The impact of individual buildings on urban flood risk analysis

When performing an urban flood risk analysis, it is often difficult to take individual buildings into account: doing so requires the availability of a high resolution 2D hydrodynamic model for the preparation of flood maps and detailed land use maps for the preparation of flood damage maps. As a consequence, a simplified approach is often required, involving the use of low resolution models and simplified land use maps. This study aims at evaluating the impact of such simplifications on the flood risk by means of a case study: the flooding of the city of Antwerp (Belgium) caused by wave overtopping of the flood defenses along the river Scheldt. Two methods for computing flood maps were combined with two methods for computing damage maps, yielding four different methods for computing urban flood risk. The results obtained with the four methods differ significantly. The flood risk predicted by a combination of the detailed approaches was found to be less than 30% of the flood risk predicted by a combination of the simplified approaches. From this study, we can conclude that the procedures used for dealing with the presence of buildings can be a significant source of uncertainty in urban flood risk analysis

Determinants of soil organic matter chemistry in maritime temperate forest ecosystems

While the influence of climate, vegetation, management and abiotic site factors on total carbon budgets and turn-over is intensively assessed, the influences of these ecosystem properties on the chemical complexity of soil organic matter (SOM) remains poorly understood. This study addresses the chemical composition of NaOH-extracted SOM from maritime temperate forest sites in Flanders (Belgium) by pyrolysis-GC/MS. The studied forests were chosen based on dominant tree species (Pinus sylvestris, Fagus sylvatica, Quercus robur and Populus spp.), soil texture and soil-moisture conditions. Differences in extractable-SOM pyrolysis products were correlated to site variables including dominant tree species, management of the woody biomass, site history, soil properties, total carbon stocks and indicators for microbial activity. Despite of a typical high intercorrelation between these site variables, the influence of the dominant tree species is prominent. The extractable-SOM composition is strongly correlated to litter quality and available nutrients. In nutrient-poor forests with low litter quality, the decomposition of relatively recalcitrant compounds (i.e. short and mid-chain alkanes/alkenes and aromatic compounds) appears hampered, causing a relative accumulation of these compounds in the soil. However, if substrate quality is favorable, no accumulations of recalcitrant compounds were observed, not even under high soil-moisture conditions. Former heathland vegetation still had a profound influence on extractable-SOM chemistry of young pine forests after a minimum of 60 year

Op speurtocht met de metaaldetector - een onderbenutte informatiebron in de archeologie, toegepast op vroegmiddeleeuws Kust-Vlaanderen

Op Vlaamse velden kom je ze al eens tegen: vrouwen of (meestal) mannen met een metaaldetector, begeesterd door de archeologische artefacten die ze hopen aan te treffen in de ploeglaag. Velen van hen beoefenen de hobby al jaren, en legden op die tijd aanzienlijke collecties aan. Lange tijd was hobbymetaaldetectie in Vlaanderen, zoals in vele Europese landen, verboden. Archeologen beschouwden deze hobby als een vorm van plundering, en het contact tussen de erfgoedsector en de detectiegemeenschap verliep dan ook lange tijd stroef. Nu komt daar gelukkig verandering in. Met het in voege treden van het nieuwe decreet Onroerend erfgoed kunnen detectieliefhebbers sinds 1 april 2016 vrijelijk hun hobby beoefenen. En dat levert boeiende, nieuwe kennis op

A GIS for flood risk management in Flanders

In the past decades, Flanders, a region of north Belgium that extends from the coastline inland (in northwest Europe), has suffered several serious riverine floods that caused substantial property damage. As Flanders is one of the most densely populated regions in the world, a solid water management policy is needed in order to mitigate the effects of this type of calamity. In the past, Flemish water managers chose to drain off river water as quickly as possible by heightening the dikes along the rivers. However, this method leads to a higher flood probability further downstream. Moreover, water defence infrastructure can always suffer from technical failures (e.g., breaching) creating even more damage than would have occurred if no defences were in place. In a search for a better solution to this recurring problem, the Flemish administration proposed a new approach in the 1990 s. This approach focuses on minimizing the consequences of flooding instead of attempting to prevent floods. To implement this approach, large amounts of data were gathered for the Flemish Region. Using a Geographic Information System (GIS), a risk-based methodology was created to quantitatively assess flood risk based on hydrologic models, land use information and socio-economic data. Recently, this methodology was implemented in a specifically designed GIS-based flood risk assessment tool called LATIS. By estimating the potential damage and number of casualties during a flood event, LATIS offers the possibility to perform risk analysis quickly and effectively. This chapter presents a concise overview of LATIS’ methodology and its implementation for flood risk management in Flanders

COA6 facilitates cytochrome c oxidase biogenesis as thiol-reductase for copper metallochaperones in mitochondria.

The mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase, the terminal enzyme of the respiratory chain, contains heme and copper centers for electron transfer. The conserved COX2 subunit contains the CuA site, a binuclear copper center. The copper chaperones SCO1, SCO2, and COA6 are required for CuA center formation. Loss of function of these chaperones and the concomitant cytochrome c oxidase deficiency cause severe human disorders. Here we analyzed the molecular function of COA6 and the consequences of COA6 deficiency for mitochondria. Our analyses show that loss of COA6 causes combined complex I and complex IV deficiency and impacts membrane potential driven protein transport across the inner membrane. We demonstrate that COA6 acts as a thiol-reductase to reduce disulphide bridges of critical cysteine residues in SCO1 and SCO2. Cysteines within the CX3CXNH domain of SCO2 mediate its interaction with COA6 but are dispensable for SCO2-SCO1 interaction. Our analyses define COA6 as thiol-reductase, which is essential for CuA biogenesis

Defining the architecture of the human TIM22 complex by chemical crosslinking

The majority of mitochondrial proteins are nuclear encoded and imported into mitochondria as precursor proteins via dedicated translocases. The translocase of the inner membrane 22 (TIM22) is a multisubunit molecular machine specialized for the translocation of hydrophobic, multi‐transmembrane‐spanning proteins with internal targeting signals into the inner mitochondrial membrane. Here, we undertook a crosslinking‐mass spectrometry (XL‐MS) approach to determine the molecular arrangement of subunits of the human TIM22 complex. Crosslinking of the isolated TIM22 complex using the BS3 crosslinker resulted in the broad generation of crosslinks across the majority of TIM22 components, including the small TIM chaperone complex. The crosslinking data uncovered several unexpected features, opening new avenues for a deeper investigation into the steps required for TIM22‐mediated translocation in humans