帕默尔干旱指标及其应用研究进展

干旱灾害是世界各国,尤其是我国最为严重的自然灾害之一.不同领域、不同应用中所定义的干旱指标各不相同.气象干旱是其他各类干旱的基础,而帕默尔(Palmer)干旱指标是气象干旱的主流指标,有着广泛的影响,该指标能反映干旱的成因、程度及开始、结束和持续时间,具有物理意义明确、涉及资料容易获得和参数计算简便等特点.根据国内外大量文献,对帕默尔干旱指标的研究进展进行了回顾,对其应用进行了总结,同时对未来帕默尔旱度模式的进一步修正进行了展望.     

Analysis of driver injury severity levels at multiple locations using ordered probit models

Problem: The occurrence and outcome of traffic crashes have long been recognized as complex events involving interactions between many factors, including the roadway, driver, traffic characteristics, and the environment. This study is concerned with the outcome of the crash. Method: Driver injury severity levels are analyzed using the ordered probit modeling methodology. Models were developed for roadway sections, signalized intersections, and toll plazas in Central Florida. All models showed the significance of driver's age, gender, seat belt use, point of impact, speed, and vehicle type on the injury severity level. Other variables were found significant only in specific cases. Results: A driver's violation was significant in the case of signalized intersections. Alcohol, lighting conditions, and the existence of a horizontal curve affected the likelihood of injuries in the roadway sections' model. A variable specific to toll plazas, vehicles equipped with Electronic Toll Collection (ETC), had a positive effect on the probability of higher injury severity at toll plazas. Other variables that entered into some of the models were weather condition, area type, and some interaction factors. This study illustrates the similarities and the differences in the factors that affect injury severity between different locations.     

Analyzing pedestrian crash injury severity under different weather conditions

Objective: Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users due to the lack of mass, speed, and protection compared to other types of road users. Adverse weather conditions may reduce road friction and visibility and thus increase crash risk. There is limited evidence and considerable discrepancy with regard to impacts of weather conditions on injury severity in the literature. This article investigated factors affecting pedestrian injury severity level under different weather conditions based on a publicly available accident database in Great Britain.

Method: Accident data from Great Britain that are publicly available through the STATS19 database were analyzed. Factors associated with pedestrian, driver, and environment were investigated using a novel approach that combines a classification and regression tree with random forest approach.

Results: Significant severity predictors under fine weather conditions from the models included speed limits, pedestrian age, light conditions, and vehicle maneuver. Under adverse weather conditions, the significant predictors were pedestrian age, vehicle maneuver, and speed limit.

Conclusions: Elderly pedestrians are associated with higher pedestrian injury severities. Higher speed limits increase pedestrian injury severity. Based on the research findings, recommendations are provided to improve pedestrian safety.     

Analyzing injury severity of bus passengers with different movements

Objective: Though public transport vehicles are rarely involved in mass casualty accidents, when they are, the number of injuries and fatalities is usually high due to the high passenger capacity. Of the few studies that have been conducted on bus safety, the majority focused on vehicle safety features, road environmental factors, as well as driver characteristics. Nevertheless, few studies have attempted to investigate the underlying risk factors related to bus occupants. This article presents an investigation aimed at identifying the risk factors affecting injury severity of bus passengers with different movements.

Method: Three different passenger movement types including standing, seated, and boarding/alighting were analyzed individually using classification and regression tree (CART) method based on publicly available accident database of Great Britain.

Results: According to the results of exploratory analyses, passenger age and vehicle maneuver are associated with passenger injury severity in all 3 types of accidents. Moreover, the variable “skidding and overturning” is associated with injury severity of seated passengers and driver age is correlated with injury severity of standing and boarding/alighting passengers.

Conclusions: The CART method shows its ability to identify and easily explain the complicated patterns affecting passenger injury severity. Several countermeasures to reduce bus passenger injury severity are recommended.     

MULTIYEAR DROUGHT SIMULATION1

ABSTRACT: Previous studies on multiyear droughts have often been limited to the analysis of historic annual flow series. A major disadvantage in this approach can be described as the unavailability of long historic flow records needed to obtain a significant number of drought events for the analysis. To overcome this difficulty, the present study proposes to use synthetically generated annual flow series. A methodology is presented to model annual flows based on an analysis of the harmonic and stochastic properties of the observed flows. Once the model is determined, it can be utilized to generate a flow series of desired length so as to include many hydrologic cycles within the process. The key parameter for a successful drought study is the truncation level used to distinguish low flows from high flows. In this paper, a concept of selecting the truncation level is also presented. The drought simulation procedure is illustrated by a case study of the Pequest watershed in New Jersey. For the above watershed, multiyear droughts were derived from both historic and generated flow series. Three important drought parameters, namely, the duration, severity, and magnitude, were determined for each drought event, and their probability distributions were studied. It was found that gamma and log normal probaility functions produce the best fit for the duration and severity, respectively. The derived probability curves from generated flows can be reliably used to predict the longest drought duration and the largest drought severity within a given return period.     

