Flood risk and damage analysis in urban areas of Zimbabwe. A case of 2020/21 rain season floods in the city of Gweru

Author(s):  
Mark Matsa ◽  
Oshneck Mupepi
2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1895
Author(s):  
André Jesus Periçato ◽  
Valdeir Demétrio da Silva ◽  
Francieli Sant'ana Marcatto

A ocorrência de inundações em áreas urbanas tem se intensificado nos últimos anos, ocasionando diversos danos e prejuízos para a sociedade. O intenso crescimento das cidades nas últimas décadas, assim como a ocupação irregular do espaço urbano com moradias precárias e próximas aos rios, são fatores determinantes para que ocorram essas situações de catástrofes. O objetivo deste trabalho é mapear e identificar as áreas de inundação em setembro de 2011 no município de Itajaí para a confecção do mapa de risco. Para isso foi realizado uma análise histórica do crescimento da malha urbana de Itajaí, correlacionando com as manchas de inundação. Os resultados obtidos revelaram que a inundação ocorrida em 2011 atingiu parte significativa da área do município, com destaque ao perímetro urbano. Os pontos mais críticos de inundação foram às áreas onde houve o crescimento urbano, com destaque as proximidades do rio Itajaí-Mirim. Foi possível analisar por meio do mapa de risco, que grande parte da cidade de Itajaí foi classificada com um alto índice de risco a inundação. Deste modo, pode-se concluir que o mapeamento das áreas de risco configura-se como uma importante ferramenta e instrumento no controle e prevenção à inundação em áreas afetadas por esse fenômeno.   A B S T R A C T The occurrence of floods in urban areas has intensified in the recent years, causing many kinds od damage and loss for society. The intense growth of the cities in the past few decades, along with the irregular occupation of urban space with precarious settlements close to the rivers, were determining factors for these catastrophic situations to occur. The objective of this study is mapping and identifying the flooding areas in September 2011 in the city of Itajaí for the confection of a risk map. For this a historical analysis of the growth of the Itajaí urban area was realized, correlating with the flood spots. The obtained results reveal that the 2011 floods affected a significant portion of the city’s area, especially the urban perimeter. The most critical flood spots were in the areas where urban growth took place, especially nearby the Itajaí-Mirim river. By analizing the map, it’s noted that a big part of the city of Itajaí is classified as a high flood risk area. It can be concluded that the mapping of risk areas is an important tool and instrument in the control and prevention of floods in the areas affected by this phenomenon. Keywords: urban flooding, geotechnology, flood risk map.   


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomohiro Tanaka ◽  
Keiko Kiyohara ◽  
Yasuto Tachikawa

<p>Against flood disasters to be intensified in a future climate, we are required to implement adaptation strategies on a limited budget. In urban areas, heavy rainfall-based floods are classified into two types: pluvial and fluvial floods. It is well known that fluvial floods cause deeper inundation and stronger fluid force while pluvial ones occur more frequently. Such hydrodynamic characteristics have been intensively discussed in a literature; however, their impact and the resulting damage have not yet been examined in a comprehensive manner due to small samples of storm events in one region that leads to high uncertainty in frequency analysis. In the context of climate change impact assessment on extreme events, considerable ensembles of climate data have become available, contributing to smaller uncertainty in frequency analysis of flood damages. This study presents a case study of frequency estimation of fluvial and pluvial floods in an urban area set in Nagoya City, Japan. We applied a large ensemble climate simulation database, d4PDF, to a combined pluvial and fluvial flood model, from which we derived flood risk curves for each type of flooding. The results indicated that pluvial flooding presents comparable economic risk to fluvial flooding (16% and 17% lesser damage at 50- and 100-year return periods, respectively) despite its significantly shallower flood depths (area with flood depth over 45 cm was only 10.5% and 5.4%, respectively). This is because pluvial floods widely occur over the city, including areas further away from the river. Furthermore, probably similar with other mega cities with long history, fluvial flood risk has been managed by settling the central economic district (originally the Nagoya Castle founded several centuries ago) on higher altitudes. The results suggest that pluvial flooding could have comparable economic risks to fluvial flooding in urban areas where major economic assets are widely sprawled over the city as well as historical countermeasures are implemented against fluvial flooding. Pluvial floods, countermeasures against which tend to be smaller than fluvial floods, should be managed at a comparable level in urban areas.</p>


