Enabling adaptation? Lessons from the new ‘Green Revolution’ in Malawi and Kenya

This article explores the extent to which efforts to improve productivity of smallholder agriculture through a new ‘Green Revolution’ in Sub Saharan Africa are likely to enhance the capacity of smallholder farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Drawing on empirical material from Malawi and Kenya, the paper finds more conflicts than synergies between the pursuit of higher productivity through the promotion of hybrid maize adoption and crop diversification as a strategy for climate change adaptation. This is despite an oft-assumed causal link between escape from the ‘low maize productivity trap’ and progression towards crop diversification as an adaptive strategy. In both countries, a convergence of interests between governments, donors and seed companies, combined with a historical preference for, and dependence on maize as the primary staple, has led to a narrowing of options for smallholder farmers, undermining the development of adaptive capacities in the longer term. This dynamic is linked to the conflation of market-based variety of agricultural technologies, as viewed ‘from the top down’, with diversity-in-context, as represented by site-specific and locally derived and adapted technologies and institutions that can only be developed ‘from the bottom up’.     

Numerical simulation of a low-precipitation supercell thunderstorm

Summary Numerical simulations of thunderstorms using initial conditions from an Oklahoma storm event on 26 April 1984 have been carried out using the Klemp-Wilhelmson cloud model. Two thermodynamic and two horizontal wind profiles are mixed to create four initial storm environments. The two initial thermodynamic profiles are designated as moderately and highly unstable. Both hodographs have considerable vertical wind shear, with the extremely unstable profile having substantially stronger storm-relative curvature shear in the lowest few kilometers, as measured by the helicity of the environment. Storms are initialized with two different temperature-perturbation warm bubbles. A variety of storms, qualitatively covering the range observed on this day, are simulated. With a strongly sheared, moderate instability environment, the two different temperature-perturbation simulations differ qualitatively, unlike the other pairs of simulations.Of particular interest is the simulation carried out with the weaker temperature-perturbation. It displays many of the characteristics of observed low-precipitation (LP) supercell storms. Without artificially suppressing rainfall, this storm produces very little precipitation over the first 6000 s of its lifetime. During this time, there is no strong downdraft at the lowest model level and vorticity at that level is much less than the values aloft. We hypothesize that LP storms can be generated by smaller initial impulses than classic supercells in environments typically associated with a supercell storm, as speculated by Bluestein and Parks (1983), since they are more susceptible to turbulent entrainment in highly sheared environments.With 15 Figures     

Thunderstorm charging: Laboratory experiments clarified

Further laboratory experiments of thunderstorm charging by ice crystal collisions with riming graupel pellets have led to results that may help account for a major difference between two independent studies reported earlier. The problem concerns values of the cloud liquid water content required to change the sign of graupel charging. The present work has noted and investigated differences in the techniques of cloud nucleation used in the two studies. In one set of measurements by Takahashi, ice crystals are nucleated continuously in a supercooled water droplet cloud, while in the other experiments by Jayaratne et al. and Saunders et al., the droplet cloud is nucleated only briefly. These two nucleation methods lead to differences in the mass of cloud particles collected on a sampling probe used to determine the liquid water content of the cloud. In the continuous nucleation case, the probe collects sufficient numbers of ice crystals to lead to a substantial overestimate of the cloud liquid water content.     

Two melting regimes during Paleogene flood basalt generation in East Greenland: combined REE and PGE modelling

Previously published platinum group element (PGE) and rare earth element data (REE) from a sample suite of the Palaeogene flood basalts of the East Greenland rifted margin are used to approximate primary magma compositions by numerical models of mantle melting. Both high-Ti and low-Ti basalts are found intercalated in the coastal section “the Sortebre Profile” in central East Greenland, and the apparent lack of mixing between the two series indicates coexistence of two geographically separated melting regions and plumbing systems during continental breakup above the Palaeogene Iceland plume. The lavas show little or no sign of crustal contamination and the limited variation in La/Sm and Cu/Pd ratios can be interpreted to reflect mantle source composition and melting processes. Numerical modelling indicate that the low-Ti series formed by F~20% melting in a columnar melting regime from a slightly depleted upper mantle source with a relatively normal S-content (~180 ppm S). In contrast, the high-Ti series formed by much lower degrees of melting (F~6%) in a spreading-related, triangular melting regime from a relatively S-poor (~100 ppm S) source. The low-Ti suite was S-undersaturated at the stage of melt segregation from a shallow mantle source due to the high degree of melting. In contrast, the high-Ti suite probably formed from a S-poor source where some low degree melt batches were S-saturated at the stage of deep segregation in distal parts of the triangular melting regime. This suite shows a geochemical high pressure garnet-signature and adiabatic decompression could therefore have played a role in keeping the mantle-derived S in solution before Fe-enrichment related to fractional crystallisation also increased the S-capacity of these melts. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Water and nitrogen movement through a semiarid dryland agricultural catchment: Seasonal and decadal trends

