Differences in flood hazard projections in Europe – their causes and consequences for decision making

This paper interprets differences in flood hazard projections over Europe and identifies likely sources of discrepancy. Further, it discusses potential implications of these differences for flood risk reduction and adaptation to climate change. The discrepancy in flood hazard projections raises caution, especially among decision makers in charge of water resources management, flood risk reduction, and climate change adaptation at regional to local scales. Because it is naïve to expect availability of trustworthy quantitative projections of future flood hazard, in order to reduce flood risk one should focus attention on mapping of current and future risks and vulnerability hotspots and improve the situation there. Although an intercomparison of flood hazard projections is done in this paper and differences are identified and interpreted, it does not seems possible to recommend which large-scale studies may be considered most credible in particular areas of Europe.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis

ASSOCIATE EDITOR not assigned     

Urban stormwater thermal gene expression models for protection of sensitive receiving streams

Thermal impact of typical high‐density residential, industrial, and commercial land uses is a major concern for the health of aquatic life in urban watersheds, especially in smaller, cold, and cool‐water streams. This is the first study of its kind that provides simple easy‐to‐use equations, developed using gene expression programming (GEP) that can guide the assessment and the design of urban stormwater management systems to protect thermally sensitive receiving streams. We developed 3 GEP models using data collected during 3 years (2009–2011) from 4 urban catchments; the first GEP model predicts event mean temperature at the inlet of the pond; the second model predicts the stormwater temperature at the outlet of the pond; and the third model predicts the temperature of the stormwater after flowing through a cooling trench and before discharging to the receiving stream. The new models have high correlation coefficients of 0.90–0.94 and low prediction uncertainty of less than 4% of the median value of the predicted runoff temperatures. Sensitivity analysis shows that climatic factors have the highest influence on the thermal enrichment followed by the catchment characteristics and the key design variables of the stormwater pond and the cooling trench. The general method presented here is easily transferable to other regions of the world (but not necessarily the exact equations developed here); also through sensitivity and parametric analysis, we gained insight on the key factors and their relative importance in modelling thermal enrichment of urban stromwater runoff.     

Time-lapse seismic analysis of pressure depletion in the Southern Gas Basin

In the Southern Gas Basin (SGB) of the North Sea there are many mature gas fields where time‐lapse monitoring could be very beneficial in extending production life. However, the conditions are not immediately attractive for time‐lapse seismic assessment. This is primarily because the main production effect to be assessed is a pore pressure reduction and frame stiffening because of gas production in tight sandstone reservoirs that also have no real seismic direct hydrocarbon indicators. Modelling, based on laboratory measurements, has shown that such an effect would be small and difficult to detect in seismic data. This paper makes two main contributions. Firstly, this is, to our knowledge, the first time‐lapse study in the SGB and involves a real‐data assessment of the viability for detecting production in such an environment. Secondly, the feasibility of using markedly different legacies of data in such a study is addressed, including an assessment of the factors influencing the crossmatching. From the latter, it is found that significant, spatially varying time shifts need to be, and are successfully, resolved through 3‐D warping. After the warping, the primary factors limiting the crossmatching appear to be residual local phase variations, possibly induced by the differing migration strategies, structure, reverberations and different coherencies of the volumes, caused by differences in acquisition‐structure azimuth and acquisition fold. Despite these differences, a time‐lapse amplitude signature is observed that is attributable to production. The character of the 4‐D amplitude anomalies may also indicate variations in stress sensitivity, e.g. because of zones of fracturing. Additionally, warping‐derived time attributes have been highlighted as a potential additional avenue for detection of pressure depletion in such reservoirs. Although the effects are subtle, they may indicate changes in stress/pressure in and around the reservoir because of production. However, to fully resolve the subtle time‐lapse effects in such a reservoir, the data differences need to be better addressed, which may be possible by full re‐processing and pre‐stack analysis, but more likely dedicated 4‐D acquisition would be required.     

Quality Appraisal of Surface Waters on Fennoscandian Territory

Widely applied bioindication methods are analyzed based on the survey data of 1980–1996 for over 400 lakes and 300 watercourses in the northeastern Fennoscandia known to experience anthropogenic impact (toxification, acidification, eutrophication, and thermofication). Representative results of hydrobiological analysis of the quality of surface waters in areas with mixed toxic pollution (or anthropogenic acidification) may be obtained if methods are applied, different from the bioindication methods that are now accepted as standard for Russia, along with methods of biotesting natural waters. The saprotoxibity index, Kola biotic index, acidification estimation scale, biotesting methods were developed and adapted to regional conditions.     

