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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2020) | Viewed by 47588

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Prof. Dr. Wen Cheng Liu

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Department of Civil and Disaster Prevention Engineering, National United University, Miaoli 36063, Taiwan
Interests: hydrology and hydraulics; environmental fluid mechanics; disaster prevention and ecological engineering; contaminant transport modeling; environmental monitoring; climate change
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Dr. Josh Tsun-Hua Yang

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan
Interests: hydrometeorological modeling; flood routing; the application of cyber-physical systems and internet of things for disaster mitigation
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Only 2.5% of all the water on Earth is fresh water and remainder is salt water. Of this fresh water, two-thirds is snow and ice and one-third is below ground. Therefore, only 0.3% of all the water on Earth is available as surface water for use. Water, no doubt, is a limited resource but essential to sustain life and support economic development. Water scarcity is the result of an imbalance between supply and demand. Efficient water resource management thus helps sustain life on Earth. Meanwhile, water-related disasters such as floods and droughts are the most frequent calamities worldwide. Climate extremes increase the risk of floods and droughts. Innovative water hazard preparedness and management is essential to securing resilience and turning adverse impacts such as floods into positive outcomes such as available water resources. Professionals and experts in water resources have an obligation to plan and manage water resource systems so that they will fully contribute to an improved quality of life for all people, now and in the future. This will also be of interest to the many readers in industry, academia and policy-makers who are concerned with water technology, management and systems sustainability.

Prof. Wen-Cheng Liu
Asst. Prof. Josh Tsun-Hua Yang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

sustainability
risk
disaster
water management
climate change
integration
resilience

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Published Papers (11 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 3469 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development of a Hydrological Ensemble Prediction System to Assist with Decision-Making for Floods during Typhoons

by Sheng-Chi Yang, Tsun-Hua Yang, Ya-Chi Chang, Cheng-Hsin Chen, Mei-Ying Lin, Jui-Yi Ho and Kwan Tun Lee

Sustainability 2020, 12(10), 4258; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104258 - 22 May 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2776

Abstract

Hydrological ensemble prediction systems (HEPSs) can provide decision makers with early warning information, such as peak stage and peak time, with enough lead time to take the necessary measures to mitigate disasters. This study develops a HEPS that integrates meteorological, hydrological, storm surge, and global tidal models. It is established to understand information about the uncertainty of numerical weather predictions and then to provide probabilistic flood forecasts instead of commonly adopted deterministic forecasts. The accuracy of flood forecasting is increased. However, the spatiotemporal uncertainty associated with these numerical models in the HEPS and the difficulty in interpreting the model results hinder effective decision-making during emergency response situations. As a result, the efficiency of decision-making is not always increased. Thus, this study also presents a visualization method to interpret the ensemble results to enhance the understanding of probabilistic runoff forecasts for operational purposes. A small watershed with area of 100 km² and four historical typhoon events were selected to evaluate the performance of the method. The results showed that the proposed HEPS along with the visualization approach improved the intelligibility of forecasts of the peak stages and peak times compared to that of approaches previously described in the literature. The capture rate is greater than 50%, which is considered practical for decision makers. The proposed HEPS with the visualization method has potential for both decreasing the uncertainty of numerical rainfall forecasts and improving the efficiency of decision-making for flood forecasts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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24 pages, 6994 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Utilizing Bivariate Climate Forecasts to Update the Probabilities of Ensemble Streamflow Prediction

by Jang Hyun Sung, Young Ryu and Seung Beom Seo

Sustainability 2020, 12(7), 2905; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072905 - 6 Apr 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2251

