Non-structural Methods Research Articles

Case Study Analysis on the Flood Mitigation Effects of Improving a Drainage System Using Low Impact Development Techniques

Low-impact development (LID) techniques aim to minimize the hydrological and environmental impacts associated with watershed development by preserving the natural state as much as possible, reducing impervious surfaces, managing stormwater on a small scale at the point of generation, and promoting decentralized stormwater management. In this study, the flood reduction effects of LID techniques were analyzed using PCSWMM by comparing traditional development methods in the Songsan Green City development project. In this process, the LID technique considers nonstructural methods of diversifying drainage directions and structural methods of introducing vegetated swales to improve the drainage system. The results showed that the LID approach, introduced to improve the drainage system, had a significant effect on reducing floods and inundation compared to traditional development methods. The results of this study suggest the potential of using LID techniques in structural and nonstructural approaches to improve urban flooding and inundation problems.

Morphometric and Soil Erosion Characterization Based on Geospatial Analysis and Drainage Basin Prioritization of the Rabigh Area Along the Eastern Red Sea Coastal Plain, Saudi Arabia

Soil erosion is one of the most significant problems in global environmental development. Assigning, analyzing, and quantifying the main physical characteristics of drainage basins are powerful keys in identifying regions where there is a higher risk of soil erosion and where prompt mitigation actions are needed. Drainage basins and their drainage systems are ideally defined using the analysis morphometric parameters and their quantitative description. The present study aims to analyze morphometric parameters to prioritize drainage basins that are prone to erosion. Topographic sheets and remotely sensed digital elevation model (DEM) datasets have been prepared and analyzed using geospatial techniques to delineate drainage basins of different sizes and extract different ordered drainage systems. Based on the analysis of morphometric parameters, the Rabigh area was divided into 12 drainage basins, which significantly contribute to determining soil erosion priority levels. The present study selected and applied the most effective morphometric parameters to rank and prioritize the drainage basins of the study area after considering the crucial quantitative characteristics, such as linear, relief, and areal aspects. For each single basin, the compound factor was assigned from several morphometric parameters and applied to rank the Rabigh area. The results confirm that Basins 1, 4, 11, and 12 require a high level of soil erosion priority over an area of 2107 km2; however, Basins 3, 8, 9, and 10 have little degradation and a low level of soil erosion priority. Therefore, in the regions where high soil erosion is a factor, mitigation techniques such as terracing, filter strips, contouring, and other effective and useful structural and non-structural methods should be applied.

Evaluation of GSMap (Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation) with the reference to rain gauge observations in Banjarbaru City, Indonesia

Climate change as one of the essential impacts of global warming in the last few decades, has resulted many disasters in different ways, i.e., floods and landslides, as the effect of extreme rainfall events. At the end of February 2023, a severe flood event occurred in Banjarbaru City, resulted an inundation in many areas. A flood control system is recommended to face this problem. In this research, the flood control presented is a non-structural method by analyzing rainfall data based on field data and GSMaP satellite-based rainfall data. This research aims to determine the type of correlation coefficient relationship between BMKG data and GSMaP satellite-based rainfall data. The data collection includes primary data in the form of field surveys to identify rain events and secondary data obtained from GSMap satellite-based rainfall data and field rainfall data obtained from BMKG online. The Melchior design flood calculation method is used for calculating a flood-designed discharge. The results show that GSMaP data have significant values that correlate to rain gauge observations from BMKG stations in Banjarbaru City. An enough to high correlations values indicate that this GSMaP can be used as an alternative source of rainfall data for hydrological analysis, in particular to ungauged basin.

