Recent climatic trends and linkages to river discharge in Central Vietnam

In this study, change in rainfall, temperature and river discharge are analysed over the last three decades in Central Vietnam. Trends and rainfall indices are evaluated using non‐parametric tests at different temporal levels. To overcome the sparse locally available network, the high resolution APHRODITE gridded dataset is used in addition to the existing rain gauges. Finally, existing linkages between discharge changes and trends in rainfall and temperature are explored. Results are indicative of an intensification of rainfall (+15%/decade), with more extreme and longer events. A significant increase in winter rainfall and a decrease in consecutive dry days provides strong evidence for a lengthening wet season in Central Vietnam. In addition, trends based on APHRODITE suggest a strong orographic signal in winter and annual trends. These results underline the local variability in the impacts of climatic change at the global scale. Consequently, it is important that change detection investigations are conducted at the local scale. A very weak signal is detected in the trend of minimum temperature (+0.2°C/decade). River discharge trends show an increase in mean discharge (31 to 35%/decade) over the last decades. Between 54 and 74% of this increase is explained by the increase in precipitation. The maximum discharge also responds significantly to precipitation changes leading to a lengthened wet season and an increase in extreme rainfall events. Such trends can be linked with a likely increase in floods in Central Vietnam, which is important for future adaptation planning and management and flood preparedness in the region. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Internal structures and high-velocity frictional properties of Longmenshan fault zone at Shenxigou activated during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake

This paper reports internal structures of a wide fault zone at Shenxigou, Dujiangyan, Sichuan province, China, and high-velocity frictional properties of the fault gouge collected near the coseismic slip zone during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. Vertical offset and horizontal displacement at the trench site were 2.8 m (NW side up) and 4.8 m (right-lateral), respectively. The fault zone formed in Triassic sandstone, siltstone, and shale about 500 m away from the Yingxiu-Beichuan fault, a major fault in the Longmenshan fault system. A trench survey across the coseismic fault, and observations of outcrops and drill cores down to a depth of 57 m revealed that the fault zone consists of fault gouge and fault breccia of about 0.5 and 250–300 m in widths, respectively, and that the fault strikes N62°E and dips 68° to NW. Quaternary conglomerates were recovered beneath the fault in the drilling, so that the fault moved at least 55 m along the coseismic slip zone, experiencing about 18 events of similar sizes. The fault core is composed of grayish gouge (GG) and blackish gouge (BG) with very complex slip-zone structures. BG contains low-crystalline graphite of about 30 %. High-velocity friction experiments were conducted at normal stresses of 0.6–2.1 MPa and slip rates of 0.1–2.1 m/s. Both GG and BG exhibit dramatic slip weakening at constant high slip rates that can be described as an exponential decay from peak friction coefficient μ _p to steady-state friction coefficient μ _ss over a slip-weakening distance D _c. Deformation of GG and BG is characterized by overlapped slip-zone structures and development of sharp slickenside surfaces, respectively. Comparison of our data with those reported for other outcrops indicates that the high-velocity frictional properties of the Longmenshan fault zones are quite uniform and the high-velocity weakening must have promoted dynamic rupture propagation during the Wenchuan earthquake.     

An efficient method for selecting and scaling ground motions matching target response spectrum mean and variance

The purpose of this study is to propose an accurate and efficient method for selecting and scaling ground motions matching target response spectrum mean and variance, which does not require excessive computation and simulation. In the proposed method, a desired number of ground motions are sequentially scaled and selected from a ground motion library without iterations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Applications of Savitzky-Golay Filter for Seismic Random Noise Reduction

This article utilizes Savitzky–Golay (SG) filter to eliminate seismic random noise. This is a novel method for seismic random noise reduction in which SG filter adopts piecewise weighted polynomial via leastsquares estimation. Therefore, effective smoothing is achieved in extracting the original signal from noise environment while retaining the shape of the signal as close as possible to the original one. Although there are lots of classical methods such as Wiener filtering and wavelet denoising applied to eliminate seismic random noise, the SG filter outperforms them in approximating the true signal. SG filter will obtain a good tradeoff in waveform smoothing and valid signal preservation under suitable conditions. These are the appropriate window size and the polynomial degree. Through examples from synthetic seismic signals and field seismic data, we demonstrate the good performance of SG filter by comparing it with the Wiener filtering and wavelet denoising methods.     

