Reassessment of flood frequency using historical information for the River Ouse at York,UK (1200–2000)

Abstract

The reassessment of flood risk at York, UK, is pertinent in light of major flooding in November 2000, and heightened concerns of a perceived increase in flooding nationally. Systematic flood level readings from 1877 and a wealth of documentary records dating back as far as 1263 AD give the City of York a long and rich history of flood records. This extended flood record provides an opportunity to reassess estimates of flood frequency over a time scale not normally possible within flood frequency analysis. This paper re-evaluates flood frequency at York, considering the strengths and weaknesses in estimates resulting from four contrasting methods of analysis and their corresponding data: (a) single-site analysis of gauged annual maxima; (b) pooled analysis of multi-site gauged annual maxima; (c) combined analysis of systematic annual maxima augmented with historical peaks, and (d) analysis of only the very largest peaks using a Generalized Pareto Distribution. Use of the historical information was found to yield risk estimates which were lower and considered to be more credible than those achieved using gauged records alone.

Citation Macdonald, N. & Black, A. R. (2010) Reassessment of flood frequency using historical information for the River Ouse at York, UK (1200–2000). Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(7), 1152–1162.     

Pipe Service Age Effect on Chlorine Decay in Drinking‐Water Transmission and Distribution Systems

Maintaining acceptable quality of water transported in the transmission and distribution system requires the chlorination of water beyond the treatment plant. While flowing through pipes, the chlorine concentration decreases for different reasons. Reaction with the pipe material itself and the reaction with both the biofilm and tubercles formed on the pipe wall are known as pipe wall demand. This varies with pipe parameters. The aim of this paper was to assess the impact of the service age of pipes on the chlorine wall decay constant. One hundred and fifty three pipe sections of different sizes and four different pipe materials were collected and tested for their chlorine first‐order wall decay constants. The results showed that pipe service age was an important factor that must not be ignored. For the range of the 55 years of pipe service age used in this study, the change in the wall decay ranged from 8 to 531% of the corresponding values in the recently installed pipes. The effect of service age on the wall decay constants was most evident in steel pipes. Other important findings were reached.     

A note of caution when interpreting parameters of the distribution of excesses

In climatology and hydrology, univariate Extreme Value Theory has become a powerful tool to model the distribution of extreme events. The Generalized Pareto Distribution (GPD) is routinely applied to model excesses in space or time by letting the two GPD parameters depend on appropriate covariates. Two possible pitfalls of this strategy are the modeling and the interpretation of the scale and shape GPD parameters estimates which are often and incorrectly viewed as independent variables. In this note we first recall a statistical technique that makes the GPD estimates less correlated within a Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation approach. In a second step we propose novel reparametrizations for two method-of-moments particularly popular in hydrology: the Probability Weighted Moment (PWM) method and its generalized version (GPWM). Finally these three inference methods (ML, PWM and GPWM) are compared and discussed with respect to the issue of correlations.     

宜春地区主要气象灾害分布规律及成因分析

利用1959-2008 年气象观测资料和1949-2008 年气象灾情资料,对发生在宜春地区的暴雨和洪涝、大风、冰雹、干旱、高温、低温和冷冻、雷电等7 类主要气象灾害的分布规律及成因进行了分类分析.结果表明,宜春地区每年都会出现不同程度的洪涝灾害,重度洪涝灾害为3-5 a 一遇.东部和西部各有1 个大风多发区;大风7-...     

准噶尔盆地石南31井区清水河组油气水层分布规律

针对石南31井区储层岩性多变、油气水关系复杂等问题,按不同岩性识别油气层、水层和干层,据油气不同测井响应特征进一步识别油层和气层.将储层划分为细砂岩、中粗砂岩和砂砾岩3类,识别储层流体性质,分析油藏分布特征,指出油层、隔夹层平面分布特征,探讨油气水层分布规律.结果表明,石南31井区主要有4个油藏.储层所含流体有油、水和气,中北部细砂岩储层为纯油层,南部中粗砂岩储层为水层.气层从南到北分布于全区,主要位于油藏北部和东部局部区域,为今后解释工作具很好指导意义.     

Seismic random noise attenuation by time-frequency peak filtering based on joint time-frequency distribution

Time-Frequency Peak Filtering (TFPF) is an effective method to eliminate pervasive random noise when seismic signals are analyzed. In conventional TFPF, the pseudo Wigner–Ville distribution (PWVD) is used for estimating instantaneous frequency (IF), but is sensitive to noise interferences that mask the borderline between signal and noise and detract the energy concentration on the IF curve. This leads to the deviation of the peaks of the pseudo Wigner–Ville distribution from the instantaneous frequency, which is the cause of undesirable lateral oscillations as well as of amplitude attenuation of the highly varying seismic signal, and ultimately of the biased seismic signal. With the purpose to overcome greatly these drawbacks and increase the signal-to-noise ratio, we propose in this paper a TFPF refinement that is based upon the joint time-frequency distribution (JTFD). The joint time-frequency distribution is obtained by the combination of the PWVD and smooth PWVD (SPWVD). First we use SPWVD to generate a broad time-frequency area of the signal. Then this area is filtered with a step function to remove some divergent time-frequency points. Finally, the joint time-frequency distribution JTFD is obtained from PWVD weighted by this filtered distribution. The objective pursued with all these operations is to reduce the effects of the interferences and enhance the energy concentration around the IF of the signal in the time-frequency domain. Experiments with synthetic and real seismic data demonstrate that TFPF based on the joint time-frequency distribution can effectively suppress strong random noise and preserve events of interest.     

