This collection focuses on the development of novel approaches to address one of the most pressing challenges of civil engineering, namely the mitigation of natural hazards. Numerous engineering books to date have focused on, and illustrate considerable progress toward, mitigation of individual hazards (earthquakes, wind, and so forth.). The current volume addresses concerns related to overall safety, sustainability and resilience of the built environment when subject to multiple hazards: natural disaster events that are concurrent and either correlated (e.g., wind and surge); uncorrelated (e.g., earthquake and flood); cascading (e.g., fire following earthquake); or uncorrelated and occurring at different times (e.g., wind and earthquake). The authors examine a range of specific topics including methodologies for vulnerability assessment of structures, new techniques to reduce the system demands through control systems; instrumentation, monitoring and condition assessment of structures and foundations; new techniques for repairing structures that have suffered damage during past events, or for structures that have been found in need of strengthening; development of new design provisions that consider multiple hazards, as well as questions from law and the humanities relevant to the management of natural and human-made hazards.

This book introduces the underlying concepts of column dynamics and buckling, based on the latest state-of-the-art research on this innovative topic. It begins with a summary of the basic concepts behind column dynamics and buckling, before moving on to the models for studying dynamic buckling inside oil wells. Four models with increasing complexity are presented: columns without friction; columns with friction; columns inside slant wells; and columns inside offshore wells. Each model is divided into two cases, depending on whether the column is being tripped in or out. A case study is used to demonstrate these models and is further developed as each model is presented and explained. The results include comparisons between the models themselves, thus showing the implications of the adopted hypotheses of each. This book enables academic, industrial, and graduate student readers to fully understand the fundamentals of dynamic buckling and to further develop the presented models for their own research.

This book provides users, pump manufactures, engineers, researchers and students with extensive information about pump's behavior in reverse operation. It reports on cutting-edge methods for selecting the proper PAT and improving PAT's efficiency, discusses PAT's reliability, economic issues and environmental impact as well. The book describes in detail electromechanical equipment of PAT systems, their installation and operation, and gives important practical insight into the use of PAT in water transmission and distribution systems, as part of thermal power plants and cooling systems, in oil distribution systems and other systems as well. It reports on different types on PAT control modes as well as on numerical methods useful for PAT analysis and implementation. All in all, the book represents a comprehensive practice-oriented reference-guide to design engineers, as well as PAT general users and manufactures. It also provides researchers with extensive technical information on the use of PAT thus fostering new discussions and ideas to improve current methods and cope with future challenges.

This book presents selected mathematical problems involving the dynamics of a two-dimensional viscous and ideal incompressible fluid on a rotating sphere. In this case, the fluid motion is completely governed by the barotropic vorticity equation (BVE), and the viscosity term in the vorticity equation is taken in its general form, which contains the derivative of real degree of the spherical Laplace operator. This work builds a bridge between basic concepts and concrete outcomes by pursuing a rich combination of theoretical, analytical and numerical approaches, and is recommended for specialists developing mathematical methods for application to problems in physics, hydrodynamics, meteorology and geophysics, as well for upper undergraduate or graduate students in the areas of dynamics of incompressible fluid on a rotating sphere, theory of functions on a sphere, and flow stability.

Advances in Nonlinear Geosciences is a set of contributions from the participants of "30 Years of Nonlinear Dynamics" held July 3-8, 2016 in Rhodes, Greece as part of the Aegean Conferences, as well as from several other experts in the field who could not attend the meeting. The volume brings together up-to-date research from the atmospheric sciences, hydrology, geology, and other areas of geosciences and presents the new advances made in the last 10 years. Topics include chaos synchronization, topological data analysis, new insights on fractals, multifractals and stochasticity, climate dynamics, extreme events, complexity, and causality, among other topics.

This book sheds new light on improved methods for the study of the initiation and run-out of earthquake-induced landslides. It includes an initiation study method that considers tension-shear failure mechanism; an improved, rigorous, dynamic sliding-block method based on dynamic critical acceleration; and a run-out analysis of earthquake-induced landslides that takes account of the trampoline effect, all of which add to the accuracy and accessibility of landslide study. The book includes abundant illustrations, figures and tables, making it a valuable resource for those looking for practical landslide research tools.

