ALBERT

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Herman van Os , Rien Herber , Bert Scholtens The decision-making process for subsurface activities in the Netherlands has been unable to cope with the driving forces related to social acceptance in several recently proposed subsurface activities. We therefore investigated the possibility to include the triangle of social acceptance in the decision-making process. Our conceptual model relates the stakeholders, their goals and the driving forces to each other. We developed a framework, which describes the interaction between eleven design criteria for a Decision Support System (DSS). This framework will enable us to design a better, from a social acceptance perspective, DSS for subsurface activities in the Netherlands. Since the goals addressed in the decision-making process are very broad and the stakeholders are quite diverse, a single uniform DSS is not able to provide a satisfactory solution. We therefore suggest to design a DSS that is matched with each class of social acceptance.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Yoshie Inada , Shinobu Izumi , Motoya Koga , Shigehito Matsubara We are developing a planning support system for welfare urban design. If we quantify the optimal route (the route that is the easiest to pass through) for challenged people, we will be able to select the areas that require adjustment in terms of accessibility with greater efficiency. In this paper we report on our development of the prototype system to present an optimal route for wheelchair users, and also, the two workshops we had for evaluating the accuracy of the resulted optimal route.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Erfaneh Allameh , Mohammadali Heidari , Bauke De Vries , Harry Timmermans , Mohammad Masoud , Farhang Mozaffar Almost everyone would agree that teleworking is increasingly growing; but beyond this broad statement, we know little about how people behave when they work at home and how they balance their work and life. User comfort and productivity cannot be addressed properly, without a deep understanding of usersʼ working behavior. This gap is even deeper when it comes to the domain of smart homes as new types of housing which aim to enhance working at home. Hence, more user-centered studies are needed to comprehend the interrelationships among housing, technology, daily life and the work activities. In this paper, we use the outputs of an experiment to model usersʼ work activities in a smart home. The experiment was conducted among 254 respondents, who were asked to explore a smart home in a virtual environment and then to arrange their daily activities including work related activities in the virtual smart home. A choice modeling approach, based on the Multinomial Logit Model (MNL), is applied to model how an individual works at a smart home given influential factors such as the individualsʼ socio-demographic profile and their current lifestyle. Two features of working in a smart home are covered in this paper, namely, “the integration of work activities with other daily activities” and “the location of work activities in the house”. The results give better insight into the future trends of working at home and the effects of smart homes on working behavior of people. The results can be used in further developments of both smart homes and teleworking.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Jinhee Kim , Soora Rasouli , Harry Timmermans Hybrid choice models have been developed as an extension of discrete choice models, particularly multinomial logit models, in an attempt to include attitudinal variables. The quintessence of hybrid choice models is that a model of attitude formation is estimated and the estimated attitudes are added to the commonly used set of attributes in discrete choice models: attributes of the choice alternatives and socio-demographic variables. The most commonly applied model is based on linear specifications, both for the attitude model and the utility function. In this review paper, we discuss the principles underlying the hybrid choice model, summarize the specifications used in previous applications of the model and then continue discussing recent progress that added social influence to the model specification and replaced the linear specification of the utility function with a nonlinear function.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Yountaik Leem , Sang Ho Lee , Jungho Yoon To overcome many difficulties in sustaining the satisfying quality of life for a large population 1 , urban spaces are evolving toward more efficient spaces by combination with ICTs (information and communication technologies) and raising the possibility to provide improved urban services which can enrich the quality of life of the citizen. In many cities over the world, a good number of public and private services in transportation, environment, urban safety from crime or disaster, health and other fields are designed and implemented with IT infrastructure. In spite of the expectation of cost-effective urban services based on the linkage between data and systems, obstructions in administrative and technical domains have made it difficult to be implemented. In this study, two advanced ICTs based urban services, which were developed by linkage and convergence of urban information and systems of Korea were introduced and analysed. The structural design of system convergence and data sharing scheme of Carbon Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) in Sejong City uses UIS (Urban Information System for local authorities), GIS data and other data provided by the public agencies, such as Korea Meteorological Administration for the monitoring and analysing the characteristics of the energy consumption of household 2 . Another system, Urban Integrated CCTV Control System (ICCS) in Anyang City, shows integrated CCTV networks for crime prevention, traffic control and public facility management to provide extended urban services, such as disaster prevention, police investigation and others. Qualitative and Quantitative effects analyses with technical and policy directions were suggested for the development and improvement of future urban services for a liveable city.

Description: In recent years, several workers have found numerous cases of sites characterised by significant azimuthal variation of dynamic response to seismic shaking. The causes of this phenomenon are still unclear, but are possibly related to combinations of geological and geomorphological factors determining a polarisation of resonance effects. To improve their comprehension, it would be desirable to extend the database of observations on this phenomenon. Thus, considering that unrevealed cases of site response directivity can be “hidden” among the sites of accelerometer networks, we developed a two-stage approach of data mining from existing strong motion databases to identify sites affected by directional amplification. The proposed procedure first calculates Arias Intensity tensor components from accelerometer recordings of each site to determine mean directional variations of total shaking energy. Then, at the sites where a significant anisotropy appears in ground motion, azimuthal variations of HVSR values (spectral ratios between horizontal and vertical components of recordings) are analysed to confirm the occurrence of site resonance conditions. We applied this technique to a database of recordings acquired by accelerometer stations in the Iranian area. The results of this investigation pointed out some sites affected by directional resonance that appear to be correlated to the orientation of local tectonic lineaments, these being mostly transversal to the direction of maximum shaking. Comparing Arias Intensities observed at these sites with theoretical estimates provided by ground motion prediction equations, the presence of significant site amplifications was confirmed. The magnitude of the amplification factors appear to be correlated to the results of HVSR analysis, even though the pattern of dispersion of HVSR values suggests that while high peak values of spectral ratios are indicative of strong amplifications, lower values do not necessarily imply lower amplification factors.

Description: We investigated frequency-magnitude distribution (FMD) of acoustic emissions (AE) occurring near an active mining front in a South African gold mine, using a catalog developed from an AE network, which is capable of detecting AEs down to M W  −5. When records of blasts were removed, FMDs of AEs obeyed a Gutenberg−Richter law with similar b values, not depending on post-blasting time from the initial 1-min interval through more than 30 h. This result denies a suggestion in a previous study ( Richardson and Jordan Bull Seismol Soc Am, 92:1766–1782, 2002 ) that new fractures generated by blasting disturb the size distribution of background events, which they interpreted as slip events on existing weak planes. Our AE catalog showed that the GR law with b ∼ 1.2 was valid between M W  −3.7 and 0 for AEs around the mining front. Further, using the mine’s seismic catalog, which covers a longer time period of the same area, we could extend the validity range of the GR law with the same b value up to M W 1.

Description: The efficiency of strengthening traditionally built three-leaf stone masonry walls with different types of composite reinforced coating has been investigated. Glass fibre grid in single component fibre reinforced mortar and glass fibre fabric in epoxy resin matrix were used as coating materials. Four different coating types have been applied, with coating placed on one or both sides of the walls, anchored or not anchored to the masonry at the corners of the walls. Ten walls have been tested by subjecting them to cyclic shear loading at constant precompression, among them two walls in the original state as the control specimens. Four walls have been first tested up to the occurrence of the first significant damage, strengthened and then re-tested up to collapse, whereas four walls have been strengthened undamaged and tested up to collapse. All walls failed in shear. Significant increase in lateral resistance with regard to control walls was observed in all cases, up to 2.5–4.0-times the resistance of the control walls. The degree of improvement did not depend on the type of coating but on the technology of application. Although the coating increased the rigidity of the walls, displacement and energy dissipation capacities have been also improved.

Description: In this paper, by using multi-temporal and high resolution Landsat data and geographic information system techniques, the land use/land cover (LULC) in the 2-km buffer zone of 52 meteorological stations in the Anhui province of China is retrieved and categorized into three types: vegetation (including farmland, forest and grass land), water (including lakes, rivers and pools), and construction (including buildings and roads). Besides, the land surface temperature (LST) in the buffer zone of these stations is also obtained from thermal infrared data. The normalized LST index (NLI) and the heat effect contribution index (HECI) of different LULC types are calculated. Via case studies and statistical analysis, the LULC and thermal environment’s temporal-spatial variance in the 2-km buffer zone of these stations are surveyed, and their impacts on the observational environment are investigated. The study shows that the observational environments of the meteorological stations in Anhui province have been greatly influenced by rapid urbanization. The study proposes two new methods to classify the stations’ observational environment into three types (urban, sub-urban, and rural). One uses the NLI and the other uses the HECI. The NLI method needs only LST information. The HECI method combines both LULC and LST information and, hence, is considered more reliable. The evaluation methods and criteria can be used conveniently, effectively, and quantitatively, and are especially useful when analyzing observational data from meteorological stations in weather and climate research and when choosing a location for a new meteorological station.

Description: The northern part of the Western Desert of Egypt represents the second most promising area of hydrocarbon potential after the Gulf of Suez province. An artificial neural network (ANN) approach was used to develop a new predictive model for calculation of the geothermal gradients in this region based on gravity and corrected bottom-hole temperature (BHT) data. The best training data set was obtained with an ANN architecture composed of seven neurons in the hidden layer, which made it possible to predict the geothermal gradient with satisfactory efficiency. The BHT records of 116 deep oil wells (2,000–4,500 m) were used to evaluate the geothermal resources in the northern Western Desert. Corrections were applied to the BHT data to obtain the true formation equilibrium temperatures, which can provide useful constraints on the subsurface thermal regime. On the basis of these corrected data, the thermal gradient was computed for the linear sections of the temperature-versus-depth data at each well. The calculated geothermal gradient using temperature log data was generally 30 °C/km, with a few local high geothermal gradients in the northwestern parts of the study area explained by potential local geothermal fields. The Bouguer gravity values from the study area ranged from −60 mGal in the southern parts to 120 mGal in the northern areas, and exhibited NE–SW and E–W trends associated with geological structures. Although the northern Western Desert of Egypt has low regional temperature gradients (30 °C/km), several potential local geothermal fields were found (〉40 °C/km). The heat flow at each well was also computed by combining sets of temperature gradients and thermal conductivity data. Aerogravity data were used to delineate the subsurface structures and tectonic framework of the region. The result of this study is a new geothermal gradient map of the northern Western Desert developed from gravity and BHT log data.

Description: The estimated Green’s function (EGF) extracted from the ambient seismic noise cross-correlation function (NCF) enables valuable calibration of surface wave propagation along the path connecting seismic stations. Such calibration is adopted in a new method for ground truth location of earthquakes, achieved from the location relative to a seismic station. The surface wave group travel times were obtained from the NCFs between a station near the earthquake and remote stations. The differential travel times from the NCFs and the surface wave of the earthquake were used in a relative location procedure. When this method was applied to earthquake location with only six seismic stations in western Australia, the location of the Mw 4.1 Kalannie (September 21, 2005) earthquake was found to be accurate to within 2 km compared with the ground truth location with InSAR for which azimuth coverage of seismic stations is preferable. Synthetic tests suggest that the group travel time is slightly affected by focal mechanism and focal depth, thus unknown earthquake source parameters did not introduce substantial bias to earthquake location with the group travel time method.

Description: Estimating earthquake losses is an important issue for many private and public bodies. As a major stakeholder, insurers need realistic probable maximum loss (PML) values to foresee the possible losses they would face after a major earthquake and also to calculate optimal insurance premiums. Insurers generally use fragility curves to manage their portfolio by calculating overall PML values. There are, however, serious impacts of risk based PML estimation on earthquake insurance rates, and in this respect fragility curves, which represent regional losses rather than individual losses, could lead to suboptimal decisions. In this study, a rapid earthquake loss estimation methodology, which can be used even by the non-experts in earthquake engineering without conducting comprehensive structural analyses, is proposed for single-storey reinforced concrete industrial buildings based on parameters determined after investigating more than 80 industrial building projects in Turkey. 384 analytical structural loss estimation curves were obtained via the non-linear structural performance analysis method proposed in the 2007 Turkish Seismic Design Code. To provide a detailed evaluation of the proposed methodology’s performance, fragility curves representative of the structural types and the design levels of the buildings investigated were also developed. Finally, total insurance premiums corresponding to PML values of the inventory buildings were calculated, using the two aforementioned estimation methods and others previously published, by addressing issues such as reinsurance cost, capital cost and profit. Results reveal considerable differences in PML values and eventually earthquake insurance rates for the buildings investigated between the risk based structural loss estimation method and the existing methods, indicating possibilities for improved portfolio analysis and management tools.

Description: Tsunami warning is classically based on two fundamental tools: the first one concerns the source parameters estimations, and the second one is the tsunami amplitude forecast. We presented in the first companion paper how the seismic source parameters are evaluated, and this second article describes the operational aspect and accuracy of the estimation of tsunami height using tsunami numerical modelling on a dedicated supercomputer (2.5 T-flops). The French Polynesian tsunami warning centre developed two new tsunami forecast tools for a tsunami warning context, based on our tsunami propagation numerical model named Taitoko. The first tool, named MERIT , that is very rapid, provides a preliminary forecast distribution of the tsunami amplitude for 30 sites located in French Polynesia in less than 5 min. In this case, the coastal tsunami height distribution is calculated from the numerical simulation of the tsunami amplitude in deep ocean using an empirical transfer function inspired by the Green Law. This method, which does not take into account resonance effects of bays and harbour, is suitable for rapid and first estimation of the tsunami danger. The second method, named COASTER , which uses 21 nested grids of increasing resolutions, gives more information about the coastal tsunami effects about the flow velocities, the arrival time of the maximal amplitude, and the maximal run-up height for five representative sites in 45 min. The historical tsunamis recorded over the last 22 years in French Polynesia have been simulated with these new tools to evaluate the accuracy of these methods. The results of the 23 historical tsunami simulations have been compared to the tide-gauge records of three sites in French Polynesia. The results, which are quite encouraging, shows standard errors of generally less than a 2 factor : the maximal standard error is 0.38 m for the Tahauku Bay of Hiva-Oa (Marquesas islands).

