A biodiversity evaluation framework for restoration of aquatic macrophyte communities in shallow lakes driven by hydrological process management

Macrophyte community diversity and composition respond to ecosystem conservation and local environmental factors. In this study, we developed a multidimensional diversity framework for macrophyte communities, including the taxonomic and functional alpha and beta diversity. We used the framework to explore the relationships among water level regimes and these diversity parameters in a case study of China's Baiyangdian Lake. Analysis of indicators of hydrologic alteration divided the water level from 1959 to 2019 into four regimes (dry, <6.42 m; low, 6.42–7.23 m; medium, 7.23–8.19 m; high, >8.19 m). Alpha and beta diversity were significantly higher in the medium regime than in the low and high regimes. Redundancy analysis indicated that the maximum water depth significantly affected taxonomic alpha diversity, and total nitrogen (TN) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration significantly affected functional alpha diversity, respectively. Mantel tests showed that TN, Secchi depth (SD), and water depth in the high water level regime significantly increased the total beta diversity and turnover components. TN was the main factor that increased total taxonomic beta diversity. Water level regime mainly influenced interspecific relationships by changing the TN and COD concentration. The water level should be maintained between the medium and high water level regimes to promote restoration of the macrophyte community and improve ecosystem stability. The biodiversity evaluation framework would provide a deeper insight into the hydrological process management for restoration of aquatic macrophyte communities in shallow lakes.     

Effects of changes in canopy interception on stream runoff response and recovery following clear-cutting of a Japanese coniferous forest in Fukuroyamasawa Experimental Watershed in Japan

Understanding changes in evapotranspiration during forest regrowth is essential to predict changes of stream runoff and recovery after forest cutting. Canopy interception (Ic) is an important component of evapotranspiration, however Ic changes and the impact on stream runoff during regrowth after cutting remains unclear due to limited observations. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of Ic changes on long-term stream runoff in a regrowth Japanese cedar and Japanese cypress forest following clear-cutting. This study was conducted in two 1-ha paired headwater catchments at Fukuroyamasawa Experimental Watershed in Japan. The catchments were 100% covered by Japanese coniferous plantation forest, one of which was 100% clear-cut in 1999 when the forest was 70 years old. In the treated catchment, annual runoff increased by 301 mm/year (14% of precipitation) the year following clear-cutting, and remained 185 mm/year (7.9% of precipitation) higher in the young regrowth forest for 12–14 years compared to the estimated runoff assuming no clear-cutting. The Ic change was −358 mm/year (17% of precipitation) after cutting and was −168 mm/year (6.7% of precipitation) in the 12–14 years old regrowth forest compared to the observed Ic during the pre-cutting period. Stream runoff increased in all seasons, and the Ic change was the main fraction of evapotranspiration change in all seasons throughout the observation period. These results suggest that the change in Ic accounted for most of the runoff response following forest cutting and the subsequent runoff recovery in this coniferous forest.     

A New Retracking Technique for Brown Peaky Altimetric Waveforms

A new Brown-Peaky (BP) retracker has been developed for peaky waveforms that usually appear within ～10 km to the coastline. The main feature of the BP is that it fits peaky waveforms using the Brown model without introducing a peak function. The retracking strategy first detects the peak location and width of a waveform using an adaptive peak detection method, and then estimates retracking parameters using a weighted least squares (WLS) estimator. The WLS assigns a downsized weight to corrupted waveform gates, but an equal weight to other normal waveform gates. The BP retracker has been applied to 4-year Jason-1 waveform (2002–2006) in two Australian coastal zones. The results retracked by BP, MLE4 and ALES retrackers have been validated against tide-gauge observations located at Burnie, Lorne and Broome. The comparison results show that three retrackers have similar performance over open oceans with the correlation coefficient (～0.7) and RMSE (～13 cm) between altimetric and tide-gauge sea levels for distance >7 km offshore. The main improvement of BP retracker occurs for distance ≤7 km to the coastline, where validation results indicate that data retracked by BP are more accurate (15–21 cm) than those by ALES (16–24 cm) and MLE4 (19–37 cm).     