This book provides an overview of arid and semi-arid lands conditions, their general characteristics, methods of management, conservation, exploitation and reclamation. It also focuses on how to utilize the potential of arid lands with the minimum manipulation and alteration. Arid and semi-arid areas represent a major part of natural ecosystems not only in Iran, but around the world, and mismanagement and inappropriate exploitation of these areas may lead to further gradual degradation. As such, an understanding of the characteristics of these areas is vital if they are to be conserved and reclaimed.

This book is the second volume of the proceedings of the 4th GeoShanghai International Conference that was held on May 27 - 30, 2018. This conference showcased the recent advances and technology in geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering and transportation engineering. This volume, entitled "Multi-physics Processes in Soil Mechanics and Advances in Geotechnical Testing", covers a wide range of topics in soil mechanics, focusing on the behaviours of partially saturated soils, combined effects of multi-physics processes in geological materials and systems, and emerging methods and techniques in geotechnical in-situ testing and monitoring. This book may benefit researchers and scientists from the academic fields of soil and rock mechanics, geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering, transportation engineering, geology, mining and energy, as well as practical engineers from the industry. Each of the papers included in this book received at least two positive peer reviews. The editors would like to express their sincerest appreciation to all of the anonymous reviewers all over the world, for their diligent work.

This book contains the scientific contributions to the 11th International Workshop on Bifurcation and Degradation in Geomaterials (IWBDG) held in Limassol-Cyprus, May 21-25, 2017. The IWBDG series have grown in size and scope, since their inception 30 years ago in Germany, covering more and wider areas of geomaterials and geomechanics research including modern trends. The papers cover a wide range of topics including advances in instabilities, localized and diffuse failure, micromechanical, multiscale phenomena, multiphysics modeling and other related topics. This volume gathers a series of manuscript by brilliant international scholars who work on modern recent advances in experimental, theoretical and numerical methods. The theoretical and applied mechanics are linked successfully with engineering applications in traditional and in emerging fields, such as geomechanics for the energy and the environment. The quality of the contributed papers has benefited from the peer review process by expert referees. This book can be used as a useful reference for research students, academics and practicing engineers who are interested in the instability and degradation problems in geomaterials, geomechanics, geotechnical engineering and other related applications.

This book is the third volume of the proceedings of the 4th GeoShanghai International Conference that was held on May 27 - 30, 2018. This volume, entitled "Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering" , covers the recent advances and technologies in rock mechanics and rock engineering. These papers are grouped in three categories: (1) Theoretical and numerical study of rock behaviours, (2) Experimental study of rock behaviours, and (3) Applications of rock mechanics and case studies. This volume presents the state-of-the-art theories, methodologies and findings in the related areas. The book may benefit researchers and scientists from the academic fields of rock mechanics and rock engineering, geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering, transportation engineering, geology, mining and energy, as well as practical engineers from the industry. Each of the papers included in this book received at least two positive peer reviews. The editors would like to express their sincerest appreciation to all of the anonymous reviewers all over the world, for their diligent work.

This book discusses in detail the science and morphology of powerful hurricane detection systems. It broadly addresses new approaches to monitoring hazards using freely available images from the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Sentinel-1 SAR satellite and benchmarks a new interdisciplinary field at the interface between oceanography, meteorology and remote sensing. Following the launch of the first European Space Agency (ESA) operational synthetic aperture radar satellite, Sentinel-1, in 2014, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data has been freely available on the Internet hub in real-time. This advance allows weather forecasters to view hurricanes in fine detail for the first time. As a result, the number of synthetic aperture radar research scientists working in this field is set to grow exponentially in the next decade; the book is a valuable resource for this large and budding audience.

This book provides state of the art coverage of important current issues in the analysis, measurement, and monitoring of the dynamic response of infrastructure to environmental loads, including those induced by earthquake motion and differential soil settlement. The coverage is in five parts that address numerical methods in structural dynamics, soil-structure interaction analysis, instrumentation and structural health monitoring, hybrid experimental mechanics, and structural health monitoring for bridges. Examples that give an impression of the scope of the topics discussed include the seismic analysis of bridges, soft computing in earthquake engineering, use of hybrid methods for soil-structure interaction analysis, effects of local site conditions on the inelastic dynamic analysis of bridges, embedded models in wireless sensor networks for structural health monitoring, recent developments in seismic simulation methods, and seismic performance assessment and retrofit of structures. Throughout, the emphasis is on the most significant recent advances and new material. The book comprises extended versions of contributions delivered at the DE-GRIE Lab Workshop 2014, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in November 2014.