A cross-system analysis of sedimentary organic carbon in the mangrove ecosystems of Xuan Thuy National Park, Vietnam

A cross-system analysis of bulk sediment composition, total organic carbon (TOC), atomic C/N ratio, and carbon isotope composition (δ¹³C) in 82 surface sediment samples from natural and planted mangrove forests, bank and bottom of tidal creeks, tidal flat, and the subtidal habitat was conducted to examine the roles of mangroves in sedimentation and organic carbon (OC) accumulation processes, and to characterize sources of sedimentary OC of the mangrove ecosystem of Xuan Thuy National Park, Vietnam. Sediment grain sizes varied widely from 5.4 to 170.2 μm (mean 71.5 μm), with the fine sediment grain size fraction (< 63 μm) ranging from 11 to 99.3% (mean 72.5%). Bulk sediment composition suggested that mangroves play an important role in trapping fine sediments from river outflows and tidal water by the mechanisms of tidal current attenuation by vegetation and the ability of fine roots to bind sediments. The TOC content ranged from 0.08 to 2.18% (mean 0.78%), and was higher within mangrove forests compared to those of banks and bottoms of tidal creeks, tidal flat, and subtidal sediments. The sedimentary δ¹³C ranged from − 27.7 to − 20.4‰ (mean − 24.1‰), and mirrored the trend observed in TOC variation. The TOC and δ¹³C relationship showed that the factors of microbial remineralization and OC sources controlled the TOC pool of mangrove sediments. The comparison of δ¹³C and C/N ratio of sedimentary OC with those of mangrove and marine phytoplankton sources indicated that the sedimentary OC within mangrove forests and the subtidal habitat was mainly composed of mangrove and marine phytoplankton sources, respectively. The application of a simple mixing model showed that the mangrove contribution to sedimentary OC decreased as follows: natural mangrove forest > planted mangrove forest > tidal flat > creek bank > creek bottom > subtidal habitat.     

Applying conservation easement policy to river spaces to mitigate natural hazards in South Korea

Natural Hazards - The purpose of the study was to evaluate the feasibility and efficiency of conservation easements as an alternative to existing policy for mitigating natural hazards by surveying...     

Using ADV backscatter strength for measuring suspended cohesive sediment concentration

Laboratory experiments were conducted at two institutes to reveal the relationship between acoustic backscatter strength and suspended sediment concentration (SSC). In total, three acoustic Doppler velocimeters (ADVs) with different frequencies (5, 10 and 16 MHz) were tested. Two different commercial clays and one natural sediment from Clay Bank site in the York River were checked for acoustic responses. The SSCs of selected sediments were artificially changed between a selected low and a high value in tap or de-ion water. Each ADV showed quite different backscatter responses depending on the sediment type and SSC. Not all devices had a good linear relationship between backscatter strength and SSC. Within a limited range of SSC, however, the backscatter strength can be well correlated with the SSC. Compared with optical backscattering sensor (OBS), the fluctuation of ADV backscatter signals was too noisy to be directly converted to the instantaneous changes of SSC due to high amplification ratio and small sampling volume. For the more accurate signal conversion for finding the fluctuation of SSC, the ensemble average should be applied to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. There are unexpected responses for the averaged backscatter wave strength: (1) high signals from small particles but low signals from large particles; and (2) two linear segments in calibration slope. These phenomena would be most likely caused by the different gain setting built in ADVs. The different acoustic responses to flocculation might also contribute somewhat if flocs are tightly packed. This study suggests that an ADV could be a useful instrument to estimate suspended cohesive sediment concentration and its fluctuation if the above concerns are clarified.     

青海省海西州大柴旦6.3级地震房屋震害调查与分析

2008年11月10日,在青海省海西蒙古族藏族自治州大柴旦发生了6．3级地震,地震波及德令哈市、大柴旦行委和格尔木市等地区,在地震灾区各类房屋遭受了不同程度的破坏。本文结合地震现场灾害调查结果,对灾区的几种房屋类型进行了震害现象分析,并剖析了产生破坏的原因,对今后灾区房屋重建和抗震减灾具有一定的启示作用。