Vulnerability assessments of pesticide leaching to groundwater

Pesticides may have adverse environmental effects if they are transported to groundwater and surface waters. The vulnerability of water resources to contamination of pesticides must therefore be evaluated. Different stakeholders, with different objectives and requirements, are interested in such vulnerability assessments. Various assessment methods have been developed in the past. For example, the vulnerability of groundwater to pesticide leaching may be evaluated by indices and overlay-based methods, by statistical analyses of monitoring data, or by using process-based models of pesticide fate. No single tool or methodology is likely to be appropriate for all end-users and stakeholders, since their suitability depends on the available data and the specific goals of the assessment. The overall purpose of this thesis was to develop tools, based on different process-based models of pesticide leaching that may be used in groundwater vulnerability assessments. Four different tools have been developed for end-users with varying goals and interests: (i) a tool based on the attenuation factor implemented in a GIS, where vulnerability maps are generated for the islands of Hawaii (U.S.A.), (ii) a simulation tool based on the MACRO model developed to support decision-makers at local authorities to assess potential risks of leaching of pesticides to groundwater following normal usage in drinking water abstraction districts, (iii) linked models of the soil root zone and groundwater to investigate leaching of the pesticide mecoprop to shallow and deep groundwater in fractured till, and (iv) a meta-model of the pesticide fate model MACRO developed for 'worst-case' groundwater vulnerability assessments in southern Sweden. The strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches are discussed

Human-triggered earthquakes and their impacts on human security

A comprehensive understanding of earthquake risks in urbanized regions requires an accurate assessment of both urban vulnerabilities and earthquake hazards. Socioeconomic risks associated with human-triggered earthquakes are often misconstrued and receive little scientific, legal, and public attention. However, more than 200 damaging earthquakes, associated with industrialization and urbanization, were documented since the 20th century. This type of geohazard has impacts on human security on a regional and national level. For example, the 1989 Newcastle earthquake caused 13 deaths and US$3.5 billion damage (in 1989). The monetary loss was equivalent to 3.4 percent of Australia’s national income (GDI) or 80 percent of Australia’s GDI per capita growth of the same year. This article provides an overview of global statistics of human-triggered earthquakes. It describes how geomechanical pollution due to large-scale geoengineering activities can advance the clock of earthquakes or trigger new seismic events. Lastly, defense-oriented strategies and tactics are described, including risk mitigation measures such as urban planning adaptations and seismic hazard mapping

Fuzzy Decision-Support System for Safeguarding Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage

In the current world economic situation, the maintenance of built heritage has been limited due to a lack of funds and accurate tools for proper management and implementation of these actions. However, in specific local areas, the maintenance and conservation of historical and cultural heritage have become an investment opportunity. In this sense, in this study, a new tool is proposed, for the estimation of the functional service life of heritage buildings in a local region (city of Seville, South Spain). This tool is developed in Art-Risk research project and consists of a free software to evaluate decisions in regional policies, planning and management of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, considering physical, environmental, economic and social resources. This tool provides a ranking of priority of intervention among case studies belonging to a particular urban context. This information is particularly relevant for the stakeholders responsible for the management of maintenance plans in built heritage

Adaptive multiagent system for seismic emergency management

Presently, most multiagent frameworks are typically programmed in Java. Since the JADE platform has been recently ported to .NET, we used it to create an adaptive multiagent system where the knowledge base of the agents is managed using the CLIPS language, also called from .NET. The multiagent system is applied to create seismic risk scenarios, simulations of emergency situations, in which different parties, modeled as adaptive agents, interact and cooperate.adaptive systems, risk management, seisms.

Landslide susceptibility mapping using multi-criteria evaluation techniques in Chittagong Metropolitan Area, Bangladesh

Landslides are a common hazard in the highly urbanized hilly areas in Chittagong Metropolitan Area (CMA), Bangladesh. The main cause of the landslides is torrential rain in short period of time. This area experiences several landslides each year, resulting in casualties, property damage, and economic loss. Therefore, the primary objective of this research is to produce the Landslide Susceptibility Maps for CMA so that appropriate landslide disaster risk reduction strategies can be developed. In this research, three different Geographic Information System-based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis methods—the Artificial Hierarchy Process (AHP), Weighted Linear Combination (WLC), and Ordered Weighted Average (OWA)—were applied to scientifically assess the landslide susceptible areas in CMA. Nine different thematic layers or landslide causative factors were considered. Then, seven different landslide susceptible scenarios were generated based on the three weighted overlay techniques. Later, the performances of the methods were validated using the area under the relative operating characteristic curves. The accuracies of the landslide susceptibility maps produced by the AHP, WLC_1, WLC_2, WLC_3, OWA_1, OWA_2, and OWA_3 methods were found as 89.80, 83.90, 91.10, 88.50, 90.40, 95.10, and 87.10 %, respectively. The verification results showed satisfactory agreement between the susceptibility maps produced and the existing data on the 20 historical landslide locations

