Floods in megacity environments: vulnerability and coping strategies of slum dwellers in Dhaka/Bangladesh

In many megacities of the global south, the combination of rapid population growth and high pressure on space for housing, results in urban growth taking place in areas particularly prone to natural hazards. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is no exception to this rule. Many marginal settlements or slums are located on low-lying land at high risk of flooding. This paper analyzes the vulnerability of slum dwellers in Dhaka and highlights the major factors behind their sensitivity to floods and their ability to adapt to the related changes. The empirical findings presented are based on a questionnaire survey covering 625 households in five slum areas of Dhaka. Our data suggests that social capital plays an important role with regard to the ability of slum dwellers to find ways to live with the floods. Regardless of how strongly people are affected, mutual help and support are dominant features in times of crises. While poorly educated and resourced slum dwellers are highly vulnerable to external shocks, they still show a surprising capacity to cope with natural calamities.     

Application of Discriminant Analysis and Support Vector Machine in Mapping Gold Potential Areas for Further Drilling in the Sari-Gunay Gold Deposit,NW Iran

In this contribution, we used discriminant analysis (DA) and support vector machine (SVM) to model subsurface gold mineralization by using a combination of the surface soil geochemical anomalies and earlier bore data for further drilling at the Sari-Gunay gold deposit, NW Iran. Seventy percent of the data were used as the training data and the remaining 30 % were used as the testing data. Sum of the block grades, obtained by kriging, above the cutoff grade (0.5 g/t) was multiplied by the thickness of the blocks and used as productivity index (PI). Then, the PI variable was classified into three classes of background, medium, and high by using fractal method. Four classification functions of SVM and DA methods were calculated by the training soil geochemical data. Also, by using all the geochemical data and classification functions, the general extension of the gold mineralized zones was predicted. The mineral prediction models at the Sari-Gunay hill were used to locate high and moderate potential areas for further infill systematic and reconnaissance drilling, respectively. These models at Agh-Dagh hill and the area between Sari-Gunay and Agh-Dagh hills were used to define the moderate and high potential areas for further reconnaissance drilling. The results showed that the nu-SVM method with 73.8 % accuracy and c-SVM with 72.3 % accuracy worked better than DA methods.     

Numerical simulation of strong ground motion for the <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis><Subscript>s</Subscript>8.0 Wenchuan earthquake of 12 May 2008

The Wenchuan earthquake of 12 May 2008 is the most destructive earthquake in China in the past 30 years in terms of property damage and human losses. In order to understand the earthquake process and the geo-morphological factors affecting the seismic hazard, we simulated the strong ground motion caused by the earthquake, incorporating three-dimensional (3D) earth structure, finite-fault rupture, and realistic surface topography. The simulated ground motions reveal that the fault rupture and basin structure control the overall pattern of the peak ground shaking. Large peak ground velocity (PGV) is distributed in two narrow areas: one with the largest PGV values is above the hanging wall of the fault and attributed to the locations of fault asperities and rupture directivity; the other is along the northwestern margin of the Sichuan Basin and caused by both the directivity of fault rupture and the amplification in the thick sediment basin. Rough topography above the rupture fault causes wave scattering, resulting in significantly larger peak ground motion on the apex of topographic relief than in the valley. Topography and scattering also reduce the wave energy in the forward direction of fault rupture but increase the PGV in other parts of the basin. These results suggest the need for a localized hazard assessment in places of rough topography that takes the topographic effects into account. Finally, had the earthquake started at the northeast end of the fault zone and ruptured to the southwest, Chengdu would have suffered a much stronger shaking than it experienced on 12 May, 2008. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. EAR 0738779 and OCE 0727919), the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2004CB418404), and partially by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 40521002)     

Cropland cover change in Northeast China during the past 300 years

Land use/cover change induced by human activities has emerged as a “global” phenomenon with Earth system consequences. Northeast China is an area where the largest land cultivation activities by migrants have happened in China during the past 300 years. In this paper, methods including documentary data calibration and multi-sourced data conversion model are used to reconstruct historical cropland cover change in Northeast China during the past 300 years. It is concluded that human beings have remarkably changed the natural landscape of the region by land cultivation in the past 300 years. Cropland area has increased almost exponentially during the past 300 years, especially during the past 100 years when the ratio of cropland cover changed from 10% to 20%. Until the middle of the 19th century, the agricultural area was still mainly restricted in Liaoning Province. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, dramatic changes took place when the northern boundary of cultivation had extended to the middle of Heilongjiang Province. During the 20th century, three agricultural regions with high ratio of cropland cover were formed after the two phases of spatial expansion of cropland area in 1900s–1930s and 1950s–1980s. Since 1930s–1940s, the expansion of new cultivated area have invaded the forest lands especially in Jilin and Heilongjiang Provinces. Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 40571165) and Innovation Foundation of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KZCX2-YW-315)     

山东沂沭河流域2000BC前后古文化兴衰的环境考古

Neolithic culture series in the Yishu River Basin developed in the order of Beixin culture-Dawenkou culture-Longshan culture-Yueshi culture. During the early and middle stage of Longshan culture （4600-4300 cal. yr BP）, the climate in the Yishu River Basin was warm and wet. Paddy-oriented agriculture planted paddy was very developed. The society was flourishing with great amount of archaeological sites. The cooling starting in 4200 cal. yr BP made the paddies shortfall in output or even no seeds were gathered. This situation intensified the discrepancy between population and resource. The scarcity in natural resource led to substantial decrease in population and subsequent drop in archaeological sites. About 4000 cal. yr BP Longshan culture was displaced by Yueshi culture which was relatively un- derdeveloped, simple and unsophisticated.     

