scholarly journals Regional differences in resilience of social and physical systems: Case study of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria

2020 ◽  
pp. 239980832098074
Author(s):  
Takahiro Yabe ◽  
P Suresh C Rao ◽  
Satish V Ukkusuri
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Median Income ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Physical Infrastructure

Physical infrastructure networks in diverse urban settlements are designed to be robust and reliable, while the socio-economic systems offer the necessary adaptive capacity at household, city, and regional scales to recover from major service disruptions resulting from disasters. Here, our urban resilience analyses are based on exploring explicit links between the physical infrastructure/assets and the socio-economic systems. Increased availability of high-quality data from mobile devices allows quantification of diverse socio-economic metrics and thus enables tracking city- and regional-scale community recovery from disasters. Here, recovery trajectories for five regions within Puerto Rico island with differences in socio-economic status (e.g., median income) after Hurricanes Irma and Maria are analyzed using large-scale mobility data and are combined with earlier synthesis of seven global cities based on capital portfolio analysis. Systemic inequalities are manifested in highly variable ability to cope with chronic shocks and recovery from extreme events. Island urban communities face the geographic-isolation effect, legacy socioeconomic constraints, and chronic inefficiencies in governance, all of which delay recovery from disasters. Hurricane recovery efforts include two types of responses. First, in larger urban areas, households use their social ties and financial resources to evacuate to larger cities and return when damaged facilities and infrastructure are repaired. Second, smaller urban communities are already adapted to coping with inadequate critical services and experience disproportionate impacts of disasters. Lacking socio-economic resources, such communities self-organize to access local and external resources and actively engage in repairing and rebuilding damaged facilities. However, recovery is much slower than their counterparts in larger cities. Given the interdependencies of connected social and physical systems and cross-scale feedbacks, such inequalities must be addressed at both city and regional scales to continue progress in urban community preparedness for and recovery from disasters.

scholarly journals Mid-21st century air quality at the urban scale under the influence of changed climate and emissions: case studies for Paris and Stockholm

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (19) ◽  
pp. 27041-27085
Author(s):  
K. Markakis ◽  
M. Valari ◽  
M. Engardt ◽  
G. Lacressonnière ◽  
R. Vautard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Daily Average ◽  
Pollutant Concentrations ◽  
Emission Projections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Abstract. Ozone, PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations over Paris, France and Stockholm, Sweden were modeled at 4 and 1 \\unit{km} horizontal resolutions respectively for the present and 2050 periods employing decade-long simulations. We account for large-scale global climate change (RCP-4.5) and fine resolution bottom-up emission projections developed by local experts and quantify their impact on future pollutant concentrations. Moreover, we identify biases related to the implementation of regional scale emission projections over the study areas by comparing modeled pollutant concentrations between the fine and coarse scale simulations. We show that over urban areas with major regional contribution (e.g., the city of Stockholm) the bias due to coarse emission inventory may be significant and lead to policy misclassification. Our results stress the need to better understand the mechanism of bias propagation across the modeling scales in order to design more successful local-scale strategies. We find that the impact of climate change is spatially homogeneous in both regions, implying strong regional influence. The climate benefit for ozone (daily average and maximum) is up to −5 % for Paris and −2 % for Stockholm city. The joined climate benefit on PM2.5 and PM10 in Paris is between −10 and −5 % while for Stockholm we observe mixed trends up to 3 % depending on season and size class. In Stockholm, emission mitigation leads to concentration reductions up to 15 % for daily average and maximum ozone and 20 % for PM and through a sensitivity analysis we show that this response is entirely due to changes in emissions at the regional scale. On the contrary, over the city of Paris (VOC-limited photochemical regime), local mitigation of NOx emissions increases future ozone concentrations due to ozone titration inhibition. This competing trend between the respective roles of emission and climate change, results in an increase in 2050 daily average ozone by 2.5 % in Paris. Climate and not emission change appears to be the most influential factor for maximum ozone concentration over the city of Paris, which may be particularly interesting in a health impact perspective.

scholarly journals The national and regional impacts of direct payments modulation in the Czech Republic

2009 ◽  
Vol 55 (No. 4) ◽  
pp. 200-210
Author(s):  
T. Medonos ◽  
L. Jelínek ◽  
J. Humpál
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Farm Size ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Regional Impacts ◽  
Direct Payments ◽  
Farm Structures

