Landslides are the most common natural disasters in mountainous regions, being responsible for significant loss of life as well as damage to critical infrastructure and properties. As the world population grows, people tend to move to higher locations to construct buildings, thereby making structures vulnerable due to landslides. This paper discusses previous research on the vulnerability assessment of structures exposed to landslides and presents a modified semi-quantitative approach to assess the scenario-based physical vulnerability of buildings based on their resistance ability and landslide intensity. Resistance ability is determined by integrating expert knowledge-based resistance factors assigned to five primary building parameters. Landslide intensity matrix defining different intensity levels is proposed based on combinations of landslide velocity and volume. Physical vulnerability of buildings is estimated and classified as class I, II or III for scenario-based low to very high landslide intensity. Finally, the application of the model is illustrated with a case study of 71 buildings from Garhwal Himalayas, India. 相似文献
As a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement, Australia committed to reduce emissions significantly by 2030. In a country highly urbanised and dependent on fossil fuels as its primary energy source, one key avenue for meeting these commitments is energy transition in the built environment. Australia has emerged as a leader in the design and construction of high-performance buildings in the premium commercial office sector. In this paper, we address a significant gap in understanding the diverse mechanisms through which building energy transition is being constituted in this sector, focusing on Sydney and Melbourne. In the absence of substantive publicly available data, we draw on mixed methods comprising a database developed around high-performing CBD office buildings and qualitative interviews with a range of sectoral stakeholders. We characterise the building stock in each city, and document five trends constituting energy transitions. We demonstrate that building energy transitions are not only shaped purposefully by dominant governance regimes but also by opportunistic responses to specific material and commercial conditions and legacies in each city. Thus the urban built environment affords significant opportunity for energy transitions, but pathways towards such transitions are necessarily multiple and ultimately shaped by material as well as institutional geographies. 相似文献
The objective of this study is to efficiently extract detailed information about various man-made targets in oriented built-up areas using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (POLSAR) images. This paper develops an improved approach for building detection by utilizing Two-Dimensional Time-Frequency (2-D TF) decomposition. This method performs outstandingly in distinguishing between man-made and natural targets based on the isotropic behaviors, frequency-sensitive responses, and scattering mechanisms of objects. The proposed method can preserve the spatial resolution and exploit the advantages of TF decomposition; specifically, the exact outlines of buildings can be effectively located, and more types of features (e.g., flat roofs, roads, and walls that are oblique to the radar illumination) can be distinguished from forests in complex built-up areas by 2-D TF decomposition. The coarser-resolution subaperture images that are produced in the azimuth direction, which correspond to different looking angles, are beneficial for detecting man-made structures with main scattering centers oriented at oblique angles with respect to the radar illumination. In the range direction, the obtained subaperture images, which correspond to various observation frequencies, can be helpful in distinguishing flat roofs and roads from forests. This method was successfully implemented to analyze both NASA/JPL L-band AIRSAR and L-band EMISAR data sets. The building detection results of the proposed method exhibit a significant improvement over those of other methods and reach an overall accuracy over 80%, with approximately 20% higher than the accuracies of K-means clustering and the entropy/alpha-Wishart classifier and approximately 10% higher than the accuracy of the support vector machine method. Moreover, building details can be precisely detected, obliquely oriented buildings can be identified, and the distinction between buildings and forests is significantly improved, as both visually and statistically indicated. This method is highly adaptable and has substantial application value. 相似文献
To-date few research has successfully integrated big data from multiple sources to characterize urban mixed-use buildings. In this paper, we introduce a probabilistic model to integrate multi-source and geospatial big data (social network data, taxi trajectories, Points of Interest and remote sensing images) to characterize urban mixed-use buildings. The usefulness of our model is demonstrated with a case study of the Tianhe District in megacity Guangzhou, China. The model predicted building functions at 85% accuracy based on ground truth data from field surveys. We further explored the spatial patterns of the identified building functions. Most mixed-use buildings are located along major streets. Our proposed model can identify mixed-use buildings in a city; information is useful for planning evaluation and urban policymaking. 相似文献
This article provides insights into the role of institutions involved in climate governance working towards a future low-carbon society at the national level, within the global climate change governance architecture. Specifically, it contributes to understanding the fragmented governance of energy efficiency policy in developing countries by focussing on Vietnam’s building sector, identifying key institutions related to underlying discourses, national and international power relations, resource distribution and coalitions. It uses the case of baseline setting in developing Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) to illustrate institutional dynamics, nationally and transnationally, as well as to question whether demands for baseline setting achieve the ideal trade-off between actual GHG emissions reduction and institutionalized demands for accountability. The analysis reveals that, in addition to domestic efforts and challenges, the international agenda greatly influences the energy efficiency policy arena. The article presents lessons to be learnt about policy processes from the specific Vietnamese case, reflecting on the role of international actors and discourses in it. Finally, it argues for the abolition of baselines in favour of adequate monitoring and evaluation, from the perspective that requirement for deviation from fictitious baselines is unproductive and only serves an international techno-managerial discourse.
POLICY RELEVANCE
Baseline establishment is commonly considered an initial step in developing NAMAs, in order to facilitate the demonstration of a deviation from such baselines. The requirement to produce baselines is traditionally not questioned by policy practitioners. Thus, significant development resources are allocated to the establishment of baselines and the bridging of data gaps, often without consideration as to whether baselines are a necessary instrument for NAMA implementation. We suggest omitting the lengthy and resource-consuming practice of establishing baselines and recommend proceeding forthwith to the planning and implementation of mitigation and energy efficiency policies. As conditions vary significantly in different contexts, it would be more appropriate to measure the initial situation, establishing the ‘base point’, and monitor development from that point. The present article might serve as motivation for policymakers to question traditional approaches to policy development and consider alternatives to maximize the cost efficacy of NAMA programmes and facilitate their implementation. 相似文献