Korea has no water scarcity!

Water scarcity has been an important issue for many countries. The water scarcity is still growing in some region but may be exacerbated by recent climate change. Both international and domestic reports classified Korea into water scarcity country on the basis of Falkenmark indicator. Korea, however, missed the concept of green water in calculating their annual renewable water resources per capita and erroneously defined them as water scarcity country. A new calculation shows that Korea has no water scarcity with 1712 m³ of annual renewable water resource per capita. Wrong information in Korea was badly used for political propagation and private purpose. This may be happening to other countries. Water resources experts need to include the concept of green water in reanalyzing the annual renewable water resources to provide decision-makers with acceptable guideline. Decision should be made with more reliable ground.     

Alternative Areal Decompositions: An Empirical Study

This article compares area data representation with several areal decomposition alternatives in order to determine any improvement to efficiency at the expense of accuracy. This article utilizes the Voronoi diagram as an underlying base data model, combines polygon partitioning and the Voronoi diagram to provide several alternative hybrid areal decompositions, and empirically examines the efficiency and effectiveness performance of these alternatives for popular GIS operations: geometrical, topological and reclassification operations. Experimental results reveal that most areal decomposition alternatives are likely to produce significant benefits in time efficiency while generating different levels of accuracy.     

Evaluation of the seismic performance of a three‐story ordinary moment‐resisting concrete frame

This study focuses on the seismic performance of Ordinary Moment‐Resisting Concrete Frames (OMRCF) designed only for gravity loads. For this purpose, a 3‐story OMRCF was designed in compliance with the minimum design requirements in the American Concrete Institute Building Code ACI 318 (1999). This model frame was a regular structure with flexure‐dominated response. A 1/3‐scale 3‐story model was constructed and tested under quasi‐static reversed cyclic lateral loading. The overall behavior of the OMRCF was quite stable without abrupt strength degradation. The measured base shear strength was larger than the design base shear force for seismic zones 1, 2A and 2B calculated using UBC 1997. Moreover, this study used the capacity spectrum method to evaluate the seismic performance of the frame. The capacity curve was obtained from the experimental results for the specimen and the demand curve was established using the earthquake ground motions recorded at various stations with different soil conditions. Evaluation of the test results shows that the 3‐story OMRCF can resist design seismic loads of zones 1, 2A, 2B, 3 and 4 with soil types S_A and S_B . For soil type S_C , the specimen was satisfactory in seismic zones 1, 2A, 2B and 3. For soil type S_D , the OMRCF was only satisfactory for seismic zones 1 and 2A. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Temporal and spatial variations in nutrient stoichiometry and regulation of phytoplankton biomass in Hong Kong waters: influence of the Pearl River outflow and sewage inputs

In 2001, the Hong Kong government implemented the Harbor Area Treatment Scheme (HATS) under which 70% of the sewage that had been formerly discharged into Victoria Harbor is now collected and sent to Stonecutters Island Sewage Works where it receives chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT), and is then discharged into waters west of the Harbor. The relocation of the sewage discharge will possibly change the nutrient dynamics and phytoplankton biomass in this area. Therefore, there is a need to examine the factors that regulate phytoplankton growth in Hong Kong waters in order to understand future impacts. Based on a historic nutrient data set (1986-2001), a comparison of ambient nutrient ratios with the Redfield ratio (N:P:Si=16:1:16) showed clear spatial variations in the factors that regulate phytoplankton biomass along a west (estuary) to east (coastal/oceanic) transect through Hong Kong waters. Algal biomass was constrained by a combination of low light conditions, a rapid change in salinity, and strong turbulent mixing in western waters throughout the year. Potential stoichiometric Si limitation (up to 94% of the cases in winter) occurred in Victoria Harbor due to the contribution of sewage effluent with high N and P enrichment all year, except for summer when the frequency of stoichiometric Si limitation (48%) was the same as P, owing to the influence of the high Si in the Pearl River discharge. In the eastern waters, potential N limitation and N and P co-limitation occurred in autumn and winter respectively, because of the dominance of coastal/oceanic water with low nutrients and low N:P ratios. In contrast, potential Si limitation occurred in spring and a switch to potential N, P and Si limitation occurred in eastern waters in summer. In southern waters, there was a shift from P limitation (80%) in summer due to the influence of the N-rich Pearl River discharge, to N limitation (68%) in autumn, and to N and P co-limitation in winter due to the dominance of N-poor oceanic water from the oligotrophic South China Sea. Our results show clear temporal and spatial variations in the nutrient stoichiometry which indicates potential regulation of phytoplankton biomass in HK waters due to the combination of the seasonal exchange of the Pearl River discharge and oceanic water, sewage effluent inputs, and strong hydrodynamic mixing from SW monsoon winds in summer and the NE monsoon winds in winter.     

