scholarly journals Novel Drought Hazard Monitoring Framework for Decision Support Under Data Scarcity

10.29007/1l5w ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto A. Real-Rangel ◽  
Adrián Pedrozo-Acuña ◽  
J. Agustín Breña-Naranjo ◽  
Víctor H. Alcocer-Yamanaka

Droughts are among the weather-related disasters, which affects most people around the world. Its large spatial extent and slowly, creeping onset, makes it difficult to define its start and end. Indeed, monitoring and early warning systems for drought hazards are recognized as critical activities of risk governance. Nevertheless, in many regions of the world, the scarcity of direct observations of climatological and hydrological variables, hinder an adequate follow-up and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper introduces a novel framework to generate drought hazard maps and time series, at national and regional levels, based on univariate and multivariate standardized drought indices. Notably, we utilize freely and globally available, gridded datasets of hydrological variables derived from remote sensing and data assimilation systems (e.g., rainfall, soil moisture, streamflow), which are verified against in situ measurements. A good performance of the framework is documented through the comparison of results against observed drought events in Mexico. This paves the road towards its use in other regions of the world, where data scarcity is an issue for drought monitoring activities.

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto A. Real-Rangel ◽  
Adrián Pedrozo-Acuña ◽  
J. Agustín Breña-Naranjo ◽  
Víctor H. Alcocer-Yamanaka

Abstract Drought monitoring is a critical activity for drought risk management; however, the lack of ground-based observations of climatological and hydrological variables in many regions of the world hinders an adequate follow-up and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper introduces a transparent framework for monitoring the spatio-temporal distribution of drought hazard based on uni- and multivariate standardized drought indices that use reanalysis datasets of hydrological variables available freely and globally. In the case study of the 2015–2017 East-Southwest drought in Mexico, the introduced framework successfully detected the spatial and temporal patterns of drought conditions, even in regions where a benchmark drought monitoring system failed to detect deficits. In addition, the ability of the introduced framework to detect drought impacts on the annual agricultural maize production in Mexico was evaluated using data of 1980–2018, yielding scores of the false alarm ratio =0.32, the probability of detection = 0.71, and the proportion correct = 0.68 for the analysis at the national scale. Currently, the framework provides a significant extension to the capabilities for national drought monitoring, and it is being used by the Mexican water authority in the decision-making process related to drought severity assessment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel J. Sutanto ◽  
Melati van der Weert ◽  
Niko Wanders ◽  
Veit Blauhut ◽  
Henny A. J. Van Lanen

Abstract Present-day drought early warning systems provide the end-users information on the ongoing and forecasted drought hazard (e.g. river flow deficit). However, information on the forecasted drought impacts, which is a prerequisite for drought management, is still missing. Here we present the first study assessing the feasibility of forecasting drought impacts, using machine-learning to relate forecasted hydro-meteorological drought indices to reported drought impacts. Results show that models, which were built with more than 50 months of reported drought impacts, are able to forecast drought impacts a few months ahead. This study highlights the importance of drought impact databases for developing drought impact functions. Our findings recommend that institutions that provide operational drought early warnings should not only forecast drought hazard, but also impacts after developing an impact database.


Author(s):  
J. S. Maa ◽  
Thos. E. Hutchinson

The growth of Ag films deposited on various substrate materials such as MoS2, mica, graphite, and MgO has been investigated extensively using the in situ electron microscopy technique. The three stages of film growth, namely, the nucleation, growth of islands followed by liquid-like coalescence have been observed in both the vacuum vapor deposited and ion beam sputtered thin films. The mechanisms of nucleation and growth of silver films formed by ion beam sputtering on the (111) plane of silicon comprise the subject of this paper. A novel mode of epitaxial growth is observed to that seen previously.The experimental arrangement for the present study is the same as previous experiments, and the preparation procedure for obtaining thin silicon substrate is presented in a separate paper.


Author(s):  
Iia Fedorova

The main objective of this study is the substantiation of experiment as one of the key features of the world music in Ukraine. Based on the creative works of the brightest world music representatives in Ukraine, «Dakha Brakha» band, the experiment is regarded as a kind of creative setting. Methodology and scientific approaches. The methodology was based on the music practice theory by T. Cherednychenko. The author distinguishes four binary oppositions, which can describe the musical practice. According to one of these oppositions («observance of the canon or violation of the canon»), the musical practices, to which the Ukrainian musicology usually classifies the world music («folk music» and «minstrel music»), are compared with the creative work of «Dakha Brakha» band. Study findings. A lack of the setting to experiment in the musical practices of the «folk music» and «minstrel music» separates the world music musical practice from them. Therefore, the world music is a separate type of musical practice in which the experiment is crucial. The study analyzed several scientific articles of Ukrainian musicologists on the world music; examined the history of the Ukrainian «Dakha Brakha» band; presented a list of the folk songs used in the fifth album «The Road» by «Dakha Brakha» band; and showed the degree of the source transformation by musicians based on the example of the «Monk» song. The study findings can be used to form a comprehensive understanding of the world music musical practice. The further studies may be related to clarification of the other parameters of the world music musical practice, and to determination of the experiment role in creative works of the other world music representatives, both Ukrainian and foreign. The practical study value is the ability to use its key provisions in the course of modern music in higher artistic schools of Ukraine. Originality / value. So far, the Ukrainian musicology did not consider the experiment role as the key one in the world music.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
JAVED ALAM SHEIKH