Description: In this paper an analytical expression that estimates the collapse load of a generic class of multi-storey, uniform, moment-resisting steel frames is presented. This expression is validated and calibrated with nonlinear pushover analyses (NPA) and incremental dynamic analyses for a set of buildings, of differing heights, that are designed according to the Eurocodes. The efficacy of different seismically induced load profiles in NPA is discussed with a preferred profile suggested for this class of structural system. The relationship between the actual seismic force reduction factor and code specified behavior factors is underlined.

Description: Analysis performed on multiple sets of earthquake networks created for the Hawaii volcanic system reveals characteristics that can be associated with fundamental properties of seismicity. The scale-free behaviour of the connectivity distribution along the spectrum of the minimum weight values, which can be used to discern the interrelated earthquakes from the rest of the data set, is mirrored by a similar behaviour of the distribution of the number of linked neighbours. The patterns found in the distributions of temporal and spatial intervals between earthquakes are similar from large to small networks. Similarities are found between the variation of the network clustering coefficient, C, and the variation of the exponents of the connectivity distribution, β , and of the weight distribution, γ; their synchronous variation over successive temporal windows can be related to changes in seismicity and in the life of the volcanic system. A Zipf distribution is found for the ranked sets of magnitude values of successive network nodes. The distribution of differences between the magnitude values of successive nodes is also governed by a power law.

Description: We have studied, for the first time, variations in absolute surface geostrophic currents (SGC) using satellite data only. The proposed approach combines 18 years’ altimetry data, which provide reliable measurements of absolute sea level (ASL), with a gravity field and steady-state ocean circulation explorer geoid model to obtain dynamic topography, and achieves unprecedented precision and accuracy. Our proposal overcomes the main limitations of existing approaches based solely on altimetry data (which suffer from lack of an independent reference for derivation of ASL maps), and approximations based on in-situ data (which are characterized by a sparse and inhomogeneous coverage in time and space). Features of annual variations of SGC are also addressed. As a result of our study we provide new absolute SGC climatology in the form of a 52-week data set of surface current fields, gridded at quarter degree longitude and latitude resolution and resolving spatial scales as short as 140 km. For presentation, this data set is averaged monthly and the results, presented as monthly climatology, are compared with climatology based on in-situ observations from drifter data.

Description: Model forecast applications use various models of tsunami sources inferred from different measurement data. Even the same type of observation data can produce substantially different tsunami source models during a real-time forecast when more data are obtained during the real-time analysis. Improved tsunami observations enable investigation of the influence of such model source variability on the final forecast using different source data sets of several events. The 2010 Maule, Chile and 2011 Tohoku, Japan tsunamis were two recent events that provide ample observations throughout the Pacific and were, thus, used here to study the sensitivity of different model inputs for forecasting. The sources for these events were derived using the following three different methods: (1) real time or post event inversion of tsunameter water level data; (2) prediction of sea floor deformations via analysis of seismic wave forms and application of a finite fault model; and (3) prediction of sea floor deformation using real-time GPS data. For the March 11, 2011 Tohoku tsunami, two examples of each method are used, while for the February 27, 2010 Maule event, only one tsunameter inversion and one finite fault model method were used due to a much more limited data set. Observed data from the Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting for Tsunamis (DART) network, Japan GPS buoys, and select tide gauges across the Pacific were compared with forecasts to assess the sensitivity of these three methods using root-mean-square error analysis. We divided the analysis by the type of data and the distance from the source. This sensitivity analysis showed that increasing the resolution of a tsunami source model does not necessarily improve tsunami forecast quality, even in the near-field. Instead, the findings suggest that when forecasting coastal impact, defining the overall energy characteristic of a tsunami source may be more important than refining small source details. Source models based on direct tsunami observations are better at reproducing a tsunami signal: this finding is not very surprising but has implications for tsunami forecasting and warning operations.

Description: The Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean at a distance of 4,500–5,000 km from the west coast of Sumatra, were severely affected by the December 26, 2004 tsunami with wave heights up to 4 m. Since the tsunami history of small islands often remains unclear due to a young historical record, it is important to study the geological traces of high energy events preserved along their coasts. We conducted a survey of the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the inner Seychelles islands. In detail we studied onshore tsunami deposits in the mangrove forest at Old Turtle Pond in the Curieuse Marine National Park on the east coast of Curieuse Island. It is thus protected from anthropogenic interference. Towards the sea it was shielded until the tsunami in 2004 by a 500 m long and 1.5 m high causeway which was set up in 1909 as a sediment trap and assuring a low energetic hydrodynamic environment for the protection of the mangroves. The causeway was destroyed by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. The tsunami caused a change of habitat by the sedimentation of sand lobes in the mangrove forest. The dark organic rich mangrove soil (1.9 Φ) was covered by bimodal fine to medium carbonate sand (1.7–2.2 Φ) containing coarser carbonate shell fragments and debris. Intertidal sediments and the mangrove soil acted as sources of the lobe deposits. The sand sheet deposited by the tsunami is organized into different lobes. They extend landwards to different inundation distances as a function of the morphology of the onshore area. The maximum extent of 180 m from the shoreline indicates the minimum inundation distance to the tsunami. The top parts of the sand lobes cover the pneumatophores of the mangroves. There is no landward fining trend along the sand lobes and normal grading of the deposits is rare, occurring only in 1 of 7 sites. The sand lobe deposits also lack sedimentary structures. On the surface of the sand lobes numerous mostly fragmented shells of bivalves and molluscs were distributed up to 150 m from the coastline. Intact bivalve shells were mostly found positioned with the convex side upwards. On small ledges of a granitic body at 130–150 m from the shore mostly fragmented and gravel sized shells were deposited at different elevations up to 4 m above sea level. This implies a run up height of at least 4 m above sea level up to 150 m from the present shoreline.

Description: The most recent tsunami observed along the coast of the island of Puerto Rico occurred on October 11, 1918, after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in the Mona Passage. The earthquake was responsible for initiating a tsunami that mostly affected the northwestern coast of the island. Runup values from a post-tsunami survey indicated the waves reached up to 6 m. A controversy regarding the source of the tsunami has resulted in several numerical simulations involving either fault rupture or a submarine landslide as the most probable cause of the tsunami. Here we follow up on previous simulations of the tsunami from a submarine landslide source off the western coast of Puerto Rico as initiated by the earthquake. Improvements on our previous study include: (1) higher-resolution bathymetry; (2) a 3D–2D coupled numerical model specifically developed for the tsunami; (3) use of the non-hydrostatic numerical model NEOWAVE (non-hydrostatic evolution of ocean WAVE) featuring two-way nesting capabilities; and (4) comprehensive energy analysis to determine the time of full tsunami wave development. The three-dimensional Navier–Stokes model tsunami solution using the Navier–Stokes algorithm with multiple interfaces for two fluids (water and landslide) was used to determine the initial wave characteristic generated by the submarine landslide. Use of NEOWAVE enabled us to solve for coastal inundation, wave propagation, and detailed runup. Our results were in agreement with previous work in which a submarine landslide is favored as the most probable source of the tsunami, and improvement in the resolution of the bathymetry yielded inundation of the coastal areas that compare well with values from a post-tsunami survey. Our unique energy analysis indicates that most of the wave energy is isolated in the wave generation region, particularly at depths near the landslide, and once the initial wave propagates from the generation region its energy begins to stabilize.

Description: In conventional seismic design the capacity of the system is generally exploited only at the superstructure level. However, soil non-linearity as well as soil-foundation interface non-linearity can be crucial in the seismic response of structures. The results of tests performed on physical models allow the main aspects of these interaction mechanisms to be identified and also provide a benchmark for subsequent theoretical or numerical analyses. The present paper deals with two shaking table tests performed at the University of Bristol’s EERC laboratory. The tests were performed on a physical model consisting of a Leighton Buzzard sand deposit and a one-storey steel model structure. Some of the test results are presented and discussed in terms of acceleration and displacement responses. Both time- and frequency-domain representations were adopted to highlight the influence of the frequency and amplitude of the input motion on the coupled and/or uncoupled response of the tested soil-structure system, as well as the effect of soil non linear behaviour.

Description: The insertion of damped braces proves to be very effective for enhancing the performance of a framed building under seismic loads. For a widespread application of this technique suitable design procedures are needed. In this paper a design procedure which aims to proportion damped braces to attain a designated performance level of the structure, for a specific level of seismic intensity, is proposed. In particular, a proportional stiffness criterion, which assumes the elastic lateral storey-stiffness due to the braces proportional to that of the unbraced frame, is combined with the displacement-based design, in which the design starts from a target deformation. To check the effectiveness and reliability of the design procedure, a six-storey reinforced concrete plane frame, representative of a medium-rise symmetric framed building, is considered as primary structure. This, designed in a medium-risk seismic region, has to be retrofitted as in a high-risk seismic region by the insertion of braces equipped with either metallic-yielding dampers or viscoelastic ones. Nonlinear dynamic analyses of unbraced and damped braced frames are carried out, under real (set A) and artificially generated (set B) ground motions, by a step-by-step procedure. Frame members and hysteretic dampers are idealized by bilinear models, while the viscoelastic dampers are idealized by a six-element generalized model describing the variation of the mechanical properties depending on the frequency, at a given temperature.

Description: Magma is generated by partial melting from micrometre-scale droplets at the source and may accumulate to form 〉100 km-scale plutons. Magma accumulation thus spans well over ten orders of magnitude in scale. Here we provide measurements of migmatitic leucosomes and granitic veins in drill cores from the Estonian Proterozoic basement and outcrops at Masku in SW Finland and Montemor-o-Novo, central Portugal. Despite the differences in size and number of measured leucosomes and magmatic veins, differences in host rock types and metamorphic grades, the cumulative width distribution of the studied magmatic leucosomes/veins follows a power law with exponents usually between 0.7 and 1.8. Published maps of the SE Australian Lachlan Fold Belt were used to investigate the distribution of granitoid pluton sizes. The granites occupy ca. 22 % of the 2.6 × 10 5  km 2 area. The cumulative pluton area distributions show good power law distributions with exponents between 0.6 and 0.8 depending on pluton area group. Using the self-affine nature of pluton shapes, it is possible to estimate the total volume of magma that was expelled from the source in the 2.6 × 10 5 km 2 map area, giving an estimated 0.8 km 3 of magma per km 2 . It has been suggested in the literature that magma batches in the source merge to form ever-bigger batches in a self-organized way. This leads to a power law for the cumulative distribution of magma volumes, with an exponent m V between 1 for inefficient melt extraction, and 2/3 for maximum accumulation efficiency as most of the volume resides in the largest batches that can escape from the source. If m V  ≥ 1, the mass of the magma is dominated by small batches; in case m  = 2/3, about 50 % of all magma in the system is placed in a single largest batch. Our observations support the model that the crust develops a self-organized critical state during magma generation. In this state, magma batches accumulate in a non-continuous, step-wise manner to form ever-larger accumulations. There is no characteristic length or time scale in the partial melting process or its products. Smallest melt segregations and 〉km-scale plotuns form the end members of a continuous chain of mergers of magma batches.

Description: The first-order (or linear) Rytov or Born approximation is the foundation for formulation of wave-equation tomography and waveform inversion, so the validity of the Rytov/Born approximation can substantially affect the applicability of these theories. However, discussions and research reported in literature on this topic are insufficient or limited. In this paper we introduce five variables in scattering theory to help us discuss conditions under which the Rytov approximation, in the form of the finite frequency sensitivity kernels (RFFSK), the basis of waveform inversion and tomography, is valid. The five variables are propagation length L , heterogeneity scale a , wavenumber k , anisotropy ratio ξ , and perturbation strength ɛ . Combined with theoretical analysis and numerical experiments, we conclude that varying the conditions used to establish the Rytov approximation can lead to uninterpretable or undesired results. This conclusion has two consequences. First, one cannot rigorously apply the linear Rytov approximation to all theoretical or practical cases without discussing its validity. Second, the nonlinear Rytov approximation is essential if the linear Rytov approximation is not valid. Different from previous literature, only phase (or travel time) terms for the whole wavefield are discussed. The time shifts of two specific events between the background and observed wavefields measured by cross-correlation will serve as a reference for evaluation of whether the time shifts predicted by the FFSKs are reasonably acceptable. Significantly, the reference “cross-correlation” should be regarded as reliable only if the condition “two specific similar signals” is satisfied. We cannot expect it to provide a reasonable result if this condition is not met. This paper reports its reliability and experimental limitations. Using cross-correlation (CC) samples as the X axis and sensitivity kernel (SK) or ray tracing (RT) samples as the Y axis, a chart of cross validation among the three is established. According to experimental analysis for a random and deterministic medium, the RFFSK works well for diffraction and geometric optics enclosed by the boundaries ka  〉 1 and (Λ 〈 1, ΛΦ 〈 2 π  ∪ Λ 〉 1, Φ 〈 2 π ), where Λ is a diffraction variable and Φ is a variable used to measure scattering strength. Both Λ and Φ depend on the five variables mentioned above. However, a large perturbation will limit the applicability of the Rytov approximation and narrow the range in which it is valid, because larger ɛ results in higher-amplitude fluctuations and larger back-scattering. Therefore, large ɛ is important in making SK/RT predictions discrepant from correct CC measurements. We also confirm that the RFFSK theory has wider range of application than ray theory. All the experiments point out the importance, both practical and theoretical, of respecting the conditions used to establish the Rytov approximation.

