Groundwater-level response to land-use change and the implications for salinity management in the West Moorabool River catchment, Victoria, Australia

The connection between the removal of native vegetation, rising water tables and increasing stream salinity has been established for many catchments across Australia. However, the West Moorabool River in south west Victoria is an example of a catchment where there has been little discernable effect on groundwater levels following land clearing. Over the past 150 years, a significant portion of the catchment has been cleared of dense forest for agricultural development. Historic standing water-level records from 1870–1871 and 1881 are compared with contemporary measurements (1970s to 2007) recorded in the government bore databases. The data show that the earliest recorded groundwater levels are well within the seasonal range of values observed today. By integrating geology and hydrogeology with historical observations of groundwater levels, climate data and land use, the contemporary field observations of stream salinity are linked to the changed water use and shift in rainfall. In contrast to the normally accepted axiom, reafforestation as a management strategy to mitigate the rising salinity in the West Moorabool River catchment would seem inappropriate.     

The last deglaciation in the Picos de Europa National Park (Cantabrian Mountains,northern Spain)

A sedimentological and geochemical study of the Lago Enol sequence (Cantabrian Mountains, northern Spain), together with detailed geomorphological mapping, provides a first record of glacier evolution and climate change over the last 40 ka in the Picos de Europa National Park. The Enol glacier retreated from its maximum extent prior to 40 ka BP as demonstrated by the onset of proglacial lacustrine sedimentation in two glaciated depressions: the Comella hollow to the north (before 40 ka BP) and the Lago Enol (before 38 ka BP). These results support previous evidence that the maximum extent of southern European glaciers occurred earlier than in northern Europe. Alternation of homogeneous and laminated proglacial sediments during the glacier retreat illustrate a dynamic glacial evolution during the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 (40–26 ka BP). A slight warming is detected at 26 ka ago with the change from proglacial sediments (in a lake located in contact to the glacier) to glaciolacustrine sedimentation (in a non‐contact or distal lake). Finally, the onset of organic‐rich sediments took place at 18 ka ago. This last transition occurred in two phases, similarly to the North Atlantic Last Termination, suggesting a link between North Atlantic Deep Water formation oscillations and palaeohydrological variability in the Cantabrian Mountains. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seismic activity related to the 1991 eruption of Colima Volcano,Mexico

Ten years after the last effusive eruption and at least 15 years of seismic quiescence, volcanic seismic activity started at Colima volcano on 14 February 1991, with a seismic crisis which reached counts of more than 100 per day and showed a diversity of earthquake types. Four other distinct seismic crises followed, before a mild effusive eruption in April 1991. The second crisis preceded the extrusion of an andesitic scoriaceous lava lobe, first reported on 1 March; during this crisis an interesting temporary concentration of seismic foci below the crater was observed shortly before the extrusion was detected. The third crisis was constituted by shallow seismicity, featuring possible mild degassing explosion-induced activity in the form of hiccups (episodes of simple wavelets that repeat with diminishing amplitude), and accompanied by increased fumarolic activity. The growth of the new lava dome was accompanied by changing seismicity. On 16 April during the fifth crisis which consisted of some relatively large, shallow, volcanic earthquakes and numerous avalanches of older dome material, part of the newly extruded dome, which had grown towards the edge of the old dome, collapsed, producing the largest avalanches and ash flows. Afterwards, block lava began to flow slowly along the SW flank of the volcano, generating frequent small incandescent avalanches. The seismicity associated with the stages of this eruptive activity shows some interesting features: most earthquake foci were located north of the summit, some of them relatively deep (7–11 km below the summit level), underneath the saddle between the Colima and the older Nevado volcanoes. An apparently seismic quiet region appears between 4 and 7 km below the summit level. In June, harmonic tremors were detected for the first time, but no changes in the eruptive activity could be correlated with them. After June, the seismicity decreasing trend was established, and the effusive activity stopped on September 1991.     

A cautionary note on humanitarian intervention

In the Post-Cold War environment, the role of the military has been extended to include intra-state peace enforcement on humanitarian grounds. This raises issues of legality. In this paper, four arguments are advanced that a right of states to intervene in humanitarian emergencies now exists. Problems contingent upon such intervention are then examined.     

Thermal radiation from cloudless skies in Granada

Summary Data on thermal radiation from clear skies obtained at Granada from May to November 1983 were utilized to carry out a detailed comparison between measured and calculated values of longwave radiation with several analytical and empirical equations. The goal of this work is to check the aplicability of these equations to Granada conditions. The results obtained for all the equations are quite satisfactory. Nevertheless, Idso's formula significantly overestimates our experimental results, probably as a consequence of the differences in atmospheric dust conditions between our test area and the location for which that equation was originally derived. A reduction in the independent coefficient, in accordance with previous results of other authors, provides a better fit to our data set and clearly shows the climatological dependence of the constants in the estimation equations.

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Zusammenfassung Die von Mai bis November 1983 in Granada gesammelten Daten über Wärmestrahlung bei klarem Himmel wurden dazu verwendet, um einen detaillierten Vergleich zwischen gemessenen und errechneten Werten der langwelligen Strahlung aus verschiedenen analytischen und empirischen Gleichungen durchzuführen. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, die Anwendbarkeit dieser Gleichungen auf die Verhältnisse in Granada zu überprüfen. Die gewonnenen Ergebnisse sind für alle diese Gleichungen ganz zufriedenstellend. Idsos Formel überschätzt jedoch deutlich unsere experimentellen Ergebnisse, möglicherweise als Folge der unterschiedlichen atmosphärischen Staubbedingungen in unserem Testgebiet und dem Standort, für den die Gleichung ursprünglich abgeleitet wurde. Eine Reduktion des unabhängigen Koeffizienten, in Übereinstimmung mit früheren Ergebnissen anderer Autoren, bietet eine bessere Anpassung an unseren Datensatz und zeigt deutlich die klimatologische Abhängigkeit der Konstanten in Schätzungsgleichungen.

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With 3 Figures     

Detecting Changes in Ground Water Quality at Regulated Facilities

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (PL 94–580) and related federal and state legislation have mandated routine monitoring of ground water quality at regulated facilities. The objective of the required monitoring activities is detection of adverse changes in ground water quality caused by the facilities.
Both failure to detect pollution and an incorrect determination of pollution can be very expensive. It is crucial, therefore, that monitoring programs be designed and operated to provide statistically sound information. It is equally important that users of ground water quality data understand the nature and limitations of information from monitoring.
To address the preceding issues, the authors present a general approach to analyzing ground water quality data in light of the stated monitoring objective. The suggested approach accounts for "natural" variation in background water quality through pairing of observations. The limitations of quarterly sampling for detecting small changes in quality over a short time frame are discussed.     

Progress in Carrier Phase Time Transfer

The progress of the joint Pilot Project for time transfer, formed by the International GPS Service (IGS) and the Bureal International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), was recently reviewed. Three notable milestones were set. (1) The IGS will implement, at least in a test mode, an internally realized time scale based on an integration of combined frequency standards within the IGS network. This will eventually become the reference time scale for all IGS clock products (instead of the current GPS broadcast time). (2) A new procedure for combined receiver and satellite clock products will be implemented officially in November 2000. Receiver clocks are an entirely new product of the IGS. (3) The BIPM will coordinate an effort to calibrate all Ashtech Z12-T (and possibly other) receivers suitable for time transfer applications, either differentially or absolutely. Progress reports will be presented publicly in the spring 2001. ? 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.