On 22 March 2014, a massive, catastrophic landslide occurred near Oso, Washington, USA, sweeping more than 1 km across the adjacent valley flats and killing 43 people. For the following 5 weeks, hundreds of workers engaged in an exhaustive search, rescue, and recovery effort directly in the landslide runout path. These workers could not avoid the risks posed by additional large-scale slope collapses. In an effort to ensure worker safety, multiple agencies cooperated to swiftly deploy a monitoring and alerting system consisting of sensors, automated data processing and web-based display, along with defined communication protocols and clear calls to action for emergency management and search personnel. Guided by the principle that an accelerating landslide poses a greater threat than a steadily moving or stationary mass, the system was designed to detect ground motion and vibration using complementary monitoring techniques. Near real-time information was provided by continuous GPS, seismometers/geophones, and extensometers. This information was augmented by repeat-assessment techniques such as terrestrial and aerial laser scanning and time-lapse photography. Fortunately, no major additional landsliding occurred. However, we did detect small headscarp failures as well as slow movement of the remaining landslide mass with the monitoring system. This was an exceptional response situation and the lessons learned are applicable to other landslide disaster crises. They underscore the need for cogent landslide expertise and ready-to-deploy monitoring equipment, the value of using redundant monitoring techniques with distinct goals, the benefit of clearly defined communication protocols, and the importance of continued research into forecasting landslide behavior to allow timely warning.
Within the Ararat Valley (Armenia), a continuously growing water demand (for irrigation and fish farming) and a simultaneous decline in groundwater recharge (due to climate change) result in increasing stress on the local groundwater resources. This detrimental development is reflected by groundwater-level drops and an associated reduction of the area with artesian conditions in the valley centre. This situation calls for increasing efforts aimed at more sustainable water resources management. The aim of this baseline study was the collection of data that allows for study on the origin and age distribution of the Ararat Valley groundwater based on environmental tracers, namely stable (δ2H, δ18O) and radioactive (35S, 3H) isotopes, as well as physical-chemical indicators. The results show that the Ararat Valley receives modern recharge, despite its (semi-)arid climate. While subannual groundwater residence times could be disproved (35S), the detected 3H pattern suggests groundwater ages of several decades, with the oldest waters being recharged around 60 years ago. The differing groundwater ages are reflected by varying scatter of stable isotope and hydrochemical signatures. The presence of young groundwater (i.e., younger that the 1970s), some containing nitrate, indicates groundwater vulnerability and underscores the importance of increased efforts to achieve sustainable management of this natural resource. Since stable isotope signatures indicate the recharge areas to be located in the mountains surrounding the valley, these efforts must not be limited to the central part of the valley where most of the abstraction wells are located.
Climatic Change - This study examines the climatic drivers of ice-off dates for lakes and rivers across the Northern Hemisphere. Most lakes and rivers have trended toward earlier ice-off dates over... 相似文献
For the shallow lake there can be expected eutrophic conditions according to its morphometric data (z? 2.8 m, l 1.1… 1.8a), even mesotrophic conditions acc. to the catchment area (2.8 km2/hm3, 8 km2/km2, 20% wood) and eutrophic conditions acc. to load (1,340 Population Equivalents/hm3, 0.027… 0.386 g/m2 a P). The actually measured data of oxygen balance, nutrient contents and bioproduction show a eutrophic situation with a trend towards polytrophy. The difference to the expectation values can be explained by an underestimation of direct loading from a duck farm and the back-wash waters of a waterworks, so that sanitation measures for reducing the direct loading are promising. The relocation of the duck farm and of a large complex of stables as well as the introduction of extensive fishery utilization with a balanced stock of predatory fish resulted in perceptible trends of oligotrophication already after two years, especially by a remarkable promotion of the macrophyte stocks in the shallow water zone. 相似文献
A profundal sediment core from Höllerer See frozen in situ was studied by means of diatom, microstratigraphical tape peel and pollen analyses. Varved sequences reflect eutrophication during mediaeval settlement and according to varve counts a recent eutrophic phase since the 1970's. Mesotrophication in-between coincides with regrowth of forests near the lake. 相似文献
Filtration systems, used for the preparation of coastal seawater samples for trace analysis, have been intercompared to determine the extent of contamination arising during the filtration process. The results show that all the systems intercompared are able to provide uncontaminated filtrates for copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese and, with two exceptions, for cadmium and iron, at levels that would be encountered in uncontaminated coastal waters. 相似文献
During aircraft flights in May 1981 from Munich (40°N) to north of the Spitsbergen Islands (82°N) and to Monrovia, Liberia (6°N), air samples were obtained in the altitude range of 8 to 11 km and during the ascents and descents near the airports. These samples have been analyzed for the trace gas mixing ratios of CH4, CO and N2O. The results of these analyses are presented and discussed.The results provide new evidence of tropospheric-stratospheric exchange events in the vicinity of the subpolar and subtropical tropopause foldings and possibly show a case of transport of CO-enriched air in the upper troposphere above the North Atlantic Ocean. 相似文献
Agglomeration areas in the GDR are those regions, which are characterized by an above average level of regional concentration of productive forces and their conditions of reproduction. The economic potential concentrated in these regions represents a large part of the national economy. It is possible to describe the territorial structure of these agglomeration areas by general indices (agglomeration core — agglomeration field — agglometation fringe; polycentric node-band-structure), but also the individual features of each one of these regions are to be attended. They are expressed for the first time by several forms of localization of plants and by the structure of settlements and settlement networks. The present main tendencies in the development of the agglomeration regions are:
They succeeded in minimizing the regional disparities of productivity between different agglomeration regions and within them, and in stabilizing the economic position of these regions by systematic measures for investment and rationalization and the hereby influenced structural changes.
At present and up to 1990 the completion of housing programme is of foremost importance by which the main activities will shift from the urban fringe to the centres of the cities; provincial towns and smaller settlements will also participate in this programme.
The main target of these activities is to remove imperfect structures and other burning problems of the agglomeration regions step by step. Geographical Institutes are dealing with the management of these tasks too. 相似文献