Description: The paucity of geodetic data acquired on active volcanoes can make the understanding of modelling magmatic systems quite difficult. In this study, we propose a novel approach, which allows improving the parameter estimation of analytical models of magmatic sources (e.g., shape, depth, dimensions, volume change, etc.) by means of a joint inversion of surface ground deformation data and P -axes of focal plane solutions. The methodology is first verified against a synthetic dataset of surface deformation and strain within the medium, and then applied to real data from an unrest episode occurred before the May 13 2008 eruption at Mt. Etna (Italy). The main results clearly indicate the joint inversion improves the accuracy of the estimated source parameters by about 70 %. The statistical tests indicate that the source depth is the parameter with the highest increment of accuracy. In addition, a sensitivity analysis confirms that displacements data are more useful to constrain the pressure and the horizontal location of the source than its depth, while the P -axes better constrain the depth estimation.

Description: The Taiwan Chelungpu Fault Drilling Project (TCDP) drilled a 2-km-deep hole 2.4 km east of the surface rupture of the 1999 Chi–Chi earthquake ( M w 7.6), near the town of Dakeng. Geophysical well logs at the TCDP site were run over depths ranging from 500 to 1,900 m to obtain the physical properties of the fault zones and adjacent damage zones. These data provide good reference material for examining the validity of velocity structures using microtremor array measurement; therefore, we conduct array measurements for a total of four arrays at two sites near the TCDP drilling sites. The phase velocities at frequencies of 0.2–5 Hz are calculated using the frequency-wavenumber ( f – k ) spectrum method. Then the S-wave velocity structures are estimated by employing surface wave inversion techniques. The S-wave velocity from the differential inversion technique gradually increases from 1.52 to 2.22 km/s at depths between 585 and 1,710 m. This result is similar to those from the velocity logs, which range from 1.4 km/s at a depth of 597 m to 2.98 km/s at a depth of 1,705 m. The stochastic inversion results are similar to those from the seismic reflection methods and the lithostratigraphy of TCDP-A borehole, comparatively. These results show that microtremor array measurement provides a good tool for estimating deep S-wave velocity structure.

Description: In this paper we describe a stable automatic method to estimate in real time the seismic moment, moment magnitude and corner frequency of events recorded by a network comprising broad-band and accelerometer sensors. The procedure produces reliable results even for small-magnitude events $\hbox {M}_{\mathrm{W}}\approx 3$ . The real-time data arise from both the Transfrontier network at the Alps-Dinarides junction and from the Italian National Accelerometric Network (RAN). The data is pre-processed and the S-wave train identified through the application of an automatic method, which estimates the arrival times based on the hypocenter location, recording site and regional velocity model. The transverse component of motion is used to minimize conversion effects. The source spectrum is obtained by correcting the signals for geometrical spreading and intrinsic attenuation. Source spectra for both velocity and displacement are computed and, following Andrews ( 1986 ), the seismic moment and the first estimate of the corner frequency, $f_{0}$ , derived. The procedure is validated using the recordings of some recent moderate earthquakes (Carnia 2002; Bovec 2004; Parma 2008; Aquila 2009; Macerata 2009; Emilia 2012) and the recordings of some minor events in the SE Alps area for which independent seismic moment and moment magnitude estimates are available. The results obtained with a dataset of 843 events recorded by the Transfrontier and RAN networks show that the procedure is reliable and robust for events with $\hbox {M}_{\mathrm{W}}\ge 3$ . The estimates of $f_{0}$ are less reliable. The results show a scatter, principally for small events with $\hbox {M}_{\mathrm{W}}\le 3$ , probably due to site effects and inaccurate locations.

Description: Timber-framed (TF) masonry has been developed as an effective lateral-load resisting system in regions of high seismicity such as Southern Europe. A salient feature of the ‘last generation’ of TF buildings is the presence of diagonal members that may consist of two diagonal braces. The present study focusses on alternative modelling procedures, ranging from simple to rather complex, for this interesting type of traditional structure. All models are applied to study the behaviour of full-scale specimens of diagonally-braced TF panels. The complex model is based on plasticity with contact surfaces for the connection between timber diagonals and masonry infills. A parametric analysis using this model shows that masonry infills affect only slightly the lateral force carried by this TF panel configuration. Furthermore, two simple modelling techniques are put forward for application in the analysis of large, realistic structures incorporating TF walls. The first one is directly connected to the complex modelling and is based on substructuring. A nine-step procedure is developed and is found to properly reproduce the response of the test specimens. The second simple model is a phenomenological one, developed on the basis of observed behaviour during tests and is a complete hysteretic model; however, for comparison purposes, all models are evaluated here with respect to the prediction of the envelope (pushover) curve for the walls tested under lateral loads.

Description: Traditional approaches to damage estimation in earthquake loss modelling make use of relationships between scalar intensity measures and scalar engineering demand parameters. In this study we present a series of vector-valued fragility surfaces computed for low- and mid-rise reinforced concrete frames typical of those found in Europe. The use of vectors of intensity measures can result in conditional standard deviations of logarithmic engineering demand parameters that are up to 50 % smaller than those from traditional scalar methods. These reductions have significant implications for the shapes of loss curves, particularly for long return periods. The most efficient vector corresponds to a combination of spectral acceleration and a spectral shape parameter, $\langle \ln S_a, \ln N_p\rangle $ , when used to predict maximum interstorey drifts. The study also demonstrates that engineering demand parameters have significant heteroskedasticity with respect to various intensity measures and that this feature must be modelled correctly when constructing fragility curves. This feature of the models presented herein has not previously been accounted for during the development of fragility curves or surfaces.

Description: An ice microphysics parameterization scheme has been modified to better describe and understand ice fog formation. The modeling effort is based on observations in the Sub-Arctic Region of Interior Alaska, where ice fog occurs frequently during the cold season due to abundant water vapor sources and strong inversions existing near the surface at extremely low air temperatures. The microphysical characteristics of ice fog are different from those of other ice clouds, implying that the microphysical processes of ice should be changed in order to generate ice fog particles. Ice fog microphysical characteristics were derived with the NCAR Video Ice Particle Sampler during strong ice fog cases in the vicinity of Fairbanks, Alaska, in January and February 2012. To improve the prediction of ice fog in the Weather Research and Forecasting model, observational data were used to change particle size distribution properties and gravitational settling rates, as well as to implement a homogeneous freezing process. The newly implemented homogeneous freezing process compliments the existing heterogeneous freezing scheme and generates a higher number concentration of ice crystals than the original Thompson scheme. The size distribution of ice crystals is changed into a Gamma distribution with the shape factor of 2.0, using the observed size distribution. Furthermore, gravitational settling rates are reduced for the ice crystals since the crystals in ice fog do not precipitate in a similar manner when compared to the ice crystals of cirrus clouds. The slow terminal velocity plays a role in increasing the time scale for the ice crystals to settle to the surface. Sensitivity tests contribute to understanding the effects of water vapor emissions as an anthropogenic source on the formation of ice fog.

Description: This paper discusses on the shaking table test results of two 1:4 scale model of two-story masonry structure typically used in constructing low-rise residential buildings. This test is performed to provide a better understanding of the seismic behavior of the PP-band (polypropylene band) mesh retrofitted adobe masonry house. The test structure is subjected to a series of different levels of harmonic motion that applied along the longitudinal direction. The results of the shaking table tests on building models show that the PP-band retrofitting technique can enhance the safety of masonry buildings, even during severe ground motion.

Description: The 2011 Tohoku mega earthquake ( M w  = 9) is unique due to a combination of its large magnitude and the high level of detail of regional seismic data. The authors analyzed the seismic regime in the vicinity of this event using data from the Japan Meteorological Agency catalog and world databases. It was shown that a regional decrease in b -value and of the number of main shocks took place in the 6–7 years prior to the Tohoku mega earthquake. The space–time area of such changes coincided with the development of precursor effects in this area, as revealed by Lyubushin (Geofiz Prots Biosfera 10:9–35, 2011 ) from the analysis of microseisms recorded by the broadband seismic network F-net in Japan. The combination of episodes of growth in the number of earthquakes, accompanied by a corresponding decrease in the b-value and average depth of the earthquakes, was observed for the foreshock and aftershock sequences of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Some of these anomalies were similar to those observed (also post factum) by Katsumata (Earth Planets Space 63:709–712, 2011 ), Nanjo et al. (Geophys Res Lett 39, 2012 ), and Huang and Ding (Bull Seismol Soc Am 102:1878–1883, 2012 ), whereas others were not described before. The correlation of the periods of growth in seismic activity with the decrease of the average depth of earthquakes can be explained by the growth of fluid activity and the tendency of a penetration of low density fluids into the upper horizons of the lithosphere. The unexpectedly strong Tohoku mega earthquake with a rather small rupture area caused an unexpectedly high tsunami wave. From here it seems plausible that M9+ earthquakes with a large tsunami could occur in other subduction zones where such cases were suggested before to be impossible.

Description: A very fast and efficient approach for gravity data inversion based on the regularized conjugate gradient method has been developed. This approach simultaneously inverts for the depth ( z ), and the amplitude coefficient ( A ) of a buried anomalous body from the gravity data measured along a profile. The developed algorithm fits the observed data by a class of some geometrically simple anomalous bodies, including the semi-infinite vertical cylinder, infinitely long horizontal cylinder, and sphere models using the logarithms of the model parameters [log( z ) and log(| A |)] rather than the parameters themselves in its iterative minimization scheme. The presented numerical experiments have shown that the original (non-logarithmed) minimization scheme, which uses the parameters themselves ( z and | A |) instead of their logarithms, encountered a variety of convergence problems. The aforementioned transformation of the objective functional subjected to minimization into the space of logarithms of z and | A | overcomes these convergence problems. The reliability and the applicability of the developed algorithm have been demonstrated on several synthetic data sets with and without noise. It is then successfully and carefully applied to seven real data examples with bodies buried in different complex geologic settings and at various depths inside the earth. The method is shown to be highly applicable for mineral exploration, and for both shallow and deep earth imaging, and is of particular value in cases where the observed gravity data is due to an isolated body embedded in the subsurface.

Description: Robust methods for time-frequency analysis of time series, which provide local information of signals, allow earthquake engineers to study both the input and output of dynamic time history analysis with more reliability. Moreover, time-frequency representations (TFRs) have a major role in the analysis of non-stationary seismic signals exhibiting significant time variation of frequency content. S-Transform (ST) is a modern TFR, which can measure local characteristics of a signal such as amplitude, frequency, and phase at any time instant. This paper presents a new method for decomposition of ground motion signals. A modified version of ST-based technique, originally employed to decompose signals of gearbox vibration, is introduced and applied to the extraction and characterization of pulse-like part of near-fault velocity records, which is contributed to the directivity effects. In addition, a new definition based on ST analysis is used to identify pulse period. The results of implementation of proposed procedure on a database of pulse-like ground motion recordings belonging to the different ranges of magnitude demonstrate the efficiency of proposed method compared with other available approaches. The results, also, indicate that simple approximation of distinct pulses using single-period waveforms, unlike the extracted pulses, cannot represent the impulsive nature of real records adequately.

Description: This paper describes a method for interpreting the lateral changes in the geological structure of the lithosphere by iteratively calculating the spatial variation of a bottom-to-top loading ratio. We use Forsyth’s coherence method, based on multi-taper spectral analysis on overlapping window areas. We discuss the geological findings and their comparison with existing geological interpretations for the Sri Lankan region. The low thickness of the elastic plate in the Sri Lankan region suggests a high geothermal gradient. The lithospheric geological structure beneath the Sri Lankan region is consistent with the main crustal units of Sri Lanka, which belong to different ancient plates. Together with interpretations based on metamorphic rock units, our findings support the existence of thrust contact in the central highlands of Sri Lanka.

Description: In this paper a brief introduction regarding the latest advancements of strong motion instrumentation programs in Greece since the first accelerograph was installed by NOA-IG is given. Analytical description of various utilized analog and digital accelerographic sensors is presented and the evolution of the different types of data processing techniques applied by the two research centers is given using recordings from both Institutes. The site characterization of the strong motion recording sites and the available information for those stations are presented as well. A final evaluation and correlation of the previous proposed configuration of the Hellenic accelerographic networks ITSAK and NOA-IG resulted from previous study (Theodoulidis et al. in Planning of strong motion network. pp 86–04, 1986 ) in regard to the new strong-motion installations within the framework of EPPO’s project is accomplished.

