Assessment of human impact on flooding for Thai East coast - gulf basin

Due to a rapid increase in urban and built-up areas, the East Coast – Gulf basin of Thailand faces flood hazards more frequently than in the past. In this study, we aim to assess the effects of building construction on flooding, and any link between them. The FloodMap model is used to simulate flooding in the study area in September 2015. Two flooding scenarios were designed; one based only on land surface elevation and the other one with building construction included on the land surface. According to the result, we found that human construction increases flood hazard in the study areas, particularly flood depth. Flood areas are also found to increase if the human factor is added into the model, but in a lesser extent. With human construction, paved road is found to have the highest flood potential compared to other types of road. Built up areas are more flooded, while flooding extent is almost similar to results from the scenario of no human construction in forest and agricultural areas.

Planning Of State Road Renewal In The Context Of Territorial Reform

In 2021 a new territorial reform will be carried out in Latvia, and the number of existing 110 local governments will be reduced to 42 regions (previous territorial reform in 2009 resulted in the decrease of the number of local governments from 522 parishes down to 110 local governments). Each territorial reform has always regarded the importance of the network of state owned roads in ensuring successful operation of local governments, management of their territories and provision of municipal services to local inhabitants. After the previous territorial reform carried out in 2009 there were 104 centres of local governments that were not connected with paved roads. At present only 59 such centres without paved road connections have remained, and improvements on roads serving these local governments is continued in the scope of annual improvement programmes financed from the state budget. The Ministry of Environment and Regional Development within the scope of the new territorial reform in 2021 is preparing a new Investment Programme for Road Development in the Context of Territorial Reform. Respective road sections are identified by the administrations of planning regions in co-operation with local governments, the programme itself is compiled by the Ministry of Environment and Regional Development, but State Limited Liability Company “Latvian State Roads” is providing consulting on the choice of most efficient rehabilitation methods, preparation of technical documentation and potential construction costs.

SCAMPER Monitoring Platform to Measure PM10 Emission Rates from Unpaved Roads in Real-Time

The SCAMPER method for measuring PM10 emission rates from roadways was used to evaluate mitigation methods for public unpaved roads and a treated mine haul road. The SCAMPER method uses a small trailer to measure PM10 concentrations behind a vehicle at a point that is representative of the mean PM10 concentration in the vehicle’s wake. This concentration multiplied by the frontal area has been shown to be a reasonable estimate of the emission rate in units of grams per meter traveled. On public roads it was towed by a 2006 Ford Expedition and on a mine haul road it was towed behind both the Expedition and an earth mover weighing over 150 tons fully loaded. Since the SCAMPER is capable of measuring emission rates on both paved and unpaved roadways, a direct comparison of the effectiveness of mitigation methods with respect to a similar paved road was possible.

Emergence of a new salt-tolerant alien grass along roadsides? Occurrence of Diplachne fusca subsp. fascicularis (Poaceae) in Hungary

This paper reports the occurrence of a North American salt-tolerant taxon, Diplachne fusca subsp. fascicularis (Lam.) P.M.Peterson et N.Snow in Hungary (Central-Europe). Two earlier Hungarian observations of D. fusca were known from 1915, near Győr (West Transdanubia), later the taxon was collected by Pénzes in 1958, in downtown Budatétény (central Hungary. Both observations seem to be occasional. Recently, the taxon has started spreading in Europe, mainly on rice paddy fields, with a serious invasion potential. In North America its appearance on ruderal habitats, as well as along roads and other linear infrastructures is a well known phenomenon. The Hungarian population was found near Cegléd (Central Hungary) on the roadside of the E40 primary main road in September 2018. In July 2019 more than one thousand (mostly vegetative) individuals were detected. The salt content of the habitat shows remarkable temporal and spatial variability. At one meter distance from the edge of the paved road soil salt content was higher in spring (after the winter de-icing regime), than in autumn. Salt concentration was highest in the vicinity of the road, and decreased with increasing distance from it. Germination tests revealed a significant negative effect of NaCl concentration on germination rates, but germination occurred even on extremely saline substrates with 1.5% NaCl concentration. Considering its biology and reproduction strategy, the further spread of Diplachne fusca is highly presumable.

Contrasting wolf responses to different paved roads and traffic volume levels

In some regions of the world, large carnivores, such as wolves, persist in landscapes with dense networks of paved roads. However, beyond the general impacts of roads on wildlife, we still lack information on carnivore responses to different types of roads and traffic volume levels. Using wolves in NW Spain as a case study, we show how wolves respond differently to paved road classes depending on road size, speed limit and traffic volume. All wolves evaluated (25 GPS collared wolves) crossed paved roads. Overall, during 3,915 sampling days, we recorded 29,859 wolf crossings. Wolf crossings of all paved road classes were recorded at a mean rate of 0.022 crossings/day/km (95% CI 0.016–0.027). Wolves crossed low speed and low traffic volume roads more frequently, and more often during the night, in order to lessen the chances of encountering traffic. We found mortality to be highest on roads with high speed and high traffic volume. How wolves interact with paved roads should be considered in landscape planning strategies in order to guarantee wolf long-term persistence in human-dominated landscapes. In our case, our results support an increasing focus on primary roads (class II) to identify segments of these roads where road mitigation efforts should be prioritised. Our study also highlights the importance of considering paved road classes when studying the impact of roads on wildlife.

