1,721,055 research outputs found
A participatory system dynamics modeling approach to facilitate collaborative flood risk management: A case study in the Bradano River (Italy)
No full textParticipatory methods to support successful policy decisions regarding the complex and dynamic interactions of social, ecological, and physical processes involved in flooding must be simple, easy-to-use, and cost-efficient. Accordingly, a stepwise methodological framework based on causal loop diagrams (CLDs) was developed to address the challenge of context-sensitive initialization of key stakeholders in the collaborative flood risk management process. The methodology consists of five main stages: (i) problem definition, (ii) stakeholder analysis and identification of key groups, (iii) interviews with key stakeholders to construct individual CLDs, (iv) merging of individual CLDs to form a holistic qualitative model representing the entire system, and (v) implementation of an order-oriented reduction process to simplify the final merged CLD, thereby increasing understanding of the most important processes and feedbacks. The proposed approach for flood risk management was tested in a coastal area of southern Italy, a region historically affected by flood events. Given its simplicity, the proposed method was seen as a valuable tool to elicit and map mental models, especially when working with stakeholders who did not have prior modeling experience, i.e., farmers, agricultural companies, tourist complexes, and infrastructure authorities. Indeed, all stakeholders in the current study were able to understand the process and proposed different flood risk management policies, such as land-use changes, management of damage insurance payouts, floodplain activities, and improvement of public awareness. The proposed methodology overcame multiple barriers in initializing stakeholder engagement, including the technical focus of most flood management agencies, the additional cost and time requirements for stakeholder involvement, as well as institutional structures that impede collaborative management. Moreover, the results point to socio-economic aspects of flood risk management that have not been considered in previous modeling studies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Using FloodRisk GIS freeware for uncertainty analysis of direct economic flood damages in Italy
No full textThe considerable increase in flood damages in Europe in recent decades has shifted attention from flood protection to flood risk management. Assessments of expected damage provide critical information for flood risk management efforts. The evaluation of potential damages under different flood scenarios through quantification of their ability to provide relative short-, medium- and long-term risk reduction, supports decision-makers in discriminating among several alternative mitigation actions. End-users should be aware of, and knowledgeable about, the limitations and uncertainties of such analyses, as well-informed decisions regarding efficient and sustainable flood risk management will become increasingly relevant under future climate and socio-economic changes. In this context, a method was developed to identify and quantify the role of the input parameters in the uncertainty of the potential flood economic damage assessment in urban areas with low sloping/flat terrain and complex topography using a GIS-based, free and open-source software called Floodrisk. Sets of plausible input parameters for the model's two flood loss modelling subroutines (hydraulic modelling and damage estimation) were dynamically combined to quantify the contribution of their inner parameters to the total damage assessment uncertainty. To estimate the contributions of each input to overall model uncertainty, the combination of input parameters that minimized the error in the spatial distribution assessment of the extensive damages affecting (downtown) Albenga (Italy), enumerated after the historical Centa River flood of November 5, 1994, was taken as a reference. In this specific case, a high epistemic uncertainty for the damage estimation module was noted for the specific type and form of the damage functions used. In the absence of region-specific depth-damage functions, the vulnerability curves were adapted from a range of geographic and socio-economic studies. Given the strong dependence of model uncertainty and sensitivity to local characteristics, the epistemic uncertainty associated with the risk estimate was reduced by introducing additional information into the risk analysis. Implementing newly developed site-specific curves and a more detailed classification of the construction typology of the buildings at risk, led to a substantial decrease in modelling uncertainty, along with a decrease in the sensitivity of the flood loss estimation to the uncertainty in the depth-damage function input parameter. These findings indicated the need to produce and openly disseminate data in order to develop micro-scale risk analysis through site-specific vulnerability curves. Moreover, this study highlighted the urgent need for research on the development and implementation of methods and models for the assimilation of uncertainties in decision-making processes
Development and application of a decision support system for optimizing cropping patterns under saline agriculture conditions in Rechna Doab, Pakistan
No full textSecondary salinization processes in arid climates can be managed with effective policy decisions through stakeholder engagement. In developing countries such as Pakistan, effective management solutions also need to consider limited resources such as small land holdings, the poor economic status of farmers, and limited modeling and mathematical skills. This paper is part of a research project conducted to address such challenges via the development of a comprehensive but simple decision support system using a participatory modeling approach. The paper discusses the process of optimizing management on temporal and spatial scales with the consideration of soil salt balance, water availability, and market values of crops. Two major components of the system are: (i) a system dynamics model that describes socio-economic factors such as market values; and ii) a physically based model that simulates the salt balance in the root zone with conjunctive use of canal and tube well irrigation water. The integrated dynamic model was calibrated (R2 = 0.90) and validated (R2 = 0.82) against observed data sets of groundwater depth. Three policy decisions were examined: 1) Base case 2) Bioremediation by growing salt tolerant fodder such as Sudan grass; and 3) Optimum land allocation with different favorable crops (i.e. maximize crop returns while minimizing yield reduction due to salt and water stress). Bioremediation techniques are shown to be helpful in reducing the salt balance of the crop root zone in the long term. Optimizing cropping patterns are found to be effective as a short term solution, but this keeps on increasing the salt balance due to conjunctive water application
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe 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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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