Evaluation of the real-time TRMM-based multi-satellite precipitation analysis for an operational flood prediction system in Nzoia Basin,Lake Victoria,Africa

Many researchers seek to take advantage of the recently available and virtually uninterrupted supply of satellite-based rainfall information as an alternative and supplement to the ground-based observations in order to implement a cost-effective flood prediction in many under-gauged regions around the world. Recently, NASA Applied Science Program has partnered with USAID and African-RCMRD to implement an operational water-hazard warning system, SERVIR-Africa. The ultimate goal of the project is to build up disaster management capacity in East Africa by providing local governmental officials and international aid organizations a practical decision-support tool in order to better assess emerging flood impacts and to quantify spatial extent of flood risk, as well as to respond to such flood emergencies more expediently. The objective of this article is to evaluate the applicability of integrating NASA’s standard satellite precipitation product with a flood prediction model for disaster management in Nzoia, sub-basin of Lake Victoria, Africa. This research first evaluated the TMPA real-time rainfall data against gauged rainfall data from the year 2002 through 2006. Then, the gridded Xinanjiang Model was calibrated to Nzoia basin for period of 1985–2006. Benchmark streamflow simulations were produced with the calibrated hydrological model using the rain gauge and observed streamflow data. Afterward, continuous discharge predictions forced by TMPA 3B42RT real-time data from 2002 through 2006 were simulated, and acceptable results were obtained in comparison with the benchmark performance according to the designated statistic indices such as bias ratio (20%) and NSCE (0.67). Moreover, it is identified that the flood prediction results were improved with systematically bias-corrected TMPA rainfall data with less bias (3.6%) and higher NSCE (0.71). Although the results justify to suggest to us that TMPA real-time data can be acceptably used to drive hydrological models for flood prediction purpose in Nzoia basin, continuous progress in space-borne rainfall estimation technology toward higher accuracy and higher spatial resolution is highly appreciated. Finally, it is also highly recommended that to increase flood forecasting lead time, more reliable and more accurate short- or medium-range quantitative precipitation forecasts is a must.     

Stratigraphic and geochemical study of the organic-rich black shales in the Tarcău Nappe of the Moldavidian Domain (Carpathian Chain,Romania)

An integrated stratigraphic analysis has been made of the Tarcău Nappe (Moldavidian Domain, Eastern Romanian Carpathians), coupled with a geochemical study of organic-rich beds. Two Main Sequence Boundaries (Early Oligocene and near to the Oligocene–Aquitanian boundary, respectively) divide the sedimentary record into three depositional sequences. The sedimentation occurred in the central area of a basin supplied by different and opposite sources. The high amount of siliciclastics at the beginning of the Miocene marks the activation of the “foredeep stage”. The successions studied are younger than previously thought and they more accurately date the deformation of the different Miocene phases affecting the Moldavidian Basin. The intervals with black shales identified are related to two main separate anoxic episodes with an age not older than Late Rupelian and not before Late Chattian. The most important organic-rich beds correspond to the Lower Menilites, Bituminous Marls and Lower Dysodilic Shales Members (Interval 2). These constitute a good potential source rock for petroleum, with homogeneous Type II oil-prone organic matter, highly lipidic and thermally immature. The deposition of black shales has been interpreted as occurring within a deep, periodically isolated and tectonically controlled basin.     

Retention studies of chromium (VI) from aqueous solution on the surface of a novel carbonaceous material

In the present study, the retention capacity of carbonaceous material obtained from the diesel engine exhaust mufflers for Cr(VI) removal has been investigated. The physicochemical properties such as density, pH of aqueous slurry, pH at point of zero charge, ash content, moisture content, volatile matter, surface area, scanning electron microscopy and electron dispersive spectroscopy of the carbonaceous material were determined. The capacity of adsorbent for removal of Cr(VI) from aqueous solution was observed under different experimental condition like contact time, initial concentration of metal ions, pH and temperatures on the adsorption capacity of the adsorbent. Maximum adsorption of Cr(VI) ions was found at low pH. The adsorption process was found to follow second-order kinetics. The rate constant was evaluated at different temperatures along with other thermodynamic parameters like activation energy, Gibbs free energy change, enthalpy change and entropy change. Both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms were used to describe the adsorption equilibrium of carbonaceous material at different temperatures. Langmuir isotherm shows better fit than Freundlich isotherm at given conditions. The result shows that low-cost carbonaceous material from diesel engine exhaust mufflers can be efficiently used for wastewater treatment containing Cr(VI) ions.     

