Advances in Study on Water Resources Carrying Capacity in China

AbstractThe article systematically reviews the history of water resource carrying capacity and shows that water resource carrying capacity through three exhibition stages: initial, prosperity and development. The initial stage of the study is concentrated on environmental vulnerability arid area of northwest, and put forward the concept of water resource carrying capacity. it focus on the research of the theory, quantitative research is only initial. In this phase, the writer mainly uses two methods, which are trend in conventional and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, to study. The prosperous phase of the study extends to urban areas, drainage basin, etc. In this stage, the research mainly probes into water resource carrying capacity from characteristic, connotation and the index system, which are using a variety of new mathematical models, in order to let the study gradually transmute into quantitative-rization. The expansion phase of the study refers to groundwater resources carrying capacity, the areas of Karst and irrigation .In this stage, theory study has been especially mature, there are the artificial neural network mode and projection trace appraises model besides the first two stages methods in quantitative-rization evaluation. In the future, the study of water resources bearing capacity will be combined with water resource optional distribution and ecological water requirement enhance study representative area, simultaneously, paying more attention to the issue of recycling Reclaimed Water; During the study, quantitative analysis should be combined with advanced means such as remote sensing, etc. which can realize the development of study from static to dynamics

Análise multi-critério aplicada ao mapeamento da suscetibilidade a escorregamentos

This paper presents the application of a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) tool for landslide susceptibility assessment in Porto Alegre municipality, southern Brazil. A knowledge driven approach was used, aiming to ensure an optimal use of the available information. The landslide conditioning factors considered were slope, lithology, fl ow accumulation and distance from lineaments. Standardization of these factors was done through fuzzy membership functions, and evaluation of their relative importance for landslide predisposition was supported by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), based on local expert knowledge. Finally, factors were integrated in a GIS environment using the weighted linear combination (WLC) method. For validation, an inventory, including 107 landslide points recorded between 2007 and 2013 was used. Results indicated that 8.2% (39.40 km²) of the study area are highly and very highly susceptible to landslides. An overall accuracy of 95% was found, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.960. Therefore, the resulting map can be regarded as useful for monitoring landslide-prone areas. Based on the fi ndings, it is concluded that the proposed method is eff ective for susceptibility assessment since it yielded meaningful results and does not require extensive input data.Este estudo apresenta a aplicação de uma ferramenta de análise multi-critério para mapear a suscetibilidade a escorregamentos no município de Porto Alegre, sul do Brasil. Uma abordagem guiada pelo conhecimento de especialistas foi utilizada, com o intuito de otimizar a utilização das informações disponíveis. Os fatores condicionantes dos escorregamentos considerados foram declividade, litologia, acúmulo defl uxo e distância de lineamentos. A padronização desses fatores foi realizada por meio da aplicação de funções fuzzy e a importância relativa de cada um na predisposição do terreno a escorregamentos foi estabelecida com o apoio da técnica AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process), com base no conhecimento de especialistas locais. Por fi m, a integração dos fatores em ambiente SIG se deu por meio do método denominado Combinação Linear Ponderada (WLC). Para validar os resultados, utilizou-se um mapa inventário contendo 107 cicatrizes de escorregamentos, registradas entre 2007 e 2013. Os resultados indicam que 8,2% (39,38 km²) da área de estudo possui uma suscetibilidade alta e muito alta a escorregamentos. A validação dos resultados obteve uma exatidão geral de 95%, com uma área abaixo da curva ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) de 0,960. Portanto, o mapa obtido pode ser considerado útil para monitorar as áreas propensas a esses processos. Com base nos resultados, conclui-se que o método proposto é efi caz para a avaliação da suscetibilidade, uma vez que os resultados obtidos são robustos e que não foi necessária uma quantidade extensa de dados de entrada

