Multi-factor sensitivity analysis on the stability of submarine hydrate-bearing slope

There are many factors affecting the instability of the submarine hydrate-bearing slope (SHBS), and the interaction with hydrate is very complicated. In this paper, the mechanical mechanism of the static liquefaction and instability of submarine slope caused by the dissociation of natural gas hydrate (NGH) resulting in the rapid increase of pore pressure of gas hydrate-bearing sediments (GHBS) and the decrease of effective stress are analyzed based on the time series and type of SHBS. Then, taking the typical submarine slope in the northern South China Sea as an example, four important factors affecting the stability of SHBS are selected, such as the degree of hydrate dissociation, the depth of hydrate burial, the thickness of hydrate, and the depth of seawater. According to the principle of orthogonal method, 25 orthogonal test schemes with 4 factors and 5 levels are designed and the safety factors of submarine slope stability of each scheme are calculated by using the strength reduction finite element method. By means of the orthogonal design range analysis and the variance analysis, sensitivity of influential factors on stability of SHBS are obtained. The results show that the degree of hydrate dissociation is the most sensitive, followed by hydrate burial depth, the thickness of hydrate and the depth of seawater. Finally, the concept of gas hydrate critical burial depth is put forward according to the influence law of gas hydrate burial depth, and the numerical simulation for specific submarine slope is carried out, which indicates the existence of critical burial depth.     

米波太阳射电频谱仪的科学目标和技术方案

介绍了70～700MHz低频太阳射电频谱仪的科学目标和技术方案,给出了11m 网状抛物面天线、接收系统、数字频谱终端的技术指标.并对系统的整机噪声系数、灵敏度、最小可测流量密度、LNA输入端的噪声功率进行了估计.系统频谱分辨率优于0.2MHz,时间分辨率最高可达2 ms.     

Impacts of DEM resolution,source, and resampling technique on SWAT-simulated streamflow

The sensitivity of streamflow simulated with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to Digital Elevation Model (DEM) resolution, DEM source and DEM resampling technique is still poorly understood. The objective of this study is to compare SWAT model streamflow estimates in the Johor River Basin (JRB), Malaysia for DEMs differing in resolution (from 20 to 1500 m), sources (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission: SRTM v4.1, Advanced Space-borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer: ASTER GDEM2, EarthEnv-DEM90 and Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010: GMTED2010) and resampling technique (nearest neighbour, bilinear interpolation, cubic convolution and majority). The key findings were as follows: (1) SRTM v4.1 (Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) = 11.16 m) and EarthEnv-DEM90 (RMSE = 12.4 m) had better vertical accuracy over the JRB compared to the ASTER GDEM2 (RMSE = 16.95 m); (2) Accurate annual streamflow simulations were obtained by using nearly all of the DEM resolutions, as pointed out by a relative error (RE) lower than 7% from 20 to 50 m and from 100 to 800 m DEMs; (3) Prediction errors were the lowest for ASTER GDEM2 (RE = 3.9%), followed by SRTM v4.1 (RE = 5.4%), EarthEnv-DEM90 (RE = 6.3%), and GMTED2010 (RE = 7.3%); (4) the majority and nearest neighbour resampling techniques performed the best (RE of 6.0%), followed by bilinear interpolation (RE of 7.2%) and cubic convolution (7.5%). The study indicates that DEM resolution is the most sensitive SWAT model DEM parameter compared to DEM source and DEM resampling technique for streamflow simulation within SWAT.     

Robustness of the holistic seismic risk evaluation in urban centers using the USRi

The Urban Seismic Risk index (USRi) published in a previous article (Carreño et al., Nat Hazards 40:137–172, 2007) is a composite indicator that measures risk from an integrated perspective and guides decision-making for identifying the main interdisciplinary factors of vulnerability to be reduced or intervened. The first step of the method is the evaluation of the potential physical damage (hard approach) as a result of the convolution of the seismic hazard with the physical vulnerability of buildings and infrastructure. Subsequently, a set of social context conditions that aggravate the physical effects is also considered (soft approach). According to this procedure, the physical risk index is evaluated for each unit of analysis from existing loss scenarios, whereas the total risk index is obtained by multiplying the former index by an impact factor using an aggravating coefficient, based on variables associated with the socio-economic conditions of each unit of analysis. The USRi has been developed using the underlying holistic and multi-hazard approach of the Urban Risk Index framework proposed for the evaluation of disaster risk in different megacities worldwide. This article presents the sensitivity analysis of the index to different parameters such as input data, weights and transformation functions used for the scaling or normalization of variables. This analysis has been performed using the Monte Carlo simulation to validate the robustness of this composite indicator, understanding as robustness how the cities maintain the ranking as well as predefined risk level ranges, when compared with the deterministic results of risk. Results are shown for different cities of the world.     

Assessment of regional karstification degree and groundwater sensitivity to pollution using hydrograph analysis in the Velka Fatra Mountains, Slovakia

Hydrograph analyses of groundwater depletion process in the spring were used for estimation of karstification degree and groundwater sensitivity to pollution in the whole catchment area. Differences of individual depletion hydrographs enable assessment of the anticipated extent of absorption, attenuation and self-purification processes during the groundwater penetration through the rock environment between its infiltration and its outflow in the spring. The method was applied in the SW part of the Velka Fatra Mountains (Slovakia) “Tlsta” hydrogeological structure. In total, 209 individual recession curves from 20 gauged springs were analyzed. Depending on characteristic groundwater depletion hydrographs with independent sub-regimes, categories of groundwater sensitivity to pollution were defined. Finally, resulting sensitivities to pollution were linked to lithostratigraphical units in the area.     

