Varieties of flood risk governance in Europe: How do countries respond to driving forces and what explains institutional change?

Floods are challenging the resilience of societies all over the world. In many countries there are discussions on diversifying the strategies for flood risk management, which implies some sort of policy change. To understand the possibilities of such change, a thorough understanding of the forces of stability and change of underlying governance arrangements is required. It follows from the path dependency literature that countries which rely strongly on flood infrastructures, as part of flood defense strategies, would be more path dependent. Consequently there is a higher chance to find more incremental change in these countries than in countries that have a more diversified set of strategies. However, comparative and detailed empirical studies that may help scrutinize this assumption are lacking.To address this knowledge gap, this paper investigates how six European countries (Belgium, England, France, The Netherlands, Poland and Sweden) essentially differ with regard to their governance of flood risks. To analyze stability and change, we focus on how countries are responding to certain societal and ecological driving forces (ecological turn; climate change discourses; European policies; and the increasing prevalence of economic rationalizations) that potentially affect the institutional arrangements for flood risk governance. Taking both the variety of flood risk governance in countries and their responses to driving forces into account, we can clarify the conditions of stability or change of flood risk governance arrangements more generally. The analysis shows that the national-level impact of driving forces is strongly influenced by the flood risk governance arrangements in the six countries. Path dependencies are indeed visible in countries with high investments in flood infrastructure accompanied by strongly institutionalized governance arrangements (Poland, the Netherlands) but not only there. Also more diversified countries that are less dependent on flood infrastructure and flood defense only (England) show path dependencies and mostly incremental change. More substantial changes are visible in countries that show moderate diversification of strategies (Belgium, France) or countries that ‘have no strong path yet’ in comprehensive flood risk governance (Sweden). This suggests that policy change can be expected when there is both the internal need and will to change and a barrage of (external) driving forces pushing for change.     

Ant intelligence for solving optimal path‐covering problems with multi‐objectives

Conventional methods have difficulties in forming optimal paths when raster data are used and multi‐objectives are involved. This paper presents a new method of using ant colony optimization (ACO) for solving optimal path‐covering problems on unstructured raster surfaces. The novelty of this proposed ACO includes the incorporation of a couple of distinct features which are not present in classical ACO. A new component, the direction function, is used to represent the ‘visibility’ in the path exploration. This function is to guide an ant walking toward the final destination more efficiently. Moreover, a utility function is proposed to reflect the multi‐objectives in planning applications. Experiments have shown that classical ACO cannot be used to solve this type of path optimization problems. The proposed ACO model can generate near optimal solutions by using hypothetical data in which the optimal solutions are known. This model can also find the near optimal solutions for the real data set with a good convergence rate. It can yield much higher utility values compared with other common conventional models.     

不同贝龄毛蚶壳形态性状对体质量的影响

选取毛蚶(Scapharca subcrenata Lischke)1龄、2龄和3龄个体各100粒,分别测量壳长、壳高和壳宽等壳形态性状,并称其体质量,采用多元分析的方法分析了各表型性状间的相关性,以及壳形态性状对体质量的影响效果。结果表明,各性状间呈正相关,且达到极显著水平(P0.001);通径分析与决定程度分析的结果相似,不同贝龄期影响毛蚶体质量的主要因素是不同的,壳长是影响1龄毛蚶体质量的主要因素,壳长和壳宽是影响2龄毛蚶体质量的主要因素,且两者的共同决定系数最大(0.244),壳宽是影响3龄毛蚶体质量的主要因素,其与壳高的共同决定系数最大(0.230)。     

Influences of Physical Processes and Parameters on Simulations of TOA Radiance at UV Wavelengths: Implications for Satellite UV Instrument Validation

Numerous factors can influence the radiative transfer simulation of hyper-spectral ultraviolet satellite observation,including the radiative transfer scheme, gaseous absorption coefficients, Rayleigh scattering scheme, surface reflectance, aerosol scattering, band center wavelength shifts of sensor, and accuracy of input profiles. In this study, a Unified Linearized Vector Radiative Transfer Model(UNL-VRTM) is used to understand the influences of various factors on the top of atmosphere(TOA) normalized radiance in the ultraviolet(UV) region. A benchmark test for Rayleigh scattering is first performed to verify the UNL-VRTM accuracy, showing that the model performances agree well with earlier peer-reviewed results. Sensitivity experiments show that a scalar radiative transfer approximation considering only ozone and a constant surface reflectance within the UV region may cause significant errors to the TOA normalized radiance. A comparison of the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite(OMPS) radiances between simulations and observations shows that the surface reflectance strongly influences the accuracy for the wavelengths larger than 340 nm. Thus, using the surface reflectivity at 331 nm as a proxy for simulating the whole OMPS hyperspectral ultraviolet radiances is problematic. The impact of rotational Raman scattering on TOA radiance can be simulated through using SCIATRAN, which can also reduce the difference between measurements and simulations to some extent. Overall, the differences between OMPS simulations and observations can be less than 3% for the entire wavelengths. The bias is nearly constant across the cross-track direction.     

