Submit to Special Issue Submit Abstract to Special Issue Review for Sustainability Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

Geological Environment Monitoring and Early Warning Systems

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability in Geographic Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2024 | Viewed by 2616

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Aidi Huo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Water & Environmental, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, China
Interests: hydrological models; soil erosion; geological hazards
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues:

The relationship between the soil erosion principle and geoscience is mainly reflected in the influence of geomorphology, geology and geography on our understanding of the amount of soil erosion and the soil erosion process. Meanwhile, soil erosion processes such as hydraulic erosion, wind erosion and gravity erosion play a certain role in shaping the terrain. All kinds of erosion landforms on the ground are factors affecting soil erosion and are the results of soil erosion participation.

Soil erosion is one of the major environmental problems related to soil degradation and crop reduction worldwide, which seriously threatens the sustainable development of society and the environment. The change in soil erosion is generally considered to be the result of the comprehensive action of natural factors and human activities. With the enhancement of the influence degree and expansion of human activities, these activities have gradually become the key factor leading to the change in soil erosion. Research on the relationship between human activities and soil erosion change at a regional scale is of great significance for the macro-planning of soil erosion control. It has been found that the action of human activities on soil erosion is a multiphase nonlinear system with various methods, complex processes and intensities, and its behavior is difficult to predict. Research on the relationship between human activities and soil erosion change, and on how to monitor and warn of soil erosion change are urgent scientific problems in the current research of soil and water conservation.

In solving practical hydrological problems and studying hydrological laws, a hydrologic mathematical model can give full play to the advantages of mathematical physics methods, empirical correlation methods and generalized reasoning methods, and there has been rapid development in the past 20 years. Understanding the changes in soil erosion and infiltration activity in key regions helps establish an early warning system for key regions of gully consolidation, tableland protection and natural disasters in loess areas. However, complete risk reduction seems impractical in such a framework, especially since the delocalization of anthropogenic activities is often not feasible, and co-existence with natural disasters is acceptable. In these cases, robust approaches, such as hydrological simulation for erosion and infiltration, appear to be the most promising approaches to reducing natural disasters and improving societal resilience.

Given this scientific framework, we would like to invite scientists involved in this research subject area to contribute to this Special Issue, which will focus broadly on analysis, experiments or simulations of hydrological processes that lead to erosion and infiltration, as well as analysis of early warning definitions based on rainfall or soil hydrological monitoring. Therefore, manuscripts on the evolution of hydrological processes of erosion and infiltration in loess areas through analysis, monitoring and modeling, as well as studies aimed at assessing changes in seepage, aquifer changes and other indicators that can reflect erosion and infiltration due to human activities, are welcome.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Aidi Huo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

loess plateau
hydrological modeling
human activities
soil erosion
secondary geological hazards

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

Jump to: Review

25 pages, 5943 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Study on Solving Large Pore Heat Transfer Simulation in Malan Loess Based on Volume Averaging Method Combined with CT Scan Images

by Yangchun Lu, Ting Lu, Yudong Lu, Bo Wang, Guanghao Zeng and Xu Zhang

Sustainability 2023, 15(16), 12389; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151612389 - 15 Aug 2023

Viewed by 736

Abstract

Malan loess is a wind-formed sediment in arid and semi-arid regions and is an important constituent of the Earth’s critical zone. Therefore, the study of the relationship between microstructure and heat transfer in Malan loess is of great significance for the in-depth understanding of the heat transfer mechanism and the accurate prediction of the heat transfer properties of intact loess. In order to quantitatively characterize the heat transfer processes in the two-phase medium of solid particles and gas pores in the intact loess, this study used modern computed tomography to CT scan the Malan loess in Huan County, Gansu Province, the western part of the Loess Plateau, China and used the specific yield of the intact Malan loess as the parameter basis for extracting the threshold segmentation of the large pores in the scanned images for the three-dimensional reconstruction of the connected large pores. An experimental space for heat conduction of intact Malan loess was constructed, and the surface temperature of Malan loess was measured on the surface of the space with a thermal imager. The simulation of the heat conduction process was carried out using the solution program in AVIZO (2019) software using the volume averaging method combined with CT scanning to reconstruct the 3D pores. The experiments of heat conduction in the intact Malan loess showed that for a given external temperature pressure, the temperature decreases along the heat flow direction as a whole. The temperature of the pores in the normal plane along the heat flow direction is higher than the temperature of the solid skeleton. Abnormal temperature points were formed at the junction of the surface and internal pores of Maran loess, and the temperature of the jointed macropores was about 1 °C higher at the surface of the sample than that of the surrounding solid skeleton. Simulation of heat conduction in Malan loess showed that the heat transfer process in Malan loess was preferentially conducted along the large pores and then the heat was transferred to the surrounding Malan loess particle skeleton. The simulation results of heat conduction in Malan loess were in high agreement with the experimental results of heat conduction in Malan loess, which verifies the reliability of the calculated model. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geological Environment Monitoring and Early Warning Systems)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

