The Upper Middle Rhine Valley, granted the status of a World Heritage site, is well known for its unique inner narrow valley
of Quaternary age with its historical legacy of numerous medieval castles and old towns. Less known is that this has always
been a risk area of floods and gravitative mass movements. Up to the recent past, mainly ice floods caused enormous damage.
The inhabitants of the valley were well aware that they lived in a risk area, but they had learned to handle the flood hazard.
With the demise of ice floods over the last 40 years, due to climate change and because of the additional heating of the river
water by power plants, the awareness of flood hazards has been much diminished, in contrast to that of potential damage by
rockfalls and landslides which were also much feared in the past, though at the local level only. Still in the people’s memory
is the Kaub catastrophe of March 10, 1876, when 28 persons were killed by a landslide. Nowadays, even minor rockfalls are
a major threat, as they will affect the much-used traffic lines on both banks of the river, in particular the railroads. Therefore,
since 2002, on behalf of German Rail (Deutsche Bahn, DB), all problematic slopes have been protected by costly steel-ring nets, although they are an aesthetic problem by UNESCO
standards. The feeling of absolute safety created among the public is only subjective, though, as planners are well aware
of. Moreover, the impact of modern climate change on slope stability is nearly unknown. Therefore, it is still necessary to
develop a risk map for the narrow valley, with emphasis on gravitational hazards. 相似文献
Increase in waste generation calls for an effective waste management as this has become a necessity for environmental sustainability. Several methods are adopted in managing waste, which include waste reduction, reuse, thermal treatment, recycling and landfilling. The landfill method is recognised as the most used of all the waste management methods in developing countries such as Ghana. However, the selection of a suitable landfill site is very difficult and tedious. This is because it involves a consideration of many factors such as environmental, topographic, economic, socio-cultural and civil engineering. This research sought to identify a suitable landfill site by applying GIS multicriteria and weighted overlay approach in the Bongo District of Northern Ghana. The analysis relied on criteria and weights provided by the technocrats and the indigenes in the district as a way of demonstrating how landfill siting impasse can be resolved by incorporating the various stakeholders. The results obtained provided clear areas for landfill sites in the study area from the technocratic and the indigenous perspectives. However, the technocratic perspective failed to include an important cultural criterion, sacred groves, as a factor. The indigenous perspective also compromised on the factor related to nearness to residential areas, and is equally not sufficient on its own. The optimal landfill sites, which meets the expectations of both the technocrats and indigenes, was identified. This perspective has produced technically favourable and socio-culturally acceptable landfill site. However, it is recommended an environmental impact assessment (EIA) be conducted to identify the full environmental and social cost of the site. It is concluded that in landfill site selection much attention be given to cultural factors in the same way as the technical factors. 相似文献