Analysis of Historical River Floods - A Contribution Towards Modern Flood Risk Management

The occurrence of several extreme flood events in Central Europe in the last two decades, in particular the flood along the Elbe River in 2002, and the resulting damage have shown shortcomings in the field of flood protection and have raised discussions on how to deal with flood risk in the future. As a consequence, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research funded the "Risk Management of Extreme Flood Events" (RIMAX) research programme, which aimed at the development and implementation of improved instruments for flood risk management (www.rimax-hochwasser.de). Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo

Rainfall estimates from opportunistic sensors in Germany across spatio-temporal scales

Study region: The study region is Germany and two sub-regions in Germany, i.e. the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the city of Reutlingen. Study focus: Opportunistic rainfall sensors, namely personal weather stations and commercial microwave links, together with rain gauge data from the German Weather Service, were used in different combinations to derive rainfall maps with a geostatistical interpolation framework for Germany. This kriging type framework considered the uncertainty of opportunistic sensors and the line structure of commercial microwave links. The resulting rainfall maps were compared to two gauge-adjusted radar products and evaluated to three reference gauge datasets in the respective study regions on both daily and hourly basis. New Hydrological Insights for the Region: The interpolated rainfall products from opportunistic sensors provided good agreement to the reference rain gauges. The dataset combinations including information from the opportunistic sensors performed best. The addition of rain gauges from the German Weather Service did not consistently lead to an improvement of the interpolated rainfall maps. On the country-wide, daily scale the interpolated rainfall maps performed well, but the gauge-adjusted radar products were closer to the reference. For the regional and local scale in Rhineland-Palatinate and Reutlingen with an hourly resolution, the interpolated rainfall maps outperformed the interpolated product from DWD rain gauges and showed a similar agreement to the reference as the radar products

Current and future water balance for coupled human-natural systems – Insights from a glacierized catchment in Peru

Study region Santa River basin, Peru. Study focus In the Andes of Peru, climate change and socio-economic development are expected to jeopardize future water availability. However, little is known about the interplay of multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors and related processes driving water resource changes. We developed an integrated model that analyzes different trajectories of water availability including hydro-climatic (water supply) and socio-economic (water demand) variables with consistent multi-descriptor future scenarios until 2050. New hydrological insights for the region At the lower-basin outflow of Condorcerro, mean annual water availability is projected to increase by 10% ± 12% by 2050. This gain is mainly driven by an increase in annual precipitation amounts of about 14% (RCP2.6) and 18% (RCP8.5), respectively, which was computed using a global climate multi-model ensemble. In contrast, mean dry-season water availability is projected to substantially decrease by 33% and 36% ( ± 24%) by 2050, for RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, respectively. This decline is driven by a combination of diminishing glacier discharge and increasing water demand both of which adopt a major role in the absence of considerable precipitation inputs. These seasonal differences highlight the need to adequately consider spatiotemporal scales within multi-scenario water balance models to support local decision-making. Our results elucidate the need for improvements in water management and infrastructure to counteract diminishing dry-season water availability and to reduce future risks of water scarcity

Lieferung von Investitionsgütern zur Erhöhung der Betriebssicherheit des Kernkraftwerkes Saporoshje - Betriebliche Überwachung, 2. Realisierungsstufe -

Im Rahmen eines Programms des Bundesministeriums für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit zur Zusammenarbeit mit den MOE-Staaten und der GUS auf dem Gebiet der kerntechnischen Sicherheit hat das Forschungszentrum Rossendorf, Institut für Sicherheitsforschung, im Verbund mit dem technischen Überwachungsverein TÜV Rheinland, Institut für Kerntechnik und Strahlenschutz, die einvernehmlich spezifizierten "technischen Mittel für ein System zur verbesserten betrieblichen Überwachung" an das Kernkraftwerk Saporoshje, Ukraine, geliefert und in Betrieb genommen. Im vorliegenden Bericht (Textteil) werden die Lieferungen und Leistungen nach Art und Umfang (Beschaffenheit, Abnahmeprüfung, Übergabe und Inbetriebnahme der technischen Mittel und die für das ukrainische Fachpersonal durchgeführten Schulungsmaßnahmen) bis zur Aufnahme des Probebetriebes am 30. November 1995 beschrieben. Dem Bericht ist ein Anhang A mit Vorschlägen zur Gestaltung der automatisch arbeitenden Überwachungssoftware und ein Anhang B mit wissenschaftsorganisatorischen Details beigefügt

Ein technisches Informationssystem zur verbesserten betrieblichen Überwachung des Kernkraftwerkes Saporoshje/Ukraine

In order to improve the operational surveillance of a VVER-1000 unit of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporosh´ye a technical monitoring system has been specified. The system will enable the state regulatory and supervisory bodies to survey the unit operation independently of operators to assess its safety status, and to impose appropriate conditions. Due to its up-to-date configuration the system provides early indication of any operational incident and emission of radioactive materials connected. Based on the system an immediate warning in mergency situations is possible as well as an effective emergency management. For this purpose 49 different operational parameters of the unit, 18 radiological parameters of the unit and the plant site and 6 meteorological parameters are monitored. The monitoring concept and its technical realization are described

Causative classification of river flood events

A wide variety of processes controls the time of occurrence, duration, extent, and severity of river floods. Classifying flood events by their causative processes may assist in enhancing the accuracy of local and regional flood frequency estimates and support the detection and interpretation of any changes in flood occurrence and magnitudes. This paper provides a critical review of existing causative classifications of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events, discusses their validity and applications, and identifies opportunities for moving toward more comprehensive approaches. So far no unified definition of causative mechanisms of flood events exists. Existing frameworks for classification of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events adopt different perspectives: hydroclimatic (large‐scale circulation patterns and atmospheric state at the time of the event), hydrological (catchment scale precipitation patterns and antecedent catchment state), and hydrograph‐based (indirectly considering generating mechanisms through their effects on hydrograph characteristics). All of these approaches intend to capture the flood generating mechanisms and are useful for characterizing the flood processes at various spatial and temporal scales. However, uncertainty analyses with respect to indicators, classification methods, and data to assess the robustness of the classification are rarely performed which limits the transferability across different geographic regions. It is argued that more rigorous testing is needed. There are opportunities for extending classification methods to include indicators of space–time dynamics of rainfall, antecedent wetness, and routing effects, which will make the classification schemes even more useful for understanding and estimating floods

The Astropy Problem

The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots, self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the sustainability of general purpose astronomical software

crystal and solution structures of the multidomain cochaperone DnaJ

Hsp70 chaperones assist in a large variety of protein-folding processes in the cell. Crucial for these activities is the regulation of Hsp70 by Hsp40 cochaperones. DnaJ, the bacterial homologue of Hsp40, stimulates ATP hydrolysis by DnaK (Hsp70) and thus mediates capture of substrate protein, but is also known to possess chaperone activity of its own. The first structure of a complete functional dimeric DnaJ was determined and the mobility of its individual domains in solution was investigated. Crystal structures of the complete molecular cochaperone DnaJ from Thermus thermophilus comprising the J, GF and C-terminal domains and of the J and GF domains alone showed an ordered GF domain interacting with the J domain. Structure-based EPR spin- labelling studies as well as cross-linking results showed the existence of multiple states of DnaJ in solution with different arrangements of the various domains, which has implications for the function of DnaJ.1\. Auflag