Beaver dam analogues drive heterogeneous groundwater–surface water interactions

Beaver dam analogues (BDAs) are a cost-effective stream restoration approach that leverages the recognized environmental benefits of natural beaver dams on channel stability and local hydrology. Although natural beaver dams are known to exert considerable influence on the hydrologic conditions of a stream system by mediating geomorphic processes, nutrient cycling, and groundwater–surface water interactions, the impacts of beaver-derived restoration methods on groundwater–surface water exchange are poorly characterized. To address this deficit, we monitored hyporheic exchange fluxes and streambed porewater biogeochemistry across a sequence of BDAs installed along a central Wyoming stream during the summer of 2019. Streambed fluxes were quantified by heat tracing methods and vertical hydraulic gradients. Biogeochemical activity was evaluated using major ion porewater chemistry and principal component analysis. Vertical fluxes of approximately 1.0 m/day were observed around the BDAs, as was the development of spatially heterogeneous zones of nitrate production, groundwater upwelling, and anaerobic reduction. Strong contrasts in hyporheic zone processes were observed across BDAs of differing sizes. This suggests that structures may function with size-dependent behaviour, only altering groundwater–surface water interactions after a threshold hydraulic step height is exceeded. Patterns of hyporheic exchange and biogeochemical cycling around the studied BDAs resemble those around natural beaver dams, suggesting that BDAs may provide comparable benefits to channel complexity and near-stream function over a 1-year period.     

A New Wavelet Method for Identification of Eddies and Assessment of Incidents on Islands of the Eastern Caribbean

Using two dimensional continuous wavelet transforms, a novel method for identification of mesoscale eddies is presented to facilitate extraction of characteristics for area, amplitude, type, and location from maps of sea level anomalies. In comparison with the previously established growing method for eddy identification, it is found that the wavelet method identifies more than twice the number of eddies and is particularly better at resolving small eddies down to the 0.25 degree resolution of the data. Such research into eddy identification and tracking is significant to the assessment of eddies with potential to impact on coastlines of small islands. The method is applied to the identification of eddies on tracks towards islands of the Eastern Caribbean over 23?years. Spatial and temporal variation in rate of occurrence and magnitude is established. For Barbados there is an average of 9 anticyclonic incidents a year with maximum amplitude of typically 0.22?m in the dry seasons and 0.16?m in the wet seasons. Seasonal variation is reversed for the other islands with twice the number of anticyclonic incidents having maximum amplitudes of about 0.20?m annually.     

Predicting quantiles of water quality from catchment characteristics

Water quality is often highly variable both in space and time, which poses challenges for modelling the more extreme concentrations. This study developed an alternative approach to predicting water quality quantiles at individual locations. We focused on river water quality data that were collected over 25 years, at 102 catchments across the State of Victoria, Australia. We analysed and modelled spatial patterns of the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles of the concentrations of sediments, nutrients and salt, with six common constituents: total suspended solids (TSS), total phosphorus (TP), filterable reactive phosphorus (FRP), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), nitrate-nitrite (NO_x), and electrical conductivity (EC). To predict the spatial variation of each quantile for each constituent, we developed statistical regression models and exhaustively searched through 50 catchment characteristics to identify the best set of predictors for that quantile. The models predict the spatial variation in individual quantiles of TSS, TKN and EC well (66%–96% spatial variation explained), while those for TP, FRP and NO_x have lower performance (37%–73% spatial variation explained). The most common factors that influence the spatial variations of the different constituents and quantiles are: annual temperature, percentage of cropping land area in catchment and channel slope. The statistical models developed can be used to predict how low- and high-concentration quantiles change with landscape characteristics, and thus provide a useful tool for catchment managers to inform planning and policy making with changing climate and land use conditions.     

