Search results for: drought disaster

Authors: Ki-seok Kwon, Dong-woo Ryu, Heung-Youl Kim

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Although high-strength concrete has many advantages over generic concrete at normal temperatures (around 20℃), it undergoes spalling at high temperatures, which constitutes its structurally fatal drawback. In this study, fire resistance tests were conducted for 3 hours in accordance with ASTM E119 on bearing wall specimens which were 3,000mm x 3,000mm x 300mm in dimensions to investigate the influence the type of admixtures would exert on the fire resistance performance of high-strength concrete. Portland cement, blast furnace slag, fly ash and silica fume were used as admixtures, among which 2 or 3 components were combined to make 7 types of mixtures. In 56MPa specimens, the severity of spalling was in order of SF5 > F25 > S65SF5 > S50. Specimen S50 where an admixture consisting of 2 components was added did not undergo spalling. In 70MPa specimens, the severity of spalling was in order of SF5 > F25SF5 > S45SF5 and the result was similar to that observed in 56MPa specimens. Acknowledgements— This study was conducted by the support of the project, “Development of performance-based fire safety design of the building and improvement of fire safety” (18AUDP-B100356-04) which is under the management of Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement as part of the urban architecture research project for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, for which we extend our deep thanks.

Keywords: high strength concrete, mineral admixture, fire resistance, social disaster

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Authors: Teng Zhang, Shenshi Huang, Gang Xu, Xuelin Zhang, Shouxiang Lu

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With the acceleration of urbanization and the increasing of the population in the city, the evacuation of pedestrians suffering from disaster environments such as fire in a room or other limited space becomes a vital issue in modern society. Mice have been used in experimental crowd evacuation in recent years for its good similarities to human in physical structure and stress reaction. In this study, the effect of experience or memory on the collective behavior of mice was explored. To help mice familiarize themselves with the design of the space and the stimulus caused by smoke, we trained them repeatedly for 2 days so that they can escape from the emergency conditions as soon as possible. The escape pattern, trajectories, walking speed, turning angle and mean individual escape time of mice in each training trail were analyzed. We found that mice can build memory quickly after the first trial on the first day. On the second day, the evacuation of mice was maintained in a stable and efficient state. Meanwhile, the group with size of 30 (G30) had a shorter mean individual escape time compared with G12. Furthermore, we tested the experience of evacuation skill of mice after several days. The results showed that the mice can hold the experience or memory over 3 weeks. We proposed the importance of experience of evacuation skill and the research of training methods in experimental evacuation of mice. The results can deepen our understanding of collective behavior of mice and conduce to the establishment of animal models in the study of pedestrian crowd dynamics in emergency conditions.

Keywords: experience, evacuation, mice, group size, behavior

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Authors: Noor Aliza Binti Ahmad, Azra Munirah Mat Daud, Sabariah Musa, Mohamad Azhar MK

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Flooding is a common natural disaster in Malaysia triggered by heavy rainfall. Urbanization that increases the construction of paved areas, subsequently raise surface runoff and reduce time of concentration. It increases flood magnitude and so that leads to greater flood problems as what has happened at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) area in December 2006 and earlier 2007. Tasik Kemajuan and Tasik Inovasi were constructed as recreation ponds and have also functioned as flood ponds. Unfortunately, the flood problem still occurs persistently. Thus, the effectiveness of Tasik Kemajuan and Tasik Inovasi in reducing the flood problems need to be investigated and the causes of flood events at UTHM Campus need to be evaluated. The results from this study show that the conditions of Tasik Kemajuan and Tasik Inovasi are effective in reducing the flood water levels. It also can be concluded that increasing water level in both lakes in UTHM Campus are significantly influenced by presence of the grass and rubbish. During dry condition, the flow rates with three different days are 59.38m3/s, 60.71m3/s and 59.08m3/s and while for wet condition in two different days are 89.59 m3/s and 86.61m3/s. In conclusion, this system should be improved to prevent future flooding either widened or reduced drainage floor, and also perform maintenance on the plants that live around the lake.

Keywords: drainage system, flood detention, lakes, storm water

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Authors: Emily Injete Amondo, Alisher Mirzabaev, Emmanuel Rukundo

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Children in rural farming households are often vulnerable to a multitude of risks, including health risks associated with climate change and variability. Cognizant of this, this study empirically traced the relationship between climate variability and nutritional health outcomes in rural children while identifying the cause-and-effect transmission mechanisms. We combined four waves of the rich Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS), part of the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Studies (LSMS) for the period 2009-2014, with long-term and high-frequency rainfall and temperature datasets. Self-reported drought and flood shock variables were further used in separate regressions for triangulation purposes and robustness checks. Panel fixed effects regressions were applied in the empirical analysis, accounting for a variety of causal identification issues. The results showed significant negative outcomes for children’s anthropometric measurements due to the impacts of moderate and extreme droughts, extreme wet spells, and heatwaves. On the contrary, moderate wet spells were positively linked with nutritional measures. Agricultural production and child diarrhea were the main transmission channels, with heatwaves, droughts, and high rainfall variability negatively affecting crop output. The probability of diarrhea was positively related to increases in temperature and dry spells. Results further revealed that children in households who engaged in ex-ante or anticipatory risk-reducing strategies such as savings had better health outcomes as opposed to those engaged in ex-post coping such as involuntary change of diet. These results highlight the importance of adaptation in smoothing the harmful effects of climate variability on the health of rural households and children in Uganda.

