The siltation of debris flow behind check dam in the midstream of Bailong River

Siltation gradient and siltation length are important parameters for designing gravity check dams for debris flows,which directly affect the accuracy of estimates of interception capacity.At present,siltation gradient calculations are based primarily on empirical values,and range from 0.4 to 0.95 times the channel slope coefficient.The middle reaches of the Bailong River are one of the four areas in China that are most severely affected by debris flow hazards.Gravity dams are widely employed in this mountainous area.However,field studies of their capacity are lacking.In this paper,the operations of check dams were investigated.Based on field investigation results and theoretical analysis,calculations for siltation gradient,siltation length,and dam storage capacity are established.The impact of debris flow density,channel slope,and particle size weight percentages are discussed.The calculations show that the theoretical values for siltation gradient are consistent with measured values with 83.6% accuracy;and theoretical values of siltation length are consistent with measured values with 91.6% accuracy.The results of this research are an important reference for optimal height and spacing of dams,estimation of dam storage capacity,and disaster prevention.

Variation of Floods Characteristics and Their Responses to Climate and Human Activities in Poyang Lake, China

The Poyang Lake is one of the most frequently flooded areas in China. Understanding the changing characteristics of floods as well as the affecting factors is an important prerequisite of flood disaster prevention and mitigation. The present study identified the characteristics variations of historical floods in the Poyang Lake and their tendencies based on the Mann-Kendall(M-K) test, and also investigated the related affecting factors, both from climate and human activities. The results revealed that the highest flood stages, duration as well as hazard coefficient of floods showed a long-term increasing linear trend during the last 60 years with the M-K statistic of 1.49, 1.60 and 1.50, respectively. And, a slightly increasing linear trend in the timing of the highest stages indicated the floods occurred later and later during the last six decades. The rainfall during the flood season and subsequent discharges of the Changjiang(Yangtze) River and runoff from the Poyang Lake Basin were mainly responsible for the severe flood situation in the Poyang Lake in the 1990 s. In addition, the intensive human activities, including land reclamation and levee construction, also played a supplementary role in increasing severity of major floods. While, the fewer floods in the Poyang Lake after 2000 can be attributed to not only the less rainfall over the Poyang Lake Basin and low discharges of the Changjiang River during flood periods, but also the stronger influences of human activity which increased the floodwater storage of the Poyang Lake than before.

Social Media Use for Information-Sharing Activities Among Youth in Malaysia

Social media are popular among youth for sharing information. This study tries to explore the popularity of the social media sites, the level of use of the social media sites, the types of information-sharing activities involved on the social media sites, to compare youth of various background in relation to information-sharing activities, and to analyze the relationship between the level of social media use and the information-sharing activities among youth. This study employs a quantitative research design, using survey method with questionnaire as the research instrument used for data collection. In this study, youth aged between 17-40 years old nationwide were surveyed. The study was developed based on the user and gratification theory （Blumler ＆ Katz, 1974）. Findings showed that youth always （five to seven days per week） use social media to share information including personal information. Results also showed that youth used the social media more for sharing negatively-oriented information compared to the positively-oriented information. Although there were more items on the positively-oriented information-sharing activities but more youth spent their time on the negatively-oriented information-sharing activities. The results are supported by a strong relationship between frequency of use and the negatively-oriented information-sharing activities.

火星峡谷网研究的现状、问题与展望

广泛分布于火星表面的谷网地貌作为火星地质环境演变的记录者,对认识火星地质历史时期的环境变化、了解火星古气候与宜居性具有重要意义.随着中国火星探测计划的开展,详细了解火星谷网的研究进展尤为重要.对火星谷网地貌的探测历史、形貌分类、时空分布、成因假说等方面的研究进展进行了总结,在此基础上提出了当前火星谷网研究中存在的主要问题与争议,并认为未来可着重在谷网侵蚀沉积物的识别分析、谷网对古气候重建所提供的地质学证据与理论模型预测结果的协调、以及火星与地球谷网的类比等方面开展研究.

The influence of climate change and human activities on runoff in the middle reaches of the Huaihe River Basin, China

This study presents a soil and water integrated model(SWIM) and associated statistical analyses for the Huaihe River Basin(HRB) based on daily meteorological, river runoff, and water resource data encompassing the period between 1959 and 2015. The aim of this research is to quantitatively analyze the rate of contribution of upstream runoff to that of the midstream as well as the influence of climate change and human activities in this section of the river. Our goal is to explain why extreme precipitation is concentrated in the upper reaches of the HRB while floods tend to occur frequently in the middle reaches of this river basin. Results show that the rate of contribution of precipitation to runoff in the upper reaches of the HRB is significantly higher than temperature. Data show that the maximum contribution rate of upstream runoff to that of the midstream can be as high as 2.23%, while the contribution of temperature is just 0.38%. In contrast, the rate of contribution of human activities to runoff is 87.20% in the middle reaches of the HRB, while that due to climate change is 12.80%. Frequent flood disasters therefore occur in the middle reaches of the HRB because of the combined effects of extreme precipitation in the upper reaches and human activities in the middle sections.

Induced earthquakes in the development of unconventional energy resources

It has long been known that human activities such as waste fluid disposal and reservoir impoundment may cause earthquakes. Recently, anthropogenic activities to tackle the increasing energy demand and to address climate change issues are also reported to induce earthquakes. These activities have a common attribute in that fluids are injected and extracted underground and induce spatiotemporal changes of pore pressure and stress, which may cause slip on faults. Induced earthquakes not only pose significant impacts on seismic hazard assessment and preparation, but also raise the question to the society as how to balance the economic needs of resources development and the public's concerns about potential environmental impacts. Here we review the observations of fluid-injection/extraction induced earthquakes, ground deformation associated with these activities, and their physical mechanisms. Furthermore, we discuss the influences of induced earthquakes on seismic hazard models, regulatory policies on these anthropogenic activities, and current development of academic, industrial and government initiatives and collaborations in order to understand this intriguing phenomenon and address associated challenges.

Electrical conductivity of hydrous silicate melts and aqueous fluids: Measurement and applications

The combination of magnetotelluric survey and laboratory measurements of electrical conductivity is a powerful approach for exploring the conditions of Earth's deep interior. Electrical conductivity of hydrous silicate melts and aqueous fluids is sensitive to composition, temperature, and pressure, making it useful for understanding partial melting and fluid activity at great depths. This study presents a review on the experimental studies of electrical conductivity of silicate melts and aqueous fluids, and introduces some important applications of experimental results. For silicate melts, electrical conductivity increases with increasing temperature but decreases with pressure. With a similar Na^+ concentration, along the calc-alkaline series electrical conductivity generally increases from basaltic to rhyolitic melt, accompanied by a decreasing activation enthalpy. Electrical conductivity of silicate melts is strongly enhanced with the incorporation of water due to promoted cation mobility. For aqueous fluids, research is focused on dilute electrolyte solutions. Electrical conductivity typically first increases and then decreases with increasing temperature, and increases with pressure before approaching a plateau value. The dissociation constant of electrolyte can be derived from conductivity data. To develop generally applicable quantitative models of electrical conductivity of melt/fluid addressing the dependences on temperature, pressure, and composition, it requires more electrical conductivity measurements of representative systems to be implemented in an extensive P-T range using up-to-date methods.