This Research Topic is Volume II of a series. The previous volume can be found here: Coal and Rock Dynamic Disasters: Advances of Physical and Numerical Simulation in Monitoring, Early Warning, and Prevention With the soaring growth of global population and socioeconomy, energy consumption and demand has been rapidly rising, and coal would still remain a fundamental energy source for a long time into the future. Seeking deep coal resources becomes an inevitable trend due to the depletion of shallow coal resources. Deep mining of coal resources promotes socioeconomic development, whereas bringing a variety of security challenges. In deep underground, there is a significant risk increase in coal and rock dynamic disasters (CRDDs), owing to the changes in physical and mechanical properties of coal and rock. In this regard, it is of great importance and necessity to prevent and control CRDDs effectively and efficiently.
With the soaring growth of global population and socioeconomy, energy consumption and demand has been rapidly rising, and coal would still remain a fundamental energy source for a long time into the future. Seeking deep coal resources becomes an inevitable trend due to the depletion of shallow coal resources. Deep mining of coal resources promotes socioeconomic development, whereas bringing a variety of security challenges. In deep underground, there is a significant risk increase in coal and rock dynamic disasters (CRDDs), owing to the changes in physical and mechanical properties of coal and rock. In this regard, it is of great importance and necessity to prevent and control CRDDs effectively and efficiently. As typical natural geological materials, coal and rock have evident inhomogeneity and anisotropy, and manifest differences in strength, deformation, permeability, and other mechanical characteristics due to their various mineral compositions, porosity, and weak structural plane. Considering the complexity of coal and rock, it is essential to carry out laboratory experiments on macroscopic mechanical responses and microscopic fracture characteristics to identify precursor information and reveal evolution mechanisms of dynamic disasters. Yet by far less is known about the combined physical and numerical simulation on multi-scale CRDDs, which hinders the development of corresponding prevention and control technologies. This Research Topic aims to initiate a global scientific and technological discussion on the cutting-edge advances of physical and numerical simulation in monitoring, early warning, and prevention of CRDDs. We welcome Original Research and Review articles addressing the following themes that include, but are not limited to: • Physical and numerical simulation on mechanisms of CRDDs • Numerical simulation on prediction of CRDDs • Numerical simulation on prevention and control of CRDDs collapse
2017 has been an exciting year for our innovative open access journal Frontiers in Earth Science: many new articles have been published and are now indexed in Web of Science (ESCI), new sections have opened for submissions (including Solid Earth Geophysics), and our Editorial Board has been successfully leading the peer review process and providing comprehensive reviews to our authors. Have a look at our archive to read about the feeding habits of dinosaurs, human influence on in the African humid period, volcanic hazard models, or how glaciers flowing into the ocean surrounding Greenland have changed over time! Launched at the end of 2013, our Journal consists of several specialties whose number has increased with time and currently stands at 19, also including a few specialties co-listed in other fields (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science#). The present selection is not exhaustive as new ones are being launched and/or are under consideration for development. This growth has been paralleled by a yearly increase in the number of contributions and the Editorial Board members, reflecting the health of the Journal. Now also indexed in Web of Science - Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Frontiers in Earth Science is ambitious to become the leading open access journal in its field. The idea of creating an Editor's Choice eBook has been in our minds for a while as we wanted to create an environment for the Chief Editors to highlight their choice of representative papers in the Journal - we are happy to present now our first edition. The eBook offers a quick, though representative, window into the different specialties, giving additional visibility to some of the most interesting studies published in 2016 and 2017. It provides a glimpse into the state of the art of Earth Science on the cusp of 2020. Earth Science studies the different spheres of the Earth (geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and, partly, biosphere) and, as such, it provides a holistic perspective of our planet. This discipline, in addition to understanding our environment, enables us to face major natural challenges, such as improving the management of natural resources, promoting environmental sustainability and forecasting and managing natural hazards (Acocella, 2015, and references therein). On this basis, the contributions grouped in this eBook, even though appearing distinct in subject, methods, goal and impact, should be considered as different aspects of the same system. Indeed, the selection of these contributions aims to capture a multidisciplinary and common understanding of our planet, with its interconnected processes and challenges. It is important to note that, in many cases, it has not been easy to select a representative study per specialty, and thus the papers included in this eBook should therefore not be considered as the representative ones, but rather as a concise selection of key papers. We hope you enjoy reading our first edition of the Editor's Choice eBook! Jessica (Journal Manager), and Valerio (Field Chief Editor).
Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering for Protection and Development of Environment and Constructions contains invited, keynote and theme lectures and regular papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering (Rome, Italy, 17-20 June 2019. The contributions deal with recent developments and advancements as well as case histories, field monitoring, experimental characterization, physical and analytical modelling, and applications related to the variety of environmental phenomena induced by earthquakes in soils and their effects on engineered systems interacting with them. The book is divided in the sections below: Invited papers Keynote papers Theme lectures Special Session on Large Scale Testing Special Session on Liquefact Projects Special Session on Lessons learned from recent earthquakes Special Session on the Central Italy earthquake Regular papers Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering for Protection and Development of Environment and Constructions provides a significant up-to-date collection of recent experiences and developments, and aims at engineers, geologists and seismologists, consultants, public and private contractors, local national and international authorities, and to all those involved in research and practice related to Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering.
This book examines how to ensure that the preventive measures are worthwhile and effective, and how people can make decisions individually and collectively at different levels of government.
No person or place is immune from disasters or disaster-related losses. Infectious disease outbreaks, acts of terrorism, social unrest, or financial disasters in addition to natural hazards can all lead to large-scale consequences for the nation and its communities. Communities and the nation thus face difficult fiscal, social, cultural, and environmental choices about the best ways to ensure basic security and quality of life against hazards, deliberate attacks, and disasters. Beyond the unquantifiable costs of injury and loss of life from disasters, statistics for 2011 alone indicate economic damages from natural disasters in the United States exceeded $55 billion, with 14 events costing more than a billion dollars in damages each. One way to reduce the impacts of disasters on the nation and its communities is to invest in enhancing resilience-the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from and more successfully adapt to adverse events. Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative addresses the broad issue of increasing the nation's resilience to disasters. This book defines "national resilience", describes the state of knowledge about resilience to hazards and disasters, and frames the main issues related to increasing resilience in the United States. It also provide goals, baseline conditions, or performance metrics for national resilience and outlines additional information, data, gaps, and/or obstacles that need to be addressed to increase the nation's resilience to disasters. Additionally, the book's authoring committee makes recommendations about the necessary approaches to elevate national resilience to disasters in the United States. Enhanced resilience allows better anticipation of disasters and better planning to reduce disaster losses-rather than waiting for an event to occur and paying for it afterward. Disaster Resilience confronts the topic of how to increase the nation's resilience to disasters through a vision of the characteristics of a resilient nation in the year 2030. Increasing disaster resilience is an imperative that requires the collective will of the nation and its communities. Although disasters will continue to occur, actions that move the nation from reactive approaches to disasters to a proactive stance where communities actively engage in enhancing resilience will reduce many of the broad societal and economic burdens that disasters can cause.
