Evaluating climate change adaptation efforts on the US 50 states’ hazard mitigation plans

Climate change brings uncertain risks of climate-related natural hazards. The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA in Climate change: long-term trends and their implications for emergency management, 2011. https://www.fema.gov/pdf/about/programs/oppa/climate_change_paper.pdf) has issued a policy directive to integrate climate change adaptation actions into hazard mitigation programs, policies, and plans. However, to date there has been no comprehensive empirical study to examine the extent to which climate change issues are integrated into state hazard mitigation plans (SHMPs). This study develops 18 indicators to examine the extent of climate change considerations in the 50 SHMPs. The results demonstrate that these SHMPs treat climate change issues in an uneven fashion, with large variations present among the 50 states. The overall plan quality for climate change considerations was sustained at an intermediate level with regard to climate change-related awareness, analysis, and actions. The findings confirm that climate change concepts and historic extreme events have been well recognized by the majority of SHMPs. Even though they are not specific to climate change, mitigation and adaptation strategies that can help reduce climate change risks have been adopted in these plans. However, the plans still lack a detailed assessment of climate change and more incentives for collaboration strategies beyond working with emergency management agencies.     

A model for the representation of emergency cases

The aim of this paper is to propose a location model of earthquake emergency service depot on the basis of hybrid multi-attribute decision-making method. The advantage of the proposed method is that practical mixed uncertainty of location decision information is considered, and the corresponding factors that affect the location of transfer stations are contained. To solve the location problem, a hybrid multi-attribute decision procedure without information transformation is developed. Besides, a novel weighting method and aggregation process is given. Finally, a numerical example is provided to show the feasibility and validity of the proposed method.     

A new multipath mitigation method based on adaptive thresholding wavelet denoising and double reference shift strategy

Multipath disturbance is one of the major error sources in high-accuracy positioning for global navigation satellite system (GNSS). Although various methods based on software and hardware strategies have been developed to mitigate this error, they are still limited by different kinds of factors and the effect is not ideal. After analyzing the existing methods, a new single-difference sidereal filtering method, based on adaptive thresholding wavelet denoising and double reference shift strategy (ATDR), is proposed to mitigate multipath effects for static short-baseline GNSS applications. The key idea of the proposed method is the use of both the adaptive thresholding wavelet denoising to extract an accurate multipath correction model from the reference Day and the double reference shift strategy to mitigate multipath for subsequent Day 2 more accurately and efficiently. By applying the introduced adaptive thresholding method, the average improvement rate of the RMS values of the single-difference residuals can reach about 15.82% compared with the constant thresholding method. Moreover, after applying the proposed ATDR method, the 3D positioning precision is improved by about 37.73% for the single epoch mode with 30 s data sampling rate and about 31.22% for the continuous mode with 1 s high sampling rate compared with the original results. Even compared with the constant thresholding single orbital reference (CTSR) method, the improvement percentage is about 33.94% in single epoch mode and about 25.40% in continuous mode for 3D positioning precision, respectively. In conclusion, the results of the two experiments indicate that the proposed ATDR method performs much better than the CTSR method in mitigating multipath for different sampling rates and different processing modes in the measurement domain for GNSS static short-baseline postprocessing applications.     

Fracture mechanism of rock collapse in the freeze–thaw zone of the eastern Sichuan–Tibet Mountains under seasonal fluctuating combinations of water and heat

Natural Hazards - In the freeze–thaw zone of the eastern Sichuan–Tibet Mountains, the phases of water in cracks show strong seasonal variations, which significantly affect the stability...     

Indicator-based spatiotemporal characteristics of apple drought in North China

Natural Hazards - Frequent occurrences of drought stress caused by dry weather create severe destroy in apple yield and quality in North China. Although appropriate drought stress is beneficial to...     

大九湖泥炭沼泽源铁有机配合物的络合稳定性及其生态环境意义

为了研究泥炭沼泽源铁有机配合物的络合稳定性,利用pH电位滴定法和荧光淬灭滴定法测定了大九湖泥炭沼泽中不同分子量段的DOM和Fe2+、Fe3+的络合稳定常数.pH电位滴定法结果（4.0~6.1）和荧光淬灭滴定法（1.5~4.1）差异较大,这与高pH条件下OH被脱质子化及Fe2+的氧化有关.相对而言,pH滴定法更适用于探究不同分子量段DOM与铁的络合稳定性,荧光淬灭法不改变样品酸碱条件,更适于研究不同价态铁与DOM的络合稳定性.研究结果表明:DOM与Fe3+的络合稳定常数大于Fe2+,低分子量段（< 3 kDa）的DOM与Fe2+、Fe3+的络合稳定常数更大.泥炭沼泽源铁有机配合物具有较好的络合稳定性,分子量相对较小的DOM与铁的络合能力更强.即便Fe2+氧化为Fe3+,仍能与DOM络合并保持较强的稳定性,这有利于陆源溶解性铁向水生态系统的输出.沼泽源铁有机配合物的络合稳定性还会影响铁的生物可利用性.      

Numerical investigation of the hydrodynamic response of an impermeable sea-wall subjected to artificial submarine landslide-induced tsunamis

Landslides - Landslide-induced tsunamis are common natural hazards that potentially affect the safety and stability of waterfront structures. A numerical tank was constructed using FLOW-3D to...     

Accelerating consolidation of soft ground by aerosol injection technique: a field study

We present an aerosol injection technique (AIT) to accelerate the consolidation of soft soils for ground improvement. We employ high-pressure aerosol injections at different depths to enhance the drainage in soft soils for faster consolidation. The technique is briefly described. A well-instrumented field test is carried out to demonstrate its performance. Compared to the traditional methods, our approach gives rise to faster dissipation of excess pore pressure and larger ground settlement. This method is particularly attractive for the improvement in soft ground in medium depths.

     

Flexural performances of prestressed high strength concrete piles reinforced with hybrid GFRP and steel bars

Abstract

This study developed prestressed high-strength concrete (PHC) piles reinforced with high-strength materials (glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars) for flexural performance enhancement. Flexural strengths and behaviors of PHC piles reinforced with hybrid GFRP and steel bars were experimentally investigated, respectively. Large-scale specimens with total lengths of 12,000?mm and diameters of 600?mm were constructed and tested under bending, accompanied by evaluation of effects of non-prestressed reinforcement type and longitudinal reinforcement ratio. J-factors were calculated to evaluate deformability of all the specimens. PHC piles reinforced with GFRP bars were demonstrated to have much higher flexural capacity than those reinforced with steel bars. Moreover, strains at the midspans of cross sections of all the specimens basically conformed to the assumption of plane section. Failure of PHC piles reinforced with GFRP bars was attributable to gradual concrete crushing, while that of PHC piles reinforced with steel bars resulted from steel yielding. Results of this study were expected to provide theoretical basis for wide engineering applications of PHC piles reinforced with hybrid GFRP bars and steel bars in marine structures.