Retrieving earthquake signature in grace gravity solutions

The GRACE satellites have been orbiting the Earth since 2002, monitoring the time variable gravity field. Some of the observed fluctuations are due to geodynamic causes, but they are often hidden in the complex signal, composed of hydrology, ocean, atmosphere, and geodynamics, the signal of geodynamic origin being usually the smallest. In addition, dealiasing residuals and noise make the separation of the signal from the different causes more difficult. We proposed a method based on the Empirical Orthogonal Function decomposition to extract the signal of physical origin, under the hypothesis that the physical signal is spatially more consistent than the noise and aliasing incomplete correction. We used synthetic geoid variations associated with earthquakes located at nearly 2000 positions at the Earth surface, based on several examples of large actual subduction events. We show that, with the present day accuracy, we can retrieve the geoid variations associated with more than 98 per cent of the earthquakes of magnitude 9 or above, around 60 per cent for magnitude 8.8, 40 per cent for magnitude 8.6 and 33 per cent for magnitude 8.3. Some events, with the right properties and location, can be detected with magnitude as low as 8. We then applied the method to the GRACE solutions, and retrieved the Hokkaido event (2003) and the Sumatra event (2004), which is in agreement with the retrieval rates mentioned here above.     

Enhancing the Forecasting of Monthly Streamflow in the Main Key Stations of the River Nile Basin

Predicting the streamflow of rivers can have a significant economic impact, as this can help in agricultural water management and in providing protection from water shortages and possible flood damage. In this study, two statistical models have been used; Deseasonalized Autoregressive moving average model (DARMA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict monthly streamflow which important for reservoir operation policy using different time scale, monthly and 1/3 monthly (ten-days) flow data for River Nile basin at five key stations. The streamflow series is deseasonalized at different time scale and then an appropriate nonseasonal stochastic DARMA (p, q) models are built by using the plots of Partial Auto Correlation Function (PACF) to determine the order (p) of DARMA model. Then the deseasonalized data for key stations are used as input to ANN models with lags equals to the order (p) of DARMA model. The performance of ANN and DARMA models are compared using statistical methods. The results show that the developed model (using 1/3 monthly (ten-days) and ANN) has the best performance to predict monthly streamflow at all key stations. The results also show that the relative error in the developed model result did not exceed 9% while in the traditional models reach to 68% in the flood months in the testing period. The result also indicates that ANN has considerable potential for river flow forecasting.     

Phase relations in fluorine-bearing granite and nepheline syenite systems at 800°C and 1 kbar

The data obtained on the sodic part of the SiO₂-Al₂O₃-Na₂O-K₂O system with F at 800°C and 1 kbar provide the basis for constructing a phase diagram showing the region of an aluminosilicate melt. In this system, oxide and fluoride phases are identified that control the stability field of the melt and the solubility of F. Liquid immiscibility was detected in aluminous nepheline-and quartz-normative Li-bearing compositions (the latter compositions are characterized by a wider immiscibility field). Solubility of F was determined in an aluminosilicate melt saturated with respect to F, i.e., coexisting with phases rich in this element. The F concentrations in the glasses range from 2 to 20 wt %. The quartz-normative glasses are poorer in F (no more than 5 wt % F) than the nepheline-normative glasses (which contain mostly 5–10 wt % F). The maximum F concentrations (> 10 wt %) in the phase diagram lie on both sides of the albite composition point in the region of ultragpaitic nepheline-normative melts and in the region of normal syenite melts. Changes in the phase relations when Na is substituted for K were determined in the quartz-normative silicate melt.     

Transport rate of calcareous sand in unidirectional flow

This paper examines the transport of calcareous sand in unidirectional flow and its prediction through existing sediment transport models. A flume experiment of four sand samples collected on Oahu, Hawaii, provides 29 sets of sediment transport data in the bed-form and suspended transport stages. The measured transport data are compared with direct predictions from four energy-based transport models developed for siliceous particles. Corrections for the grain-size, fall velocity, and critical velocity of calcareous sand based on recent research are applied to the models and the results are compared with the direct calculations and measured data. The comparison illustrates the important role particle shape plays in the transport of calcareous sand. All four sediment transport models give consistent predictions and good agreement with the majority of the measured data. Two of the models respond positively to the corrections in both the bed-form and suspended transport stages indicating that such an approach may provide an interim solution for the transport of calcareous sand.     

Surface Energy Exchanges during Pre-monsoon Thunderstorm Activity over a Tropical Station Kharagpur

In the present study an attempt has been made to understand the variation of surface energy fluxes such as net radiation, sensible, latent and soil heat during different epochs of thunderstorm activity at Kharagpur. The study also focuses in delineating the difference in the surface energy budget from the days of thunderstorm activity to fair weather days in the pre-monsoon months (April and May) which is locally known as thunderstorm season. For this purpose, experimental data obtained from the Severe Thunderstorms- Observations and Regional Modeling (STORM) programme during pre-monsoon months of 2007, 2009 and 2010 at Kharagpur (22°30′N, 87°20′E), West Bengal, India are used. The present study reveals quick response, in the order of a few days, in the variations of transport of energy fluxes at soil-atmosphere interface to the upper atmosphere vis-à-vis to the occurrence of thunderstorm activity. Rise of surface sensible heat flux to the level of surface latent heat flux a day or two before the occurrence of a thunderstorm has been identified as a precursor signal for the thunderstorm occurrence over Kharagpur. Distinguishable differences are found in the partitioning of the surface energy fluxes to that of net radiation between thunderstorm and non-thunderstorm days. The present study reveals more Bowen’s ratio during thunderstorm days to that of nonthunderstorm days. These results are useful in validating mesoscale model simulations of thunderstorm activity.