Weather variability has the potential to influence municipal water use, particularly in dry regions such as the western United States (U.S.). Outdoor water use can account for more than half of annual household water use and may be particularly responsive to weather, but little is known about how the expected magnitude of these responses varies across the U.S. This nationwide study identified the response of municipal water use to monthly weather (i.e., temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration [ET]) using monthly water deliveries for 229 cities in the contiguous U.S. Using city‐specific multiple regression and region‐specific models with city fixed effects, we investigated what portion of the variability in municipal water use was explained by weather across cities, and also estimated responses to weather across seasons and climate regions. Our findings indicated municipal water use was generally well‐explained by weather, with median adjusted R2 ranging from 63% to 95% across climate regions. Weather was more predictive of water use in dry climates compared to wet, and temperature had more explanatory power than precipitation or ET. In response to a 1°C increase in monthly maximum temperature, municipal water use was shown to increase by 3.2% and 3.9% in dry cities in winter and summer, respectively, with smaller changes in wet cities. Quantifying these responses allows urban water managers to plan for weather‐driven variability in water use. 相似文献
Wildlife provides food, medicine, clothing, and other necessities for humans, but overexploitation can disrupt the sustainability of wildlife resources and severely threaten global biodiversity. Understanding the characteristics of consumer behavior is helpful for wildlife managers and policy makers, but the traditional survey methods are laborious and time-consuming. In contrast, culturomics may more efficiently identify the features of wildlife consumption. As a case study of the culturomics approach, we examined tiger bone wine consumption in China based on social media and Baidu search engine data. Tiger bone wine is one of the most purchased tiger products; its consumption is closely related to tiger poaching, which greatly threatens wild tiger survival. We searched a popular social media website for the term “tiger bone wine” and focused on posts that were originally created from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2018. We filtered and classified posts related to the purchase, sale, or consumption of tiger bone wine and extracted information on providers, consumption motivations, year of production, and place of origin of the tiger bone wines based on the texts and photos of these posts. We found 756 posts related to tiger bone wine consumption, 113 of which mentioned providers of tiger bone wine, including friends (53%), elder relatives (37%), peer relatives (7%), and others (3%). Out of the 756 posts, 266 indicated the motivations of tiger bone wine consumption. Tiger bone wines were consumed as a tonic (34%), medicine (23%), game product (30%), and a symbol of wealth (28%). Some posts indicated ≥2 consumption motivations. These findings were consistent with the search queries from Baidu index. Such information could help develop targeted strategies for tiger conservation. The culturomics approach illustrated by our study is a rapid and cost-efficient way to characterize wildlife consumption. 相似文献
In order to study a new leak detection and location method for oil and natural gas pipelines based on acoustic waves, the propagation model is established and modified. Firstly, the propagation law in theory is obtained by analyzing the damping impact factors which cause the attenuation. Then, the dominant-energy frequency bands of leakage acoustic waves are obtained through experiments by wavelet transform analysis. Thirdly, the actual propagation model is modified by the correction factor based on the dominant-energy frequency bands. Then a new leak detection and location method is proposed based on the propagation law which is validated by the experiments for oil pipelines. Finally, the conclusions and the method are applied to the gas pipelines in experiments. The results indicate: the modified propagation model can be established by the experimental method; the new leak location method is effective and can be applied to both oil and gas pipelines and it has advantages over the traditional location method based on the velocity and the time difference. Conclusions can be drawn that the new leak detection and location method can effectively and accurately detect and locate the leakages in oil and natural gas pipelines. 相似文献
Objective: The objective of this article is to provide empirical evidence for safe speed limits that will meet the objectives of the Safe System by examining the relationship between speed limit and injury severity for different crash types, using police-reported crash data.
Method: Police-reported crashes from 2 Australian jurisdictions were used to calculate a fatal crash rate by speed limit and crash type. Example safe speed limits were defined using threshold risk levels.
Results: A positive exponential relationship between speed limit and fatality rate was found. For an example fatality rate threshold of 1 in 100 crashes it was found that safe speed limits are 40 km/h for pedestrian crashes; 50 km/h for head-on crashes; 60 km/h for hit fixed object crashes; 80 km/h for right angle, right turn, and left road/rollover crashes; and 110 km/h or more for rear-end crashes.
Conclusions: The positive exponential relationship between speed limit and fatal crash rate is consistent with prior research into speed and crash risk. The results indicate that speed zones of 100 km/h or more only meet the objectives of the Safe System, with regard to fatal crashes, where all crash types except rear-end crashes are exceedingly rare, such as on a high standard restricted access highway with a safe roadside design. 相似文献
In many tropical developing countries, the twin pressures of population and poverty are resulting in substantial fragmentation
of forests, increasing the probability of extinction for many species, Forest fragmentation occurs when large contiguous forests
are perforated by small holes or broken up into edges and smaller patches to form a nonforested matrix of open spaces. Thus,
forest fragmentation refers not only to the area of forest cleared, but also to the pattern of this clearance, the resulting
forest’s spatial properties. Both characteristics are important for species survivability. Apart from opening up forests to
many abiotic and biotic influences, fragmentation can affect species dispersal and migration through its effects on forest
connectivity. Landscape ecology conceptualizes connectivity as a gradient of critical thresholds, ranging from the large intact
forest to the small unconnected forest patch. This article reports results from a multiple-scale analysis of forest fragmentation
in Jamaica’s Cockpit Country, an area of once contiguous forest now under threat from human encroachment. Spatial forest data
derived from classification of ETM+ satellite imagery are used to measure fragmentation patterns representing various degrees
of forest connectivity and density. The results suggest that, overall, 81% of the region is in forest. However, fragmentation
patterns also suggest that this forest is riven with extensive perforations indicative of an early stage in the decline of
contiguity. The results provided by the spatial fragmentation model are a first step in the design of effective conservation
and rehabilitation plans for the area. The article concludes with a discussion of possible multiscale management options for
the region. 相似文献
Background, Aim and Scope Air quality is an field of major concern in large cities. This problem has led administrations to introduce plans and regulations
to reduce pollutant emissions. The analysis of variations in the concentration of pollutants is useful when evaluating the
effectiveness of these plans. However, such an analysis cannot be undertaken using standard statistical techniques, due to
the fact that concentrations of atmospheric pollutants often exhibit a lack of normality and are autocorrelated. On the other
hand, if long-term trends of any pollutant’s emissions are to be detected, meteorological effects must be removed from the
time series analysed, due to their strong masking effects.
Materials and Methods The application of statistical methods to analyse temporal variations is illustrated using monthly carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations
observed at an urban site. The sampling site is located at a street intersection in central Valencia (Spain) with a high traffic
density. Valencia is the third largest city in Spain. It is a typical Mediterranean city in terms of its urban structure and
climatology. The sampling site started operation in January 1994 and monitored CO ground level concentrations until February
2002. Its geographic coordinates are W0°22′52″ N39°28′05″ and its altitude is 11 m. Two nonparametric trend tests are applied.
One of these is robust against serial correlation with regards to the false rejection rate, when observations have a strong
persistence or when the sample size per month is small. A nonparametric analysis of the homogeneity of trends between seasons
is also discussed. A multiple linear regression model is used with the transformed data, including the effect of meteorological
variables. The method of generalized least squares is applied to estimate the model parameters to take into account the serial
dependence of the residuals of this model. This study also assesses temporal changes using the Kolmogorov-Zurbenko (KZ) filter.
The KZ filter has been shown to be an effective way to remove the influence of meteorological conditions on O3 and PM to examine underlying trends.
Results The nonparametric tests indicate a decreasing, significant trend in the sampled site. The application of the linear model
yields a significant decrease every twelve months of 15.8% for the average monthly CO concentration. The 95% confidence interval
for the trend ranges from 13.9% to 17.7%. The seasonal cycle also provides significant results. There are no differences in
trends throughout the months. The percentage of CO variance explained by the linear model is 90.3%. The KZ filter separates
out long, short-term and seasonal variations in the CO series. The estimated, significant, long-term trend every year results
in 10.3% with this method. The 95% confidence interval ranges from 8.8% to 11.9%. This approach explains 89.9% of the CO temporal
variations.
Discussion The differences between the linear model and KZ filter trend estimations are due to the fact that the KZ filter performs the
analysis on the smoothed data rather than the original data. In the KZ filter trend estimation, the effect of meteorological
conditions has been removed. The CO short-term componentis attributable to weather and short-term fluctuations in emissions.
There is a significant seasonal cycle. This component is a result of changes in the traffic, the yearly meteorological cycle
and the interactions between these two factors. There are peaks during the autumn and winter months, which have more traffic
density in the sampled site. There is a minimum during the month of August, reflecting the very low level of vehicle emissions
which is a direct consequence of the holiday period.
Conclusions The significant, decreasing trend implies to a certain extent that the urban environment in the area is improving. This trend
results from changes in overall emissions, pollutant transport, climate, policy and economics. It is also due to the effect
of introducing reformulated gasoline. The additives enable vehicles to burn fuel with a higher air/fuel ratio, thereby lowering
the emission of CO. The KZ filter has been the most effective method to separate the CO series components and to obtain an
estimate of the long-term trend due to changes in emissions, removing the effect of meteorological conditions.
Recommendations and Perspectives Air quality managers and policy-makers must understand the link between climate and pollutants to select optimal pollutant
reduction strategies and avoid exceeding emission directives. This paper analyses eight years of ambient CO data at a site
with a high traffic density, and provides results that are useful for decision-making. The assessment of long-term changes
in air pollutants to evaluate reduction strategies has to be done while taking into account meteorological variability 相似文献