Climate projections over different climatic regions of Afghanistan under shared socioeconomic scenarios

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - The global climate models (GCMs) of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) were used for spatiotemporal projections of precipitation and...     

Measuring the relationships between landscape aesthetics suitability and spatial patterns of urbanized lands: an informed modelling framework for developing urban growth scenarios

This study develops an informed modelling approach that follows a bottom-up planning strategy to define plausible urban growth scenarios. In this case, landscape aesthetics suitability of the area was first generated using multi-criteria evaluation method. Then, a buffer zone of 1 km was considered to extract the average values of aesthetics suitability scores surrounding urban patches with medium physical size (10–30 hectares). The averaged values were considered as the dependent variable. In the next step, landscape metrics of these urban patches, as explanatory variables, were also computed to measure compositional and configuration-based attributes of urban clusters. Bivariate associations (Pearson correlation analysis) and statistical relationships (linear regression algorithm) between landscape metrics and their associated aesthetics values were measured and modelled. According to the results, both composition and configuration values are significantly correlated to the dependent variable in which configuration-based attributes depicted a stronger explanatory power.     

Spatio-Temporal Assessment of Groundwater Potential Zone in the Drought-Prone Area of Bangladesh Using GIS-Based Bivariate Models

Natural Resources Research - Groundwater is one of the most dynamic and renewable natural resources found in the earth’s crust. A spatio-temporal assessment of groundwater potential zone...     

Probabilistic Convective Initiation Nowcasting with Reduced Satellite - NWP Predictors over Iran

Geostationary satellites are able to nowcast Convective Initiation (CI) for the next 0–6 h. Compared to using satellite predictors only, the incorporation of satellite and Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) predictors can provide the possibility to reduce false alarm rates in 0–1:30 Convective Initiation Nowcasting (COIN). However, the correlation among these predictors not only can cause error in COIN, but also increases the runtime. In this study for the first time, all effective predictors in Satellite Convection Analysis and Tracking version 2 (SATCASTv2) and NWP were applied over Iran from 22nd March 2015 to 9th January 2016. In applying SATCASTv2 over Iran, it was necessary to make some modifications to the algorithm, such as removing case specific thresholds of satellite predictors and rearranging COIN predictors. Then, SATCASTv2 was tested and evaluated with both the full and reduced set of predictors. The results suggested that using fixed thresholds for temporal difference predictors could miss COIN in some cases. To investigate the possibility of improving computational efficiency, a dimension reduction was conducted by Factor Analysis (FA) and the number of predictors was reduced from 22 to 11. The NWP-satellite, reduced NWP-satellite, and satellite predictors were used as input in Random Forest (RF), as a parametric machine learning method, for COIN evaluation. The Combination of NWP model and satellite predictors had lower false alarm rates in contrast with satellite predictors. This is in agreement with previous studies. The results from statistical metrics showed that the reduced NWP-satellite predictors had comparable performance to the NWP-satellite predictors over study area, but decreased the run time by almost 50%. The results indicated that Convective Inhibition (CIN) was the most significant predictor when the reduced set of predictors was used.     

On the relationship between MODIS Land Surface Temperature and topography in Iran

Land Surface Temperature (LST) is considered important in monitoring the energy flux between the land surface and atmosphere. Due to the diversity of topography in Iran and its effect on the climate diversity, we decided to study the effect of topography on the LST variations. To this end, the LST digital data derived from the observations of the MODIS Terra and Aqua were used. The results indicated that, during the daytime, from sea level up to a height of 400 meters, the LST increased, and then the temperature decreased with increasing altitude, and up to a height of 3000 meters, there was a strong correlation between the two. LST lapse rate was more during the daytime compared with that of the night time and it was more during the winter compared with the summer. LST lapse rate showed larger variability in diurnal cycle, but its monthly patterns were similar in different aspects. The aspect had substantial effect on LST inversion elevation. Furthermore, the inverse relationship between LST and slope was strong in slopes up to 20°.     

Gorgan Bay:a microcosm for study on macrobenthos species-environment relationships in the southeastern Caspian Sea

The relationship between spatial patterns of macrobenthos community characteristics and environmental conditions(salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, organic matter content, sand, silt and clay) was investigated throughout the Gorgan Bay in June 2010. Principal components analysis(PCA) based on environmental data separated eastern and western stations. The maximum(4500 ind./m²) and minimum(411 ind./m²) densities were observed at Stas 1 and 6, respectively. Polychaeta was the major group and Streblospio gynobranchiata was dominant species in the bay. According to Distance Based Linear Models results, macrofaunal total density was correlated with silt percentage and salinity and these two factors explaining 64% of the variability while macrofaunal community structure just correlated with salinity(22% total variation). In general, western part of the bay showed the highest number of species and biodiversity while, the highest density was found at Sta. 1 and in the middle part of the bay. Furthermore, relationship between diversity indices and macrobenthic species with measured factors is also discussed. Our results confirm the effect of salinity as an important factor on distribution of macrobenthic fauna in south Caspian brackish waters.     

