School vulnerability to disaster: examination of school closure,demographic, and exposure factors in Hurricane Ike’s wind swath

Damage and destruction to schools from climate-related disasters can have significant and lasting impacts on curriculum and educational programs, educational attainment, and future income-earning potential of affected students. As such, assessing the potential impact of hazards is crucial to the ability of individuals, households, and communities to respond to natural disasters, extreme events, and economic crises. Yet, few studies have focused on assessing the vulnerability of schools in coastal regions of the USA. Using Hurricane Ike’s tropical storm wind swath in the State of Texas as our study area, we: (1) assessed the spatial distribution patterns of school closures and (2) tested the relationship between school closure and vulnerability factors (namely physical exposure and school demographics) using zero-inflated negative binomial regression models. The regression results show that higher probabilities of hurricane strikes, more urbanized school districts, and school districts located in coastal counties on the right side of Ike’s path have significant positive associations with an increase in the number of school closure days. Socioeconomic characteristics were not significantly associated with the number of days closed, with the exception of proportion of Hispanic youth in schools, a result which is not supported by the social vulnerability literature. At a practical level, understanding how hurricanes may adversely impact schools is important for developing appropriate preparedness, mitigation, recovery, and adaptation strategies. For example, school districts on the right side of the hurricane track can plan in advance for potential damage and destruction. The ability of a community to respond to future natural disasters, extreme events, and economic crises depends in part on mitigating these adverse effects.     

Socioeconomic vulnerability and electric power restoration timelines in Florida: the case of Hurricane Irma

Large-scale damage to the power infrastructure from hurricanes and high-wind events can have devastating ripple effects on infrastructure, the broader economy, households, communities, and regions. Using Hurricane Irma’s impact on Florida as a case study, we examined: (1) differences in electric power outages and restoration rates between urban and rural counties; (2) the duration of electric power outages in counties exposed to tropical storm force winds versus hurricane Category 1 force winds; and (3) the relationship between the duration of power outage and socioeconomic vulnerability. We used power outage data for the period September 9, 2017–September 29, 2017. At the peak of the power outages following Hurricane Irma, over 36% of all accounts in Florida were without electricity. We found that the rural counties, predominantly served by rural electric cooperatives and municipally owned utilities, experienced longer power outages and much slower and uneven restoration times. Results of three spatial lag models show that large percentages of customers served by rural electric cooperatives and municipally owned utilities were a strong predictor of the duration of extended power outages. There was also a strong positive association across all three models between power outage duration and urban/rural county designation. Finally, there is positive spatial dependence between power outages and several social vulnerability indicators. Three socioeconomic variables found to be statistically significant highlight three different aspects of vulnerability to power outages: minority groups, population with sensory, physical and mental disability, and economic vulnerability expressed as unemployment rate. The findings from our study have broader planning and policy relevance beyond our case study area, and highlight the need for additional research to deepen our understanding of how power restoration after hurricanes contributes to and is impacted by the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of communities.     

Study on failure mechanism of a plain irrigation reservoir soil bank slope under wind wave erosion

Natural Hazards - The wind wave erosion is one of the main factors of the soil bank slope retreat in plain irrigation reservoirs, which plays an important role in the bank profile evolution and...     

伽师近场观测地震资料的三维Q值成像

为了研究震源区介质的物性特征,利用振幅谱拟合和有限差分三维Q值成像方法处理了伽师地震区临时台网的地震波形资料,获得了该地震区上地壳的S波三维Q值图像。结果表明:不同深度的Q值图像都存在低Q值带,主要展布方向为EW向、NNE向和NNW向,与研究区的柯坪断裂、羊达曼断裂和麦盖提断裂有一定的对应关系,并且NNE向的低Q值带与强震群分布和余震分布的条带位置接近,推测低Q值带可能是震源区的几条深部断裂。     

