Taming global flood disasters. Lessons learned from Dutch experience

There is a growing international recognition that flood risk management in optima forma should be a programmed and flexible process of continuously improving management practices by active learning about the outcome of earlier and ongoing interventions and drivers of change. In the Netherlands, such a long-term, adaptive flood risk management strategy is now being implemented. This so-called second Delta Programme aims to identify and exploit opportunities and capitalize on short-term benefits and opportunistic synergies that arise from change and will require adaptive policymaking. It also requires the financial and institutional means to operate in a long-lasting way, which at the very least, means engaging stakeholders, gathering and disseminating results and adaptation of future plans. Transferring the Dutch approach to other countries is a major challenge that calls for fundamental changes in institutional arrangements at various levels and thus requires customized programmes for strategic institutional change. Recent examples of transfer will provide important lessons of how institutional change can successfully occur and will contribute insights for other countries that attempting to reform their flood risk management strategies. Continuous monitoring and evaluation and sharing international experiences will become crucial for the effective delivery and wider uptake of these new strategies around the globe.     

Magnetostratigraphy and fold tests from Račiška pečina and Pečina v Borštu caves (Classical Karst,Slovenia)

Clastic and chemogenic cave sediments were sampled and analyzed from Račiška pečina and Pečina v Borštu caves of southwestern Slovenia. Samples were subjected to both thermal and alternating field demagnetization; specimens belonging to the same sample of the same layer produce identical results. Unblocking temperatures of 540 to 560°C on average suggests magnetite as the principal carrier of magnetization. These directions also pass a reversals test indicating the demagnetization results are free of secondary overprints and have adequately averaged out paleosecular variation. Normally magnetized clays containing fauna belonging to the MN17 mammal biozone at a depth of ∼ 4 m in Račiška pecina cave indicate these clays were deposited at the beginning of the Olduvai subchron (1.95 Ma). Correlation with the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale (GPTS) indicates the base of the speleothems in Račiška pečina terminate in the upper part of subchron C2An.3n with numerous breaks in deposition, lasting up to 250 ka and more. Therefore rates of speleothem growth cannot be calculated. Fold tests on dome-like stalagmites of differing sizes and ages (Pleistocene, Pliocene) from the two caves indicate the domelike structures are primary.     

Long-lasting Cadomian magmatic activity along an active northern Gondwana margin: U–Pb zircon and Sr–Nd isotopic evidence from the Brunovistulian Domain,eastern Bohemian Massif

International Journal of Earth Sciences - Cadomian magmatic complexes of the Brunovistulian Domain crop out at the eastern termination of the Bohemian Massif. However, the age, nature and...