Cultural barriers to climate change adaptation: A case study from Northern Burkina Faso

Human adaptation to climate change is a heterogeneous process influenced by more than economic and technological development. It is increasingly acknowledged in the adaptation to climate change literature that factors such as class, gender and culture play a large role when adaptation strategies are either chosen or rejected at the local scale. This paper explores adaptation strategies by focusing on livelihood diversification in the face of the most recent of recurrent droughts in the Sahel. It is shown that for Fulbe, one of the two main ethnic groups in the small village in Northern Burkina Faso studied, culture acts as a major barrier to embracing four of the most successful livelihood strategies: labour migration, working for development projects, gardening, and the engagement of women in economic activities.     

Impact of land-surface elevation and riparian evapotranspiration seasonality on groundwater budget in MODFLOW models

Riparian groundwater evapotranspiration (ETg) constitutes a major component of the water balance especially in many arid and semi-arid environments. Although spatial and temporal variability of riparian ETg are controlled by climate, vegetation and subsurface characteristics, depth to water table (DTWT) is often considered the major controlling factor. Relationships between ETg rates and DTWT, referred to as ETg curves, are implemented in MODFLOW ETg packages (EVT, ETS1 and RIP-ET) with different functional forms. Here, the sensitivity of the groundwater budget in MODFLOW groundwater models to ETg parameters (including ETg curves, land-surface elevation and ETg seasonality) are investigated. A MODFLOW model of the hypothetical Dry Alkaline Valley in the Southwestern USA is used to show how spatial representation of riparian vegetation and digital elevation model (DEM) processing methods impact the water budget when RIPGIS-NET (a GIS-based ETg program) is used with MODFLOW’s RIP-ET package, and results are compared with the EVT and ETS1 packages. Results show considerable impact on ETg and other groundwater budget components caused by spatial representation of riparian vegetation, vegetation type, fractional coverage areas and land-surface elevation. RIPGIS-NET enhances ETg estimation in MODFLOW by incorporating vegetation and land-surface parameters, providing a tool for ecohydrology studies, riparian ecosystem management and stream restoration.     

Transfer of lipids from plankton to blubber of harp and hooded seals off East Greenland

Sub-Arctic marine ecosystems are some of the most productive ecosystems in the world's oceans. The capacity of herbivorous zooplankton, such as Calanus, to biosynthesize and store large amounts of lipids during the short and intense spring bloom is a fundamental adaptation which facilitates the large production in these ecosystems. These energy-rich lipids are rapidly transferred through the food chain to Arctic seals. The fatty acids and stable isotopes from harp seal (Phoca groenlandica) and hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) off East Greenland as well as their potential prey, were analysed. The results were used to describe the lipid dynamics and energy transfer in parts of the East Greenland ecosystem. Even if the two seal species showed considerable overlap in diet and occurred at relatively similar trophic levels, the fatty acid profiles indicated that the bases of the food chains of harp and hooded seals were different. The fatty acids of harp seals originate from diatom-based food chain, whereas the fatty acids of hooded seals originate from dinoflagellate and the prymnesiophyte Phaeocystis pouchetii-based food chain. Stable isotope analyses showed that both species are true carnivores on the top of their food chains, with hooded seal being slightly higher on the food chain than harp seal.     

Die Metasomatose in der Eisenspatlagerstätte Hüttenberg,Kärnten

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Changing local land systems: Implications of a Chinese rubber plantation in Nambak District,Lao PDR

This paper investigates the direct and cascading land system consequences of a Chinese company's land acquisition for rubber cultivation in northern Laos. Transnational land acquisitions are increasingly acknowledged as an important driver of direct land use conversion with implications for local land‐based livelihoods. The paper presents an empirical case study of the village of Na Nhang Neua in Nambak District, Luang Prabang Province, using a mixed methods approach to investigate the positive and negative implications for household agricultural strategies, income generation and food security. Combining the conceptual lenses of land systems and livelihood approaches, this paper demonstrates how the land use system has changed substantially because of the establishment of the rubber plantation by the company, notably in the linkages between livestock rearing, upland shifting cultivation and lowland paddy rice cultivation. The changes go beyond the immediate competition for land caused by the rubber plantation: a penalty scheme introduced by the rubber company for damage to rubber trees caused by browsing animals has led the villagers to abandon livestock rearing, causing a cascade of negative effects on the entire land use system, especially on soil fertility, rice yields and food production.     

