1.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
2.
Water resource management
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Water resource management is the activity of planning, developing, distributing and managing the optimum use of water resources. It is a sub-set of water cycle management, ideally, water resource management planning has regard to all the competing demands for water and seeks to allocate water on an equitable basis to satisfy all uses and demands. As with other resource management, this is possible in practice. Water is a resource for all life on the planet. Of the water resources on Earth only three percent of it is fresh and two-thirds of the freshwater is locked up in ice caps and glaciers. Of the remaining one percent, a fifth is in remote, inaccessible areas and much rainfall in monsoonal deluges. As time advances, water is becoming scarcer and having access to clean, safe, at present only about 0.08 percent of all the world’s fresh water is exploited by mankind in ever increasing demand for sanitation, drinking, manufacturing, leisure and agriculture. Due to the percentage of water remaining, optimizing the fresh water we have left from natural resources has been a continuous difficulty in several locations worldwide. Much effort in water management is directed at optimizing the use of water. Examples include rare species or ecosystems or the long term value of ancient groundwater reserves. Agriculture is the largest user of the freshwater resources, consuming 70 percent. It assessed the current availability of water for agriculture on a global scale and it found that a fifth of the worlds people, more than 1.2 billion, live in areas of physical water scarcity, where there is not enough water to meet all their demands. Regarding food production, the World Bank targets agricultural food production and water management as an increasingly global issue that is fostering an important. The authors of the book Out of Water, From abundance to Scarcity and How to Solve the Worlds Water Problems, which laid down a six-point plan for solving the worlds water problems. To avoid a water crisis, farmers will have to strive to increase productivity to meet growing demands for food, while industry. As the carrying capacity of the Earth increases greatly due to technological advances and this rapid urbanization happens worldwide but mostly in new rising economies and developing countries. Cities in Africa and Asia are growing fastest with 28 out of 39 megacities worldwide in these developing nations, the number of megacities will continue to rise reaching approximately 50 in 2025. With developing economies water scarcity is a common and very prevalent issue
3.
Urbanization
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Urbanization refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas, and the ways in which each society adapts to the change. It is predominantly the process by which towns and cities are formed, the United Nations projected that half of the worlds population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008. It is predicted that by 2050 about 64% of the developing world and that is equivalent to approximately 3 billion urbanites by 2050, much of which will occur in Africa and Asia. Notably, the United Nations has also projected that nearly all global population growth from 2017 to 2030 will be absorbed by cities. Urbanization is relevant to a range of disciplines, including geography, sociology, economics, urban planning, the phenomenon has been closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization. Urbanization can be seen as a condition at a set time or as an increase in that condition over time. The first major change in settlement patterns was the accumulation of hunter-gatherers into villages many years ago. This unprecedented movement of people is forecast to continue and intensify during the few decades. Outside Asia, Mexico City, São Paulo, London, New York City, Lagos, in England the proportion of the population living in cities jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891. Growing trade around the world also allowed cereals to be imported from North America and refrigerated meat from Australasia, spatially, cities also expanded due to the development of public transport systems, which facilitated commutes of longer distances to the city centre for the working class. Urbanization rapidly spread across the Western world and, since the 1950s, at the turn of the 20th century, just 15% of the world population lived in cities. According to the UN the year 2007 witnessed the turning point when more than 50% of the population were living in cities. Living in a city can provide opportunities of proximity, diversity, as against this, there may be alienation issues, stress, increased cost of living, and negative social aspects that result from mass marginalization. In cities, money, services, wealth and opportunities are centralized, many rural inhabitants come to the city to seek their fortune and alter their social position. Businesses, which provide jobs and exchange capital, are concentrated in urban areas. Whether the source is trade or tourism, it is also through the ports or banking systems, commonly located in cities, many people move into cities for the economic opportunities, but this does not fully explain the very high recent urbanization rates in places like China and India. Rural flight is a factor to urbanization. Farm living has always been susceptible to environmental conditions, and in times of drought, flood or pestilence
4.
Flash flood
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A flash flood is a rapid flooding of geomorphic low-lying areas, washes, rivers, dry lakes and basins. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a thunderstorm, hurricane, tropical storm. Flash floods may occur after the collapse of an ice or debris dam, or a human structure such as a man-made dam. Flash floods are distinguished from regular floods by a timescale of less than six hours, the water that is temporarily available is often used by foliage with rapid germination and short growth cycles, and by specially adapted animal life. Flash floods can occur under several types of conditions, Flash flooding occurs when it rains rapidly on saturated soil or dry soil that has poor absorption ability. The runoff collects in gullies and streams and, as they join to form larger volumes, often forms a fast flowing front of water, in areas on or near volcanoes, flash floods have also occurred after eruptions, when glaciers have been melted by the intense heat. Flash floods are known to occur in the highest mountain ranges of the United States and are common in the arid plains of the Southwestern United States. Flash flooding can also be caused by extensive rainfall released by hurricanes and other tropical storms, human activities can also cause flash floods to occur. When dams fail, a quantity of water can be released. Many people tend to underestimate the dangers of flash floods, what makes flash floods most dangerous is their sudden nature and fast-moving water. A vehicle provides little to no protection against being swept away, it may make people overconfident, more than half of the fatalities attributed to flash floods are people swept away in vehicles when trying to cross flooded intersections. As little as 2 feet of water is enough to carry away most SUV-sized vehicles. The U. S. National Weather Service reported in 2005 that, using a national 30-year average, more people die yearly in floods,127 on average, than by lightning, tornadoes, in deserts, flash floods can be particularly deadly for several reasons. First, storms in arid regions are infrequent, but they can deliver an enormous amount of water in a short time. Second, these rains often fall on poorly absorbent and often clay-like soil, in fact, in some areas, desert roads frequently cross dry river and creek beds without bridges. From the drivers perspective, there may be clear weather, when a river unexpectedly forms ahead of or around the vehicle in a matter of seconds. Finally, the lack of rain to clear water channels may cause flash floods in deserts to be headed by large amounts of debris, such as rocks, branches. 1889, Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania, U. S. more than 2,200 people dead 1903, Heppner Flood of 1903, Oregon, United States,247 dead, 25% of the city 1938, Los Angeles Flood of 1938, California, U. S. S
5.