In addition to describing core concepts and principles, this book reveals professional methodologies and tools used by national agencies and private corporations to predict sites' potential for wind and solar power generation. Each chapter focuses on a different issue, showing readers the corresponding methodology, as well as examples of how to apply the techniques described. These techniques are explained with step-by-step guides that demonstrate how environmental variables in complex terrains can be characterized and forecasted.The authors present an adaptive finite element mass-consistent model, which computes a diagnostic wind field in the three-dimensional area of interest using observed wind data from measurement stations - data which is then interpolated using a physical model of the wind field in the boundary layer. An ensemble method is presented based on the perturbation of the numerical weather prediction models' results. The book goes on to explain solar radiation characterization and forecasting. Solar radiation and electrical power generation temporal and spatial variability are discussed and modelled. Different statistical methods are presented in order to improve solar radiation forecasting using ground measurement, numerical weather predictions (NWPs) and satellite-derived data. This book is focused on both probabilistic and point forecast explaining different models and methodologies to improve the forecasting. The results obtained from various simulations around the world are presented in tables. Finally, the book explains a possible methodology to develop a Solar Map taking into account solar radiation, terrain surface conditions and cast shadows. As such, the book provides an overview of the concepts, principles and practices involved in the treatment of environmental variables related to solar radiation or wind fields, especially when complex terrains are involved, offering useful resources for students and researchers alike. It also equips professionals with the methodologies and tools needed to construct environmental variable maps and conduct forecasting for solar radiation and wind fields.

This book presents a new concept of General Systems Theory and its application to atmospheric physics. It reveals that energy input into the atmospheric eddy continuum, whether natural or manmade, results in enhancement of fluctuations of all scales, manifested immediately in the intensification of high-frequency fluctuations such as the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation and the El-Nino-Southern Oscillation cycles. Atmospheric flows exhibit self-organised criticality, i.e. long-range correlations in space and time manifested as fractal geometry to the spatial pattern concomitant with an inverse power law form for fluctuations of meteorological parameters such as temperature, pressure etc. Traditional meteorological theory cannot satisfactorily explain the observed self-similar space time structure of atmospheric flows. A recently developed general systems theory for fractal space-time fluctuations shows that the larger-scale fluctuation can be visualised to emerge from the space-time averaging of enclosed small-scale fluctuations, thereby generating a hierarchy of self-similar fluctuations manifested as the observed eddy continuum in power spectral analyses of fractal fluctuations. The interconnected network of eddy circulations responds as a unified whole to local perturbations such as global-scale response to El-Nino events. The general systems theory model predicts an inverse power law form incorporating the golden mean for the distribution of space-time fluctuation patterns and for the power (variance) spectra of the fluctuations. Since the probability distributions of amplitude and variance are the same, atmospheric flows exhibit quantumlike chaos. Long-range correlations inherent to power law distributions of fluctuations are identified as nonlocal connection or entanglement exhibited by quantum systems such as electrons or photons. The predicted distribution is close to the Gaussian distribution for small-scale fluctuations, but exhibits a fat long tail for large-scale fluctuations. Universal inverse power law for fractal fluctuations rules out unambiguously linear secular trends in climate parameters.

Dynamics of Civil Structures, Volume 2: Proceedings of the 35th IMAC, A Conference and Exposition on Structural Dynamics, 2017, the second volume of ten from the Conference brings together contributions to this important area of research and engineering. The collection presents early findings and case studies on fundamental and applied aspects of the Dynamics of Civil Structures, including papers on: Modal Parameter Identification Dynamic Testing of Civil Structures Control of Human Induced Vibrations of Civil Structures Model Updating Damage Identification in Civil Infrastructure Bridge Dynamics Experimental Techniques for Civil Structures Hybrid Simulation of Civil Structures Vibration Control of Civil Structures System Identification of Civil Structures

This book is the seventh volume of the proceedings of the 4th GeoShanghai International Conference that was held on May 27 - 30, 2018. This volume, entitled "Geoenvironment and Geohazards", presents the recent advances and technology in geoenvironmental engineering and geohazards. The state-of-the-art theories, methodologies and findings in the related topics are included. This book may benefit researchers and scientists from the academic fields of soil & rock mechanics, geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering, transportation engineering, geology, mining and energy, as well as practical engineers from the industry. Each of the papers included in this book received at least two positive peer reviews. The editors would like to express their sincerest appreciation to all of the anonymous reviewers all over the world, for their diligent work.