Author(s):  
Benjamin Carrion ◽  
Luis Burgos ◽  
Carlos Rozas

Several recent tsunami events worldwide have increased the general public´s awareness of the inherent risk many coastal communities face. Accordingly, academics and professionals have sought to acquire a better understanding of the underlying physical processes involved, and have developed increasingly sophisticated numerical tools to simulate them. One important characteristic of the tsunami flood tragedies that must be acknowledged is that they occur in urban areas, where the built environment is likely to determine the flow, and hence, the flood risk. Despite this fact, relatively little literature covers the particular challenges of modelling the hydrodynamic interactions of the tsunami flood and the buildings and infrastructure. In this work we propose the indirect inclusion of the built environment's effect by actually excluding every building from the numerical domain, enclosing them in an internal reflective boundary condition. The objective is two-fold: it allows a reasonable inclusion of the flow funneling, and it reduces the number of cells in the numerical domain, allowing the use of a higher grid resolution in the expected wet domain, and to achieve shorter simulation runtimes. The methodology was validated against measurements of flow depth, velocity, and momentum on a scale model of the city of Seaside, Oregon. The model and methodology were subsequently used to produce flood depth and velocity maps for 11 coastal cities in Chile, caused by the likely maximum mega-thrust earthquake for each of them.


2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
A. P. Korzh ◽  
T. V. Zahovalko

Recently, the number of published works devoted to the processes of synanthropization of fauna, is growing like an avalanche, which indicates the extreme urgency of this theme. In our view, the process of forming devices to coexist with human and the results of his life reflects the general tandency of the modern nature evolution. Urbanization is characteristic for such a specific group of animals like amphibians, the evidence of which are numerous literature data. Many researchers use this group to assess the bioindicative quality of the environment. For this aim a variety of indicators are used: from the cellular level of life of organization up to the species composition of the group in different territories. At the same time, the interpretation of the results is not always comparable for different areas and often have significantly different interpretations by experts. Urban environment, primarily due to the contamination is extremely aggressive to amphibians. As a consequence, the urban populations of amphibians may be a change in the demographic structure, affecting the reproductive ability of the population, the disappearance of the most sensitive species or individuals, resizing animals, the appearance of abnormalities in the development, etc. At the same time play an important amphibians in the ecosystems of cities, and some species in these conditions even feel relatively comfortable. Therefore, it is interesting to understand the mechanisms of self-sustaining populations of amphibians in urban environments. To assess the impact of natural and anthropogenic factors on the development of amphibian populations were used cognitive modeling using the program Vensim PLE. Cognitive map of the model for urban and suburban habitat conditions were the same. The differences concerned the strength of connections between individual factors (migration, fertility, pollution) and their orientation. In general, factors like pollution, parasites, predators had negative impact on the population, reducing its number. The birth rate, food and migration contributed to raising number of individuals. Some of the factors affected on the strength to of each other as well: the majority of the factors affected the structure of the population, had an influence on the fertility. Thanks to it the model reflects the additive effect of complex of factors on the subsequent status of the population. Proposed and analyzed four scenarios differing strength and duration of exposure. In the first scenario, a one-time contamination occurs and not subsequently repeated. The second and third scenario assumes half board contamination, 1 year (2 scenario) and two years (scenario 3). In the fourth scenario, the pollution affected the population of amphibians constantly. In accordance with the results of simulation, much weaker than the natural populations respond to pollution - have them as an intensive population growth and its disappearance at constant pollution is slow. Changes to other parameters of the model showed that this pollution is the decisive factor -only the constant action leads to a lethal outcome for the populations. All other components of the model have a corrective effect on the population dynamics, without changing its underlying trand. In urban areas due to the heavy impact of pollution maintaining the population is only possible thanks to the migration process – the constant replenishment of diminishing micropopulations of natural reserves. This confirms the assumption that the form of existence metapopulations lake frog in the city. In order to maintain the number of amphibians in urban areas at a high level it is necessary to maintain existing migration routes and the creation of new ones. Insular nature of the placement of suitable habitats in urban areas causes the metapopulation structure of the types of urbanists. Therefore, the process of urbanization is much easier for those species whicht are capable of migration in conditions of city. In the initial stages of settling the city micropopulationis formed by selective mortality of the most susceptible individuals to adverse effects. In future, maintaining the categories of individuals is provided mainly due to migration processes metapopulisation form of the species of existence is supported). It should be noted that the changes in the previous levels are always saved in future. In the case of reorganizations of individuals we of morphology can assume the existence of extremely adverse environmental conditions that threaten the extinction of the micropopulations. 


