A Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System for South Asia

AbstractThe Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System (RDMOS) is an operational service which produces reliable drought indicators for the south Asia region with a specific focus on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. The system incorporates climatic models with suitable Earth observation data and land surface models to produce drought indices—precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, evapotranspiration—and vegetation conditions at 10-day intervals for near realtime monitoring of droughts. The RDMOS also provides seasonal outlooks at four-month intervals to support drought management and preparedness processes

Effectiveness of containment strategies and local cognition to control vehicular traffic volume in Dhaka, Bangladesh during COVID-19 pandemic: Use of Google Map based real-time traffic data.

BackgroundTo prevent the viral transmission from higher infected to lower infected area, controlling the vehicular traffic, consequently public movement on roads is crucial. Containment strategies and local cognition regarding pandemic might be helpful to control vehicular movement. This study aimed to ascertain the effectiveness of containment strategies and local cognition for controlling traffic volume during COVID-19 pandemic in Dhaka, Bangladesh.MethodSix containment strategies were considered to explore their influence on traffic condition, including declaration of general holiday, closure of educational institution, deployment of force, restriction on religious gathering, closure of commercial activities, and closure of garments factories. Newspaper coverage and public concern about COVID-19 were considered as local cognition in this research. The month of Ramadan as a potential event was also taken into account considering it might have an impact on the overall situation. Average daily journey speed (ADJS) was calculated from real-time traffic data of Google Map to understand the vehicular traffic scenario of Dhaka. A multiple linear regression method was developed to comprehend the findings.ResultsThe results showed that among the containment strategies, declaration of general holiday and closure of educational institutions could increase the ADJS significantly, thereby referring to less traffic movement. Besides, local cognition could not significantly affect the traffic condition, although the month of Ramadan could increase the ADJS significantly.ConclusionIt is expected that these findings would provide new insights into decision-making and help to take appropriate strategies to tackle the future pandemic situation

State‐of‐the‐art of establishing test procedures for real driving gaseous emissions from light‐ and heavy‐duty vehicles

Air pollution caused by vehicle emissions has raised serious public health concerns. Vehicle emissions generally depend on many factors, such as the nature of the vehicle, driving style, traffic conditions, emission control technologies, and operational conditions. Concerns about the certification cycles used by various regulatory authorities are growing due to the difference in emission during certification procedure and Real Driving Emissions (RDE). Under laboratory condi-tions, certification tests are performed in a ‘chassis dynamometer’ for light‐duty vehicles (LDVs) and an ‘engine dynamometer’ for heavy‐duty vehicles (HDVs). As a result, the test drive cycles used to measure the automotive emissions do not correctly reflect the vehicle’s real‐world driving pattern. Consequently, the RDE regulation is being phased in to reduce the disparity between type approval and vehicle’s real‐world emissions. According to this review, different variables such as traffic signals, driving dynamics, congestions, altitude, ambient temperature, and so on have a ma-jor influence on actual driving pollution. Aside from that, cold‐start and hot‐start have been shown to have an effect on on‐road pollution. Contrary to common opinion, new technology such as start-stop systems boost automotive emissions rather than decreasing them owing to unfavourable conditions from the point of view of exhaust emissions and exhaust after‐treatment systems. In addi-tion, the driving dynamics are not represented in the current laboratory‐based test procedures. As a result, it is critical to establish an on‐road testing protocol to obtain a true representation of vehic-ular emissions and reduce emissions to a standard level. The incorporation of RDE clauses into certification procedures would have a positive impact on global air quality.</p