Sustainable Use of Soils and Water: The Role of Environmental Land Use Conflicts

This book on the sustainable use of soils and water addressed a variety of issues related to the utopian desire for environmental sustainability and the deviations from this scene observed in the real world. Competing interests for land are frequently a factor in land degradation, especially where the adopted land uses do not conform with the land capability (the natural use of soil). The concerns of researchers about these matters are presented in the articles comprising this Special Issue book. Various approaches were used to assess the (im)balance between economic profit and environmental conservation in various regions, in addition to potential routes to bring landscapes back to a sustainable status being disclosed

IMPACTS OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT PATTERN ON RUNOFF PEAK FLOWS AND STREAMFLOW FLASHINESS OF PERI-URBAN CATCHMENTS: ASSESSING THE PERFORMANCE OF PHYSICAL AND DATA-DRIVEN MODELS FOR REAL-TIME ENSEMBLE FLOOD FORECASTING

Urban growth is a global phenomenon, and the associated impacts on hydrology from land development are expected to increase, especially in peri-urban catchments, which are newly developing catchments in proximity of growing cities. In northern climates, hydrologic response of peri-urban catchments change with the water budget and climatic conditions. As a result, runoff response of northern peri-urban catchments can vary immensely across seasons. During warm seasons, the evapotranspiration (ET) and infiltration rates are high, so urban floods are expected to occur during high intensity, low duration storm events. During cold seasons and below freezing temperatures, surficial soils are typically frozen and nearly impervious. In addition, the ET rate is low throughout winter. Therefore, the difference in runoff response between peri-urban and natural catchments is least in winter. Furthermore, winter snow redistribution by plowing and endogenous urban heat affect the snowmelt timing and frequency. Due to the limited availability of data on snow removal and redistribution activities in northern peri-urban catchments, cold-season hydrologic modeling for peri-urban catchments remains a challenging task in urban hydrology. Research on the cold season hydrologic response of peri-urban catchments are mostly limited to Finland, Sweden, and Canada. The resulting research gap on seasonal change in hydrologic response of peri-urban catchments is common to many northern settings. In the first phase of this study, I use intensive discharge monitoring records at several peri-urban catchments near Syracuse, NY to calculate and compare seasonal runoff peak flows among several peri-urban catchments. These are selected to provide a range of drainage area and imperviousness to clarify the impact of urban development and catchment size on seasonal hydrologic behavior of peri-urban catchments. It is well understood that greater peak flows and higher stream flashiness are associated with increased surface imperviousness and storm location. However, the effect of the distribution of impervious areas on runoff peak flow response and stream flashiness of peri-urban catchments has not been well studied. In the second phase of this dissertation, I define a new geometric index, Relative Nearness of Imperviousness to the Catchment Outlet (RNICO), to correlate imperviousness distribution of peri-urban catchments with runoff peak flows and stream flashiness. The study sites for this phase of the study include ninety peri-urban catchments in proximity of 9 large US cities: New York, NY (NYC), Syracuse, NY, Baltimore, MD, Portland, OR, Chicago, IL, Austin, TX, Houston, TX, San Francisco, CA, and Los Angeles, CA. Based on RNICO, all development patterns are divided into 3 classes: upstream, centralized, and downstream. Analysis results showed an obvious increase in runoff peak flows and decrease in time to peak as the centroid of imperviousness moves downstream. This indicates that RNICO is an effective tool for classifying urban development patterns and for macroscale understanding of the hydrologic behavior of small peri-urban catchments, despite the complexity of urban drainage systems. Results for nine cities show strong positive correlations between RNICO and runoff peak flows and stream flashiness index for small peri-urban catchments. However, the area threshold used to distinguish small and large catchments differs slightly by location. For example, for Chicago, IL, NYC, NY, Baltimore, MD, Houston, TX, and Austin, TX area threshold values of 55, 40, 50, 42, and 32 km2 emerged, runoff peak flows in catchments with drainage area below these values were positively correlated to RNCIO. This first phase of this study suggests that RNICO is a stronger predictor of runoff peak flow and stream-flow regime in humid northern and southern US study sites, compared to more arid western US study sites. This difference is likely due to