Keywords: extreme weather events, undernutrition, diarrhea, agricultural production, gridded weather data

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Authors: Sa’adu Mafara Abubakar, Muhammad Nuraddeen Danjuma, Adewole Tomiwa Adetunji, Richard Mundembe, Salisu Mohammed, Francis Bayo Lewu, Joseph I. Kiok

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Pearl millet is the most drought tolerant of all domesticated cereals, is cultivated extensively to feed millions of people who mainly live in hash agroclimatic zones. It serves as a major source of food for more than 40 million smallholder farmers living in the marginal agricultural lands of Northern Nigeria. Pearl millet grain is more nutritious than other cereals like maize, is also a principal source of energy, protein, vitamins, and minerals for millions of poorest people in the regions where it is cultivated. Pearl millet has recorded relatively little research attention compared with other crops and no sufficient work has analyzed its genetic diversity in north-western Nigeria. Therefore, this study was undertaken with the objectives to analyze the genetic diversity of pearl millet accessions using SSR marker and to analyze the extent of evolutionary relationship among pearl millet accessions at the molecular level. The result of the present study confirmed diversity among accessions of pearl millet in the study area. Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) markers were used for genetic analysis and evolutionary relationship of the accessions of pearl millet. To analyze the level of genetic diversity, 8 polymorphic SSR markers were used to screen 69 accessions collected based on three maturity periods. SSR markers result reveal relationships among the accessions in terms of genetic similarities, evolutionary and ancestral origin, it also reveals a total of 53 alleles recorded with 8 microsatellites and an average of 6.875 per microsatellite, the range was from 3 to 9 alleles in PSMP2248 and PSMP2080 respectively. Moreover, both the factorial analysis and the dendrogram of phylogeny tree grouping patterns and cluster analysis were almost in agreement with each other that diversity is not clustering according to geographical patterns but, according to similarity, the result showed maximum similarity among clusters with few numbers of accessions. It has been recommended that other molecular markers should be tested in the same study area.

Keywords: pearl millet, genetic diversity, simple sequence repeat (SSR)

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Authors: Fariborz Shekari, Abdollah Javanmard, Amin Abbasi

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A pot experiment conducted to evaluate the response of two red bean cultivars, Sayad and Derakhshan, to water deficit stress during post-flowering growth stage and recovery potential of plants after stress. Treatments were included regular irrigation or control, water deficit during flowering stage, water deficit during pod formation and water deficit during pod filling period. Results showed that plant height had positive effects on yield of cultivars so that, the tall cultivar, ‘Sayad’, had higher yields. Stress application during flowering stage showed the highest negative impact on plant height and subsequently yield. The longest and the higher number of pods as well as the greatest number of seeds in pods were recorded in control treatment in ‘Sayad’. Stress application during pod formation resulted in the minimum amount of all studied traits in both cultivars. Stress encountered during seed filling period had the least effect on number and length of pods and seed/pod. However, 100 seeds weight significantly decreased. The highest amount for 100 seeds weight was record in control plants in ‘Derakhshan’. Under all treatments, ‘Sayad’ had higher biologic and seed yield compared to ‘Derakhshan’. The least amount of yield was recorded during stress application in pod formation and flowering period for ‘Sayad’ and ‘Derakhshan’ respectively. Harvest index of ‘Sayad’ was more affect by stress application. Data related to photosynthetic rate showed that during stress application, ‘Derakhshan’ owned rapid decline in photosynthesis. Beyond stress alleviation and onset of irrigation, recovery potential of ‘Sayad’ was higher than ‘Derakhshan’ and this cultivar was able to rapidly restore the photosynthesis rate of stress faced plants near control ones. In total, stress had lower impacts on photosynthetic rate of ‘Sayad’ cultivar.

Keywords: common bean, water stress, yield, yield components, photosynthetic rate

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Authors: Muhammad L. A. Dwiyoga

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The condition of a spatial land in the industrial park needs special attention to be studied more deeply. Geoplanology modeling can help arrange area according to his ability. This research method is to perform the analysis of remote sensing, Geographic Information System, and more comprehensive analysis to determine geological characteristics and the ability to land on the area of research and its relation to the geological disaster. Cilegon is part of Banten province located in western Java, and the direction of the north is the Strait of Borneo. While the southern part is bordering the Indian Ocean. Morphology study area is located in the highlands to low. In the highlands of identified potential landslide prone, whereas in low-lying areas of potential flooding. Moreover, in the study area has the potential prone to earthquakes, this is due to the proximity of enough research to Mount Krakatau and Subdcution Zone. From the results of this study show that the study area has a susceptibility to landslides located around the District Waringinkurung. While the region as a potential flood areas in the District of Cilegon and surrounding areas. Based on the seismic data, this area includes zones with a range of magnitude 1.5 to 5.5 magnitude at a depth of 1 to 60 Km. As for the ability of its territory, based on the analyzes and studies carried out the need for renewal of the map Spatial Plan that has been made, considering the development of a fairly rapid Cilegon area.

Keywords: geoplanology, spatial plan, geological hazard, cilegon, Indonesia

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Authors: Daniel Osieko Okach, Joseph Otieno Ondier, Gerhard Rambold, John Tenhunen, Bernd Huwe, Dennis Otieno

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Increased human activities such as grazing, logging, and agriculture alongside unpredictable rainfall patterns have been detrimental to the ecosystem service delivery, therefore compromising its productivity potential. This study aimed at simulating the impact of drought (50%) and enhanced rainfall (150%) on the future herbaceous CO2 uptake, biomass production and soil C:N dynamics in a humid savanna ecosystem influenced by livestock grazing. Rainfall pattern was predicted using manipulation experiments set up to reduce (50%) and increase (150%) ambient (100%) rainfall amounts in grazed and non-grazed plots. The impact of manipulated rainfall regime on herbaceous CO2 fluxes, biomass production and soil C:N dynamics was measured against volumetric soil water content (VWC) logged every 30 minutes using the 5TE (Decagon Devices Inc., Washington, USA) soil moisture sensors installed (at 20 cm soil depth) in every plots. Herbaceous biomass was estimated using destructive method augmented by standardized photographic imaging. CO2 fluxes were measured using the ecosystem chamber method and the gas analysed using LI-820 gas analyzer (USA). C:N ratio was calculated from the soil carbon and Nitrogen contents (analyzed using EA2400CHNS/O and EA2410 N elemental analyzers respectively) of different plots under study. The patterning of VWC was directly influenced by the rainfall amount with lower VWC observed in the grazed compared to the non-grazed plots. Rainfall variability, grazing and their interaction significantly affected changes in VWC (p < 0.05) and subsequently total biomass and CO2 fluxes. VWC had a strong influence on CO2 fluxes under 50% rainfall reduction in the grazed (r2 = 0.91; p < 0.05) and ambient rainfall in the ungrazed (r2 = 0.77; p < 0.05). The dependence of biomass on VWC across plots was enhanced under grazed (r2 = 0.78 - 0.87; p < 0.05) condition as compared to ungrazed (r2 = 0.44 - 0.85; p < 0.05). The C:N ratio was however not correlated to VWC across plots. This study provides insight on how the predicted trends in humid savanna will respond to changes influenced by rainfall variability and livestock grazing and consequently the sustainable management of such ecosystems.

Keywords: CO2 fluxes, rainfall manipulation, soil properties, sustainability

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Authors: Lara A. Alshawawreh, R. Sean Smith, John B. Wood

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This study focuses on the sheltering response in the Middle East, specifically through reviewing two Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, involving Zaatari and Azraq. Zaatari camp involved the rapid deployment of tents and shelters over a very short period of time and Azraq was purpose built and pre-planned over a longer period. At present, both camps collectively host more than 133,000 occupants. Field visits were taken to both camps and the main issues and problems in the sheltering response were highlighted through focus group discussions with camp occupants and inspection of shelter habitats. This provided both subjective and objective research data sources. While every case has its own significance and deployment to meet humanitarian needs, there are some common requirements irrespective of geographical region. The results suggest that there is a gap in the suitability of the required habitat needs and what has been provided. It is recommended that the global international response and support could be improved in relation to the habitat form, construction type, layout, function and critically the cultural aspects. Services, health and hygiene are key elements to the shelter habitat provision. The study also identified the amendments to shelters undertaken by the beneficiaries providing insight into their key main requirements. The outcomes from this study could provide an important learning opportunity to develop improved habitat response for future shelters.

Keywords: culture, post-disaster, refugees, shelters

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Authors: Robert Lindner

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In recent years a multitude of international efforts, including the United Nations’ aspirational 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, provided a new momentum to facilitate energy access and rural electrification projects to combat energy poverty in developing states in Asia. Rural electrification projects promise to facilitate other sustainable development aims, such as the empowerment of local communities through the creation of economic opportunities or increased disaster resilience. This study applies a multi-governance research framework to study the cases of the ongoing energy system transition in Myanmar and Cambodia. It explores what impact the international aid community, especially multilateral development banks and international development agencies, has on the governance of the transitions and how diverging aid donor interest shape policy making and project planning. The study is based on policy analysis and expert interviews, as well as extensive field research. It critically examines the current development trajectories and the strategies of the stakeholders involved. It concludes that institutional and technological competition between donors, as well as a lack of transparency and inclusion in the project planning and implementation phases, contributes to insufficient coordination in national energy policy making and project implementation at the local level. The study further discusses possible alternative approaches that might help to promote the spread of sustainable energy technologies.

Keywords: energy governance, developing countries, multi-level governance, energy transitions

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Authors: Indu Chandran, Shubham Sharma, Rohan Mehta, Vipin Kizheppatt

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Unmanned aerial vehicles are increasingly being explored as the most promising solution to disaster monitoring, assessment, and recovery. Current relief operations heavily rely on intelligent robot swarms to capture the damage caused, provide timely rescue, and create road maps for the victims. To perform these time-critical missions, efficient path planning that ensures quick coverage of the area is vital. This study aims to develop a technically balanced approach to provide maximum coverage of the affected area in a minimum time using the optimal number of UAVs. A coverage trajectory is designed through area decomposition and task assignment. To perform efficient and autonomous coverage mission, solution to a TSP-based optimization problem using meta-heuristic approaches is designed to allocate waypoints to the UAVs of different flight capacities. The study exploits multi-agent simulations like PX4-SITL and QGroundcontrol through the ROS framework and visualizes the dynamics of UAV deployment to different search paths in a 3D Gazebo environment. Through detailed theoretical analysis and simulation tests, we illustrate the optimality and efficiency of the proposed methodologies.

