Exploring the role of the sharing economy in disasters management

Improvements in information and communications technologies (ICTs) have facilitated the inclusion of the sharing economy (SE) in societies more than ever. In the aftermath of recent disasters, the SE played significant roles to help the affected people and support official responders. However, the literature has not effectively explored these roles, and thus, no framework can support the systematic inclusion of the SE in disasters management. This paper aims to address the gap through a two-stage exploratory research approach. First, we conduct a systematic literature review to identify the extent to which the SE is taken into consideration in disasters. After that, we investigate the role of three Iranian SE-based companies that were involved in the 2019 Iran floods response. We collect empirical data by conducting semi-structured interviews and reviewing official reports.Our findings indicate that very few studies discuss the different roles of the SE in disasters, although SE companies have often provided effective solutions to address critical post-disaster logistics challenges. Four research propositions are presented to describe emerging roles for SE companies. The contribution of our study is twofold. First, our research identifies the different roles that the SE could play in disasters and therefore, brings a new perspective to the literature. Second, the study suggests opportunities for collaboration and partnership models from the point of origin to delivery that can support coordination and logistics in disasters.     

Management of bridges with shallow foundations exposed to local scour

Abstract

The Serbian road network includes a large portion of bridges with shallow foundations vulnerable to local scour as tragically demonstrated during the extreme flooding in May 2014. Currently, the bridge management procedures in Serbia and worldwide do not comprehensively account for a risk of bridge failure due to flooding and fail to provide sufficient information for the decision-making. Thus, a novel methodology for quantitative vulnerability assessment is suggested as a tool to identify the most vulnerable bridges in a network. Herein, the essential task is evaluation of the conditional probability of a bridge failure due to local scour in a flooding event of a certain magnitude. To apply this approach on a network level, there is a dire need to establish precise practice-ready guidelines on an optimal set of information to be used and/or collected in situ, which is discussed on an example of the Serbian bridge database. The vulnerability of a bridge to local scour may be used as a comprehensive indicator of a bridge performance in a flooding event. For a network level, the vulnerability maps with respect to flooding of different magnitudes will give road operators crucial information to apply adequate quality control plans to vulnerable bridges.     

Learning from the extreme River Tyne flood in January 2005

Extreme floods often demonstrate unanticipated characteristics that pose problems for management and response. The floods on the Tyne and Eden in January 2005 provided numerous examples of such unexpected response. This paper describes characteristics of storm rainfall and runoff generation on the River Tyne catchment, flood effects and damage. Unusual aspects of hydrological behaviour are highlighted as a basis for assessing what lessons can be learned for flood risk management. These include problems associated with coincidence of extreme wind speeds and rainfall, the retarding influence of floodplain storage on flood wave travel time in extreme flows, the influence of critical storm duration on the severity of the resulting flood on headwaters and main river, and the variety of mechanisms of flood occurrence. The occurrence of such an extreme flood provides the opportunity to validate and enhance the review process of the Environment Agency's flood zone maps.     

A local alignment approach to similarity analysis of industrial alarm flood sequences

Similar alarm sequence alignment algorithms have been used to find similar alarm floods in the historical database for the prediction and prevention of alarm floods. However, the existing modified Smith–Waterman (SW) algorithm has a high computation complexity, preventing its online applications within a tolerable computation time period. This paper proposes a new local alignment algorithm, based on the basic local alignment search tool (BLAST). The novelty of the proposed algorithm is three-fold. First, a priority-based similarity scoring strategy makes the proposed algorithm more sensitive to alarms having higher alarm priorities. Second, a set-based pre-matching mechanism avoids unnecessary computations by excluding all irrelevant alarm floods and alarm tags. Third, the seeding and extending steps of the conventional BLAST are adapted for alarm floods, which reduce the searching space significantly. Owing to the novelties, the proposed algorithm is much faster in computation and provides a higher alignment accuracy than the SW algorithm. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by industrial case studies based on the historical alarm floods from an oil conversion plant.     

回采巷道向斜轴附近水患防治技术

由于富水层顶板工作面回采巷道向斜轴附近水平较低,极易使向斜轴附近回采巷道排水不力形成肓巷。文中通过对回采巷道向斜轴附近充水因素的分析,给出了工作面的正常与最大涌水量计算公式,提出了三种防治回采巷道向斜轴附近水患的措施,较好地控制了由于工作面涌水造成回采巷道向斜轴附近水患问题。为同类条件下回采巷道的水患防治提供了一定的借鉴作用。     

Scouring at Bed Sills as a Response to Flash Floods

The temporal development of clear-water local scour depth at bed sills in uniform gravel beds is considered. Experiments are presented on the development of scour holes under unsteady hydraulic conditions, with the triangular-shaped hydrographs tested being of different durations and different rates of flow variation. Based on the experimental results and a theoretical framework, a method is given for the definition and prediction of the scouring process under unsteady flows in terms of a dimensionless temporal parameter. A “flash flood” is here defined as an event for which the scour doesn’t attain its potential magnitude, i.e., the equilibrium value for the peak hydrograph flow rate. This flood nature is dependent on both the characteristics of the flood event itself and the characteristics of the stream. A quantitative measure of what constitutes a flash flood is given in terms of the identified temporal parameter. Results show that the ratio between the final scour depth and the potential scour depth at a bed sill for a given hydrograph can be estimated as a function of the identified temporal parameter.     

黄河内蒙古杭锦旗独贵塔拉奎素段凌汛期溃堤原因分析

2008年3月20日凌晨，内蒙古杭锦旗独贵塔拉奎素段黄河大堤发生溃堤，受灾面积106km^2，受灾群众10241人，直接经济损失达69120万元。通过分析溃堤原因，提出一系列防御和减轻黄河内蒙古河段凌灾损失的工程与非工程的建设措施．     

分流对高含沙输送影响试验的初步分析

利用水槽进行了粗细两种泥沙的高含沙水流稳定输送试验，在此基础上就军水分流对高含沙输送的影响进行了试验研究。浑水分流后，一般会改变水流的含沙量，或者影响水流的稳定输沙状态，引起河床的冲淤变化。分流会增加水流含沙的浓度或造成淤积，从而影响高含沙水流的稳定输送。     

中小洪水引洪淤滩技术试验研究

黄河下游滩区引洪淤滩改土，是滩区治理的重要内容之一。自从滩区立项治理以来，针对中低滩区开展了引洪淤临，淤滩改土和村塘放淤的试验研究工作。本文根据试验和部分滩区引洪放淤经验，提出了在黄河下游利用中小洪水有控制地进行各类引洪放淤规划设计原则和技术措施，以及加快滩区引洪放淤技术的建议。     

降雨因素对大清河流域洪水径流变化影响分析

选择海河流域大清河水系的两个子流域,对其洪峰和洪量的变化趋势进行了分析,统计了1956—1980年和1981—2005年两个时段一定频率洪水发生的次数,发现两个子流域洪水次数和量级呈减小的趋势。分析了降雨因素对洪水变化趋势的影响,结果表明,次降雨量和降雨强度均有减少趋势,一定频率降雨发生的次数在1981—2002年比1956—1980年有明显的减少,汛期降雨量也呈减少趋势,暴雨空间分布发生了一定的变化,这些降雨因素对洪水次数和量级的减小具有一定的影响。此外,流域土地利用变化和土壤最大蓄水容量增加也是导致洪水量级减小的主要因素。