论灾害和环境的交融与互馈

环境为人类生存发展提供了空间和所需要的资源,因此是重要的基础性生产要素。自本世纪５０年代以来,环境问题已成为世界关注的焦点,人类对环境的认识出现了两次飞跃性进展。大量事实表明,灾害与环境同是地球运动和人类社会经济活动的产物。环境是灾害活动的背景和基础,灾害是环境异常恶化的表现,二者相互作用,同步消长,形成密切的交融与互馈关系。在减灾行动中,只有把防灾抗灾和保护与治理环境有机地结合起来,才能取得充分的效果。     

山西地区生土建筑震害特征与防震减灾对策

山西地处黄土高原区，许多民宅为生土建筑，在调查研究的基础上，按照建筑形式、结构特点，将山西生土建筑分为5类，总结了生土建筑的分布特点和结构特征，结合建筑物震害经验讨论了生土建筑的震害机制和主要影响因素，以及生土建筑存在的问题和防震减灾对策。     

URBAN CARTOGRAPHY AND THE MAPPING OF CHICAGO*

ABSTRACT. City maps are among the oldest and most popular forms of cartographic representation, yet urban cartography has received only limited scholarly attention. A review of the early history of city mapping suggests a progression of representational forms from profile to perspective to plan, a progression that parallels urban growth. The history of urban mapping reflects a desire to comprehend the geography of the city for reasons of curiosity and practical necessity, but the map also may become an icon that engenders a sense of pride and belonging, if not allegiance and control. An examination of Chicago maps indicates that, in addition to evolution in representational styles, the subjects of maps change to serve demands of the moment. City maps not only constitute a rich historical archive but also are dynamic agents in urban development. The urban landscape is shaped by cartographic vision.     

Seven landslide dams of old seismic origin in southeastern Sicily (Italy)

This paper focuses on origin, morphology and evolution of seven landslide dams in southeastern Sicily. These landforms are part of a set of 146 landslides recently recognised in this area, which was hitherto considered to have little or no slope instability. Southeastern Sicily consists of a plateau (the Hyblaean Mountains) incised by canyons and surrounded by lower lands. It is underlain mostly by subhorizontal, moderately to well-lithified carbonate rocks. Relief is low.Several lines of evidence justify the assumption of a seismic trigger for the landslides in this area: (1) the geo-climatic environment is not favourable to landsliding, (2) low-angle basal shear surfaces are very frequent, (3) landslide distribution is consistent with the known magnitude–distance relationships for earthquake-induced landslides, (4) historical documents testify to earthquake-triggered slope instability and (5) a specific landslide can be exactly dated.The phenomena illustrated here include six rock slides (one with a debris-flow component) and one rock fall. Slip surfaces are mostly non-circular. Landslide volume ranges from about 50×10³ to 34×10⁶ m³.With reference to the Costa and Schuster [Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 100 (1988) 1054] classification of landslide dams, five cases belong to type II (spanning the entire valley), and two to type IV (failures from both valley sides, with frontal or side contact between failed masses). With reference to Crozier and Pillans [Catena 18 (1991) 471] classification of landslide lakes, all cases show a main valley lake while tributary valley, back and supra lakes are sporadically present. One damming is attributable to the 1693 earthquake with certainty; another damming, to the same earthquake with high probability. Three dams were reincised, one breached or reincised, one is slightly reincised and two more or less intact; correspondingly, five silting up deposits were reincised, one is being reincised at present and two are still under formation.     

Why are flood and landslide victims less willing to take mitigation measures than the public?

Almost annually, natural hazards such as floods and landslides cause a great deal of financial loss and human suffering in Taiwan. In order to gain a better understanding of disaster preparedness, this paper examines several factors in relation to hazard mitigation behavior: social economic status (education, income), psychological vulnerability (sense of powerless and helpless), risk perception (perceived impact and control) and social trust. The statistical analysis reported here is based on the “2004 National Risk Perception Survey of Floods and Landslides in Taiwan”. The main findings include: (1) in comparison with general public, victims are less willing to adopt risk mitigation measures than the public, even though they perceive larger impacts, worry more about the hazard, and pay more attention to hazard information; (2) trust, risk perception and social economic status are positive predictors for mitigation intentions, whereas psychological vulnerability is a negative predictor; and (3) psychological variables are stronger predictors for mitigation intentions than that of socio-economic variables. In light of these findings, the policy implications and intervention strategy are also discussed.

Drought risk assessment in the western part of Bangladesh

Though drought is a recurrent phenomenon in Bangladesh, very little attention has been so far paid to the mitigation and preparedness of droughts. This article presents a method for spatial assessment of drought risk in Bangladesh. A conceptual framework, which emphasizes the combined role of hazard and vulnerability in defining risk, is used for the study. Standardized precipitation index method in a GIS environment is used to map the spatial extents of drought hazards in different time steps. The key social and physical factors that define drought vulnerability in the context of Bangladesh are identified and corresponding thematic maps in district level are prepared. Composite drought vulnerability map is developed through the integration of those thematic maps. The risk is computed as the product of the hazard and vulnerability. The result shows that droughts pose highest risk to the northern and northwestern districts of Bangladesh.     

