Gaps,Intellectual Enthusiasms,Personal Insecurities: Response to “Stages on Journeys”

Abstract

The Department of Geography at Arizona State University implemented a field exam as part of its PhD program requirements. This field exam requires students to develop an independent field-based research project based on a general question in the student's specialty area. A survey of current and former PhD students and faculty members document how the field exam assists students in developing skills necessary for continuing graduate research and for preparing them for the rigors of academic employment. The outcomes of the exam include both long-term, process-related benefits and more immediate tangible rewards. For some students, the preliminary fieldwork and results redirect student interests and form the basis for their eventual dissertation. The field exam is adaptable to a diversity of geography research methods, subject areas, and graduate degree programs, while remaining grounded in the discipline's vibrant, widely respected fieldwork tradition.

     

褐色土地再利用的生态和健康风险评价

在总体分析褐色土地开发存在的环境风险和危害途径基础上,对目前褐色土地再利用环境风险评价的2类主要方法即健康风险评价和生态风险评价进行论述且将其进行比较,总结出2类方法的优缺点．并以福州典型褐色地块XX电化厂为例,考察这一地块的土地利用状况和特性,采用“层次评价方法”,探讨该地块的环境风险,结果表明：该地块存在环境风险的污染物有六六六、Pb、Hg,这些污染物在空间上呈现点状分布特征;部分地块Ph存在潜在的生态风险、污染物Hg对生态存在严重的潜在风险,但从总体上说对人体不存在潜在的健康风险;六六六污染主要出自氯乙醇车间,存在严重的健康风险即致癌和非致癌风险对人体存在健康危害;总的来说,这些超标污染物潜在的健康风险的大小为：六六六〉Pb〉Hg．最后针对污染状况对该地块再利用提出相关的建议．     

G318川藏公路段泥石流危险性评价

以野外调查为基础,选取坡度、地表起伏度、岩石抗剪强度指标(内摩擦角与粘聚力)、距断裂距离、地震烈度、岩体风化程度、最大24 h降雨量、年平均气温、土地利用类型等10项指标作为基本判别因子,分析泥石流对影响因子的敏感程度.研究表明,G318川藏公路最有利于泥石流发育的条件为:1.坡度:20°～35°;2.地表起伏度:100 ～300 m;3.岩石抗剪强度指标:内摩擦角＜35°,粘聚力＜25 MPa;4.岩体风化程度:＞0.4;5.距断层距离:0～10km;6.地震烈度:大于Ⅶ度;7.土地利用:荒漠草原、冰川、裸岩砾石、坡草地;8.年平均气温:＜8°与10°～12°;9.最大24 h降雨量:＞40 mm.结合GIS与信息量模型分析G318川藏公路段沿线泥石流危险性,研究结果表明:公路大部分路段处于中度、高度与极高度危险区,三者面积之和占总面积的71.99％,范围较大,主要分布在大渡河、金沙江、澜沧江、怒江、帕隆藏布江等大江大河的深切峡谷区;基本无危险区范围较小,主要位于成都平原和高原面路段,仅占总面积的4.21％.研究成果与实际灾情吻合,可为川藏公路泥石流风险评估及新路选线提供科学依据.     

Soil erosion and its response to the changes of precipitation and vegetation cover on the Loess Plateau

Soil erosion is a major threat to our terrestrial ecosystems and an important global environmental problem. The Loess Plateau in China is one of the regions that suffered more severe soil erosion and undergoing climate warming and drying in the past decades. The vegetation restoration named Grain-to-Green Program has now been operating for more than 10 years. It is necessary to assess the variation of soil erosion and the response of precipita- tion and vegetation restoration to soil erosion on the Loess Plateau. In the study, the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation （RUSLE） was applied to evaluate annual soil loss caused by water erosion. The results showed as follows. The soil erosion on the Loess Plateau between 2000 and 2010 averaged for 15.2 t hm-2 a 1 and was characterized as light for the value less than 25 t hm-2 a-1. The severe soil erosion higher than 25 t hm-2 a-~ was mainly distributed in the gully and hilly regions in the central, southwestern, and some scattered areas of earth-rocky mountainous areas on the Loess Plateau. The soil erosion on the Loess Plateau showed a deceasing trend in recent decade and reduced more at rates more than 1 t hm 2 a 1 in the areas suffering severe soil loss. Benefited from the improved vegetation cover and ecological construction, the soil erosion on the Loess Plateau was significantly declined, es- pecially in the east of Yulin, most parts of Yah＇an prefectures in Shaanxi Province, and the west of Luliang and Linfen prefectures in Shanxi Province in the hilly and gully regions. The variation of vegetation cover responding to soil erosion in these areas showed the relatively higher contribution than the precipitation. However, most areas in Qingyang and Dingxi pre- fectures in Gansu Province and Guyuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region were predomi- nantly related to precipitation.     

