Seismic risk and damage prediction: case of the buildings in Constantine city (Algeria)     

Mehdi Boukri  Mohammed Naboussi Farsi  Ahmed Mebarki  Mohamed Belazougui  Omar Amellal  Brahim Mezazigh  Nabila Guessoum  Hamid Bourenane  Azzedine Benhamouche 《Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering》2014,12(6):2683-2704

Located at the North-Eastern part of Algeria (Tellian Atlas), Constantine has crucial administrative, economic, scientific and cultural importance. It has continuously experienced significant urban evolutions during the different periods of its history. The city is located in an active seismic region within Algeria and has been struck in the past by several moderate and strong earthquakes. The strongest earthquake recorded since the beginning of instrumental seismology took place on October 27, 1985 with a magnitude M \(_\mathrm{S}=\) 5.9. Constantine presents a high seismic risk, because of its dense housing and high population density (2,374 inhabitants/km \(^{2})\) . This requires a risk assessment in order to take preventive measures and reduce the losses in case of potential major earthquake. For this purpose, a scenario based approach is considered. The building damage assessment methodology adopted for the Algerian context is adapted from HAZUS approach. In the present case, the effective Algerian seismic code response spectrum (RPA 99/2003) is considered as a seismic hazard model. The prediction of the expected damages is performed for a set of almost 29,000 buildings.  相似文献   

Water and Wastewater Treatment in Africa – Current Practices and Challenges          下载免费PDF全文

Hongtao Wang  Tao Wang  Bingru Zhang  Fengting Li  Brahima Toure  Isaiah Bosire Omosa  Thomas Chiramba  Mohamed Abdel‐Monem  Mahesh Pradhan 《洁净——土壤、空气、水》2014,42(8):1029-1035

Sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation is an important part of the millennium development goals (MDGs). For most African countries, an extensive effort is needed for the last three remaining years for the achievement of the MDGs, especially in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Current practices for water and wastewater treatment in Africa are insufficient to ensure safe water and basic sanitation. To address this challenge, joint efforts are needed, including transforming to green economy, innovating technologies, improving operation and maintenance, harvesting energy, improving governance and management, promoting public participation, and establishing water quality standards.  相似文献   

Biocontrol of Meloidogyne javanica on Tomato Plants by Hypocrea lixii (the Teleomorph of Trichoderma harzianum)          下载免费PDF全文

Abdallah M. Elgorban  Mohamed A. Abdel‐Wahab  Ali H. Bahkali  Basheer A. Al‐Sum 《洁净——土壤、空气、水》2014,42(10):1464-1469

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Removal of Tartrazine Dye onto Mixed‐Waste Activated Carbon: Kinetic and Thermodynamic Studies          下载免费PDF全文

Mohamed Abdelaty Habila  Zeid Abdullah ALOthman  Rahmat Ali  Ayman Abdel Ghafar  Mohamed Slah El‐Din Hassouna 《洁净——土壤、空气、水》2014,42(12):1824-1831

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Biocontrol of Meloidogyne javanica on Tomato Plants by Hypocrea lixii (the Teleomorph of Trichoderma harzianum)          下载免费PDF全文

Abdallah M. Elgorban  Mohamed A. Abdel‐Wahab  Ali H. Bahkali  Basheer A. Al‐Sum 《洁净——土壤、空气、水》2014,42(11):1660-1660

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Monitoring Soil Water Content by Vertical Temperature Variations     

Mohamed Amine Bechkit  Sébastien Flageul  Roger Guerin  Alain Tabbagh 《Ground water》2014,52(4):566-572

The availability of high sensitivity temperature sensors (0.001 K sensitivity platinum resistors), which can be positioned at intervals of a few centimeters along a vertical profile in the unsaturated zone, allows short‐term in situ determinations—one day or even less—of the thermal diffusivity. The development of high data storage capabilities also makes this possible over long periods and the relative variations in thermal diffusivity allow the monitoring of the variations in water content. The processing of temperature measurements recorded at different depths is achieved by solving the heat equation, using the finite elements method, with both conductive and convective heat transfers. A first set of measurements has allowed this approach to be validated. Water content variations derived from thermal diffusivity values are in excellent agreement with TDR measurements carried out on the experimental site at Boissy‐le‐Châtel (Seine et Marne, France).  相似文献   

Detection of Magnetically Susceptible Dyke Swarms in a Fresh Coastal Aquifer     

Mohamed H. Khalil 《Pure and Applied Geophysics》2014,171(8):1829-1845

Groundwater constitutes the main source of freshwater in Shalatein, on the western coast of the Red Sea, in Egypt. The fresh aquifer of Shalatein is intensively dissected by shallow and deep faults associated with the occurrence of dykes and/or dyke swarms. In this context, synthesis of electrical resistivity, ground magnetics, and borehole data was implemented to investigate the freshwater aquifer condition, locate the intrusive dykes and/or dyke swarms, and demarcate the potential freshwater zones. Nine Schlumberger VES’s with maximum current electrode half-spacing (AB/2) of 682 m were conducted. The subsurface was successfully delineated by general four layers. The fresh aquifer of the Quaternary and Pre-Quaternary alluvium sediments was effectively demarcated with true resistivities ranged from 30 to 105 Ωm and thickness ranged between 20 and 60 m. A ground magnetic survey comprised 35 magnetic profiles, each 7 km in length. Magnetic data interpretation of the vertical derivatives (first and second order), downward continuation (100 m), apparent susceptibility (depth of 100 m), and wavelength filters (Butterworth high-pass of wavelengths <100 m and Band-Pass of wavelengths 30–100 m) successfully distinguished the near surface structure with five major clusters of dyke swarms, whereas filters of the upward continuation (300 m) and Butterworth low-pass (wavelengths >300 m) clearly reflected the deep-seated structure. The computed depth by the 3D Euler deconvolution for geological contacts and faults (SI = 0) ranged from 14 to 545 m, whereas for dyke and sill (SI = 1), it ranged from 10 to 1,095 m. The western part of the study area is recommended as a potential freshwater zone as it is characterized by depths >100 m to the top of the dykes, higher thickness of the fresh aquifer (45–60 m), depths to the top of the fresh aquifer ranging from 25 to 40 m, and higher resistivities reflecting better freshwater quality (70–105 Ωm).  相似文献   