Abstract

In order to enhance the streamflow forecast skill, seasonal/sub-seasonal streamflow forecasts can be post-processed by incorporating new information, such as climate signals. This study proposed a simple yet efficient approach, the “Bivar_update” model that utilizes bivariate climate forecast to update individual probabilities of the ensemble streamflow prediction. The Bayesian updating scheme is used to update the joint probability mass function derived from historic precipitation and temperature data sets. Thirty-five dam basins were used for the case study, and the modified Tank model was embedded into the ensemble streamflow prediction framework. The performance of the proposed approach was evaluated through a comparison with a reference streamflow forecast model, the “Univar_update” model, that reflects only precipitation forecast, in terms of deterministic and categorical streamflow forecast accuracy. For this purpose, multiple cases of probabilistic precipitation and temperature forecasts were synthetically generated. As a result, the Bivar_update model was able to decrease the errors in forecast under below-normal conditions. The improvements in forecasting skills were found for both measures; deterministic and categorical streamflow forecasts. Since the proposed Bivar_update model reflects both precipitation and temperature information, it can compensate low predictability especially under dry conditions in which the streamflow’s dependency on temperature increases. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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16 pages, 4706 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on Sensor Placement for Disaster Prevention in Water Distribution Networks for Important Users

by Jiajia Wu, Donghui Ma, Wei Wang and Zhao Han

Sustainability 2020, 12(2), 723; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020723 - 19 Jan 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2819

Abstract

Sensor placement for disaster prevention for important users in urban water distribution networks is essential for post-earthquake monitoring and repair. Herein, we proposed a sensor placement approach for disaster prevention monitoring for important users, to (a) improve the fault diagnosis ability of the water distribution network and to (b) guarantee the function of emergency services for key nodes after an earthquake. First, an evaluation system of node users’ disaster prevention impact factors was presented to evaluate the node influence degree from three aspects: post-earthquake leakage, emergency support and topology structure; and the weight values of node users’ disaster prevention impact factors were obtained. Second, a post-earthquake hydraulic analysis model based on the pressure-driven demand was used to calculate the water shortage ratio of nodes. Third, using the three-way clustering integration method, the results of four clustering techniques were integrated to divide the monitoring domain in the water distribution network based on sensitivity analysis. Finally, on basis of the sensitivity matrix, the division of the monitoring area and the impact factors of node users’ disaster prevention were combined to place sensors for post-earthquake disaster prevention in the water distribution network. Detailed computational experiments for a real urban water network in China were performed and compared with the results of other traditional techniques to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. The results show that the approach is better than traditional methods. It not only considers the actual hydraulic information of the water distribution network, but also the important user nodes after an earthquake, and is of great significance for emergency command and rescue and disaster relief after an earthquake in the city. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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21 pages, 39498 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Precipitation Forecasting Using Multilayer Neural Network and Support Vector Machine Optimization Based on Flow Regime Algorithm Taking into Account Uncertainties of Soft Computing Models

by Fatemeh Barzegari Banadkooki, Mohammad Ehteram, Ali Najah Ahmed, Chow Ming Fai, Haitham Abdulmohsin Afan, Wani M. Ridwam, Ahmed Sefelnasr and Ahmed El-Shafie

Sustainability 2019, 11(23), 6681; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236681 - 26 Nov 2019

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 3612

Abstract

Drought, climate change, and demand make precipitation forecast a very important issue in water resource management. The present study aims to develop a forecasting model for monthly precipitation in the basin of the province of East Azarbaijan in Iran over a ten-year period using the multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP) and support vector regression (SVR) models. In this study, the flow regime optimization algorithm (FRA) was applied to optimize the multilayer neural network and support vector machine. The flow regime optimization algorithm not only identifies the parameters of the SVR and MLP models but also replaces the training algorithms. The decision tree model (M5T) was also used to forecast precipitation and compare it with the results of hybrid models. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify effective indicators for precipitation forecast. In the first scenario, the input data include temperature data with a delay of one to twelve months, the second scenario includes precipitation data with a delay of one to twelve months, and the third scenario includes precipitation and temperature data with a delay of one to three months. The mean absolute error (MAE) and Nash–Sutcliffe error (NSE) indices were used to evaluate the performance of the models. The results showed that the proposed MLP–FRA outperformed all the other examined models. Regarding the uncertainties of the models, it was also shown that the MLP–FRA model had a lower uncertainty band width than other models, and a higher percentage of the data will fall within the range of the confidence band. As the selected scenario, Scenario 3 had a better performance. Finally, monthly precipitation maps were generated based on the MLP–FRA model and Scenario 3 using the weighted interpolation method, which showed significant precipitation in spring and winter and a low level of precipitation in summer. The results of the present study showed that MLP–FRA has high capability to predict hydrological variables and can be used in future research. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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13 pages, 4862 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impact of Land Use/Land Cover Change on Hydrological Components in Chongwe River Catchment