Numerical modeling of water yield of mine in Yangzhuang Iron Mine,Anhui Province of China

This study develops a three-dimensional heterogeneous numerical model to simulate the water inrush process and predict the water yield for mineral exploration in Yangzhuang Iron Mine in Anhui Province. To identify the hydrogeological parameters of the aquifer in the study area, the model was calibrated and validated using the observed heads through the integrated trial-and-error and automated techniques. Also, the sensitivity analysis of the model was performed to evaluate the uncertainty associated with the calibrated model. According to the mine construction plan at different mining levels of -500 m, -600 m, and -700 m, the calibrated model was then applied to predict the water yields dependent on the different mining levels. As indicated by the prediction results, the numerical simulation model can systematically describe the groundwater system in the mining area and determine the source of water inrush in this iron mine. In conclusion, numerical analyses carried out in this study can provide guidance to decision-makers in balancing the iron ore mining and mine dewatering in the future.     

模拟天然气水合物的岩石物理特性模型实验

针对水合物沉积的悬浮、颗粒接触和胶结三种微观模式,制作一组微弱胶结非固结高孔隙度人造样品和颗粒填充渐变的三维物理模型. 通过物理模型实验研究天然气水合物物性参数的敏感性. 实验结果表明：在弱颗粒间胶结物和低有效应力的固结差的沉积物中,声波对孔隙流体性质较敏感. 随着温度的降低颗粒胶结,改变原有沉积物的岩石物理特性,速度、弹性模量和频率升高,声波衰减和Vp/VS减小,沉积层内的反射波消隐.     

Evaluation of the Urban Tile in MOSES using Surface Energy Balance Observations

The UK Met Office has introduced a new scheme for its urban tile in MOSES 2.2 (Met Office Surface Exchange Scheme version 2.2), which is currently implemented within the operational Met Office weather forecasting model. Here, the performance of the urban tile is evaluated in two urban areas: the historic core of downtown Mexico City and a light industrial site in Vancouver, Canada. The sites differ in terms of building structures and mean building heights. In both cases vegetation cover is less than 5%. The evaluation is based on surface energy balance flux measurements conducted at approximately the blending height, which is the location where the surface scheme passes flux data into the atmospheric model. At both sites, MOSES 2.2 correctly simulates the net radiation, but there are discrepancies in the partitioning of turbulent and storage heat fluxes between predicted and observed values. Of the turbulent fluxes, latent heat fluxes were underpredicted by about one order of magnitude. Multiple model runs revealed MOSES 2.2 to be sensitive to changes in the canopy heat storage and in the ratio between the aerodynamic roughness length and that for heat transfer (temperature). Model performance was optimum with heat capacity values smaller than those generally considered for these sites. The results suggest that the current scheme is probably too simple, and that improvements may be obtained by increasing the complexity of the model.     

Noah-MP模型中积雪模拟对参数化方案的敏感性评估

针对Noah-MP模型多参数化方案、模拟结果不确定性范围难以确定的特点,选取北疆地区具有代表性的阿勒泰站气象资料作为模型驱动数据,探讨了积雪对多参数化方案的敏感性。在不考虑模型参数和驱动数据不确定性的条件下,设计了集合数为13824的多参数化方案集合模拟试验。选用Natural selection方法对物理过程的敏感性进行分析,并在敏感性分析结果的基础上进一步讨论了模拟结果的不确定性。结果表明:积雪对地表热交换、雨雪分离、土壤温度底层边界条件和第一层积雪或土壤时间方案4个物理过程敏感;在不考虑驱动数据和模型参数不确定性的条件下,多参数化方案集合模拟试验中的不确定性主要来源于敏感物理过程。去除敏感物理过程中能够明显降低模拟性能的参数化方案后,集合模拟结果的不确定性大幅减小。最后,根据分析结果构建了该站雪深和雪水当量模拟的最优参数化方案组合。     

Influence of uncertain boundary conditions and model structure on flood inundation predictions

In this study, the GLUE methodology is applied to establish the sensitivity of flood inundation predictions to uncertainty of the upstream boundary condition and bridges within the modelled region. An understanding of such uncertainties is essential to improve flood forecasting and floodplain mapping. The model has been evaluated on a large data set. This paper shows uncertainty of the upstream boundary can have significant impact on the model results, exceeding the importance of model parameter uncertainty in some areas. However, this depends on the hydraulic conditions in the reach e.g. internal boundary conditions and, for example, the amount of backwater within the modelled region. The type of bridge implementation can have local effects, which is strongly influenced by the bridge geometry (in this case the area of the culvert). However, the type of bridge will not merely influence the model performance within the region of the structure, but also other evaluation criteria such as the travel time. This also highlights the difficulties in establishing which parameters have to be more closely examined in order to achieve better fits. In this study no parameter set or model implementation that fulfils all evaluation criteria could be established. We propose four different approaches to this problem: closer investigation of anomalies; introduction of local parameters; increasing the size of acceptable error bounds; and resorting to local model evaluation. Moreover, we show that it can be advantageous to decouple the classification into behavioural and non-behavioural model data/parameter sets from the calculation of uncertainty bounds.