Flood Risk Mapping of Kamla River Basin using HEC-RAS 2D Model

Flood is a natural disaster that occurs repeatedly in Nepal and causes significant losses in terms of life and property particularly in low land areas around the river courses. Kamla basin is highly susceptible to flooding and had experienced many disastrous floods in the past. Flood mitigation measures generally consists of two main methods which are structural and non-structural methods. Nowadays, the importance of using nonstructural method such as flood hazard map and flood risk map are increasing because of environmental and economic aspects. In this study, the assessment of flood hazard and risk was carried out for Kamla River basin. Floods are simulated using the HEC-RAS 2D hydraulic model. The flood hazard map was prepared using the simulation result by classifying into four hazard level, corresponding to different inundation depth. The exposed elements considered for the vulnerability assessments are building, population and agriculture area. Finally, to evaluate the flood risk, a flood risk map of wards under the study area was prepared for 25year,50year and 100-year return period flood events based on the product of flood hazard and vulnerability weightage. The study’s findings may help in the planning and management of Kamla River flood plain region to avoid future likely disasters.

Handling and Control of Floods in the Pulukan River/Tukad Macro Drainage System in Jembrana Regency

Handling and controlling floods in the river/Tukad macro drainage system as the main discharge is a very complex matter. The engineering dimension (engineering) involves many disciplines. In this study, the analytical review is only on hydrological boundaries, hydraulics, watershed erosion, river engineering, morphology, river sedimentation, handling engineering, and flood control systems. The stages of compiling this research were preceded by the collection of secondary and primary data which were then carried out by analysis. The analysis in this planning is carried out qualitatively, quantitatively, and descriptively. The qualitative description focuses on inventorying the drainage system, determining the zoning of the drainage system based on watershed boundaries, class, and identification of area/area per unit drainage system. The quantitative analysis focuses on hydrological and hydraulic calculations as well as a detailed design of each segment of the drainage channel by the service area of ​​each drainage system. Furthermore, the descriptive analysis focuses on determining the priority scale for the handling of the drainage system which is considered vulnerable to flood hazards in the downstream area. Besides that, it also provides technical and non-technical recommendations for flood management. The results of the analysis of the sedimentation rate of the Pulukan River/Tukad 384.726 tons/ha/year are included in the class of severe erosion hazard because most of the community gardening activities are at an elevation of 25% to 40% which has an impact on the high LS slope factor. The existing cross-sectional capacity of the Pulukan River/Tukad is not able to accommodate the flood discharge planned for a return period of 50 years. From the results of this analysis, it is necessary to carry out flood handling/control using structural and non-structural methods. The Tukad Pulukan Watershed flood management and control program includes; reforestation, river normalization work, river management building, Tukad Pulukan watershed management, community-based watershed management, land use regulation, construction of access road inspections, installation of recording of water level and density of recording stations rainfall.

Flood Forecasting and Warning System: A Survey of Models and Their Applications in West Africa

Flood events occurrences and frequencies in the world are of immense worry for the stability of the economy and life safety. Africa continent is the third continent the most negatively affected by the flood events after Asia and Europe. Eastern Africa is the most hit in Africa. However, Africa continent is at the early stage in term of flood forecasting models development and implementation. Very few hydrological models for flood forecasting are available and implemented in Africa for the flood mitigation. And for the majority of the cases, they need to be improved because of the time evolution. Flash flood in Bamako (Mali) has been putting both human life and the economy in jeopardy. Studying this phenomenon, as to propose applicable solutions for its alleviation in Bamako is a great concern. Therefore, it is of upmost importance to know the existing scientific works related to this situation in Mali and elsewhere. The main aim was to point out the various solutions implemented by various local and international institutions, in order to fight against the flood events. Two types of methods are used for the flood events adaptation: the structural and non-structural methods. The structural methods are essentially based on the implementation of the structures like the dams, dykes, levees, etc. The problem of these methods is that they may reduce the volume of water that will inundate the area but are not efficient for the prediction of the coming floods and cannot alert the population with any lead time in advance. The non-structural methods are the one allowing to perform the prediction with acceptable lead time. They used the hydrological rainfall-runoff models and are the widely methods used for the flood adaptation. This review is more accentuated on the various types non-structural methods and their application in African countries in general and West African countries in particular with their strengths and weaknesses. Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV), Hydrologic Engineer Center Hydrologic Model System (HEC-HMS) and Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) are the hydrological models that are the most widely used in West Africa for the purpose of flood forecasting. The easily way of calibration and the weak number of input data make these models appropriate for the West Africa region where the data are scarce and often with bad quality. These models when implemented and applied, can predict the coming floods, allow the population to adapt and mitigate the flood events and reduce considerably the impacts of floods especially in terms of loss of life.