Geophysical Constraints on the Hydrogeologic and Structural Settings of the Gulf of Suez Rift-Related Basins: Case Study from the El Qaa Plain,Sinai, Egypt     

Mohamed Ahmed  William Sauck  Mohamed Sultan  Eugene Yan  Farouk Soliman  Mohamed Rashed 《Surveys in Geophysics》2014,35(2):415-430

Groundwater has been identified as one of the major freshwater sources that can potentially meet the growing demands of Egypt’s population. Gravity data (from 381 ground gravity stations) were collected, processed, and analyzed together with the available aeromagnetic (800 line-km) data to investigate the hydrogeologic and structural settings, areal distribution, geometry, and water storage of the aquifers in El Qaa coastal plain in the southwest Sinai Peninsula, and to assess their longevity given projected extraction rates. Findings include (1) complete Bouguer anomaly and total magnetic intensity maps show two connected sub-basins separated by a narrow saddle with an average basin length of 43 km and an average width of 12 km; (2) two-dimensional modeling of both gravity and magnetic data indicates basin fill with a maximum thickness of 3.5 km; (3) using anomalous residual gravity, the volume of water in storage was estimated at 40–56 km³; and (4) progressive increases in extraction rates over time will deplete up to 40 % of the aquifers’ volume in 200–230 years and will cause the water quality to deteriorate due to seawater intrusion in 45 years. Similar geophysical exploration campaigns, if conducted over the entire coastal plains of the Red Sea and the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, could assist in the development of sound and sustainable management schemes for the freshwater resources in these areas. The adopted techniques could pave the way toward the establishment of sustainable utilization schemes for a much larger suite of similar aquifers worldwide.  相似文献   

Assessing and Improving Land Surface Model Outputs Over Africa Using GRACE,Field, and Remote Sensing Data     

Mohamed Ahmed  Mohamed Sultan  Eugene Yan  John Wahr 《Surveys in Geophysics》2016,37(3):529-556

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), along with other relevant field and remote sensing datasets, was used to assess the performance of two land surface models (LSMs: CLM4.5-SP and GLDAS-Noah) over the African continent and improve the outputs of the CLM4.5-SP model. Spatial and temporal analysis of monthly (January 2003–December 2010) Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS) estimates extracted from GRACE (TWS_GRACE), CLM4.5-SP (TWS_CLM4.5), and GLDAS-Noah (TWS_GLDAS) indicates the following: (1) compared to GRACE, LSMs overestimate TWS in winter months and underestimate them in summer months; (2) the amplitude of annual cycle (AAC) of TWS_GRACE is higher than that of TWS_LSM (AAC: TWS_GRACE > TWS_GLDAS > TWS_CLM4.5); (3) higher, and statistically significant correlations were observed between TWS_GRACE and TWS_GLDAS compared to those between TWS_GRACE and TWS_CLM4.5; (4) differences in forcing precipitation and temperature datasets for GLDAS-Noah and CLM4.5-SP models are unlikely to be the main cause for the observed discrepancies between TWS_GRACE and TWS_LSM; and (5) the CLM4.5-SP model overestimates evapotranspiration (ET) values in summer months and underestimates them in winter months compared to ET estimates extracted from field-based (FLUXNET-MTE) and satellite-based (MOD16 and GLEAM) ET measurements. A first-order correction was developed and applied to correct the CLM4.5-derived ET, soil moisture, groundwater, and TWS. The corrections improved the correspondence (i.e., higher correlation and comparable AAC) between TWS_CLM4.5 and TWS_GRACE over various climatic settings. Our findings suggest that similar straightforward correction approaches could potentially be developed and used to assess and improve the performance of a wide range of LSMs.  相似文献   

Robust salt-dome detection using the ranking of texture-based attributes     

Mohamed Deriche 《应用地球物理》2016,13(3):449-458

The accurate interpretation and analysis of seismic data heavily depends on the robustness of the algorithms used. We focus on the robust detection of salt domes from seismic surveys. We discuss a novel feature-ranking classification model for saltdome detection for seismic images using an optimal set of texture attributes. The proposed algorithm overcomes the limitations of existing texture attribute-based techniques, which heavily depend on the relevance of the attributes to the geological nature of salt domes and the number of attributes used for accurate detection. The algorithm combines the attributes from the Gray-Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM), the Gabor filters, and the eigenstructure of the covariance matrix with feature ranking using the information content. The top-ranked attributes are combined to form the optimal feature set, which ensures that the algorithm works well even in the absence of strong reflectors along the salt-dome boundaries. Contrary to existing salt-dome detection techniques, the proposed algorithm is robust and computationally efficient, and works with small-sized feature sets. I used the Netherlands F3 block to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results suggest that the proposed workflow based on information theory can detect salt domes with accuracy superior to existing salt-dome detection techniques.  相似文献