Developing a Framework to Identify Local Business and Government Vulnerability to Sea-Level Rise: A Case Study of Coastal Virginia

In this article, we develop methods for identifying local business and government vulnerabilities to sea-level rise and the natural hazards associated with it. Unlike the fairly large literature on measuring social vulnerability to natural hazards, there are very few papers that discuss methods for measuring local business or local government vulnerability even though businesses and governments are also differentially affected natural hazards. Our goal is to create measures that are easily replicable using readily available data and that are easy to explain to local planners, policymakers, and citizens. We implement our measures of local business and government vulnerability for our study area, Coastal Virginia. We combine those measures with a physical vulnerability measure to identify the areas in Coastal Virginia where planners and policymakers need to more closely examine the potential impacts of sea-level rise on their local businesses and government. While our methods are tailored to Coastal Virginia, they could be easily applied in other areas threatened by sea-level rise.     

GPS资料获取的四川地区应变率演化状态

为了研究汶川5·12地震事件对青藏高原东南缘及四川盆地的应力再分配作用及该区域现今的地震危险性,使用1997-2015年共计355个GPS站点观测资料获取了该区域1997-2008、2009-2011、2011-2013、2013-2015年共计4期独立的速度场,基于规则格网和张力样条插值方法计算了上述速度结果对应的面膨胀率、垂直轴旋转率及最大剪应变率.以2008年汶川Ms8.0级地震为主要节点,以芦山2013年Ms7.0级地震、康定2014年Ms6.3级地震为参考节点,分析了应变率场的时空演化过程及其与地震事件的潜在关联性.研究结果显示:随着汶川震后的时间推移,沿龙门山断裂的3种应变率分布均有减弱趋势,但至今仍未恢复至震前状态,说明该区域的震后回弹受下地壳黏弹性流变物质的弛豫影响较为显著;安宁河-则木河断裂及周边的面压缩率在汶川地震之后有增强趋势,该趋势可能与区域的地震危险性有所关联;安宁河-则木河断裂带及鲜水河断裂北段是未来一段时间该研究区域内应该持续关注的主要地震危险区.