A Training Framework for Understanding Conflict in the Coastal Zone

The coastal zone is attractive for human settlement because it tends to be resource rich, providing a good location to generate incomes and livelihoods. Equally, however, it is a complex and powerful natural environment, which means that the coastal zone often becomes a focus of conflict with multiple users competing for limited space and resources. Understanding the causes of, and determining solutions to, the ensuing problems requires inputs from a range of analyses across sectors and disciplines. However, different disciplinary and sectoral approaches frequently use different investigative methods, language, and means of presenting results. This article presents a framework that has been developed in collaboration with Indian institutions over the past three years in an effort to address some of these fundamental problems of analysis and translation into policy action. Key components addressed by the framework are strengthening the capacity to practice, knowing how to proceed and how to find out what needs to be known using experience-based problem solving.     

Turning Off the Heat: Impacts of Power Plant Decommissioning on Green Turtle Research in San Diego Bay

Green turtles (Chelonia mydas) are among the most high profile species in San Diego Bay, California, and understanding impacts of coastal development and industry is essential to the management and conservation of this local population. Here we describe power plant changing energy production and its impact on turtle habitat use and our ability to research and manage this population. For over 20 years, green sea turtles have been captured, assessed, and tagged near the South Bay Power Plant (SBPP) in the San Diego Bay; from 2002–2011, 104 turtles were captured on 212 occasions. As the 50-year-old SBPP generates less energy, effluent patterns change and water temperatures decrease, presumably to more natural conditions. There has been a concurrent decrease in turtle-capture success, perhaps due to lesser visitation to the effluent site where nets are tended. Seasonal catch-per-unit-effort declined from a high of 4.14 turtles per monitoring day, to a nine-year low of 1.33 during the 2010–2011 season. It is already apparent that management decisions related to energy policy are affecting the habitat and behavior of this stock of endangered turtles. Green turtles are expected to remain in the San Diego Bay after the SBPP becomes inoperative and continuing research will monitor future impacts and distribution shifts resulting from the expected changes in thermal pattern within south San Diego Bay. Research efforts to study this population (i.e., capture methods and locations) will require modification in response to these changes. Lessons learned here are applicable to the immediate coastal development of San Diego, as well as at similar interactions between marine turtles and industrial thermal effluent discharge throughout Southern California, the United States, and beyond.     

Book reviews

Coastal Resources Management: Beyond Market and Bureaucracy by Robert B. Ditton, John L. Seymour, and Gerald C. Swanson. Published by D. C. Heath and Company, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1977, 191 pp., 6 figures.

The Urban Sea: Long Island Sound by Lee E. Koppelman, Peter K. Weyl, M. Grant Gross, and DeWitt S. Davies. Published by Praeger Publishers, 1976. 209 pp., 81 figures, 42 tables.     

Initiatives in Philippine Coastal Management: An Overview

Standardized and free-format questionnaires on the state of coastal management were fielded to coastal management practitioners during three workshops and a national feedback and recommendation workshop. The most commonly cited responses were identified for each of 13 political regions and overall trends were identified. Management frameworks frequently included research, community organizing, education, livelihood, resource enhancement, resource protection, regulation, and networking components. Gender issues, documentation, and infrastructure investment were rare. The most commonly perceived environmental problem was illegal/ destructive fishing and its associated overfishing and low fish catch. The most commonly cited socioeconomic problem was the inadequacy of law enforcement. The best monitored variables were usually those related to environmental management: status and change of habitats, resources, and degree of enforcement/patrolling activities. The most common nonregulatory enhancement, aside from environmental education (which is the most popular), was mangrove reforestation. In terms of regulations, the majority of the respondents have reportedly formulated an integrated coastal management plan. In practice, regulating destructive and illegal fishing practices and then the establishment of fish sanctuaries are the next most implemented. The most popular quality-of-life enhancement strategies focused on the improvement of sustainable fishing as a livelihood and on a variety of supplementary livelihoods. The most usual institutional intervention being implemented was the setting up of local community people's organizations. Major factors which may influence success or failure of coastal management and recommendations on research, community organizing and livelihood, legislation and policies, implementation and coordination, and networking are also summarized.     

