Towards an EU Action Plan on Cetacean Bycatch

For decades, cetacean bycatch has been a major conservation and welfare concern in Europe, with high numbers of harbour porpoises, dolphins and whales continuing to die each year. Despite binding legal requirements to reduce bycatch, there has been limited effective monitoring or mitigation. Bycatch is also an important welfare issue. At this critical juncture, with discussion of incorporating monitoring and mitigation of bycatch of protected species in Europe into the Data Collection Framework and Technical Measures Framework taking place to help deliver the reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), a clear, effective strategy could identify the steps that are required by all EU Member States to reduce bycatch towards zero. Here, implementation of current monitoring and mitigation obligations are reviewed. Recommendations are made for the provision of clear EU guidance in order to improve and unify population surveillance and bycatch monitoring, with enhanced implementation and enforcement from Member States. A more regionalised evidence-based approach to monitoring and mitigation is in line with the move to more regionalised management under the CFP, with Member States robustly showing that bycatch levels are decreasing over a set period of time (e.g. 5 years) by a specified amount. To this end, an EU Action Plan on Cetacean Bycatch, comparable to the existing 2012 Action Plan for reducing incidental catches of seabirds in fishing gear, might be beneficial and could ultimately form a model for an international Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Cetacean Bycatch Reduction Action Plan.     

广东海丰自然保护区湿地现状及保护对策

广东海丰湿地是中国华南亚热带滨海湿地的典型代表,也是南中国海生态系统的重要组成部分,为多种珍稀、濒危鸟类和候鸟提供重要栖息地和迁徙中转站,具有重要的保护价值。在野外湿地资源调查的基础上,阐述了海丰自然保护区湿地类型与特点、湿地动植物资源、湿地利用现状等生态特征,分析了湿地面临的主要威胁,提出湿地生态系统保护与管理的主要对策和措施。     

Uncertainty in dam safety risk analysis

The character and importance of uncertainty in dam safety risk analysis drives how risk assessments are used in practice. The current interpretation of uncertainty is that, in addition to the aleatory risk which arises from presumed uncertainty in the world, it comprises the epistemic aspects of irresolution in a model or forecast, specifically model and parameter uncertainty. This is true in part but it is not all there is to uncertainty in risk analysis. The physics of hazards and of failure may be poorly understood, which goes beyond uncertainty in its conventional sense. There may be alternative scenarios of future conditions, for example non-stationarity in the environment, which cannot easily be forecast. There may also be deep uncertainties of the type associated with climate change. These are situations in which analysts do not know or do not agree on the system characterisation relating actions to consequences or on the probability distributions for key parameters. All of these facets are part of the uncertainty in risk analysis with which we must deal.     

The Swedish Geotechnical Society’s methodology for risk management: a tool for engineers in their everyday work

The Swedish Geotechnical Society has adopted a general methodology for risk management in geotechnical engineering projects to reduce the costs related to negative outcomes of geotechnical risks. This technical note highlights the main features of the methodology and strives to inspire the international geotechnical community to apply sensible risk management methods. In the authors’ opinion, a successful geotechnical risk management needs to be structured, be tailored to the project, and permeate the engineers’ everyday work. Then, sufficient quality can be achieved in the project with larger probability.     

Landslide susceptibility zonation method based on C5.0 decision tree and K-means cluster algorithms to improve the efficiency of risk management

Machine learning algorithms are an important measure with which to perform landslide susceptibility assessments,but most studies use GIS-based classification methods to conduct susceptibility zonation.This study presents a machine learning approach based on the C5.0 decision tree(DT)model and the K-means cluster algorithm to produce a regional landslide susceptibility map.Yanchang County,a typical landslide-prone area located in northwestern China,was taken as the area of interest to introduce the proposed application procedure.A landslide inventory containing 82 landslides was prepared and subse-quently randomly partitioned into two subsets:training data(70％landslide pixels)and validation data(30％landslide pixels).Fourteen landslide influencing factors were considered in the input dataset and were used to calculate the landslide occurrence probability based on the C5.0 decision tree model.Susceptibility zonation was implemented according to the cut-off values calculated by the K-means clus-ter algorithm.The validation results of the model performance analysis showed that the AUC(area under the receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve)of the proposed model was the highest,reaching 0.88,compared with traditional models(support vector machine(SVM)=0.85,Bayesian network(BN)=0.81,frequency ratio(FR)=0.75,weight of evidence(WOE)=0.76).The landslide frequency ratio and fre-quency density of the high susceptibility zones were 6.76/km2 and 0.88/km2,respectively,which were much higher than those of the low susceptibility zones.The top 20％interval of landslide occurrence probability contained 89％of the historical landslides but only accounted for 10.3％of the total area.Our results indicate that the distribution of high susceptibility zones was more focused without contain-ing more"stable"pixels.Therefore,the obtained susceptibility map is suitable for application to landslide risk management practices.     

