The Impact of Satellite Communications on Environmental Hazard Control: Tool for the Realization of African Union Agenda 2063 Aspirations

Africa is a developing economy and as such, emphasis has been placed on the achievement of revolutionary goals that will place her on a similar rank as the developed economies. Pertaining to this objective, Heads of States and government all over Africa instigated the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063, which is a framework put in place to achieve a continental transformation over the next 40 years. The use of satellites has been proven to be a major influence on economic growth since it facilitates the exchange of information. Environmental hazards such as climate changes, pollution, and inefficient waste management can be classified as one of the drawbacks to achieving this economic growth we hope to accomplish. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and examine satellite communication as a tool for the attainment of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa by means of combatting environmental hazards in the continent.

Decision-making under uncertainty for buildings exposed to environmental hazards

Buildings are exposed to risks from environmental hazards such as earthquakes,windstorms and floods.Sub-stantial uncertainties from various sources are inevitably involved in the risk estimation and decision-making for activities such as design and disaster risk mitigation for buildings.Decision makers seek to achieve economic efficiency while ensure building safety by managing the extreme tail risk that is typically a concern when facing low-probability,high-consequence events.Thus,risk preferences and tolerances play an important role in the decision process,which often vary among different decision makers.The conventionally used minimum expected life-cycle cost criterion(MELC)fails to adequately cope with large uncertainty and risk preferences.To this end,this paper presents the application of a set of decision models beyond the MELC to support decision-making under uncertainty for buildings exposed to environmental hazards.The objective is to provide risk-informed de-cision support for decision-makers with a wide range of risk appetites while taking into account uncertainties involved in the life-cycle cost.The features,strengths and weaknesses of these decision models are discussed from a practical point of view.The application and selection of the decision models are demonstrated by two practical decision problems:(i)seismic design of a high-rise commercial building,and(ii)wind hazard mitigation for a low-rise residential building.These examples illustrate how the decisions for choosing seismic design levels and wind mitigation measures vary when different decision models and model settings are applied.

Relationships between Potential Risk of Hazardous Material Releases and Socio-Economic Demographic Characteristics Using Geospatial Analysis

The problem investigated in this research is about the potential risk of technological hazards, which poses a perilous threat to humankind and the environment. Rapid urbanization has been increasing the population density in an area, elevating the risk of exposure to technological disasters. Therefore, it is necessary to detect the areas with higher chemical risk to spread awareness about the potential risk zones and reduce actual damage and casualties resulting from the hazardous substance events. The basic design of the study utilizes geospatial analysis to map the TRI (Toxics Release Inventory) facilities in the communities of Texas to establish a relationship between potential hazardous material release zones and the human population at risk. The study identified the vulnerable counties as well as investigated how those risk areas are related to race/ethnicity, income and education. The research would contribute to the policymakers acting on the hazard situation and keep them better prepared for chemical hazards. In addition, it would help the residents and emergency managers to better understand the circumstance to mitigate the consequences as well as increase their awareness to be ready for the uncertainties in the hotspots involved in high risk of the hazards.

An Evaluation of Manure Management Strategies, Phosphorus Surface Runoff Potential and Water Usage at an Arkansas Discovery Dairy Farm

Manure management is an essential component of dairy production. Nutrient-laden, field-applied dairy manure often serves as a fertilizer source, but can also pose environmental threats if not properly managed. The Haak dairy farm, located in Decatur, Arkansas, was granted a permit by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) to employ a unique method in treating and storing cattle manure generated during the milking process. This method includes minimizing water use in wash water, dry scraping solids to combine with sawdust for composting and pumping effluent underground into a sloped concrete basin that serves as secondary solid separator before transporting the manure effluent into an interception trench and an adjacent grassed field to facilitate manure nutrient uptake and retention. The Arkansas Discovery Farm program (ADF) is conducting research to evaluate the environmental performance of the dairy’s milk center wash water treatment system (MCWW) by statistical analysis, characterization of phosphorus (P) migration in soil downslope from the inception trench, temperature measurements, and nutrient analysis of a stored dry stack manure/sawdust mixture. Goals included determining possible composting effectiveness along with comparisons to untreated dairy manure and quantifying the use of on-farm water. Results from this research demonstrated that: 1) The MCWW was effective at retaining manure-derived nutrients and reducing field nutrient migration as the MCWW interception trench had significantly higher total nitrogen (TN) (804.2 to 4.1), total phosphorus (TP) (135.6 to 1.5), and water extractable phosphorus (WEP) (55.0 to 1.0) concentrations in milligrams per liter (mg⋅L-1) than the downhill freshwater pond respectively;2) temperature readings of the manure dry stack indicated heightened levels of microbial and thermal activity, but did not reach a standard composting temperature of 54°C;3) manure dry stack nutrient content was typically higher than untreated dairy manure when measured on a “dry basis” in ppm, but was lower on an “as is basis” in ppm and kg/metric ton;and 4) water meter readings showed that the greatest use of on-farm water was for farm-wide cattle drinking (18.77), followed by water used in the milking center (3.45) and then followed by human usage (0.02) measured in cubic meters per day (m3⋅d-1). These results demonstrate that practical innovations in agricultural engineering and environmental science, such as the Haak dairy’s manure treatment system, can effectively reduce environmental hazards that accompany the management of manure at this dairy operation.