Assessing uncertainty of output gap estimates: Evidence from Visegrad countries

The reliability of output gap estimates is a crucial factor for the successful implementation of economic policy. We evaluate the robustness and stability of output gap estimates while comparing structural and non-structural techniques, using recursive estimates and alternative stability indicators. Our results provide evidence that some structural approaches outperform other available methods. Structural approaches exhibit a higher order of stability. Especially the methods based on the Beveridge–Nelson decomposition outperform the other structural and non-structural methods. The stability of structural approaches increases as new data becomes available. Moreover, output gap uncertainty diminishes during the positive business cycle phases, and structural approaches offer better overall stability performance and exhibit more stable concordance of these estimates. Our results are robust to alternative prior density settings and reveal similar output gap uncertainty patterns for the Visegrad countries, the euro area, and the United States.

Strategies for appetite suppression: A key player in the management of diabetes and obesity.

People with diabetes and/ or obesity are advised to curtail their calorie intake in order to improve their glycaemic control and reduce their weight. However, many patients complain of an inability to manage their appetite and thereby find it difficult to control their calorie intake. Dysregulated appetite leads to glycaemic swings, and creates a challenge for metabolic management. Moreover, short term non-structured methods to suppress appetite often can cause a rebound excess of food intake, which can even overshoot more than the baseline intake. This article shares the non-pharmacological heuristics and hacks to help suppress and optimize appetite which can be used in day-to-day clinical practice.

Comparison of lateral spillway and morning glory spillway performance in flood control

With the emergence of climate change and the increasing human intervention in the global climate, floods have affected different parts of the world. In practice, floods are the most terrible natural disaster in the world, both in terms of casualties and financial losses. To reduce the adverse effects of this phenomenon, it is necessary to use structural and non-structural methods of flood risk management. One of the structural methods of flood control is to allocate a certain part of reservoir dams to flood control. In order to safely exit the flood from the dam reservoir, the spillway structure should be used. One of the important issues in designing a spillway structure is reducing its construction costs. In order to safely exit the flood with a specified return period from the dam reservoir, as the length of the spillway decreases, the height of the water blade on the spillway increases. In other words, decreasing the spillway length increases the height of the dam and its construction and design costs. In this study, the design and comparison of the performance of two glory spillways and lateral spillways have been considered. The results showed that for a given length for the drain edge of both types of spillways, the height of the water blade on the glory spillway is always higher than the lateral spillway. For example, when a 10,000-year-old flood occurs, it is about 8 m.

ANALISIS KETAHANAN KOTA TERHADAP BENCANA BANJIR DI DAERAH ALIRAN SUNGAI ACAI KOTA JAYAPURA

According to information from BNPB for the district/city of Jayapura, in the last 10 years from 2009 to 2019 natural disasters floods rank first in the number of events that have been experienced. The research was conducted in the Kali Acai river, Abepura District, Jayapura City. The research time is estimated to be ±2 months with data taken in the form of primary data and secondary data. The results of channel evaluation carried out both secondary and primary channels when compared with the maximum flood (Q plan) that occurred in the Acai Sub-watershed with a 10 year return period, amounted to 154.197 m3/sec. Meanwhile, the results of the evaluation of the Acai River's capacity are still quite large without sedimentation and garbage. The vulnerability of the urban community due to the flood disaster that occurs is seen from the social aspect including age, gender, and community education in Abepura District. From the variables, namely the age level of 28.36% and 1.35%, it has a relatively small population of disaster-prone groups. The gender variable shows that the number of vulnerable are women in the amount of 45.47% of the total population of male and female productive age, while the variable for the level of vulnerable education is 54.43% who have primary school education. Efforts that can be made by the government and society in flood control efforts are through structural and non-structural methods.