基于纹理特征的围填海SAR图像分水岭分割方法

本文提出了一种基于纹理特征的围填海SAR图像分水岭分割方法,首先对机载MiniSAR图像进行灰度共生矩阵纹理滤波,获得纹理特征图像,再对纹理特征图像进行分水岭算法分割,将获得的形态学重建图像进行门限阈值分割,得到最后的二值化分割结果。该方法一方面通过调整灰度共生矩阵纹理滤波的窗口大小,抑制了斑点噪声的影响;另一方面,利用分水岭算法对边缘模糊杂乱图像的优势,提高了围填海信息提取的准确性。实验结果表明,本方法对高分辨率SAR图像围填海监测图像的分割效果良好。     

Properties of geogrid-reinforced marine slope due to the groundwater level changes

Evaluation of slope stability, especially in the absence of a proper bed such as marine soils, is one of the most important issues in geotechnical engineering. Using geogrid layers to enhance the strength and stability of embankments is regarded as a commendable stabilization method. On the other hand, groundwater level erratically fluctuates in coastal areas. Therefore, the aim of this research is to study the effects of groundwater level changes on stability of a geogrid-reinforced slope on loose marine soils in Qeshm Island, Iran. At first, geotechnical properties of the site were obtained by comprehensive series of geotechnical laboratory and in situ tests. Then, by simultaneous changes of groundwater level and several parameters such as embankment slope, loading, geogrid length, geogrid number, and tensile strength of geogrid, different characteristics such as embankment safety factor (SF), vertical and horizontal displacements at embankment top and embankment base were studied. It was observed that groundwater level had significant effects on behavior of the embankment. For most of the observations, by decreasing the groundwater level, the displacements decreased and consequently safety factor increased. Increasing the length, number, and tensile strength of geogrid led to the reduction of displacements and an increase in the safety factor.     

西部省会城市新型城镇化水平综合测度研究

新型城镇化是中国经济社会健康、稳定、可持续发展的根本途径，也是消除中国城乡社会经 济“二元结构”的根本出路。根据新型城镇化的内涵，从人口、经济发展、生活质量、基础设施、资源 环境、城乡统筹 6 个方面，构建了包含 24 项指标的新型城镇化水平综合测度指标体系，运用熵值 法，对西部 11 个省会城市 2005—2015 年的城镇化发展水平进行综合测度。研究表明：西部省会城 市的新型城镇化发展水平存在显著差异，总体上可分为“高等水平”、“中等水平”、“低等水平”3 个 级别，基础设施建设是造成差异的主要驱动力。各城市不同年间的城镇化单项水平影响因素呈现 多元化，在今后的发展中应有所侧重，同时兼顾城镇化质量，推动城乡协调发展。     

Factors controlling dissolved silica in coral reef surface water of Urasoko Bay, Ishigaki Island, Japan

From August 2006 to August 2007, the concentrations of dissolved silica (Si(OH)₄) were monitored in the surface water of Urasoko Bay and the mouth of the stream that runs into the bay. Urasoko Bay is located on the northern coast of Ishigaki Island, Okinawa, Japan, which is in a subtropical area of the North Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by a relatively poorly developed fringing reef. Added to these samples were freshwater from the upstream area and brackish water that exudes at the beach site, which were collected from April to June 2007. Rainwater samples were also collected during the study period. The concentration of Si(OH)₄ generally decreased from upstream to the bay site, and, on clear days, Si(OH)₄ data from all study sites (the bay, beach, stream mouth, and upstream) plotted against salinity fell on a single straight line. When the influence of rainwater was, the results were scattered below the straight line, which suggests dilution by rainwater with a much lower Si(OH)₄ concentration. These findings show that offshore seawater, rainwater, and upstream freshwater regulate the concentration of Si(OH)₄ in the surface water of Urasoko Bay.