Keywords: area coverage, coverage path planning, heuristic algorithm, mission monitoring, optimization, task assignment, unmanned aerial vehicles

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Authors: Mirela-Gabriela Bratu

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The main objective of this study is to highlight the way in which emotions are constructed discursively in the French written press, more particularly in the titles of informative articles. To achieve this objective, we will begin the study with the theoretical part, which aims to capture the characteristics of journalistic discourse, to which we will add clues of emotions that we will identify in the titles of the articles. The approach is based on the empirical results from the analysis of the articles published on the earthquake that took place on August 24, 2016, in Italy, as described by two French national daily newspapers: Le Monde and Le Point. The corpus submitted to the analysis contains thirty-seven titles, published between August 24, 2016, and August 24, 2017. If the textual content of the speech offers information respecting the grammatical standards and following the presentation conventions, the choice of words can touch the reader, so the journalist must add other means than mastering of the language to create emotion. This study aims to highlight the strategies, such as rhetorical figures, the tenses, or factual data, used by journalists to create emotions for the readers. We also try, thanks to the study of the articles which were published for several days relating to the same event, to emphasize whether we can speak or not of the dissipation of emotion and the catastrophic side as the event fades away in time. The theoretical framework is offered by works on rhetorical strategies (Perelman, 1992; Amossi, 2000; Charaudeau, 2000) and on the study of emotions (Plantin, 1997, 1998, 2004; Tetu, 2004).

Keywords: disaster, earthquake, emotion, feeling

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Authors: Bishwa Nath Oli

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Nepal is highly impacted by climate change and adaptation has been a major focus. This paper investigates the gaps and coherence in national policies across water, forestry, local development and agriculture sectors, identifies their links to climate change adaptation and national development plans and analyzes the effectiveness of climate change policy on adaptation. The study was based on a content analysis of relevant policy documents on the level of attention given to adaptation and key informant interviews. Findings show that sectoral policies have differing degrees of cross thematic coherence, often with mismatched priorities and differing the paths towards achieving climate change goal. They are somewhat coherent in addressing immediate disaster management issues rather than in climate adaptation. In some cases, they are too broad and complicated and the implementation suffers from barriers and limits due to lack of capacity, investment, research and knowledge needed for evidence-based policy process. They do not adequately provide operational guidance in supporting communities in adapting to climate change. The study recommends to a) embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning within government structures to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning, b) increase awareness and flow of information on the potential role of communities in climate change, c) review the existing development sectors from the climate change perspectives, and d) formulate a comprehensive climate change legislation based on the need to implement the new Constitution.

Keywords: agriculture, climate change adaptation, forestry, policies

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Authors: Deepak Raj Bhat, Akihiko Wakai, Shigeru Ogita, Yorihiro Tanaka, Kazushige Hayashi, Shinro Abe

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In this study, the newly developed finite element methods are used for numerical analysis ofa landslide triggered by the fluctuations of ground-water levels in different cases I-IV. In case I, the ground-water level is fixed in such a way that the overall factor of safety (Fs) would be greater or equal to 1 (i.e., stable condition). Then, the ground-water level is gradually increased up to 1.0 m for, making the overall factor of safety (Fs) less than one (i.e., stable or moving condition). Then, the newly developed finite element model is applied for numerical simulation of the slope for each case. Based on the numerical analysis results of each Cases I-IV, the details of the deformation pattern and shear strain pattern are compared to each other. Moreover, the change in mobilized shear strength and local factor of safety along the slip surface of the landslide for each case are discussed to understand the triggering behaviors of a landslide due to the increased in ground water level. It is expected that this study will help to better understand the role of groundwater fluctuation for triggering of a landslide or slope failure disasters, and it would be also helpful for the judgment of the countermeasure works for the prevention and mitigation of landslide and slope failure disasters in near future.

Keywords: finite element method, ground water fluctuations, constitutive model, landslides, long-term disaster management system

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Authors: T. P. Muhammed Jamsheer

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This paper tries to explains some of differences between migrants and non-migrants households by taking ten indicators like land ownership, land distribution, lease in land, lease out land, demand of labour, supply of labour, land operational potential, holding of agriculture implements and livestock’s, irrigation potential of households and credit holding by the households of highly dry, drought affected, poverty stricken, multi caste and pluralistic sub castes village in very backward Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. The paper is purely field work based research and conducted census survey of field work among the 298 households in highly dry village called Keppatta from Bhoothpur mandel. One of the main objectives of the paper is that, to find out the factors which differentiate migrants and non-migrants households and what are distress elements which forced the poor peasants migrants to outside the village. It concludes that among the migrants and non-migrants households and among the differences between the categories wise of both types of households, there are differences, except two indicators like lease in and lease out, all other indicators like land holding pattern, demand and supply of labour, land operation, irrigation potential, implements and livestock and credit facilities of migrants and non-migrants households shows that non-migrants have high share than the migrants households. This paper also showing the landed households are more migrants, means among the BC and FC households landed households are migrants while SC landless are more migrants which is contradictory to general/existing literatures conclusion that, landless are more migrant than landed households, here also showing that when the number of land in acres increases the share of SC is declining while the share of FC is increasing among the both migrants and non-migrants households. In the class wise SC households are more in distress situation than any other class and that might be leading to the highest share of migrants from the respective village. In the logistic econometric model to find out the relation between migration and other ten variables, the result shows that supply of labour, lease in of the land and size of the family are statically significantly related with migration and all other variables not significant relation with migration although the theoretical explanation shows the different results.

