The influence of medium-range transport on O3 levels at a rural site in Israel

Simultaneous ozone measurements were made at a rural site, 25 km SSW of the city of Jerusalem, and in the center of the city during a period of 28 months. The ozone data were supplemented by SO₂, NO/NO _x ,and meteorological measurements at both sites. Elevated ozone concentrations were recorded at the rural site, mostly during the spring months (May and June) during which the monthly averages and the monthly averages of the daily 30 min maximum levels equalled those measured in the city. During the summer months, both average and peak levels were lower at the rural site by 20 and 35 ppb. The increased ozone levels at the rural site were accompanied by a parallel increase of SO₂ and NO _x ,suggesting hat the excess ozone at the rural site is a result of a transformation during transport of air pollutants from coastal sources.     

Rainfall, spring discharge and past human occupancy in the Eastern Mediterranean

In ancient times human activities were tightly related and sensitive to rainfall amounts and seasonal distribution. East Mediterranean settlements were concentrated around numerous small to large springs, such as the Judean Mountains area. The goals of this study were to determine (a) the sensitivity of total discharge, recession curve, and response time of such springs to annual precipitation patterns, and (b) how spring hydrology responds to series of drought or wet years and to transitions from drought to normal and/or wet episodes (and vice versa). These goals were achieved by setting a finite-element hydro-geological flow model for selected perched springs that characterize the numerous springs throughout the carbonate karst terrain in the Judean Mountains. In addition, we estimated the effect of proposed regional past climate changes on the springs; in so doing, we transfer climate change to community size, livelihood and economic strength that were highly dependent on agricultural productivity. The results of the hydro-geological model revealed that these mountainous communities had the potential to prosper during historically wetter episodes and were probably adapted to short-term variability in annual rainfall. However, moderate to extreme droughts lasting only a few years could have led to a partial or even total abandonment of the springs as focal sites of intensive agricultural production. Spring drying eliminated the primary cause for the location of settlement. This occurred simultaneously in numerous settlements around the mountains of the southern Levant and therefore, must have caused dramatic economic and societal changes in the entire region, perhaps even resonating afar.     

Effective governance for competitive regions in Europe: the difficult case of the Randstad

Europe has come to recognize that its regions have a major role to play in achieving its cohesion and competitiveness objectives. EU policies and Structural Fund principles are therefore increasingly geared towards enhancing regional capacities. Regions across Europe are responding, with varying results so far. The Randstad, in the Netherlands, presents itself as a ‘far from best’ example. Despite continued and serious attempts to strengthen capacities and institutions, the region still lacks effective governance. This paper explores the question why it is next to impossible to establish a framework for effective governance in the Randstad and distils some lessons for other regions in Europe.     

Sinuosity evolution along an incising channel: New insights from the Jordan River response to the Dead Sea level fall

The geomorphic evolution of the Jordan River in recent decades indicates that interaction between incision and high-magnitude floods controls sinuosity changes under increasing mouth gradients during base-level fall. The evolution of the river was analyzed based on digital elevation models, remotely sensed imagery, hydrometric data, and a hydraulic model. The response varies along the river. Near the river mouth, where incision rate is high and a deep channel forms, overbank flooding is less likely. There, large floods exert high shear stress within the confined channel, increasing sinuosity. Upstream, near the migrating knickzone channel gradients also increase, incision is more moderate and floods continue to overtop the banks, favoring meander chute cutoffs. The resulting channel has a downstream well-confined meandering segment and an upstream low-sinuosity segment. These new insights regarding spatial differences along an incising channel can improve interpretations of the evolution of ancient planforms and floodplains that responded to base-level decline. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From straight to deeply incised meandering channels: Slope impact on sinuosity of confined streams

Meandering channels and valleys are dominant landscape features on Earth. Their morphology and remnants potentially indicate past base-level fluctuations and changing regional slopes. The prevailing presence of meandering segments in low-slope areas somewhat confuses the physically based relationships between slope and channel meandering. This relationship underlies a fundamental debate: do incised sinuous channels actively develop during steepening of a regional slope, or do they inherit the planform of a preexisting sinuous channel through vertical incision? This question was previously explored through reconstructed evolution of meandering rivers, numerical simulations, and controlled, scaled-down laboratory experiments. Here, we study a rare, field-scale set of a dozen adjacent perennial channels, evolving in recent decades in a homogeneous erodible substrate in response to the Dead Sea level fall (> 30 m over 40 years). These channels are fed by perennial springs and have no drainage basin or previous fluvial history; they initiated straight and transformed into incising meandering channels following the emergence of the preexisting lake bathymetry, which resulted in increased channel lengths and regional slopes at different rates for each channel. This field setting allows testing the impact of changing regional slope on the sinuosity of a stream in the following cases: (a) relatively long and low-gradient shelf-like margins, (b) a sharp increase in the basinward gradient at the shelf-slope transition, and (c) gradually steepening slopes. Under a stable and low valley slope, the channels mainly incise vertically, inheriting a preexisting sinuous pattern. When the regional slope steepens, the channels start to meander, accompanying the vertical incision. The highest sinuosity evolved in the steepest channel, which also developed the deepest and widest valley. These results emphasize the amplifying impact of steepening regional slope on sinuosity. This holds when the flow is confined and chute cutoffs are scarce.     