the greater precipitation rates and greater antecedent soil moisture contents for humid climates. The extent of urban infrastructure is less likely to control the effectiveness of RNICO for predicting runoff peak flows and R-B flashiness index for the selected study sites, due to the relatively similar urban development level within the peri-urban study catchments. Consistent forecast of peak flows across scales in flood hydrographs remains a challenge for most hydrologic models. Urbanization increases the magnitude and frequency of peak flows, often challenging the forecast ability for real-time flood prediction. Following advances in satellite and ground-based meteorological observations, global and continental real-time ensemble flood forecasting systems use a variety of physical hydrology models to predict urban peak flows. Artificial intelligence (AI) models provide an alternative approach to physical hydrology models for real-time flood forecasting. Despite recent advances in AI techniques for hydrologic prediction, ensemble stream-flow prediction by these methods has been limited. In addition, application of AI models for flood forecasting has been limited to large river basins, with very limited research on use of AI models for small peri-urban catchments. Flood forecasting in small urban catchments can be a critical task to urban safety due to the short time of concentration and quick precipitation runoff response. AI flood forecasting models typically apply upstream streamflow measurements to forecast downstream flood discharge. Therefore, the storm direction may change the flood travel time and time to peak, which challenges accurate flood forecasting. For example, if the storm direction is upstream through an AI model trained on the upstream gage data may fail to accurately predict peak flow magnitude and timing, at the outlet, this is due to the quicker runoff response of the downstream gage compared to the upstream station. There has been very limited focus on the impact of storm direction on peak flow response of urban catchments and available literature are limited to lab-scale prototypes and rainfall simulators. These may not fully represent real-world flooding scenarios. Therefore, the impact of storm direction on flood forecasting performance of peri-urban catchments is another important research gap in real-time urban flood forecasting. In the third phase of my dissertation project, I initially assess the impact of storm direction on the flood forecasting performance of an Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) at a peri-urban catchment in proximity of Syracuse, NY. Next, I compare the relative utility of physical hydrology and AI approaches to predict flood hydrograph in peri-urban catchments. For this comparison, I selected ANFIS, and Sacramento Soil Moisture Accounting Model (SAC-SMA) for real-time ensemble re-forecasting of streamflow in several small to medium size suburban catchments near NYC for Hurricane Irene and a smaller storm event. The SAC-SMA model is a physical hydrology model that was initially developed by Burnash et al. (1973). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) selected the SAC-SMA lumped model as a comparison baseline for participating distributed hydrologic models in the Distributed Model Intercomparison Project (DMIP), which aimed to identify the most suitable model for National Weather Service (NWS) streamflow prediction across the US (http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ohd/hrl/dmip/). More importantly, the NWS is currently using the lumped form of SAC-SMA for ensemble flood forecasting across the US (Emerton et al., 2016). For these reasons, I chose to employ a lumped version of SAC-SMA in my dissertation project. SAC-SMA performed well for both large and small events and for lead times of three to 24 hours, but ANFIS predicted the Hurricane Irene flood discharge well only for short lead times in small study catchments. ANFIS had reasonable percent bias (PBIAS) for predicting the small storm event for all lead times, indicating the utility of ANFIS for small events. In addition, the accuracy of both SAC-SMA and ANFIS models for ensemble flood prediction did not change significantly with catchment size and imperviousness. Overall, results of the third phase of this study suggest that the lumped SAC-SMA model may be a reliable option for local urban flood forecasting for evacuation plan lead time up to 24 hours. Due to the uncertainties in future climatic conditions, my study emphasizes the importance of using physical hydrology models for real-time flood forecasting of large events in small urban catchments. This recommendation is based on the finding that the performance of data-driven models may greatly decrease with the storm scale if the training period includes storms of magnitude less than storms in the validation period

Modeling office firm dynamics in an agent-based micro simulation framework : methods and empirical analysis

