Hydrological Impact of Typhoon on Rivers

Rivers link terrestrial and marine ecosystems, not only transporting numerous substances downstream but also shaping landscapes and fostering aquatic ecosystems through physical interactions and biogeochemical processes with numerous agents. On the other hand, hydraulic facilities, such as reservoirs, hydropower plants, and banks are deployed to utilize water resources for sustaining human society. In the river network systems, rainstorms, as episodic/periodic strong triggers, can induce mass wasting from hillslopes, accelerating nutrient transport, which causes sequential effects. In recent decades, global warming has been accelerating water cycling via thermodynamics, and thus, the frequency and intensity of extreme rainstorms are increasing in intensity. In the West Pacific, typhoons (alias tropical cyclones in Asia) characterized by strong wind and torrential rainfall are evidenced to be getting stronger. The intensified typhoons inevitably stimulate the response of river systems through sediment and nutrient transport and threaten the safe operation of the hydraulic facilities and even coastal communities through storm surge flooding. These strong impacts on river systems should be comprehensively explored. This issue aims to improve the understanding of typhoon effects in river systems. Inter- and cross-disciplinary studies on different watershed scales, linking ecosystem services and watershed management, are particularly addressed.

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Assessment of Eco-geomorphological potential of Mongolia

Proceedings of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences ◽

10.5564/pmas.v60i3.1418 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Bayanjargal Bumtsend ◽

Purevsuren Munkhtur ◽

Avirmed Erdenedalai

Keyword(s):

Oxygen Deficiency ◽

Well Being ◽

Human Society ◽

Strong Wind ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Economic Implications ◽

Mountainous Landscapes ◽

The Impact ◽

Geomorphological Analysis ◽

Specific Impact

The eco-geomorphological analysis includes the impact assessment of relief under various ecosystem conditions in as much relief has various ecological roles, both direct and indirect. Rising elevation above sea level is mostly influenced by climate indirectly leading to reduced air pressure, oxygen deficiency, reduction of air temperature, excessive solar radiation, and creation of strong wind. The depth of relief dissection of the bumpy surface of mountainous areas created by floods and mudflows, and the depth of the bumpy surface increases energy consumption and poses risks during mountain climbing, and also has negative economic implications if economic activities are undertaken in such terrain. On the other hand, mountainous landscapes have a specific impact on human well-being and also have considerable potential for promoting tourism. Although, in the steppe environment, relief dissection increases the unique features of the landscape and increases the potential of tourism in other respects, however, it is assessed negatively to a large extent. The nature of corelationship between and the interdependence of the terrestrial surface and population, terrestrial surface and livestock, terrestrial surface and agriculture, which are significant in the study into the inter-relationship between environment and human society, was assessed and determined , and the relevant conclusion was drawn.

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Towards the Development of Sustainable Hydro Energy in Lithuania

Proccedings of 10th International Conference "Environmental Engineering" ◽

10.3846/enviro.2017.023 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jaunius Jatautas ◽

Pranas Mierauskas

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Renewable Energy ◽

Natural Environment ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Renewable Energy Sources ◽

Social Situation ◽

Human Society ◽

Renewable Energy Resources ◽

Small Hydropower ◽

Hydropower Plants

Development of renewable energy sources together with sustainable development covers a complicated range of issues which require complex assessment in the context of Lithuania’s energy independence. Hydropower is an integral part of renewable energy resources and affects both the natural environment and human society. Although negative impact of hydropower on the environment is acknowledged, advances in modern technology can reduce the potential damage, especially when developing a network of small hydropower plants in Lithuania. Moreover, implementation and continuity of this kind of projects enables to improve the economic and social situation, e.g. by creating new jobs. Construction of small hydropower plants in combination with a sustainable development strategy would help to avoid the possible damage to the natural environment and would contribute to improvement of the country’s economic and social landscape. Limitation of the negative impact on the environment is primarily based on technological solutions – the appropriate construction of fish ladders or other passes at dams enables fish migration. Meanwhile, contribution to improvement of the economic and social situation in the case of small hydropower plants depends on political decisions and activity of lobby groups.

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A Novel Deep Learning Approach for Tropical Cyclone Track Prediction Based on Auto-Encoder and Gated Recurrent Unit Networks

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app10113965 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 3965 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jie Lian ◽

Pingping Dong ◽

Yuping Zhang ◽

Jianguo Pan

Keyword(s):

