Toward an adequate level of detail in flood risk assessments

Flood risk assessments require different disciplines to understand and model the underlying components hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Many methods and data sets have been refined considerably to cover more details of spatial, temporal, or process information. We compile case studies indicating that refined methods and data have a considerable effect on the overall assessment of flood risk. But are these improvements worth the effort? The adequate level of detail is typically unknown and prioritization of improvements in a specific component is hampered by the lack of an overarching view on flood risk. Consequently, creating the dilemma of potentially being too greedy or too wasteful with the resources available for a risk assessment. A “sweet spot” between those two would use methods and data sets that cover all relevant known processes without using resources inefficiently. We provide three key questions as a qualitative guidance toward this “sweet spot.” For quantitative decision support, more overarching case studies in various contexts are needed to reveal the sensitivity of the overall flood risk to individual components. This could also support the anticipation of unforeseen events like the flood event in Germany and Belgium in 2021 and increase the reliability of flood risk assessments

Dissecting the Cell Entry Pathway of Dengue Virus by Single-Particle Tracking in Living Cells

Dengue virus (DENV) is an enveloped RNA virus that causes the most common arthropod-borne infection worldwide. The mechanism by which DENV infects the host cell remains unclear. In this work, we used live-cell imaging and single-virus tracking to investigate the cell entry, endocytic trafficking, and fusion behavior of DENV. Simultaneous tracking of DENV particles and various endocytic markers revealed that DENV enters cells exclusively via clathrin-mediated endocytosis. The virus particles move along the cell surface in a diffusive manner before being captured by a pre-existing clathrin-coated pit. Upon clathrin-mediated entry, DENV particles are transported to Rab5-positive endosomes, which subsequently mature into late endosomes through acquisition of Rab7 and loss of Rab5. Fusion of the viral membrane with the endosomal membrane was primarily detected in late endosomal compartments.Chemistry and Chemical Biolog

Dissecting the Cell Entry Pathway of Dengue Virus by Single-Particle Tracking in Living Cells

Dengue virus (DENV) is an enveloped RNA virus that causes the most common arthropod-borne infection worldwide. The mechanism by which DENV infects the host cell remains unclear. In this work, we used live-cell imaging and single-virus tracking to investigate the cell entry, endocytic trafficking, and fusion behavior of DENV. Simultaneous tracking of DENV particles and various endocytic markers revealed that DENV enters cells exclusively via clathrin-mediated endocytosis. The virus particles move along the cell surface in a diffusive manner before being captured by a pre-existing clathrin-coated pit. Upon clathrin-mediated entry, DENV particles are transported to Rab5-positive endosomes, which subsequently mature into late endosomes through acquisition of Rab7 and loss of Rab5. Fusion of the viral membrane with the endosomal membrane was primarily detected in late endosomal compartments

Meteorological, impact and climate perspectives of the 29 June 2017 heavy precipitation event in the Berlin metropolitan area

Extreme precipitation is a weather phenomenon with tremendous damaging potential for property and human life. As the intensity and frequency of such events is projected to increase in a warming climate, there is an urgent need to advance the existing knowledge on extreme precipitation processes, statistics and impacts across scales. To this end, a working group within the Germany-based project, ClimXtreme, has been established to carry out multidisciplinary analyses of high-impact events. In this work, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the 29 June 2017 heavy precipitation event (HPE) affecting the Berlin metropolitan region (Germany), from the meteorological, impacts and climate perspectives, including climate change attribution. Our analysis showed that this event occurred under the influence of a mid-tropospheric trough over western Europe and two shortwave surface lows over Britain and Poland (Rasmund and Rasmund II), inducing relevant low-level wind convergence along the German–Polish border. Over 11 000 convective cells were triggered, starting early morning 29 June, displacing northwards slowly under the influence of a weak tropospheric flow (10 m s−1 at 500 hPa). The quasi-stationary situation led to totals up to 196 mm d−1, making this event the 29 June most severe in the 1951–2021 climatology, ranked by means of a precipitation-based index. Regarding impacts, it incurred the largest insured losses in the period 2002 to 2017 (EUR 60 million) in the greater Berlin area. We provide further insights on flood attributes (inundation, depth, duration) based on a unique household-level survey data set. The major moisture source for this event was the Alpine–Slovenian region (63 % of identified sources) due to recycling of precipitation falling over that region 1 d earlier. Implementing three different generalised extreme value (GEV) models, we quantified the return periods for this case to be above 100 years for daily aggregated precipitation, and up to 100 and 10 years for 8 and 1 h aggregations, respectively. The conditional attribution demonstrated that warming since the pre-industrial era caused a small but significant increase of 4 % in total precipitation and 10 % for extreme intensities. The possibility that not just greenhouse-gas-induced warming, but also anthropogenic aerosols affected the intensity of precipitation is investigated through aerosol sensitivity experiments. Our multi-disciplinary approach allowed us to relate interconnected aspects of extreme precipitation. For instance, the link between the unique meteorological conditions of this case and its very large return periods, or the extent to which it is attributable to already-observed anthropogenic climate change.</p

Meteorological, impact and climate perspectives of the 29 June 2017 heavy precipitation event in the Berlin metropolitan area

