Fluvial dunes: initiation,characterization, flow structure

Research into fluvial dunes spans disciplines, studies at grain to reach scales, and methodological approaches that include theoretical, experimental, numerical and field investigations. Despite significant research efforts to date, it remains difficult to provide definitive answers to some fundamental questions regarding dunes. This paper reviews three notable challenges that remain regarding fluvial dunes, namely scale‐consistent linking of bed morphologies with turbulent flow fields, the intriguing question of what causes trains of highly‐ordered sediment waves to form in beds of river sediments, and how to define the important characteristics of a dune‐covered bed, including lengths, shapes, and their statistical nature. In each case, the particular challenge is discussed and then recent research and ways forward are presented. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hydro-economic models: Concepts, design, applications, and future prospects

Future water management will shift from building new water supply systems to better operating existing ones. The variation of water values in time and space will increasingly motivate efforts to address water scarcity and reduce water conflicts. Hydro-economic models represent spatially distributed water resource systems, infrastructure, management options and economic values in an integrated manner. In these tools water allocations and management are either driven by the economic value of water or economically evaluated to provide policy insights and reveal opportunities for better management. A central concept is that water demands are not fixed requirements but rather functions where quantities of water use at different times have varying total and marginal economic values. This paper reviews techniques to characterize the economic value of water use and include such values in mathematical models. We identify the key steps in model design and diverse problems, formulations, levels of integration, spatial and temporal scales, and solution techniques addressed and used by over 80 hydro-economic modeling efforts dating back 45-years from 23 countries. We list current limitations of the approach, suggest directions for future work, and recommend ways to improve policy relevance.     

Elk Creek,Nebraska, carbonatite: Strontium geochemistry

Subsurface carbonatite at Elk Creek, Nebraska has been recognized in drill core taken from a depth interval of 630 to at least 950 ft. The core in this interval consists of carbonated breccia and phlogopite-bearing carbonate rock. Total REE, P₂O₅ and Nb₂O₅ data are consistent with “average” values for carbonatite.⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios from the carbonate fraction range from 0.7030 to 0.7055 for fifteen of eighteen samples (total Sr varies from 300 to 3500 ppm;X= 1800ppm); the remaining three samples have⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and total Sr values of 0.7085 : 40 ppm; 0.7064 : 92 ppm; 0.7067 : 252 ppm; these samples may be mixed with sedimentary carbonate and/or contaminated by other non-carbonatite material.The Elk Creek carbonatite is of special interest because of its position with respect to tectonic elements in basement rocks. It occurs in the center of gravity and magnetic anomalies over the approximate axis of the Nemaha anticline and is apparently aligned with the Riley County, Kansas, carbonatite-bearing kimberlites. It is far removed from the E-W-trending “38th parallel” lineament along which occur numerous kimberlites and carbonatites.     

Asteroids: Distributions,morphologies, origins and evolution

A review is presented of dynamical and physical properties of asteroids. Discovery methods are discussed and some distributions of the orbital elements and the absolute magnitudes are presented as are properties of planet-crossing asteroids, Hildas and Trojans. Various observational methods such as polarimetry, radar and occultations are briefly introduced and lightcurve data are more extensively described. Asteroid taxonomy in the Barucci classifiction is thoroughly discussed as are asteroid spins and shapes and the origin and the evolution of these bodies. Space missions to asteroids and space observations of asteroids are also introduced.     

The Fernow Experimental Forest,West Virginia,USA: Insights,datasets, and opportunities

Long-term experimental watershed studies have significantly influenced our global understanding of hydrological processes. The discovery and characterization of how stream water quantity and quality respond to a changing environment (e.g. land-use change, acidic deposition) has only been possible due to the establishment of catchments devoted to long-term study. One such catchment is the Fernow Experimental Forest (FEF) located in the headwaters of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, a region that provides essential freshwater ecosystem services to eastern and mid-western United States communities. Established in 1934, the FEF is among the earliest experimental watershed studies in the Eastern United States that continues to address emergent challenges to forest ecosystems, including climate change and other threats to forest health. This data note describes available data and presents some findings from more than 50 years of hydrologic research at the FEF. During the first few decades, research at the FEF focused on the relationship between forest management and hydrological processes—especially those related to the overall water balance. Later, research included the examination of interactions between hydrology and soil erosion, biogeochemistry, N-saturation, and acid deposition. Hydro-climatologic and water quality datasets from long-term measurements and data from short-duration studies are publicly available to provide new insights and foster collaborations that will continue to advance our understanding of hydrology in forested headwater catchments. As a result of its rich history of research and abundance of long-term data, the FEF is positioned to continue to advance understanding of forest ecosystems in a time of unprecedented change.     