Keywords: class, migrants, non migrants, economic indicators, distress factors

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Authors: Ahmed Ali Samejo, Riffat Sultana

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Pakistan has the sandy Thar Desert in the eastern area, which share border line with India and has exotic fauna and flora, the livelihood of native people rely on livestock and rain fed cultivated fields. The climate of Thar Desert is very harsh and stressful due to frequent drought and very little rainfall, which may occur during monsoon season in the months of July to October and temperature is high, and wind speed also increases in April to June. Schistocerca gregaria is a destructive pest of vegetation from Mauritania to the border line of Pakistan and India. Sometimes they produce swarms which consume all plant where ever they land down and cause the loss in agro-economy of the world. During the recent study, we observed that vegetation was not unique throughout the Thar Desert in the year 2015, because the first spell of rainfall showered over all areas of the Thar Desert in July. However, the second and third spell of rain was confined to village Mahandre jo par and surroundings from August to October. Consequently, vegetation and cultivated crops grew up specially bajra crop (Pennistum glaucum). The climate of Mahandre jo par and surroundings became favorable for S.gregaria, and remaining areas of Thar Desert went hostile. Therefore desert locust attracted to the pleasant area (Mahandre jo par and surroundings) and gradually concentrated, increased reproductive activities, but did not gregarize due to the harvest of bajra crop and the onset of the winter season with an immediate decrease in temperature. An outbreak was near to come into existence, and thereupon conditions become stressful for hoppers to continue further development. Afore mentioned was one reason behind hurdle to the outbreak, another reason might be that migration and concentration of desert locust took place at the end of the season, so climate becomes unfavorable for hoppers, due to dryness of vegetation. Soils also become dry, because rainfall was not showered in end of the season, that’s why eggs that were deposited in late summer were desiccated. This data might be proved fruitful to forecast any outbreak update in future.

Keywords: agro-economy, destructive pest, climate, outbreak, vegetation

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Authors: Ankit Shah, R. K. Shrivastava

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Flood and drought are two main features of hydrology which affect the human life. Floods are natural disasters which cause millions of rupees’ worth of damage each year in India and the whole world. Flood causes destruction in form of life and property. An accurate estimate of the flood damage potential is a key element to an effective, nationwide flood damage abatement program. Also, the increase in demand of water due to increase in population, industrial and agricultural growth, has let us know that though being a renewable resource it cannot be taken for granted. We have to optimize the use of water according to circumstances and conditions and need to harness it which can be done by construction of hydraulic structures. For their safe and proper functioning of hydraulic structures, we need to predict the flood magnitude and its impact. Hydraulic structures play a key role in harnessing and optimization of flood water which in turn results in safe and maximum use of water available. Mainly hydraulic structures are constructed on ungauged sites. There are two methods by which we can estimate flood viz. generation of Unit Hydrographs and Flood Frequency Analysis. In this study, Regional Flood Frequency Analysis has been employed. There are many methods for estimating the ‘Regional Flood Frequency Analysis’ viz. Index Flood Method. National Environmental and Research Council (NERC Methods), Multiple Regression Method, etc. However, none of the methods can be considered universal for every situation and location. The Narmada basin is located in Central India. It is drained by most of the tributaries, most of which are ungauged. Therefore it is very difficult to estimate flood on these tributaries and in the main river. As mentioned above Artificial Neural Network (ANN)s and Multiple Regression Method is used for determination of Regional flood Frequency. The annual peak flood data of 20 sites gauging sites of Narmada Basin is used in the present study to determine the Regional Flood relationships. Homogeneity of the considered sites is determined by using the Index Flood Method. Flood relationships obtained by both the methods are compared with each other, and it is found that ANN is more reliable than Multiple Regression Method for the present study area.

Keywords: artificial neural network, index flood method, multi layer perceptrons, multiple regression, Narmada basin, regional flood frequency

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Authors: Mais Nijim, Rama Devi Chennuboyina, Waseem Al Aqqad

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Advances in spatial and spectral resolution of satellite images have led to tremendous growth in large image databases. The data we acquire through satellites, radars and sensors consists of important geographical information that can be used for remote sensing applications such as region planning, disaster management. Spatial data classification and object recognition are important tasks for many applications. However, classifying objects and identifying them manually from images is a difficult task. Object recognition is often considered as a classification problem, this task can be performed using machine-learning techniques. Despite of many machine-learning algorithms, the classification is done using supervised classifiers such as Support Vector Machines (SVM) as the area of interest is known. We proposed a classification method, which considers neighboring pixels in a region for feature extraction and it evaluates classifications precisely according to neighboring classes for semantic interpretation of region of interest (ROI). A dataset has been created for training and testing purpose; we generated the attributes by considering pixel intensity values and mean values of reflectance. We demonstrated the benefits of using knowledge discovery and data-mining techniques, which can be on image data for accurate information extraction and classification from high spatial resolution remote sensing imagery.

Keywords: remote sensing, object recognition, classification, data mining, waterbody identification, feature extraction

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Authors: Muhammad Ashfaq, Muhammad Saleem Haider, Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Sajjad, Amna Ali, Urooj Mubashar

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Phenotypic diversity was confirmed by measuring different morphological traits i.e. seed traits (seed length, seed width, seed thickness, seed length-width ratio, 1000 grain weight) and root-shoot traits (shoot length, root length, shoot fresh weight, root fresh weight, root-shoot ratio, root numbers and root thickness). Variance and association study of desirable traits determine the genotypic differences among the rice germplasm. All the traits showed significant differences among the genotypes. The traits were studied in Randomized complete block design (RCBD) at different water levels. Some traits showed positive correlation with each other and beneficial for increasing the yield and production of the crop. Seed thickness has positive correlation with seed length and seed width (r= 0.104**, r=0.246**). On the other hand, various root shoot traits showed positive highly significant association at different water levels i.e. root length, fresh root weight, root thickness, shoot thickness and root numbers. Our main focus to study the performance/correlation of root shoots traits under stress condition. Fresh root weight, shoot thickness and root numbers showed positive significant association with shoot length, root length, fresh root and shoot weight (r=0.2530**, r=0.2891**, r=0.4626**, r=0.4515**, r=0.5781**, r=0.7164**, r=0.0603**, r= 0.5570**, r=0.5824**). Long root length genotypes favors and suitable for drought stress conditions and screening of diverse genotypes for the further development of new plant material that performing well under different environmental conditions. After screening genetic diversity of potential rice, lines were studied to check the polymorphism by using some SSR markers. DNA was extracted, and PCR analyses were done to study PIC values and allelic diversity of the genotypes. The main objective of this study is to screen out the genotypes on the basis of various genotypic and phenotypic traits.