Command and control cities in global space-economy before and after 2008 geo-economic transition

The global economic downturn caused primarily by the US sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2007 engendered revenue loss of the multinational corporations.Existing studies have yet to depict the detrimental impacts on city’s command and control functions induced by the sub-prime mortgage crisis together with its residual wave of global economic recession on the global spatial economy.Recent and previous studies have produced an ’instant history’ of the global spatial economy before the global economic downturn undermines the global economy in late 2008.However,the waxes and wanes of major cities’ command and control functions on the global economic arena before and after the outbreak of financial crisis and its associated geo-economic transitions are still poorly understood.This paper attempts to contribute a new set of customized data to update and fill in the gap in the literature with the investigation of the command and control functions of cities around the world from 2005 to 2009.Particular attentions are paid to the time-space relationship of the geo-economic transition that can capture the recent historical images of the command and control situation of different cities in the world.     

Development of internet-based ship technical information management system

In this paper, internet-based ship technical information management system has been developed as a means to accumulate, manage, share and utilize various distributed applications and information used for ship design and building. The information managed in the system is documents from the whole life cycle including concept design, basic design, detailed design, construction, operation and maintenance. In addition, using the developed system, integrated system framework is also proposed to integrate applications and database in concurrent engineering environment.     

A Study of the hydrogeological environment of the lishan landslide area using resistivity image profiling and borehole data

Resistivity Image Profiling (RIP) surveys was used to develop a lithological and hydrogeological model of the subsurface in the southeastern part of Lishan landslide area of central Taiwan. The bedrock consists of slate in the study area. Based on RIP and rock samples collected from boreholes results, three electrical strata are recognized: colluvium, the shear zone composed of shear gouges and shattered slate, and the undisturbed slate formation. The steep shear zone with resistivity ranging between 100 ~ 260 Ω-m, plays a crucial role in the local hydrogeological environment, because it forms a natural barrier which blocks and retains groundwater flowing down the slope. Groundwater will brim over the barrier when the water level is high. Thus the inclined groundwater table remains stable from long-term monitoring. It strongly indicates that the groundwater recharge is greater than that of discharge. Therefore, the shear zone can provide information about the optimum locations for draining the excess groundwater in-situ for slope stability consideration.

The curved basal surface of the colluvium and the weathered slate can also be discerned from the resistivity variations and boreholes data. A series of circular patterns may associate with the main slope failure which migrated upwards from the lower slope.     

The Winchcombe meteorite—A regolith breccia from a rubble pile CM chondrite asteroid

The Winchcombe meteorite is a CM chondrite breccia composed of eight distinct lithological units plus a cataclastic matrix. The degree of aqueous alteration varies between intensely altered CM2.0 and moderately altered CM2.6. Although no lithology dominates, three heavily altered rock types (CM2.1–2.3) represent >70 area%. Tochilinite–cronstedtite intergrowths (TCIs) are common in several lithologies. Their compositions can vary significantly, even within a single lithology, which can prevent a clear assessment of alteration extent if only TCI composition is considered. We suggest that this is due to early alteration under localized geochemical microenvironments creating a diversity of compositions and because later reprocessing was incomplete, leaving a record of the parent body's fluid history. In Winchcombe, the fragments of primary accretionary rock are held within a cataclastic matrix (~15 area%). This material is impact-derived fallback debris. Its grain size and texture suggest that the disruption of the original parent asteroid responded by intergranular fracture at grain sizes <100 μm, while larger phases, such as whole chondrules, splintered apart. Re-accretion formed a poorly lithified body. During atmospheric entry, the Winchcombe meteoroid broke apart with new fractures preferentially cutting through the weaker cataclastic matrix and separating the breccia into its component clasts. The strength of the cataclastic matrix imparts a control on the survival of CM chondrite meteoroids. Winchcombe's unweathered state and diversity of lithologies make it an ideal sample for exploring the geological history of the CM chondrite group.     

Sediment indicators of meromixis: comparison of laminations, diatoms, and sediment chemistry in Brownie Lake, Minneapolis, USA

Meromixis has several powerful effects on lakes, yet there is no single definitive sediment indicator of meromixis. In this study three sediment indicators of meromixis were compared in Brownie Lake, Minneapolis, Minnesota, a small eutrophic lake that became meromictic around 1925. The results show that in Brownie the onset of laminations and changes in the iron to manganese ratio most likely occurred before the development of permanently anoxic bottom water and that changes in the diatom assemblage occurred later, most likely only when meromixis was well developed.This is the 11th in a series of papers published in this special AMQUA issue. These papers were presented at the 1994 meeting of the American Quaternary Association held 19–22 June, 1994, at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Dr Linda C. K. Shane served as guest editor for these papers.