Seasonal and spatial distribution of the microbenthic communities of the Rio de la Plata estuary (Argentina) and possible environmental controls

The relationship between microbenthic communities, the habitat characteristics, and physical and chemical gradients was studied in the Rio de la Plata estuary. Five replicates of the surface layer were collected seasonally, in 10 sampling sites influenced by different land uses. The distribution of microbenthic communities was governed by two gradients, the first one determined by anthropic factors, related to pollution, and the second one to conductivity and turbidity. The higher densities of producers were observed in sites characterized by fine sediments. During winter, spring, and summer cyanophytes were abundant, while in autumn the diatoms, particularly birraphideans, dominated. The ciliates were the most abundant group among consumers, particularly in winter, and their spatial distribution was influenced by the turbidity. The whole study area has an eutrophic condition. Turbidity and the enrichment with nutrients and organic matter explained 50% of the variability in the species’ distribution.     

山西煤矿矿区井下地应力场分布特征研究

采用煤矿井下专用的小孔径水压致裂地应力测量装置,在山西省的晋城、潞安、汾西、华晋、阳泉、平朔、大同等矿区,完成了160个测点的地应力测量,测点地质条件涵盖了山西省煤矿大部分条件.基于实测数据,分析了地应力与测点埋深的关系,不同深度条件下煤矿矿区井下地应力状态;绘制出山西省煤矿矿区井下地应力分布图,并与震源机制解的分析结果进行了比较,得出山西省煤矿矿区井下地应力场分布特征与变化规律.煤矿井下水平应力总体上随着埋深增加而增大,但由于各矿区地质条件差异较大,导致地应力测试数据离散性也较大;埋深小于250 m的岩层应力状态主要为σ_H>σ_h>σ_V型,埋深处于250~500 m的岩层应力状态以σ_H>σ_V>σ_h型为主,埋深较大的矿区主要为σ_V>σ_H>σ_h型;最大水平主应力与垂直主应力的比值绝大部分集中在0.5~2.0之间,而且随着埋深增加,侧压比呈现减小的趋势,并向1附近集中;最大水平主应力与最小水平主应力的比值主要集中在1.5～2.0之间;平均水平主应力与垂直主应力的比值大多处于0.5～1.5,尤以0.5～1.0之间最多;山西省煤矿矿区从北到南,最大水平主应力方向发生了较大变化.北部最大水平主应力方向为NE,往南发生偏转到NNW;靠东部与西部偏向NW;靠东南部出现了多变的方向.井下实测数据与震源机制解相比在部分区域一致性较好,而在另一些区域存在明显的差异.特别是在受较大地质构造影响的区域,水平主应力方向往往发生明显的扭转和变化.     

Productivity,carbon assimilation and intra-annual change in tropical reef platform seagrass communities of the Torres Strait,north-eastern Australia

Detailed data on seagrass distribution, abundance, growth rates and community structure information were collected at Orman Reefs in March 2004 to estimate the above-ground productivity and carbon assimilated by seagrass meadows. Seagrass meadows were re-examined in November 2004 for comparison at the seasonal extremes of seagrass abundance. Ten seagrass species were identified in the meadows on Orman Reefs. Extensive seagrass coverage was found in March (18,700 ha) and November (21,600 ha), with seagrass covering the majority of the intertidal reef-top areas and a large proportion of the subtidal areas examined. There were marked differences in seagrass above-ground biomass, distribution and species composition between the two surveys. Major changes between March and November included a substantial decline in biomass for intertidal meadows and an expansion in area of subtidal meadows. Changes were most likely a result of greater tidal exposure of intertidal meadows prior to November leading to desiccation and temperature-related stress.     

Analyzing spatial ecological data using linear regression and wavelet analysis

Spatial (two-dimensional) distributions in ecology are often influenced by spatial autocorrelation. In standard regression models, however, observations are assumed to be statistically independent. In this paper we present an alternative to other methods that allow for autocorrelation. We show that the theory of wavelets provides an efficient method to remove autocorrelations in regression models using data sampled on a regular grid. Wavelets are particularly suitable for data analysis without any prior knowledge of the underlying correlation structure. We illustrate our new method, called wavelet-revised model, by applying it to multiple regression for both normal linear models and logistic regression. Results are presented for computationally simulated data and real ecological data (distribution of species richness and distribution of the plant species Dianthus carthusianorum throughout Germany). These results are compared to those of generalized linear models and models based on generalized estimating equations. We recommend wavelet-revised models, in particular, as a method for logistic regression using large datasets.