Tidal asymmetry in a tidal creek with mixed mainly semidiurnal tide,Bushehr Port,Persian Gulf

This study investigated the tidal asymmetry imposed by both the interaction of principal tides and the higher harmonics generated by distortions within a tidal creek network with mixed mainly semidiurnal tide in the Bushehr Port, Persian Gulf. Since velocity and water-level imposed by principal triad tides K₁-O₁-M₂ are in quadrature, duration asymmetries during a tidal period in this short, shallow inverse estuary should be manifest as skewed velocities. The principal tides produce periodic asymmetries including a strong ebb-dominance and a weak flood-dominance condition during spring and neap tides respectively. The higher harmonics induced by nonlinearities engender a flood-dominance condition where the convergence effects are higher than frictional effects, and an ebbdominance condition where intertidal storage are extended. Since the triad K₁-O₁-M₂ driven asymmetry is not overcome by higher harmonics close to the mouth, the periodic asymmetry dominates within the creek in which higher harmonics reinforce the weak flood-dominance (strong ebb-dominance) condition in the convergent channel (divergent area). Also, the maximum flood and the maximum ebb from all harmonic constituents occurred close to high water slack time during both spring and neap tides in this short creek. Since occational wetting of intertidal areas happened close to the high water (HW) time during spring tide, the water level flooded slowly close to the HW time of the spring tide.     

Analysis of flood vulnerability and assessment of the impacts in coastal zones of Bangladesh due to potential sea-level rise

The 4th IPCC report highlights the increased vulnerability of the coastal areas from floods due to sea-level rise (SLR). The existing coastal flood control structures in Bangladesh are not adequate to adapt these changes and new measures are urgently necessary. It is important to determine the impacts of SLR on flooding to analyse the performance of the existing structures and corresponding impact to plan for suitable adaptation and mitigation measures to reduce the impacts of floods on coastal zone. The study aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of the possible effects of SLR on floods in the coastal zone of Bangladesh. A hydrodynamic model, which is a combination of surface and river parts, was utilized for flood simulation. The tool was applied under a range of future scenarios, and results indicate both spatial variability of risk and changes in flood characteristics between now and under SLR. Estimated impact on population, infrastructure and transportation is also exposed. These types of impact estimation would be of value to flood plain management authorities to minimize the socio-economic impact.     

A modi?ed failure criterion for transversely isotropic rocks

A modified failure criterion is proposed to determine the strength of transversely isotropic rocks. Me-chanical properties of some metamorphic and sedimentary rocks including gneiss, slate, marble, schist, shale, sandstone and limestone, which show transversely isotropic behavior, were taken into consider-ation. Afterward, introduced triaxial rock strength criterion was modified for transversely isotropic rocks. Through modification process an index was obtained that can be considered as a strength reduction parameter due to rock strength anisotropy. Comparison of the parameter with previous anisotropy in-dexes in literature showed reasonable results for the studied rock samples. The modified criterion was compared to modified Hoek-Brown and Ramamurthy criteria for different transversely isotropic rocks. It can be concluded that the modified failure criterion proposed in this study can be used for predicting the strength of transversely isotropic rocks.     

A tomographic imagery segmentation methodology for three-phase geomaterials based on simultaneous region growing

X-ray computed tomography is a powerful non-destructive technique used in many domains to obtain the three-dimensional representation of objects, starting from the reconstitution of two-dimensional images of radiographic scanning. This technique is now able to analyze objects within a few micron resolutions. Consequently, X-ray microcomputed tomography opens perspectives for the analysis of the fabric of multiphase geomaterials such as soils, concretes, rocks and ceramics. To be able to characterize the spatial distribution of the different phases in such complex and disordered materials, automated phase recognition has to be implemented through image segmentation. A crucial difficulty in segmenting images lies in the presence of noise in the obtained tomographic representation, making it difficult to assign a specific phase to each voxel of the image. In the present study, simultaneous region growing is used to reconstitute the three-dimensional segmented image of granular materials. First, based on a set of expected phases in the image, regions where specific phases are sure to be present are identified, leaving uncertain regions of the image unidentified. Subsequently, the identified regions are grown until growing phases meet each other with vanishing unidentified regions. The method requires a limited number of manual parameters that are easily determined. The developed method is illustrated based on three applications on granular materials, comparing the phase volume fractions obtained by segmentation with macroscopic data. It is demonstrated that the algorithm rapidly converges and fills the image after a few iterations.