Multi-objective optimization of quarter-car models with a passive or semi-active suspension system

A systematic methodology is applied in an effort to select optimum values for the suspension damping and stiffness parameters of two degrees of freedom quarter-car models, subjected to road excitation. First, models involving passive suspension dampers with constant or dual rate characteristics are considered. In addition, models with semi-active suspensions are also examined. Moreover, special emphasis is put in modeling possible temporary separations of the wheel from the ground. For all these models, appropriate methodologies are employed for capturing the motions of the vehicle resulting from passing with a constant horizontal speed over roads involving an isolated or a distributed geometric irregularity. The optimization process is based on three suitable performance criteria, related to ride comfort, suspension travel and road holding of the vehicle and yielding the most important suspension stiffness and damping parameters. As these criteria are conflicting, a suitable multi-objective optimization methodology is set up and applied. As a result, a series of diagrams with typical numerical results are presented and compared in both the corresponding objective spaces (in the form of classical Pareto fronts) and parameter spaces.     

Preview Control Algorithms for the Active Suspension of an Off-Road Vehicle

The potential performance improvement using preview control for active vehicle suspension was first recognized in the late nineteen sixties. All work done since that time has been based on optimal control theory using simple vehicle models.

In this article, the performance of quarter vehicle preview controllers when applied to a real off-road vehicle is simulated using both two degree of freedom quarter and ten degree of freedom full vehicle models. The results, which are compared with non-preview active and conventional passive suspensions, confirm that preview control reduces vertical acceleration of the body centre of gravity, which results in improved ride quality. Further, reductions in pitch and roll motion result from smaller vertical displacements of the vehicle quarters. Coupling between quarters, through the vehicle body, appears to have a smoothing effect on the control.

As an alternative to optimal control theory based controllers, a simple ad hoc preview controller based on isolating the vehicle body from dynamic loads transmitted through the suspension is proposed. Simulation results show that such a controller outperforms the optimal control theory based controllers over small discrete disturbances but responds poorly to disturbances encountered from other than steady state.     

Identification Methods for Vehicle System Dynamics

The paper presents a survey on parameter identification techniques for complex vehicle models. In order to cope with the complexity of the model, the information on the system available from the equations of motion has to be included in the identification process. Basic methods for the solution of this problem are shown. The application of the approach is demonstrated by identification of the vertical automobile dynamics. It is concluded that the presented techniques will become more important with increasing applications of theoretical modeling in vehicle system dynamics.     

The Geometrical Contact between Track and Wheelset

In previous publications the author has described a so-called first-order theory for the motion of a railway vehicle wheelset on a tangent track. In the present report the geometrical aspect of this theory is further evaluated and a method for solving the constraint equations between the coordinates of the wheelset is indicated.     

Dual extended Kalman filter for vehicle state and parameter estimation

The article demonstrates the implementation of a model-based vehicle estimator, which can be used for combined estimation of vehicle states and parameters. The estimator is realised using the dual extended Kalman filter (DEKF) technique, which makes use of two Kalman filters running in parallel, thus 'splitting' the state and parameter estimation problems. Note that the two problems cannot be entirely separated due to their inherent interdependencies. This technique provides several advantages, such as the possibility to switch off the parameter estimator, once a sufficiently good set of estimates has been obtained. The estimator is based on a four-wheel vehicle model with four degrees of freedom, which accommodates the dominant modes only, and is designed to make use of several interchangeable tyre models. The paper demonstrates the appropriateness of the DEKF. Results to date indicate that this is an effective approach, which is considered to be of potential benefit to the automotive industry.     

Effects of economic disincentives on private car use

A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of economic disincentives on private car use. Eighty two-adult households who were owners of at least one car were randomly assigned to three experimental groups and one control group. Both experimental and control groups logged their car trips during one week before, one week during, and one week after treatment. The treatment consisted of charging two of the experimental groups approximately 100% of normal cost per kilometer of driving during 2 weeks, and charging the third experimental group this amount per kilometer of driving during 4 weeks. With the purpose of investigating whether deliberate planning increases the effect of economic disincentives, the households in one of the former and in the latter group were asked to fill out a prospective car log for the following week. The control group was not charged or requested to fill out a prospective car log but was in other respects treated in the same way. Analyses of the car logs and odometer readings during and at the end of treatment showed a weak reduction of car use due to the economic disincentives that however were almost completely dependent on planning.