by Tewodros M. Tena, Phenny Mwaanga and Alick Nguvulu

Sustainability 2019, 11(22), 6415; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11226415 - 14 Nov 2019

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4987

Abstract

Chongwe River Catchment, a sub-catchment of the Zambezi River Basin, has been experiencing changes in land use/land cover (LULC) and in its hydrology. This study aims to assess the impact of LULC changes on the catchment’s hydrological components such as streamflow, evapotranspiration and water abstractions. LULC change data, detected from the 1984, 1994, 2014 and 2017 USGS Landsat imagery using a maximum likelihood supervised classifier, were integrated into the WEAP Model along with soil, slope and hydro–climate data. The results showed that between 1984 and 2017 built-up area increased by 382.77% at 6.97 km²/year, irrigated agriculture increased by 745.62% at 1.70 km²/year, rainfed farms/ranch/grassland increased by 14.67% at 14.53 km²/year, forest land decreased by 41.11% at 22.33 km²/year and waterbodies decreased by 73.95% at 0.87 km²/year. Streamflow increased at a rate of 0.13 Mm³ per annum in the wet seasons and showed a high variation with flow volume of 79.68 Mm³ in February and 1.01 Mm³ in September. Annual actual evapotranspiration decreased from 840.6 mm to 796.3 mm while annual water abstraction increased from 8.94 mm to 23.2 mm from the year 1984 to 2017. The pattern of LULC change between 1984 and 2017 has negatively impacted the hydrology of the Chongwe River Catchment. From these findings, an integrated catchment management and protection approach is proposed to mitigate the negative impacts of LULC dynamics on hydrological components in the Chongwe River Catchment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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18 pages, 2494 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Social Acceptability of Flood Management Strategies under Climate Change Using Contingent Valuation Method (CVM)

by Fatemeh Fadia Maghsood, Hamidreza Moradi, Ronny Berndtsson, Mostafa Panahi, Alireza Daneshi, Hossein Hashemi and Ali Reza Massah Bavani

Sustainability 2019, 11(18), 5053; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11185053 - 16 Sep 2019

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3975

Abstract

Floods are natural hazards with serious impact on many aspects of human life. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that climate change already has significant impact on magnitude and frequency of flood events worldwide. Thus, it is suggested to adopt strategies to manage damage impacts of climate change. For this, involving the local community in the decision-making process, as well as experts and decision-makers, is essential. We focused on assessing the social acceptability of flood management strategies under climate change through a socio-hydrological approach using the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). For this purpose as well, hydro-climate modelling and the Analytical Network Process (ANP) were used. Among twelve investigated flood management strategies, “river restoration”, “agricultural management and planning”, and “watershed management” were the publicly most accepted strategies. Assessment of the social acceptability of these three strategies was carried out by use of the CVM and Willingness to Pay (WTP) methodology. Generally, 50%, 38%, and 18% were willing to pay and 44%, 48%, and 52% were willing to contribute flood management strategy in zones 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Overall, peoples’ WTP for flood management strategies decreased with increasing distance from the river. Among different investigated dependent variables, household income had the highest influence on WTP. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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15 pages, 5825 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimizing the Grouting Design for Groundwater Inrush Control in Completely Weathered Granite Tunnel: An Experimental and Field Investigation

by Weihua Zheng, Dengwu Wang, Guijin Li, Lin Qin, Kai Luo and Jinquan Liu

Sustainability 2019, 11(13), 3636; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11133636 - 2 Jul 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3129

