On the significance of the climate-dataset time resolution in characterising wind-driven rain and simultaneous wind pressure. Part I: scalar approach

Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment - The joint action of wind-driven rain and wind pressure is the main cause of water penetration in building facades, which causes various...     

Tsunami hydrodynamic force on a building using a SPH real-scale numerical simulation

Natural Hazards - One of the most important aspects in tsunami studies is the behaviour of the wave when it approaches the coast. Information on physical parameters that characterize waves is often...     

Geological Facies Recovery Based on Weighted $$\ell _1$$ ℓ 1 -Regularization

Mathematical Geosciences - A weighted compressed sensing (WCS) algorithm is proposed for the problem of channelized facies reconstruction from pixel-based measurements. This strategy integrates...     

Threshold of motion of bivalve and gastropod shells under oscillatory flow in flume experiments

The threshold of motion of non-fragmented mollusc shells was studied for the first time under oscillatory flow. In this regard, flume experiments were used to investigate the threshold of motion of three bivalve and three gastropod species, two typical mollusc classes of coastal coquina deposits. The sieve diameters ranged from 2·0 to 15·9 mm. These experiments were performed on a flat-bottom setup under regular non-breaking waves (swell) produced by a flap-type wave generator. The critical Shields values for each species of mollusc were plotted against the sieve and nominal diameter. Moreover, the dimensionless Corey shape factor of the shells was evaluated in order to investigate the effect of mollusc shell shapes on the threshold of motion. According to their critical Shields parameter, the mollusc threshold data under oscillatory flow present smaller values than the siliciclastic sediments when considering their sieve diameter. In addition, the mollusc datasets are below the empirical curves built from siliciclastic grain data under current and waves. When considering the nominal diameter, the critical Shields parameter increases and the mollusc data are closer to siliciclastic sediments. Bivalves, which have a flat-concave shape (form factor: 0·27 to 0·37), have a higher critical Shields parameter for smaller particles and more uniform datasets than the gastropod scattered data, which have a rounded shape (form factor: 0·58 to 0·62) and have varied morphologies (ellipsoidal, conical and cubic). The comparison between previous current-driven threshold data of bioclastic sediment motion and the data of mollusc whole shells under oscillatory flow shows a fair correlation on the Shields diagram, in which all datasets are below the mean empirical curves for siliciclastic sediments. These findings indicate that the shape effect on the transport initiation is predominant for smaller shells. The use of the nominal diameter is satisfactory to improve the bioclastic and siliciclastic data correlation.     

An extreme wave event in eastern Yucatán,Mexico: Evidence of a palaeotsunami event during the Mayan times

The Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, has typically been considered a tectonically stable region with little significant seismic activity. The region though, is one that is regularly affected by hurricanes. A detailed survey of ca 100 km of the eastern Yucatán and Cozumel coast identified the presence of ridges containing individual boulders measuring >1 m in length. The boulder ridges reach 5 m in height and their origin is associated with extreme wave event activity. Previously modelled tsunami waves from known seismically active zones in the region (Muertos Thrust Belt and South Caribbean Deformed Belt) are not of sufficient scale in the area of the Yucatán Peninsula to have produced the boulder ridges recorded in this study. The occurrence of hurricanes in this region is more common, but two of the most destructive (Hurricane Gilbert 1988 and Hurricane Wilma 2005) produced coastal waves too small to have created the ridges recorded here. In this paper, a new tsunami model with a source area located on the Motagua/Swan Island Fault System has been generated that indicates a tsunami event may have caused the extreme wave events that resulted in the deposition of the boulder ridges.     

Reanalysing strong-convective wind damage paths using high-resolution aerial images

Natural Hazards - High-resolution aerial imagery may provide very detailed information about strong-convective wind events, which can be very useful to enhance and make more robust severe weather...     

Analysis of the trends in precipitation and precipitation concentration in some climatological stations of Mexico from 1960 to 2010

Natural Hazards - Analysis of precipitation trends as well as the observed trends in precipitation concentration can be useful tools for the identification of natural hazards. This study aimed to...     

Cultural land use and vegetation dynamics in the uplands of northern Portugal from the Middle Ages to the Modern period

In Europe, mountain landscapes have evolved in a long-term relationship with human communities and present-day landscapes reflect that ancient interaction. The present study aims to reconstruct human activity in two mountain areas in northern Portugal using palynological analysis integrated with the available regional historical, archaeological and palaeoenvironmental archives. Pollen records from two sedimentary sequences span the Medieval and Modern periods and show that mixed agriculture and livestock grazing were consistently present in both regions throughout these times. Variations in cultural indicators show that the extent of farming fluctuated throughout time, with a general increase in cultivation during the Medieval period but with contractions likely coinciding with times of social disturbance. Historical sources suggest that sociopolitical factors and population pressure were fundamental in the utilisation of upland spaces. This study did not find any convincing evidence to suggest that fire was a fundamental factor in heathland spread. We conclude that long-term occupation of the uplands was sustained by low-intensity land use throughout the Medieval to post-Medieval periods, and that the present landscape has assumed a very different character following depopulation of the mountain areas and a shift towards commercial forestry.