Широкое распространение безнадзорных животных на территории городов несет за собой потенциальную угрозу распространения зооантропонозных заболеваний, одним из которых является демодекоз. Невозможно разработать мероприятия, направленные на борьбу с заболеванием и его профилактику, без анализа данных особенностей возникновения и распространения инвазии среди всей популяции восприимчивых животных. Поэтому целью нашей работы явилось изучение распространения демодекоза среди безнадзорных собак и кошек в городе Тюмени. В задачи исследования входило изучение распространения демодекоза и его клинического проявления среди бездомных собак и кошек в условиях города Тюмени и определение сезонной динамики заболевания. Работу выполняли в 2016-2018 гг. на базе кафедры анатомии и физиологии ФГБОУ ВО ГАУ Северного Зауралья, в лаборатории акарологии ВНИИВЭА – филиала ТюмНЦ СО РАН, а также в производственных условиях на базе пункта временного содержания безнадзорных домашних животных МКУ «ЛесПаркХоз». Демодекозная инвазия распространена среди бездомных кошек и собак. Наиболее часто демодекоз встречается у собак, экстенсивность инвазии от 0,65 до 0,72%. Заболевание демодекозом у бездомных собак регистрировали на протяжении всего года, но 54,6% больных собак поступали в апреле и мае. Большинство больных демодекозом – это молодые собаки в возрасте от 1,5 месяцев до 2-х лет – 75,76%, животные старше двух лет гораздо реже страдали от демодекоза – 24,24%. Генерализацию демодекоза регистрировали у 21 собаки (63,64%), а локализованные очаги – у 12 собак (36,36%). Наиболее распространенной формой проявления демодекоза у бездомных собак является пустулезная, или пиодемодекоз. Данная форма заболевания была отмечена у 16 собак (48,49%), чешуйчатая форма отмечалась у 10 собак (30,30%), а смешанная – у 7 собак (21,21%). The widespread use of stray animals in urban areas carries with it the potential threat of the spread of zooanthroponotic diseases, one of which is demodicosis. It is impossible to develop measures aimed at combating the disease and its prevention without analyzing the data on the characteristics of the occurrence and spread of invasion among the entire population of susceptible animals. Therefore, the purpose of our work was to study the distribution of demodicosis among street dogs and cats in the city of Tyumen. The objectives of the study included the study of the spread of demodicosis and its clinical manifestation among stray dogs and cats in the conditions of the city of Tyumen and the determination of the seasonal dynamics of the disease. Demodectic invasion is common among stray cats and dogs. Most often, demodicosis occurs in dogs, with extensive invasion from 0.65 to 0.72%. Demodecosis in stray dogs was recorded throughout the year, but 54.6% of sick dogs were reported in April and May. The majority of patients with demodicosis are young dogs between the ages of 1.5 months and 2 years old - 75.76%, animals older than two years suffer less from demodicosis, only 24.24%. Generalization of demodicosis was recorded in 21 dogs (63.64%), and localized foci in 12 dogs (36.36%). The most common form of demodicosis in stray dogs is pustular or pyodemodecosis. This form of the disease was observed in 16 dogs (48.49%), scaly form, was observed in 10 dogs (30.30%), and mixed in 7 dogs (21.21%).