Land system changes in the context of urbanisation: Examples from the peri-urban area of Greater Copenhagen

Peri-urban areas are characterised by great heterogeneity and rapid changes of land use. Furthermore, population composition changes as peri-urban areas offer attractive residential alternatives to city centres or more remote locations. The dynamic processes leave peri-urban areas in an in-between situation, neither city nor countryside and home to a range of functions, spanning from agricultural production to residential and recreational areas. The paper investigates the urbanisation of agricultural areas in the Greater Copenhagen region based on quantitative data collected on agricultural properties in nine study areas between 1984 and 2004. The overall conclusion is that agricultural land use has continued largely unaffected by the processes of urbanisation. However, most of the production is concentrated on a few very large full-time farms. In addition, the economic activities have been greatly diversified over the last three decades. The structural components of the areas (land use and landscape elements) thus appear more resilient than the socio-economic system (declining number of full-time farmers and increasing number of owners engaged in other gainful activities). However, at some point this discrepancy will disappear and rapid land use changes may be expected.     

Elemental dispersion and stable isotope fractionation during reactive fluid-flow and fluid immiscibility in the Bufa del Diente aureole,NE-Mexico: evidence from radiographies and Li,B, Sr,Nd, and Pb isotope systematics

The 31.6±0.3 Ma old Bufa del Diente alkali-syenite (NE Mexico) intruded a sequence of Cretaceous limestones with intercalated sub-horizontal chert layers. The cherts acted as aquifers that facilitated transport of brines and pegmatitic melts within the shallow-level (<1 kbar) contact-metamorphic aureole. Fluid-driven reactions between chert and marble wallrock, and the influx of late melts and various fluids gave rise to distinct chemical and isotopic signatures within the aquifer and across the zones of infiltration and fluid-driven reaction. Aqueous brines of magmatic origin produced thick wollastonite mantles around the chert layers. Wollastonite formation occurred at the expense of limestone and chert and generated CO₂. This CO₂-induced fluid unmixing into an aqueous brine and a low-density CO₂-rich fluid, which was lost to the overlying marble where it oxidized organic matter and caused ¹³C and ¹⁸O shifts in a zone some 5–10 cm wide. After wollastonite formation, the chert aquifers were locally intruded by pegmatite veins carrying alkali feldspar, quartz, aegirine-augite, eudialyte, zircon, and apatite. Aqueous fluids that exsolved during crystallization of the pegmatite veins escaped along late cross-fractures and migrated along the inner and outer borders of the wollastonite margins. Chemical dispersion patterns of U, Al, Na + K, P, S, Fe, and REE across the chert-to-marble boundary and its metasomatic rims are shown by autoradiography and neutron-induced radiography. Scavenging of cations at mineralogical contacts and cation transport into the marbles occurred only on the mm to cm scale. Isotopic data for Pb and Sr across a simple metachert-marble boundary and for Pb, Sr, Nd, B, and Li across a metachert-pegmatite-marble sequence demonstrate the following: (1) The Pb and Sr isotopic signature of early fluids was buffered by the carbonate wallrock. Only late fluids, shielded from wallrock interaction by a wollastonite mantle, variably preserved a memory of their initial magmatic signature. (2) Since the Nd isotope signature of marble and chert is bound to calcite and clay minerals, systematic shifts to unradiogenic Nd in marble reflect loss of carbonate-bound Nd as the wollastonite margin is approached. Nd in the wollastonite margin is dominated by Nd originally bound to clay minerals. The later emplacement of the pegmatite, which carried the Nd isotope signature of its alkali-syenite source, had little effect on the Nd isotopic composition of the wollastonite rim. (3) Although the Li and B isotopic compositions reflect the alkali-syenite source, they are also affected by isotopic fractionation and partitioning between melt, fluid, and solids.Editorial responsibility J. Hoefs