Land-use suitability analysis in the United States: historical development and promising technological achievements

Various methods of spatial analysis are commonly used in land-use plans and site selection studies. A historical overview and discussion of contemporary developments of land-use suitability analysis are presented. The paper begins with an exploration into the early 20th century with the infancy of documented applications of the technique. The article then travels through the 20th century, documenting significant milestones. Concluding with present explorations of advanced technologies such as neural computing and evolutionary programming, this work is meant to serve as a foundation for literature review and a premise for the exploration of new advancements as we enter into the 21st century.     

Disaster warning and evacuation responses by private business employees

When people are advised that their place of employment is threatened with disaster, how do they respond? Interviews with employees (n=406) of 118 businesses affected by one of seven recent disasters provide the first answers to this question. Multivariate analyses document the key variables that best predict variation are: 1) emergent perceptions of risk; 2) time of evacuation from work; 3) time of evacuation from home; 4) multiple evacuations; and 5) tension between work and family commitments. When warned of impending disaster, most employees initially responded with denial. Gradually, however, emergent perceptions of risk intensified especially among those living in communities in which the least amount of disaster planning had occurred or who resided in a mobile home or apartment. Highest levels of work and family tensions during these evacuations were reported by racial minority employees who had children living at home. Policy implications for these and other findings are discussed so as to pin‐point changes business managers should make that will enable them to provide the leadership and compassion expected by employees.     

Assessing relocation strategies of urban air quality monitoring stations by GA-based compromise programming

This paper presents a GA-based compromise programming technique for assessing the relocation strategy of urban air quality monitoring network with respect to the multi-objective and multi-pollutant design criteria. While the impact of conservative, quasi-stable, and reactive pollutants are considered in the design principles via a simulation analysis, cost, effectiveness, and efficiency characteristics are postulated in the optimization process. Therefore, technical coverage for illustrating the needs of siting air quality monitoring stations (AQMS) includes both the air quality simulation and optimization modeling analyses in a two-stage analytical framework simultaneously. It starts from determining the spatial interrelationship among those candidate sites using various types of air quality simulation models as an integrated means. And the outputs drawn from the simulation models can then be used as the required inputs in the compromise programming model in order to screen all those siting alternatives that may satisfy the planning goals subject to the essential constraints throughout the multi-objective optimization process. For the illustrating purposes, a series of technical settings for finding the optimal relocation scenarios of AQMS were examined in the case study for the city of Kaohsiung in South Taiwan where the long-term violations of official standards of ozone and particulates turn out to be critical. It not only expresses the ideas of relocation strategy but also indicates how to utilize those alternatives in the decision-making process for improving the functionality of air quality monitoring in the urban environment. Experience gained in this study clearly indicates that the more the number of pollutants and objectives considered simultaneously, the higher the number of candidate sites to be selected in the relocation strategy.     

HPF(高通数字滤波器)的电网谐波检测技术的研究与应用

为有效地消除电力谐波污染、确保电网运行安全,必须采用有源电力滤波技术;为改善有源电力滤波器的性能,必须采取先进的谐波检测方法、高效的逆变技术。笔者在研究有源电力滤波技术的基础上,对有源电力滤波的关键技术即谐波检测与分离技术,进行了探讨和深入研究,给出了一种HPF(高通数字滤波器)的谐波检测与分离方法,进行了理论验算,利用MATLAB仿真结果对该检测技术进行实验研究。仿真和实验结果表明:该法比常用的LPF(低通数字滤波器LowPassDigitalFilter)的谐波检测分离方法具有更好的检测实时性;在电网电压有畸变时也能达到很高的检测精度;该检测技术应用于混合有源电力滤波器后能大大改善滤波性能。     

质量、环境、安全管理体系发展趋势研究

质量、环境、职业安全健康管理体系的建立,对我国企业现代化管理工作具有积极促进作用.认真研究这些管理体系之间的相互关系,找出其发展的必然规律,通过机构和文件整合,加速管理体系工作发展的进程,新的结构模式对提高市场竞争能力具有实际意义.这是我国管理体系工作发展的一种必然趋势.内部科学管理机制、市场份额大小以及品牌效应影响程度都是衡量管理体系发展先进水平的重要内容和标志.     