This paper addresses <i>(ex ante)</i> the issue of the potential impact of the modulation of direct payments on a sector and regional scale in the Czech Republic. The ultimate version of the compulsory modulation measure adopted under the Health Check of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) assumes the reduction of direct payments if the total individual claim exceeds 5 thousand € or 300 thousand € level. The Czech agricultural sector will be impacted by this measure substantially, given the large scale farming enterprises. In 2013, the total farmers’ direct payments will be cut by more than 10% (€ 91 million). Moreover, there are regional differences in farm structures (the average farm size and the extent of collectivization) which will bring about various effects of policies in the heterogeneous regions. The analysis further shows that the regions that are least affected are at the same time more environmental sensitive and are mostly situated in the mountainous or sub-mountainous parts of the country or more urban areas than the average. Hence the effect of the modulation, from a purely environmental perspective, may not contradict the objectives of other environmental policies. That is to say the regions that need support the most will be reduced the least. However, the picture is less obvious in the regional economies where more rural regions (potentially more vulnerable with socio-economic problems) tend to be more affected.

scholarly journals Validation of the Swiss methane emission inventory by atmospheric observations and inverse modelling

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 3683-3710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Henne ◽  
Dominik Brunner ◽  
Brian Oney ◽  
Markus Leuenberger ◽  
Werner Eugster ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Inverse Modelling ◽  
Gas Distribution ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Ch4 Emissions

Abstract. Atmospheric inverse modelling has the potential to provide observation-based estimates of greenhouse gas emissions at the country scale, thereby allowing for an independent validation of national emission inventories. Here, we present a regional-scale inverse modelling study to quantify the emissions of methane (CH4) from Switzerland, making use of the newly established CarboCount-CH measurement network and a high-resolution Lagrangian transport model. In our reference inversion, prior emissions were taken from the "bottom-up" Swiss Greenhouse Gas Inventory (SGHGI) as published by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment in 2014 for the year 2012. Overall we estimate national CH4 emissions to be 196 ± 18 Gg yr−1 for the year 2013 (1σ uncertainty). This result is in close agreement with the recently revised SGHGI estimate of 206 ± 33 Gg yr−1 as reported in 2015 for the year 2012. Results from sensitivity inversions using alternative prior emissions, uncertainty covariance settings, large-scale background mole fractions, two different inverse algorithms (Bayesian and extended Kalman filter), and two different transport models confirm the robustness and independent character of our estimate. According to the latest SGHGI estimate the main CH4 source categories in Switzerland are agriculture (78 %), waste handling (15 %) and natural gas distribution and combustion (6 %). The spatial distribution and seasonal variability of our posterior emissions suggest an overestimation of agricultural CH4 emissions by 10 to 20 % in the most recent SGHGI, which is likely due to an overestimation of emissions from manure handling. Urban areas do not appear as emission hotspots in our posterior results, suggesting that leakages from natural gas distribution are only a minor source of CH4 in Switzerland. This is consistent with rather low emissions of 8.4 Gg yr−1 reported by the SGHGI but inconsistent with the much higher value of 32 Gg yr−1 implied by the EDGARv4.2 inventory for this sector. Increased CH4 emissions (up to 30 % compared to the prior) were deduced for the north-eastern parts of Switzerland. This feature was common to most sensitivity inversions, which is a strong indicator that it is a real feature and not an artefact of the transport model and the inversion system. However, it was not possible to assign an unambiguous source process to the region. The observations of the CarboCount-CH network provided invaluable and independent information for the validation of the national bottom-up inventory. Similar systems need to be sustained to provide independent monitoring of future climate agreements.

scholarly journals Identification of Groundwater Contamination in a Rapidly Urbanized Area on a Regional Scale: A New Approach of Multi-Hydrochemical Evidences

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (22) ◽  
pp. 12143
Author(s):  
Pan Bi ◽  
Lixin Pei ◽  
Guanxing Huang ◽  
Dongya Han ◽  
Jiangmin Song
Keyword(s):  
Groundwater Contamination ◽  
Organic Contaminants ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Livestock Waste ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Pearl River ◽  
Socioeconomic Data

Efficient identification of groundwater contamination is a major issue in the context of groundwater use and protection. This study used a new approach of multi-hydrochemical indicators, including the Cl-Br mass ratio, the hydrochemical facies, and the concentrations of nitrate, phosphate, organic contaminants, and Pb in groundwater to identify groundwater contamination in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) where there is large scale urbanization. In addition, the main factors resulting in groundwater contamination in the PRD were also discussed by using socioeconomic data and principal component analysis. Approximately 60% of groundwater sites in the PRD were identified to be contaminated according to the above six indicators. Contaminated groundwaters commonly occur in porous and fissured aquifers but rarely in karst aquifers. Groundwater contamination in porous aquifers is positively correlated with the urbanization level. Similarly, in fissured aquifers, the proportions of contaminated groundwater in urbanized and peri-urban areas were approximately two times that in non-urbanized areas. Groundwater contamination in the PRD was mainly attributed to the infiltration of wastewater from township-village enterprises on a regional scale. In addition, livestock waste was also an important source of groundwater contamination in the PRD. Therefore, in the future, the supervision of the wastewater discharge of township-village enterprises and the waste discharge of livestock should be strengthened to protect against groundwater contamination in the PRD.

scholarly journals Mid-21st century air quality at the urban scale under the influence of changed climate and emissions – case studies for Paris and Stockholm

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 1877-1894 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Markakis ◽  
Myrto Valari ◽  
Magnuz Engardt ◽  
Gwendoline Lacressonniere ◽  
Robert Vautard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Coarse Scale ◽  
Pollutant Concentrations ◽  
Emission Projections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Abstract. Ozone, PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations over Paris, France and Stockholm, Sweden were modelled at 4 and 1 km horizontal resolutions respectively for the present and 2050 periods employing decade-long simulations. We account for large-scale global climate change (RCP-4.5) and fine-resolution bottom-up emission projections developed by local experts and quantify their impact on future pollutant concentrations. Moreover, we identify biases related to the implementation of regional-scale emission projections by comparing modelled pollutant concentrations between the fine- and coarse-scale simulations over the study areas. We show that over urban areas with major regional contribution (e.g. the city of Stockholm) the bias related to coarse-scale projections may be significant and lead to policy misclassification. Our results stress the need to better understand the mechanism of bias propagation across the modelling scales in order to design more successful local-scale strategies. We find that the impact of climate change is spatially homogeneous in both regions, implying strong regional influence. The climate benefit for ozone (daily mean and maximum) is up to −5 % for Paris and −2 % for Stockholm city. The climate benefit on PM2.5 and PM10 in Paris is between −5 and −10 %, while for Stockholm we estimate mixed trends of up to 3 % depending on season and size class. In Stockholm, emission mitigation leads to concentration reductions up to 15 % for daily mean and maximum ozone and 20 % for PM. Through a sensitivity analysis we show that this response is entirely due to changes in emissions at the regional scale. On the contrary, over the city of Paris (VOC-limited photochemical regime), local mitigation of NOx emissions increases future ozone concentrations due to ozone titration inhibition. This competing trend between the respective roles of emission and climate change, results in an increase in 2050 daily mean ozone by 2.5 % in Paris. Climate and not emission change appears to be the most influential factor for maximum ozone concentration over the city of Paris, which may be particularly interesting from a health impact perspective.

scholarly journals Factors Controlling the Spatial Distribution and Temporal Trend of Nationwide Groundwater Quality in Korea

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 9971
Author(s):  
Chang-Seong Kim ◽  
Maimoona Raza ◽  
Jin-Yong Lee ◽  
Heejung Kim ◽  
Chanhyeok Jeon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Groundwater Quality ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Temporal Trend ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
Residential Areas ◽  
Land Use Types

Factors controlling the spatial distribution and temporal trend of groundwater quality at a national scale are important to investigate for sustaining livelihood and ecological balance. This study evaluated groundwater quality data for 12 parameters (n = 6405 for each parameter), collected from 97 groundwater monitoring stations (=289 monitoring wells) for ten years. Spatial distribution of groundwater quality parameters varied through the regional scale. Six parameters: T, EC, Ca2+, Mg2+, HCO3−, and Cl− were having dominant increasing trend, remaining pH, Eh, Na+, K+, SO42−, and NO3− showed a dominant decreasing trend over time. Among land use types, the upland fields had the highest mean of groundwater NO3− (22.2 mg/L), confirming plenty of application of fertilizers (5–10 kg/a more than standard) to upland fields. Means of groundwater Cl− and Na+ (705.3 and 298.4 mg/L, respectively) in the residential areas are greater than those in other land use types by 408–685.9, 154.3–274.2 mg/L, respectively. Agricultural activities were the main controlling factor of groundwater NO3− contamination in rural areas, domestic activities were responsible for groundwater Cl− and Na+ in urban areas, and seawater intrusion was controlling groundwater Cl− in coastal areas (within 10 km from sea). Groundwater hydrochemistry was controlled by the mechanism of geogenic rock and evaporation dominance. The rock dominance mechanism indicated that groundwater was interacting with rocks and resulted in groundwater chemistry. The findings of this study showed that groundwater was mainly contaminated by anthropogenic factors in some rural and residential areas. Effective measures by government authorities are needed to improve the groundwater quality.

scholarly journals Cyber Physical Systems for Smart Cities Development

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.6) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A.Jabbar1 ◽  
Shirina Samreen ◽  
Rajanikanth Aluvalu ◽  
Dr. K. Kiran Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Cyber Physical Systems ◽  
Research Directions ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Technological Advances