Office firms represent a large share of economic activities, especially in the sector of professional services. In general, firms will follow an evolutionary cycle comprising the dynamics of starting-up, finding a location to establish their business, growing or declining, relocating and going out of business. The underlying approach taken in this research project relies on the idea that the evolution of office firms is strongly influenced by the urban environment. Traditionally, the specific relationship between transportation and land use has been examined in the framework of aggregate integrated land use-transportation (LUTI) models. However, the field is moving toward a more disaggregate approach, based on concepts of micro simulation and agent-based models. These are built on behaviorally richer concepts for examining firm dynamics, such as firm demography. The aim of this research project is to contribute to this emerging field by developing an agent-based modeling approach to simulate the evolution of office firms in time and space. To this end, a set of statistical/econometric models is used to investigate the relationships between specific firm demographic processes and the urban environment. The research project contributes to the existing literature by focusing on office firm demography and related land use and transportation influences, exploring alternative approaches to model office firm dynamics empirically, and using very detailed nationwide data from The Netherlands

Sustainable Smart Cities and Smart Villages Research

ca. 200 words; this text will present the book in all promotional forms (e.g. flyers). Please describe the book in straightforward and consumer-friendly terms. [There is ever more research on smart cities and new interdisciplinary approaches proposed on the study of smart cities. At the same time, problems pertinent to communities inhabiting rural areas are being addressed, as part of discussions in contigious fields of research, be it environmental studies, sociology, or agriculture. Even if rural areas and countryside communities have previously been a subject of concern for robust policy frameworks, such as the European Union’s Cohesion Policy and Common Agricultural Policy Arguably, the concept of ‘the village’ has been largely absent in the debate. As a result, when advances in sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT) led to the emergence of a rich body of research on smart cities, the application and usability of ICT in the context of a village has remained underdiscussed in the literature. Against this backdrop, this volume delivers on four objectives. It delineates the conceptual boundaries of the concept of ‘smart village’. It highlights in which ways ‘smart village’ is distinct from ‘smart city’. It examines in which ways smart cities research can enrich smart villages research. It sheds light on the smart village research agenda as it unfolds in European and global contexts.

Projecting land use changes using parcel-level data : model development and application to Hunterdon County, New Jersey

This dissertation is to develop a parcel-based spatial land use change prediction model by coupling various machine learning and interpretation algorithms such as cellular automata (CA) and decision tree (DT). CA is a collection of cells that evolves through a number of discrete time steps according to a set of transition rules based on the state of each cell and the characteristics of its neighboring cells. DT is a data mining and machine learning tool that extracts the patterns of decision process from observed cell behaviors and their affecting factors. In this dissertation, CA is used to predict the future land use status of cadastral parcels based on a set of transition rules derived from a set of identified land use change driving factors using DT. Although CA and DT have been applied separately in various land use change models in the literature, no studies attempted to integrate them. This DT-based CA model developed in this dissertation represents the first kind of such integration in land use change modeling. The coupled model would be able to handle a large set of driving factors and also avoid subjective bias when deriving the transition rules. The coupled model uses the cadastral parcel as a unit of analysis, which has practical policy implications because the responses of land use changes to various policy usually take place at the parcel level. Since parcel varies by their sizes and shapes, its use as a unit of analysis does make it difficult to apply CA, which initially designed to handle regular grid cells. This dissertation improves the treatment of the irregular cell in CA-based land use change models in literature by defining a cell\u27s neighborhood as a fixed distance buffer along the parcel boundary. The DT-based CA model was developed and validated in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. The data on historical land uses and various land use change driving factors for Hunterdon County were collected and processed using a Geographic Information System (GIS). Specifically, the county land uses in 1986, I995 and 2002 were overlaid with a parcel map to create parcel-based land use maps. The single land use in each parcel is based on a classification scheme developed thorough literature review and empirical testing in the study area. The possible land use status considered for each parcel is agriculture, barren land, forest, urban, water or wetlands following the land use/land cover classification by the New Jersey Department of Environment Protection. The identified driving factors for the future status of the parcel includes the present land use type, the number of soil restrictions to urban development, and the size of the parcel, the amount of wetlands within the parcel, the distribution of land uses in the neighborhood of the parcel, the distances to the nearest streams, urban centers and major roads. A set of transition rules illustrating the land use change processes during the period 1986-1995 were developed using a TD software J48 Classifier. The derived transition rules were applied to the 1995 land use data in a CA model Agent Analyst/RePast (Recursive Porous Agent Simulation Toolkit) to predict the spatial land use pattern in 2004, which were then validated by the actual land use map in 2002. The DT-based CA model had an overall accuracy of 84.46 percent in terms of the number of parcels and of 80.92 percent in terms of the total acreage in predicting land use changes. The model shows much higher capacity in predicting the quantitative changes than the locational changes in land use. The validated model was applied to simulate the 2011 land use patterns in Hunterdon County based on its actual land uses in 2002 under both business as usual and policy scenarios. The simulation results shows that successfully implementing current land use policies such as down zoning, open space and farmland preservation would prevent the total of 7,053 acres (741 acres of wetlands, 3,034 acres of agricultural lands, 250 acres of barren land, and 3,028 acres of forest) from future urban development in Hunterdon County during the period 2002-2011. The neighborhood of a parcel was defined by a 475-foot buffer along the parcel boundary in the study. The results of sensitivity analyses using two additional neighborhoods (237- and 712-foot buffers) indicate the insignificant impacts of the neighborhood size on the model outputs in this application