Communicating the springs and forest preservation in the Arjuna mount area, Indonesia

The study's goals were to determine the impact of community empowerment for the springs and forest preservation in the Arjuna mount area from the environmental communication perspective. The quantitative descriptive research method was used, with the study population covered communities around the forest and springs that were domiciled in three villages, namely Leduk, Jatiarjo, Dayurejo Villages, Pasuruan-East Java, Indonesia. Data was gathered from respondents with a questionnaire and analysed using SEM (structural equation modelling) to find an overview of respondents' responses about community participation in preserving the Arjuna mount forest. Human resources around the forest, namely the level of education and employment, contribute to the success of revegetation of forests; family economic conditions such as personal and family income, ownership of fields and rice fields for business, and livestock and fisheries businesses assist successful forest revegetation; social characteristics of the community around the forest such as cooperation and kinship between community members contribute to forest revegetation; community institutions, namely forest village community institutions, are a vehicle for the community to revegetate forests successfully; the availability of village community facilities and infrastructures such as paved road access, transportation and communication networks, education and health facilities contribute to the successful revegetation of Arjuna mount forest.

Road siting effect metrological evaluation on near-surface air temperatures

<div> <p>With the purpose of revising World Meteorological Organization’s Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation (WMO/CIMO) Guide #8 on weather stations siting, and in the framework of EMPIR project ENV58 MeteoMet 2, an experiment to evaluate metrologically the maximum influence of a paved road on 2-m air temperature measurements (“road siting effect”) has been designed, installed and run in Italy. It consists of a 100-m long array of seven measurement stations, at increasing distances from a local road, equipped with shielded Pt100 thermometers and ancillary sensors (hygrometers, anemometers, solar radiation meters). Data coming from 1 year of observations, has been analysed for daily climatological metrics, finding that the road mostly effects minimum temperatures, with average values of ~ 0.30±0.18 °C at a distance of 1 m; then, in order to quantify the instrumental effect on the measurement, data was filtered by applying a Generalized Additive Model, selecting only times when the effect is more intense (during nights, in presence of low winds coming from the road), and the road siting effect has been calculated by modelling the maximum temperature differences by using Extreme Values Analysis. The 1-year return value on 10-min measurements is 1.22±0.30 °C at 1 m from the road, with a gradual decline (~ 0.1 °C/m), while an extrapolation to 100-year return level gives a value of 1.71±0.79 °C. Analysis also show the possibility of calculating an asymptotic upper limit to these values, providing there are enough data to lower the associated uncertainties. These results, published in the International Journal of Climatology (Coppa et al 2021, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7044) is a first step towards a redefinition of the weather station classification scheme of WMO/CIMO Guide #8, together with building and tree effects experiments which have been run in parallel with the road siting experiment here presented and which will be presented elsewhere. Raw data is also available at Zenodo.org (Coppa et al 2020, https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.4300299)</p> </div>

The role of Indigenous and Community Conservation Areas in herpetofauna conservation: a preliminary list for Santa Cruz Tepetotutla, Oaxaca Mexico

The montane cloud forests of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca (SMO) host a remarkable herpetofauna diversity and represent one of the most important areas of endemism for Mexico and Mesoamerica. Although the area has been previously studied, most of the extant records for this group are biased to locations accessed by paved roads. In addition, an important proportion of this territory is conserved by Indigenous and Community Conservation Areas (ICCA), but little information of the species occurring within these areas exists. Therefore, information on the distribution of many endemic taxa in this region to date is either underestimated or incomplete. With the aim of increasing the ecological and distributional knowledge of this group in remote areas, we carried out field surveys in Santa Cruz Tepetotutla Oaxaca, a locality 25 km in a straight line to the closest paved road that conserves 9,670 ha of land through the ICCAs modality. Surveys were made during 2018 and 2019, including both dry and wet seasons. A total of 40 species of amphibians and reptiles were recorded: 32.5% of these records represent distributional range extensions, while 20% represent altitudinal range extensions. A total of 17.5% are records of species under a high risk category, highlighting both the relevance of studying remote areas to increase species population knowledge and the role of community conservation actions for species persistence. Finally, our records include the rediscovery of Rhadinella schistosa, a species undetected for more than 50 years.