Keywords: rice, morphological traits, association, germplasm, genetic diversity, water levels, variation

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Authors: Awais Ahmad, Mostafa Muhammad Selim, Ali Abdullah Alderfasi

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Water limitation is undoubtedly a critical environmental constraint limiting the crop production under arid and semiarid areas. Mung bean is susceptible to both drought and water logging stresses. Therefore, present study was conducted to assess the water deficit stress consequences of yield components and water use efficiency in Mung bean. A field experiment was conducted at Educational Farm, Crop Production Department, College of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Kind Saud University, Saudi Arabia. Trail comprised of four irrigation levels — total amount of irrigation divided into irrigation intervals — (3, 5, 7 and 9 days interval) and three Mung bean genotypes; Kawmay-1, VC-2010 and King from Egypt, Thailand and China respectively. Experiment was arranged under split plot design having irrigation as main while genotype as subplot treatment, and replicated thrice. Plant height, 100 seed weight, biological yield, seed yield, harvest index and water use efficiency were recorded at harvesting. Results revealed that decrease in irrigation have significantly hampered all the studied parameters. Mung bean genotypes have also shown significant differences for all parameters, whereas irrigation genotype interaction was highly significant for seed yield, harvest index and water use efficiency (WUE) while it was significant for biological yield. Plant height and 100 seed weight were recorded non-significant for irrigation genotype interaction. A statistically highly significant correlation among recorded parameters was observed. Minimum irrigation interval (3 days) significantly produced maximum values while VC-2010 comparatively performed better under low irrigation levels. It was concluded that Mung bean may be successfully adopted under Saudi Arabian climate but it needs high water or frequent irrigation, however, genotypic differences are a hope to develop some improved varieties with high water use efficiency.

Keywords: mung bean, irrigation intervals, water use efficiency, genotypes, yield

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Authors: Takudzwa C. Taruza, Carel B. Schoeman, Ilse M. Schoeman

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The proliferation of informal settlements remains one of the major planning challenges in democratic South Africa. In spite of the various local, national and international initiatives to promote the creation of sustainable human settlements, informal settlements continue to exist as spatially marginalised societies characterised by poverty, unemployment, squalor conditions and disaster risks. It is argued that, in practice, intervention is mainly directed at achieving set quantitative targets and goals rather than improving the lives of the inhabitants. The relevant planning instruments do not adequately address the integration of informal settlements into the broader planning framework. This paper is based on the analysis of the informal settlement intervention within the North West Province. Financial constraints, bureaucracy in housing delivery and lack of horizontal and vertical integration in spatial planning and programme implementation are amongst the major factors that caused stagnation in some of the upgrading programmes which in turn hindered the attainment of the target set as part of the Outcome 8 Delivery Agreement. Moreover, the absence of distinct indicators for the assessment of the qualitative progress of upgrading programmes indicates shortcomings in the intervention policies and programmes to promote the creation of sustainable human settlements. Thus, this paper seeks to proffer an assessment toolkit as well as a framework for the implementation of a Sustainable Informal Settlement Programme.

Keywords: formalization of informal settlements, planning intervention, sustainable formalization indicators, sustainable human settlements

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Authors: Sarmin, S., Ologuin, R.S.

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Background: Rapid population growth and land constraints in Singapore results in a possible situation in which we face a higher number of casualties and lack of operational space in healthcare facilities during disasters and HAZMAT events, collectively known as Civil Emergencies. This creates a need for available working space within hospital grounds to be amphibious or multi-functional, to ensure the institution’s capability to respond efficiently to Civil Emergencies. The Emergency Department (ED) mitigates this issue by converting the Ambulance Assembly Area used during peacetime into an Open Decontamination Facility (ODF) during Civil Emergency Response, for decontamination of casualties before they proceed to treatment areas into Ambulance Assembly Area used during peacetime. Aims: To effectively operationalize the Open Decontamination Facility (ODF) through the reduction of manual handling. Methods: From past experiences on Civil Emergency exercises, it was labor-intensive for staff to set up the Open Decontamination Facility (ODF). Manual handling to set up the Decontamination lanes by bringing down the curtains and supply of water was required to be turned on. Conclusion: The effectiveness of the design construction of an Open Decontamination Facility (ODF) is based on the use of automation of bringing down the curtains on the various lanes. The use of control panels for water supply to decontaminate patients. Safety within the ODF was considered with the installation of panic buttons, intercom for staff communication, and perimeter curtains were installed with stability arm to manage the condition with high wind velocity.

