ALBERT

Description: For Brazil, a country frequented by droughts and whose rural inhabitants largely depend on groundwater, reliance on isotope for its monitoring, though accurate, is expensive and limited in spatial coverage. We exploit total water storage (TWS) derived from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to analyse spatial-temporal groundwater changes in relation to geological characteristics. Large-scale groundwater changes are estimated using GRACE-derived TWS and altimetry observations in addition to GLDAS and WGHM model outputs. Additionally, TRMM precipitation data are used to infer impacts of climate variability on groundwater fluctuations. The results indicate that climate variability mainly controls groundwater change trends while geological properties control change rates, spatial distribution, and storage capacity. Granular rocks in the Amazon and Guarani aquifers are found to influence larger storage capability, higher permeability ( 〉10-4 m/s) and faster response to rainfall (1 to 3 months' lag) compared to fractured rocks (permeability 〈10-7 m/s and lags 〉 3 months) found only in Bambui aquifer. Groundwater in the Amazon region is found to rely not only on precipitation but also on inflow from other regions. Areas beyond the northern and southern Amazon basin depict a ‘dam-like’ pattern, with high inflow and slow outflow rates (recharge slope 〉 0.75, discharge slope 〈 0.45). This is due to two impermeable rock layer-like ‘walls' (permeability 〈10-8 m/s) along the northern and southern Alter do Chão aquifer that help retain groundwater. The largest groundwater storage capacity in Brazil is the Amazon aquifer (with annual amplitudes of 〉 30 cm). Amazon's groundwater declined between 2002 and 2008 due to below normal precipitation (wet seasons lasted for about 36 to 47% of the time). The Guarani aquifer and adjacent coastline areas rank second in terms of storage capacity, while the northeast and southeast coastal regions indicate the smallest storage capacity due to lack of rainfall (annual average is rainfall 〈10 cm).

Description: Rapid improvements in telemetry technology and the general decrease in communication costs have raised a growing interest in low-cost wireless sensing units. This is especially the case for structural monitoring purposes, where they are becoming a more valuable alternative to conventional wired monitoring system. The main advantages associated with the use of wireless sensing unit include a considerable decrease in installation costs, decentralization of data analysis, and the possibility of broadening the functional capabilities by exploiting the use, at the same time and place, of different sensors. In this work, the design of a low-cost wireless sensing unit able both to collect, analyze, store, and communicate data and estimated parameters is presented. The suitability of a network of these low-cost wireless instruments for monitoring the vibration characteristics and dynamic properties of strategic civil infrastructures is validated during a ambient vibration recording field test on the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey.

Description: This short report describes the first attempt at obtaining a preliminary cross-border risk model for Central Asia starting from datasets that were already available at the beginning of the EMCA Project.

Description: Earthquake early warning systems should provide reliable warnings as quickly as possible with a minimum number of false and missed alarms. Wireless meshed networks, coupled with low-cost seismometers for monitoring, evaluation, and information about seismic vibrations in space and time are introducing a new generation of warning infrastructures for mega-cities. The use of a cooperative method for signal analysis makes it possible to distinguish earthquakes (with a certain minimal magnitude) from other ground shaking in a city. The paper gives a short overview of our approach for developing decentralized early warning systems and an evaluation based on experiences gained from model investigations, testbeds in Berlin, and prototype installations in Istanbul.

Description: This Scientific Technical Report presents two so-called “Reference reports” produced during the MATRIX project. These reports were provided to the European Commission asdeliverables, namely D8.4 “MATRIX Results I and Reference Report” and D8.5 “MATRIX Results II and Reference Report”. D8.4 presented a series of specific reports outlining theresults of the project, written in a manner accessible not only to the specialist but with a broader audience in mind. D8.5 deals with the risk governance within a multi-hazard and risk context and has since been published. We therefore divide with document in two, where part1 represented the outcomes presented in D8.4 while D8.5 forms part 2.

Description: A detailed knowledge of the thickness of the lithosphere in the north Atlantic is an important parameter for understanding plate tectonics in that region. We achieve this goal with as yet unprecedented detail using the seismic technique of S-receiver functions. Clear positive signals from the crust-mantle boundary and negative signals from a mantle discontinuity beneath Greenland, Iceland and Jan Mayen are observed. According to seismological practice, we call the negative phase the lithosphere-ashenosphere boundary (LAB). The seismic lithosphere under most of the Iceland and large parts of central Greenland is about 80 km thick. This depth in Iceland is in disagreement with estimates of the thickness of the elastic lithosphere (10-20 km) found from postglacial rebound data. In the region of flood basalts in eastern Greenland, which overlies the proposed Iceland plume track, the lithosphere is only 70 km thick, about 10 km less than in Iceland which is located directly above the proposed plume. At the western Greenland coast, the lithosphere.