With the technological advances in ICT people are migrating to urban areas. Urbanization becomes a global phenomenon. By 2030, 60% of the population will live in urban. Development of smart cities is inevitable. Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) supports our day to day activities. With the emergence of CPS is becoming more important to smart cities. Smart cities can be viewed as large scale implementations of CPS. This paper throws some light on the concepts of CPS, Smart and the various challenges posed by CPS in implementing in smart cities .This paper also describes research directions for CPS .  

scholarly journals Urbanization effect on trends in sunshine duration in China

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 839-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yawen Wang ◽  
Martin Wild ◽  
Arturo Sanchez-Lorenzo ◽  
Veronica Manara
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sunshine Duration ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Urbanization Effect ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Urbanization Level ◽  
Decadal Variations

Abstract. There is an ongoing debate on whether the observed decadal variations in surface solar radiation, known as dimming and brightening periods, are a large-scale or solely local phenomenon. We investigated this issue using long-term sunshine duration records from China, which experienced a rapid increase in urbanization during the past decades. Over the period 1960–2013, 172 pairs of urban and nearby rural stations were analyzed. Urban and rural sunshine duration trends show similar spatial patterns during a dimming phase (1960–1989) and a subsequent period during which trends were leveling off (1990–2013). This indicates that rather than local effects, the trends in sunshine duration are on more of a national or regional scale in China. Nevertheless, in the dimming phase, the declining rate of sunshine duration in rural areas is around two-thirds of that in urban areas. The ratio of rural to urban dimming generally increases from a minimum of 0.39 to a maximum of 0.87 with increasing indices of urbanization calculated based on the year 2013. It reaches a maximum when the urbanization level exceeds 50 %, the urban population exceeds 20 million, or the population density becomes higher than 250 person km−2. After the transition into the leveling-off period, sunshine duration trends are no longer significantly affected by urbanization. Meanwhile, the number of laws and regulations related to air pollution and investment in pollution treatment have been increasing in China.

scholarly journals Nutrition transition in India

2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (1a) ◽  
pp. 175-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prakash S Shetty
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Nutrition Transition ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Lifestyle Changes ◽  
Population Characteristics ◽  
Demographic Changes ◽  
Rural And Urban

AbstractObjective:The primary objective of this review is to examine the demographic and nutrition transition in India in relation to its contribution to the emerging epidemic of chronic non-communicable diseases in this country.Setting:India, the country as a whole and its different states with a population exceeding 1 billion in 2001.Subjects:The review examines demographic changes in the population with consequent effects on the population pyramid, the rapidity and rates of urbanisation with striking variations in chronic disease patterns and the trends in obesity between rural and urban communities, attempting to relate their prevalence with the diet and lifestyle changes accompanying them.Design:The review is based largely on representative large-scale surveys in the country and other reliable documented data on population characteristics. It also includes a review of the published literature.Results:The results indicate that the demographic changes, rates of urbanisation and changes in dietary patterns are contributing to the changing trends in chronic disease in India.Conclusions:There is clear evidence of a demographic, epidemiological and nutrition transition in India that is fuelling the epidemic of chronic diseases and obesity, particularly in the urban areas.

The Application of Organic Plant Media Composition on Indian Mustard Crops (Brassica Juncea L) in Polybag

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-22
Author(s):  
Nora Augustien ◽  
Pawana Nur Indah ◽  
Purnawati Arika ◽  
Irsyad Irsyad ◽  
Hadi Suhardjono
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Indian Mustard ◽  
Vegetable Crops ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Mustard Plant ◽  
Soil Media ◽  
Wet Weight ◽  
Number Of Leaves ◽  
The Right

Indian mustard plants are the main vegetable crops consumed by urban communities. The need for this vegetable increases along with the increase in culinary tourism in each region and the government's appeal on sustainable food home. One effort made to meet the needs of vegetable mustard in urban areas can be cultivated using polybags. The main problem of vegetable cultivation on polybags is the availability of soil media. To overcome the limitations of soil media it is attempted to substitute it with organic litter enriched with MOL (local microorganisms). The purpose of research is to find the right combination of planting media for mustard plants. The results showed that the composition of K7 = soil: compost: litter of hay: litter of maize (2: 1: 1: 1) best on plant length, number of leaves, length of root leaves and number of roots while the wet weight of mustard plant (g) K7 = soil: compost: litter of maize: litter of corn (2: 1: 1: 1) and K8 = soil: compost: litter of maize: litter of maize: cocopeat (2: 1: 1: 1: 1) or soil: compost + urea. Increased weights of wet mustard by 63% compared to soil media and 20% compared to soil composition: compost + urea. Organic straw in the form of straw: litter of corn stalk: cocopeat enriched with MOL are able to become ready-made planting media on the cultivation of indian mustard plants in polybags.

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