A new era of flood control strategies from the perspective of managing the 2020 Yangtze River flood

Flood control of the Yangtze River is an important part of China’s national water security.In July 2020,due to continuous heavy rainfall,the water levels along the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River and major lakes constantly exceeded the warning levels,in which Taihu Lake exceeded its highest safety water level and some stations of Poyang Lake reached their highest water levels in its history.In August 2020,another huge flood occurred in the Minjiang River and the Jialing River in the upper Yangtze River,and some areas of Chongqing Municipality and other cities along the rivers were inundated,resulting in great pressure on flood control and high disaster losses.The 2020 Yangtze River flood has received extensive media coverage and raised concerns on the roles of the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs in flood control.Here we analyze the changes in the pattern of the Yangtze River flood control by comparing the strategies to tackle the three heavy floods occurring in 1954,1998,and 2020.We propose that the overall strategy of the Yangtze River flood control in the new era should adhere to the principle of"Integration of storage and drainage over the entire Yangtze River Basin,with draining floods downstream as the first priority"by using both engineering and non-engineering measures.On the basis of embankments,the engineering measures should use the Three Gorges Dam and other large reservoirs as the major regulatory means,promote the construction of key flood detention areas,keep the floodways clear,and maintain the ecosystem services of wetlands and shoals.In terms of non-engineering measures,we should strengthen adaptive flood risk management under climate change,standardize the use of lands in flood detention areas,give space to floods,and promote the implementation of flood risk maps and flood insurance policies.The ultimate goal of this new flood control system is to enhance the adaptability to frequent floods and increase the resilience to extreme flood disasters.     

The soil Microbial Carbon Pump as a new concept for terrestrial carbon sequestration

Soil is a huge terrestrial carbon pool, which has higher carbon storage than the sum of atmospheric and terrestrial vegetation carbon. Small fluctuations in soil carbon pool can affect regional carbon flux and global climate change. As soil organic carbon plays key roles in soil carbon storage and sequestration, studying its composition, sources and stability mechanism is a key to deeply understand the functions of terrestrial ecosystem and how it will respond to climate changes. The recently-proposed concept of soil Microbial Carbon Pump(MCP) emphasizes the importance of soil microbial anabolism and its contributions to soil carbon formation and stabilization, which can be applied for elucidating the source, formation and sequestration of soil organic carbon. This article elaborates MCP-mediated soil carbon sequestration mechanism and its influencing factors, as well as representative scientific questions we may explore with the soil MCP conceptual framework.     

Geophysical evidence for thrusting of crustal materials from orogenic belts over both sides of the Yangtze Block and its geological significance

Based on deep geophysical detections, we have reconstructed the crustal structure from the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau to the Jiangnan-Xuefeng orogenic belt. The results suggest that the Yangtze Block was overthrusted by crustal materials in its NW direction from the eastern Tibetan Plateau but in its SE direction from the Jiangnan orogen. These overthrusting effects control the crustal structure from the western Sichuan to the western area of the Jiangnan orogen-Xuefeng orogenic belt. The eastward extruded materials from the eastern Tibetan Plateau were blocked by the rigid basement in the Sichuan Basin, where upper-middle crust was overthrusted whereas the lower crust was underthrusted beneath the Sichuan Basin. The underthrusted unit was absorbed by crustal folding, shortening and thickening in the Yangtze Block, forming the Xiongpo and Longquan Mountains tectonic belts and resulting in the NW-directed thrusting of the Pujiang-Chengdu-Deyang fault, and the western hillsiden fault in the Longquan Mountain. These results provide resolution to the controversy where the eastward extrusion material from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau had gone. Overall, that Yangtze Block was subjected to thrusting of the crustal materials from the orogenic belts over its both sides. This finding has implications for the study of the intracontinental orogenic mechanism in South China, the reconstruction of tectonic evolutionary history and the kinematics processes during the lateral extrusion of the Tibet Plateau.     