Description: In November 2012 EEFIT launched its first ever return mission to an earthquake affected site. The L’Aquila Earthquake site was chosen as this is a recent European event of interest to the UK and European earthquake engineering community. The main aims of this return mission were to document the earthquake recovery process and this paper presents an overview of the post-disaster emergency phase and transition to reconstruction in the Aquila area after the earthquake. It takes an earthquake engineering perspective, highlighting areas mainly of interest to the fields of structural/seismic engineering and reconstruction management. Within the paper, reference is made to published literature, but also to data collected in the field during the return mission that would not otherwise have been available. The paper presents some specific observations and lessons learned from the L’Aquila return mission. However, in light of current international efforts in conducting return missions, the paper ends with some reflections on the value that return missions can provide to the field of earthquake engineering in general, based on the EEFIT L’Aquila experience.

Description: We derived explicit expressions in the time domain for 3-D quasi-static strain and stress fields, due to a point moment tensor source in an elastic surface layer overlying viscoelastic half-space under gravity. The expressions of strain in the elastic surface layer were directly obtained from the expressions of displacement in our previous paper. The conversion of strain into stress is easy, because the stress–strain relation of elastic material is linear. In the viscoelastic substratum, the expressions of strain were obtained by applying the correspondence principle of linear viscoelasticity to the associated elastic solution. The strain–stress conversion is not straightforward, as the stress–strain relation of viscoelastic material is usually given in a differential form. To convert strain into stress, we used an integral form of the stress–strain relation instead of the usual differential form. The expressions give the responses of elastic half-space at $ t = 0 $ , and the responses of an elastic plate floating on non-viscous liquid at $ t = \infty $ . The moment tensor is rationally decomposed into the three independent force systems, corresponding to isotropic expansion, shear faulting and crack opening, and so the expressions include the strain and stress fields for these force systems as special cases. As the first numerical example, we computed the temporal changes in strain and stress fields after the sudden opening of an infinitely long vertical crack cutting the elastic surface layer. Here, we observe that the stress changes caused by the sudden crack opening gradually decay with time and vanish at $ t = \infty $ everywhere. After the completion of stress relaxation, a characteristic pattern of shear strain remains in the viscoelastic substratum. Since the strain and stress fields at $ t = \infty $ can be read as the strain- and stress-rate fields caused by steady crack opening, respectively, this numerical example demonstrates the realization of a steady stress state supported by steady viscous flow in the asthenosphere, associated with steady seafloor spreading at mid-ocean ridges. For the second numerical example, we computed the temporal changes in strain and stress fields after the 2011 Tohoku-oki mega-thrust earthquake, which occurred at the North American-Pacific plate interface. In this numerical example, the stress changes caused by coseismic fault slip vanish at $ t = \infty $ in the viscoelastic substratum, but remain in the elastic surface layer. The coseismic stress changes (and also strain changes) in the elastic surface layer diffuse away from the source region with time, due to gradual stress relaxation in the viscoelastic substratum.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): N. Agya Utama , Andhy Muhammad Fathoni , Mandau A. Kristianto In the last couple of years and years to come Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are having the highest GDP growth in ASEAN (South East Asia Nations) member countries; at present Indonesia has the highest GDP, it was $845 billion in 2011 and is predicted to grow up to $ 2,200 billion in 2030. In line with economic growth the countries energy demand also sharply increases, Indonesia primary energy demand has increased four folds in the past 30 years, while the region increase almost five folds. The main energy consumer in the country mainly coming from transportation sector, followed by industrial and residential sectors, while buildings combined (residential and commercial sector) accounted in more than 30% from the total energy consumption. The study focused on alternatives cooling appliances through passive method, where electricity and other source of energy are very limited to be used. The highest cooling appliances for middle class houses are either standing fan or ceiling fan, an alternatives design is developed and simulated by using CFD modeling tools with a tropical climate in Jakarta as the boundaries. The study shows that the passive method could reduce in more than 1800 kg CO2eq annually.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Muhammad Azzam Ismail , Fahanim Abdul Rashid In this paper, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Homes (LEED-H) rating method was tested on three existing Malaysian green homes (GH). This was to ascertain the amount of changes and modifications needed to configure LEED-H to suit the local context. The three GHs are Demonstration, Cool and Energy Efficient House (DCEEH), Smart and Cool Home (SCH) and CoolTek House (CTH). These are benchmark Malaysian GHs either due to their design, construction methods, building materials or operational procedures. It was found that all case studies did not comply with at least 12 mandatory prerequisites out of 23 as outlined in LEED-H.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Edward Endrianto Pandelaki , Wijayanti , Septana Bagus Pribadi This study concerns to the life of the elderly who live in the high-rise housing in urban areas. The aim of this study is to discover a conceptual model of high-rise housing which is capable to accommodate the activities of the elderly by conducting a comparative study between Indonesia and Japan. Qualitative method is used because it has explorative nature. Providing attention toward how to create a safe, comfortable, healthy, economical, self-reliant living environment, and how to encourage creation of social cohesion, are necessary for the life of the elderly who live in high-rise housing in urban areas.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Ratni Prima Lita , Sari Surya , M. Ma’ruf , Laura Syahrul Studies have shown the relationship between attitude, image, intention to visit and willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly services. With unique background of local tourist in West Sumatra Indonesia, this study aims to confirm the previous findings based on perspective of services marketing literatures. This explanatory study investigates causality among cross sectional data that was collected by following convenience sampling technique. The sample size is 200 local tourists, acquired with intercept approach in several main tourist destinations in West Sumatra. The data was analyzed by structural equation model. The results show that the effects of attitude toward green behavior on overall image are positive (0.446) and significant at the alpha of 0.08, with the t-statistic of 4.804. The overall image has positive impact on word of mouth (0.497) and significant at the alpha of 0.05, with the t-statistic of 4.569. The overall image also has positive impact on willingness to pay (0.523) significant at the alpha of 0.05, with the t-statistic of 5.683. These results indicate that attitude toward green behavior has significant influence on overall image of hotels and restaurants. Overall image has significant influence toward re-visit intention, positive word of mouth, and willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly hotels and restaurants. The management of the hotels and restaurants may consider this finding to improve service quality by adopting environmentally friendly practices.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Tye Ying Ying , Lee Keat Teong , Wan Nadiah Wan Abdullah , Leh Cheu Peng In this study, oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) and kenaf core fibers were converted into sugar for bioethanol production. Results of enzymatic hydrolysis showed that the untreated EFB and kenaf core fibers were hardly to be hydrolysed, in which yielded only 2.6% and 0.4% of reducing sugar (glucose), respectively. In consideration to environmentally friendliness, simple aqueous pre-treatments were carried out prior to hydrolysis aimed to increase sugar production. Based on the results obtained, it was interesting to note that by adopting merely water, acid and alkaline pre-treatments, the total glucose yields were increased to 34.9%, 34.2% and 27.9% for EFB fiber, while 19.3%, 11.7%, and 12.6% for kenaf core fiber, respectively. The results of chemical composition analysis of pre-treated fibers indicated the increase of the sugar production was highly related to the removal of hemicellulose and/or lignin in the fibers. Between the two fibers, pre-treated EFB fiber attained the highest total glucose yield in all the pre-treatments. This revealed that EFB fiber was more viable for sugar production than kenaf core fiber.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Sasa Sofyan Munawar , Bambang Subiyanto To utilize various potential agricultural residues, pellet making was performed and the pellets obtained were characterized in this study. Oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB), oil palm frond (OPF), oil palm shell (OPS) and oil palm mesocarp (OPM) were employed as feedstock. Biopellet production was started with material crushing to get uniform material and then continued with pellet forming. Pellet making was conducted using conventional pelletizer under temperatures of 150, 200 and 250 °C for 15 minutes. Some characteristics were measured to determine biopellet quality, i.e. moisture content, density, ash content and calorific value. Based on the water content, ash content, density and calorific value, OPM biopellets that pressed at 200 and 250 °C showed the best formula. The characteristics of this biopellet were moisture content of 1.7-1.9%, ash of 6.85-7.45%, and calorific value of 3,814-4,724 kcal/kg.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Priyono Suryanto , E.T.S. Putra , S. Kurniawan , B. Suwignyo , D.A.P. Sukirno This research was conducted to determine maize growth and yield at various agroforestry development levels, especially in Batur Agung area, Gunung Kidul District, Java, Indonesia. This experiment was conducted in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) single factor with three blocks as replication. Research factor was agroforestry development levels, namely, initial, intermediate, and advanced levels. Observations were done on maize growth and yield variables. Data then was analyzed by applying Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 5% level, and continued with the Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) if significant.Maize physiological response on initial to intermediate and advanced agroforestry level demonstrated impairment tendency. This condition continued to maize production decline in line with shade level (initial AF, intermediate AF, and advanced AF). Traditional silvicultural developed with trees along border, alley cropping and mixer characteristics. Tree planting space was irregular with conventional stands management. Although the physiological response decreased in line with shade increase and so did maize production, farmers still continued to develop initial, intermediate, and advanced agroforestry models. Scheme developed to improve the productivity of agroforestry was constructing intensive agroforestry regimes (IAR). There are 3 IAR, namely, IAR-1 to hold initial agroforestry during the acceleration and management of initial agroforestry heading to intermediate and advanced. IAR-1 base is more intensive crown pruning and commercial thinning approach. Crop area was utilized during the management with C4 species. IAR-2 was designed to hold intermediate AF from traditional to intensive by applying intensive harvesting, with need based cutting and C3 species cultivation. IAR-3 was carried out for the development of advanced AF to initial AF with intensive need based cutting, pollarding, and intensive crop with C4 species.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Irma Isnafia Arief , Z. Wulandari , E.L. Aditia , M. Baihaqi , Noraimah , Hendrawan The research aims to evaluate physicochemical and microbiological properties of fermented lamb sausages elaborated with probiotic Lactobacillus. plantarum IIA-2C12 isolated from Indonesian local beef. The result showed that the addition probiotic L. plantarum IIA/2C12 (9 log cfu/ml) produced better quality of fermented lamb sausages than control (without probiotic). Physicochemichal analysis showed that fermented lamb sausage with L. plantarum IIA-2C12 has a considerebely soft texture and the final pH value and aw of fermented lamb sausage with L. plantarum were 4.13 and 0.88, respectively. Additionally, the pressence of L. plantarum IIA-2C12 significantly reduced the fat content (6.39% wb) and increased the protein content (19.26%wb). Microbiological analysis displayed high population of lactic acid bacteria (9 log cfu/g) on fermented lamb sausage with L. plantarum IIA-2C12 with low population of Escherichia coli (1 log cfu/g) and none of Salmonella spp was detected. Preference test revealed that fermented lamb sausage with L. plantarum IIA-2C12 is the most prefereable product.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Srikandi Novianti , M.K. Biddinika , Pandji Prawisudha , Kunio Yoshikawa In this research, the hydrothermal treatment (HT) was applied to treat a waste stream from the commercial production of palm oil. The investigation both lab-scale and pilot-scale reactors have been conducted. The hydrothermal products were characterized and their fuel qualities were evaluated. The results indicated that the fuel qualities of the products improved after HT; such as higher carbon content, higher energy density, and lower O/C and H/C ratios compared with the raw feedstock. The HT products derived from the lab-scale and pilot-scale reactors had similar chemical compositions and energy density which indicated the feasibility of an up-scale application for this technology.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Adrianus Amheka , Yoshiro Higano , Takeshi Mizunoya , Helmut Yabar The Kupang government's target of integrating a renewable energy technology system (RETs) and waste treatment plant system (WTPs) are under consideration to pursue the national target of reduction GHG emission between 26-41% (0.767-1.244) Gton CO 2 e from 2010 to 2020. This research considers the feasibility of developing RETs and WTPs in order to reduce GHG emission by a creating the framework, of an Input Output (IO) table of Kupang and its analysis, counting the amount of total coefficients of GHG and air pollutants for each sector in the form of NO x , SO x , CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O from social-economic activities in Kupang. The results show 27 sectors classified in a table, representing the gained coefficients pollutants which will enable the estimate of the total amount of CO 2 e emitted for the year 2010 and a framework for proposal to government. This study is the first research and main reference focusing on pollutant counts and emission coefficients emitted by activity economy on a regional level for Kupang city.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Shaza Rina Sahamir , Rozana Zakaria As Malaysia moves towards a sustainable lifestyles and development, the need to prepare for the change is imperative. Sustainability has become an important initiative discussed and undertaken not only by private buildings but also by public buildings dealing with residential, office, commercial as well as hospital. Building is known as human habitat. The way people design, construct and operate the building has a profound impact on people health and the environment. Compared to other building types, healthcare buildings have an especially large impact on the environment for the 24/7 use. Thus, the development of green hospital is important as it requires strict cleaning procedures and frequent air changes, which increase the already-high energy costs of the 24/7 operations and sophisticated medical equipment that make hospitals among the greatest energy consumers of any institution. The primary aim for this paper is to investigate green assessment criteria for public hospital building development in Malaysia. It compiles the essential criteria of existing green rating systems for healthcare buildings worldwide and presents the difference between each criteria compared to Malaysian green rating system. Existing tools and guidelines are reviewed, analysed and grouped according to the main criteria. The assessment criteria from each rating systems are divided into similar category covers all aspect of building design, construction and operation. Results from the analysis show the important assessment criteria of green public hospital building correspond to Malaysia. The research intended to produce initial guideline as a starting point for Malaysian public hospital in the most consistent and systematic way in practicing green.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Yuri Hermawan Prasetyo , Muhammad Nur Fajri Alfata , Anikmah Ridho Pasaribu Rumah Lontiok is one of the types of Malay traditional houses threatened to extinct since it have been abandoned by the local people. Located in Kampar–Riau, Rumah Lontiok has changed from its original form, particularly in using corrugated metal as rooftop material. The study aims to describe the Rumah Lontiok and its environment, and to investigate its thermal performance. Field experiment was carried out in this study. Thermal properties of material were measured by thermocouple and heat flux sensors, while surface temperature was gathered by thermocouple acquisitioned by datalogger. All thermal environment data were gathered for 24 hours. Data of site situation was documented by recording and sketching on the worksheet. The result of the study figured out the situation of Rumah Lontiok and its environments affecting the thermal performance. The in-situ measurement found out that wall has thermal conductivity of 0.21 W/m.K and the floor is 0.19 W/m.K. The study shows that indoor thermal environment did not quite different compared to the outdoor thermal environment. The roof material is hypothesized as major source of heat gain into inside the building. Even though there are many openings, they cannot remove heat gain effectively.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Sri Atmaja P. Rosyidi , Tjasa Bole-Rentel , Surya Budi Lesmana , Jazaul Ikhsan This paper briefly presents the experience of the Center for Regional Energy Management in the needs assessment, capacity building and adoption of household biogas plants in rural areas of Yogyakarta over the past five years. The biogas program has been designed to solve specific energy provision problems in rural areas, such as securing cooking fuel, as well as to promote ecological farming by using biogas digester as organic manure, thereby efficiently recycling locally available biomass waste. The paper also points that realizing these goals would require significant changes in funding and policy support for the successful implementations of biogas in developing countries. In addition, it highlights some of the key issues related to the implementation of rural energy programs and suggests a new approach and future strategies for initiatives that endeavor to address the issue of rural poverty and improve the living conditions of rural people.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Pannraphat Takolpuckdee In Thailand, Tarad Thai is one of the biggest and significant agricultural markets. Therefore, the problems from fresh waste disposals in this area are recognized as one of environmental significant concerns. In order to manage this problem, the conversion of those possible agricultural waste disposals to biochar soil amendments is studied. In this work, some parts of agricultural fruits waste are durian peel, mangosteen rind, corncob and banana peel. In addition, waste from fresh shrimp, shrimp shell, is also studied. Those previous waste materials are processed by viapyrolysis method to form biochar. The studies of chemical compositions, such as major and some minor nutrition, are analyzed using the Kjeldahl technique, UV-Visible spectrophotometer and Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) spectrometer. The heat of combustion and some chemical properties are also studied. The biochar derived from corncob, per gram, dominates the highest value of the heat of combustion (75.151 Kcal). In addition, the study of biocharuses as soil amendments is studied via the growth of swamp morning glory. By comparing the data from typical soil and biochar soil amendments by t-test, it is found that the growing length and number of leafs shows t cal >t crt which means that, for example, the use of the biochar soil amendments from agricultural market waste and shrimp shell as materials to grow the swamp morning glory displays the significance by comparing to typical soil.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Andhy Muhammad Fathoni , N. Agya Utama , Mandau A. Kristianto This paper presents a technical and economic potential of Solar Energy Application in Indonesia. Indonesia consists of thousands islands. Meanwhile, according to the latest data from the Department of Energy and Mineral Resources in 2012, Indonesia's electrification ratio is only around 74%. Renewable energy especially solar energy is one of the most potential energy sources as Indonesia lies in the equator line where the daylight is abundant and available throughout the year. The solar energy technologys is also eco-friendly and its application has the potential to reduce the greenhouse gas emission. A review of solar energy potential in Indonesia based on the solar resource data is presented. Estimation of solar resource in Indonesia was done using solar radiation data from NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy (SSE). Retscreen software was used for all of the calculation in the study. It is found that the proposed system can generate electricity annually vary from 0.46 GWh/year in Denpasar to 217 GWh/year in Pontianak. This paper also calculates the economic viability through pre-tax IRR and simple payback indicator. It was observed that the highest IRR was observed in Makassar and the lowest IRR was observed in Banjarmasin. Meanwhile, it can be observed that Makassar got the shortest payback period for 11 years and Banjarmasin got the longest payback period of 17.6 years. From the side of environmental impact, the proposed system can reduce the GHG emission up to 243252 tons per year in particular selected location.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Nwe Ni Hlaing , Radzali Othman , Hirofumi Hinode , Winarto Kurniawan , Aye Aye Thant , Abdul Rahman Mohamed , Chris Salim , Srimala Sreekantan To capture carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), a major green house gas from flue gas, several kinds of adsorbents have been synthesized, characterized and tested. In this study, CaO-based adsorbents were synthesized via sol-gel-hydrothermal method and different hydrothermal temperatures (100, 120, 140 and 160 °C) have been investigated in order to verify their influence on the CaO-based adsorbents. Experimental results showed that the Ca(OH) 2 adsorbent with a mixture of CaCO 3 synthesized at 120 °C hydrothermal treatment possesses high CO2 adsorption capacity (0.52 g-CO2/g-sorbent) and at 160 °C hydrothermal treatment, CaC 2 O 4 .H 2 O adsorbent was observed and its CO 2 adsorption capacity was 0.46 g-CO 2 /g-sorbent for first carbonation/calcination cycle.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Benjamin C. McLellan , Yusuke Kishita , Go Yoshizawa , Yohei Yamaguchi , Kazumasu Aoki , Itsuki C. Handoh Understanding and assessing sustainable energy systems at various scales are a complex proposition. The task must take into account more than just the technical realm of energy, seeking to model the dynamic interplay between environmental, social and economic systems as they influence and are influenced by the technical energy system. Energy systems are often considered at a coarse level – at the scale of a nation – or at a relatively fine scale – at the technology end. However, scales of governance, institutions and the regional territory of electricity providers (for example) can make for useful scales of analysis. The current paper describes some of the important elements for undertaking co-design and assessment of energy systems for more resilient, desirable and sustainable energy futures. Key steps are described, among which is a novel model of the technical energy system that incorporates local environmental and planetary limitations. The initial model considerations and an analysis of enablers and barriers, as well as the interactions with the scenario development are presented.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Ratih Novi Listyawati , Christia Meidiana , Mustika Anggraeni The Energy Self-Sufficient Village is one of the Indonesian government programs where one of the criteria is that every village has to be able to fulfil minimum of 60% of energy needs with renewable source of potential owned. Tegalweru is a village that has potential of the livestock sector and there are 6 installations of biogas management to utilize manure waste. The evaluation of the energy self-sufficient village was conducted using emergy analysis. The emergy analysis is applied in two different scenarios. The first is baseline scenario where is only 37 cattle owned by ten households are treated to produce biogas. The second scenario is the scenario to fulfil the 60% target of energy self-sufficient. The emergy analysis is done to calculate the value of four emergy indices, which are, EYR to measure the comparison of yield and input added to biogas system, EIR to measure the emergy input needed to treat 1 kg of manure, ELR to measure the load of the manure treatment on environment, and ESI to measure the sustainability of biogas management. Analysis of emission reduction is also done in this research to find out the best scenario to be implemented in Tegalweru Village.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Kanae Ishimaru , Shigeo Kobayashi , Sayaka Yoshikawa Since 1980s, the settlement and occupancy into abandoned or non-cultivated land by poor peoples or landless peasantsbecame popular in Brazil. These people sometimes lack agricultural experiences to yieldsufficient production for livelihoods and it lead them to abandon the land and repeating forest clearance. Sufficient and sustainable agricultural production for subsistence and crop sale is important, especially during the early stage of immigration, in order to settlers to remain the land they had occupied. To elucidate the difference in crop selection tendencies between households with production sales and those without sales, we categorised the households within a single study area in Brazil into three types: (1) households with sales income from agricultural products (SA), and households without sales income in which the variety among cultivated crops was (2) low (NL) or (3) high (NH). The crops were divided into six types: (1) tubers and herbaceous crops that can be harvested within or around a year; tree crops that can be harvested within 3 years either (2) seasonally or (3) year-round; tree crops that can be harvested only after 4 years either (4) seasonally or (5) year-round; and (6) tree crops for timber, colouring, and oil use. Our survey results indicate that the SA households had a well-designed combination of crop species, including both commercial and subsistence crops, whereas the NH and NL households were lacking in short- and long-term sales. None of the NH had any sales income, even though they had the highest calculated number of calories coming from the consumption of agricultural products.