МЕТОДЫ ОПРЕДЕЛЕНИЯ БАНКОВСКОЙ КОНКУРЕНЦИИ

This article discusses methods for determining competition, widely used in banking practice. Attention is paid to such structural methods of measuring banking competition as the concentration coefficient, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index. Among non-structural methods, the Panzer-Rosse model stands out as the most commonly used tool for assessing market competition. The concentration coefficient, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index were calculated in relation to banks operating in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

A new framework of a multi-criteria decision making for agriculture water distribution system

This study aims to determine the effectiveness and rank the scenarios for the modernization of surface water distribution system in reducing water withdrawal from the aquifers, including the replacement of catchment structures (structural method), improving traditional water distribution methods (non-structural method), and automation of surface water distribution system (combined method). The surface water distribution system of the Nekouabad area located in the central plateau of Iran was selected as the study area. A set of technical (increasing groundwater level), social (water distribution equity), economic (implementation cost), and environmental (integrated groundwater footprint) criteria were selected to study the balancing scenarios for sustainable groundwater management comprehensively. The performance of surface water distribution was simulated in MATLAB software, and its effect on the aquifer was studied using the MODFLOW code. The criteria were weighted by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, and the balancing scenarios were prioritized using two multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods, i.e., AHP and COPRAS. The scenario ranking results using the two MCDM methods indicated that the combined method, two improvement scenarios of the non-structural method, and the structural method had the highest to lowest priorities. The results showed that the option of automation of surface water distribution systems could be introduced as a practical and effective solution in balancing aquifers where agricultural water management is based on a combination of surface and groundwater resources.

Innovative approaches to the assessment of banking competition in ukraine in terms of digital transformation

The article considers the issues on banking competition interaction, the banking system's stability and efficiency. This research aims to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the banking competition that consists of structural and non-structural methods under the institutional changes' impact. The paper presents how this influences the banking system of Ukraine through its reformation in the banking competition level and how it interacts with indicators of stability and efficiency of the banks. In this study's frame, the authors applied a developed approach to the modified model of Panzar-Rosse regarding the banking activity in Ukraine after it has been rebooted and «cleansed of». The systematization of the scientific background and approaches to assessing the level of banking competition in Ukraine noted that, generally, native authors used only one of the methods to assess the level of competition in the banking industry of Ukraine. Besides, their studies focused on the pre-crisis period, when these innovations hadn't significantly affected the banks' activity changes. The importance of solving this scientific problem is identifying problems in the banking system and taking measures to eliminate them, using the comprehensive assessment of the banking competition level, considering the explanatory indicators of the banks' stability. This issue became critical after a significant reduction in the number of banking institutions in Ukraine and the change in the institutional structure of the banking system of Ukraine under the influence of financial innovations. The study into assessing the level of competition in the banking market of Ukraine is carried out in the following logical sequence: 1) considering the studies on the given subject; 2) describing the existing methods for assessing competition in the banking industry; 3) describing the proposed modified methods of the assessing the level of banking competition; 4) providing proposals regarding the improving banking competition in Ukraine. The study's period is 2015-2019. The research object is the banking system of Ukraine. The article presents an empirical analysis of the current level of competition in the banking market of Ukraine. The findings showed that the banking sector of Ukraine is characterized by monopolistic competition, which is characterized by increasing concentration in the market of the state-owned banks. The study empirically confirms and theoretically proves that some Ukrainian banks have increased their market share due to a decrease in the number of banks in recent years due to the influence of digital transformation. The results of this study could be beneficial for the use of proposed innovative approaches to assessing the level of banking competition in Ukraine in the future, for the bank owners (including small ones), also on proposals for the perspective development of neo-banks in Ukraine, in which there is a need not only for the banking system but also for the users of banking services.