Variations of widespread extreme cold and warm days in winter over China and their possible causes

The two leading modes of winter surface air temperature(SAT) over China during 1961–2017 are a spatially consistent pattern and a north-south dipole pattern. Based on the two leading modes, the characteristics of the extreme cold and warm days in the two patterns, defined by the standard deviation larger than 1.28 or smaller than-1.28 in the time series of the two leading modes, are analyzed. With the increase of winter SAT during 1961–2017, the number of spatially consistent extreme cold days decreased and their occurrence was restricted to late December to early January, whereas the number of spatially consistent extreme warm days increased significantly in January and February. Global warming is associated with an increase in the spatially consistent extreme warm days and a decrease in spatially consistent extreme cold days, but has little relation to the sum of extreme cold and warm days of either the spatially consistent or north-south dipole pattern. The Siberian High(SH) is the main factor controlling the sum of spatially consistent extreme warm and cold days. The strong(weak) SH before(after) the1990 s corresponds to an increase(decrease) in the sum of the spatially consistent extreme warm and cold days. The occurrences of extreme south-cold-north-warm and extreme south-warm-north-cold days are related to the north-south difference of the SH.When the center of the SH is in mid-high latitudes, the extreme south-warm-north-cold(south-cold-north-warm) days occur more(less) often. During the winters of 1961–2017, the total number of extreme cold and warm days of the north-south dipole pattern changes negligibly. The North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation(AMOC) may be the main factor affecting the sum of the extreme cold and warm days of the two types of SAT pattern in China.     

Coupled and splitting bedload sediment transport models based on a modified flux-wave approach

Numerical modeling of free-surface flow over a mobile bed with predominantly bedload sediment transport can be done by solving the shallow water and Exner equations using coupled and splitting approaches.The coupled method uses a coupling of the governing equations at the same time step leading to a non-conservative solution.The splitting method solves the Exner and the shallow water equations in a separate manner,and is only capable of modeling weak free-surface and bedload interactions.In the current study,an extended version of a Godunov-type wave propagation algorithm is presented for modeling of morphodynamic systems using both coupled and splitting approaches.In the introduced coupled method the entire morphodynamic system is solved in the form of a conservation law.For the splitting technique,a new wave Riemann decomposition is defined which enables the scheme to be utilized for mild and strong interactions.To consider the bedload sediment discharge within the Exner equation,the Smart and Meyer-Peter&Müller formulae are used.It was found that the coupled solution gives accurate predictions for all investigated flow regimes including propagation over a dry-state using a Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy(CFL)number equal to 0.6.Furthermore,the splitting method was able to model all flow regimes with a lower CFL number of 0.3.     

Detailed mapping of the surface rupture of the 12 February 2014 Yutian Ms7.3 earthquake,Altyn Tagh fault,Xinjiang, China

Large-scale detailed mapping plays a key role in revealing the rupture characteristics and mechanisms of strong earthquakes.Relatively few studies have been performed on the surface ruptures of large earthquakes in central and western Tibet due to its remote nature and high elevation.Based on high-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)photography,we mapped the coseismic surface rupture of the 2014 Yutian M_s7.3 earthquake.Along the western Altyn Tagh fault system,the earthquake produced~37 km of surface rupture along the South Xor Kol fault(southern section S1),Xor Kol fault(central section S2)and Ashikule fault(northern section S3).Section S1 has a 16-km-long surface rupture with an average sinistral offset of 52±25 cm and a maximum offset of~90 cm,while section S3 has a 14.2-km-long surface rupture with an average sinistral offset of 36±21 cm and a maximum offset of~84 cm.A compilation of 5308 cracks yields an average crack width along the southern section of 85±71 cm and a maximum width of~700 cm;the average width along the central section is 39±21 cm,and the maximum width is 243 cm;and the average width along the northern section is 61±44 cm with a maximum of~340 cm.In addition,the average cumulative opening across rupture zone is 3.4±2.9 m along the southern section,with a maximum of~17 m;4.3±3.6 m along the central section,with a maximum of~13 m;and 1.7±1.6 m along the northern section,with a maximum of~6 m.Evidently,the average crack width and cumulative opening decrease towards bends and steps along the fault.A global synthesis of surface rupture distributions corresponding to strike-slip earthquakes indicates that the rupture zone is wider near the complex parts of fault geometries(such as bends,steps and fault bifurcations)than along straight sections,suggesting that the fault geometry has an obvious control on the surface rupture width.The widespread cracks at the intersection between the Xor Kol and South Xor Kol faults may indicate that an extensional regime is more likely to produce distributed offfault deformation,which provides an observational constraint for the numerical simulation of dynamic rupture on a fault.In addition to coseismic surface rupture,the Yutian earthquake also produced a large number of gravity-driven slides on alluvial fans with gentle slopes.The friction efficiency of the water-bearing salt layer beneath fans could decrease the sliding threshold and trigger instability under surface shaking.These distributed deformations and gravity-driven slides reflect the coupling between the rupture propagation and fault geometry and indicate that the rupture may have propagated in two directions along the Ashikule fault after passing through a step.Therefore,the investigation of coseismic surface rupture provides important observational constraints on the dynamic rupture process.     

