.     

Food consumption,diet shifts and associated non-CO2 greenhouse gases from agricultural production

Today, the agricultural sector accounts for approximately 15% of total global anthropogenic emissions, mainly methane and nitrous oxide. Projecting the future development of agricultural non-CO₂ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is important to assess their impacts on the climate system but poses many problems as future demand of agricultural products is highly uncertain. We developed a global land use model (MAgPIE) that is suited to assess future anthropogenic agricultural non-CO₂ GHG emissions from various agricultural activities by combining socio-economic information on population, income, food demand, and production costs with spatially explicit environmental data on potential crop yields. In this article we describe how agricultural non-CO₂ GHG emissions are implemented within MAgPIE and compare our simulation results with other studies. Furthermore, we apply the model up to 2055 to assess the impact of future changes in food consumption and diet shifts, but also of technological mitigation options on agricultural non-CO₂ GHG emissions. As a result, we found that global agricultural non-CO₂ emissions increase significantly until 2055 if food energy consumption and diet preferences remain constant at the level of 1995. Non-CO₂ GHG emissions will rise even more if increasing food energy consumption and changing dietary preferences towards higher value foods, like meat and milk, with increasing income are taken into account. In contrast, under a scenario of reduced meat consumption, non-CO₂ GHG emissions would decrease even compared to 1995. Technological mitigation options in the agricultural sector have also the capability of decreasing non-CO₂ GHG emissions significantly. However, these technological mitigation options are not as effective as changes in food consumption. Highest reduction potentials will be achieved by a combination of both approaches.