19 pages, 8010 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatiotemporal Variation in the Coupling Relationship between Human Activities and Soil Erosion—A Case Study in the Weihe River Basin

by Zhixin Zhao, Aidi Huo, Qi Liu, Jianbing Peng, Ahmed Elbeltagi, Mohamed EL-Sayed Abuarab and Mohamed Said Desouky Abu-Hashim

Sustainability 2023, 15(14), 10785; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151410785 - 10 Jul 2023

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1152

Abstract

Studying the relationship between human activities and soil erosion on a regional scale is of great significance for macro-decision-making in soil erosion prevention and control. The entropy weight method and RUSLE model are used to analyze the spatiotemporal variation in human activity intensity (HAI) and soil erosion in the Weihe River Basin (WRB) from 2005 to 2020. Through geographic detectors and a four-quadrant model, the impact of various driving factors and the coupling degree of the human–land relationship are studied. The results showed: (1) During the past 15 years, the moderate, high, strong, and severe erosion areas in the WRB decreased by 9.88%, 35.89%, 45.17%, and 70.05%, respectively. The ratio of the historical sand transport modulus to the RUSLE model result is 0.83, indicating that the results obtained by the RUSLE model can be used for further analysis. (2) Slight and weak degrees account for 80% in the northwest region. The high and strong regions are mainly distributed in the Shaanxi section, accounting for 3% of the total basin. (3) The coupling between human activities and soil erosion is constantly strengthening, and the joint effect of pop and crop is the main reason for the slowdown and spatial differences in soil erosion. This indicates that the ecological environment became stable. These findings contribute by acting as references for soil and water conservation and management in the WRB to promote a harmonious relationship between humans and the environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geological Environment Monitoring and Early Warning Systems)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

15 pages, 774 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Critical Analysis of Geological Hazard Risk Assessment Including Future Perspectives

by Yuxiang Cheng, Yue Gan, Chunmei Shi, Aidi Huo, Yinghui Pei, Yu Song, Xing Wang and Adnan Ahmed

Sustainability 2024, 16(9), 3701; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16093701 - 28 Apr 2024

Viewed by 285

Abstract

Geological hazards are widely distributed, cause huge losses, and have always been the focus of attention for engineering and environmental geologists. Geological hazard evaluation is the basis of research and has important theoretical significance for preventing and controlling geological hazards. Therefore, geological hazard evaluation has become the focus of engineering and environmental geology. The question of how to build a universal index system model of geological hazard evaluation is an urgent problem that needs to be solved in geological hazard evaluation. Based on a large amount of previous research data, this paper takes landslide hazard as an example and systematically expounds the main problems that need to be solved in the current geological hazard evaluation from five aspects: basic concept, evaluation scope and accuracy, evaluation index system and evaluation criteria, evaluation method, and applicability of evaluation results. A landslide hazard assessment index system model is proposed, which applies to all regions, including all of the factors that may affect the formation of landslides. It is also hoped that this will be used as an example to establish various types of disaster evaluation and assessment systems. If the parameter has no value in the assessment process, it can be processed as 0. On this basis, further research is suggested from the perspectives of the geological hazard evaluation level, geological hazard evaluation theory, and method. To provide thoughts on and suggestions for geological hazard risk assessment method research, standard revision, investigation and evaluation, and risk management and control need to be considered. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geological Environment Monitoring and Early Warning Systems)

► Show Figures