scholarly journals Metamodeling methods that incorporate qualitative variables for improved design of vegetative filter strips.

Author(s):  
Claire Lauvernet ◽  
Céline Helbert ◽  
Bruno Sudret

<p>Significant amounts of pollutant are measured in surface water, their presence due in part to the use of pesticides in agriculture. One solution to limit pesticide transfer by surface runoff is to implement vegetative filter strips (VFS) along rivers. The sizing of these strips is a major issue, with influencing factors that include local conditions (climate, soil, etc.). The BUVARD modeling toolkit was developed to design VFSs throughout France according to these properties. This toolkit includes the numerical model VFSMOD, which quantifies dynamic effects of VFS site-specific pesticide mitigation efficiency. In this study, a metamodeling (or model dimension reduction) approach is proposed to ease the use of BUVARD and to help users design VFSs that are adapted to specific contexts. Different reduced models, or surrogates, are compared: GAM, Polynomial Chaos Expansions, Kriging, and Mixed-kriging. Mixed-kriging is a kriging method that was implemented with a covariance kernel for a mixture of qualitative and quantitative inputs. Kriging and PCE are built by couple of modalities and Mixed-kriging  and GAM are built considering mixed quantitative and qualitative variables. The metamodel is a simple way to provide a relevant first guess to help design the pollution reduction device. In addition, the surrogate model is a relevant tool to visualize the impact that lack of knowledge of some parameters of filter efficiency can have when performing risk analysis and management.</p>

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. RANKINEN ◽  
S. TATTARI ◽  
S. REKOLAINEN

The efficiency of vegetative filter strips to reduce erosion was assessed by simulation modelling in two catchments located in different parts of Finland. The areas of high erosion risk were identified by a Geographical Information System (GIS) combining digital spatial data of soil type, land use and field slopes. The efficiency of vegetative filter strips (VFS) was assessed by the ICECREAM model, a derivative of the CREAMS model which has been modified and adapted for Finnish conditions. The simulation runs were performed without the filter strips and with strips of 1 m, 3 m and 15 m width. Four soil types and two crops (spring barley, winter wheat) were studied. The model assessments for fields without VFS showed that the amount of erosion is clearly dominated by slope gradient. The soil texture had a greater impact on erosion than the crop. The impact of the VFS on erosion reduction was highly variable. These model results were scaled up by combining them to the digital spatial data. The simulated efficiency of the VFS in erosion control in the whole catchment varied from 50 to 89%. A GIS-based erosion risk map of the other study catchment and an identification carried out by manual study using topographical paper maps were evaluated and validated by ground truthing. Both methods were able to identify major erosion risk areas, i.e areas where VFS are particularly necessary. A combination of the GIS and the field method gives the best outcome.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-397
Author(s):  
Chunyang Wang

This paper measures the spatial evolution of urban agglomerations to understand be er the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) construction, based on panel data from fi ve major urban agglomerations in China for the period 2004–2015. It is found that there are signi ficant regional diff erences of HSR impacts. The construction of HSR has promoted population and economic diff usion in two advanced urban agglomerations, namely the Yang e River Delta and Pearl River Delta, while promoting population and economic concentration in two relatively less advanced urban agglomerations, e.g. the middle reaches of the Yang e River and Chengdu–Chongqing. In terms of city size, HSR promotes the economic proliferation of large cities and the economic concentration of small and medium-sized cities along its routes. HSR networking has provided a new impetus for restructuring urban spatial systems. Every region should optimize the industrial division with strategic functions of urban agglomeration according to local conditions and accelerate the construction of inter-city intra-regional transport network to maximize the eff ects of high-speed rail across a large regional territory.


Author(s):  
Francesco Mancini ◽  
Raffaele De Giorgi ◽  
Alessandro Ludovisi ◽  
Salvatrice Vizzini ◽  
Giorgio Mancinelli

AbstractThe introduction of the amphipod Dikerogammarus villosus in European fresh waters is to date recognized as a threat to the integrity of invaded communities. Predation by D. villosus on native benthic invertebrates is assumed as the key determinant of its ecological impact, yet available information describe the species as a primary consumer as well as a carnivore depending on local conditions. Here, we assessed the trophic position (TP) of D. villosus in Lake Trasimeno, a recently invaded lentic system in central Italy, using the CN isotopic signatures of individuals captured in winter spanning two orders of magnitude in body size. TP estimations were compared with those characterizing the native amphipod Echinogammarus veneris and other representative invertebrate predators. On average, D. villosus showed a trophic position higher than E. veneris, and comparable with that of odonate nymphs. An in-depth analysis revealed that large-sized individuals had a trophic position of 3.07, higher than odonates and close to that of the hirudinean predator Erpobdella octoculata, while small-sized specimens had a trophic position of 2.57, similar to that of E. veneris (2.41). These findings indicate that size-related ontogenetic shifts in dietary habits may per se vary the nature of the interaction between Dikerogammarus villosus and native invertebrates from competition to predation. Information collated from published isotopic studies corroborated the generality of our results. We conclude that intra-specific trophic flexibility may potentially amplify and make more multifaceted the impact of the species on other invertebrate species in invaded food webs.