Water and nutrient budgets in dryland agroecosystems are difficult to manage for efficiency and water quality. This is particularly true where complex terrain and soilscapes interact with pronounced hydrologic seasonality. The purpose of this research was to understand water and hydrologic nitrogen (N) export from a hillslope dryland agroecosystem in a semiarid region where most precipitation occurs outside the growing season. We studied 13 years (2001–2013) of records of water and N inputs and outputs from a 12 ha no‐till artificially drained catchment in the semiarid Palouse Basin of eastern Washington State, USA. Fall‐ and winter‐dominated annual precipitation averaged 462 mm. About 350 mm went to evapotranspiration; crops used ~160 mm from stored soil water during the summer dry‐down season. Soil water replenishment after crop senescence, during the fall wet‐up season, delayed the threshold onset of the high‐discharge season until December. Winter‐dominated drainage fluxes averaged 111 mm or 24% of annual precipitation. Nitrate export in drainage averaged 15 kg·N·ha^?1·year^?1, which was about 10 times the average rate of dissolved organic N export and 15% of the average rate of N application in chemical fertilizer. Fertilizer applications to the catchment were reduced, due to cropping changes, by 1/3 during the last 5 years of the study; however, no corresponding reduction was observed in the nitrate export flux. This lack of change could not be attributed to mineralization of the soil‐organic N legacy of fertilization nor to hydrologic lag of the catchment. Likeliest explanations are (a) despite the reduction, N application continued to exceed crop uptake and accumulation in organic matter; (b) seasonal and interannual variability of catchment connectivity resulted in year‐to‐year field‐scale nitrate storage and carryover. Water and N use efficiencies observed here may be near maximum obtainable for existing crops in this climate. Substantial improvements that would also address multiple environmental issues associated with the N cascade may involve shifts to perennial systems and/or rotations in which N is fixed biologically.     

Distributed and integrated response of a geographic information system‐based hydrologic model in the eastern Palouse region,Idaho

Verification of distributed hydrologic models is rare owing to the lack of spatially detailed field measurements and a common mismatch between the scale at which soil hydraulic properties are measured and the scale of a single modelling unit. In this study, two of the most commonly calibrated parameters, i.e. soil depth and the vertical distribution of lateral saturated hydraulic conductivity K_s, were eliminated by a spatially detailed soil characterization and results of a hillslope‐scale field experiment. The soil moisture routing (SMR) model, a geographic information system‐based hydrologic model, was modified to represent the dominant hydrologic processes for the Palouse region of northern Idaho. Modifications included K_s as a double exponential function of depth in a single soil layer, a snow accumulation and melt algorithm, and a simple relationship between storage and perched water depth (PWD) using the drainable porosity. The model was applied to a 2 ha catchment without calibration to measured data. Distributed responses were compared with observed PWD over a 3‐year period on a 10 m × 15 m grid. Integrated responses were compared with observed surface runoff at the catchment outlet. The modified SMR model simulated the PWD fluctuations remarkably well, especially considering the shallow soils in this catchment: a 0·20 m error in PWD is equivalent to only a 1·6% error in predicted soil moisture content. Simulations also captured PWD fluctuations during a year with high spatial variability of snow accumulation and snowmelt rates at upslope, mid‐slope, and toe slope positions with errors as low as 0·09 m, 0·12 m, and 0·12 m respectively. Errors in distributed and integrated model simulations were attributed mostly to misrepresentation of rain events and snowmelt timing problems. In one location in the catchment, simulated PWD was consistently greater than observed PWD, indicating a localized recharge zone, which was not identified by the soil morphological survey. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Horsetails (equisetum) as indirect indicators of gold mineralization

The alleged reputation of the horsetail (Equisetum) as an accumulator of gold was studied by analysis of a number of specimens from various localities, mainly from Nova Scotia. None of the samples had appreciable gold concentrations but with one exception, all the specimens collected from auriferous ground had high concentrations of arsenic ranging up to 738 μg/g dry mass. To a lesser extent this was also true for antimony. The evidence tends to refute the previous belief that horsetails accumulate gold, but does show that the genus is not only tolerant of arseniferous ground but is also an arsenic accumulator. Because of the common geochemical association of gold and arsenic, it is suggested that analysis of horsetails for arsenic may be a useful prospecting tool where geologic or other evidence suggests the possible presence of auriferous ground.     

The man/land theme in geography: a Sydney University perspective

Geography as practised at Sydney University over the years has been multi‐faceted. One branch of the discipline is the man/land (or people/environment) theme which was nurtured by the founding fathers of the department, Griffith Taylor and Macdonald Holmes. Numerous staff members have taught and researched aspects of this theme. This paper reviews some of the contributions from the time of Griffith Taylor to the present.