Description: Shear zones in outcrops and core drillings on active faults commonly reveal two scales of localization, with centimeter to tens of meters thick deformation zones embedding much narrower zones of mm-scale to cm-scale. The narrow zones are often attributed to some form of fast instability such as earthquakes or slow slip events. Surprisingly, the double localisation phenomenon seem to be independent of the mode of failure, as it is observed in brittle cataclastic fault zones as well as ductile mylonitic shear zones. In both, a very thin layer of chemically altered, ultra fine grained ultracataclasite or ultramylonite is noted. We present an extension to the classical solid mechanical theory where both length scales emerge as part of the same evolutionary process of shearing the host rock. We highlight the important role of any type of solid-fluid phase transitions that govern the second degree localisation process in the core of the shear zone. In both brittle and ductile shear zones, chemistry stops the localisation process caused by a multiphysics feedback loop leading to an unstable slip. The microstructural evolutionary processes govern the time-scale of the transition between slow background shear and fast, intermittent instabilities in the fault zone core. The fast cataclastic fragmentation processes are limiting the rates of forming the ultracataclasites in the brittle domain, while the slow dynamic recrystallisation prolongs the transition to ultramylonites into a slow slip instability in the ductile realm.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Tippabust Eksangsri , Thanon Jaiwang Water reuse for final cleaning process in electronic industry is evaluated. The target factory produces flexible printed circuit boards, which are washed with purified deep-well water as a final process before packaging. Survey of water consumption and its quality was conducted. Feasibility study aims to find the suitable schemes the factory can apply to the real practice when the water consumption rate for final cleaning process increases, with a few conditions that need to be concerned. Material flux analysis and economical evaluation are also performed. It is found that the water needs to be treated before reusing due to the conductivity and LPC that are too high. It is, therefore, suggested that the reused water recharged to both RO unit and ion- exchanger at a suitable ratio. The most attractive alternative in term of both technical and economical aspects is when the recharged ration is 30:70. Raw water consumption can be saved up to 19,760 m 3 per year and the investment can be paid off within 2 years.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): B.C. McLellan , G.D. Corder , A. Golev , S.H. Ali Rare Earths have been of considerable interest in recent years for a variety of reasons, in particular due to concerns over the security of supply for modern high efficiency electronics and energy technologies. Such concerns have placed them among the list of “critical” or “strategic” elements in countries such as the United States of America, the European Union, Japan and even in the largest producer and holder of reserves, China. Focus has been given to the environmental impacts of production, and on the distribution of reserves and politico-economic conflict over supply, but international academic work quantifying these impacts is lacking. Moreover, broader consideration of sustainability impacts and benefits in a systematic manner – particularly in regard to the social impacts of RE extraction, processing and utilisation – is not yet apparent. This paper undertakes a review of the literature and state-of-play of sustainability assessment of rare earth elements. Furthermore, the paper highlights areas of sustainability research considered by academic and industrial representatives to be essential for filling these gaps, and a pathway forward towards a more sustainable rare earths industry.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Fathonatu Anisa Khowatimy , Yoga Priastomo , Erna Febriyanti , Harkam Riyantoko , Wega Trisunaryanti The study of waste lubricant hydrocracking into gasoline and diesel fraction using the combination of Y-Zeolite and ZnO (Y-Zeolite/ZnO) catalyst has been conducted. The hydrocracking of waste lubricant was carried out in a semi-flow stainless steel reactor system (i.d = 3.78 cm; l = 30 cm) with hydrogen stream (20 mL/min) at 573, 623, and 673 K. The characterization of catalysts including crystallinity was analysed by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), the amount of total acid site was determined by gas sorption method, the surface area was measured by BET method, and the morphology of the catalyst was analyzed by Transmission Electron Micrograph (TEM). The activities of catalyst including total convertion, liquid and gas product (yield), and selectivity for gasoline and diesel fractions were evaluated. Total convertion was defined as (100–residue)%. The liquid product was collected and analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and flame test. The characterization using XRD showed that ZnO could be rested upon the Y-Zeolite by wetblending. The amount of total acid sites of the Y-Zeolite/ZnO was higher than the constituent material. The highest total convertion of the lubricant using the Y-Zeolite/ZnO was 99.49 wt.% while the Y-Zeolite was 99.10 wt.% at 623 K and without catalyst (thermal hydrocracking) was 98.99 wt.% at 673 K. The highest liquid product at 623 K was achieved by the Y-Zeolite/ZnO catalyst (24.75 wt.%) with the selectivity for gasoline and diesel fractions was 25.92 and74.08%.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Danang Sudarwoko Adi , Lucky Risanto , Ratih Damayanti , Sri Rullyati , Listya M. Dewi , Ruliyana Susanti , Wahyu Dwianto , Euis Hermiati , Takashi Watanabe Fast growing wood species has become more promising as alternative wood sources to solve the gap between wood demand and supply. In this study, we focus on their fiber characteristicsand the wood density to determine their potential utilization. Thirty fast growing species were taken from secondary forest at PT Sari BumiKusuma, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Several hardwood and softwood species, which are commonly used in pulp and paper industries, were used as a comparison.The result showed that these species are low to high density (0.18-0.86). It is interesting to note that the fiber lengths of the 5 wood species were greater than commonly hardwoods, and similar with fiberlengths of softwoods. The fibers of the woods have good runkle ratio and the flexibility values. There were 7 potential species to be used as alternative wood material for pulp and paper: Endospermumdiadenum , Dillenia sp., Adinandradumosa , Adinandra sp., Naucleajunghuhnii , Neonaucleagigantea and Ficusfulva .