Abstract

Groundwater and mud inrush disaster from completely weathered granite presents a huge difficulty for tunnel construction, which requires the grouting measurement with favorable performance. To propose the optimal material parameters for grouting, numerous tests, including strength, permeability, and anti-washout, were conducted to evaluate the effects of grouting filling ratio (GFR), curing age and water velocity on the grouting effect. The test results show that: (1) The hydraulic property of completely weathered granite can be significantly improved by increasing the grouting volume and curing age. In particular, when GFR ≥ 48%, the cohesion and internal friction angle increased to about 200 kPa and 30°, which were more than three and ten times of that pre-grouting. (2) With the increase of GFR, the permeability exhibited three stages: Slowly decreasing stage, sharply decreasing stage and stable stage. When increased from 32% to 48%, the permeability coefficient sharply decreased two orders of magnitude, namely from 4.05 × 10⁻⁵ cm/s to 1 × 10⁻⁷ cm/s. (3) The particle erosion rate decreased sharply to below 10% in the low water velocity (v ≤ 0.2 m/s) when GFR ≥ 48%, but still exceeded 50% when v ≥ 0.4m/s. The results indicated that the grouting volume of GFR = 48% was a suitable grouting parameter to reinforce the completely weathered granite, particularly in the low water velocity condition. The field investigation of hydraulic-mechanical behaviors in the Junchang tunnel indicated that the grouting effect can be improved markedly. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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13 pages, 3429 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Estimates of Discharge Coefficient in Levee Breach Under Two Different Approach Flow Types

by Seung Oh Lee, Kwang Seok Yoon, Jun Seon Lee and Seung Ho Hong

Sustainability 2019, 11(8), 2374; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11082374 - 21 Apr 2019

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3478

Abstract

The amount of released water (discharge) in a levee breach is a primary input variable to establish an emergency action plan for the area next to the levee. However, although several studies have been conducted, there is still no widely applicable discharge coefficient formula; this needs to be known to estimate discharge amount through an opening caused by a levee breach. Sometimes, the discharge coefficient developed for a sharp crested side weir is used to rate the discharge, but, in case of a levee breach, the resulting geometry and flow types are similar to that over a broad crested weir. Thus, in this study, two different openings—rectangular and trapezoidal shape—are constructed in the center of a levee at a height of 0.6m to replicate levee breach scenarios, and the effect of two different approach flow types—the river type approach and reservoir type approach—are explored to suggest a discharge coefficient formula applicable for discharge rating for a levee breach. The results show that the ratio of head above the bottom of an opening and the opening width is a key variable for calculating the discharge coefficient of a reservoir type, but the approach Froude number should also be considered for a river type approach. The measured data are used to improve rating equations and will be useful in the future to validate computational fluid dynamics simulations of wave propagation during levee failure into the inundation area. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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17 pages, 9745 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Parametric Assessment of Seasonal Drought Risk to Crop Production in Bangladesh

by Mahiuddin Alamgir, Morteza Mohsenipour, Rajab Homsi, Xiaojun Wang, Shamsuddin Shahid, Mohammed Sanusi Shiru, Nor Eliza Alias and Ali Yuzir

Sustainability 2019, 11(5), 1442; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051442 - 8 Mar 2019

