The decision making process in flood mitigation typically involves a number of factors reflecting flood severity, flood vulnerability and the cost of the mitigation measures, which implies that the decision framework needs to combine both social-economic parameters and flood extent prediction analysis. A socio-economic vulnerability index (SEVI) is developed here to represent social-economic factors and its use demonstrated within a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for assessing flood levee options for a central basin of Jakarta, Indonesia. The variables defining the SEVI are selected based on available national social-economic data reported for Indonesia with overlapping information removed using Pearson's correlation analysis. Two different methods are used to further scale the SEVI which is developed along administrative boundaries into a Net SEVI which is dependent on the predicted flood hazard as resulting from the levee plan options while capturing uncertainty in the rainfall forecasting. The MCDA technique adopted uses criteria of Net SEVI, annual expected loss, graduality and levee construction cost for analyzing six different levee plans and with uncertainty in the rainfall incorporated. The Net SEVI thus specifically reflects the social-economic impact on the flood-affected population, and this approach thereby provides a higher degree of granularity in the flood mitigation decision process. The MCDA decision framework developed is general in that the Net SEVI can be applied for consideration of other flood mitigation strategies. Here, it is shown that the inclusion of the Net SEVI criteria changes the best choice levee plan decision to a higher protection level for the basin considered.
This experiment was conducted to understand nutrient uptake of container-grown highbush blueberries in plastic film house. In March 2013, one-year-old 'Duke' was planted in a 180-L container mixed with peatmoss (130 L) and perlite (40 L), and hydroponic solution was supplied (fertilization) or not (non-fertilization) until October 2020. Hydroponic solution consisted of NO 3 -N 4.6, NH 4 -N 3.4, PO 4 -P 3.3, K 3, Ca 4.6, and Mg 2.2 mmol L -1 and the non-fertilization was supplied with only underground water. In October 2020, total dry weight of a blueberry increased 1.5-fold more in the fertilization than in the non-fertilization. Dry weight and inorganic nutrient content were the greatest in root than in leaf, shoot, old branch, and cane, indicating importance of root as a reserve storage organ. Fertilization increased dry weight by 2-fold and inorganic nutrient contents of root by 2.2 -2.6-fold. Total content of each nutrient in a bush increased 1.8 -2.2-fold more by the fertilization. In non-fertilized treatment, maintaining dry weight and nutrient contents for 8 years indicated that plants absorbed the nutrients to some extent through mineralization of peatmoss medium and underground water.
This experiment was conducted to evaluate the usefullness of cocopeat as a soil medium in blueberry cultivation. Two-year-old northern highbush blueberry 'Duke' and southern highbush blueberry 'Spring High' were planted in soil medium mixed with peatmoss (soil:peatmoss (v/v), 1:1) or cocopeat (soil:cocopeat (v/v), 1:1) in open fields in 2019. Soil pH measured in 2020 and 2021 ranged from 4.2 to 5.0 in peatmoss and 5.2 to 5.8 in cocopeat medium, indicating peatmoss has more suitable pH for blueberry growth. Two years soil analyses indicated that peatmoss medium tended to contain a higher available P 2 O 5 content and lower exchangeable cations compared with those of cocopeat. In 2021, peatmoss medium significantly increased the number of shoots per bush, by 16% for 'Duke' and 92% for 'Spring High' compared with the cocopeat. Bushes from peatmoss medium produced yield 1.9-to 2.7-fold higher for two years in 'Duke' and 1.4-to 1.8-fold higher in 'Spring High' compared with respective yields from cocopeat. Fruit characteristics for two years were not consistently affected by different soil media, except that the acidity was slightly higher in peatmoss. The results suggested that since the better bush growth from peatmoss medium resulted mainly from lower soil pH, the use of cocopeat as a soil medium should be followed by pH adjustment.
Appropriate pruning is very important for southern highbush blueberries cultivated in a heated plastic house to control their severe crowding within the bush canopy after harvest. Pruning treatments at different times were evaluated to find out an appropriate pruning time to southern highbush 'Scintilla' cultivation with heating. Seven-year-old (2018) bushes, grown in 180-L containers, were summer-pruned on May 20 (35-39 days after harvest) and June 20, or dormant-pruned on December 20 (5 days before flowering), consecutively in both 2018 and 2019 removing 30% of the total woods. May pruning activated occurrence of shoots the following years, increasing number of shoot by 17 to 49% and total shoot length by 18 to 32% compared with those of the dormant pruning. Fruit characteristic was not significantly affected by different pruning times the previous year. The first year pruning treatment did not influence the yield the following year, but the second year consecutive May pruning significantly increased yield per bush by 7% compared with the dormant pruning. The results indicated that summer pruning in May could be favorable to promote shoot growth and to maintain stable yield.
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