Keywords: civil emergencies, disaster, emergency department, Hazmat

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Authors: Nur Afiqah Mohd Kamal, Khamarrul Azahari Razak

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The earthquake aftermath has become a major concern, especially in high seismicity region. In Kundasang, Sabah, the earthquake on 5th June 2015 resulted in several catastrophes; landslides, rockfalls, mudflows and major slopes affected regardless of the series of the aftershocks. Certainly, the consequences of earthquake generate and induce the episodic disaster, not only life-threatening but it also affects infrastructure and economic development. Therefore, a need for investigating the change in land use and land cover (LULC) of post-earthquake geohazard is essential for identifying the extent of disastrous effects towards the development in Kundasang. With the advancement of remote sensing technology, post-earthquake geohazards (landslides, mudflows, rockfalls, debris flows) assessment can be evaluated by the employment of object-based image analysis in investigating the LULC change which consists of settlements, public infrastructure and vegetation cover. Therefore, this paper discusses the preliminary results on post-earthquakes geohazards distribution in Kundasang and evaluates the LULC classification effect upon the occurrences of geohazards event. The result of this preliminary analysis will provide an overview to determine the extent of geohazard impact on LULC. This research also provides beneficial input to the local authority in Kundasang about the risk of future structural development on the geohazard area.

Keywords: geohazard, land use land cover, object-based image analysis, remote sensing

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Authors: Yun Wang, Ruoyu Wang, Tuo Chen, Guangxiu Liu, Guodong Chen, Wei Zhang

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Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health problem in China. China has the world's second largest tuberculosis epidemic (after India). Xinjiang almost has the highest annual attendance rate of TB in China, and the province is also famous because of its severe dust storms. The epidemic timing starts in February and ends in July, and the dust storm mainly distribute throughout the spring and early summer, which strongly indicate a close linkage between causative agent of TB and dust storm events. However, mechanisms responsible for the observed patterns are still not clearly indentified. By comparing the information on cases of TB from Centers for Disease Control of China annual reports with dust storm atmosphere datasets, we constructed the relationship between the large scale annual occurrence of TB in Xinjiang, a Northwest province of China, and dust storm occurrence. Regional atmospheric indexes of dust storm based on surface wind speed show a clear link between population dynamics of the disease and the climate disaster: the onset of epidemics and the dust storm defined by the atmospheric index share the same mean year. This study is the first that provides a clear demonstration of connections that exist between TB epidemics and dust storm events in China. The development of this study will undoubtedly help early warning for tuberculosis epidemic onset in China and help nationwide and international public health institutions and policy makers to better control TB disease in Norwest China.

Keywords: dust storm, tuberculosis, Xinjiang province, epidemic

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Authors: Marjone Van Der Bank, C. M. Van Der Bank

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This paper presents an overview of the foundation and evolution of environmental related problems in local governments with specific reference on air pollution in South Africa. Local government has a direct mandate in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (hereafter, the Constitution). This mandate to protect, fulfil, respect and promote the Bill of Rights by local governments in respect of the powers and functions creates confusion around the role of where a local government fits in, in addressing the problem of climate change in South Africa. A reflection of the evolving legislations, developments, and processes regarding climate change that shaped local government dispensation in South Africa is addressed by the notion of developmental local governments. This paper seeks to examine the advances for mitigation and adaptation regulation of air pollution and application in South Africa. This study involves a qualitative approach that will involve South African national legislation as well as an interpretation of international strategies. A literature review study was conducted to undertake the various aspects of law in order to support the argument undertaken of mitigation and adaptation strategies. The paper presents a detailed discussion of the current legislation and the position as it currently stands, as well as the relevant protections as outlined in the National Environmental Management Act and the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act. It then proceeds to outline the responsibilities of local governments in South Africa to mitigate and adapt to air pollution strategies.

Keywords: adaptation, climate change, disaster, local governments and mitigation

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Authors: Naohiro Nakamura

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Analysis methods to accurately estimate the behavior of buildings when earthquakes occur is very important for improving the seismic safety of such buildings. Recently, the use of damping devices has increased significantly and there is a particular need to appropriately evaluate the behavior of buildings with such devices during earthquakes in the design stage. At present, however, the accuracy of the analysis evaluations is not sufficient. One reason is that the accuracy of current analysis methods has not been appropriately verified because there is very limited data on the behavior of actual buildings during earthquakes. Many types of shaking table test of large structures are performed at the '3-Dimensional Full-Scale Earthquake Testing Facility' (nicknamed 'E-Defense') operated by the National Research Institute of Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED). In this study, simulations using 3- dimensional analysis models were conducted on shaking table test of a 5-story steel-frame structure with dampers. The results of the analysis correspond favorably to the test results announced afterward by the committee. However, the suitability of the parameters and models used in the analysis and the influence they had on the responses remain unclear. Hence, we conducted additional analysis and studies on these models and parameters. In this paper, outlines of the test are shown and the utilized analysis model is explained. Next, the analysis results are compared with the test results. Then, the additional analyses, concerning with the hysteresis curve of the dampers and the beam-end stiffness of the frame, are investigated.

Keywords: three-dimensional analysis, E-defense, full-scale experimen, vibration control damper

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Authors: Basanta Raj Adhikari

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Large and small scale earthquakes are frequent in the Nepal, Himalaya, and many co-seismic landslides are resulted out of it. Recently, Gorkha earthquake-2015 has triggered many co-seismic landslides destroying many lives and properties. People have displaced their original places due to having many cracks and unstable ground. Therefore, Nepal has been adopting a pronged development strategy to address the earthquake issues through reconstruction and rehabilitation policy, plans and budgets. Landslides are major threat for the mountain livelihood, and it is very important to investigate and mitigate to improve human wellbeing factoring in considerations of economic growth, environmental safety, and sustainable development. Community based landslide investigation was carried with the involvement of the local community in the Sindhupalchowk District of Central Nepal. Landslide training and field orientation were the major methodological approach of this study. Combination of indigenous and modern scientific knowledge has created unique working environment which enhanced the local capacity and trained people for replication. Local topography of the landslide was created with the help of Total Station and bill of quantity was derived based on it. River training works, plantation of trees and grasses, support structures, surface and sub-surface drainage management are the recommended mitigative measures. This is a very unique example of how academia and local community can work together for sustainable development by reducing disaster risk at the local level with very low-cost technology.

