Landslide Research at the British Geological Survey:Capture,Storage and Interpretation on a National and Site-Specific Scale

Abstract: Landslide research at the British Geological Survey (BGS) is carried out through a number of activities, including surveying, database development and real-time monitoring of landslides. Landslide mapping across the UK has been carried out since BGS started geological mapping in 1835. Today, BGS geologists use a combination of remote sensing and ground-based investigations to survey landslides. The development of waterproof tablet computers (BGS·SIGMAmobile), with inbuilt GPS and GIS for field data capture provides an accurate and rapid mapping methodology for field surveys. Regional and national mapping of landslides is carried out in conjunction with site-specific monitoring, using terrestrial LiDAR and differential GPS technologies, which BGS has successfully developed for this application. In addition to surface monitoring, BGS is currently developing geophysical ground-imaging systems for landslide monitoring, which provide real-time information on subsurface changes prior to failure events. BGS’s mapping and monitoring activities directly feed into the BGS National Landslide Database, the most extensive source of information on landslides in Great Britain. It currently holds over 14?000 records of landslide events. By combining BGS’s corporate datasets with expert knowledge, BGS has developed a landslide hazard assessment tool, GeoSure, which provides information on the relative landslide hazard susceptibility at national scale.     

Interannual variability in glacier contribution to runoff from a high‐elevation Andean catchment: understanding the role of debris cover in glacier hydrology

We present a field‐data rich modelling analysis to reconstruct the climatic forcing, glacier response, and runoff generation from a high‐elevation catchment in central Chile over the period 2000–2015 to provide insights into the differing contributions of debris‐covered and debris‐free glaciers under current and future changing climatic conditions. Model simulations with the physically based glacio‐hydrological model TOPKAPI‐ETH reveal a period of neutral or slightly positive mass balance between 2000 and 2010, followed by a transition to increasingly large annual mass losses, associated with a recent mega drought. Mass losses commence earlier, and are more severe, for a heavily debris‐covered glacier, most likely due to its strong dependence on snow avalanche accumulation, which has declined in recent years. Catchment runoff shows a marked decreasing trend over the study period, but with high interannual variability directly linked to winter snow accumulation, and high contribution from ice melt in dry periods and drought conditions. The study demonstrates the importance of incorporating local‐scale processes such as snow avalanche accumulation and spatially variable debris thickness, in understanding the responses of different glacier types to climate change. We highlight the increased dependency of runoff from high Andean catchments on the diminishing resource of glacier ice during dry years.     

Hydrocarbons in bivalve mollusks of Port Valdez, Alaska: Consequences of five years' permitted discharge

Petroleum hydrocarbons were investigated in Mytilus edulis and Macoma balthica at six intertidal sites in Port Valdez, Alaska after three to five years of oil terminal operation. Information about the concentrations of total hydrocarbons, unresolved complex mixture, normal alkanes, isoprenoids, olefins, hopanes and polycyclic aromatic hyrocarbons shows that petroleum accumulation in these bivalve mollusks is greatest at the Valdez municipal boat harbor and a crude oil terminal which has been permitted to discharge 170 kg oil day⁻¹. Accumulation two- to ten-fold less were observed at 3 km from the terminal and boat harbor. The temporal trends in petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations in M. edulis and M. balthica reflect the effects of selective retention and depuration of different hydrocarbon classes as well as variation in hydrocarbon sources. It is not clear whether the petroleum concentrations in Port Valdez bivalves had reached steady state by 1982, the final sampling time reported here.     

Measurement of nitric oxide in the stratosphere between 17·4 and 22·9 km

On 16 March 1973, the York U./U.S.U. chemiluminescent nitric oxide instrument was flown successfully from Hollomon Air Force Base, New Mexico, 32° 50·1′ N lat. The instrument was operated between 17:40 and 22:05UT. Most of the measurements were carried out during three ascent, float and descent cycles between 17·4 and 22·9 km. Within the uncertainty of the measurements no differences were seen among results obtained during ascent, float and descent mode, which indicated that there were no major sampling problems resulting from contamination of the atmosphere. The NO mixing ratio was found to be 0·1 ppb v/v with an accuracy of 60 per cent. No change was observed within this accuracy over the small altitude range investigated.     

Globalising initiatives for gender equality and poverty reduction: Exploring ‘failure’ with reference to education and work among urban youth in The Gambia and Ghana

This paper focuses on what observers have perceived to be a failure of development leading to a ‘crisis of youth’ as increasing numbers of young people find it more difficult to gain education, access to health, a job and meet standard of living aspirations. For some, a possible escape is offered by migration to Europe, the United States or Australia, often illegally. For those remaining behind, however, international development agencies offer a ‘globalisation of solutions’ to employment, gender inequality and poverty through the millennium development goals and the programmes to attain them. In this paper we do not take the failures of development at face value but look at local contexts to present a more complex picture of the relation between education, work and social life. Based on fieldwork conducted in urban areas of The Gambia and Ghana, we argue that rather than education as a catch-all solution we need to give more attention to the costs incurred by and for young people in pursuing education and training, to the operation of and actual opportunities in labour markets, and to patterns of gender socialisation which give women limited scope to exercise agency. This paper explores key gender dimensions of work and education among low-income urban youth noting that despite on-going efforts to increase young women’s enrolment in schools and access to employment, gender inequalities have been far from eradicated. Our field interviews reveal how social expectations that women should perform the bulk of reproductive labour in their youth as well as in adulthood and constraints placed on young women’s personal freedom in respect of their social relationships reduce time dedicated to education and establish fewer contacts relevant to securing paid employment. The result is for men to end up with more educational qualifications, more skills, and higher-paying jobs, even if unemployment among young people in general remains a major problem.     

Large Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebula Morphology: Probing Stellar Populations and Evolution

Planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) offer the unique opportunity to study both the population and evolution of low- and intermediate-mass stars, by means of the morphological type of the nebula. Using observations from our LMC PN morphological survey, and including images available in the Hubble Space Telescope Data Archive and published chemical abundances, we find that asymmetry in PNe is strongly correlated with a younger stellar population, as indicated by the abundance of elements that are unaltered by stellar evolution (Ne, Ar, and S). While similar results have been obtained for Galactic PNe, this is the first demonstration of the relationship for extragalactic PNe. We also examine the relation between morphology and abundance of the products of stellar evolution. We found that asymmetric PNe have higher nitrogen and lower carbon abundances than symmetric PNe. Our two main results are broadly consistent with the predictions of stellar evolution if the progenitors of asymmetric PNe have on average larger masses than the progenitors of symmetric PNe. The results bear on the question of formation mechanisms for asymmetric PNe-specifically, that the genesis of PNe structure should relate strongly to the population type, and by inference the mass, of the progenitor star and less strongly on whether the central star is a member of a close binary system.     

Climate disaster resilience of the education sector in Thua Thien Hue Province, Central Vietnam

Recognizing the importance of building disaster resilience for education sector, this study aims to develop a methodology to measure the level of educational resilience to cope with natural disasters and is then applied in Central Vietnam. The assessment tool in this paper is developed through a combination of climate disaster resilience indexes and the 16 tasks of Hyogo framework for action designed for education sector. It looks at five dimensions namely physical conditions, human resources, institutional issues, external relationships, and natural conditions, with each dimension characterized by three parameters and five variables. Findings from this study provide important insights into enhancing resilience of the education system in Thua Thien Hue at the provincial, local, and school levels. By giving the overall resilience situation, it can help policy-makers and practitioners in developing an effective plan to increase the level of educational resilience. In addition, it provides the School Management Board with a means to assess the school??s resilience level and set out priorities that need to be focused on with regard to the improvement of school safety and disaster risk reduction education.     

Magnetostratigraphy and palaeoclimatic significance of Late Tertiary aeolian sequences in the Chinese Loess Plateau

The aeolian Red Clay sequence in the central part of the Chinese Loess Plateau was investigated in an attempt to obtain magnetostratigraphic and palaeoclimatic records. From the results, we deduce that aeolian dust accumulation and the related East Asia palaeomonsoon system began at least 7.6  Myr ago, and that the Tibetan Plateau had reached a significant elevation by that time. The Late Tertiary palaeoclimatic history of the Red Clay as reflected by magnetic susceptibility is reconstructed for the time period 7.6–2.5  Ma. Increases in aeolian dust accumulation for the last 7.6  Myr appear to have a close relation with the uplift processes of the Tibetan Plateau. The remarkable increase of aeolian dust accumulation beginning at 3.2  Ma appears to reflect the influence of an increasing global ice volume on the East Asian monsoon and aeolian dust accumulation.