Asphalt
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Asphalt, also known as bitumen is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in deposits or may be a refined product. Until the 20th century, the term asphaltum was also used, the word is derived from the Ancient Greek ἄσφαλτος ásphaltos. The primary use of asphalt/bitumen is in construction, where it is used as the glue or binder mixed with aggregate particles to create asphalt concrete. Its other main uses are for bituminous waterproofing products, including production of roofing felt, the terms asphalt and bitumen are often used interchangeably to mean both natural and manufactured forms of the substance. In American English, asphalt is the carefully refined residue from the process of selected crude oils. Outside the United States, the product is often called bitumen, geologists often prefer the term bitumen. Common usage often refers to forms of asphalt/bitumen as tar. Naturally occurring asphalt/bitumen is sometimes specified by the crude bitumen. Its viscosity is similar to that of cold molasses while the material obtained from the distillation of crude oil boiling at 525 °C is sometimes referred to as refined bitumen. The Canadian province of Alberta has most of the reserves of natural bitumen, covering 142,000 square kilometres. Additionally, most natural bitumens contain organosulfur compounds, resulting in a sulfur content of up to 4%. Nickel and vanadium are found in the <10 ppm level, as is typical of some petroleum, the substance is soluble in carbon disulfide. It is commonly modelled as a colloid, with asphaltenes as the dispersed phase, and it is almost impossible to separate and identify all the different molecules of asphalt, because the number of molecules with different chemical structure is extremely large. Asphalt/bitumen can sometimes be confused with tar, which is a visually similar black. During the early and mid-20th century when town gas was produced, coal tar was a readily available byproduct, the addition of tar to macadam roads led to the word tarmac, which is now used in common parlance to refer to road-making materials. However, since the 1970s, when natural gas succeeded town gas, other examples of this confusion include the La Brea Tar Pits and the Canadian oil sands, both of which actually contain natural bitumen rather than tar. Pitch is another term used at times to refer to asphalt/bitumen
6.
Impervious surface
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Impervious surfaces are mainly artificial structures—such as pavements that are covered by impenetrable materials such as asphalt, concrete, brick, stone—and rooftops. Soils compacted by urban development are also highly impervious.4 percent of the nation as having an estimated impervious cover of 21 to 40 percent, in some cities, the flood waters get into combined sewers, causing them to overflow, flushing their raw sewage into streams. Polluted runoff can have negative effects on fish, animals, plants. Impervious surfaces collect solar heat in their dense mass, when the heat is released, it raises air temperatures, producing urban heat islands, and increasing energy consumption in buildings. The warm runoff from impervious surfaces reduces dissolved oxygen in stream water, Impervious pavements deprive tree roots of aeration, eliminating the urban forest and the canopy shade that would otherwise moderate urban climate. Because impervious surfaces displace living vegetation, they reduce ecological productivity, the total coverage by impervious surfaces in an area, such as a municipality or a watershed is usually expressed as a percentage of the total land area. The coverage increases with rising urbanization, in rural areas, impervious cover may only be one or two percent. In residential areas, coverage increases from about 10 percent in low-density subdivisions to over 50 percent in multi-family communities, in industrial and commercial areas, coverage rises above 70 percent. In regional shopping centers and dense areas, it is over 90 percent. In the contiguous 48 states of the USA, urban impervious cover adds up to 43,000 square miles — an area nearly the size of the State of Ohio, continuing development adds another quarter of a million acres each year. Typically two-thirds of the cover is pavements and one-third is building roofs, Impervious surface coverage can be limited by restricting land use density, but this approach causes land elsewhere to be developed, to accommodate growing population. Rainwater from impervious surfaces can be collected in tanks and used in place of main water. The percentage imperviousness, often referred to as PIMP in calculations, is an important factor when considering drainage of water and it is calculated by measuring the percentage of a catchment area which is made up of impervious surfaces such as roads, roofs and other paved surfaces. An estimation of PIMP is given by PIMP =6. 4J^0.5 where J is the number of dwellings per hectare, for example, woodland has a PIMP value of 10%, whereas dense commercial areas have a PIMP value of 100%. This variable is used in the Flood Estimation Handbook, the total impervious area can be expressed as a fraction or a percentage. The U. S. NLCD impervious surface data set may provide a high-quality nationally-consistent land cover data set in a GIS-ready format that can be used to estimate TIA value, the NLCD consistently quantifies the percent anthropogenic TIA for the NLCD at a 30-meter pixel resolution throughout the Nation. Within the data set, each pixel is quantified as having a TIA value that ranges from 0 to 100 percent, TIA estimates made with the NLCD impervious surface data set represent an aggregated TIA value for each pixel rather than a TIA value for an individual impervious feature. For example, a two lane road in a field has a TIA value of 100 percent, but the pixel containing the road would have a TIA value of 26 percent