应用分布式存储技术优化省级CIMISS数据服务能力

随着气象数据量的不断增长,进一步提升CIMISS数据管理和服务能力的需求变得日益迫切。为解决存储系统动态扩展能力不足、并行计算与吞吐效率低下等限制CIMISS继续发展的问题,采用分布式文件系统和NAS技术替代GPFS建设共享文件系统,实现非结构化气象数据的存储功能;采用分布式数据库替代Oracle RAC建设关系数据库管理系统,实现结构化气象数据的存储功能和非结构化气象数据的索引功能。实践证明,该方案能够有效地改善CIMISS的数据存储能力、并发响应能力,适应未来气象业务对数据存储和应用的需求。     

中国冰冻圈变化的适应研究：进展与展望

冰冻圈变化的适应研究是冰冻圈科学领域的新兴研究方向,是当今自然科学与社会科学交叉融合跨学科集成研究的典型代表。起步于2007年的中国冰冻圈变化适应研究,经历了早期的探索,研究重点由评价脆弱性发展为量化冰冻圈变化的影响,形成以影响/风险—脆弱性—适应全链条的完善的研究体系,研究方法突破传统的指标体系赋权法的不足,初步实现了定量化,有机结合影响/风险、脆弱性、适应三方面的研究结果,使冰冻圈变化的适应措施由偏重宏观性、普适性开始转向更有针对性。未来中国冰冻圈变化的适应研究应拓展、完善和深化现有的理论体系,构建冰冻圈与社会经济耦合模型,科学量化冰冻圈全要素变化的影响,建立不同利益相关者与科学家共同参与的研究新模式,科学有效应对与适应冰冻圈变化及其影响。     

Flood insurance arrangements in the European Union for future flood risk under climate and socioeconomic change

Flood risk will increase in many areas around the world due to climate change and increase in economic exposure. This implies that adequate flood insurance schemes are needed to adapt to increasing flood risk and to minimise welfare losses for households in flood-prone areas. Flood insurance markets may need reform to offer sufficient and affordable financial protection and incentives for risk reduction. Here, we present the results of a study that aims to evaluate the ability of flood insurance arrangements in Europe to cope with trends in flood risk, using criteria that encompass common elements of the policy debate on flood insurance reform. We show that the average risk-based flood insurance premium could double between 2015 and 2055 in the absence of more risk reduction by households exposed to flooding. We show that part of the expected future increase in flood risk could be limited by flood insurance mechanisms that better incentivise risk reduction by policyholders, which lowers vulnerability. The affordability of flood insurance can be improved by introducing the key features of public-private partnerships (PPPs), which include public reinsurance, limited premium cross-subsidisation between low- and high-risk households, and incentives for policyholder-level risk reduction. These findings were evaluated in a comprehensive sensitivity analysis and support ongoing reforms in Europe and abroad that move towards risk-based premiums and link insurance with risk reduction, strengthen purchase requirements, and engage in multi-stakeholder partnerships.     

内蒙古东南部暴雨洪涝灾害风险评估与区划——以通辽市为例

文章选取通辽市各气象站点气象数据、基础地理信息数据、历史灾情数据、第二次土地调查数据及相关社会经济等统计数据,基于自然灾害风险原理,利用数理统计、层次分析法及空间叠加分析等方法,提出了通辽市暴雨洪涝灾害风险评价指标体系,得到通辽市暴雨洪涝灾害风险评估空间分布图。结果表明:高风险区主要分布在通辽市北部山区、中东部地区及偏南部地区,包括扎鲁特旗鲁北镇、科尔沁区、科左中旗东南部及库伦旗东南部;而科左后旗大部地区易形成由短时强降水引发的洪涝,为次高风险区;低风险区及次低风险区主要分布在通辽市中部、西南部地区,包括开鲁县、奈曼旗北部、科左中旗西部。     

Return period and risk calculations for ocean wave energy applications

The statistical behavior of wave energy at a site strongly depends on the wave characteristics. Wave energy converters fail to produce energy when there are no sufficiently available wave heights. Hence, evaluation of return periods and risk values of the minimum wave height becomes important for wave energy studies. A time index representing the minimum wave height is proposed here for ocean wave applications. Persistence plays a significant role in the calculation of return period and risk. Although ignoring the serial independence makes calculations easy, it leads to overestimations of the real status. In this paper, return periods and risk values are compared with each other by taking into consideration independent and dependent situations. Application of the study is achieved for the stations located in the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.