中国石油的2110安全管理模式

本文介绍了中国石油天然气股份有限公司2110安全管理模式的内涵、发展历程、效果和发展前景.通过2110安全管理模式的建立,中国石油安全管理工作基础得到夯实,安全业绩不断得到改进.     

SELECTION OF WASTE DISPOSAL SITES USING GIS1

ABSTRACT: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is used to identify candidate sites for a solid waste disposal facility in the Gölbasi region of Turkey that has suffered from the negative impact of a current but poorly-located open-dump site on the environment. The municipality of Gölbasi has noticed its deleterious effect on the environment, and has thus decided to dismiss this open-dump site and search for new landfill sites. In this study, the procedure followed under a GIS framework rejects the unacceptable sites considering environmental factors exclusively, other than economic and political issues, contained in the form of multiple layers of attribute information to select the candidate sites for landfilling wastes through an overlay analysis performed by GIS software, ARC/INFO V 7.1. For the spatial data requirements of GIS, a number of thematic map layers (ground water, wetlands and swamp areas, surface water, roads, topographic contours, ecological features, settlements, erosion susceptibility zones, and soil type) are prepared in digital form. In this application, GIS is considered as a screening tool in a site selection process to narrow the number of candidate sites, subsequently leading to one or more sites for detailed investigation. Preliminary ranking for a group of potential sites is done on the basis of simple calculations coupled with on-site field studies.     

STATISTICAL LOW FLOW ESTIMATION USING GIS ANALYSIS IN HUMID MONTANE REGIONS IN PUERTO RICO1

ABSTRACT: Statistical analysis of watershed parameters derived using a Geographical Information system (GIS) was done to develop equations for estimating the 7d–10yr, 30d–10yr, and 7d–2yr low flow for watersheds in humid montane regions of Puerto Rico. Digital elevation models and land use, geology, soils, and stream network coverages were used to evaluate 21 geomorphic, 10 stream channel, 9 relief, 7 geology, 4 climate, and 2 soil parameters for each watershed. To assess which parameters should be used for further investigation, a correlation analysis was used to determine the independence and collinearity among these parameters and their relationship with low flows. Multiple regression analyses using the selected parameters were then performed to develop the statistical models of low flows. The final models were selected in the basis of the Mallow Cp statistic, the adjusted R², the Press statistic, the degree of collinearity, and an analysis of the residuals. In the final models, drainage density, the ratio of length of tributaries to the length of the main channel, the percent of drainage area with northeast aspect, and the average weighted slope of the drainage were the most significant parameters. The final models had adjusted standard errors of 58.7 percent, 59.2 percent, and 48.6 percent for the 7d–10yr, 30d–10yr, and 7d–2yr low flows respectively. For comparison, the best model based on watershed parameters that can be easily measured without a GIS had an adjusted standard error of 82.8 percent.     

Assessing landscape dynamics in a protected area

This article describes an approach to assessing spatial and temporal land-use and land-cover changes in and adjacent to protected areas and to the measurement of landscape stability within a protected area. Methods employed include aerial photographic interpretation and GIS technology. Odum's four-compartment ecosystem model provides the conceptual framework for assessing landscape stability. The study area is a selected sample of the Upper San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area in the high desert grassland of southeastern Arizona. Significant changes were observed in the landscape matrix and riparian ecosystem. However, when these changes were assessed in the context of Odum's model, the change was nonsignificant. Implications of the approach and potential applications in protected area management are discussed.     

MULTIPLE OBJECTIVE DECISION MAKING IN WATER RESOURCES1

ABSTRACT: Recent developments in multiple objective decision making methods presented in the upcoming sequence of research papers are evaluated and compared with respect to their usefulness in addressing challenging problems in water resources management. Because many of the decision making techniques originated in the field of operational research, the historical evolution of this field is outlined and the current need for developing a wide range of techniques for employment in strategic decision making is pointed out. Informative attributes for classifying decision making techniques are given to allow a practitioner to select decision aids that can best model the key characteristics of the particular problems under study. By systematically applying a wide variety of multiple objective decision making techniques to many different kinds of water resources problems, the authors of the papers clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of utilizing these methods for assisting in making both tactical and strategic decisions in water resources management.