Description: The asymmetric policy and science domains, face a number of challenges when it comes to managing disaster risk. On the one hand, policy stakeholders require reliable, high-quality information in order to make well-informed decisions in a timely manner, while on the other, creation of sound scientific information upon which such decisions can and should be made, requires time and thoroughness. As a result, uncertainty plays a crucial role when it comes to integrating scientific information into the decision-making process. To explore further the ways in which uncertainty affects decision-making, the ESPREssO Project developed a serious game for disaster risk reduction (DRR) stakeholders to “play,” termed RAMSETE III. It aims to assess how uncertainty impacts processing of early warning information and subsequent decision-making (such as ordering evacuations), embedded within a fictitious geographic, policy and practice setting. Serious gaming can serve as an useful tool to allow stakeholders with very different backgrounds to work closer together in a simulated environment. Different operational timescales and misunderstandings arising from differing perceptions of risk and uncertainty between policy stakeholders and scientists, are identified as key barriers hindering effective integration of policy and science in disaster management. Hence, RAMSETE III was employed to initiate open discourse between DRR stakeholders across the science-policy spectrum. The main outcome of this game emphasizes that to overcome these identified barriers, a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and inclusive approach is needed as a first-step foundation, with enhanced efforts in communication and development of common terminologies to assist strengthening of mutual understanding.

Description: Natural hazards and climate-related disasters disregard political borders, where additional barriers can complicate mitigation, response and recovery efforts within and between the sectors of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The ESPREssO Project (Enhancing Synergies for Disaster Prevention in the European Union) aims to improve management of transboundary disasters by encouraging closer synergies between the CCA and DRR communities. Using targeted stakeholder interviews, questionnaires, Think Tank discussions and purpose-built serious games, ESPREssO draws on both CCA and DRR stakeholder experiences and informed perspectives in order to identify current gaps. Set within a fictitious border zone, ESPREssO’s RAMSETE II serious game challenges CCA and DRR stakeholders in making coordinated decisions before, during and after a simulated disaster, in protection of population and critical infrastructure. Results highlight the essential role of local governance mechanisms as the sharp end of the policy wedge, with current examples of proactivity that require to be championed and supported at national level in order to thrive. These good practice examples reflect the fact that transboundary settings, despite their challenges, act as fertile ground for mutual growth, offering opportunities for CCA and DRR communities to find innovative ways to cooperate and unite in developing synergies and strengthening their mutual efforts towards resilience. Stakeholders emphasise a need to invest more resources in informal cooperation and call on policy makers to recognise that each border zone raises its own unique set of complex challenges that requires flexibility and special consideration by transboundary authorities in management of disasters.

Description: DESTRESS is a Horizon-2020 supported project (Topic: Demonstration of renewable electricity and heating/cooling technologies) that is concerned with creating EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) for the more economical, sustainable and environmentally responsible exploitation of underground heat. The international consortium, representing academic, geothermal sites and industry, will utilize the latest developments in the use of hydraulic, chemical and thermal treatments for enhancing the productivity of geothermal reservoirs, with considerable interaction with various interests groups and the thorough assessment of the associated risk, in particular that associated with induced seismicity. The GFZ workgroup "Early warning and Impact Forecasting" is involved in the exposure modelling, vulnerability analysis and building monitoring of communities near geothermal production facilities, making use of tools developed both in previous and ongoing projects. Data are available under network code 1M at the GEOFON data centre.

Description: The paper presents a methodology for the multi-hazard fragility analysis of fluvial earthen dikes in earthquake- and flood-prone areas due to liquefaction. The methodology has been applied for the area along the Rhine River reach and adjacent floodplains between the gauges at Andernach and Düsseldorf. Along this domain, the urban areas are partly protected by dikes, which may be prone to failure during exceptional floods and/or earthquakes. The fragility of the earthen dikes is analysed in terms of liquefaction potential, characterized by the factor of safety estimated using the procedure of Seed and Idriss (1971). Uncertainties in the geometrical and geotechnical dike parameters are considered in a Monte Carlo simulation (MCS). Failure probability of the earthen structures is presented in the form of a fragility surface as a function of both seismic hazard and hydrologic/hydraulic load.