Basic Study on Flood Management Assessment in Metro Manila, Philippines

Flooding is the most frequent and damaging natural hazard worldwide. The resulting impact of flood disasters on society depends on the economic strength of the affected country prior to the disaster. The larger the disaster and the smaller the economy, the more significant is the impact. This is very clearly seen in developing countries, like the Philippines, where weak economies become much weaker after a devastating flood event. In 2009, tropical storm Ondoy, brought heavy rainfalls that produced destructive floods in the northern islands of the Philippines, leaving inconceivable damages, especially in Metro Manila, which caused the Philippine government to re-evaluate its decades\u27 worth of flood management strategies. Deliberate strategies for flood damage reduction, as well as environmental protection, may aid a country (or a community) to efficiently manage scarce resources for flood mitigation. Nevertheless, many governments lack an adequate institutionalized system for applying cost effective and reliable technologies for disaster prevention, early warnings, and mitigation, mainly due to lack of systematic and reliable flood management assessment strategies. In Metro Manila, important decision elements, such as stakeholders\u27 perception and environmental protection are often overlooked in the development of sustainable flood mitigation plans. Stakeholders can significantly contribute in achieving the desired level of prevention and protection in flood disaster-prone regions. Knowledge of the local conditions and understanding of the public\u27s perception can significantly help address the prioritization issues involved in flood management planning. However, the integration of the stakeholders\u27 perception in the appraisal of flood management systems has not yet been clearly established. In the case of environmental protection, environmental impact assessment (EIA) can provide a certain level of awareness on the benefits of environmentally sound and sustainable urban development. However, the common practice of EIA in the Philippines is generally qualitative and lacks clear methodology in evaluating multi-criteria systems. A study that deals with flood management assessment in Metro Manila is thus necessary to find solutions that may help cope with these inadequacies. This study focuses on the following main objectives: 1) to develop a heuristic analytical strategy that helps identify priority concerns in the flood management systems of Metro Manila using a perception-based appraisal, and 2) to develop a systematic and rational evaluation scheme that would help incorporate environmental assessment in the appraisal of flood mitigation measures. To achieve the first objective, an analytical assessment approach was developed to identify and analyze the flood management gaps using the questionnaire-based stakeholders\u27 perception obtained during the aftermath of the tropical storm Ondoy. For the second objective, a quantitative analytical approach was developed for EIA to further enhance the evaluation process in the planning of flood mitigation projects. This dissertation is composed of six chapters: Chapter 1 is the introduction, which contains the background, motivation, and objectives of this study. A comprehensive review of literature and a description of the scopes and methods were presented in this chapter. Chapter 2 focuses on the performance of the flood management systems in Metro Manila. A brief description of the flood management systems used in Metro Manila, before and during the aftermath of tropical storm Ondoy, was provided. The nature and characteristics of the tropical storm, as well as its effects on the flood management systems, were presented in this chapter. A multi-criteria gap analysis technique was developed to examine the flood disaster risk reduction (FDRR) management systems, which is demonstrated using a questionnaire-based database to obtain an explicit representation of the systems\u27 strengths and weaknesses. In this study, 14 out of 17 municipalities in Metro Manila were investigated. Results revealed that small to medium scale flood management gaps exist within the 14 assessed municipalities. Chapter 3 further explores the potential of a multi-criteria gaps assessment technique in