Author(s):  
Irina Glinyanova ◽  
Valery Azarov ◽  
Valery Fomichev

Fine dust: (PM2.5, PM10) is a priority pollutant that contributes to the development of numerous dis-eases in urban areas. The purpose of this scientific work is to study the dispersed composition of dust parti-cles on the leaves of apricot trees (Prúnus armeníaca) in the residential zone of Volgograd. The novelty of the work lies in the study of the dispersed composition of dust particles on the leaves of apricot trees (Prúnus armeníaca) in the residential zone in the city of Volgograd near the construction industry enterprise, me-chanical engineering, leather production and railway transport line in comparison with the conditionally clean (control) zone of the SNT “Orocenets” ”(Sovetsky District, Volgograd) from the standpoint of random functions expressed by integral distribution curves of the mass of particles over their equivalent diameters. As a result of the research, the dispersed composition of dust on the leaves of apricot trees (Prúnus ar-meníaca) in the residential area of Volgograd was revealed. Fine particles were found: PM2.5, PM10 in each of the studied points, which by their values, both in their number and mass fraction, significantly exceed the data on fine dust in a conditionally clean area (control) in the SNT “Oroshanets” (Sovetsky district Volgo-grad), which creates certain environmental risks for local residents. The dispersed analysis of particles from the standpoint of random functions in the future will allow with a sufficiently high degree of accuracy to pre-dict the dust content of urban atmospheric air in the range of monthly and / or seasonal average values compared to the traditional measurement of fine dust concentration in atmospheric air of the urban environ-ment as the maximum single or daily average. At the same time, further studies of dust on the leaves of plants in an urban environment, namely, the study of the density of its sedimentation, will also reveal a group of ur-ban plants that are best suited to retain PM2.5 and PM10 on leaf plates in this region, which can significantly increase the quality of the atmospheric air of the urban environment and be of a recommendatory nature for the state-owned landscaping services of the city of Volgograd when improving the green areas of a megacity.


Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Valdemir Antoneli ◽  
Manuel Pulido-Fernández ◽  
João Anésio Bednarz ◽  
Leonardo Brandes ◽  
Michael Vrahnakis ◽  
...  

The catchment area of River das Antas (Irati, Paraná, Brazil) is of high importance both for human consumption and irrigation. Within Irati, this river passes through a rural area and through the city of Irati, crossing both poor and rich neighbourhoods. We selected three study areas downstream (a rural area, poor community, and rich neighbourhood) in which we measured turbidity, the concentration of sediments and pH during rainy days. Our results showed downstream trends of increasing turbidity and concentrations of sediments with decreasing pH. The values of turbidity and of concentration of sediments were significantly different in the rural area, while the pH values were significantly different between the three study areas. These findings highlight the effect of agricultural activities in the generation of sediments and turbidity. The—presumably expected—effects of organic urban waste from the poor neighbourhood were also detected in the pH values. We conclude that efforts should be made to ensure that land planning and training/education programmes on sustainable farming practices are undertaken by the authorities to reduce water pollution and its effects on water bodies during rainfall events, since paving streets is not a feasible option in the short term due to the high costs associated with this measure.


Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802098100
Author(s):  
Mark Ellison ◽  
Jon Bannister ◽  
Won Do Lee ◽  
Muhammad Salman Haleem

The effective, efficient and equitable policing of urban areas rests on an appreciation of the qualities and scale of, as well as the factors shaping, demand. It also requires an appreciation of the factors shaping the resources deployed in their address. To this end, this article probes the extent to which policing demand (crime, anti-social behaviour, public safety and welfare) and deployment (front-line resource) are similarly conditioned by the social and physical urban environment, and by incident complexity. The prospect of exploring policing demand, deployment and their interplay is opened through the utilisation of big data and artificial intelligence and their integration with administrative and open data sources in a generalised method of moments (GMM) multilevel model. The research finds that policing demand and deployment hold varying and time-sensitive association with features of the urban environment. Moreover, we find that the complexities embedded in policing demands serve to shape both the cumulative and marginal resources expended in their address. Beyond their substantive policy relevance, these findings serve to open new avenues for urban criminological research centred on the consideration of the interplay between policing demand and deployment.


Noise Mapping ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-161
Author(s):  
Jerónimo Vida Manzano ◽  
José Antonio Almagro Pastor ◽  
Rafael García Quesada

Abstract The city of Granada is experimenting a big urban transformation, attending national and international commitments on clean air, energy efficiency and savings linked to greenhouse gases reduction strategies and sustainable development action plans. This situation constitutes a good scenario for new noise control approaches that take into account the sound variable and citizens empowering in urban design, such as the soundscape assessment of urban territory. In this way, soundscape tools have been used in Granada as a complementary method for environmental noise characterisation where traditional noise control techniques are difficult to be carried out or give limited results. After 2016 strategic noise map and in the preparation of the new noise action plan, the city came across a great acoustic challenge in a new area located outskirts characterised by growing urbanisation, still under development, the greatest legal protection because of sensitive teaching and hospital buildings and the greatest noise exposure from nearby ring-way supporting heavy traffic flow. As quiet urban areas are not characterised by the absence of noise but for the presence of the right noise, this research intended to provide the local administration with results and proposals to transform this conflict area in a pleasant or quiet urban place. Main results came from important and significative differences in morning and evening characterisation, as great differences appear in soundscape assessment over the day and along the soundwalk path, indicating the importance of time and local issues to adequately characterised citizens perception to be considered by administration in the development of strategies and effective noise control actions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Lesińska-Sawicka

Abstract Introduction Cervical cancer and its etiopathogenesis, the age of women in whom it is diagnosed, average life expectancy, and prognosis are information widely covered in scientific reports. However, there is no coherent information regarding which regions—urban or rural—it may occur more often. This is important because the literature on the subject reports that people living in rural areas have a worse prognosis when it comes to detection, treatment, and life expectancy than city dwellers. Material and methods The subjects of the study were women and their knowledge about cervical cancer. The research was carried out using a survey directly distributed among respondents and via the Internet, portals, and discussion groups for women from Poland. Three hundred twenty-nine women took part in the study, including 164 from rural and 165 from urban areas. The collected data enabled the following: (1) an analysis of the studied groups, (2) assessment of the respondents’ knowledge about cervical cancer, and (3) comparison of women’s knowledge depending on where they live. Results The average assessment of all respondents’ knowledge was 3.59, with women living in rural areas scoring 3.18 and respondents from the city—4.01. Statistical significance (p < 0.001) between the level of knowledge and place of residence was determined. The results indicate that an increase in the level of education in the subjects significantly increases the chance of getting the correct answer. In the case of age analysis, the coefficients indicate a decrease in the chance of obtaining the correct answer in older subjects despite the fact that a statistically significant level was reached in individual questions. Conclusions Women living in rural areas have less knowledge of cervical cancer than female respondents from the city. There is a need for more awareness campaigns to provide comprehensive information about cervical cancer to women in rural areas. A holistic approach to the presented issue can solve existing difficulties and barriers to maintaining health regardless of the place of life and residence. Implication for cancer survivors They need intensive care for women’s groups most burdened with risk factors.


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