Discretization of Complex Geometric Domain Through Computer-Based Stair-Step Representation Method for Estimating Water Levels Associated with A Storm

In this paper, an improvement has been made to the approximation technique of a complex domain through the stairstep approach to have a considerable accuracy, minimize computational cost, and avoid the hardship of manual work. A novel stair-step representation algorithm is used in this regard, where the entire procedure is carried out through our developed MATLAB routine. Arakawa C-grid is used in our approximation with (1/120)° grid resolution. As a test case, the method is applied to approximate the domain covering the area between 15°–23°N latitudes and 85°–95° E longitudes in the Bay of Bengal. Along with the approximation of the land-sea interface, coastal stations are also identified. Approximated land-sea interfaces and coastal stations are found to be in good agreement with the actual ones based on the similarity index, overlap fraction, and extra fraction criteria. The method can be used for approximating an irregular geometric domain to employ the finite difference method in solving problems related to long waves. As a test case, shallow water equations in Cartesian coordinates are solved on the domain of interest for simulating water levels due to the nonlinear tide-surge interaction associated with the storms April 1991 and AILA, 2009 along the coast of Bangladesh. The same input except for the discretized domain and bathymetry as that of Paul et al. (2016) is used in our simulation. The results are found to be in reasonable agreement with the observed data procured from Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority.

     

Modeling and Prediction of Habitat Suitability for Ferula gummosa Medicinal Plant in a Mountainous Area

Natural Resources Research - Habitat suitability modeling and mapping are important aspects of long-term strategies for sustaining plant ecosystems. In this study, seven state-of-the-art machine...     

Numerical storm surge model with higher order finite difference method of lines for the coast of Bangladesh

In this study, the method of lines (MOLs) with higher order central difference approximation method coupled with the classical fourth order Runge-Kutta (RK(4,4)) method is used in solving shallow water equations (SWEs) in Cartesian coordinates to foresee water levels associated with a storm accurately along the coast of Bangladesh. In doing so, the partial derivatives of the SWEs with respect to the space variables were discretized with 5-point central difference, as a test case, to obtain a system of ordinary differential equations with time as an independent variable for every spatial grid point, which with initial conditions were solved by the RK(4,4) method. The complex land-sea interface and bottom topographic details were incorporated closely using nested schemes. The coastal and island boundaries were rectangularized through proper stair step representation, and the storing positions of the scalar and momentum variables were specified according to the rules of structured C-grid. A stable tidal regime was made over the model domain considering the effect of the major tidal constituent, M₂ along the southern open boundary of the outermost parent scheme. The Meghna River fresh water discharge was taken into account for the inner most child scheme. To take into account the dynamic interaction of tide and surge, the generated tidal regime was introduced as the initial state of the sea, and the surge was then made to come over it through computer simulation. Numerical experiments were performed with the cyclone April 1991 to simulate water levels due to tide, surge, and their interaction at different stations along the coast of Bangladesh. Our computed results were found to compare reasonable well with the limited observed data obtained from Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and were found to be better in comparison with the results obtained through the regular finite difference method and the 3-point central difference MOLs coupled with the RK(4,4) method with regard to the root mean square error values.     

The 1992 Tafilalt seismic crisis (Anti-Atlas, Morocco)

The Tafilalt region, located at the eastern end of the Anti-Atlas chain in Morocco, was shaken on 23 and 30 October 1992 by two moderate earthquakes of magnitude mb ∼ 5 and intensity ∼ VI MSK64, which caused two deaths and great damage in the area between Erfoud and Rissani. The review of data available on the seismic crisis allowed us to improve the knowledge on the macroseismic, instrumental and source parameters of the earthquakes. The main results of the present study are: (1) location of the epicentres with the help of data from a close portable network allowed us to propose new epicentral coordinates at 31.361° N, 4.182° W (23 October) and 31.286° N, 4.347° W (30 October); both events have focal depths of 2 km; (2) the shock of 30 October was followed by a series of 305 aftershocks, most of which were located west of Rissani; the 61 best-constrained events had focal depths of 5 to 19 km and magnitudes 0.7 to 3; (3) the largest damage was located in an area between the two epicentres within the Tafilalt valley and was probably amplified by site effects due to the proximity of the water table within the Quaternary sediments; (4) focal mechanisms of the main events correspond to strike-slip faulting with fault planes oriented N–S (left lateral) and E–W (right lateral); the only mechanism available for the aftershocks also corresponds to strike-slip faulting; (5) spectral analysis shows that the scalar seismic moment (Mo) of the first event is slightly larger than the second; the corresponding values of Mw are 5.1 and 5.0, respectively; (6) the dimensions of the faults for a circular fault model are 7.7 ± 1.4 and 7.4 ± 1.2 km, respectively; the average displacement is 4 cm for the first event and 3.7 cm for the second; the stress drop is 0.4 and 0.3 MPa, respectively, in agreement with standard values; (7) the Coulomb Stress test performed for both earthquakes suggests a relationship between both events only when the used location is at the limit of the horizontal uncertainty; (8) finally, the occurrence of these shocks suggests that the Anti-Atlas is undergoing tectonic deformation in addition to thermal uplift as suggested by recent publications.