The space-weather enterprise: past,present, and future

Space-weather impacts society in diverse ways. Societies’ responses have been correspondingly diverse. Taken together these responses constitute a space weather “enterprise”, which has developed over time and continues to develop. Technological systems that space-weather affects have grown from isolated telegraph systems in the 1840s to ocean and continent-spanning cable communications systems, from a generator electrifying a few city blocks in the 1880s to continent-spanning networks of high-tension lines, from wireless telegraphy in the 1890s to globe-spanning communication by radio and satellites. To have a name for the global totality of technological systems that are vulnerable to space weather, I suggest calling it the cyberelectrosphere. When the cyberelectrosphere was young, scientists who study space weather, engineers who design systems that space weather affects, and operators of such systems — the personnel behind the space-weather enterprise — were relatively isolated. The space-weather enterprise was correspondingly incoherent. Now that the cyberelectrosphere has become pervasive and indispensable to most segments of society, the space weather enterprise has become systematic and coherent. At present it has achieved considerable momentum, but it has barely begun to realize the level of effectiveness to which it can aspire, as evidenced by achievements of a corresponding but more mature enterprise in meteorology, a field which provides useful lessons. The space-weather enterprise will enter a new phase after it matures roughly to where the tropospheric weather enterprise is now. Then it will become indispensable for humankind's further global networking through technology and for humankind's further utilization of and expansion into space.     

Facets of uncertainty: epistemic uncertainty,non-stationarity,likelihood, hypothesis testing,and communication

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a discussion of some of the issues associated with the multiple sources of uncertainty and non-stationarity in the analysis and modelling of hydrological systems. Different forms of aleatory, epistemic, semantic, and ontological uncertainty are defined. The potential for epistemic uncertainties to induce disinformation in calibration data and arbitrary non-stationarities in model error characteristics, and surprises in predicting the future, are discussed in the context of other forms of non-stationarity. It is suggested that a condition tree is used to be explicit about the assumptions that underlie any assessment of uncertainty. This also provides an audit trail for providing evidence to decision makers.

Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor S. Weijs     

Bottom instrumented tripods: History,applications, and impacts

Instrumented bottom tripods have provided important data on sediment transport processes on continental shelves and in estuaries for four decades. Since the initial deployment in a tidal channel in Puget Sound, WA, in 1965 numerous tripods have been constructed to investigate bottom boundary layer and sediment dynamics worldwide. Tripod data have led to new understanding of near-bottom wave and current flows in the coastal ocean, and have been crucial to the development of shelf circulation and sediment transport models. Calculations of bottom stress, bottom roughness, and sediment flux that resulted directly from tripod data have been compared to bottom boundary layer model results. Where these have differed, new or revised model components have been developed to improve the skill of the models. The many discoveries that have been made from tripod experiments include dense, near-bottom fluid mud layers that transport large quantities of suspended sediment offshore into deeper regions of the continental shelf. This process has been linked to the seaward progradation of subaqueous deltas and to the boundaries of mid-shelf mud deposits off rivers with high fine-sediment discharge.     

Precursory seismic quiescence: Past,present, and future

Precursory seismic quiescence has played a major role in most of the succesful earthquake predictions made to date. In addition to these successes, the number of detailed post-mainshock documentations of precursory quiescence is steadily growing. These facts suggest that precursory quiescence will play an important role in earthquake prediction programs of the future. For this reason it is important to critically evaluate the present state of knowledge concerning this phenomenon. The history of observations of precursory seismic quiescence includes work on seismic gaps and seismic preconditions as well as actual studies of temporal quiescence. These papers demonstrated the importance of quantitative evaluation of seismicity rates and the benefits of systematic analysis. During the early 1980's the impact of man-made effects on seismicity rates was demonstrated for the first time. Despite progress in catalog understanding, the identification and correction of man-made seismicity changes remains as the major barrier to earthquake prediction using these data. Effects of man-made changes are apparent in many past studies of seismicity patterns, making the results difficult to evaluate. Recent experience with real-time anomalies has demonstrated the necessity of determining the false alarm rates associated with quiescence precursors. Determination of false alarm rates depends on quantitative definitions of anomalies and statistical evaluations of their significance. A number of successful predictions, which have been made on the basis of seismic quiescence, provide important lessons for present and future work. There are many presently unanswered questions regarding seismic quiescence which must be answered before we can determine the reliability of this phenomena as a precursor.