An alternative flood model calibration strategy for urban watersheds: the case study of Riohacha, Colombia

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (11) ◽  
pp. 2095-2105
Author(s):  
Antonio Krishnamurti Beleño de Oliveira ◽  
Osvaldo Moura Rezende ◽  
Matheus Martins de Sousa ◽  
Andrea Nardini ◽  
Marcelo Gomes Miguez

Abstract The city of Riohacha (Colombia) has a complex urban setting that, under the pressure of recurring intense rains, experiences increasing flood damage. With the aim of identifying a systemic solution to flood problems, a hydrodynamic mathematical modelling exercise was conducted. Within the modelling process, calibration and validation are two fundamental actions that must precede the use of the model. However, most of the river basins around the world lack hydrometeorological information, which is indispensable for the calibration process. This paper presents an original approach to collecting such information for the calibration process, based on interviewing inhabitants. The results of this effort were surprisingly good, when considering the kind of approximations involved in using people's answers as hard data. This encouraged us to promote it as a working solution for many other similar cases, which all suffer from lack of suitable data.

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-179
Author(s):  
Kanako Uzawa

This article illustrates living experiences of Ainu cultural practices by the students of Urespa. Urespa is a self-motivated, non-profit social initiative or association founded in 2010 by Professor Honda Yuko at Sapporo University with the aim of bringing Ainu and Wajin students together in a curriculum-based environment to co-learn the Ainu language and Ainu cultural practices. In the Ainu language, urespa means “growing together”. The article draws on the author’s fieldwork with Urespa in Sapporo, Hokkaido, in 2016 in focusing on a new way of practising Ainu culture in an urban setting in the 21st century. The article, therefore, focuses on Ainu cultural revitalisation, everyday cultural practices, and on how it plays out within Urespa in a context of decolonisation and self-determination in Japan.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charles Devenish

<p>Conceptualising sustainable development as that which seeks to achieve holistic well-being means that as a barrier to attaining and sustaining well-being, poverty takes on a similarly more broad definition. Within this framework it is proposed that the breakdown of community; the extinction of experience; degradation of the natural environment; and food insecurity are examples of poverty in the contemporary urban setting because they obstruct access to overall well-being. Through a case study of the Resource Centres for Urban Agriculture and Food Security - Cities Farming for the Future (RUAF-CFF) project being piloted in Surabhi Colony, Hyderabad, India, urban agriculture is assessed as a means of alleviating these diverse forms of poverty. While the findings indicate some success at the project level, urban agriculture's limited ability to address Hyderabad's more widespread and pressing problems - in particular its water scarcity - coupled with the form of development the city is taking means that it is unlikely urban agriculture will gain the institutional support necessary for its further spread throughout the city. Although such findings do not inspire hope for the future use of urban agriculture as a poverty alleviation strategy within Hyderabad, a number of issues are considered which suggest that urban agriculture should rather be supported for its ability to facilitate 'good change' in our urban centres.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28 ◽  

<p>The aim of this study is to achieve a greater insight regarding quiet areas in agglomerations and contribute to their identification. The small urban setting of Mytilene located in the island of Lesvos (North Aegean, Greece), was the case study of this research. The need to control and manage environmental noise has led to the implementation of legislation that in many cases overlooks the acoustic perception of individuals. Due to the fact that noise management efforts along with the promotion of quietness in agglomerations, concerns primarily the residents of the city under consideration, it was essential to practically involve them in the decision making process.&nbsp; Based on citizen science contribution, a number of “places” were highlighted. The “places” mentioned from this procedure were checked by means of acoustic measurements, concerning the noise levels that occurred within the 24h period. A novel method regarding the duration, repetition, check spot and the positioning of measurement was used, in order to calculate the day, evening and night period’s noise levels (L<sub>den</sub>). A performance matrix was then created in order to compare the results, in relation to acoustical, functional and visual criteria. Furthermore, in order to evaluate all the potential Quiet Areas in pairwise comparisons, an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was implemented. The provision of quietness, as a direct ecosystem service, is a major indicator of environmental quality. Additionally, the way that city inhabitants perceive their acoustic surroundings could determine the character of the landscape along with the quality of the soundscape and define the meaning of quietness that still remains vague. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Grelot ◽  
Marta Galliani ◽  
Pauline Bremond ◽  
Daniela Molinari ◽  
Lilian Pugnet ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;Since 2010, a national method is available in France for multi-criteria analysis of flood prevention projects. The method uses national damage functions to estimate losses to the different exposed items, including economic activities. Despite the business sector suffers significant losses in case of flood, flood damage modelling to businesses is less advanced than for other exposed sectors, as e.g. residential buildings. Reasons are many and include: the high variability of activities types composing this sector and then the difficulty of standardisation (above all when contents are considered), and the lack of data to understand and quantify damage and validate existing modelling tools. The collection of damage data in two case studies, in France and in Italy, and the collaboration between two research groups in the two countries allowed to study the applicability, the validity, and the transferability of the French damage functions for economic activities to Italy. Firstly, the functions were tested and validated in a French case study, i.e. the flood that affected the &amp;#206;le-de-France Region in 2016. This validation exercise faced the problem of working with few information about the identity of the activities, and propose a solution; moreover, it allowed to verify the actual availability of input data to implement the functions in France and pointed out the paucity of information to validate the methodology. Testing the functions in a foreign case study, i.e. the flood occurred in 2002 in Italy in the city of Lodi, allowed instead to verify the transferability of the method.&lt;/p&gt;


