Fire and explosion disasters occurred due to the Great East Japan Earthquake (March 11, 2011)

The Great East Japan Earthquake (magnitude 9.0 Mw: the moment magnitude scale, based on the seismic moment of the earthquake) occurred at 14:46, March 11, 2011. It triggered huge tsunami waves (seismic sea waves) that reached heights of up to about 20 m. In this paper, the fire and explosion disasters occurred due to the Great East Japan Earthquake are reported shortly. Some fires occurred in seacoast areas after tsunami attacks and some of them were spreading very widely to the tsunami flooded areas. It is important to study the mechanisms of such fires (tsunami fires) for preparing huge tsunami. After the earthquake, a very severe accident happened in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Three reactors experienced full meltdown. During this disaster, hydrogen explosions occurred and made the situation more serious. It has to be realized once again that the countermeasures for hydrogen explosions is indispensable. Also Large scale BLEVEs (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosions) happened at LPG storage area in an oil refinery in Chiba Prefecture. This accident started from the falling down of an LPG storage tank by earthquake motions. The tank was heavier than usual, as it was filled with water (1.7 times heavier than LPG) for periodic inspection. Considering these disasters, we have to think about how we prepare the accident of low probability and of very severe consequence. Recently, the risk based approach is widely utilized. However, for such disasters it seems not enough to perform safety management only by risk based approach. Not only probabilistic approach (Risk), but also deterministic approach (Emergency plan, Mitigation technique) should be taken in account.     

Onsite Sewage System Regulation Along the Great Lakes and the US EPA “Homeowner Awareness” Model

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), a significant percentage of residential onsite sewage systems (OSSs) are failing at any given time. The US EPA has therefore issued a set of recommended guidelines for OSS regulatory programs aimed at reducing overall failure rates. We conducted a survey of OSS regulatory program administrators with jurisdictions bordering a Great Lake. Our goal was to determine their programs’ capacities to meet the US EPA’s recommendations. We found that although some local programs meet the US EPA’s recommendations, most do not. In this article, we present our findings and conclusions for one of the US EPA’s models, the baseline “Homeowner Awareness” model. Most areas do not have recommended requirements that systems be inspected when properties transfer between owners. A majority do not track changes in ownership within the computerized databases they use to record information about systems. Although most provide at least “one-time” information to homeowners regarding proper OSS maintenance, most do not contact them periodically with reminders of needed maintenance. We include recommendations for resolving some of the issues that our research identified.     

The Great Lakes, an Ecosystem Rehabilitated, But Still Under Threat

Since 1972, the Parties (United States and Canada, 1987) to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement have been working collaboratively to achieve the purpose of the Agreement “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem”. Billions of dollars and countless person – hours have been expended towards this end, but have the Parties, and their numerous collaborators at the state, provincial, and municipal levels, along with industry and citizen activists achieved meaningful results? This paper will examine the information provided through various monitoring programs and will assess the success of the Parties' programs, and will also discuss the continuing threats to achieving the purpose of the Agreement.     

Farming the battlefield: the meanings of war, cattle and soil in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Prior to 1996 and the Congolese wars, exploitative land policies pushed farmers in the eastern highlands of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) into a vulnerable position, with cattle manure sustaining intensive cultivation. This exposed households to a complete breakdown in mixed farming as cattle became targets of war. This study of villages in South Kivu offers an inside understanding of continuity and change in farming practices in a region where there are no easy solutions, and it assesses how the province lost its present and where farmers look when they glance to the future. For farmers, who hold a broad view of soil fertility, the casualties of war were not only people and cattle but also the land itself, which has enduring scars. Perceiving a rupture in tradition, South Kivu farmers are searching desperately for new livelihoods that are built on education instead of livestock, setting aside old ethnic signifiers to seek a future beyond protracted conflict.     

Human Influences on Water Quality in Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands

A better understanding of relationships between human activities and water chemistry is needed to identify and manage sources of anthropogenic stress in Great Lakes coastal wetlands. The objective of the study described in this article was to characterize relationships between water chemistry and multiple classes of human activity (agriculture, population and development, point source pollution, and atmospheric deposition). We also evaluated the influence of geomorphology and biogeographic factors on stressor-water quality relationships. We collected water chemistry data from 98 coastal wetlands distributed along the United States shoreline of the Laurentian Great Lakes and GIS-based stressor data from the associated drainage basin to examine stressor-water quality relationships. The sampling captured broad ranges (1.5–2 orders of magnitude) in total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), total suspended solids (TSS), chlorophyll a (Chl a), and chloride; concentrations were strongly correlated with stressor metrics. Hierarchical partitioning and all-subsets regression analyses were used to evaluate the independent influence of different stressor classes on water quality and to identify best predictive models. Results showed that all categories of stress influenced water quality and that the relative influence of different classes of disturbance varied among water quality parameters. Chloride exhibited the strongest relationships with stressors followed in order by TN, Chl a, TP, TSS, and DIN. In general, coarse scale classification of wetlands by morphology (three wetland classes: riverine, protected, open coastal) and biogeography (two ecoprovinces: Eastern Broadleaf Forest [EBF] and Laurentian Mixed Forest [LMF]) did not improve predictive models. This study provides strong evidence of the link between water chemistry and human stress in Great Lakes coastal wetlands and can be used to inform management efforts to improve water quality in Great Lakes coastal ecosystems.     

What Drives Accelerated Land Cover Change in Central Argentina? Synergistic Consequences of Climatic,Socioeconomic, and Technological Factors

Synergistic combinations of climatic and land use changes have the potential to produce the most dramatic impacts on land cover. Although this is widely accepted, empirical examples, particularly involving deforestation in Latin America, are still very few. The geographic extent and causes of deforestation in subtropical seasonally dry forests of the world have received very little attention. This is especially true for the Chaco forests in South America, which are being lost at an alarming rate, sometimes higher than those reported for tropical forests. On this basis, the aims of this study were to analyze the changes in land cover that have occurred during the last three decades of the 20th century in the Chaco forests of central Argentina, and to explain the factors that have driven those changes. Results show major land cover changes. Approximately 80% of the area that was originally undisturbed forest is now occupied by crops, pastures, and secondary scrub. The main proximate cause of deforestation has been agricultural expansion, soybean cultivation in particular. This appears as the result of the synergistic convergence of climatic, technological, and socioeconomic factors, supporting the hypothesis of a multiple-factor explanation for forest loss, while providing one of the very few existing analyses of changes in subtropical forests of the world.     

Socio-economic vulnerability to climate change in the central mountainous region of eastern Mexico

Climate change effects are expected to be more severe for some segments of society than others. In Mexico, climate variability associated with climate change has important socio-economic and environmental impacts. From the central mountainous region of eastern Veracruz, Mexico, we analyzed data of total annual precipitation and mean annual temperature from 26 meteorological stations (1922–2008) and from General Circulation Models. We developed climate change scenarios based on the observed trends with projections to 2025, 2050, 2075, and 2100, finding considerable local climate changes with reductions in precipitation of over 700 mm and increases in temperature of ~9°C for the year 2100. Deforested areas located at windward were considered more vulnerable, representing potential risk for natural environments, local communities, and the main crops cultivated (sugarcane, coffee, and corn). Socio-economic vulnerability is exacerbated in areas where temperature increases and precipitation decreases.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0690-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Time-series sampling of Ra and Ra at the inlet to Great South Bay (New York): a strategy for characterizing the dominant terms in the Ra budget of the bay

Ra isotopes are a powerful tool for quantifying the flux of submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) into the sea. Previous studies of ²²³Ra and ²²⁴Ra mass balances in coastal embayments have shown that the Ra balance is dominated by supply via SGD, exchange with the open ocean and radioactive decay. The current study shows that a single time series over a tidal cycle at the principal inlet to Great South Bay (NY, US) is sufficient to determine the net flux of Ra across the inlet, and also can be used to estimate the decay of short-lived Ra in the bay. Estimates of the net Ra flux obtained from a single tidal time-series by using three different approaches agree with those determined from a more time-consuming survey of Ra within the bay, and may represent a first step of estimating SGD in bays and coastal lagoons.     

Environmental analysis of groundwater in Mecosta County, Michigan

Groundwater withdrawal has major economic, social, and environmental implications. In Michigan, recent legislative activity has begun to address the issue of groundwater sustainability. However, more hydrologic data are needed to help inform policy and legislation. A study was conducted in Mecosta County, Michigan to: (1) determine if a relationship could be established between land use/land cover and groundwater quality; and (2) develop a conceptual model for the shallow groundwater system of the study region. In general, groundwater quality was good, with below detection levels of E. coli, low total bacterial counts, and relatively low nutrient concentrations. No statistically significant associations were found between the bacterial numbers and either land use or the physical/chemical attributes measured, which may be because the scale of our spatial analysis was too coarse to detect patterns. Finer-scale, localized processes may have a greater influence on microorganism growth and abundance than coarser-scale, regional processes in this area. Our groundwater analysis suggested that shallow groundwater flow paths are generally consistent with regional surface water flow networks, and that shallow groundwater levels in most of the region have fluctuated within 1–2 m over the past 30 years, with no obvious increasing or decreasing trend.     

Effect of blue tit song syntax on great tit territorial responsiveness – an experimental test of the character shift hypothesis

A previous study of geographic variation in blue tit (Parus caeruleus) song structure showed that changes in blue tit song syntax (i.e. presence/absence of a trill) are correlated with the breeding density of a close competitor, the great tit (P. major), and are not correlated with other environmental factors such as vegetation structure or blue tit breeding density. We tested the hypothesis that blue tit trilled song represents a character shift that evolved because it reduced territorial interactions with more dominant great tits. We conducted five sets of playback trials in three study populations (mainland southern France, Corsica and Denmark) presenting male great tits with blue tit trilled and untrilled songs and great tit songs. We found that great tits respond equally strongly to both blue tit untrilled songs and to great tit songs, but show a significantly weaker response to blue tit trilled songs. These findings are the first experimental evidence that interspecific competition may play an important role in macrogeographic variation of bird song. Received: 10 October 1999 / Received in revised form: 2 April 2000 / Accepted: 15 April 2000