Synergies between Adjacent Beach-Nourishing Communities in a Morpho-Economic Coupled Coastline Model

Beach “nourishment” consists of placing sand on an eroding beach. The widened beach provides increased storm protection to adjacent structures and improved recreational benefits, but is most often transient, requiring on-going, repeated nourishment episodes. Numerical models of beach nourishment typically address such questions as how long a widened beach will last; economic models compare the benefits and costs of preserving a stretch of beach without regard to its geomorphic evolution. Neither have addressed the physical nor economic interactions between adjacent nourishing communities. Here, we couple a numerical model of coastline evolution and a cost-benefit model of beach nourishment, allowing adjacent communities to make dynamic nourishment decisions. Beach nourishment benefits adjacent communities both “updrift” and “downdrift.” The total amount of money spent on nourishment activities can decrease by as much as 25% when adjacent communities both conduct on-going nourishment projects, as opposed to the case where each community nourishes in isolation.     

Collaborative Management of Natural Resources in San Diego Bay

This article presents the results of a three-year effort at applying information technology to the problem of collaborative natural resource management in San Diego Bay. As such, it represents an approach to integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). This effort resulted from a collaboration between the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego and the San Diego Bay Interagency Water Quality Panel for the purpose of (1) developing an environmental data repository to facilitate the acquisition and sharing of data and (2) the development of a visual model of the bay in support of the development of a comprehensive, coordinated management plan for San Diego Bay. It was determined from this study that information technology is an important and key component to ICZM but that sociopolitical factors may override the benefits of decision-support systems and should be considered at the outset of any project of this kind.     

Attitudes toward Participation in Cooperative Coastal Management: Four European Case Studies

Findings are reported of the VALCOAST project that had as one of its research objectives to ascertain: (a) stakeholder willingness to participate and cooperate in coastal management (CM), given local and national CM practices; and (b) stakeholder assessment of the "accessibility" and "friendliness" of current CM processes. The project involved case studies and stakeholder interviews in Belgium, Greece, Spain, and the UK. Major findings include: (1) most stakeholders are willing to cooperate in three out of the four case areas, but not to the same extent; (2) the participating "officials" in the case studies are expecting the stakeholders to be less willing to cooperate than the latter indicate; (3) stakeholders in all case studies do not expect to be heard by those responsible for CM, find it difficult to learn about the relevant institutional arrangements, and consider the communication of the objectives and anticipated impacts of CM policies to be inadequate. It is concluded that the strong evidence of stakeholders' potential willingness to cooperate in local initiatives is very encouraging for a devolved, regional approach to European Union coastal management policies, provided that this potential is capitalized upon in such policy processes.     

Mumbai lunch box delivery system: A transferable benchmark in urban logistics?

This paper presents findings of a freight transport study carried out for Mumbai city (India). Based on the case study of lunch box delivery system organized by the Mumbai dabbawalas, demonstrated that an informal sector was capable of developing an urban logistics system that was precise, reliable and affordable to the middle class society in Mumbai. These facts suggest an approach based on adapting logistics solutions harmoniously to the urban landscape, public policy, infrastructure and skill sets of the company’s employees in order to be attractive to the end customer, offering a good match between supply and demand i.e., consumer and producer satisfaction. At the same time logistics solutions should evolve continuously in order to be attractive to the core customer base and should be customer driven. These basic management principles can be applied in the management of other urban logistics companies in the world over.     

Economic impact of non-motorized transportation in Indian cities

Lack of a clear understanding regarding the economic impacts of non-motorized modes is a major reason why they are excluded from the transportation development agenda of cities in India. Keeping this aspect in mind the present study has been divided in to two parts. The first part tries to understand the non-motorized traffic evolution in India. It focuses on the declination of non-motorized modes, necessity to revamp it, the favorable conditions to promote them in India and the relative problems associated with it. It is found here that there is a necessity for defining the role of non-motorized modes in India for the viable implementation of infrastructure and policies related with it.     