Prediction of seismic-induced structural damage using artificial neural networks

Peer reviewedPostprin

Climate Science, Development Practice, and Policy Interactions in Dryland Agroecological Systems

The literature on drought, livelihoods, and poverty suggests that dryland residents are especially vulnerable to climate change. However, assessing this vulnerability and sharing lessons between dryland communities on how to reduce vulnerability has proven difficult because of multiple definitions of vulnerability, complexities in quantification, and the temporal and spatial variability inherent in dryland agroecological systems. In this closing editorial, we review how we have addressed these challenges through a series of structured, multiscale, and interdisciplinary vulnerability assessment case studies from drylands in West Africa, southern Africa, Mediterranean Europe, Asia, and Latin America. These case studies adopt a common vulnerability framework but employ different approaches to measuring and assessing vulnerability. By comparing methods and results across these cases, we draw out the following key lessons: (1) Our studies show the utility of using consistent conceptual frameworks for vulnerability assessments even when quite different methodological approaches are taken; (2) Utilizing narratives and scenarios to capture the dynamics of dryland agroecological systems shows that vulnerability to climate change may depend more on access to financial, political, and institutional assets than to exposure to environmental change; (3) Our analysis shows that although the results of quantitative models seem authoritative, they may be treated too literally as predictions of the future by policy makers looking for evidence to support different strategies. In conclusion, we acknowledge there is a healthy tension between bottom-up/ qualitative/place-based approaches and top-down/quantitative/generalizable approaches, and we encourage researchers from different disciplines with different disciplinary languages, to talk, collaborate, and engage effectively with each other and with stakeholders at all levels

Application of Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping in Livelihood Vulnerability Analysis

Feedback mechanisms are important in the analysis of vulnerability and resilience of social-ecological systems, as well as in the analysis of livelihoods, but how to evaluate systems with direct feedbacks has been a great challenge. We applied fuzzy cognitive mapping, a tool that allows analysis of both direct and indirect feedbacks and can be used to explore the vulnerabilities of livelihoods to identified hazards. We studied characteristics and drivers of rural livelihoods in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area in southern Africa to assess the vulnerability of inhabitants to the different hazards they face. The process involved four steps: (1) surveys and interviews to identify the major livelihood types; (2) description of specific livelihood types in a system format using fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs), a semi-quantitative tool that models systems based on people’s knowledge; (3) linking variables and drivers in FCMs by attaching weights; and (4) defining and applying scenarios to visualize the effects of drought and changing park boundaries on cash and household food security. FCMs successfully gave information concerning the nature (increase or decrease) and magnitude by which a livelihood system changed under different scenarios. However, they did not explain the recovery path in relation to time and pattern (e.g., how long it takes for cattle to return to desired numbers after a drought). Using FCMs revealed that issues of policy, such as changing situations at borders, can strongly aggravate effects of climate change such as drought. FCMs revealed hidden knowledge and gave insights that improved the understanding of the complexity of livelihood systems in a way that is better appreciated by stakeholders

Flood risk management in Flanders: past developments and future challenges

This paper presents the state of the art of flood risk management in Flanders, a low-lying region in the northern part of Belgium which is vulnerable to flooding. Possible flood hazard sources are not only the many rivers which pass through the Flemish inland, but also the North Sea, which is sensitive to the predicted sea level rise and which can affect large parts of the Flemish coastal area. Due to the expected increase in flood risks in the 21st century, the Flemish government has changed its flood management strategy from a flood control approach to a risk-based approach. Instead of focusing on protection against a certain water level, the objective now is to assure protection against the consequences of a flood, while considering its probability. In the first part, attention is given to the reasoning and functioning of the risk-based approach. Recent improvements to the approach are discussed, as well as the GIS-implementation of the entire model. The functioning of the approach is subsequently demonstrated in two case studies. The second part of the paper discusses future challenges for the flood risk management in Flanders. The driving force behind these challenges is the European Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks, which entered into force in 2007. The Flemish implementation of the directive is discussed and situated in the European landscape. Finally, attention is given to the communication of flood risks to the general public, since the "availability" of flood risk management plans is among the requirements of the EU Floods Directive