预应力混凝土连续梁桥振动特性变异及舒适度评价

由于预应力损失、混凝土收缩徐变、超载等原因,预应力混凝土桥梁出现了较强的振动。本文通过对福建省福州市闽江三桥全桥环境振动试验和正常运营条件下24小时的监测,研究预应力混凝土连续梁桥的动力特性及其变异和振动舒适度,结果表明:在较为稳定的风和温湿度环境下,固有频率在一天内的最大变化为3.06%,模态阻尼比的最大变化为37.93%,舒适度的狄克曼指标降到“能忍受短时间振动”的区域。     

考虑双向水平地震作用的结构设计问题研究

分析了抗震设计中考虑双向水平地震作用的必要性,指出了研究双向地震作用的必要性,通过国内外规范相关条文的对比指出目前研究有待完善的关键问题和方向,结合近期研究成果对其中几个值得注意的问题提出建议。     

“一境到底”教学策略在高中地理教学中的应用——以“洋流对地理环境的影响”为例

《普通高中地理课程标准(2017年版)》重视通过情境教学来培养学生的地理学科核心素养。“一境到底”的教学策略相比其它情境教学方法更具优势,“一境到底”策略下的教学线索清晰、问题梯次展开、学生兴趣昂然、课堂教学高效。基于新课标的“一境到底”教学设计策略需遵循以课标为起点、过程化情境设计、问题链梯度设计的要求。本文以“洋流对地理环境的影响”为例呈现了在“一境到底”教学策略下如何组织教学,以取得良好的教学效果。     

Integrating spectral and non-spectral data to improve urban settlement mapping in a large Latin-American city

ABSTRACT

Information on urban settlements is crucial for sustainability planning and management. While remote sensing has been used to derive such information, its applicability can be compromised due to the complexity in the urban environment. In this study, we developed a remote sensing method to map land cover types in a large Latin-American city, which is well known for its mushrooming unplanned and informal settlements. After carefully considering the landscape complexity there, we designed a data fusion method combining multispectral imagery and non-spectral data for urban and land mapping. Specifically, we acquired a cloud-free Landsat-8 image and two non-spectral datasets, i.e., digital elevation models and road networks. Then, we implemented a set of experiments with different inputs to evaluate their merits in thematic mapping through a supervised protocol. We found that the map generated with the multispectral data alone had an overall accuracy of 73.3% but combining multispectral imagery and non-spectral data yielded a land cover map with 90.7% overall accuracy. Interestingly, the thermal infrared information helped substantially improve both the overall and categorical accuracies, particularly for the two urban classes. The two types of non-spectral data were critical in resolving several spectrally confused categories, thus considerably increasing the mapping accuracy. However, the panchromatic band with higher spatial resolution and its derived textural measurement only generated a marginal accuracy improvement. The novelties of our work are with the successful separation between the two major types of urban settlements in a complex environment using a carefully designed data fusion approach and the insight into the relative merits of the thermal infrared information and non-spectral data in helping resolve the issue of class ambiguity. These findings should be valuable in deriving accurate urban settlement information which can further advance the research on socio-ecological dynamics and urban sustainability.     

基于热红外图像的海面油膜面积的测算方法

针对现有油膜检测技术难以准确测算油膜面积且检测精度受天气条件影响大的问题,本文提出了一种基于热红外图像的海面油膜面积测算方法。采用波段为 8耀14 滋m 的红外热像仪获取海面油膜的热红外图像,对采集的油膜图像进行预处 理 （灰度化、中值滤波和锐化）;基于图像灰度分布特征分割油膜区域 （感兴趣区域,ROI）,采用形态学操作对 ROI 进行填充、腐蚀与膨胀,并对 ROI 进行数学表征;通过像素面积法计算 ROI 实际物理面积。实验结果表明：在不同的外界天气环境下 （如海浪、海风、海雾、不同光照等环境）,该方法对不同黏度的石油样品在海面形成的油膜均有良好的检测精度, ROI 面积计算平均误差为 3.77%。