Assessment of regional drought vulnerability and risk using principal component analysis and a Gaussian mixture model

Due to the complex characteristics of drought, drought risk needs to be quantified by combining drought vulnerability and drought hazard. Recently, the major focus in drought vulnerability has been on how to calculate the weights of indicators to comprehensively quantify drought risk. In this study, principal component analysis (PCA), a Gaussian mixture model (GMM), and the equal-weighting method (EWM) were applied to objectively determine the weights for drought vulnerability assessment in Chungcheong Province, located in the west-central part of South Korea. The PCA provided larger weights for agricultural and industrial factors, whereas the GMM computed larger weights for agricultural factors than did the EWM. The drought risk was assessed by combining the drought vulnerability index (DVI) and the drought hazard index (DHI). Based on the DVI, the most vulnerable region was CCN9 in the northwestern part of the province, whereas the most drought-prone region based on the DHI was CCN12 in the southwest. Considering both DVI and DHI, the regions with the highest risk were CCN12 and CCN10 in the southern part of the province. Using the proposed PCA and GMM, we validated drought vulnerability using objective weighting methods and assessed comprehensive drought risk considering both meteorological hazard and socioeconomic vulnerability.

     

Day-Night and Gastrointestinal Changes in Winter Feeding Intensity and Prey Composition of Apogon lineatus Inhabiting the Southeastern Waters of Korea

Ocean Science Journal - Diel and gastrointestinal changes in relation to the feeding intensity and prey composition of Apogon lineatus were investigated through the analysis of the diet contents of...     

Precise, automatic and fast method for vanishing point detection

A new automated approach for vanishing point detection in images of urban scenes is described. This method is based on the theorem of Thales. The main contribution of this paper is the automatic and simultaneous detection of all vanishing points of the image, achieved by converting this problem into the detection of circles in a complex cloud of points, in which each point corresponds to a segment and is associated with an uncertainty. This extraction of circles uses a RANSAC method, modified to improve its speed by using accumulation techniques (Hough transform or otherwise). This robust estimation is then refined by least squares error propagation using the individual variances of each segment. The algorithm is robust, its accuracy is optimised and it is entirely automatic. Its successful operation has been tested on a large number of images of varied urban scenes.     

Rare earth elements in bottom sediments of major rivers around the Yellow Sea: implications for sediment provenance

Rare earth elements (REEs) of 91 fine-grained bottom sediment samples from five major rivers in Korea (the Han, Keum, and Yeongsan) and China (the Changjiang and Huanghe) were studied to investigate their potential as source indicator for Yellow Sea shelf sediments, this being the first synthetic report on REE trends for bottom sediments of these rivers. The results show distinct differences in REE contents and their upper continental crust (UCC)-normalized patterns: compared to heavy rare earth elements (HREEs), light rare earth elements (LREEs) are highly enriched in Korean river sediments, in contrast to Chinese river sediments that have a characteristic positive Eu anomaly. This phenomenon is observed also in primary source rocks within the river catchments. This suggests that source rock composition is the primary control on the REE signatures of these river sediments, due largely to variations in the levels of chlorite and monazite, which are more abundant in Korean bottom river sediments. Systematic variations in ΣLREE/ΣHREE ratios, and in (La/Yb)–(Gd/Yb)_UCC but also (La/Lu)–(La/Y)_UCC and (La/Y)–(Gd/Lu)_UCC relations have the greatest discriminatory power. These findings are consistent with, but considerably expand on the limited datasets available to date for suspended sediments. Evidently, the REE fingerprints of these river sediments can serve as a useful diagnostic tool for tracing the provenance of sediments in the Yellow Sea, and for reconstructing their dispersal patterns and the circulation system of the modern shelf, as well as the paleoenvironmental record of this and adjoining marginal seas.     

Altered mafic lower continental crust as a source for low δ18O-granodiorites (Damara orogen, Namibia)?

Summary New oxygen isotope data for metaluminous granites from the basement-dominated part of the Damara orogen (Namibia) range from 9.1 to 11.9‰. These data, together with previously published Sr, Nd and Pb isotope data indicate that these granites and associated peraluminous granites originated from felsic meta-igneous basement sources. New and unusually low oxygen isotope data for metaluminous granodiorites extend now the range of δ¹⁸O values from ca. 12 to 6‰ for this rock type. These low oxygen isotope values approach the values observed in mafic quartz diorites for which a model of derivation from depleted mafic lower crust has been established. In view of the higher Pb isotope ratios but lower oxygen isotope values of the granodiorites relative to the mafic quartz diorites, it is concluded that the granodiorites represent partial melts of an undepleted but strongly altered mafic lower crust. Most of the peraluminous and metaluminous granites and the metaluminous granodiorites have identical U–Pb monazite, allanite and zircon ages of ca. 510–500 Ma implying partial melting of distinct basement rocks of Archaean to Proterozoic age at the peak of regional high-grade metamorphism.     

Ekman motion in shallow open sea in the presence of time-harmonic variation of water depth

The time variation of the wind-induced flow in a homogeneous unbounded sea region has been analytically investigated. The time-dependent Ekman solution in a homogeneous, shallow open sea has been further extended by taking into account the time variation in water depth which might be caused by either tidal motion or change in the mixed layer thickness. The solution approach taken in this study is based on the Galerkin-eigenfunction method originally developed by Heaps [1972. On the numerical solution of three-dimensional hydrodynamical equations for tides and storm surges. Memoires de la Societe Royale des Sciences de Liege Serie 6(2), 143–180]. A series of calculations have been made with emphasis on the influence of the time variation in water depth upon the build-up of Ekman spirals in the presence of oscillatory variations in water depth. It has been found that two oscillations contribute to the wind drift current, the inertial oscillation and the depth-variation-induced oscillation; the inertial oscillation decays with time, but the depth-variation-induced oscillation remains undamped despite the presence of bottom friction. The presence of time-harmonic variation produces peculiar forms of hodograph with a curled or circular pattern according to the angular frequency of the water depth variation.     

Monsoonal precipitation variation in the East Asia since A.D. 1840

Three tree-ring rainfall reconstructions from China and Korea are used in this paper to investigate the East Asian summer monsoon-related precipitation variation over the past 160 years. Statistically, there is no linear correlation on a year-by-year basis between Chinese and Korean monsoon rainfall, but region-wide synchronous variation on a decadal-scale was observed. More rainfall intervals were 1860–1890, 1910–1925, and 1940–1960, and dry or even drought periods were 1890–1910, 1925–1940, and 1960–present. Reconstructions also display that the East Asian summer monsoon precipitation suddenly changed from more into less around mid-1920. These tree-ring precipitation records were also confirmed by Chinese historical dryness/wetness index and Korean historical rain gauge data.     

Biomonitoring of coastal pollution status using protozoan communities with a modified PFU method

Structural and functional parameters of protozoan communities were assessed as indicators of water quality in Korean coastal waters in the summer of 2000. A modified polyurethane foam unit (PFU) method, named the bottled PFU (BPFU) system, was used in order to carry out the bioassessment. Both parameters suggested that biomonitoring using the BPFU system was more effective than the conventional PFU method in offshore areas. The species number collected by the BPFU system generally decreased as pollution intensity increased at three main stations and was greater than that collected using the PFU method (paired t-test, t = 4.83, p < 0.0001). The Margalef diversity index coincided well with the water conditions. The diversity index values calculated from the BPFU system were also significantly higher than those from the PFU method (paired t-test, t = 5.37, p < 0.0001). Furthermore, the functional parameters, i.e. S(eq),G and T90%, correlated with the pollution status and could thus clearly discriminate the different classes of water quality.