Almost 50 per cent of the world population is constituted by the women and they have been making substantial contribution to socio-economic development. But, unfortunately their tremendous contribution remains unrecognized and unnoticed in most of the developing and least developed countries causing the problem of poverty among them. Empowering women has become the key element in the development of an economy. With women moving forward, the family moves, the village moves and the nation moves. Hence, improving the status of women by way of their economic empowerment is highly called for. Entrepreneurship is a key tool for the economic empowerment of women around the world for alleviating poverty. Entrepreneurship is now widely recognized as a tool of economic development in India also. In this paper I have tried to discuss the reasons and role of Women Entrepreneurship with the help of Push and Pull factors. In the last I have also discussed the problems and the road map of Women Entrepreneurs development in India.


Text Matters ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 62-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulina Ambroży
Keyword(s):  
The Road ◽  

The article examines the correlation between the world and the word in two novels which engage with a post-apocalyptic scenario: David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress (1988) and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). Shifting the focus from the very event of catastrophe to the notion of survival through memory and storytelling, both novels problematize the strained relationship between language and reality in an increasingly diminished and dehumanized world. My aim is to investigate the limits of language as well as its capacity to withstand the chaos, loss, trauma, and death that follow the apocalypse. The issues to be considered include the influence of external experience on forms of communication, the role of central metaphors (the archive and the museum in Markson’s novel; cinders and the road in McCarthy’s) and their relation to the form of both novels, as well as the word’s (in)capacity to preserve human values and hopes. Both novels will be discussed as deconstructionist projects in which language becomes a habitat at once impossible and life-preserving: in Wittgenstein’s Mistress it plays the role of both home and prison, whereas in The Road it functions as messianic discourse which simultaneously carries, propels and extinguishes the human hope for a transcendental reality beyond the post-apocalyptic emptiness and doubt.


1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Braester ◽  
Rudolf Martinell

Nearly one fifth of all water used in the world is obtained from groundwater. The protection of water has become a high priority goal. During the last decades pollution of water has become more and more severe. Today groundwater is more and more used in comparison with surface water. Recently we have seen accidents, which can pollute nearly all surface water very quickly. Generally the groundwater is easier to protect, as well as cheaper to purify, and above all it is of better quality than the surface water. During the past two decades, alternatives to the traditional method of treating the water in filters have been developed, that is in situ water treatment i.e. the VYREDOX and NITREDOX methods. The most common problem regarding groundwater is too high content of iron and manganese, which can be reduced with the VYREDOX method. In some areas today there are severe problems with pollution by hydrocarbons and nitrate as well, and with modification of the VYREDOX treatment method it is used for hydrocarbon and nitrate treatment as well. The method to reduce the nitrate and nitrite is known as the NITREDOX method.


1982 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. S. Fyfe

ABSTRACTSelection of the best rock types for radwaste disposal will depend on their having minimal permeability, maximal flow dispersion, minimal chance of forming new wide aperture fractures, maximal ion retention, and minimal thermal and mining disturbance. While no rock is perfect, thinly bedded complex sedimentary sequences may have good properties, either as repository rocks, or as cover to a repository.Long time prediction of such favorable properties of a rock at a given site may be best modelled from studies of in situ rock properties. Fracture flow, dispersion history, and geological stability can be derived from direct observations of rocks themselves, and can provide the parameters needed for convincing demonstration of repository security for appropriate times.


1942 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 241-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Matley ◽  
Frank Raw

The rocks exposed along the road between Linstead and Guy's Hill, Jamaica, were described by Dr. C. T. Trechmann in this magazine in 1936 (pp. 259–260). The chief object of his account was to prove that the igneous rocks there were intrusions later than the associated Cretaceous and Tertiary limestones, which, according to him, had been metamorphosed into hornfelses, some of which, he stated later (1937, p. 561), he knew to have an “igneous” appearance under the microscope, “which tends to support my contention that in Jamaica we have sedimentaries altered in situ into rocks that would ordinarily be classified as igneous.” Dissent from his descriptions and interpretations was expressed by C. A. M. (Matley, 1937, pp. 501–3), the criticisms being mainly based on an examination of Trechmann's own microscope slides by F. R. A visit to Jamaica by C. A. M. in 1939 allowed him to study this road and to collect a suite of rocks for petrological examination. The results show that Trechmann's interpretation cannot be sustained. There is no granodiorite or other plutonic rock present, no metamorphism hornfelsing the sedimentary rocks, and no igneous intrusions into the Tertiary limestones.


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