Author(s):  
Takeshi Mizunoya ◽  
Noriko Nozaki ◽  
Rajeev Kumar Singh

AbstractIn the early 2000s, Japan instituted the Great Heisei Consolidation, a national strategy to promote large-scale municipal mergers. This study analyzes the impact that this strategy could have on watershed management. We select the Lake Kasumigaura Basin, the second largest lake in Japan, for the case study and construct a dynamic expanded input–output model to simulate the ecological system around the Lake, the socio-environmental changes over the period, and their mutual dependency for the period 2012–2020. In the model, we regulate and control the following water pollutants: total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and chemical oxygen demand. The results show that a trade-off between economic activity and the environment can be avoided within a specific range of pollution reduction, given that the prefectural government implements optimal water environment policies, assuming that other factors constraining economic growth exist. Additionally, municipal mergers are found to significantly reduce the budget required to improve the water environment, but merger budget efficiency varies nonlinearly with the reduction rate. Furthermore, despite the increase in financial efficiency from the merger, the efficiency of installing domestic wastewater treatment systems decreases drastically beyond a certain pollution reduction level and eventually reaches a limit. Further reductions require direct regulatory instruments in addition to economic policies, along with limiting the output of each industry. Most studies on municipal mergers apply a political, administrative, or financial perspective; few evaluate the quantitative impact of municipal mergers on the environment and environmental policy implications. This study addresses these gaps.


2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelika Nieszała ◽  
Daniel Klich

AbstractThe methods used to assess the significance of land cover in the vicinity of a road for the mortality of mesopredators are diverse. In assessing the effect of land cover along the road on road causalities, scientists use various buffer sizes, or even no buffer along the road. The aim of this study was to verify how results of land cover effects on the mortality of mesopredators on roads may differ when analyzing various buffer sizes from the road. We assessed road causalities in the Warmian-Masurian voivodeship (Poland) from 3 consecutive years: 2015, 2016, and 2017. The roads were divided into equal sections of 2000 m each with buffer size of radius: 10, 250, 500, and 1000 m. We analyzed the number of road kills of red fox and European badger separately in a generalized linear model, whereas explanatory variables we used land cover types (based on the Corine Land Cover inventory) and traffic volume. Mean annual mortality from road collisions amounts to 2.36% of the red fox population and 3.82% of the European badger population. We found that the buffer size determines the results of the impact of land cover on mesocarnivore mortality on roads. The red fox differed from the European badger in response to land cover depending on the buffer size. The differences we have shown relate in particular to built-up areas. Our results indicate a 500-m buffer as best reflecting the land cover effects in road kills of both species. This was confirmed by model evaluation and a tendency to use or avoid the vicinity of human settlements of the analyzed species. We concluded that buffer size will probably affect mostly the significance of cover types that are spatially correlated with roads, positively or negatively. We suggest that the home range size of given species in local conditions should be assessed before determining the size of the buffer for analysis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 181-200
Author(s):  
David Arnold

ABSTRACTIn India the 1918–19 influenza pandemic cost at least twelve million lives, more than in any other country; it caused widespread suffering and disrupted the economy and infrastructure. Yet, despite this, and in contrast to the growing literature on recovering the ‘forgotten’ pandemic in other countries, remarkably little was recorded about the epidemic in India at the time or has appeared in the subsequent historiography. An absence of visual evidence is indicative of a more general paucity of contemporary material and first-hand testimony. In seeking to explain this absence, it is argued that, while India was exposed to influenza as a global event and to the effects of its involvement in the Great War, the influenza episode needs to be more fully understood in terms of local conditions. The impact of the disease was overshadowed by the prior encounter with bubonic plague, by military recruitment and the war, and by food shortages and price rises that pushed India to the brink of famine. Subsumed within a dominant narrative of political unrest and economic discontent, the epidemic found scant expression in official documentation, public debate and/or even private correspondence.


Chemosphere ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Otto ◽  
Alessandra Cardinali ◽  
Ester Marotta ◽  
Cristina Paradisi ◽  
Giuseppe Zanin

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