临边遥感大气辐射传输的宽光谱快速计算模型

为解决目前临边遥感大气辐射传输模型存在计算光谱窄和计算速度慢等问题,基于HITRAN2008数据库、带模式算法和临边辐射传输方程建立了0.2—20μm波段大气临边辐射传输的宽光谱快速计算模型FALTRAN。建立了含有散射辐射和热辐射的临边辐射传输方程,并依据临边几何特征提出了一种基于有限差分的半球辐射累加HRA解算方法。利用FALTRAN计算分析了几个常用的遥感波段内典型大气条件和切向高度时大气的临边辐射特性,并定量分析了左、右半球辐射对总辐射的贡献情况。模型校验结果表明,FALTRAN与CDI模型的计算结果相对差异在2%以内,并与MIPAS的测量结果符合很好,验证了FALTRAN在临边遥感中大气传输计算的可靠性。     

Assimilating AMSU-a radiance data with the WRF hybrid En3DVAR system for track predictions of Typhoon Megi (2010)

The impact of assimilating radiances from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) on the track prediction of Typhoon Megi (2010) was studied using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and a hybrid ensemble three-dimensional variational (En3DVAR) data assimilation (DA) system. The influences of tuning the length scale and variance scale factors related to the static background error covariance (BEC) on the track forecast of the typhoon were studied. The results show that, in typhoon radiance data assimilation, a moderate length scale factor improves the prediction of the typhoon track. The assimilation of AMSU-A radiances using 3DVAR had a slight positive impact on track forecasts, even when the static BEC was carefully tuned to optimize its performance. When the hybrid DA was employed, the track forecast was significantly improved, especially for the sharp northward turn after crossing the Philippines, with the flow-dependent ensemble covariance. The flow-dependent BEC can be estimated by the hybrid DA and was capable of adjusting the position of the typhoon systematically. The impacts of the typhoon-specific BEC derived from ensemble forecasts were revealed by comparing the analysis increments and forecasts generated by the hybrid DA and 3DVAR. Additionally, for 24 h forecasts, the hybrid DA experiment with use of the full flow-dependent background error substantially outperformed 3DVAR in terms of the horizontal winds and temperature in the lower and mid-troposphere and for moisture at all levels.     

Smoothed A* algorithm for practical unmanned surface vehicle path planning

An effective path planning or route planning algorithm is essential for guiding unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) between way points or along a trajectory. The A* algorithm is one of the most efficient algorithms for calculating a safe route with the shortest distance cost. However, the route generated by the conventional A* algorithm is constrained by the resolution of the map and it may not be compatible with the non-holonomic constraint of the USV. In this paper an improved A* algorithm has been proposed and applied to the Springer USV. A new path smoothing process with three path smoothers has been developed to improve the performance of the generated route, reducing unnecessary ‘jags’, having no redundant waypoints and offering a more continuous route. Both simulation and experimental results show that the smoothed A* algorithm outperforms the conventional algorithm in both sparse and cluttered environments that have been uniformly rasterised. It has been demonstrated that the proposed improved A* route planning algorithm can be applied to the Springer USV providing promising results when tracking trajectories.     

Optimal ice routing of a ship with icebreaker assistance

Offshore development and growing prospects of commercial shipping in the Arctic pose the challenge of optimal ship routing in ice. Route selection in spatially distributed ice conditions significantly affects the voyage time and determines the efficiency of shipping. Most of the applied methods of ice routing solve the problem of a single vessel route selection without considering icebreaker support. At the same time, the real practice of ice navigation is closely connected with icebreaker assistance. It allows reducing the voyage time and fuel consumption, while having additional costs for icebreaker services. Such opposite trends set an optimization task that has not been studied in detail before. In this article, we presented the formulation of a Single Vessel and Icebreaker Assisted Ice Routing optimization problem in non-stationary ice conditions. We considered the icebreaker assistance as an integral part of the overall route optimization problem, and used the economic criterion to optimize both ship route and amount of icebreaker involvement. The article contains the adapted mathematical formulations of classical graph-based and wave-based routing problems in order to consider icebreaker assistance. To prove the practical applicability of these formulations, we developed special subject-oriented research software and implemented there both graph-based (Dijkstra, A*) and the wave-based ice routing methods. Using this developments, we conducted several case studies and made the analysis of strengthens and weaknesses of the alternative routing methods in case of ice operation. The results of the study may serve an additional step to the practical implementation of ice routing technologies and planning of icebreaker resources.     

FY 2D静止气象卫星OLR反演模式

介绍FY2D卫星OLR反演模式的建立过程以及模式与NOAA卫星OLR反演模式的相互对比,包括：地球大气红外辐射传输方程,全球3812条大气廓线的大气顶射出辐射率、射出长波辐射通量密度的模拟计算,3812条廓线FY2D窗区通道1、2、水汽通道的通道辐射率模拟计算, 通道辐射率的临边变暗订正关系式的确立、3个通道波段的窄波段辐射通量密度的模拟计算。通过3812条廓线的窄波段辐射通量密度与OLR的XY坐标散点图,建立OLR回归关系式;并通过NOAA17 AVHRR通道5 OLR反演模式与FY2D窗     

南沙珊瑚礁生态系中元素的垂直转移途径

于１９９３年和１９９４年用沉积物捕捉器采集南沙永暑礁和渚碧礁内的沉降颗粒物,用中子活化法分析元素的含量并计算通量,通过对生源要素的统计相关分析,垂直沉降颗粒物中的元素人,非生源要素在泻湖中的停留时间的探讨,研究了南沙珊瑚礁生态系中元素的垂直转移途径,结果表明,在南沙珊胡礁泻湖中元素的停留时间较海水中短,元素的循环速率高,且尤以与生物作用有关的元素为甚;颗粒物中非生源要素的垂直转移主要是通过生物过程