A nested logit model of mode choice for inland movement of export shipments: A case study of containerised export cargo from India

Predominance of containerised mode of transport for export of general cargo has influenced the mode choices on the inland segment. Prior to containerisation the general cargo for export moved to ports invariably on road in break bulk form. Growth of containerisation led to development of inland terminals enabling an exporter to obtain export clearance at the inland points. This process facilitated an exporter to move cargo either in break bulk or in containerised form, and as inland terminals facilitated aggregation an exporter could move cargo either by road or rail. Thus containerisation increased the inland transport options for an exporter from one to three. The paper develops discrete choice models in the Indian context for inland movement of containerised export cargo. Primary data was collected from 124 export firms through a structured questionnaire. This data is supplemented with data from transport firms and terminal operators. Using the above data, a nested logit model with rail container and road truck in one branch was found to predict the mode choice behaviour best. Amongst the transport attributes, total cost and total transit time were found to be influencing the mode choices significantly. The study however did not find the effect of reliability and loss and damage significant. In addition, the model also predicts that non transport attributes - like the percentage of letters of credit that materialise with inland way bills and the value of export benefits that materialise after export - are important in the mode choice decision.     

A study of factors influencing the severity of road crashes involving drunk drivers and non drunk drivers

In this study, an attempt has been made to develop Multinomial Logit (MNL) model by analysing the drunken and non drunken drivers involved in road crashes on Indian highways. Multinomial Logit model has been deployed to assess the influence of various parameters like vehicular, environment and geometric factors on the set of drivers who were found to be drunk at the time of getting involved in the road crash and those who were not under the influence of alcohol at the time of meeting with the road crash. The total economic cost of road crashes in the case of non-drunk driver road crash is Rs. 1046.27 million whereas in the case of drunk driver road crashes it is estimated to be Rs. 204.50 million. Further, it can be observed that economic cost of drunk driver road crashes is varying from 13 to 19 % across different types of road crashes.     

Implementing green supply chain practices: an empirical investigation in the shipbuilding industry

ABSTRACT

Environmental concerns have become important in the shipbuilding industry. Governmental expectations about environmental and social performance are much higher than in the past. Public authorities penalize companies that do not comply with the rules. Shipbuilding companies face these challenges by introducing new technologies into their business processes. They do not only start initiatives to green their own business processes but also those of their supply chain partners. This form of environmental management is called Green Supply Chain Management (GrSCM) and its importance is increasingly recognized. Although GrSCM is growing, companies are experiencing difficulties engaging suppliers in environmental activities.

This empirical study analyses drivers for supply chain participation of suppliers in the shipbuilding industry. We explain the participations of suppliers in GrSCM practice by investigating influencing factors including governmental involvement in greening the supply chain, customer requirements towards green issues, feeling of social responsibility, competitive advantage by going green, and GrSCM readiness. Hypotheses are tested with partial least squares, using survey data of 93 suppliers of two leading shipbuilding companies. We found GrSCM readiness, competitive advantage, and social responsibility to be significant drivers in supplier participation. No significant support was found for governmental involvement and customer requirements.     

Numerical prediction of the modal response of flexible cylinders in cross-flow with a current dependent form of damping

A quadratic eigenvalue problem (QEP) was posed in order to study the dynamics of flexible cylinders in cross-flow, simulating slender offshore structures such as risers, catenaries or tendons. The Euler–Bernoulli equation was used to model the structure assuming a fluid loading model, and yielding a quadratic eigenvalue problem that included a form of damping dependent not only on the structural damping itself, but also on the free stream velocity and the fluid force coefficients. We solved the QEP using the finite element method. We also derived a simplified analytical solution in this work for comparison with the QEP, however this solution does not consider changes in tension along the length of the cylinder as the QEP does. In our study, the QEP solutions were first validated against the simplified analytical solution, and also against a well-known experimental dataset obtained in 2003, in which a flexible circular cylinder model was used to model the dynamics of a riser undergoing multi-mode vortex-induced vibrations.     

Full scale ice sea trials of Korean ice breaking research vessel ‘Araon’ on the big floes near Antarctica

A speed sea trial was performed in the Amundsen Sea in February and March of 2012. The Korean ice breaking research vessel “Araon” was used to check speed performance on the big floes. Two of ice trial cases were carried out. We describe the time history of location, the engine power, and the revolutions per minute during the ice trial, and the trajectory of the ship. Additionally, the measured ice properties are considered and discussed. The ice trial results were analyzed according to variation in ice thicknesses, ice strength, propulsion power, and the speed level of the ship. Our analysis results are compared to model test results and ice trial results. A correction to the target ice thickness was used to compare the power and speed relation in the same ice thickness because it is easy to know the relative speed performance of the ship. The Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchs Anstalt method was applied for the correction. The speed of Araon in big floes was higher than the speed in level ice. The speed after the correction at 10 MW of power and 103 cm of ice thickness was 5.4 knots based on analysis results.