Driver injury severity related to inclement weather at highway–rail grade crossings in the United States

Objective: Previous studies on crash modeling at highway–rail grade crossings were aimed at exploring the factors that are likely to increase the crash frequencies at highway–rail grade crossings. In recent years, modeling driver's injury severity at highway–rail grade crossings has received interest. Because there were substantial differences among different weather conditions for driver's injury severity, this study attempts to explore the impact of weather influence on driver injury at highway–rail grade crossing.

Method: Utilizing the most recent 10 years (2002–2011) of highway–rail grade crossing accident data, this study applied a mixed logit model to explore the determinants of driver injury severity under different weather conditions at highway–rail grade crossing.

Results: Analysis results indicate that drivers' injury severity at highway–rail grade crossings is strongly different for different weather conditions. It was found that the factors significantly impacting driver injury severity at highway–rail grade crossings include motor vehicle speed, train speed, driver's age, gender, area type, lighting condition, highway pavement, traffic volume, and time of day.

Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that crashes are more prevalent if vehicle drivers are driving at high speed or the oncoming trains are high speed. Hence, a reduction in speed limit during inclement weather conditions could be particularly effective in moderating injury severity, allowing more reaction time for last-minute maneuvering and braking in moments before impacts. In addition, inclement weather-related crashes were more likely to occur in open areas and highway–rail grade crossings without pavement and lighting. Paved highway–rail grade crossings with installation of lights could be particularly effective in moderating injury severity.     

Correlation between crash avoidance maneuvers and injury severity sustained by motorcyclists in single-vehicle crashes

Objectives: In order to improve motorcycle safety, this article examines the correlation between crash avoidance maneuvers and injury severity sustained by motorcyclists, under multiple precrash conditions. Method: Ten-year crash data for single-vehicle motorcycle crashes from the General Estimates Systems (GES) were analyzed, using partial proportional odds models (i.e., generalized ordered logit models). Results: The modeling results show that “braking (no lock-up)” is associated with a higher probability of increased severity, whereas “braking (lock-up)” is associated with a higher probability of decreased severity, under all precrash conditions. “Steering” is associated with a higher probability of reduced injury severity when other vehicles are encroaching, whereas it is correlated with high injury severity under other conditions. “Braking and steering” is significantly associated with a higher probability of low severity under “animal encounter and object presence,” whereas it is surprisingly correlated with high injury severity when motorcycles are traveling off the edge of the road. The results also show that a large number of motorcyclists did not perform any crash avoidance maneuvers or conducted crash avoidance maneuvers that are significantly associated with high injury severity. Conclusions: In general, this study suggests that precrash maneuvers are an important factor associated with motorcyclists' injury severity. To improve motorcycle safety, training/educational programs should be considered to improve safety awareness and adjust driving habits of motorcyclists. Antilock brakes and such systems are also promising, because they could effectively prevent brake lock-up and assist motorcyclists in maneuvering during critical conditions. This study also provides valuable information for the design of motorcycle training curriculum.     

Exploratory multinomial logit model–based driver injury severity analyses for teenage and adult drivers in intersection-related crashes

Objective: Teenage drivers are more likely to be involved in severely incapacitating and fatal crashes compared to adult drivers. Moreover, because two thirds of urban vehicle miles traveled are on signal-controlled roadways, significant research efforts are needed to investigate intersection-related teenage driver injury severities and their contributing factors in terms of driver behavior, vehicle–infrastructure interactions, environmental characteristics, roadway geometric features, and traffic compositions. Therefore, this study aims to explore the characteristic differences between teenage and adult drivers in intersection-related crashes, identify the significant contributing attributes, and analyze their impacts on driver injury severities.

Methods: Using crash data collected in New Mexico from 2010 to 2011, 2 multinomial logit regression models were developed to analyze injury severities for teenage and adult drivers, respectively. Elasticity analyses and transferability tests were conducted to better understand the quantitative impacts of these factors and the teenage driver injury severity model's generality.

Results: The results showed that although many of the same contributing factors were found to be significant in the both teenage and adult driver models, certain different attributes must be distinguished to specifically develop effective safety solutions for the 2 driver groups.

Conclusions: The research findings are helpful to better understand teenage crash uniqueness and develop cost-effective solutions to reduce intersection-related teenage injury severities and facilitate driver injury mitigation research.     

瓦斯涌出严重程度分形预测研究

为了研究瓦斯涌出严重程度与地质构造之间的定量关系,以某矿井田为例,采用分形几何学手段研究了井田地质构造的分形特征,并将构造分维数与瓦斯涌出严重程度作了对比分析。其结果表明:所研究矿井田地质构造具有分形特征,构造分维数能够定量地描述地质构造的复杂程度,构造分维数与瓦斯涌出严重程度之间存在正相关关系,分维值大于1.3的区域是有可能发生瓦斯异常涌出的区域。该研究成果对于高瓦斯矿井进行瓦斯区域预测研究具有重要的理论和实用价值。