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): I. Nengah Suwastika , Ryosuke L. Ohniwa , Kunio Takeyasu , Takashi Shiina The Obg/Era proteins of P-loop GTPase superclass are conserved in various prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Some of these proteins are critical regulators of many aspects of basic cellular processes, including ribosome biogenesis, translation and signal transduction. However, a genome-wide overview of the Obg/Era GTPase genes in plants is not available. Recent ly studies on comprehensive genomic analyses of Arabidopsis thaliana identified 11 Obg-Hflx like GTPase genes that are divided into nine families/subfamilies: Archaea -related Drg and Nog1 , and Eubacteria -related Obg, EngB, HflX, Era, TrmE, EngA , and EngD . In this study we found that Arabidopsis has 3 (three) Drg homologue proteins, namely AtDrg1-1 , AtDrg1-2 and AtDrg1-3 . Subcellular localization analysis of Arabidopsis Obg-Hflx homologues revealed that Archaea -derived Drg proteins are mainly targeted to cytoplasm, except Drg1-3 was detected not only in cytoplasm but also in nucleus. Furthermore, based on expression pattern profiling indicates that Drg1-1 and Drg1-2 were expressed constitutively trough plant development. On the other hand, Drg1-3 was detected in dry seed and under stress plant.

Description: Publication date: 2014 Source: Procedia Environmental Sciences, Volume 20 Author(s): Erna Wati Ibnu Hajar , Ahmad Ziad Bin Sulaiman , A.M. Mimi Sakinah Stevia has become rather widespread over a wide range of climatic locations around the world and can apparently be successfully grown under different cultivation conditions. Heavy metal accumulation of Stevia extract is dependent on obtaining heavy metals from the soil and water. Heavy metals from plant sources may also vary from place to place because soil heavy metals content varies geographically, thus, they have become the subject of many research projects. Stevia plant is easily contaminated during growth, development and processing and for this, an extensive research is needed to explore the characteristics of the heavy metal produced by the plant. The heavy metals produced from the herb and its toxicity of Stevia plant is not well documented and scientific evidence is limited to establishing Stevia plant as a medicinal plant. The samples were collected from Malacca, Malaysia. The fresh leaves, stems and flowers of the Stevia rebaudiana plant were dried using oven equipment and were grinded until fine to make powder and then of each extracted using Microwave digester. The analysis of samples was carried out by using an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass-Spectrophotometer (ICP-MS) with different mode equipment to compare results of heavy metals in Stevia rebaudiana plant. Heavy metal accumulation in Stevia rebaudiana from leaves, stems, and flowers extraction is reported. Heavy metals in leaves, stems and flowers of Stevia rebaudiana presented variety of elements such as As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Pb, Se, Zn, Al, Ag, Co, Ca, Mn and Ni. The high tolerance to heavy metals in leaves, stems, and flowers of Stevia rebaudiana were presented at fifteen parameters below the permissible limit in plant and can be used as food product or therapeutic agent in traditional medicine.

Description: We investigated the frequency-dependent attenuation of the crust in Eastern Iran by analysis data from 132 local earthquakes having focal depths in the range of 5–25 km. We estimated the quality factor of coda waves ( Q c ) and body waves ( Q p and Q s ) in the frequency band of 1.5–24 Hz by applying the single backscattering theory of S-coda envelopes and the extended coda-normalization method, respectively. Considering records from recent earthquakes (Rigan M w 6.5, 2010/12/20, Goharan M w 6.2, 2013/5/11 and Sirch M w 5.5, 2013/1/21), the estimated values of Q c , Q p and Q s vary from 151 ± 49, 63 ± 6, and 93 ± 14 at 1.5 Hz to 1,994 ± 124, 945 ± 84 and 1,520 ± 123 at 24 Hz, respectively. The average frequency-dependent relationships ( Q  =  Q o f n ) estimated for the region are Q c  = (108 ± 10) f (0.96±0.01) , Q p  = (50 ± 5) f (1.01±0.04) , and Q s  = (75 ± 6) f (1.03±0.06) . These results evidenced a frequency dependence of the quality factors Q c , Q p , and Q s , as commonly observed in tectonically active zones characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity, and the low value of Q indicated an attenuative crust beneath the entire region.

Description: Seismic design of concrete structures is currently based on time-invariant capacity design criteria which do not account for environmental hazards. The significant progressive decay of strength and ductility of concrete structures exposed to damage, in particular due to reinforcing steel corrosion, shows that this approach should be revised to consider the deterioration over time of the seismic performance. This is important also for precast systems, for which most of structural members are often directly exposed to the atmosphere and environmental aggressiveness. This paper presents a probabilistic approach for the lifetime assessment of seismic performance of concrete structures considering the interaction of seismic and environmental hazards. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown by its application to multistory precast buildings exposed to corrosion. The results show that structures designed for the same seismic action could have different lifetime seismic performance depending on the environmental exposure. These results emphasize the importance of a life-cycle approach to both seismic assessment of existing buildings and seismic design of new structures, and indicate that capacity design criteria need to be properly revised to consider the severity of the environmental exposure.

Description: Liquefaction or cyclic softening from earthquake shaking have caused significant damage of buildings with shallow foundations. In recent earthquakes, buildings have punched into, tilted excessively, and slid laterally on liquefied/softened ground. The state-of-the-practice still largely involves estimating building settlement using empirical procedures developed to calculate post-liquefaction, one-dimensional, consolidation settlement in the “free-field” away from buildings. Performance-based earthquake engineering requires improved procedures, because these free-field analyses cannot possibly capture shear-induced and localized volumetric-induced deformations in the soil underneath shallow foundations. Recent physical and numerical modeling has provided useful insights into this problem. Centrifuge tests revealed that much of the building movement occurs during earthquake strong shaking, and its rate is dependent on the shaking intensity rate. Additionally, shear strains due to shaking-induced ratcheting of the buildings into the softened soil and volumetric strains due to localized drainage in response to high transient hydraulic gradients are important effects that are not captured in current procedures. Nonlinear effective stress analyses can capture the soil and building responses reasonably well and provide valuable insights. Based on these studies, recommendations for estimating liquefaction-induced movements of buildings with shallow foundations are made.

Description: A complex seismic sequence characterised by two thrust earthquakes of magnitudes M $_\mathrm{L}$ 5.9 and M $_\mathrm{L}$ 5.8 occurred on May 20 and 29, 2012, respectively, and activated the central portion of the Ferrara Arc structure beneath the Po Plain in northern Italy. The sequence, referred to as Emilia 2012, was recorded by the Italian Strong Motion Network, the Irpinia Network, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Network and 15 temporary stations installed by the Civil Protection Department. In this study, we compile and analyse a large dataset that contains 3,273 waveforms from 37 $M_\mathrm{L} \ge 4.0$ seismic events. The main aim of this paper is to characterise the ground motion induced by the Emilia 2012 seismic sequence and compare it with other data in the Italian strong motion database and to the recent Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs) developed for northern Italy, all of Italy and Europe. This is achieved by (1) the computation and analysis of the strong motion parameters of the entire Emilia Strong Motion Dataset (ESMD) and (2) a comprehensive investigation of the May 29 event recordings in terms of time–frequency analysis, the ground motion parameters and the response spectra. This detailed analysis was made possible by the temporary Civil Protection Department stations that were installed soon after the May 20 event at several municipalities in the epicentral area. Most of the recordings are characterised by low-frequency content and long durations, which is a result of the thick sedimentary cover that is typical of the Po Plain. The distributions of the observed horizontal peak ground accelerations and velocities (PGAs and PGVs) with distance are generally consistent with the GMPEs. This is particularly true for the data from M $_\mathrm{L} \ge $ 5.0 (M $_\mathrm{W}\ge $ 5.0) events, though the data are scattered at distances beyond approximately 60–70 km and show faster attenuation than the European GMPEs. The horizontal components for the May 29 event at two near-fault stations (Mirandola and San Felice sul Panaro) are overestimated by all of the analysed GMPEs. In contrast, the vertical components, which played an important role in the shaking near the source, are underestimated. The May 29 event produced intense velocity pulses on the horizontal components and the highest peak ground acceleration ever recorded in Italy on the vertical component of the Mirandola near-fault station. The ground motion recordings contained in the ESMD significantly enrich the Italian strong motion database. They contribute new information about (1) the possibility of exceeding the largest recorded PGA in Italy, (2) the development of a spectral design that takes into account the role of the vertical component and the extreme variability of the near-fault ground shaking, and (3) the characterisation of the ground motions in deep sedimentary basins.

Description: The prediction of non-linear seismic demand using linear elastic behavior for the determination of peak non-linear response is widely used for seismic design as well as for vulnerability assessment. Existing methods use either linear response based on initial period and damping ratio, eventually corrected with factors, or linear response based on increased equivalent period and damping ratio. Improvements to the original EC8 procedure for displacement demand prediction are proposed in this study. Both propositions may be graphically approximated, which is a significant advantage for practical application. A comparison with several other methods (equal displacement rule, EC8 procedure, secant stiffness and empirical equivalent period methods) is performed. The study is based on non-linear SDOF systems subjected to recorded earthquakes, modified to match design response spectra of different ground types, and focuses on the low frequency range that is of interest for most European buildings. All results are represented in the spectral displacement/fundamental period plane that highlights the predominant effect of the fundamental period on the displacement demand. This study shows that linearized methods perform well at low strength reduction factors but may strongly underestimate the displacement demand at strength reduction factors greater than 2. This underestimation is an important issue, especially for assessment of existing buildings, which are often related with low lateral strength. In such cases, the corresponding strength reduction factors are therefore much larger than 2. The new proposals significantly improve the reliability of displacement demand prediction for values of strength reduction factors greater than 2 compared to the original EC8 procedure. As a consequence, for the seismic assessment of existing structures, such as unreinforced masonry low-rise buildings, the current procedure of EC8 should be modified in order to provide accurate predictions of the displacement demand in the domain of the response spectrum plateau.

Description: An automated short-range forecasting system, adaptive blending of observations and model (ABOM), was tested in real time during the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in British Columbia. Data at 1-min time resolution were available from a newly established, dense network of surface observation stations. Climatological data were not available at these new stations. This, combined with output from new high-resolution numerical models, provided a unique and exciting setting to test nowcasting systems in mountainous terrain during winter weather conditions. The ABOM method blends extrapolations in time of recent local observations with numerical weather predictions (NWP) model predictions to generate short-range point forecasts of surface variables out to 6 h. The relative weights of the model forecast and the observation extrapolation are based on performance over recent history. The average performance of ABOM nowcasts during February and March 2010 was evaluated using standard scores and thresholds important for Olympic events. Significant improvements over the model forecasts alone were obtained for continuous variables such as temperature, relative humidity and wind speed. The small improvements to forecasts of variables such as visibility and ceiling, subject to discontinuous changes, are attributed to the persistence component of ABOM.

Description: The May 20, 2012, Emilia Ml 5.9 earthquake was followed by some major aftershocks, well recorded by a large number of temporary stations that were installed to monitor the sequence. These additional recordings allowed us a thorough testing of the performance of the ShakeMap—a procedure designed to provide rapid information on the experienced ground motion. We found that the shakemaps for the May 29, 2012, Ml 5.8 earthquake, obtained using the permanent stations only, underestimate significantly the ground motion computed with the highest station density, especially for PSA at long periods (T $=$ 3.0 s). This low-frequency motion is controlled primarily by the surface waves recorded in the Po plain: the observed site effects are likely not accounted properly by the site correction coefficient based on Vs30 as implemented in the ShakeMap procedure. The shakemaps determined during the seismic sequence have been included in an Italian national law that was passed after the 2012 earthquake. According to this law, the factories safety verifications were bound to the comparison between the shakemaps and the design acceleration required by the current national seismic code. We then decide to appraise the impact of the shakemap accuracy on the law provisions. Following the law recommendations, we have estimated the possible errors resulting from the incomplete evaluation of the ground shaking: our results show that, if the complete dataset were available at the time of the law approval, the number of buildings for which the safety check was required would have been significantly smaller.

