117,600 research outputs found

    Impact of sea level rise and tidal effects on flux-controlled and partially isolated shallow aquifer on the southeast coast of India

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    A rise in sea level is the most important threat to the coastal aquifers in which the intensity of threat also depends on the local hydrogeological settings. The present study seeks to identify the impacts of sea level rise and tidal effects on the shallow and complex aquifer located south of Chennai, India. The aquifer geometry is isolated dune surfaces due to the presence of enclosing saline surface water. The freshwater is available as an elongated lens, and replenishment occurs by rainfall, with limited regional influx. Numerical simulation was carried out to understand the response of groundwater table to sea level rise until the year 2100. Initially, the tidal effects were investigated for the duration of 3 years. A sinusoidal fluctuation of groundwater table is noticed only in the northern part and the tidal impact seems infinitesimal because of steep hydraulic gradient in the south. Simulation of groundwater table without considering sea level rise predicts a decline in the elevation of groundwater table/freshwater lens by − 0.35 m in the dune surfaces. The simulation with reported sea level rise of 2 mm year −1 with the same rate of groundwater pumping results in a total increase of 0.5 m in groundwater table. The study infers that the tidal effects are high in the shallow groundwater gradient, and sea level rise will be beneficial to the isolated coastal freshwater aquifers by increasing the elevation of groundwater table/freshwater lens and further deepening the interface between seawater and freshwater

    A box-model approach for reservoir operation during extreme rainfall events: A case study

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    Extreme rainfall events in an urban area pose various challenges to the water resource managers in terms of flood mitigation, inundation, water conservation and harvesting for drinking water supply. The objective of this study is to apply the box-model approach to evaluate reservoir operation during extreme rainfall events. A large water supply reservoir in Chennai was chosen to carry out this study. A box model, based on input–output parameters, is proposed to simulate the reservoir operation and hydraulic behaviour. Hydrologic Engineering Centre-Hydrologic Modelling System (HEC-HMS) has been used to simulate the reservoir inflow hydrograph and to understand the run-off characteristics of the basin. Three extreme rainfall events occurred in past have been selected for the analysis. Three different scenarios have been framed to assess the reservoir performance. Reducing the initial storage to 50% and releasing water at the beginning of the event gives a possible solution for flood mitigation in reducing the outflow volume by 9–37% and delaying the time to peak by 1–6 h. Though the reduced outflow volume from this reservoir is less, it can help to mitigate the flood inundation to a significant extent. Thus the box-model approach presented here can be utilised as a simple tool to generate the various combinations of outflow hydrographs for any reservoir

    Groundwater management in alluvial, coastal and hilly areas

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    Groundwater plays a major role in the modern world being used for drinking, irrigation and industrial development. The increasing population and developments in agricultural and industrial sectors depends on groundwater as it is a reliable source, and so it leads to overexploitation of groundwater without due regard to the recharging capacity of the aquifers. Groundwater extraction from most of the aquifers around the world has exceeded its recharge capacity, and hence the water table has gone down drastically leading to adverse environmental consequences like land subsidence and water quality deterioration. A proper assessment of groundwater resource should be undertaken to ensure sustainable management of groundwater. Hence, the present study proposes empirical methods for the sustainable groundwater resource management in alluvial, coastal and hilly regions

    Impacts of regional climate model projected rainfall, sea level rise, and urbanization on a coastal aquifer