Some aspects of agricultural development on steep slopes in South Korea

Methods of agricultural development on steep slopes in Korea (contour farming, bench terracing and semi-bench terracing) are evaluated. Runoff and erosion plot results are discussed and a design criteria proposed for relating slope length to gradient so that annual soil loss will not be excessive.     

Particulate sulfate levels at a rural site in Israel

Ambient particulate sulfate measurements have been intermittently performed at a rural site in Israel over a period of more than two years. Concurrent measurements of ambient pollutants (SO₂, NO–NO_x, and O₃), as well as meteorological data, were also carried out. The daily data included four particulate sulfate samples representing four successive 6 h accumulating periods. The measured concentrations of sulfate ions ranged from a low 2 g m^-3 observed during the winter season to a high of >50 g m^-3 obtained during the summer. Little correlation was obtained between the sulfate concentration and either O₃ or SO₂, although sulfate and O₃ showed a similar diurnal and annual trend. Based on the data distribution and on a photochemical model, it was concluded that a large part of the particulate sulfate observed at the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea must be related to long-range transport from distant sources.     

Dimensionality reduction for production optimization using polynomial approximations

The objective of this paper is to introduce a novel paradigm to reduce the computational effort in waterflooding global optimization problems while realizing smooth well control trajectories amenable for practical deployments in the field. In order to overcome the problems of slow convergence and non-smooth impractical control strategies, often associated with gradient-free optimization (GFO) methods, we introduce a generalized approach which represent the controls by smooth polynomial approximations either by a polynomial function or by a piecewise polynomial interpolation, which we denote as function control method (FCM) and interpolation control method (ICM), respectively. Using these approaches, we aim to optimize the coefficients of the selected functions or the interpolation points in order to represent the well-control trajectories along a time horizon. Our results demonstrate significant computational savings, due to a substantial reduction in the number of control parameters, as we seek the optimal polynomial coefficients or the interpolation points to describe the control trajectories as opposed to directly searching for the optimal control values (bottom hole pressure) at each time interval. We demonstrate the efficiency of the method on two and three-dimensional models, where we found the optimal variables using a parallel dynamic-neighborhood particle swarm optimization (PSO). We compared our FCM-PSO and ICM-PSO to the traditional formulation solved by both gradient-free and gradient-based methods. In all comparisons, both FCM and ICM show very good to superior performances.     

Fluvial incision and coarse gravel redistribution across the modern Dead Sea shelf as a result of base-level fall

Global eustatic lowstands can expose vast areas of continental shelves, and occasionally the shelf edge and the continental slope. The degree of fluvial connectivity to receding shores influences the redistribution of sediments across these emerging landscapes. Shelf and slope emergence in the Dead Sea since the middle of the 20th century, offers a rare opportunity to examine evolution of stream connectivity in response to continuous base-level decline. We characterize the connectivity evolution of two streams, using high-resolution time series of aerial imagery and elevation models, field mapping, and grain-size analyses. Our rich spatiotemporal dataset of evolving channel geomorphology, sediment transport conditions, and sediment redistribution, allows calculating potential coarse sediment mobility in response to base level decline. Following shelf emergence, alluvial fans first prograded onto the low-gradient shelf under unfavourable conditions for transporting coarse sediment to the regressing shoreline. Then, with shelf and slope emergence, the two adjacent streams evolved differently. The smaller, more arid watershed still maintains its highstand delta progradation on the shelf and is practically disconnected from the receding lake. The larger catchment, heading in wetter environments and having a narrower shelf, has incised the shelf and renewed and gradually intensified the sediment transport from the highstand to the lowstand delta. Sediment mobilization to lowstand shorelines is controlled by the evolution of the channel profile and by the average speed of gravel transport (10s-100s m yr^-1). These findings from the Dead Sea are relevant to fluvial processes operating on continental shelves during glacial maxima. Streams would have commonly stored high proportions of their coarse sediment on the continental shelves rather than efficiently connecting with the lowstand level. Additionally, differences in sediment routing patterns should exist among nearby streams, primarily due to continental margin geometry and watershed hydrology. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multi-sensor for measuring erythemally weighted irradiance in various directions simultaneously

In a positively long-range correlated process, variations among consecutive steps are interdependent, especially the influence of previous one-step variation on next steps. How to quantify this kind of impact is of great importance to predict the future variations. In this paper, we demonstrate that this kind of impact depends on the memory strength of underlying processes from two aspects based on the theoretical and observational calculations. More precisely, the conditional calculations and the marginal distribution of the next step variation with given distribution of the previous one-step variation. Both the theoretical and observational calculations demonstrate that the previous one-step variation affect greatly the variation for the next one-step, and the expectation of next step variation will shift to larger value as the increase of memory strength but with a much smaller uncertainty. This is beneficial for our one-step ahead prediction, and will be especially beneficial for multi-step ahead prediction.