Description: Because conventional observations over the oceans are not available, especially during tropical cyclones, multi-spectral atmospheric motion vectors (AMVs) estimated from geostationary satellites are routinely assimilated in the numerical weather prediction models at different operational centres across the globe. The derived AMVs are generally validated with radiosonde observations available over land at synoptic hours; however, over the ocean there is a limited scope to assess the quality of AMVs. Over ocean, AMVs can be validated with radiosonde data available from opportunistic ships or using dropsonde data available from aircrafts. In this study, the accuracy of the AMVs derived from the geostationary satellites Kalpana-1 and Meteosat-7 is evaluated over the oceanic region. Radiosonde data available from a ship cruise held in the Bay of Bengal during the period 09 July–08 August 2012 and from the Cal/Val site situated at Kavaratti Island (72.62°E, 10.57°N) in the southern Indian Ocean are used to assess the AMV accuracy. In this study, 83 radiosonde profiles are used to validate the Kalpana-1 AMVs, to allow a better understanding of AMV errors over the Indian Ocean. The RMSVD of Kalpana-1 AMVs for the high-, mid- and low-levels are found to be 7.9, 9.4 and 5.3 m s −1 , respectively, while the corresponding RMSVD for Meteosat-7 AMVs are 9.1, 5.5 and 3.7 m s −1 . A similar accuracy is observed when the AMVs are validated against the NCEP analyses collocated with the nearest radiosonde locations. The high RMSVD and bias for Kalpana-1 AMVs at the mid-level and Meteosat-7 AMVs at the high-level are associated with the limitation of satellite winds to resolve the upper-level easterly jet in conjunction with errors in the height assignment. This study could help the numerical modellers to assign appropriate observation error over this region during the assimilation of AMVs into the NWP models.

Description: A damage scenario modelling is developed and compared with the damage distribution observed after the 2011 Lorca earthquake. The strong ground motion models considered include five modern ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) amply used worldwide. Capacity and fragility curves from the Risk-UE project are utilized to model building vulnerability and expected damage. Damage estimates resulting from different combinations of GMPE and capacity/fragility curves are compared with the actual damage scenario, establishing the combination that best explains the observed damage distribution. In addition, some recommendations are proposed, including correction factors in fragility curves in order to reproduce in a better way the observed damage in masonry and reinforce concrete buildings. The lessons learned would contribute to improve the simulation of expected damages due to future earthquakes in Lorca or other regions in Spain with similar characteristics regarding attenuation and vulnerability.

Description: We observe fault zone head waves (FZHW) that are generated by and propagate along a roughly 80 km section of the Hayward fault in the San Francisco Bay area. Moveout values between the arrival times of FZHW and direct P waves are used to obtain average P-wave velocity contrasts across different sections of the fault. The results are based on waveforms generated by more than 5,800 earthquakes and recorded at up to 12 stations of the Berkeley digital seismic network (BDSN) and the Northern California seismic network (NCSN). Robust identification of FZHW requires the combination of multiple techniques due to the diverse instrumentation of the BDSN and NCSN. For single-component short-period instruments, FZHW are identified by examining sets of waveforms from both sides of the fault, and finding on one (the slow) side emergent reversed-polarity arrivals before the direct P waves. For three-component broadband and strong-motion instruments, the FZHW are identified with polarization analysis that detects early arrivals from the fault direction before the regular body waves which have polarizations along the source-receiver backazimuth. The results indicate average velocity contrasts of 3–8 % along the Hayward fault, with the southwest side having faster P wave velocities in agreement with tomographic images. A systematic moveout between the FZHW and direct P waves for about a 80 km long fault section suggests a single continuous interface in the seismogenic zone over that distance. We observe some complexities near the junction with the Calaveras fault in the SE-most portion and near the city of Oakland. Regions giving rise to variable FZHW arrival times can be correlated to first order with the presence of lithological complexity such as slivers of high-velocity metamorphic serpentinized rocks and relatively distributed seismicity. The seismic velocity contrast and geological complexity have important implications for earthquake and rupture dynamics of the Hayward fault, including a statistically preferred propagation direction of earthquake ruptures to the SE.

Description: We investigate spatio-temporal properties of earthquake patterns in the San Jacinto fault zone (SJFZ), California, between Cajon Pass and the Superstition Hill Fault, using a long record of simulated seismicity constrained by available seismological and geological data. The model provides an effective realization of a large segmented strike-slip fault zone in a 3D elastic half-space, with heterogeneous distribution of static friction chosen to represent several clear step-overs at the surface. The simulated synthetic catalog reproduces well the basic statistical features of the instrumental seismicity recorded at the SJFZ area since 1981. The model also produces events larger than those included in the short instrumental record, consistent with paleo-earthquakes documented at sites along the SJFZ for the last 1,400 years. The general agreement between the synthetic and observed data allows us to address with the long-simulated seismicity questions related to large earthquakes and expected seismic hazard. The interaction between m  ≥ 7 events on different sections of the SJFZ is found to be close to random. The hazard associated with m  ≥ 7 events on the SJFZ increases significantly if the long record of simulated seismicity is taken into account. The model simulations indicate that the recent increased number of observed intermediate SJFZ earthquakes is a robust statistical feature heralding the occurrence of m  ≥ 7 earthquakes. The hypocenters of the m  ≥ 5 events in the simulation results move progressively towards the hypocenter of the upcoming m  ≥ 7 earthquake.

Description: The boundary between the Pacific and North America plates along Canada’s west coast is one of the most seismically active regions of Canada, and is where Canada’s two largest instrumentally recorded earthquakes have occurred. Although this is a predominantly strike-slip transform fault boundary, there is a component of oblique convergence between the Pacific and North America plates off Haida Gwaii. The 2012 M w 7.7 Haida Gwaii earthquake was a thrust event that generated a tsunami with significant run up of over 7 m in several inlets on the west coast of Moresby Island (several over 6 m, with a maximum of 13 m). Damage from this earthquake and tsunami was minor due to the lack of population and vulnerable structures on this coast.

Description: This study attempts to propose dynamic centrifuge model tests as a method of seismic risk assessment in order to discover how stone architectural heritages with masonry structures have endured seismic load, and whether there is any possibility of future earthquake damage. Dynamic centrifuge tests have been conducted for one fifteenth scale models of Seok-ga-tap and the five-storey stone pagoda of Jeongnimsa temple site, which are Korean representative stone pagodas. In order to make input motions of the earthquake simulator, site investigation and site-specific response analysis have been performed. The models of two stone pagodas, which have the same number of pieces with the real structures, have been produced and the dynamic centrifuge tests have been conducted for the model pagodas. Accelerometers were attached at different heights of the pagoda. The measured acceleration records and frequency responses were analysed during dynamic centrifuge test. Two real earthquake records, Hachinohe and Ofunato earthquakes and a sweeping signal with ranged frequency were utilised for input motions of dynamic centrifuge tests to evaluate the behaviour of the stone pagodas. For Seok-ga-tap models, it was observed that acceleration tends to be amplified with height. The third floor body shows at most 2.5 amplification of acceleration in comparison to the surface ground. The amplification was at a frequency of 3.83 Hz and it was considered as the natural frequency of the pagoda. For the five-storey stone pagoda, the seismic wave energy significantly reduced while it passed the first body floor, and then the peak acceleration was gradually amplified upwards. It was found that the pagodas did not collapse when the peak acceleration of ground surface was raised to 0.4 g. Given that the maximum design seismic acceleration specified in Korean seismic design guide is 0.22 g and the amplification ratio of peak acceleration in the supporting ground of the pagodas ranges from 1.45 to 1.74, it can be shown that the two pagodas are stable against 2400-year return period earthquake level, and have excellent seismic performance.

Description: Modern design standards for reinforced concrete (r.c.) buildings allow the achievement of ductile structures, able to globally dissipate seismic energy through the development of plastic deformations located in the dissipative regions (i.e. plastic hinges). The hysteretic capacity of r.c. structures is related to the ability of reinforcing steel bars to sustain many cycles of high plastic deformations without the exhibition significant decrease of strength and stiffness; this condition, typically due to cyclic/seismic action, shall be widely investigated in order to obtain a full and detailed knowledge of the structural behaviour of modern r.c. buildings. In the present paper, elaborated inside the European research project “Rusteel”, the evaluation of the seismic ductile demand on steel reinforcing bars due to real earthquake events was carried out. Representative r.c. case study buildings were designed following the actual European and Italian prescriptions and analyzed using the Incremental Dynamic Analysis technique for the assessment of the behaviour under real seismic events. The elaboration of a simplified mechanical model for the steel reinforcing bars, calibrated on the basis of experimental monotonic and cyclic tests, allowed the evaluation of the effective level of deformation and energy dissipation required by earthquakes and the assessment of the ability of the actual European production to satisfy the effective seismic ductile requirements.

Description: The earthquake of June 20, 1978 (M6.5) near Thessaloniki, Greece, and the abundant information on damage distribution provided researchers with an opportunity for a more detailed study of earthquake effects. The damage on buildings caused by that earthquake was recorded in several ways. In this paper two of them will be presented and discussed: First, the use of questionnaires filled in by citizens and second, the in situ inspection of the buildings by a team of expert engineers, enriched by data of retrofitting costs, where available. In the current study, the damage data derived from the questionnaires are compared against the ones given by the engineers after they have been both converted to the European Macroseismic Scale 1998 (EMS-98) Damage Grades. It is observed that for EMS-98 damage grades equal and larger than 2 the questionnaire method overestimates damage while for lower grades both approaches provide comparable results.

Description: 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.

Description: We present a closed-form frequency-wave number ( ω  –  k ) Green’s function for a layered, elastic half-space under SH wave propagation. It is shown that for every ( ω  –  k ) pair, the fundamental solution exhibits two distinctive features: (1) the original layered system can be reduced to a system composed by the uppermost superficial layer over an equivalent half-space; (2) the fundamental solution can be partitioned into three different fundamental solutions, each one carrying out a different physical interpretation, i.e., an equivalent half-space, source image impact, and dispersive wave effect, respectively. Such an interpretation allows the proper use of analytical and numerical integration schemes, and ensures the correct assessment of Cauchy principal value integrals. Our method is based upon a stiffness-matrix scheme, and as a first approach we assume that observation points and the impulsive SH line-source are spatially located within the uppermost superficial layer. We use a discrete wave number boundary element strategy to test the benefits of our fundamental solution. We benchmark our results against reported solutions for an infinitely long circular canyon subjected to oblique incident SH waves within a homogeneous half-space. Our results show an almost exact agreement with previous studies. We further shed light on the impact of horizontal strata by examining the dynamic response of the circular canyon to oblique incident SH waves under different layered half-space configurations and incident angles. Our results show that modifications in the layering structure manifest by larger peak ground responses, and stronger spatial variability due to interactions of the canyon geometry with trapped Love waves in combination with impedance contrast effects.

Description: Two year measurements of aerosol concentration and size distribution (0.25 μm 〈  d  〈 30 μm) in the atmospheric surface layer, collected in L’Aquila (Italy) with an optical particle counter, are reported and analysed for the different modes of the particle size distribution. A different seasonal behaviour is shown for fine mode aerosols (largely produced by anthropogenic combustion), coarse mode and large-sized aerosols, whose abundance is regulated not only by anthropogenic local production, but also by remote natural sources (via large scale atmospheric transport) and by local sources of primary biogenic aerosols. The observed total abundance of large particles with diameter larger than 10 μm is compared with a statistical counting of primary biogenic particles, made with an independent technique. Results of these two observational approaches are analysed and compared to each other, with the help of a box model driven by observed meteorological parameters and validated with measurements of fine and coarse mode aerosols and of an atmospheric primary pollutant of anthropogenic origin (NO x ). Except in winter months, primary biogenic particles in the L’Aquila measurement site are shown to dominate the atmospheric boundary layer population of large aerosol particles with diameter larger than 10 μm (about 80 % of the total during summer months), with a pronounced seasonal cycle, contrary to fine mode aerosols of anthropogenic origin. In order to explain these findings, the main mechanisms controlling the abundance and variability of particulate matter tracers in the atmospheric surface layer are analysed with the numerical box-model.

Description: Ambient noise measurements performed on the western flank of Mt. Etna are analyzed to infer the occurrence of directional amplification effects in fault zones. The data were recorded along short (〈500 m) profiles crossing the Ragalna Fault System. Ambient noise records were processed to compute the horizontal-to-vertical noise spectral ratio as a function of frequency and direction of motion. Wavefield polarization was investigated in the time–frequency domain as well. Peaks of the spectral ratios generally fall in the frequency band 1.0–6.0 Hz pointing out directional amplifications that are also confirmed by the results of the time–frequency analysis, the largest amplification occurring with high angle to the fault strike. A variation of the frequency of the spectral peak is observed between the two sides of the fault, possibly related to a damage fault asymmetry. Measurements performed several kilometers away from the fault zone do not show behavior that is as systematic as in the fault zone, and this suggests that the observed directional effects can be ascribed to the fault fabric. We relate the polarization effect to compliance anisotropy in the fault zone, where the presence of predominantly oriented fractures makes the normal component of ground motion larger than the transversal one. In order to test the direction and the type of fractures that are expected in the fault zone, we modeled the brittle deformation pattern of the investigated fault. Theoretical results are in good agreement with field observations of the fracture strike.

Description: This article documents the near-field effects of the largest tsunami of 2012 (globally), which occurred following Canada’s second-largest recorded earthquake, on a thrust fault offshore western Haida Gwaii on October 28 (UTC). Despite a lack of reported damaging waves on the coast of British Columbia (largest amplitudes were recorded in Hawaii), three field surveys in the following weeks and months reveal that much of the remote unpopulated, uninstrumented coastline of western Haida Gwaii was impacted by significant tsunami waves that reached up to 13 m above the state of tide. Runup exceeded 3 m at sites spanning ~200 km of the coastline. Greatest impacts were apparent at the heads of narrow inlets and bays on western Moresby Island, where natural and manmade debris with a clear oceanward origin was found on the forest floor and caught in tree branches, inferring flow depths up to 2.5 m. Bays that see regular exposure to storm waves were generally less affected; at these sites a storm origin cannot be ruled out for the debris surveyed. Logs disturbed from their apparent former footprints on the forest floor at the head of Pocket Inlet provide evidence of complex runup, backwash and oblique flow patterns, as noted in other tsunamis. Discontinuous muddy sediments were found at a few sites; sedimentation was not proportional to runup. Lessons learned from our study of the impacts of the Haida Gwaii tsunami may prove useful to future post-tsunami and paleotsunami surveys, as well as tsunami hazard assessments.

