How much does an extreme rainfall event cost? Material damage and relationships between insurance,rainfall, land cover and urban flooding

This research aims to understand how insurance, rainfall, land cover and urban flooding are related and how these variables influenced the material damage in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA) during the 2000–2011 period. Correlation coefficients show strong relationships between built-up areas and claims (0.94) and payouts (0.88). Despite no significant relationships being found between rainfall and the amount of material damage per event, three likelihood levels of flooding were determined for hourly rainfall. Unlike the studied period, the number of claims and their spatial distribution during the 2008 extreme rainfall event were strongly dependent on rainfall. Flooding related to the old watercourses assumed greater importance during this extreme event, recovering a more natural/ancient hydrological behaviour. In the LMA, the greatest material damage was the result of high-magnitude/low-probability rainfall events. Lower magnitude events can trigger numerous claims in heavily built-up areas, but they are hardly capable of producing large material damage.     

Field investigation of siltation at a tidal harbor: North Port of Incheon,Korea

Ocean Dynamics - To understand siltation processes within the North Port of Incheon, Korea, this study estimated the sedimentation rate and then determined the dominant mechanisms for the...     

A New Appraisal of Sri Lankan BB Zircon as a Reference Material for LA‐ICP‐MS U‐Pb Geochronology and Lu‐Hf Isotope Tracing

A potential zircon reference material (BB zircon) for laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) U‐Pb geochronology and Hf isotope geochemistry is described. A batch of twenty zircon megacrysts (0.5–1.5 cm³) from Sri Lanka was studied. Within‐grain rare earth element (REE) compositions are largely homogeneous, albeit with some variation seen between fractured and homogeneous domains. Excluding fractured cathodoluminescence bright domains, the variation in U content for all analysed crystals ranged from 227 to 368 μg g^?1 and the average Th/U ratios were between 0.20 and 0.47. The Hf isotope composition (0.56–0.84 g/100 g Hf) is homogeneous within and between the grains – mean ¹⁷⁶Hf/¹⁷⁷Hf of 0.281674 ± 0.000018 (2s). The calculated alpha dose of 0.59 × 10¹⁸ g^?1 for a number of BB grains falls within the trend of previously studied, untreated zircon samples from Sri Lanka. Aliquots of the same crystal (analysed by ID‐TIMS in four different laboratories) gave consistent U‐Pb ages with excellent measurement reproducibility (0.1–0.4% RSD). Interlaboratory assessment (by LA‐ICP‐MS) from individual crystals returned results that are within uncertainty equivalent to the TIMS ages. Finally, we report on within‐ and between‐grain homogeneity of the oxygen isotope systematic of four BB crystals (13.16‰ VSMOW).     

Evaluation of the removal of heavy metals in a natural wetland impacted by mining activities in Mexico

This research is focused on evaluating heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb, and Zn) uptake and removal by Eleocharis ovata, Cyperus manimae, Typha dominguensis, and Pteridium aquilinum in a natural wetland impacted by mining activities. We analyzed heavy metals content and distribution in native plants, soils, and water of a semipermanent natural wetland in Taxco de Alarcón, Guerrero, and we also determined the physicochemical characteristics of the water. Translocation factor (TF) and bioconcentration factor (BCF) were evaluated. Results showed that physical and chemical conditions are favorable for plants development. Correlation analysis showed a good and positive relation (0.95) between Cu and Pb in soils and plants. In the analyzed matrices: Zn (0.62–2.20 mg/L) exceeded the permissible limits in water, high concentrations of Pb and Zn (26.57–525.67 and 266.67–983.33 mg/kg, respectively) were detected in the studied soils, and Pb exceeded the normal range for E. ovata and P. aquilinum in the analyzed plants. Uptake of heavy metals in the tissues of different species was found in the following order: root > leaf. Data of TF and BCF showed that E. ovata is a tolerant plant with respect to heavy metals exposure since TF value was greater than 1. This study showed that E. ovata could be considered as a bioaccumulator of heavy metals in contaminated soils.     

Early contamination of European flounder (Platichthys flesus) by PCDD/Fs and dioxin-like PCBs in European waters

Contamination levels and profiles of 7 polychlorinated-p-dioxins, 10 polychlorinated furans (PCDD/Fs) and 12 dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCBs) were investigated in juvenile European flounder (Platichthys flesus) captured in different nursery areas in the northeastern Atlantic coast across its geographical distribution range. The toxic equivalent concentrations (WHO-TEQ_fish) were also determined in order to evaluate which P. flesus population was more exposed to dioxin-like toxicity. Juveniles caught in the Sørfjord (Norway) showed the lowest WHO-TEQ_fish concentration (0.052 pg WHO-TEQ_fish g⁻¹ wet weight) whereas the highest value was observed in fish from the Wadden Sea (The Netherlands; 0.291 pg WHO-TEQ_fish g⁻¹ ww), mainly due to the greater contribution of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, the most toxic congener. Nonetheless, when comparing the results with existent tissue residue-based toxicity benchmarks, no adverse effects resulting from PCDD/Fs and dl-PCBs are expected to occur in flounder from the studied systems.     

A smoothed ANOVA model for multivariate ecological regression

Smoothed analysis of variance (SANOVA) has recently been proposed for carrying out disease mapping. The main advantage of this approach is its conceptual simplicity and ease of interpretation. Moreover, it allows us to fix the combination of diseases of particular interest in advance and to make specific inferences about them. In this paper we propose a reformulation of SANOVA in the context of ecological regression studies. This proposal considers the introduction in a non-parametric way of one (or several) covariate(s) into the model, explaining some pre-specified combinations of the outcome variables. In addition, random effects are also incorporated in order to model geographical variation in the combinations of outcome variables not explained by the covariate. Lastly, the model permits the decomposition of the variance in the set of outcome variables into different orthogonal components, quantifying the contribution of every one of them. The proposed model is applied to the geographical analysis of mortality due to malignant stomach neoplasm among women resident in the city of Barcelona (Spain). The available outcome variables are deaths grouped into two time periods, and a socioeconomic deprivation index is included as a covariate. The model has been implemented through INLA, a novel inference tool for Bayesian statistics.