ALBERT

Description: Many upland catchments in the UK have undergone afforestation; their characteristic waterlogged soils require extensive pre-plantation ground drainage to allow tree establishment. In peatland areas this can result in very highly coloured runoff and enhanced dissolved organic matter (DOM) export in rivers of naturally high concentrations. In 1966, the Coalburn Experimental Catchment, northern England, was established to investigate the impact of afforestation on an upland peat catchment. Here we report the variations in DOM spectrophotometric properties of streamflow in the catchment at canopy closure, especially with respect to potential carbon sources within the artificial drainage ditches. Drainage ditches are characterized by water that has higher absorption coefficients and which is more highly coloured than in the catchment tributaries. Ditched, afforested areas produce more highly-coloured runoff waters that are more fluorescent and absorbent normalized to carbon concentration compared to ditches in open moorland. Ditches that had been experimentally re-excavated have organic matter of different spectrophotometric character, with higher dissolved organic carbon concentration and less aromatic or lower molecular weight material. It is hypothesized that this is due to the exposure of bare peat faces within and adjacent to the ditches that are more susceptible to drying compared to vegetated areas. The large extent of this drainage network acts as both a rapid transport network increasing hydrological connectivity and a pool for the storage of DOM, which is of different spectrophotometric character under low flow conditions, depending on management conditions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Description: In this paper, we use a scanning electron microscope (SEM) coupled with X-ray spectroscopy and electron back-scattered diffraction patterns to examine firn in cores retrieved by the United States International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition. From grain boundary grooves we were able to see where the previously existing snow crystals were joined, and can determine grain sizes. From the SEM images, the porosity and the surface area per unit volume of the pores were measured. Finally, we have shown that we can determine the microchemistry of impurities in firn and demonstrated that we can determine the orientations of the firn crystals. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Description: The flourescent properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM) enable comparisons of humic-like (H-L) and fulvic-like (F-L) fluorescence intensities with dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in aquatic systems. The fluorescence-DOC relationship differed in gradient, i.e. the fluorescence per gram of carbon, and in the strength of the correlation coefficient. We compare the fluorescence intensity of the F-L and H-L fractions and DOC of freshwater DOM in north Shropshire, England, featuring a river, wetland, spring, pond and sewage DOM sources. Correlations between fluorescence and DOC varied between sample sites. Wetland water samples for the F-L peak gave the best correlation, r = 0.756; the lowest correlation was from final treated sewage effluent, r = 0.167. The relationship between fluorescence and DOC of commercially available International Humic Substances Society standards were also examined and they generally showed a lower fluorescence per gram of carbon for the F-L peak than the natural samples, whereas peat wetland DOM gave a greater fluorescence per gram of carbon than river DOM. Here, we propose the strength of the fluorescence-DOC correlation to be a useful tool when discriminating sources of DOM in fresh water. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Description: Continuous monitoring of dissolved organic matter (DOM) character and concentration at hourly resolution is rare, despite the importance of analysing organic matter variability at high-temporal resolution to evaluate river carbon budgeting, river water health by detecting episodic pollution and to determine short-term variations in chemical and ecological function. The authors report a 2-week experiment performed on DOM sampled from Bournbrook, Birmingham, UK, an urban river for which spectrophotometric (fluorescence, absorbance), physiochemical (dissolved organic carbon [DOC], electrical conductivity, pH) and isotopic (D/H) parameters have been measured at hourly frequency. Our results show that the river had sub-daily variations in both organic matter concentration and characteristics. In particular, after relatively high-magnitude precipitation events, organic carbon concentration increased, with an associated increase in intensity of both humic-like and tryptophan-like fluorescence. D/H isotopic ratio demonstrates different hydrological responses to different rainfall events, and organic matter character reflects this difference. Events with precipitation 〈2 mm typically yielded isotopically heavy water with relatively hydrophilic DOM and relatively low specific absorbance. Events with precipitation 〉2 mm had isotopically lighter water with higher specific absorbance and a decrease in the proportion of microbially derived to humic-like fluorescence. In our heavily urbanized catchment, we interpret these signals as one where riverine DOM is dominated by storm sewer-derived 'old' organic matter at low-rainfall amounts and a mixed signal at high-precipitation amounts where 'event' surface runoff-derived organic matter dominate during storm sewer and combined sewer overflow routed DOM. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Description: Selection of earthquake ground motions is considered with the goal of accurately estimating the response of a structure at a specified ground motion intensity, as measured by spectral acceleration at the first-mode period of the structure, Sa(T1). Consideration is given to the magnitude, distance and epsilon (ε) values of ground motions. First, it is seen that selecting records based on their ε values is more effective than selecting records based on magnitude and distance. Second, a method is discussed for finding the conditional response spectrum of a ground motion, given a level of Sa(T1) and its associated mean (disaggregation-based) causal magnitude, distance and ε value. Records can then be selected to match the mean of this target spectrum, and the same benefits are achieved as when records are selected based on ε. This mean target spectrum differs from a Uniform Hazard Spectrum, and it is argued that this new spectrum is a more appropriate target for record selection. When properly selecting records based on either spectral shape or ε, the reductions in bias and variance of resulting structural response estimates are comparable to the reductions achieved by using a vector-valued measure of earthquake intensity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Description: Methods for using scalar and vector ground motion intensity parameters to estimate the probabilistic relationship between ground motion intensity and structural response are described and compared. Options include using regression analysis on structural analysis results from a set of unscaled (or uniformly scaled) ground motions, or fitting a probability distribution to the analysis results from scaled ground motions analysed using incremental dynamic analysis and related methods. Past methods for using scalar ground motion intensity are reviewed, and methods for utilizing improved vector-valued intensity measures (IMs) are proposed. 'Hybrid' estimation methods that obtain the benefit of vector-valued IMs using simplified techniques such as careful record selection are also discussed. The results are then combined with models for ground motion occurrence obtained from probabilistic seismic hazard analysis to compute seismic reliability, and the results obtained from the various methods are compared. In general, a tradeoff must be made between the accuracy of the functional relationship between ground motion intensity and structural response versus the number of structural analyses needed for estimation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Description: Risk assessment of spatially distributed building portfolios or infrastructure systems requires quantification of the joint occurrence of ground-motion intensities at several sites, during the same earthquake. The ground-motion models that are used for site-specific hazard analysis do not provide information on the spatial correlation between ground-motion intensities, which is required for the joint prediction of intensities at multiple sites. Moreover, researchers who have previously computed these correlations using observed ground-motion recordings differ in their estimates of spatial correlation. In this paper, ground motions observed during seven past earthquakes are used to estimate correlations between spatially distributed spectral accelerations at various spectral periods. Geostatistical tools are used to quantify and express the observed correlations in a standard format. The estimated correlation model is also compared with previously published results, and apparent discrepancies among the previous results are explained. The analysis shows that the spatial correlation reduces with increasing separation between the sites of interest. The rate of decay of correlation typically decreases with increasing spectral acceleration period. At periods longer than 2 s, the correlations were similar for all the earthquake ground motions considered. At shorter periods, however, the correlations were found to be related to the local-site conditions (as indicated by site Vs30 values) at the ground-motion recording stations. The research work also investigates the assumption of isotropy used in developing the spatial correlation models. It is seen using the Northridge and Chi-Chi earthquake time histories that the isotropy assumption is reasonable at both long and short periods. Based on the factors identified as influencing the spatial correlation, a model is developed that can be used to select appropriate correlation estimates for use in practical risk assessment problems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Description: The 'strength' of an earthquake ground motion is often quantified by an Intensity Measure (IM), such as peak ground acceleration or spectral acceleration at a given period. This IM is used to predict the response of a structure. In this paper an intensity measure consisting of two parameters, spectral acceleration and epsilon, is considered. The IM is termed a vector-valued IM, as opposed to the single parameter, or scalar, IMs that are traditionally used. Epsilon (defined as a measure of the difference between the spectral acceleration of a record and the mean of a ground motion prediction equation at the given period) is found to have significant ability to predict structural response. It is shown that epsilon is an indicator of spectral shape, explaining why it is related to structural response. By incorporating this vector-valued IM with a vector-valued ground motion hazard, we can predict the mean annual frequency of exceeding a given value of maximum interstory drift ratio, or other such response measure. It is shown that neglecting the effect of epsilon when computing this drift hazard curve leads to conservative estimates of the response of the structure. These observations should perhaps affect record selection in the future. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.