This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of the global health impacts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in ambient air, conducted on the basis of a high-resolution emission inventory, global chemical transport modeling, and probabilistic risk assessment. One of the main strengths of the thesis is the concentration downscaling process, which provides a linkage between emissions and exposure concentrations at a comparatively high resolution. Moreover, by focusing on individual susceptibility, the thesis proposes an instrumental revision of current risk assessment methodology and argues that, if individual susceptibility were not taken into consideration, the overall risk would be underestimated by 55% and the proportion of highly vulnerable populations would be underestimated by more than 90%.

This book consists of the articles from the special issue of "'Hot Spots' in the Climate System" in the Journal of Oceanography, Vol. 71 No. 5, 2015, comprising 9 chapters that cover a wide spectrum of topics. This spinoff book is a collection of papers on the scientific outcomes of a nationwide 5-year project funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and known internationally as the "Hot-Spot Project." The academic achievement of the project has gained international recognition, making substantial contribution to unveiling the climatic role of warm western boundary ocean currents, including the Kuroshio, and associated oceanic fronts characterized by sharp temperature gradients and active meso-scale oceanic eddies. Specifically, those warm currents may be called "hot spots" in the climate system, as they intensively release heat and moisture to the atmosphere, thereby acting to organize clouds and precipitation systems and set conditions favorable for recurrent development of storms. This spinoff is a unique collection of the outcome of the particular project. The collected papers cover a wide range of aspects of ocean-atmosphere interaction characteristic of the oceanic fronts and continental marginal seas, unveiled through observational, theoretical, analytical, and numerical investigations. Most of the readers of the book are assumed to be researchers and graduate students who study climate dynamics, physical oceanography, atmospheric science, and air-sea interaction.

This textbook covers the main applications of statistical methods in hydrology. It is written for upper undergraduate and graduate students but can be used as a helpful guide for hydrologists, geographers, meteorologists and engineers. The book is very useful for teaching, as it covers the main topics of the subject and contains many worked out examples and proposed exercises. Starting from simple notions of the essential graphical examination of hydrological data, the book gives a complete account of the role that probability considerations must play during modelling, diagnosis of model fit, prediction and evaluating the uncertainty in model predictions, including the essence of Bayesian application in hydrology and statistical methods under nonstationarity.The book also offers a comprehensive and useful discussion on subjective topics, such as the selection of probability distributions suitable for hydrological variables. On a practical level, it explains MS Excel charting and computing capabilities, demonstrates the use of Winbugs free software to solve Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) simulations, and gives examples of free R code to solve nonstationary models with nonlinear link functions with climate covariates.

This thesis focuses on the seismic response of piles in liquefiable ground. It describes the design of a three-dimensional, unified plasticity model for large post-liquefaction shear deformation of sand, formulated and implemented for parallel computing. It also presents a three-dimensional, dynamic finite element analysis method for piles in liquefiable ground, developed on the basis of this model,. Employing a combination of case analysis, centrifuge shaking table experiments and numerical simulations using the proposed methods, it demonstrates the seismic response patterns of single piles in liquefiable ground. These include basic force-resistance mode, kinematic and inertial interaction coupling mechanism and major influence factors. It also discusses a beam on the nonlinear Winkler foundation (BNWF) solution and a modified neutral plane solution developed and validated using centrifuge experiments for piles in consolidating and reconsolidating ground. Lastly, it studies axial pile force and settlement during post-earthquake reconsolidation, showing pile axial force to be irrelevant in the reconsolidation process, while settlement is process dependent.

This book presents conceptual and empirical discussions of adaptation to climate change/variability in West Africa. Highlighting different countries' experiences in adaptation by different socio-economic groups and efforts at building their adaptive capacity, it offers readers a holistic understanding of adaptation on the basis of contextual and generic sources of adaptive capacity. Focusing on adaptation to climate change/variability is critical because the developmental challenges West Africa faces are increasingly intertwined with its climate history. Today, climate change is a major developmental issue for agrarian rural communities with high percentages of the population earning a living directly or indirectly from the natural environment. This makes them highly vulnerable to climate-driven ecological change, in addition to threats in the broader political economic context. It is imperative that rural people adapt to climate change, but their ability to successfully do so may be limited by competing risks and vulnerabilities. As such, elucidating those vulnerabilities and sources of strength with regard to the adaptive capacities needed to support successful adaptation and avoid maladaptation is critical for future policy formulation. Though the empirical discussion is geographically based on West Africa, its applicability in terms of the processes, structures, needs, strategies, and recommendations for policy transcends the region and provides useful lessons for understanding adaptation broadly in the developing world.

