Context Matters: What Shapes Adaptation to Water Stress in the Okanagan?

This paper describes two case studies of demand-side water management in the Okanagan region of southern British Columbia, Canada. The case studies reveal important lessons about how local context shapes the process of adaptation; in these cases, adaptation to rising and changing water demand under a regime of increasingly limited supply in a semi-arid region. Both case studies represent examples of water meter implementation, specifically volume-based pricing in a residential area and as a compliance tool in a mainly farming district. While the initiative was successful in the residential setting, agricultural metering met with stiff resistance. These cases suggest many factors shape the character of the adaptation process, including: interpretation of the signal relative to context, newness of the approach, consumer values, and local and provincial political agendas. Although context has been explored in resource management circles, thus far climate change adaptation research has not adequately discussed the embeddedness of adaptation. In other words, how context matters and what aspects of context, unrelated to climate change, could encourage or thwart the act of adapting. This study is a simple illustration of the potential drivers, barriers and enabling factors that have influenced the adaptation process of water management decisions in the Okanagan.     

Prediction of river flow using hybrid neuro-fuzzy models

The complex nature of hydrological phenomena, like rainfall and river flow, causes some limitations for some admired soft computing models in order to predict the phenomenon. Evolutionary algorithms (EA) are novel methods that used to cover the weaknesses of the classic training algorithms, such as trapping in local optima, poor performance in networks with large parameters, over-fitting, and etc. In this study, some evolutionary algorithms, including genetic algorithm (GA), ant colony optimization for continuous domain (ACO_R), and particle swarm optimization (PSO), have been used to train adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) in order to predict river flow. For this purpose, classic and hybrid ANFIS models were trained using river flow data obtained from upstream stations to predict 1-, 3-, 5-, and 7-day ahead river flow of downstream station. The best inputs were selected using correlation coefficient and a sensitivity analysis test (cosine amplitude). The results showed that PSO improved the performance of classic ANFIS in all the periods such that the averages of coefficient of determination, R², root mean square error, RMSE (m³/s), mean absolute relative error, MARE, and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NSE) were improved up to 0.19, 0.30, 43.8, and 0.13%, respectively. Classic ANFIS was only capable to predict river flow in 1-day ahead while EA improved this ability to 5-day ahead. Cosine amplitude method was recognized as an appropriate sensitivity analysis method in order to select the best inputs.     

Multiscale formulation for coupled flow-heat equations arising from single-phase flow in fractured geothermal reservoirs

Efficient heat exploitation strategies from geothermal systems demand for accurate and efficient simulation of coupled flow-heat equations on large-scale heterogeneous fractured formations. While the accuracy depends on honouring high-resolution discrete fractures and rock heterogeneities, specially avoiding excessive upscaled quantities, the efficiency can be maintained if scalable model-reduction computational frameworks are developed. Addressing both aspects, this work presents a multiscale formulation for geothermal reservoirs. To this end, the nonlinear time-dependent (transient) multiscale coarse-scale system is obtained, for both pressure and temperature unknowns, based on elliptic locally solved basis functions. These basis functions account for fine-scale heterogeneity and discrete fractures, leading to accurate and efficient simulation strategies. The flow-heat coupling is treated in a sequential implicit loop, where in each stage, the multiscale stage is complemented by an ILU(0) smoother stage to guarantee convergence to any desired accuracy. Numerical results are presented in 2D to systematically analyze the multiscale approximate solutions compared with the fine scale ones for many challenging cases, including the outcrop-based geological fractured field. These results show that the developed multiscale formulation casts a promising framework for the real-field enhanced geothermal formations.     

A multifractal cross-correlation investigation into sensitivity and dependence of meteorological and hydrological droughts on precipitation and temperature

Natural Hazards - Several studies have been conducted on droughts, precipitation, and temperature, whereas none have addressed the underlying relationship between nonlinear dynamic properties and...     

New interpretable shear strength criterion for rock joints

Acta Geotechnica - Shear constitutive models of rock discontinuities have been viewed as an effective stability evaluation tool in the rock mass engineering application area. This paper proposes a...     

Machine learning-assisted distinct element model calibration: ANFIS,SVM, GPR,and MARS approaches

Acta Geotechnica - Particle-based discrete element modeling is commonly used in the numerical analysis of geomaterials. However, for the construction of such models, micromechanical parameters...     