Flood Management in Saint-louis City of Senegal by Stabilizing the Breach

In October 2003, the city of Saint-Louis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was to be swallowed by the rising waters of the Senegal River. That is why, the public authorities and the communal authorities wanting to find an immediate solution to save the city and human lives, took the decision to create a channel of load shedding on the Barbary language called breach. This urgent political decision seems to have profoundly modified the hydrological behavior of the Senegal River in Saint-Louis. The breach opened in Saint-Louis to counter the flood phenomenon, has since the night of October 3 to 4, 2003, the date of its opening, caused many environmental problems resulting from profound changes in the biophysical characteristics of the area (floods, loss of biodiversity). However, many specialists are still thinking about the issue but still do not find sustainable solutions to restore the balance. The aim of this study is to propose technics for stabilizing the area with two specific objectives such as understanding its evolution and evaluating the threats to the neighbouring villages. This study on the evolution of the breach from 2003 to 2013 is based is conducted by analysis of samples taken from the Langue de Barbarie and the breach to determine their type. The main results show that the soil is sandy, which has made it possible to propose structural and non-structural stabilization methods. The compilation of the different results shows two types of stabilization (structural methods and non-structural methods). The two methods constitute for each of them, a durable alternative solution for the stabilization of the breach in order to limit the environmental damages. Meanwhile, it would be important to monitor the structure by annual analyzes of the structure.

Nonstructural analysis of productivity growth for the industrialized countries: a jackknife model averaging approach

Various nonstructural models of productivity growth have been proposed in the literature. In either class of models, predictive measurements of productivity and efficiency are obtained. The different approaches to productivity and efficiency measurement all have their merits. However, they generate different results and it is in principle impossible to know which of them produces ”true” estimates. We argue that instead of choosing between approaches, the analyst can average across the results generated by them. Unfortunately, this begs the question which averaging method to use? This paper examines the model averaging approaches of Hansen and Racine (2012), which can provide a vehicle to weight predictions (in the form of productivity and efficiency measurements) from different nonstructural methods. We first describe the jackknife model averaging estimator proposed by Hansen and Racine (2012) and illustrate how to apply the technique to a set of competing stochastic frontier estimators. The derived method is then used to analyze productivity and efficiency dynamics in 25 high-industrialized countries over the period 1990 to 2014. Through the empirical application, we show that the model averaging method provides relatively stable estimates, in comparison to standard model selection methods that simply select one model with the highest measure of goodness of fit.

Structural and non-structural statistical methods: implications for delineating geochemical anomalies

ABSTRACT Geochemical sampling media, be they rock chip, soil or stream sediment samples, routinely collected in mineral exploration, are key to detecting mineralisation-related geochemical dispersion patterns. Notwithstanding the diversity of methods applied to geochemical anomaly detection, they can be broadly divided into two major groups, namely structural and non-structural techniques. The former group covers those methods in which threshold values are assigned based on sample location while the sample locations are not required in the application of the non-structural techniques. In this study, rock chip samples from the Shadan porphyry copper–gold deposit are used to address the question as to how structural and non-structural methods can separate geochemical populations for the purpose of a deposit-scale study. It was revealed that the two structural techniques used in this study, concentration-area (C-A) fractal and U-spatial statistic methods, outperformed the non-structural techniques employed in this study.

Microeconomic and Macroeconomic Effects of the Banking Sector Development Policy in Russia

This article studies the impact of banking supervision on the Russian banking sector structure. The article also discusses the main challenges facing the banking system and the macroeconomic role of the Bank of Russia’s supervisory policy. Taking into account some features of the national banking sector, the author justifies the current strict banking supervision despite all possible short- and longterm negative effects of this policy. For example, static and dynamic estimates of the competition level in the Russian banking sector, which were obtained using structural and non-structural methods, show a low competition level. A noncompetitive banking industry increases costs in the economy and exacerbates existing imbalances. For this reason, the paper considers key measures that contribute to the development of banking competition. The article emphasizes the great importance of the goals of building a full three-tier banking system and privatization of public sector banks. However, strict banking supervision and consolidation of the banking industry have reduced the impact of negative factors on the supply of loans and increased the Russian banking sector’s sustainability. These positive changes and macroeconomic reform provide the basis for stable economic growth. The main results obtained can be used by national authorities to develop the Russian banking system.