Deep Learning ◽

Tropical Cyclone ◽

Weather Prediction ◽

Human Society ◽

Complex Data ◽

Strong Wind ◽

Cyclone Track ◽

Tropical Cyclone Track ◽

Gated Recurrent Unit ◽

Better Than

Under global climate change, the frequency of typhoons and their strong wind, heavy rain, and storm surge increase, seriously threatening the life and property of human society. However, traditional tropical cyclone track prediction methods have difficulties in processing large amounts of complex data in terms of prediction efficiency and accuracy. Recently, deep learning methods have shown a potential capability to process complex data efficiently and accurately. In this paper, we propose a novel data-driven approach based on auto-encoder (AE) and gated recurrent unit (GRU) models to forecast tropical cyclone landing locations using the historical tropical cyclone tracks and various meteorological attributes. This approach fuses a data preprocessing layer, an AE layer, and a GRU layer with a customized batch process. The model is trained on a real-world tropical cyclone dataset from the years 1945–2017. Through a comparison with existing forecasting methods, the results verified that our proposed model performed around 15%, 42%, and 56% better than the Numerical Weather Prediction model (NWP) in 24, 48, and 72 h forecasts, and 27%, 13%, 17%, and 17% better than RNN, AE-RNN, GRU, and LSTM, respectively, in 24 h forecasts, using the absolute position error. In addition, a comparison of the meteorological variables indicated that the variable maximum sustained wind speed had the most significant effect on tropical cyclone track prediction.

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THE WATERFINDERS. A cultural history of the Australian dingo

Australian Zoologist ◽

10.7882/az.2020.034 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Justine Philip

Keyword(s):

Cultural History ◽

Belief Systems ◽

Keystone Species ◽

Human Society ◽

Arid Environments ◽

River Systems ◽

Great Cost ◽

Inland Lakes ◽

History Of ◽

Aboriginal Society

For thousands of years, the water-finding abilities of the Australian dingo ( Canis dingo), has assisted human survival in one of the most extreme, arid environments on earth. In addition to their contribution to Traditional Aboriginal society as a guardian, living blanket, hunting assistant and companion, the dingo’s role as intermediary between the earth’s surface and the river systems that flow beneath the continent is legendary. Both the ancestral/mythical dingo and the contemporary dingo are attributed with having assisted people in the location of aquifers, billabongs, inland lakes. They guided people safely across hundreds of kilometers of desert, locating the places where water sources reach up closest to the earth’s surface from the underground lakes and waterways that flow beneath the continent. The dingo’s status in Aboriginal culture is celebrated in the naming of waterholes, soaks, river systems and aquifers. This paper follows the path of the ancient dingo, tracing how, as a cultural keystone species, dingoes have shaped human society and belief systems, encouraging cultures of reciprocity and laws of protection for vital resources. Post-colonization, these traditions have not been recognized outside of Aboriginal communities, and this loss of cultural heritage comes at great cost to the Australian environment, biodiversity and the health and preservation of vital resources.

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Projected changes in frequency of compound events of strong wind and low temperature in EURO-CORDEX climate models

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-4994 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Eva Plavcová ◽

Ondřej Lhotka ◽

Jan Stryhal

Keyword(s):

Low Temperature ◽

Atmospheric Circulation ◽

Climate Models ◽

Global Climate Models ◽

Cold Weather ◽

Human Society ◽

Strong Wind ◽

Human Thermal Comfort ◽

Compound Events ◽

Projected Changes

<p>Compound events of weather extremes considerably affect various sectors of human society and natural environment and therefore it is essential to understand projected changes of their characteristics in the future climate. We focus on the combination of low temperature and high wind velocity, because their compound effect strongly influences human thermal comfort in cold weather, as characterized by the wind chill factor. In our study, we analyse frequency of this extreme events and projected changes of their characteristics in simulations of RCMs from the EURO-CORDEX project. We investigate a set of 9 simulations of 3 different RCMs driven by 3 different global climate models which allow us to analyse the influence of driving data on the RCM&#8217;s outputs. We focus on the Central European domain defined between 48&#8211;52&#176;N and 10&#8211;19&#176;E. The frequency of the compound events from historical simulations over 1970-2100 are compared to the projected frequencies under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios for the end of the 21st century (2070-2100). Since local climate is relatively tightly linked to a large-scale atmospheric circulation over Europe in winter, we also evaluate links of the compound events to the atmospheric circulation.</p>

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Inter-Module Physical Interactions: A Force-Transmissive Modular Structure for Whole-Body Robot Motion

Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics ◽

10.20965/jrm.2021.p1190 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 33 (5) ◽

pp. 1190-1203

Author(s):

Shiqi Yu ◽

◽

Yoshihiro Nakata ◽

Yutaka Nakamura ◽

Hiroshi Ishiguro

Keyword(s):

Physical Property ◽

Whole Body ◽

Modular Robots ◽

Robot Motion ◽

Force Transmission ◽

Modular Robot ◽

Network Systems ◽

Connection Pattern ◽

Body Dynamics ◽

Physical Interactions

Robots are required to be significantly compliant and versatile to work in unstructured environments. In a number of studies, robots have positively exploited the environments during interactions and completed tasks from a morphological viewpoint. Modular robots can help realize real-world adaptive robots. Researchers have been investigating the actuation, coupling, and communication mechanisms among these robots to realize versatility. However, the diverse force transmission among modules needs to be further studied to achieve the adaptive whole-body dynamics of a robot. In this study, we fabricated a modular robot and proposed the realization of force transmission on this robot, by constructing fluid transferable network systems on the actuation modules. By exploiting the physical property variations of the modular robot, our experimental results prove that the robot’s motion can be changed by switching the connection pattern of the system.

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