Ferguson rock slide buries California State Highway near Yosemite National Park

During spring 2006, talus from the toe area of a rock-block slide of about 800,000 m³ buried California State Highway 140, one of the main routes into heavily-visited Yosemite National Park, USA. Closure of the highway for 92 days caused business losses of about 4.8 million USD. The rock slide, composed of slate and phyllite, moved slowly downslope from April to June 2006, creating a fresh head scarp with 9–12 m of displacement. Movement of the main rock slide, a re-activation of an older slide, was triggered by an exceptionally wet spring 2006, following a very wet spring 2005. As of autumn 2006, most of the main slide appeared to be at rest, although rocks occasionally continued to fall from steep, fractured rock masses at the toe area of the slide. Future behavior of the slide is difficult to predict, but possible scenarios range from continued scattered rock fall to complete rapid failure of the entire mass. Although unlikely except under very destabilizing circumstances, a worst-case, rapid failure of the entire rock slide could extend across the Merced River, damming the river and creating a reservoir. As a temporary measure, traffic has been rerouted to the opposite side of the Merced River at about the same elevation as the buried section of Highway 140. A state-of-the-art monitoring system has been installed to detect movement in the steep talus slope, movement of the main slide mass, local strong ground motion from regional earthquakes, and sudden changes in stream levels, possibly indicating damming of the river by slide material.     

城市空间认知-偏好-行为的耦合与互馈研究

基于行为地理学“空间认知-空间偏好-空间行为”的经典研究范式,以中国科学院大学研究生为调查对象,采用手绘意象地图和问卷调查相结合的方式,在一年时间内分三轮开展跟踪调查,通过观察被访者在北京逗留期间的城市空间认知、偏好和行为过程与特征,分析空间认知-偏好-行为三者间的相互作用关系与影响机制。研究发现：城市空间认知、空间偏好与空间行为存在一定耦合性,亦表现出明显的差异性,三者间不是单向因果而是相互影响的互馈关系;除认知主体的社会、文化等群体属性、经验和情感等个体差异以外,与客体的接触时间、空间距离和接触频率等时空制约因素均能影响主体的城市空间认知水平与发展过程。最后,根据空间认知、偏好、行为的相互作用关系和影响制约因素,凝练出一般化的城市空间认知-偏好-行为互馈关联模型。     

Integrating TRMM and MODIS satellite with socio-economic vulnerability for monitoring drought risk over a tropical region of India

Drought is a recurring feature of the climate, responsible for social and economic losses in India. In the present work, attempts were made to estimate the drought hazard and risk using spatial and temporal datasets of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) in integration with socio-economic vulnerability. The TRMM rainfall was taken into account for trend analysis and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) estimation, with aim to investigate the changes in rainfall and deducing its pattern over the area. The SPI and average rainfall data derived from TRMM were interpolated to obtain the spatial and temporal pattern over the entire South Bihar of India, while the MODIS datasets were used to derive the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) deviation in the area. The Geographical Information System (GIS) is taken into account to integrate the drought vulnerability and hazard, in order to estimate the drought risk over entire South Bihar. The results indicated that approximately 36.90% area is facing high to very high drought risk over north-eastern and western part of South Bihar and need conservation measurements to combat this disaster.     

Seismic microzoning from synthetic ground motion earthquake scenarios parameters: The case study of the city of Catania (Italy)

The city of Catania (Italy) in the South-Eastern Sicily has been affected in past times by several destroying earthquakes with high values of estimated magnitude. The seismogenic area to the south of Volcano Etna, known as Iblean Area, is placed between the African and the Euro-Asiatic plates on the west of the Ibleo-Maltese escarpment, to the south of the Graben of the Sicilian channel and on the east of the overlapping front of Gela. Basing on the seismic history of Catania, the following earthquake scenarios have been considered: the “Val di Noto” earthquake of January 11, 1693 (with intensity X-XI on MCS scale, magnitude M_W=7.41 and epicentral distance of about 13 km); the “Etna” earthquake of February 20, 1818 (with intensity IX on MCS scale, magnitude M_W=6.23 and epicentral distance of about 10 km). The soil response analysis at the surface, in terms of time history and response spectra, has been obtained by 1-D equivalent linear models for about 1200 borings location available in the data-bank of the central area of Catania of about 50 km², using deterministic design scenario earthquakes as input at the conventional bedrock.Seismic microzoning maps of the city of Catania have been obtained in terms of different peak ground acceleration at the surface and in terms of amplification ratios for given values of frequency.