Numerical simulations of shake-table experiment for dynamic soil-pile-structure interaction in liquefiable soils

A shake-table experiment on pile foundations in liquefi able soils composed of liquefi able sand and overlying soft clay is studied. A three-dimensional(3D) effective stress fi nite element(FE) analysis is employed to simulate the experiment. A recently developed multi-surface elasto-plastic constitutive model and a fully coupled dynamic inelastic FE formulation(u-p) are used to model the liquefaction behavior of the sand. The soil domains are discretized using a solid-fl uid fully coupled(u-p) 20-8 noded brick element. The pile is simulated using beam-column elements. Upon careful calibration, very good agreement is obtained between the computed and the measured dynamic behavior of the ground and the pile. A parametric analysis is also conducted on the model to investigate the effect of pile-pinning, pile diameter, pile stiffness, ground inclination angle, superstructure mass and pile head restraints on the ground improvement. It is found that the pile foundation has a noticeable pinning effect that reduces the lateral soil displacement. It is observed that a larger pile diameter and fi xed pile head restraints contribute to decreasing the lateral pile deformation; however, a higher ground inclination angle tends to increase the lateral pile head displacements and pile stiffness, and superstructure mass seems to effectively infl uence the lateral pile displacements.     

地震日常分析会商数据库管理软件

介绍了地震日常分析会商数据库管理软件研制的思路.该软件构建了最优的数据库表结构和Excel模板,实现了会商登记卡、震情监视报告、首都圈地区震情短临跟踪动态等信息的浏览、新添、删除、修改、保存、打印,具有首都圈地区各学科异常频次自动统计、绘图等功能.     

Biome reconstruction on the Tibetan Plateau since the Last Glacial Maximum using a machine learning method

Historical biome changes on the Tibetan Plateau provide important information that improves our understanding of the alpine vegetation responses to climate changes.However,a comprehensively quantitative reconstruction of the historical Tibetan Plateau biomes is not possible due to the lack of quantitative methods that enable appropriate classification of alpine biomes based on proxy data such as fossil pollen records.In this study,a pollen-based biome classification model was developed by applying a random forest algorithm(a supervised machine learning method)based on modern pollen assemblages on and around the Tibetan Plateau,and its robustness was assessed by comparing its results with the predictions of the biomisation method.The results indicated that modern biome distributions reconstructed using the random forest model based on modern pollen data generally concurred with the observed zonal vegetation.The random forest model had a significantly higher accuracy than the biomisation method,indicating the former is a more suitable tool for reconstructing alpine biome changes on the Tibetan Plateau.The random forest model was then applied to reconstruct the Tibetan Plateau biome changes from 22 ka BP to the present based on 51 fossil pollen records.The reconstructed biome distribution changes on the Tibetan Plateau generally corresponded to global climate changes and Asian monsoon variations.In the Last Glacial Maximum,the Tibetan Plateau was mainly desert with subtropical forests distributed in the southeast.During the last deglaciation,the alpine steppe began expanding and gradually became zonal vegetation in the central and eastern regions.Alpine meadow occupied the eastern and southeastern areas of the Tibetan Plateau since the early Holocene,and the forest-meadow-steppe-desert pattern running southeast to northwest on the Tibetan Plateau was established afterwards.In the mid-Holocene,subtropical forests extended north,which reflected the“optimum”condition.During the late Holocene,alpine meadows and alpine steppes expanded south.     