Tornado Impacts in the US from 1950-2015: A GIS-Based Analysis of Vulnerability and Evolving Risk Zones for Human Casualties

The United States is one of the major countries in the world that faces a numerous number of tornadoes every year, directly and indirectly experiencing extensive property damage and human casualties as well as a variety of demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental impacts. This research provides a GIS-based examination of the ways past tornadoes that occurred in the US in the period 1950-2015 have played out in the context of bodily injuries and loss of human life. To this end, the research collected major secondary data (i.e., georeferenced tornado point data) from the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) tornado database and conducted raster-based spatial analysis, utilizing techniques like point density analysis and map algebra to locate areas that have a high risk of tornadoes and to create maps that show relationships between the past tornado events and human casualties. One of the major research findings shown by the spatial analysis was that the geographic areas or regions impacted by tornadoes varied over time. In addition, the statistical results showed a trend that the tornado-prone regions extend from “Tornado Alley” to the states of Illinois, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida, indicating that the communities in those states that are newly considered to be vulnerable to tornadoes should step up to develop their own tornado mitigation plan to help protect the public and its property from tornadoes. Such plans can play a crucial role in safeguarding the public and protecting property from tornadoes’ potential impact. Additionally, urban planners and policymakers can use this information to make informed decisions about building codes and infrastructure development in tornado-prone areas, potentially reducing the impact of future tornado events on human lives and property.

Estimation of Different Categories of Healthcare Waste Generated at Two Different Hospital Categories in Four Hospitals in Dar es Salaam City

This study aims to estimate the quantity of healthcare waste categorically generated in four different healthcare in Dar es Salaam city namely, Muhimbili National Hospital, Mwananyamala Regional Referral Hospital, Temeke Regional Referral Hospital and Ilala Regional Referral Hospital to evaluate the quantities of medical waste generated based on their level and capacity. Waste was collected in different categories of non-infectious, sharps, infectious, infectious plastics, and pathological waste which were measured daily for fourteen (14) consecutive days in all hospitals by using a weighting scale and observational checklist to document related waste management information and the assessment of the healthcare waste generation in each hospital. The average general healthcare waste generation rate per healthcare ranges from 298.9 kg/day to 1554.4 kg/day. The high fluctuation in general medical waste was established to be attributed to specialization difference between one hospital to the other, and the large number of in-patients and out patients between hospitals. The overall average sharps waste generation rate was established to range from 8.5 ± 2.7 - 13.9 ± 1.8 kg/day. Higher values of sharps waste generated observed at Muhimbili hospital are due to emergency cases referred to from other hospitals located within the city and from the surrounding districts and other regions of the country. The results from this study, raise alarm to hospital administrators, and other health stakeholders working in related fields to give special attention and priority in setting a related share in their budgets for proper management of medical waste in their health facilities.

Associations between Wildfire Risk and Socio-Economic-Demographic Characteristics Using GIS Technology

Wildfire is a natural hazard caused mostly by the interaction of human systems and natural phenomena. This research aims to investigate how extreme wildfire events and disasters that occurred in California in the recent three decades are related to socio-economic-demographic characteristics at the levels of census tracts and counties. In addition, this research will use the data of historic wildfires to show counties and census tracts vulnerable to the natural hazard as well as the cyclical changes such as seasonal and annual fluctuations in the wildfire occurrences in the state. To decide how those variables correlate, this research used a Geographic Information System (GIS) designed to collect, analyze, query, and display geographical information. Two types of secondary data were used to conduct the research. One is the geospatial data showing each location of wildfires. The other is the data about such sociodemographic characteristics as race, ethnicity, level of education, and income, which can be collected through the Bureau of Census. In particular, the research employing GIS-based spatial analysis created maps that represent information on the geographic locations of the wildfires at the different geographic levels as well as demographic and socioeconomic factors influenced by the potential risk of wildfires. There are several researching findings. First, this research showed the wildfire-prone communities have comparatively higher level of representation for the populations such as the White and Native Americans. Second, it reveals that Asian people would prefer to reside in communities with a lower level of wildfire risk. In contrast with previous research reporting the Black, Hispanic or Native American people are more vulnerable to wildfire, this research showed only the census tracts with the higher number of the Native Americans are more exposed to the wildfire risk, compared with other census tracts. Third, it revealed that people with a higher level of educational attainment would prefer to reside in communities with a lower level of chemical risk. Forth and lastly, this research indicates that the census tracts that have a higher median household income and median housing price have a negative relationship with the wildfire risk, meaning that people with a higher level of the income or a relatively higher-priced home prefer residing in communities less subject to the natural hazard. Therefore, it can be concluded that associations exist between wildfire risk and certain socio-economic and demographic characteristics.

Prediction of Debris Flow Runoff Process Based on Hydrological Model： a Case Study at Shenxi Gully,Regarding a Long-Term Impact by Wenchuan Earthquake

Debris flow runoff process is one of key parameters for the design of emergency measures and control engineering. The Shenxi gully in Dujiangyan region,located in the meizoseismal areas of Wenchuan earthquake,was selected as the study area. Based on the research of hazard inducing environment,a soil conservation service( SCS) hydrological model was used to simulate the process of water flow,and then the debris flow runoff process was calculated using the empirical formula combining the results from the SCS hydrological model. Taking the debris flow event occurred on July 9th,2013 as an example,the peak discharges of water flow and debris flow were calculated as 162. 12 and 689. 22 m3/s,with error of 6. 03% compared to the measured values. The debris flow confluence process lasted 1. 8h, which was similar with the actual result. The proposed methodology can be applied to predict the debris flow runoff process in quake-hit areas of the Wenchuan earthquake and is of great importance for debris flow mitigation.