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    The objective of this study is to assess the impact of climate change induced rainfall, sea level rise, and urbanization on a fragile coastal aquifer. This study was carried out in one such an aquifer located in Southeast India. Downscaled climate projection was carried out using the regional climate model (RCM) with seven ensembles and the best matching ensemble for the study area has been taken to quantify the rainfall in future. The changes in land use and land cover were estimated using remote sensing techniques, and background information on sea level rise at local and regional scale were investigated. Numerical simulation of groundwater in this isolated coastal aquifer was carried out to understand the responses of the groundwater level to downscaled projected rainfall, sea level rise, expected urbanization, and their combinations until the year 2050. The RCM-projected rainfall shows a decline in the groundwater level and shrinking of the freshwater lens. However, the prediction for change in the groundwater level combined with sea level rise minimizing a decline in the groundwater level. The rapid changes in land use and land cover pattern as inferred by change detection were extended and examined in the aquifer’s future characteristics by increasing and decreasing groundwater pumping with RCM-projected rainfall recharge and with sea level rise. The results without considering sea level rise show that the aquifer undergoes degradation even if pumping is reduced by 10%. The simulation with sea level rise shows that the aquifer behaves better in maintaining freshwater lens even with 10% increase in groundwater pumping. Sea level rise prevents the availability of the freshwater lens by reducing groundwater decline caused by the reduced RCM-projected rainfall and predicted groundwater demand. Huge variation and seasonal fluctuation in the volume of outflow to the sea is noticed between north and south. Also, reduced outflow against a range of sea level rise confirms that the sea level rise in the study area will lessen the volume of outflow, will reduce the groundwater decline, and will allow an increase in groundwater level. On the other hand, the shrinking of area will decrease the freshwater volume and occurrence of reduced groundwater gradient against sea level rise will increase the possibility of seawater intrusion to pumping. The present study confirms that even with RCM-projected decrease in rainfall recharge, the increase in the sea level will help to prevent groundwater decline in this aquifer by controlling an elevation of the groundwater level. Meanwhile, it is reducing the volume of freshwater and increasing the possibility of further seawater intrusion. Hence, it is recommended to reduce the groundwater pumping from this aquifer

    Assessment of seawater mixing in a coastal aquifer by high resolution electrical resistivity tomography

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    Seawater intrusion is a major problem in urbanized coastal regions of India which is due to over exploitation of groundwater for various purposes. This study was carried out with the objective of assessing the zone of mixing between seawater and groundwater in the coastal aquifer in south of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India using high resolution electrical resistivity tomography. High resolution electrical resistivity tomography was carried out in five profiles perpendicular to the sea using IRIS make SYSCAL Pro-96 system with 2.5 m or 5 m inter-electrode separation. The maximum length of the profile was 170 m which resulted in a depth of investigation of 28.7 m. The apparent resistivity measured in this area varies from 0.3 ohm-m to 30,000 ohm-m. The apparent resistivity of saturated zone decreases towards the sea, indicating the influence of seawater. This was also confirmed by measuring the electrical conductivity of groundwater, which gradually increases from 156 μS/cm to 3430 μS/cm towards the sea. Further, the concentration profiles of electrical conductivity, sodium, chloride and chloride / bicarbonate ratio are compared with the high resolution electrical resistivity tomography profile. The distance of influence of seawater is comparatively high in northern part than in southern part of the area. The high resolution electrical resistivity tomography was effectively used to determine the effect of seawater mixing with groundwater. © IRSEN, CEERS, IAU

    Discrete Boltzmann Equation model of polydisperse shallow granular flows

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    A polydisperse shallow mixture consisting of N p solid phases (N p ≥ 1) and one fluid phase (the ambient fluid) is a reliable model for several industrial and environmental flows, as e.g. landslides, avalanches, debris flows and fluidized beds. The description and prediction of these flows is of primary importance, mainly with respect to the mitigation and protection from natural hazards. This paper is aimed at deriving the polydisperse shallow granular flow equations by depth-averaging mass and momentum equations of the mixture and at formulating an equivalent Discrete Boltzmann Equation (hereinafter DBE) model as solution method. The reason is the simplicity and the versatility of the DBE, which consists of a set of purely advective, linear, first order partial differential equations, whose numerical integration does not need sophisticated methods. Both 1D and 2D benchmarks, concerning with the propagation of discontinuities in three-phase shallow granular flows, are obtained by applying the finite differences Lax-Friedrichs (hereinafter LF) method to the polydisperse shallow granular flow equations. The overall agreement is good, showing that the DBE and the LF numerical results are equivalent

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Square Dancing with the Stars to Enhance Dynamic Hirschman Linkages?

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    In this Presidential Address, the author takes the reader on a reconnaissance of his life and time as a regional scientist. He points out scenery he found scintillating along the way, hoping that some may pick up the banner and chew on a few of the ideas for a while. He suggests a revisit to Albert O. Hirschman’s notion of key sectors and more empirical analysis related to Marcus Berliant’s and Masahisa Fujita’s notion of knowledge creation and transfer.Presidential Address, San Antonio, Texas, March 29, 2014 (53rd Meetings of the Southern Regional Science Association

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Letter from unknown writer to Jesse L. Boyce

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    Letter to Jesse L. Boyce from unknown author (possibly Jack) about the investigation into the powder magazine located in the Grand Canyon. Some personal news is included in the letter such as the writer's marriage to the daughter of C.A. Taylor, former Supervisor of Cochise County
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