Extreme precipitation is a weather phenomenon with tremendous damaging potential for property and human life. As the intensity and frequency of such events is projected to increase in a warming climate, there is an urgent need to advance the existing knowledge on extreme precipitation processes, statistics and impacts across scales. To this end, a working group within the Germany-based project, ClimXtreme, has been established to carry out multidisciplinary analyses of high-impact events. In this work, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the 29 June 2017 heavy precipitation event (HPE) affecting the Berlin metropolitan region (Germany), from the meteorological, impacts and climate perspectives, including climate change attribution. Our analysis showed that this event occurred under the influence of a mid-tropospheric trough over western Europe and two shortwave surface lows over Britain and Poland (Rasmund and Rasmund II), inducing relevant low-level wind convergence along the German–Polish border. Over 11 000 convective cells were triggered, starting early morning 29 June, displacing northwards slowly under the influence of a weak tropospheric flow (10 m s$^{−1}$ at 500 hPa). The quasi-stationary situation led to totals up to 196 mm d$^{−1}$, making this event the 29 June most severe in the 1951–2021 climatology, ranked by means of a precipitation-based index. Regarding impacts, it incurred the largest insured losses in the period 2002 to 2017 (EUR 60 million) in the greater Berlin area. We provide further insights on flood attributes (inundation, depth, duration) based on a unique household-level survey data set. The major moisture source for this event was the Alpine–Slovenian region (63 % of identified sources) due to recycling of precipitation falling over that region 1 d earlier. Implementing three different generalised extreme value (GEV) models, we quantified the return periods for this case to be above 100 years for daily aggregated precipitation, and up to 100 and 10 years for 8 and 1 h aggregations, respectively. The conditional attribution demonstrated that warming since the pre-industrial era caused a small but significant increase of 4 % in total precipitation and 10 % for extreme intensities. The possibility that not just greenhouse-gas-induced warming, but also anthropogenic aerosols affected the intensity of precipitation is investigated through aerosol sensitivity experiments. Our multi-disciplinary approach allowed us to relate interconnected aspects of extreme precipitation. For instance, the link between the unique meteorological conditions of this case and its very large return periods, or the extent to which it is attributable to already-observed anthropogenic climate change

Unagreement is an illusion

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9311-yThis paper proposes an analysis of unagreement, a phenomenon involving an apparent mismatch between a definite third person plural subject and first or second person plural subject agreement observed in various null subject languages (e.g. Spanish, Modern Greek and Bulgarian), but notoriously absent in others (e.g. Italian, European Portuguese). A cross-linguistic correlation between unagreement and the structure of adnominal pronoun constructions suggests that the availability of unagreement depends on whether person and definiteness are hosted by separate heads (in languages like Greek) or bundled on a single head (i.e. pronominal determiners in languages like Italian). Null spell-out of the head hosting person features high in the extended nominal projection of the subject leads to unagreement. The lack of unagreement in languages with pronominal determiners results from the interaction of their syntactic structure with the properties of the vocabulary items realising the head encoding both person and definiteness. The analysis provides a principled explanation for the cross-linguistic distribution of unagreement and suggests a unified framework for deriving unagreement, adnominal pronoun constructions, personal pronouns and pro

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Global variations in diabetes mellitus based on fasting glucose and haemogloblin A1c

Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) are both used to diagnose diabetes, but may identify different people as having diabetes. We used data from 117 population-based studies and quantified, in different world regions, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, and whether those who were previously undiagnosed and detected as having diabetes in survey screening had elevated FPG, HbA1c, or both. We developed prediction equations for estimating the probability that a person without previously diagnosed diabetes, and at a specific level of FPG, had elevated HbA1c, and vice versa. The age-standardised proportion of diabetes that was previously undiagnosed, and detected in survey screening, ranged from 30% in the high-income western region to 66% in south Asia. Among those with screen-detected diabetes with either test, the agestandardised proportion who had elevated levels of both FPG and HbA1c was 29-39% across regions; the remainder had discordant elevation of FPG or HbA1c. In most low- and middle-income regions, isolated elevated HbA1c more common than isolated elevated FPG. In these regions, the use of FPG alone may delay diabetes diagnosis and underestimate diabetes prevalence. Our prediction equations help allocate finite resources for measuring HbA1c to reduce the global gap in diabetes diagnosis and surveillance.peer-reviewe

Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions

Toward an adequate level of detail in flood risk assessments

AbstractFlood risk assessments require different disciplines to understand and model the underlying components hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Many methods and data sets have been refined considerably to cover more details of spatial, temporal, or process information. We compile case studies indicating that refined methods and data have a considerable effect on the overall assessment of flood risk. But are these improvements worth the effort? The adequate level of detail is typically unknown and prioritization of improvements in a specific component is hampered by the lack of an overarching view on flood risk. Consequently, creating the dilemma of potentially being too greedy or too wasteful with the resources available for a risk assessment. A “sweet spot” between those two would use methods and data sets that cover all relevant known processes without using resources inefficiently. We provide three key questions as a qualitative guidance toward this “sweet spot.” For quantitative decision support, more overarching case studies in various contexts are needed to reveal the sensitivity of the overall flood risk to individual components. This could also support the anticipation of unforeseen events like the flood event in Germany and Belgium in 2021 and increase the reliability of flood risk assessments.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659BMBF http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100002347Federal Environment Agency http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100010809http://howas21.gfz-potsdam.de/howas21/https://www.umwelt.niedersachsen.de/startseite/themen/wasser/hochwasser_amp_kustenschutz/hochwasserrisikomanagement_richtlinie/hochwassergefahren_und_hochwasserrisikokarten/hochwasserkarten-121920.htmlhttps://download.geofabrik.de/europe/germany.htmlhttps://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/list-of-components/EMSN024https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu/collection/id-0054https://oasishub.co/dataset/surface-water-flooding-footprinthurricane-harvey-august-2017-jbahttps://www.wasser.sachsen.de/hochwassergefahrenkarte-11915.htm