Relationship between geo-structural evolution and development of karstic systems in the culminating area of Ouarsenis (West Algeria)

The Ouarsenis area is one of the most developed karstic systems of Algeria. It is a karst reservoir drinking water with a population of more than 50,000 people taking fully benefit from it. To understand the development of this karstic system, the local tectonic history of the four main mountain ranges of this culminating area (Ouarsenis) has been analyzed. Although previously identified primarily Cenozoic tectonic activities have been observed, a set of NW-SE joints intersecting the Jurassic limestone has been associated to a post-nappes tectonic events. Moreover, numerous joint sets oriented NNE/SSW have been identified almost over the entire culminating area. These joints are the direct consequence of the following stress history: (i) a NW/SE shortening responsible for a major overlap and the first fold (P1) phase, (ii) a second NNE/SSW shortening stage responsible for the second folding (P2) phase associated with 70° N sinistral strike-slip trend, (iii) a WNW/ESE extension phase resulting from the change of σ ₃ stress vertical axis, and (iv) a shearing stress creating a 120° N sinistral strike-slip fault. Only the late phases are responsible of the development of joints, which have been karstified later on. Indeed, significant families of karstified joints, i.e., 20° and 70° N have been found. These joints are related to the extensional and shearing modes, respectively, and linked to a particular in situ karstogenesis. Moreover, this study suggests an ancient establishment of the karstic systems in the Ouarsenis region in at least two stages: pre-figured and activated behaviors during the Cenozoic.     

Evaluation of TMPA satellite-based research and real-time rainfall estimates during six tropical-related heavy rainfall events over Louisiana, USA

This study focuses on the evaluation of 3-hourly 0.25° × 0.25° satellite-based rainfall estimates produced by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA). The evaluation is performed during six heavy rainfall events that were generated by tropical storms passing over Louisiana, United States. Two surface-based rainfall datasets from gauge and radar observations are used as a ground reference for evaluating the real-time (RT) version of the TMPA product and the post-real-time bias adjusted research version. The evaluation analysis is performed at the native temporal and spatial scales of the TMPA products, 3-hourly and 0.25° × 0.25°. Several graphical and statistical techniques are applied to characterize the deviation of the TMPA estimates from the reference datasets. Both versions of the TMPA products track reasonably well the temporal evolution and fluctuations of surface rainfall during the analyzed storms with moderate to high correlation values of 0.5–0.8. The TMPA estimates reported reasonable levels of rainfall detection especially when light rainfall rates are excluded. On a storm scale, the TMPA products are characterized by varying degrees of bias which was mostly within ± 25% and ± 50% for the research and RT products, respectively. Analysis of the error distribution indicated that, on average, the TMPA products tend to overestimate small rain rates and underestimate large rain rates. Compared to the real-time estimates, the research product shows significant improvement in the overall and conditional bias, and in the correlation coefficients, with slight deterioration in the probability of detecting rainfall occurrences. A fair agreement in terms of reproducing the tail of the distribution of rain rates (i.e., probability of surface rainfall exceeding certain thresholds) was observed especially for the RT estimates. Despite the apparent differences with surface rainfall estimates, the results reported in this study highlight the TMPA potential as a valuable resource of high-resolution rainfall information over many areas in the world that lack capabilities for monitoring landfalling tropical storms.     

Production of gaseous pore pressure during rock slides

SummaryProduction of Gaseous Pore Pressure During Rock Slides When a rock mass slips, the local heating of the slip surface transforms pore water into vapour if the surface of failure is deep enough. It is possible to calculate, as a first approximation, a critical displacement of the mass necessary to create vapour in the slide zone. A second approximation gives the relation between critical displacement and rate of shear displacement as the slide mass creeps towards catastrophe.

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ZusammenfassungBildung eines gasförmigen Porendrucks während Gleitungen im Fels Bei Einstürzen einer Gesteinsmasse kann das Porenwasser durch die lokale Wärmeabfuhr an der Rutschfläche in Dampf umgewandelt werden, falls die Bruchfläche tief genug ist.In einer ersten Annäherung kann die kritische Verschiebung der Masse errechnet werden. In einer zweiten Annäherung kann eine Beziehung zwischen der kritischen Verschiebung und der Verschiebungsgeschwindigkeit hergestellt werden.

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RésuméFormation d'une pression interstitielle de gas lors d'un glissement d'une masse rocheuse Quand un massif rocheux s'écroule, la dissipation de chaleur localisée dans la surface de glissement peut transformer l'eau interstitielle en vapeur si la surface de rupture est suffisamment profonde. Dans une première approximation on peut calculer un déplacement critique du massif. Dans une deuxième approximation on peut obtenir une relation entre le déplacement critique et la vitesse de déplacement.

     

Line-based modified iterated Hough transform for automatic registration of multi-source imagery

Image registration aims at combining imagery from multiple sensors to achieve higher accuracy and derive more information than that obtained from a single sensor. The enormous increase in the volume of remotely sensed data that is being acquired by an ever-growing number of earth observation satellites mandates the development of accurate, robust, and automated registration procedures. An effective automatic image registration has to deal with four issues: registration primitives, transformation function, similarity measure, and matching strategy. This paper introduces a new approach for automatic image registration using linear features as the registration primitives. Linear features have been chosen because they can be reliably extracted from imagery with significantly different geometric and radiometric properties. The modified iterated Hough transform (MIHT), which manipulates the registration primitives and similarity measure, is used as the matching strategy for automatically deriving an estimate of the parameters involved in the transformation function as well as the correspondence between conjugate primitives. The MIHT procedure follows an optimal sequence for parameter estimation that takes into account the contribution of linear features with different orientations at various locations within the imagery towards the estimation of the transformation parameters in question. Experimental results using real data proved the feasibility and robustness of the suggested approach.