The book contains solutions to fundamental problems which arise due to the logic of development of specific branches of science, which are related to pipeline safety, but mainly are subordinate to the needs of pipeline transportation. The book deploys important but not yet solved aspects of reliability and safety assurance of pipeline systems, which are vital aspects not only for the oil and gas industry and, in general, fuel and energy industries , but also to virtually all contemporary industries and technologies. The volume will be useful to specialists and experts in the field of diagnostics/ inspection, monitoring, reliability and safety of critical infrastructures. First and foremost, it will be useful to the decision making persons -operators of different types of pipelines, pipeline diagnostics/inspection vendors, and designers of in-line -inspection (ILI) tools, industrial and ecological safety specialists, as well as to researchers and graduate students.

This book aims to help plant breeders by reviewing past achievements, currently successful practices, and emerging methods and techniques. Theoretical considerations are also presented to strike the right balance between being as simple as possible but as complex as necessary. The United Nations predicts that the global human population will continue rising to 9.0 billion by 2050. World food production will need to increase between 70-100 per cent in just 40 years. First generation bio-fuels are also using crops and cropland to produce energy rather than food. In addition, land area used for agriculture may remain static or even decrease as a result of degradation and climate change, despite more land being theoretically available, unless crops can be bred which tolerate associated abiotic stresses. Lastly, it is unlikely that steps can be taken to mitigate all of the climate change predicted to occur by 2050, and beyond, and hence adaptation of farming systems and crop production will be required to reduce predicted negative effects on yields that will occur without crop adaptation. Substantial progress will therefore be required in bridging the yield gap between what is currently achieved per unit of land and what should be possible in future, with the best farming methods and best storage and transportation of food, given the availability of suitably adapted cultivars, including adaptation to climate change. My book is divided into four parts: Part I is an historical introduction; Part II deals with the origin of genetic variation by mutation and recombination of DNA; Part III explains how the mating system of a crop species determines the genetic structure of its landraces; Part IV considers the three complementary options for future progress: use of sexual reproduction in further conventional breeding, base broadening and introgression; mutation breeding; and genetically modified crops.

This edited volume sheds new light on the impact of rapid Land Use/Cover Changes (LU/CC) on greenhouse gases (GHG's) and aerosol emissions in South and Southeast Asia. Several countries in South/Southeast Asia have the highest population growth rates in the world, which is the main cause for LU/CC. Conversion of dense forests to agricultural areas and then to residential and urban areas is most commonly observed in South/Southeast Asian countries with a significant release of GHG's and aerosols. The book showcases several case studies on the use of remote sensing and geospatial technologies to quantify biomass burning and air pollution impacts, aerosol pollution, LU/CC, and impacts on ecosystem services. The book also includes articles on regional initiatives in research, capacity building, and training. The authors of this book are international experts in the field, and their contributions highlight significant drivers and impacts of air pollution in South/Southeast Asia. Readers will discover the latest tools and techniques, in particular, the use of satellite remote sensing and geospatial technologies for quantifying GHG's, aerosols and pollution episodes in this region.

This book features articles that analyze current agricultural issues and knowledge. It also proposes novel, environmentally friendly solutions that are based on integrated information from such fields as agronomy, soil science, molecular biology, chemistry, toxicology, ecology, economics and the social sciences.Coverage examines ways to produce food and energy in a sustainable way for humans and their children. Inside, readers will find articles that explore climate change, increasing food and fuel prices, poor-nation starvation, rich-nation obesity, water pollution, soil erosion, fertility loss, pest control and biodiversity depletion. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach, which seeks to limit negative impacts, sustainable agriculture treats challenges at their source. Because most societal issues are in fact intertwined, global, and fast-developing, sustainable agriculture will bring solutions that have the potential to build a more peaceful world. This book will help scientists, decision-makers, professors, farmers and politicians build safer agriculture, energy and food systems for future generations.