Keywords: community, earthquake, landslides, Nepal

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Authors: Sa-Kil Kim, Jang-Soo Lee

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On March 31, 1993, a severe fire accident took place in a nuclear power plant located in Narora in North India. The event involved a major fire in the turbine building of NAPS unit-1 and resulted in a total loss of power to the unit for 17 hours. In addition, there was a heavy ingress of smoke in the control room, mainly through the intake of the ventilation system, forcing the operators to vacate the control room. The Narora fire accident provides us lessons indicating that operators could lose their mind and predictable behaviors during a fire. After the Fukushima accident, which resulted from a natural disaster, unanticipated external events are also required to be prepared and controlled for the ultimate safety of nuclear power plants. From last year, our research team has developed a test and evaluation facility that can simulate external events such as an earthquake and fire based on the operators’ real-sense. As one of the results of the project, we proposed a unit real-sense-based facility that can simulate fire events in a control room for utilizing a test-bed of human factor validation. The test-bed has the operator’s workstation shape and functions to simulate fire conditions such as smoke, heat, and auditory alarms in accordance with the prepared fire scenarios. Furthermore, the test-bed can be used for the operators’ training and experience.

Keywords: human behavior in fire, human factors validation, nuclear power plants, real-sense-based fire simulation

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Authors: Kausar Alam, Mohammad Yazdi, Peiman Zogh, Ramin Motamed

Abstract:

An earthquake is an unpredictable natural disaster. It induces liquefaction, which causes considerable damage to the structure, life support, and piping systems because of ground settlement. As a result, people are incredibly concerned about how to resolve the situation. Previous researchers adopted different ground improvement techniques to reduce the settlement of the structure during earthquakes. This study evaluates the effectiveness of lowering the water table as a technique to mitigate foundation settlement in liquefiable soil. The performance will be evaluated based on foundation settlement and the reduction of excessive pore water pressure. In this study, a scaled model was prepared based on a full-scale shale table experiment conducted at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The model ground consists of three soil layers having a relative density of 55%, 45%, and 90%, respectively. A shallow foundation is seated over an unsaturated crust layer. After preparation of the model ground, the water table was measured to be at 45, 40, and 35 cm (from the bottom). Then, the input motions were applied for 10 seconds, with a peak acceleration of 0.25g and a constant frequency of 2.73 Hz. Based on the experimental results, the effectiveness of the lowering water table in reducing the foundation settlement and excess pore water pressure was evident. The foundation settlement was reduced from 50 mm to 5 mm. In addition, lowering the water table as a mitigation measure is a cost-effective way to decrease liquefaction-induced building settlement.

Keywords: foundation settlement, ground water table, liquefaction, hake table test

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Authors: Boukrouh Soumaya, Cabaraux Jean-François, Avril Claire, Noutfia Ali, Chentouf Mouad

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The introduction of marginal leguminous forage species in the diet of ruminants are of great importance. Bitter vetch is a good source of proteins, highly resistant against drought and poor soil conditions. Accordingly; two years field trials (2018/2019 and 2019-2020) were conducted to determine the digestibility of straw and grains of 17 promising bitter vetch ecotypes(Vicia ervilia) in the north of Morocco. In vitro dry and organic matter digestibility, gas production, and kinetics of fermentation of grains and straw were evaluated using gas production technique, pepsin-cellulase enzymatic digestibility of DM (CDDM)and OM (CDOM), as well as protease enzymatic CP degradation (CPD) and in vitro true digestibility, were performed using DAISYII Incubator. In vitro digestibility was performed using gas production method of (Menke et al., 1979) improved by Menke and Steingass (1988). Samples were incubated in glass syringes that contained rumen fluid and incubation solution that conserved in water bath in 39°C during 72 hours. Gas production was recorded after 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours. Studied digestibility parameters were dry and organic matter digestibility, microbial biomass production, partitioning factor, and volatile fatty acids. Enzymatic dry matter digestibility was different (p < 0.05) among grains and straw for all ecotypes. It varied from 804.1 to 957.7 g/kg DM and 270.4 to 412.3 g/kg DM for grains and straw, respectively. Metabolizable energy varied between 11.7 to 14.3 MJ/kg DM and 2.6 to 5.0 MJ/kg DM for grains and straw, respectively. Potential gas production (A), the rate constants (c and d), and lag times of grains and straws from different bitter vetch ecotypes were different (p > 0.05). The results emphasized that in any evaluation of bitter vetch ecotypes, where straw of this legume seed is used as an animal feed, not only seed yield but also yield and quality of straw should be taken into consideration, particularly in areas where straw from this legume is considered as an important feedstuff for ruminants. Enzymatic digestibility was lower than in vitro digestibility by gaz production and by the DAISYII method because rumen fluid contains bacteria than increase digestibility. There was no difference between in vitro digestibility by gaz production and the DAISY II method. The DAISY II method can be used to increase labor efficiency in the in vitro DM digestibility analysis if gaz production is not necessary for analysis.

Keywords: bitter vetch, grains, straw, ecotype, in vitro digestibility, gaz production, enzymatic digestibility

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