Petrogenesis and geochronology of Mishao peraluminous I-type granites,Shalair valley area,NE Iraq

The Shalair area, which is located in northeastern Iraq, is considered to be part of the northern Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone (SaSZ) and contains several granitoid bodies. One of these bodies, the Mishao porphyritic-granite (MG), was crystallized at 111.6?±?2.4 Ma, based on its zircon U-Pb age. Its geochemical characteristics suggest that the MG rocks are calc-alkaline, peraluminous, I-type granites with microgranular mafic enclaves. They are enriched in SiO₂, Na₂O, Al₂O₃ and Zr and depleted in MgO, Fe₂O₃, Nb and Ti; in contrast, the enclave sample records lower SiO₂ content and higher contents of MgO and Fe₂O₃. These rocks show an enrichment of LREE relative to HREE, and pronounced negative Eu anomalies implying feldspar fractionation. The isotopic and geochemical characteristics of the MG samples suggest that these rocks are evolved through fractional crystallization. In the La/Nb-Nb diagram and Sm/Nd ratios, the MG rocks and the enclave samples exhibit strong evidence for crustal contamination. The MG rocks record high initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr (0.70625–0.70740) and low ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd(i) (0.51235–0.51274) ratios. These Sr-Nd isotopic data, combined with the presence of high Th/U and Rb/Sr ratios and significant depletions of Nb, Ta and Ti, show a relation of these bodies to an active continental margin regime. Based on the age and geochemical data of the MG, this study presents new information about the occurrence of Middle Cretaceous magmatic activities, which are related to the active continental margins in the SaSZ that run parallel to the Zagros Fold-Thrust Belt.     

Clay minerals in fluvial shaley sandstone of upper Triassic reservoir (TAGS)—Toual field SE Algeria: identification from wireline logs and core data

The creep property of rock under cyclic loading is very important in civil engineering. In order to establish a novel constitutive equation for rock under cyclic loading, a fractional-order viscoplastic body under cyclic loading was constructed based on fractional-order viscous element. A fractional-order visco-elastoplastic model (FVEPM) for rock was established by connecting constructed fractional-order viscoplastic body with Burgers model. The model was a Burgers model when the maximum value of cyclic loading was less than the critical strength of rock; otherwise, it was a FVEPM which can be used to reflect the transient, steady-state, and tertiary creep phases of rock. The cyclic loading was decomposed into a static load and a cyclic loading with a zero average stress. According to rheological mechanics theory, the rheology constitutive equation of rock under the static load can be derived. According to viscoelastic mechanics theory, the constitutive equation under cyclic loading with a zero average stress was established by introducing the variation parameters of energy storage and energy dissipation compliance caused by rock damage and fracture. Finally, a new dynamic constitutive equation of rock cyclic loading can be obtained by superimposing the constitutive equation under static load and cyclic loading with a zero average stress. Compared with existing test results of rock under cyclic loading, the proposed constitutive model can be used to describe the creep characteristics of rock under cyclic loading and reflect the presented fluctuation of strain curve of rock under cyclic loading.     

Applying empirical methods in site classification,using response spectral ratio (H/V): A case study on Iranian strong motion network (ISMN)

Shear wave velocity, measured recently at 107 strong motion stations, is a new empirical basis in the applicability investigation of empirical classification techniques. These stations are classified considering Iranian Practice Code criteria (Standard 2800). To check the applicability of empirical methods, three different empirical techniques are applied to re-classify the stations using previously determined site classes. The first method is based only on the determination of peak periods at each station. It is found that the fundamental periods in different site categories are within the ranges proposed by Japanese Road Association. The second one is upon the site classification index (SI), suggested by Zhao et al. In this study, a new site index term is proposed for quantitative site classification using the empirical H/V spectral ratio (here after HVRS) method. It is shown that the results from this scheme are comparable with those obtained by applying the method of Zhao et al. and are more reliable than the results from using only peak periods. A large number of strong motion stations are classified in Iran for more control of proposed SI applicability. The mean response spectral ratio curves for all data of ISMN stations are found to be fairly consistent with those obtained by Zhao et al. The results show the practicability and efficiency of the proposed method in site classification. However, more shear wave measurements and further information, like surface geology, borehole data etc., are still needed to clarify the uncertainties of such empirical schemes.