the evaluation of FDRR management systems in Metro Manila. Perception-based assessment is inherently vague and imprecise, which often operates in a fuzzy environment. To cope with this, a fuzzy-based analytical approach was proposed to handle the uncertainties in the evaluation process of flood management gaps. The new approach is demonstrated using the same database in Chapter 2. The results reveal that the municipal-based FDRR management systems in Metro Manila are insufficient in terms of flood disaster prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. Larger gaps were found in the emergency response mechanism of the disaster preparedness management system. Chapter 4 deals with the EIA of nine planned structural flood mitigation measures (SFMMs) in Metro Manila. A modified rapid impact assessment matrix (RIAM) technique was proposed to systematically and quantitatively evaluate the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the planned SFMMs. The distribution of impacts of each SFMM was estimated for each environmental component of the 4 environmental categories. Based on the results, most of the negative and positive impacts of SFMMs occur during their construction and operation phases, respectively. The modified RIAM approach provided a clear panoramic view of the environmental impacts of each assessed SFMM. Chapter 5 presents a new EIA approach that provides enhancement to the modified RIAM technique in Chapter 4. A utility-based assessment approach using the RIAM technique, coupled with a recursive evidential reasoning approach, was proposed to rationally and systematically evaluate the ecological and socio-economic impacts of 4 planned SFMMs in Metro Manila. This new approach quantitatively characterized the overall impact of each of the planned SFMMs which can provide the means for benefit maximization and optimization. Results show that the overall environmental contributions of each of the planned SFMMs is generally positive, which indicate that the utility of their positive impacts would generally outweigh their negative ones. The results also indicated that the planned river channel improvements have higher environmental benefits than the planned open channels. Chapter 6 presents the overall conclusions and recommendations for the assessment of flood management systems in Metro Manila, including the future research works.首都大学東京, 2014-09-30, 博士(工学), 甲第421号首都大学東

Sustainable Development of Real Estate

Research, theoretical and practical tasks of sustainable real estate development process are revised in detail in this monograph; particular examples are presented as well. The concept of modern real estate development model and a developer is discussed, peculiarities of the development of built environment and real estate objects are analyzed, as well as assessment methods, models and management of real estate and investments in order to increase the object value. Theoretical and practical analyses, presented in the monograph, prove that intelligent and augmented reality technologies allow business managers to reach higher results in work quality, organize a creative team of developers, which shall present more qualitative products for the society. The edition presents knowledge on economic, legal, technological, technical, organizational, social, cultural, ethical, psychological and environmental, as well as its management aspects, which are important for the development of real estate: publicly admitted sustainable development principles, urban development and aesthetic values, territory planning, participation of society and heritage protection. It is admitted that economical crises are inevitable, and the provided methods shall help to decrease possible loss. References to the most modern world scientific literature sources are presented in the monograph. The monograph is prepared for the researchers, MSc and PhD students of construction economics and real estate development. The book may be useful for other researchers, MSc and PhD students of economics, management and other specialities, as well as business specialist of real estate business. The publication of monograph was funded by European Social Fund according to project No. VP1-2.2-ŠMM-07-K-02-060 Development and Implementation of Joint Master’s Study Programme “Sustainable Development of the Built Environment”