DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR MANAGING GROUND WATER RESOURCES IN THE CHOUSHUI RIVER ALLUVIAL IN TAIWAN1

ABSTRACT: Ground water is a vital water resource in the Choushui River alluvial fan in Taiwan. A significantly increased demand for water, resulting from rapid economic development, has led to large scale ground water extraction. Overdraft of ground water has considerably lowered the ground water level, and caused seawater intrusion, land subsidence, and other environmental damage. Sound ground water management thus is essential. This study presents a decision support system (DSS) for managing ground water resources in the Choushui River alluvial fan. This DSS integrates geographic information, ground water simulation, and expert systems. The geographic information system effectively analyzes and displays the spatially varied data and interfaces with the ground water simulation system to compute the dynamic behavior of ground water flow and solute transport in the aquifer. Meanwhile, a ground water model, MODFLOW‐96, is used to determine the permissible yield in the Choushui River alluvial fan. Additionally, an expert system of DSS employs the determined aquifer permissible yield to assist local government agencies in issuing water rights permits and managing ground water resources in the Choushui River alluvial fan.     

Constituency Bias in a Federal Resource Management Agency: a Confirmatory Analysis

In a 1989 article, Ben Twight and Fremont Lyden compared the attitudes of national forest managers in the United States in 1981 with those of its major constituents to assess the extent to which the U.S. Forest Service was biased: were the beliefs and values of agency employees concerning resource management more representative of one of two major constituent groups, environmentalists and forest utilizers? The research tested Culhane's (Public Lands Politics: Interest Group Influence on the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press. 1981) theory that the Forest Service occupies a middle ground in its attitudes relative to those of its environmental and utilization constituencies. They concluded that the agency did not; ideologically, district rangers were quite close to the Forest Service's utilizer constituency and relatively far from its environmentalist constituency. Given recent changes in the attitudes of Forest Services managers, the present study sought to answer the question: what do these changes reveal about the ideological position of the agency in 1981 vis a vis its position in 1990, and what are their implications for continuing concerns over the agency's representation of all interest groups? The response to survey questions of four groups—1990 district rangers and district rangers, environmentalists and forest utilizers in 1981—were combined for statistical comparison. Discriminant analyses were conducted to clarify the differences in the groups. Although the hypothesized bias of the Forest Service toward the traditional utilizer position was confirmed, the results also suggested that managers' values and attitudes had changed over the decade. The major issue underlying this bias—preservation versus utilization of resources—no longer adequately represented the agency's position, which has been fragmented into concerns with multiple issues.     

Automated Classification of an Environmental Sensitivity Index

Environmental Sensitivity Indices (ESI) composed of many field-data are essential for monitoring and control systems. At the beginning of the last decade an ESI of the German Wadden Sea was developed for use by the relevant authorities. This ESI was derived by experts semi-manually analysing the extensive field data-set. An algorithm is presented here which emulates human expert-decisions on the classification of sensitivity classes. This will permit the necessary regular updates of ESI-determination when new field data become available using automated classifications procedures. After tuning the algorithm parameters it generates decisions identical to those of human experts in about 97% of all locations tested. In addition, the algorithm presented also enables erroneous or extremely seldom field data to be identified.     

STATISTICAL AND GEOSTATISTICAL MODELLING OF PRELIMINARILY ADJUSTED DEFOLIATION ON AN EUROPEAN SCALE

Since 1987 tree crown condition is surveyed annually in large parts of Europe mainly in terms of defoliation. The plot-wise means of defoliation from 1994 to 2000 were evaluated by General Linear Models (GLM) in order to describe country-specific levels of defoliation and age-trends. Additional runs with estimates for influences of insects and fungi were performed. The amount of variance of defoliation explained by country, age and its interaction was between 35% and 59% for the main tree species, except for Quercus ilex. Additionally, up to 10% could be explained by the inclusion of estimates for infestations by insects and fungi. Residuals of the GLMs were taken as a measure of forest condition not biased by country or age effects and interpreted as preliminarily adjusted defoliation (PAD). PAD values were analysed using geostatistical methods. The modelled spatial autocorrelations were used for kriging. The resulting maps give an overview on regions with elevated defoliation, which may pinpoint regional causes of defoliation. The elimination of methodologically caused variance is a precondition of any cause–effect oriented analyses. The combination of explorative modelling and geostatistics will promote the choice of further promising predictors.     

小型露天采石场危险程度评价系统的应用研究

介绍了小型露天采石场的特点，通过对小型露天采石场的危险有害因素分析，指出坍塌、滑坡、物体打击、高处坠落、爆破、运输事故、机电设备事故、粉尘、山洪是小型露天采石场常见的危险及有害因素。危险程度的专家评价系统能快速地跟踪和准确地预测小型露天采石场危险程度，提高安全评价的效率并及时提出合理的安全对策措施。     

高土石坝抗震性态分析与灾害对策研究

首先介绍了中国目前高土石坝建设现状,然后回顾了循环加荷动三轴测试技术、堆石料动力性质的研究、高土石坝动力反应分析方法和土石坝地震永久变形的研究进展,最后讨论了高土石坝抗震措施和土石坝地震安全评价及防灾对策专家系统的基本思路。     

Overcoming Endpoint Bias in Climate Change Communication: The Case of Arctic Sea Ice Trends

Unusually cold winters, a slowing in upward global temperatures, or an increase in Arctic sea ice extent are often falsely cast as here-and-now disconfirmation of the scientific consensus on climate change. Such conclusions are examples of “end point bias,” the well documented psychological tendency to interpret a recent short-term fluctuation as a reversal of a long-term trend. End point bias poses a challenge to those trying to communicate cross-decade climate warming trends. In this study, we demonstrate that exposure to misleading scientific information on FoxNews.com that evokes end point bias can affect the beliefs of liberals and moderates as well as conservatives. We also show that the leveraging-involving-visualizing-analogizing communication model can reduce the effects of endpoint bias among moderates and liberals at the same time as it dampens both the ideological and endpoint biasing of conservatives.     

有机工业废水中常见污染物结构与活性关系专家系统研究

应用专家系统方法对88种有机工业废水中常见污染物的构效关系进行深入研究。结果表明,对学习集中68种化合物的正确分类率达到95％,对其余20种化合物的正确预报率达到90％。并应用量子化学方法对专家系统推理过程中所采用的部分构效关系规律进行解释。     

环境专家系统进展

本文对国内外环境专家系统的进展及其特点进行了综述。认为:环境专家系统可以应用于环境科学的各个领域,成为解决环境问题的有用工具。目前,基于事实的推理型专家系统是环境专家系统的主流,环境专家系统又是环境数据库、环境信息系统的进一步补充与完善。文中最后例举了如何将环境模式计算和环境专家系统结合起来解决区域大气质量评价的实际问题。     

基于知识的管道系统泄漏检测方法

提出了3种基于知识的管道系统泄漏检测方法,分别是:通过对负压波波形分段符号化处理,采用上下文无关法表示波形结构模式的模式识别诊断系统;以选取合适维数的功率谱特征向量而建立的神经网络泄漏检测系统;与泄漏机理数学模型结合的泄漏诊断专家系统。