Analysis of Environmentally Friendly Dredging Season for a Waterway Shared by South Korea and North Korea Considering Ecosystem Protection

Recently, a survey was conducted of the waterway shared by South Korea and North Korea. In the Han River Estuary, the need for dredging emerged due to serious riverbed aggradation. Dredging is the most efficient way to remove deposited sediment. However, it is expensive and has negative impacts on society and the environment. The negative impacts of dredging occur both in water and on land, causing huge disturbances to ecosystems. In this study, an environmentally friendly dredging season was proposed using the non-structured method of environmental windows to minimize the negative impacts of dredging. To establish environmental windows, the growth stages of six species in the Han River Estuary were used. Results showed that dredging in November could minimize its negative impacts and that dredging between October and December would be appropriate when it had to persist for more than two months. The negative perception of dredging has been increasing from the Four Rivers Project. This study will be applied to this situation, to mitigate the negative impacts of dredging, provide basic data pertaining to river construction considering the ecosystem, and support decision-making. Keywords: Shared Waterway, Dredging, Ecosystem Protection, Han River Estuary

Daily structured approach to awareness of fetal movements and pregnancy outcome – a prospective study

ObjectivesWe investigated how women, seeking care due to decreased movements, had paid attention to fetal movements and if the method of monitoring was associated with pregnancy outcome. MethodsA questionnaire was distributed to women from gestational week 28, who had sought care due to decreased fetal movements in Stockholm between January 1st and December 31st, 2014. Women were included in the study if the examination did not reveal any signs of a compromised fetus requiring immediate intervention. Birth outcome and sociodemographic data were collected from the obstetric record register. ResultsThere were 29166 births in Stockholm in 2014, we have information from 2683 women who sought care for decreased fetal movements. The majority (96.6%) of the women stated that they paid attention to fetal movements. Some women observed fetal movements weekly (17.2%) and 69.5% concentrated on fetal movements daily (non-structured group). One in ten (9.9%) used counting methods daily for observing fetal movements (structured group). Women in the structured group more often had caesarean section before onset of labor (RR 1.6, 95% CI 1.2–2.2) and a lower risk of their baby being transferred to neonatal nursery (RR 0.25, 95% CI 0.03–0.94) compared to women in the non-structured group. ConclusionsWomen, who had a daily and structured approach to awareness of fetal movements, were more likely to have a caesarean section but their babies were less likely to be transferred to a neonatal nursery as compared with women who used a non-structured method daily.

Pavement structural evaluation based on roughness and surface distress survey using neural network model

Evaluation of pavement condition, which determines pavement maintenance and rehabilitation necessities, is inevitable using structural or non-structural methods. Since factors such as cost and time required for testing limit the use of structural assessment devices, the development of cost-effective methods should be investigated. In this paper, a practical solution has been presented for pavement structural evaluation which is considered as a useful method for assessing pavement layers condition and identifying rehabilitation needs. With this in mind, we developed a relationship between deflection bowl parameters derived from Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) and two pavement performance indices, International Roughness Index (IRI) and Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating index (PASER), by the use of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and regression models. To obtain the required data, project field surveys were conducted from 318 sections of the main roads of Kermanshah and Ilam provinces in Iran. The results show that our model provides a satisfactory correlation between IRI, PASER, and structural indices which are based on deflection measurements. By comparing the results of ANN and regression models, the superiority of ANN performance over non-intelligent models is appreciable. The findings of this study indicate that using both IRI and PASER indices leads to accurate structural pavement evaluation.