Further developments of a fuzzy set map comparison approach

Fuzzy set map comparison offers a novel approach to map comparison.The approach is specifically aimed at categorical raster maps and applies fuzzy set techniques, accounting for fuzziness of location and fuzziness of category, to create a similarity map as well as an overall similarity statistic: the Fuzzy Kappa. To date, the calculation of the Fuzzy Kappa (or K-fuzzy) has not been formally derived, and the documented procedure was only valid for cases without fuzziness of category. Furthermore, it required an infinitely large, edgeless map. This paper presents the full derivation of the Fuzzy Kappa; the method is now valid for comparisons considering fuzziness of both location and category and does not require further assumptions. This theoretical completion opens opportunities for use of the technique that surpass the original intentions. In particular, the categorical similarity matrix can be applied to highlight or disregard differences pertaining to selected categories or groups of categories and to distinguish between differences due to omission and commission.     

The inclusion of differentially assessed lands in urban growth model calibration: a comparison of two approaches using SLEUTH

This research sought to understand the role that differentially assessed lands (lands in the United States given tax breaks in return for their guarantee to remain in agriculture) play in influencing urban growth. Our method was to calibrate the SLEUTH urban growth model under two different conditions. The first used an excluded layer that ignored such lands, effectively rendering them available for development. The second treated those lands as totally excluded from development. Our hypothesis was that excluding those lands would yield better metrics of fit with past data. Our results validate our hypothesis since two different metrics that evaluate goodness of fit both yielded higher values when differentially assessed lands are treated as excluded. This suggests that, at least in our study area, differential assessment, which protects farm and ranch lands for tenuous periods of time, has indeed allowed farmland to resist urban development. Including differentially assessed lands also yielded very different calibrated coefficients of growth as the model tried to account for the same growth patterns over two very different excluded areas. Excluded layer design can greatly affect model behavior. Since differentially assessed lands are quite common through the United States and are often ignored in urban growth modeling, the findings of this research can assist other urban growth modelers in designing excluded layers that result in more accurate model calibration and thus forecasting.     

岩溶塌陷危险性评价——以独山县交摆村为例

岩溶塌陷是多因素相互影响,成因机制较为复杂的地质灾害类型,在空间上具有隐蔽性,时间上具有突发性的特征。为有效预测、评价岩溶塌陷危险性,本文采用GRA -FAHP,从岩溶条件、覆盖层条件、地下水条件、工程活动条件等因素出发,选取14个主要影响指标构建定性与定量相结合的岩溶塌陷危险性评价模型,以贵州省独山县交摆村岩溶塌陷区为例对模型进行验证。结果表明,该模型对岩溶塌陷危险性评价与实际情况相符。可为今后岩溶塌陷危险性的预测、评价提供一些借鉴。     

2013年3月11日阿图什5．2级地震灾害损失评估和房屋震害特征分析

2013年3月11日新疆阿图什发生慨5．2地震,震中烈度Ⅵ度,地震没有造成人员伤亡,个别民宅倒塌,造成直接经济损失2397万元。结合此次地震考察评估工作,分析此次地震造成经济损失的震害原因。从房屋破坏、房屋建筑场地条件和抗震安居工程三点,描述了此次地震的震害特征,与新疆伽师、莎车等具有相同地质条件的地区进行震后对比,并结合2009年4月22日发生的新疆阿图什Ms5．0地震,提出了对此次地震的认识与建议。     

地震烈度快速评估研究现状与分析

对烈度快速评估的相关问题的研究现状进行了阐述和分析,包括地震烈度评定标准、烈度衰减规律、地震烈度与地震动参数之间定量关系、地震烈度速报系统及仪器烈度等.讨论了在强震观测台网密集、比较稀疏以及无法实时和近实时获取震后强震资料等情形下,进行烈度快速评估的方法以及尚需解决的问题.目前我国大部分地区强震观测台网较为稀疏的情况下,采用基于地震学的地震动合成方法估计地震烈度分布是进行烈度快速评估较为合适的方法,进行相关研究对震后救灾部署和震灾评估具有重要意义.     

A spatial cross‐correlation model of spectral accelerations at multiple periods

Many seismic loss problems (such as disruption of distributed infrastructure and losses to portfolios of structures) are dependent upon the regional distribution of ground‐motion intensity, rather than intensity at only a single site. Quantifying ground‐motion over a spatially‐distributed region therefore requires information on the correlation between the ground‐motion intensities at different sites during a single event. The focus of the present study is to assess the spatial correlation between ground‐motion spectral accelerations at different periods. Ground motions from eight well‐recorded earthquakes were used to study the spatial correlations. On the basis of obtained empirical correlation estimates, we propose a geostatistics‐based method to formulate a predictive model that is suitable for simulation of spectral accelerations at multiple sites and multiple periods, in the case of crustal earthquakes in active seismic regions. While the calibration of this model and investigation of its implications were somewhat complex, the model itself is very simple to use for making correlation predictions. A user only needs to evaluate a simple equation relying on three sets of coefficients provided here to compute a correlation coefficient for spectral values at two periods and at a specified separation distance. These results may then be used in evaluating the seismic risk of portfolios of structures with differing fundamental periods. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.