Spatio-temporal land-use changes in the Colima-Villa de Álvarez metropolitan area, and their relationship to floodings

Demographic growth and consequent land-use changes are consid - ered one of the main factors causing inundations in many cities in de - veloping countries. During the last decade, the city of Colima, Mexico, has suffered from an increase in flooding events. These episodes mostly occurred during tropical rainstorms associated to hurricanes (such as Jova in 2011, Manuel in 2013, and Patricia in 2015, all with average accumulated rainfall of 200 mm in 24 h), as well as during short- duration, high-intensity rainfall events at the beginning of the rainy season. To define the mechanisms leading to the increased occurrence of floodings, a space-time analysis of land-use changes, coupled with the characterization of natural and urban soils, are presented here for the Colima metropolitan area. Three land-use categories were created: native land (N1), urban land (N4), and cultivated land (N5). Each of these categories has subcategories depending on vegetative cover and/ or level of urbanization. SPOT imagery acquired in 2005, 2009, and 2015 was classified to analyze the spatial and temporal changes in land use. Thirty-two soil samples representative of different land uses were analyzed to obtain their physical and chemical properties such as granulometry, bulk and particle densities, porosity, and organic matter content. Hydraulic conductivity tests were performed in situ using a drip-infiltrometer device. The temporal and spatial analysis of SPOT images revealed that most changes in land use correspond to urban area and cultivated land, the former showing an increase and the latter a drastic decrease, especially towards the northern part of the city, where urban growth is evident for the 20052009 period. Analyzed soils from cultivated land have the highest permeability, and engineered soils correspond to the least permeable soils in the area; consequently, replacement of agriculture with housing has significant impacts on the rainfall-runoff process. These results indicate that as more permeable land area is substituted by disturbed urban soils, the infiltration capability will be reduced, leading to increasing flooding frequency in the Colima-Villa de Álvarez metropolitan area. To prevent and reduce the disruptive im - pact of inundation in the Colima metropolitan area, it is recommended to have adequate management of land-use change and to conserve the permeable areas around the city. In addition, it is necessary to revise the hydraulic infrastructure of the existing urban areas and to properly define the most suitable locations for future ones. Avoiding develop - ment in flood-prone areas through planning and zoning ordinances may reduce loss of life and damage to property

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN