Setting Realistic Recovery Targets for Two Interacting Endangered Species,Sea Otter and Northern Abalone

Failure to account for interactions between endangered species may lead to unexpected population dynamics, inefficient management strategies, waste of scarce resources, and, at worst, increased extinction risk. The importance of species interactions is undisputed, yet recovery targets generally do not account for such interactions. This shortcoming is a consequence of species‐centered legislation, but also of uncertainty surrounding the dynamics of species interactions and the complexity of modeling such interactions. The northern sea otter (Enhydra lutris kenyoni) and one of its preferred prey, northern abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana), are endangered species for which recovery strategies have been developed without consideration of their strong predator–prey interactions. Using simulation‐based optimization procedures from artificial intelligence, namely reinforcement learning and stochastic dynamic programming, we combined sea otter and northern abalone population models with functional‐response models and examined how different management actions affect population dynamics and the likelihood of achieving recovery targets for each species through time. Recovery targets for these interacting species were difficult to achieve simultaneously in the absence of management. Although sea otters were predicted to recover, achieving abalone recovery targets failed even when threats to abalone such as predation and poaching were reduced. A management strategy entailing a 50% reduction in the poaching of northern abalone was a minimum requirement to reach short‐term recovery goals for northern abalone when sea otters were present. Removing sea otters had a marginally positive effect on the abalone population but only when we assumed a functional response with strong predation pressure. Our optimization method could be applied more generally to any interacting threatened or invasive species for which there are multiple conservation objectives. Definición de Metas de Recuperación Realistas para Dos Especies en Peligro Interactuantes, Enhydra lutris y Haliotis kamtschatkana     

基于不确定性的水资源优化配置模型及其实证研究

针对城市水资源系统中存在的不确定性,将可信性模糊机会约束规划模型与区间规划相结合,提出了不确定环境下的可信性模糊-区间线性规划(FILP)模型,将其应用于某城市水资源优化配置与科学管理中,构建了城市水资源优化配置FILP模型.该模型以城市的经济、社会与环境的可持续发展为目标,以供需水量等为不确定性约束,以各水源在各子区不同部门间的分配为决策变量,利用改进的风险显性区间规划算法进行求解得到一定置信度和意愿水平下的水资源优化配置风险-收益权衡方案.实证研究表明,该模型反映了不确定性因素对水资源系统收益的影响,能够为实际的优化决策提供方法支持.     

MapBasic在震害评估应用中的一个问题

利用MapBasic编制震害评估软件时 ,无现成的工具直接绘制出长短轴不平行 (或不垂直 )于经纬度线的等烈度线。本文提出了一个通过椭圆旋转绘制出所要求的等烈度线椭圆的方法。     

农村景观规划与生态建设

介绍了农村景观的发展与变化 ,论述了农村景观生态规划的内容与原则 ,并介绍了 5种典型的景观生态建设模式。     

Two-stage planning for sustainable water-quality management under uncertainty

In water-quality management problems, uncertainties may exist in a number of impact factors and pollution-related processes (e.g., the volume and strength of industrial wastewater and their variations can be presented as random events through identifying a statistical distribution for each source); moreover, nonlinear relationships may exist among many system components (e.g., cost parameters may be functions of wastewater-discharge levels). In this study, an inexact two-stage stochastic quadratic programming (ITQP) method is developed for water-quality management under uncertainty. It is a hybrid of inexact quadratic programming (IQP) and two-stage stochastic programming (TSP) methods. The developed ITQP can handle not only uncertainties expressed as probability distributions and interval values but also nonlinearities in the objective function. It can be used for analyzing various scenarios that are associated with different levels of economic penalties or opportunity losses caused by improper policies. The ITQP is applied to a case of water-quality management to deal with uncertainties presented in terms of probabilities and intervals and to reflect dynamic interactions between pollutant loading and water quality. Interactive and derivative algorithms are employed for solving the ITQP model. The solutions are presented as combinations of deterministic, interval and distributional information, and can thus facilitate communications for different forms of uncertainties. They are helpful for managers in not only making decisions regarding wastewater discharge but also gaining insight into the tradeoff between the system benefit and the environmental requirement.     

GUIDELINES FOR INTERACTIVE COMPUTER SOFTWARE IN WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING1

ABSTRACT: A case study in the development of interactive computer software for water resources related engineering problems in presented. Guidelines for the preparation of a uniform set of interactive program requirements are discussed. Use of the developed guidelines will reduce computer usage expenditures by minimizing program learning time and data entry errors.     

水污染防治规划理论方法综述

我国的水污染防治规划工作起于20世纪70年代,经过几十年的发展,目前已初成体系,一些成熟的规划方法得到了较为广泛的应用。然而传统方法本身的缺陷、水环境新问题的提出、计算机技术的发展都要求和促使更多新理论方法应用到实践中来。本文在回顾我国水污染防治规划的发展历程和现有规划方法的基础上,对水污染防治规划理论方法的发展趋势进行了展望。     

离散规划在近海地区排海废水污染物总量控制中的应用

本文采用离散规划方法对某海新区排海废水污染物总量控制方案进行了优化分析得到了不同消减率下的最优方案,并对近岸海域海水水质进行了模拟预测。     

COMPUTATIONAL IMPROVEMENT FOR STOCHASTIC DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING MODELS OF URBAN WATER SUPPLY RESERVOIRS1

ABSTRACT: This paper describes two methods that are introduced to improve the computational effort of stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) as applicable to the operation of multiple urban water supply reservoir systems. The stochastic nature of streamflow is incorporated explicitly by considering it in the form of a multivariate probability distribution. The computationally efficient Gaussian Legendre quadrature method is employed to compute the conditional probabilities of streamflow, which accounts for the serial correlation of streamflow into each storage and the cross correlation between the streamflow into various storages. A realistic assumption of cross correlation of streamflow is introduced to eliminate the need to consider the streamflow combinations which are unlikely to occur in the SDP formulation. A “corridor” approach is devised to eliminate the need to consider the infeasible and/or inferior storage volume combinations in the preceding stage in computing the objective function in the recursive relation. These methods are verified in terms of computational efficiency and accuracy by using a hypothetical example of three interconnected urban water supply reservoirs. Therefore, it can be concluded that these methods allow SDP to be more attractive for deriving optimal operating rules for multiple urban water supply reservoir systems.     

Measurement method for objective cyclist behavior parameters

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this research is to study the feasibility of measuring behavioral indicators that reflect effects of infrastructure and interaction with other road users.

Methods: An observation study was performed using 6 cameras above a separated cycle path next to a road which included a crossing with both cyclists and cars. A learning method based on Single Shot MultiBox Detector was applied to automatically detect the cyclists, and cyclist tracks were determined. Next, kinematic parameters were calculated from the cyclists’ tracks. Amongst others, the cyclists’ intensity, speed, position on the cycle path, and the distance to each other were analyzed for a busy period as well as for a quiet period of the day.

Results: With the measurement method developed in this study it is possible to analyze the cyclists’ intensity, the space they use at the cycle path, their average velocity, waiting times, the space and velocity amongst each other, and red light negation. However, collisions were not seen in the dataset analyzed, and the data is not sufficiently accurate to analyze sudden braking actions.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that the developed measurement method provides insight of the cyclists’ behavior in such a way that it can already be used for obtaining information to make changes to the infrastructure that will improve the comfort and safety of cyclists. The method could be further developed for doing qualitative comfort and safety analyses, and for doing analyses of the interaction between various types of road participants.