Rivista Tema ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol Vol.6 (2020) (N. 1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Dal Ri ◽  
Sara Favargiotti ◽  
Rossano Albatici

One of the key issues of the contemporary city is “urban voids”, characterized by disused buildings. Such spaces can be the starting point for a new urban setting, where the city reconnects to the rural environment. Vertical farming can be a new paradigm connecting these often-opposed concepts, bringing several advantages. This paper presents an experimental case study about a typical situation in a peripheral context of the city of Trento. An industrial building under decommissioning is restored as a vertical farm through a circular economy perspective, combining natural resources with ICT, consumption, and reuse processes. , ,


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10541
Author(s):  
David Matamoros ◽  
Mijail Arias-Hidalgo ◽  
Maria del Pilar Cornejo-Rodriguez ◽  
Mercy J. Borbor-Cordova

Urban flooding is a major problem in many coastal cities around the world, mainly caused by factors such as poor urban planning, outdated sewer capacity or high frequent extreme events. In developing countries such as Ecuador, lack of monitoring, financial constraints and absence of proper policies exacerbate flooding problems. The use of the Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) helped to identify zones that are flooded even with a 2-year precipitation event at Duran city. Since there are no flood monitoring stations across the study area, model calibration was performed against unofficial records (people complaints, media photographs, and water marks on walls). Model results fairly agreed with those unofficial record. However, a validation process is not achievable yet due to lack of enough flood data even in flood prone areas. To further increase city resilience, authorities and stakeholders should engage in climate actions to raise flood hazard-risk awareness, monitoring hydro-meteorological factors, complement drainage operations with nature-based solutions, and improve hydrodynamic modelling to develop a flood early warning system for the city.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charles Devenish

<p>Conceptualising sustainable development as that which seeks to achieve holistic well-being means that as a barrier to attaining and sustaining well-being, poverty takes on a similarly more broad definition. Within this framework it is proposed that the breakdown of community; the extinction of experience; degradation of the natural environment; and food insecurity are examples of poverty in the contemporary urban setting because they obstruct access to overall well-being. Through a case study of the Resource Centres for Urban Agriculture and Food Security - Cities Farming for the Future (RUAF-CFF) project being piloted in Surabhi Colony, Hyderabad, India, urban agriculture is assessed as a means of alleviating these diverse forms of poverty. While the findings indicate some success at the project level, urban agriculture's limited ability to address Hyderabad's more widespread and pressing problems - in particular its water scarcity - coupled with the form of development the city is taking means that it is unlikely urban agriculture will gain the institutional support necessary for its further spread throughout the city. Although such findings do not inspire hope for the future use of urban agriculture as a poverty alleviation strategy within Hyderabad, a number of issues are considered which suggest that urban agriculture should rather be supported for its ability to facilitate 'good change' in our urban centres.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-43
Author(s):  
Saras Ayu Faradita ◽  
Vinky Rahman

The fire incident in karaoke buildings in Indonesia which claimed many lives has occurred several times. According to the National Academy of Science US, the smoke toxins that come out of the fire disaster cause 50-80% of deaths. Refers to the data, it is necessary to check further about the building material response to fire during a fire incident. Masterpiece Signature Karaoke is a karaoke building that classified as large and magnificent in the city of Medan which has various material so that it is necessary to study the interior material as passive fire protection. The purpose is to find out how to assess the reliability of fire passive protection regard to the interior materials and recommendations or descriptions of right interior material planning using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). This method is efficacious to solve the problem of reliability in using interior materials as passive fire protection in Masterpiece Signature Family KTV Medan building with the results of an Adequate Level of reliability. Then, design recommendations were given for the use of interior materials in karaoke building to improve the reliability results to be better.The results are useful as information for other researchers and karaoke buildings regarding passive fire protection systems at the Masterpiece Signature Family KTV Medan.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Apgar

As destination of choice for many short-term study abroad programs, Berlin offers students of German language, culture and history a number of sites richly layered with significance. The complexities of these sites and the competing narratives that surround them are difficult for students to grasp in a condensed period of time. Using approaches from the spatial humanities, this article offers a case study for enhancing student learning through the creation of digital maps and itineraries in a campus-based course for subsequent use during a three-week program in Berlin. In particular, the concept of deep mapping is discussed as a means of augmenting understanding of the city and its history from a narrative across time to a narrative across the physical space of the city. As itineraries, these course-based projects were replicated on site. In moving from the digital environment to the urban landscape, this article concludes by noting meanings uncovered and narratives formed as we moved through the physical space of the city.


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