Seasonal rainfall–runoff relationships in a lowland forested watershed in the southeastern USA

Hydrological processes of lowland watersheds of the southern USA are not well understood compared to a hilly landscape due to their unique topography, soil compositions, and climate. This study describes the seasonal relationships between rainfall patterns and runoff (sum of storm flow and base flow) using 13 years (1964–1976) of rainfall and stream flow data for a low‐gradient, third‐order forested watershed. It was hypothesized that runoff–rainfall ratios (R/P) are smaller during the dry periods (summer and fall) and greater during the wet periods (winter and spring). We found a large seasonal variability in event R/P potentially due to differences in forest evapotranspiration that affected seasonal soil moisture conditions. Linear regression analysis results revealed a significant relationship between rainfall and runoff for wet (r² = 0·68; p < 0·01) and dry (r² = 0·19; p = 0·02) periods. Rainfall‐runoff relationships based on a 5‐day antecedent precipitation index (API) showed significant (r² = 0·39; p < 0·01) correspondence for wet but not (r² = 0·02; p = 0·56) for dry conditions. The same was true for rainfall‐runoff relationships based on 30‐day API (r² = 0·39; p < 0·01 for wet and r² = 0·00; p = 0·79 for dry). Stepwise regression analyses suggested that runoff was controlled mainly by rainfall amount and initial soil moisture conditions as represented by the initial flow rate of a storm event. Mean event R/P were higher for the wet period (R/P = 0·33), and the wet antecedent soil moisture condition based on 5‐day (R/P = 0·25) and 30‐day (R/P = 0·26) prior API than those for the dry period conditions. This study suggests that soil water status, i.e. antecedent soil moisture and groundwater table level, is important besides the rainfall to seasonal runoff generation in the coastal plain region with shallow soil argillic horizons. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contextual factors influencing sustainable fisheries in Mexico

Sustainable fisheries take into consideration that managed fisheries ecosystems shift over time in response to evolving environmental as well as market and political factors. These contextual forces are especially valuable in understanding developing countries such as Mexico, where the unconsolidated fisheries administration faces productive marine ecosystems but unsustainable fisheries. To recognize the issues that have inhibited the consolidation of a regulatory system for sustainable fisheries, a contextual factor analysis was applied to the co-development of two current policies in the Mexican fishery regime: fisheries and environmental policies. Six historical phases have been identified in which there are few long periods of stability and frequent short periods of radical change that alternate between stable and adverse contextual situations. These short and contrasting contextual situations cause a kind of tug-of-war in Mexican fisheries policy-making. On the one hand, domestic economic, scientific, and technological forces seem to slowly lead toward the consolidation of sustainable fisheries; on the other hand, domestic policies drift from one position to another at other timing than the international fisheries and environmental policies. Although recent crises seem to highlight new periods of radical change in Mexico, they also provide an opportunity to adopt new structural plans to consolidate domestic forces as a basis for long-term strategies.     

Extreme value analysis in the Danube lower basin discharge time series in the twentieth century

The daily discharge time series in the lower Danube basin (Orsova) have been considered for the 1900–2005 period. The extreme value theory (EVT) is applied for the study of daily discharges incorporating some covariates. Two methods are applied for fitting the data to an extreme value distribution: block maxima and peaks over thresholds (POT). Using the block maxima approach associated with the use of the generalised extreme value (GEV) distribution, monthly and seasonal maxima of daily discharge for 1900–2005 have been analysed. Separately the monthly maxima of daily discharge for the 1958–2001 was analysed in order to be compatible with atmospheric circulation available from ERA-40. For performing parameter estimation, the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method was used. From the three possible types of GEV distribution, a Weibull distribution fits both the monthly and seasonal maxima of the daily discharges very well. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the first ten principal components (PC) of the decomposition in multi-variate empirical orthogonal functions (MEOF) of three atmospheric fields (sea level pressure, 500 hPa and 500–1000 hPa thickness) over the Atlantic-European region (ERA-40), have been introduced as covariates. An improvement over the model without the covariate is found by incorporating NAO as the covariate in location parameter, especially for the spring maxima having the NAO as predictor during the winter. Related to atmospheric circulation influence, the most significant results are obtained by incorporating the first 10 PCs of the MEOF in the location parameter of GEV distribution within a month before the month of the discharge level. Regarding the POT approach associated with generalised Pareto distribution (GPD), different thresholds have been tested for daily discharges in the period 1900–2005, where the maxima were fitted by a bounded (or beta) distribution.     

Experimental study of the origin and properties of the defect moment in single domain haematite

Summary. The properties of the 'defect moment' of two fine-particle synthetic haematite powders were studied at low and room temperatures, in weak and moderate fields with respect to the saturation field of this mineral, and as a function of annealing. Two components were separated, (a) a component of low coercivity due to lattice defects, which disappears at the Morin transition, (b) a component with higher coercivities, due to nonmagnetic impurities, which persists below the Morin transition and is unaffected by annealing.     

Assessment of seismic risk scenarios for Bucharest,Romania

In this paper, seismic risk scenarios for Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, are proposed and assessed. Bucharest has one of the highest seismic risk levels in Europe, and this is due to a combination of relatively high seismic hazard and a building stock built mainly before the devastating Vrancea 1977 earthquake. In this study, the seismic risk of Bucharest is assessed using the most recent information regarding the characteristics of the residential building stock. The ground motion amplitudes are evaluated starting from random fields obtained by coupling a ground motion model derived for the Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source with a spatial correlation model. The seismic risk evaluation method applied in this study is based on the well-known macroseismic method. For several structural typologies, the vulnerability parameters are evaluated based on a damage survey performed on 18,000 buildings in Bucharest after the March 1977 earthquake. Subsequently, the risk metrics are compared with those from other studies in the literature that apply a different risk assessment methodology in order to gain a better view of the uncertainties associated with a seismic risk study at city level. Finally, the impact of several Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquake scenarios is evaluated and the results show that the earthquake which has the closest epicenter to Bucharest appears to be the most damaging.     

Discharge variability in Romania using Palmer indices and a simple atmospheric index of large-scale circulation

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to analyse the seasonal characteristics of four Palmer indices calculated on the basis of data from 27 meteorological stations in Romania, and the impact of these indices on river discharges in the period 1931–1998. Our research also tests the influence of large-scale atmospheric circulation on these indices and on discharge. For each season, developments in the empirical orthogonal functions (EOF) and multivariate EOF (MEOF) are achieved. The MEOF representation highlights the overall characteristics of the four Palmer indices. It maximizes specific information for each season compared with individual information of each Palmer index. We then identify geographical areas with homogeneous distribution, taking into account both the discharge distribution and the rotated EOF components of each Palmer index. Finally, we analysed the impact of large-scale atmospheric circulation on hydro-climatic events in Romania by means of the Greenland-Balkan Oscillation Index (GBOI), which is shown to have a greater influence on southeastern Europe than the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI).