New Paper: Lessons from the Mainland of China’s Epidemic Experience in the First Phase about the Growth Rules of Infected and Recovered Cases of COVID-19 Worldwide

/in

The first phase of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that emerged at the end of 2019 has been brought under control in the mainland of China in March, while it is still spreading globally. When the pandemic will end is a question of great concern. A logistic model that depicts the growth rules of infected and recovered cases in China’s mainland may shed some light on this question. This model well explained the data by 13 April from 31 countries that have been experiencing serious COVID- 2019 outbreaks (R 2 C 0.95). Based on this model, the semi-saturation period (SSP) of infected cases in those countries ranges from 3 March to 18 June. According to the linear relationship between the growth rules for infected and for recovered cases identified from the Chinese data, we predicted that the SSP of the recovered cases outside China ranges from 22 March to 8 July. More importantly, we found a strong positive correlation between the SSP of infected cases and the timing of a government’s response.
Finally, this model was also applied to four regions that went through other coronavirus or Ebola virus epidemics (R 2 C 0.95). There is a negative correlation between the death rate and the logistic growth rate. These findings provide strong evidence for the effectiveness of rapid epidemic control measures in various countries.

The online version of the paper is accessible here

Future urban development exacerbates coastal exposure in the Mediterranean

/in

Changes in the spatial patterns and rate of urban development will be one of the main determinants of future coastal flood risk. Existing spatial projections of urban extent are, however, often available at coarse spatial resolutions, local geographical scales or for short time horizons, which limits their suitability for broad-scale coastal flood impact assessments. Here, we present a new set of spatially explicit projections of urban extent for ten countries in the Mediterranean, consistent with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). To model plausible future urban development, we develop an Urban Change Model, which uses input variables such as elevation, population density or road network and an artificial neural network to project urban development on a regional scale. The developed future projections for the five SSPs indicate that accounting for the spatial patterns of urban development can lead to significant differences in the assessment of future coastal urban exposure. The increase in exposure in the Extended Low Elevation Coastal Zone (E-LECZ = area below 20 m of elevation) until 2100 can vary, by up to 104%, depending on the urban development scenario chosen. This finding highlights that accounting for urban development in long-term adaptation planning, e.g. in the form of land-use planning, can be an effective measure for reducing future coastal flood risk on a regional scale.

The online version of the paper is accessible here

Wolff, C., Nikoletopoulos, T., Hinkel, J., Vafeidis A. (2020). Future urban development exacerbates coastal exposure in the Mediterranean. Scientific Reports 10: 14420. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70928-9