Deformation features of garnet-bearing granites from Huwan,western Dabie Mountains

Foliated garnet-bearing granite, usually associated with high pressure and ultrahigh -pressure (UHP) metamophic rocks, is a particular rock-type extensively exposed in the Mesozoic Dabie-Sulu orogenic belt of China. This study focuses on deformation features and SHRIMP zircon dating of foliated garnet granite in a high-pressure metamorphic unit from Huwan, western Dabie Mountains in order to resolve discrepancies in current versions of its petrogenesis and structural evolution. SHRIMP dating reveals a zircon age of 762 ± 15 Ma (MSWD=1.7) for Huwan granites, representing the Middle to Late Neoproterozoic age of intrusion and crystallization. Field and microstructural studies show that the Huwan granite body underwent multiple-stage deformation. The deformation was manifested by an early stage of rootless folding and imposition of relict foliation (S₁); an Indosinian main stage marked by imposition of north-dipping penetrative gneissosity (S₂) and development of ductile shear zones under NNE-SSW directed compression; and a final Indosinian stage of southward thrusting of the Huwan high-pressure unit. Shallow level extension prevailed after the Late Triassic, giving rise to south-dipping thrust faults and north-dipping normal faults. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40802046 and 40334037) and the Project of Science & Technology Research and Development from Sinopec (Grant No. P02009)     

Predicting Sea Surface Salinity Using an Improved Genetic Algorithm Combining Operation Tree Method

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the use of an improved genetic algorithm combining operation tree method (IGAOT) and apply it to monitor the salinity of the Taiwan Strait by using remote-sensing data. The genetic algorithm combining operation tree (GAOT) is a data mining method used to automatically discover relationships among nonlinear systems. Based on genetic algorithms (GAs), the relationships between input and output can be expressed as parse trees. The GAOT method typically has the disadvantages of premature convergence, which means it cannot produce satisfying solutions and performs satisfactorily when applied to only low-dimensional problems. Therefore, the GAOT method is enhanced using an automatic incremental procedure to improve the search ability of the method and avoid trapping in a local optimum. In this case study, an IGAOT is used to determine the relationship between the in situ data on the salinity of the Taiwan Strait and the data on the spectral parameters, seven wavebands, of a Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor. The results indicate that the IGAOT model performs more favorably than do the GAOT and linear regression (LR₁ and LR₂) models, exhibits higher correlation coefficients, and involves fewer estimating errors. The results of this study indicate that the proposed technique is useful for estimating the Taiwan Strait salinity.     

Automatic mapping of lunar landforms using DEM-derived geomorphometric parameters

Developing approaches to automate the analysis of the massive amounts of data sent back from the Moon will generate significant benefits for the field of lunar geomorphology. In this paper, we outline an automated method for mapping lunar landforms that is based on digital terrain analysis. An iterative self-organizing (ISO) cluster unsupervised classification enables the automatic mapping of landforms via a series of input raster bands that utilize six geomorphometric parameters. These parameters divide landforms into a number of spatially extended, topographically homogeneous segments that exhibit similar terrain attributes and neighborhood properties. To illustrate the applicability of our approach, we apply it to three representative test sites on the Moon, automatically presenting our results as a thematic landform map. We also quantitatively evaluated this approach using a series of confusion matrices, achieving overall accuracies as high as 83.34% and Kappa coefficients (K) as high as 0.77. An immediate version of our algorithm can also be applied for automatically mapping large-scale lunar landforms and for the quantitative comparison of lunar surface morphologies.     

利用大地电磁资料对玄武岩成像的可行性

The magnetotelluric （MT） method has been among the favorite supporting tools for seismic imaging of sub-salt and sub-basalt targets. In this paper we present an example from Kachchh, India （where basaltic rocks overlie Mesozoic sedimentary rocks）, and discuss the feasibility of using MT method as an exploration tool in this geological setting. Our results highlight the difference in magnetotelluric response caused by the thin intrabasalt layering. The key issue addressed in this paper is what MT can and cannot provide in such geological settings. First, we compute apparent resistivity and phase response curves using representative resistivity-depth models and borehole data from the study area. Later, we compare these results to assess the plausibility of using MT to image the sub-volcanic sediments at Kachchh. Finally, we substantiate our discussion through one-dimensional inversion of the field observed MT data from this region that exhibits poor sensitivity of MT for thin basalt layers.