Seismic performance of a rectangular subway station with earth retaining system

Much effort has been made in investigating the seismic response and failure mechanism of rectangular subway stations,however,the influence of earth retaining systems has generally been ignored in previous studies.This paper presents a numerical study on the seismic performance of a rectangular subway station with/without earth retaining systems by taking fender piles as the example,and aims to illustrate how the existence of fender piles affects seismic responses on subway stations.The loading conditions of subway stations and their surrounding soils prior to earthquakes are discussed.Next,seismic responses of subway stations with or without fender piles were simulated.Afterward,earthquake-induced deformations of stations and surrounding soils,as well as the internal forces and damage modes of the structural components,were systematically studied.Consequently,the seismic performance of the stations was affected by the existence of fender piles.In addition,earthquake intensity is illustrated.The study showed that deformation modes of surrounding soils and damage modes of stations were different with regard to the existence of fender piles.Meanwhile,earthquake intensity influencing the seismic performance of stations with or without fender piles were found to be opposite.     

Seismoacoustic field transducer

The possibility of using piezoelectric hydrophones for recording very-low-frequency wave fields is considered. A transducer of seismoacoustic fields with periods over 100 s has been developed and tested.     

Magnetic field disturbance in magnetoactive plasma with a localized electrostatic field

Charged particle motion in magnetoactive plasma with an axially symmetric electrostatic field has been studied. It has been indicated that a difference between drift velocities of electrons and ions leads to a magnetic field disturbance. The equations for stationary magnetic field disturbances stretched along the magnetic field, which can be magnetic ducts for propagation of whistlers, have been obtained. The possibility of formation of such ducts by electrostatic fields from thunderstorm sources, penetrating into the ionosphere, has been estimated.     

A deterministic method for designing near field and far field earthquakes

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The deviation of the total geomagnetic field direction from the dipole field direction as a manifestation of the non-dipole field

Summary The angle between the total geomagnetic field direction and the axial dipole field direction was computed for the whole of the Earth's surface for the epoch 1945. It was supposed that the dipole field exerts a latitude-dependent influence on the surface manifestation of the non-dipole field. A modifying function of latitude was estimated to eliminate this influence. The isolines of the resulting quantity were plotted.     

日面方位磁场扰动和行星际磁场螺旋结构

文采用球坐标下2.5维理想MHD模型,对日球子午面内方位磁场扰动的传播进行数值模拟,重点分析它对行星际磁场螺旋角的影响. 本文认为,观测到的行星际磁场螺旋角大于Parker模型的预言值,是太阳表面不断向行星际发出同向方位磁场扰动的结果;太阳较差自转在太阳内部产生的方位磁场为这类扰动提供了源头. 模拟结果表明,采用持续时间等于周期的十分之一、扰动幅度为103nT量级的正向方位磁场扰动,就可使1 AU处行星际磁场的螺旋角增加2°左右,与有关观测结果相符. 模拟结果还表明,上述方位磁场扰动对日球子午面内的太阳风特性和磁场位形的影响基本上可以忽略.     

地球电场与地球磁场的形成机理

为探讨地球磁场的形成机理,应用经典电磁理论以微分的思维方式建立起三种自激发电机模型,用球形自激发电机模型简明地描述地球磁场的形成和分布;从分析地轴参考系中相对于自转地球静止的电荷间洛仑兹力的特点以及地球上的电荷在地球电场和地球磁场作用下的漂移规律,阐述中心磁场的形成及反转机理;分析电荷相对于地球的漂移以阐述偏磁场的形成.理论分析表明:地球上每一点的磁场都可以看成是由该点的几个分磁场叠加而成;地球具有自身的电场;地球电场与地球磁场同时产生、同时变化,且都源自于地球的自转和地球上正负电荷的非对等分布.     

Spatial power spectra of the crustal geomagnetic field and core geomagnetic field