Description: Dispersion, attenuation and wavefronts in a class of linear viscoelastic media proposed by Strick and Mainardi (Geophys J R Astr Soc 69:415–429, 1982 ) and a related class of models due to Lomnitz, Jeffreys and Strick are studied by a new method due to the author. Unlike the previously studied explicit models of relaxation modulus or creep compliance, these two classes support propagation of discontinuities. Due to an extension made by Strick, either of these two classes of models comprise both viscoelastic solids and fluids. We also discuss the Andrade viscoelastic media. The Andrade media do not support discontinuity waves and exhibit the pedestal effect.

Description: Watermarks found during the post-event surveys of the 2011 Tohoku tsunami confirmed extreme runup heights at several locations along the central to northern part of the Sanriku coast, Japan. We measured the maximum height of nearly 40 m above mean sea level at a narrow coastal valley of the Aneyoshi district. Wave records by offshore GPS-buoys suggest that the remarkably high runup was associated with a leading, impulsive crest of the tsunami amplified by local bathymetry and topography. In order to elucidate the underlying amplification mechanism, we apply a numerical model to reproduce the measured distribution of tsunami heights along the target coastline. A series of numerical tests under different boundary conditions suggests that a spectral component with a dominant period of 4–5 min in the leading wave play a key role in generating the extreme runup. Further analyses focusing on the Aneyoshi district confirm that the short wavelength component undergoes critical amplification in a narrow inlet. Our findings highlight the importance of resolving offshore waveforms as well as local bathymetry and topography when simulating extreme runup events.

Description: Besides several thematic campaigns, utilizing a variety of platforms including satellites, ground-based networks have been established to improve our understanding of the role of aerosols in the changing monsoon climate. Two such widely known networks over the globe are ‘SKYNET’ and ‘AERONET’ with sun-sky radiometers as the principal equipment that characterizes aerosols and gases over different geographical locations under varied air mass conditions. Pune (18°43′N, 73°51′E, 559 m above mean sea level), a fast growing low-latitude, urban city in India, is one of the sites where Prede (POM-01L, SKYNET) and Cimel (CE-318, AERONET) Sun-sky radiometers have been in operation since 2004. These radiometers have been extensively used in several studies related to stand-alone and coupled aerosol-cloud-climate processes. The Prede instrument at this site is being augmented for the network of the Global Atmospheric Watch program of the World Meteorological Organization to facilitate data coordination through the World Data Center for Aerosols. The present study envisages understanding the response of atmospheric constituents, through simultaneous operation of the radiometers amongst others, for the rainfall activity over Pune during two contrasting monsoon years of 2008 (active, 98 % of long period average (LPA) rainfall over the whole country) and 2009 (weak, 78 % of LPA). The synthesis of data indicates that, apart from excellent agreement between the direct Sun observations, both radiometers capture well the monsoon features within the instrument density and efficacy of data retrieval algorithms involved. The meteorological fields from the ECMWF re-analysis and NOAA-HYSPLIT air-mass back-trajectory analysis during the study period have been utilized to explain the variations observed in the radiometer products.

Description: Strike–slip faults are a defining feature of plate tectonics, yet many aspects of their development and evolution remain unresolved. For intact materials and/or regions, a standard sequence of shear development is predicted from physical models and field studies, commencing with the formation of Riedel shears and culminating with the development of a throughgoing fault. However, for materials and/or regions that contain crustal heterogeneities (normal and/or thrust faults, joints, etc.) that predate shear deformation, kinematic evolution of strike–slip faulting is poorly constrained. We present a new plane-stress finite-strain physical analog model developed to investigate primary deformation zone evolution in simple shear, pure strike–slip fault systems in which faults or joints are present before shear initiation. Experimental results suggest that preexisting mechanical discontinuities (faults and/or joints) have a marked effect on the geometry of such systems, causing deflection, lateral distribution, and suppression of shears. A lower limit is placed on shear offset necessary to produce a throughgoing fault in systems containing preexisting structures. Fault zone development observed in these experiments provides new insight for kinematic interpretation of structural data from strike–slip fault zones on Earth, Venus, and other terrestrial bodies.

Description: Seismic wave propagation shows anisotropic characteristics in many sedimentary rocks. Modern seismic exploration in mountainous areas makes it important to calculate P wave travel times in anisotropic media with irregular surfaces. The challenges in this context are mainly from two aspects. First is how to tackle the irregular surface in a Cartesian coordinate system, and the other lies in solving the anisotropic eikonal equation. Since for anisotropic media the ray (group) velocity direction is not the same as the direction of the travel-time gradient, the travel-time gradient no longer serves as an indicator of the group velocity direction in extrapolating the travel-time field. Recently, a topography-dependent eikonal equation formulated in a curvilinear coordinate system has been established, which is effective for calculating first-arrival travel times in an isotropic model with an irregular surface. Here, we extend the above equation from isotropy to transverse isotropy (TI) by formulating a topography-dependent eikonal equation in TI media in the curvilinear coordinate system, and then use a fast sweeping scheme to solve the topography-dependent anisotropic eikonal equation in the curvilinear coordinate system. Numerical experiments demonstrate the feasibility and accuracy of the scheme in calculating P wave travel times in TI models with an irregular surface.

Description: The collision zone between the Arabian and Eurasian plates is one of the most seismically active regions. Northern Iraq represents the northeastern part of the Arabian plate that has a suture zone with the Turkish and Iranian plates called the Bitlis–Zagros suture zone. The orientations of the principal stress axes can be estimated by the formal stress inversion of focal mechanism solutions. The waveform moment tensor inversion method was used to derive a focal mechanism solution of 65 earthquakes with magnitudes range from 3.5 to 5.66 in the study area. From focal mechanism solutions, the direction of slip and the orientations of the moment stress axes ( P , N , and T ) on the causative fault surface during an earthquake were determined. The dataset of the moment stress axes have been used to infer the regional principal stress axes ( σ 1 , σ 2 , and σ 3 ) by the formal stress inversion method. Two inversion methods, which are the new right dihedron and the rotational optimization methods, were used. The results show that six stress regime categories exist in the study area. However, the most common tectonic regimes are the strike-slip faulting (43.94 %), unspecified oblique faulting (27.27 %), and thrust faulting (13.64 %) regimes. In most cases, the strike-slip movement on the fault surfaces consists of left-lateral (sinistral) movement. The normal faulting is located in one small area and is due to a local tensional stress regime that develops in areas of strike-slip displacements as pull-apart basins. The directions of the horizontal stress axes show that the compressional stress regime at the Bitlis–Zagros suture zone has two directions. One is perpendicular to the suture zone near the Iraq–Iran border and the second is parallel in places as well as perpendicular in others to the suture zone near the Iraq–Turkey border. In addition, the principal stress axes in the Sinjar area near the Iraq–Syria border have a E–W direction. These results are compatible with the tectonic setting of the Arabian–Eurasian continental collision zone and the anticlockwise rotation of the Arabian plate that is evidently responsible for the strike-slip displacements on fault surfaces.

Description: We incorporate body-wave arrival time and surface-wave dispersion data into a joint inversion for three-dimensional P-wave and S-wave velocity structure of the crust surrounding the site of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth. The contributions of the two data types to the inversion are controlled by the relative weighting of the respective equations. We find that the trade-off between fitting the two data types, controlled by the weighting, defines a clear optimal solution. Varying the weighting away from the optimal point leads to sharp increases in misfit for one data type with only modest reduction in misfit for the other data type. All the acceptable solutions yield structures with similar primary features, but the smaller-scale features change substantially. When there is a lower relative weight on the surface-wave data, it appears that the solution over-fits the body-wave data, leading to a relatively rough V s model, whereas for the optimal weighting, we obtain a relatively smooth model that is able to fit both the body-wave and surface-wave observations adequately.

Description: Post-tsunami field surveys in the Minami-Soma exclusion zone in the Fukushima Prefecture were delayed for 15 months after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. The area was subject to access restrictions until June 2012 due to high radiation levels caused by the meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant. The distribution of the measured tsunami heights is presented in combination with observed infrastructure damage. The enhanced tsunami heights in the areas along the shoreline are attributed to wave reflection, funneling and splash-up at cliffs and seawalls, as well as the increased flow resistance as the tsunami plowed through coastal pine-tree forests. Consequently, large tsunami heights exceeding 10 m were limited to areas within 500 m from the shoreline. Onshore profiles of the maximum inundation levels were dependent on inland topography: tsunami heights increased inland in steep V-shaped valleys, while decaying with inundation distance along flat coastal plains. Tsunami flood levels in the coastal plains are affected by the extent of seawall damage: coastal flood levels are higher behind completely destroyed seawalls than behind partially damaged coastal defenses. Remnant seawalls provided valuable lessons to be implemented in future designs of tenacious structures based on the Japanese concept of ‘nebari’ representing resiliency to endure tsunami overflow as the original design height is exceeded.

Description: We examine the one-dimensional direct current method in anisotropic earth formation. We derive an analytic expression of a simple, two-layered anisotropic earth model. Further, we also consider a horizontally layered anisotropic earth response with respect to the digital filter method, which yields a quasi-analytic solution over anisotropic media. These analytic and quasi-analytic solutions are useful tests for numerical codes. A two-dimensional finite difference earth model in anisotropic media is presented in order to generate a synthetic data set for a simple one-dimensional earth. Further, we propose a particle swarm optimization method for estimating the model parameters of a layered anisotropic earth model such as horizontal and vertical resistivities, and thickness. The particle swarm optimization is a naturally inspired meta-heuristic algorithm. The proposed method finds model parameters quite successfully based on synthetic and field data. However, adding 5 % Gaussian noise to the synthetic data increases the ambiguity of the value of the model parameters. For this reason, the results should be controlled by a number of statistical tests. In this study, we use probability density function within 95 % confidence interval, parameter variation of each iteration and frequency distribution of the model parameters to reduce the ambiguity. The result is promising and the proposed method can be used for evaluating one-dimensional direct current data in anisotropic media.

Description: In computational geodynamics, the Finite Element (FE) method is frequently used. The method is attractive as it easily allows employment of body-fitted deformable meshes and a true free surface boundary condition. However, when a Lagrangian mesh is used, remeshing becomes necessary at large strains to avoid numerical inaccuracies (or even wrong results) due to severely distorted elements. For this reason, the FE method is oftentimes combined with the particle-in-cell (PIC) method, where particles are introduced which track history variables and store constitutive information. This implies that the respective material properties have to be interpolated from the particles to the integration points of the finite elements. In numerical geodynamics, material parameters (in particular the viscosity) usually vary over a large range. This may be due to strongly temperature-dependent rheologies (which result in large but smooth viscosity variations) or material interfaces (which result in viscosity jumps). Here, we analyze the accuracy and convergence properties of velocity and pressure of the hybrid FE-PIC method in the presence of large viscosity variations. Standard interpolation schemes (arithmetic and harmonic) are compared to a more sophisticated interpolation scheme which is based on linear least squares interpolation for two types of elements ( $Q_1P_0$ and $Q_2P_{-1}$ ). In the case of a smooth viscosity field, the accuracy and convergence is significantly improved by the new interpolation scheme. In the presence of viscosity jumps, the order of accuracy is strongly decreased.

Description: A large horizontal loop located on the ground or carried by an aircraft are the most common sources of the transient electromagnetic method. Although topographical factors or airplane outlines make the loop of arbitrary shape, magnetic sources are generally represented as a magnetic dipole or a circular loop, which may bring about significant errors in the calculated response. In this paper, we present a method for calculating the response of a loop of arbitrary shape (for which the description can be obtained by different methods, including GPS localization) in air or on the surface of a stratified earth. The principle of reciprocity is firstly used to exchange the functions of the transmitting loop and the dipole receiver, then the response of a vertical or a horizontal magnetic dipole is calculated beforehand, and finally the line integral of the second kind is employed to get the transient response. Analytical analysis and comparisons depict that our work got very good results in many situations. Synthetic and field examples are given in the end to show the effect of loop geometry and how our method improves the precision of the EM response.

Description: We determined depth variation of the 410- and 660-km discontinuities beneath southeastern China by common-converted-point stacking of $\rm P$ -wave receiver functions of 121 permanent Chinese seismic stations. We then combined the results with seismic velocity variation to estimate temperature and water content variations in the mantle transition zone of the region. Previous tomographic studies have shown a stagnant slab in the mantle transition zone in eastern Asia that is connected to subduction of the western Pacific. Temperature variations obtained clearly outline the shape of the stagnant slab, with its western edge at 113.5 $^\circ$ E and the southern edge at 28.5 $^\circ$ N. The correlation between the location of the stagnant slab and surface tectonics suggests that the Cenozoic extension in eastern China is closely associated with the subduction of the western Pacific and its eastward migration. The water content of the stagnant slab is lower than in surrounding slabs, suggesting that the water has already been released from the subducting slab into the upper mantle.