Cited by 49 | Viewed by 5201

Abstract

Droughts are more damaging when they occur during crop growing season. This research assessed the spatial distribution of drought risks to crops in Bangladesh. Catastrophe theory-based weighting method was used to estimate drought hazard, exposure, and risk by avoiding potential human bias. Ten major crops, including eight different types of rice, wheat, and potato, were selected for evaluation of drought risk. Results showed that 32.4%, 27.2%, and 16.2% of land in Bangladesh is prone to extreme Kharif (May-October), Rabi (November-April), and pre-Kharif (March-May) droughts, respectively. Among the major crops, Hybrid Boro rice cultivated in 18.2% of the area is found to be highly vulnerable to droughts, which is followed by High Yield Varity (HYV) Boro (16.9%), Transplant Aman (16.4%), HYV Aman (14.1%), and Basic Aman (12.4%) rice. Hybrid Boro rice in 12 districts, different varieties of Aman rice in 10 districts, and HYV Boro rice in 9 districts, mostly located in the north and northwest of Bangladesh, are exposed to high risk of droughts. High frequency of droughts and use of more land for agriculture have made the region highly prone to droughts. The methodology adopted in this study can be utilized for unbiased estimation of drought risk in agriculture in order to adopt necessary risk reduction measures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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14 pages, 1624 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Landslides and Cropland Abandonment in China’s Mountainous Areas: Spatial Distribution, Empirical Analysis and Policy Implications

by Xin Deng, Dingde Xu, Miao Zeng and Yanbin Qi

Sustainability 2018, 10(11), 3909; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10113909 - 27 Oct 2018

Cited by 34 | Viewed by 3842

Abstract

Cropland, as the largest land use type in the human landscape, contributes to not only biodiversity but also global food security. However, cropland abandonment not only is harmful to agricultural cultural landscapes but also threatens food security. Prior studies have suggested that changes in the social environment drive farmers to abandon cropland. In contrast, this study reveals that factors of the natural environment (e.g., landslides) have steadily and significantly affected cropland abandonment after controlling the factors of the social environment. More specifically, based on the survey data of a large sample of 4850 mountainous households in 24 provinces of China and following the theoretical framework of “environment → land use”, this study quantitatively identified the impacts of landslides on cropland abandonment in mountainous areas using the Probit and Tobit models. The results show that: (1) There is a similar spatial agglomeration trend between landslides and cropland abandonment. Namely, an area that has a high incidence of landslides also has a high incidence of cropland abandonment. (2) There is a significant and positive correlation between landslides and cropland abandonment. Namely, compared with peasants who have not suffered from landslides, the probability that peasants suffering from landslides will abandon cropland and the area abandoned increase by 6.8% and 0.064 mu, respectively. (3) Elderly farmers (over 64 years old) and the development of urbanization help curb cropland abandonment in the mountains. The results of this study may provide reference for the government to implement effective policies for managing landslides and revitalizing unused cropland resources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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Review

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20 pages, 503 KiB

Open AccessReview

A General Overview of the Risk-Reduction Strategies for Floods and Droughts

by Tsun-Hua Yang and Wen-Cheng Liu

Sustainability 2020, 12(7), 2687; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072687 - 29 Mar 2020

Cited by 56 | Viewed by 9751

Abstract

Water is a limited resource but essential to sustaining life and supporting economic development. Only 2.5% of all the water on Earth is freshwater and can be used to meet basic human needs such as a clean supply of water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Water scarcity is the result of an imbalance between supply and demand. Efficient water resource management is definitely of interest to research and is a practical topic. At the same time, water-related disasters such as floods and droughts cause the loss of life and property. Disasters increase the difficulty of effective water resource management. An increase in climate extremes can also increase the risk of floods and droughts. This overview covers 150 peer-reviewed journal publications from the last twenty years focusing on risk-reduction strategies for floods and droughts. First, a definition and classification of flood and drought was introduced. Second, studies and techniques associated with risk reduction were grouped into three themes and discussed: prediction and warning; monitoring; and impact assessment, response, and management. As a result, many studies were solely focused on, and achieve excellence in, their own themes. Special attention was needed to find in these studies what can convert the adverse impacts such as flood water to positive outcomes such as drought relief. Multidisciplinary cooperation is necessary to achieve sustainability and to adapt to climate change. Finally, advanced techniques such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) were foreseen to have a tremendous impact on future disaster risk reduction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction)

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