Lowes (1966, 1974) has introduced the function R_n defined by $\text{R}{}^{\mathrm{n}}\text{=(n + 1)}\text{∑}\text{m=0}\text{∞}\text{[(g}{}^{\mathrm{m}}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{)}{}^2\text{+ (h}{}^{\mathrm{m}}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{)}{}^2\text{]}\text{where}\text{g}{}_{\mathrm{n}}{}^{\mathrm{m}}\text{and}\text{h}{}_{\mathrm{n}}{}^{\mathrm{m}}$ are the coefficients of a spherical harmonic expansion of the scalar potential of the geomagnetic field at the Earth's surface. The mean squared value of the magnetic field B = ??V on a sphere of radius r > α is given by $\text{〈}\text{B}\text{·〉 =}\text{∑}\text{n=1}\text{∞}\text{R}{}^{\mathrm{n}}\text{(}\text{a/}\text{r}\text{)}{}^{\mathrm{2n=4}}\text{where}\text{a}$ is the Earth's radius. We refer to R_n as the spherical harmonic spatial power spectrum of the geomagnetic field.In this paper it is shown that Rⁿ = R^M_n = R^C_n where the components R_n^M due to the main (or core) field and R_n^C due to the crustal field are given approximately by $\text{R}{}^{\mathrm{M}}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{= [}\text{(n =1)/}\text{(n + 2)}\text{](1.142 × 10}{}^9\text{)(0.288}{}^{\mathrm{n}}\text{Λ}{}^2\text{R}{}^{\mathrm{C}}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{= [}\text{(n =1){[1 — exp(-n/290)]/}\text{(n/290)} 0.52 Λ}{}^2\text{where}\text{Iγ = 1 nT}$. The two components are approximately equal for n = 15.Lowes has given equations for the core and crustal field spectra. His equation for the crustal field spectrum is significantly different from the one given here. The equation given in this paper is in better agreement with data obtained on the POGO spacecraft and with data for the crustal field given by Alldredge et al. (1963).The equations for the main and crustal geomagnetic field spectra are consistent with data for the core field given by Peddie and Fabiano (1976) and data for the crustal field given by Alldredge et al. The equations are based on a statistical model that makes use of the principle of equipartition of energy and predicts the shape of both the crustal and core spectra. The model also predicts the core radius accurately. The numerical values given by the equations are not strongly dependent on the model.Equations relating average great circle power spectra of the geomagnetic field components to R_n are derived. The three field components are in the radial direction, along the great circle track, and perpendicular to the first two. These equations can, in principle, be inverted to compute the R_n for celestial bodies from average great circle power spectra of the magnetic field components.     

Solar polar magnetic field

The solar polar magnetic field has attracted the attention of researchers since the polar magnetic field reversal was revealed in the middle of the last century (Babcock and Livingston, 1958). The polar magnetic field has regularly reversed because the magnetic flux is transported from the sunspot formation zone owing to differential rotation, meridional circulation, and turbulent diffusion. However, modeling of these processes leads to ambiguous conclusions, as a result of which it is sometimes unclear whether a transport model is actual. Thus, according to the last Hinode data, the problem of a standard transport model (Shiota et al., 2012) consists in that a decrease in the polar magnetic flux in the Southern Hemisphere lags behind such a decrease in the flux in the Northern Hemisphere (from 2008 to June 2012). On the other hand, Svalgaard and Kamide (2012) consider that the asymmetry in the sign reversal simply results from the asymmetry in the emerging flux in the sunspot formation region. A detailed study of the polar magnetic flux evolution according to the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) data for May 2010–December 2012 is illustrated in the present work. Helioseismic & Magnetic Imager (HMI) magnetic data in the form of a magnetic field component along the line of sight (the time resolution is 720 s) are used here. The magnetic fluxes in sunspot formation regions and at high latitudes have been compared.     

The Earth's gravity field

The Earth's gravity field can be determined from gravity measurements made on the surface of the Earth, and through the analysis of the motion of Earth satellites. Gravity data can be used to solve the boundary value problem of gravimetric geodesy in various ways, from the classical formulation using a geoid to the concept of a reference surface interior to the masses of the Earth to a statistical method. We now have gravity information for 1⁰ data blocks over 46% of the Earth's surface and more than several million point measurements available.Satellite observations such as range, range-rate, and optical data have been analyzed to determine potential coefficients used to describe the Earth's gravitational potential field. Coefficients, in a spherical harmonic expansion to degree 12, can be determined from satellite data alone, and to at least degree 20 when the satellite data is combined with surface gravity material. Recent solutions for potential coefficients agree well to degree 4, but with increasing disagreement at higher degrees.     

Terracing potential field data

Terracing is an operator that is applied to potential field data to produce regions of constant field amplitude that are separated by sharp boundaries, as an aid to interpretation. When applied to map data, the boundaries are defined by the zero contour of the 2D Laplacian derivative operator. An improved method is described here that defines the boundaries by the zero contour of the profile curvature. This approach gives superior results because the 2D Laplacian operator is composed only of derivatives in the EW and NS directions, while the profile curvature uses the curvature in the 'uphill' direction at each point, whatever that direction may be. The method is demonstrated on gravity data from South Africa. Source code in Matlab format is available from the authors on request.