Isotopic composition of precipitation during strong El Niño–Southern Oscillation events in the Southeast Region of Brazil

Equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature variations interact with processes of atmospheric circulation, creating conditions for the occurrence of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO events represent the most important interannual phenomena affecting climate patterns worldwide and causing significant socio‐economic impacts. In the Brazilian territory, ENSO leads to an increase in drought episodes in the north‐eastern region and an increase in precipitation in the southern region, whereas the effects over the south‐east region are yet not well understood. The main goal of this study is to compare variations of isotopic composition in precipitation across the south‐east portion of the Brazilian territory during two very strong ENSO events: 1997–1998 (ENSO 1) and 2014–2016 (ENSO 2). Daily isotopic records, available from the Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation database for ENSO 1, and samples collected during ENSO 2 were used to compare the influence of both events on the isotopic composition of precipitation. Seasonal variations indicated more depleted precipitation during the wet seasons (δ¹⁸O = ?5.4 ± 4.0‰) and enriched precipitation during the dry seasons (δ¹⁸O = ?2.8 ± 2.3‰). Observed rainfall variations were associated with atmospheric large‐scale processes and moisture transport from the Amazon region, whereas extreme values (enriched or depleted) appear to be associated with particular convective and stratiform precipitation events. Overall, more depleted isotopic composition of precipitation (δ¹⁸O = ?4.60‰) and higher d‐excess (up to +15‰) were observed during the dry season of ENSO 1 when compared with ENSO 2 dry season (δ¹⁸O‰ = ?2.80‰, d‐excess lower than +14‰). The latter is explained by greater atmospheric moisture content, particularly associated with recycling of transpiration fluxes from the Amazon region, during dry season of ENSO 1. No significant differences for δ¹⁸O and δ²H were observed during the wet season; however, d‐excess from ENSO 2 was greater than ENSO 1, due to the slightly greater atmospheric moisture content and very strong upward motion observed. Our findings highlight the opportunity that environmental isotopes offer towards understanding hydrometeorological processes, particularly, the evolution of extreme climatic events of global resonance such as ENSO.     

以侵入岩体为中心的热液系统的演化:菲律宾Lepanto远东南的斑岩型与浅成低温热液型Cu-Au矿床

有许多斑岩型与浅成低温热液型矿床具有空间联系．其中有些被认为有成因联系,另一些则有争议．在菲律宾吕宋岛北部的Ｍａｎｋａｇａｎ地区,可见较好的空间关系．此处,Ｌｅｐａｎｔｏ高硫型浅成低温热液Ｃｕ－Ａｕ矿床紧挨着远东南的斑岩Ｃｕ－Ａｕ矿体：二者共有铜储量大于３．８Ｍｔ,金储量超过５５０ｔ．石英闪长斑岩脉在３００ｍ标高处侵入于中新世变质火山岩和火山碎屑岩基底岩石中．这些侵入体的形成晚于多数浅成低温热液型矿床的围岩——上新世火山角砾岩和英安斑岩．由黑云母、磁铁矿和少量钾长石构成的钾硅酸盐化蚀变作用分布在…     

日本琵琶湖中微囊藻水华形成机理的再认识

Blooms of cyanobacteria are responsible for many problems in freshwater ecosystems. The massive growth of these microorganisms may limit the utilization of freshwater for human requirements since, apart from other problems, the production of toxic substances has been found to occur frequently during blooming periods. Ecologically, cyanobacterial blooms can modify dramatically the ecosystem through their low edibility within the food web and the huge primary production. Thus, saprobic processes are stimulated and the characteristics related to anaerobic conditions are also more extreme.Cyanobacterial blooms are many times explained as the consequence of the eutrophication of waterbodies. However, factors promoting bloom formation and ecological succession of cyanobacteria are not well understood yet.     

Morphodynamics of structurally controlled headland-bay beaches in southeastern Brazil: A review

This paper presents a comprehensive review on the interaction between hydrodynamic processes, beach morphology and sedimentology at large scale coastal behaviour along the coastline of Santa Catarina, between Laguna and São Francisco Island, a microtidal east coast swell environment with headland and bay geomorphologies. The parabolic bay shape equation has proven to be a convenient and practical tool for studying the stability of the headland-bay beaches, tombolos, and salients in Santa Catarina. The beaches exhibit different patterns of sediment removal as a function of the degree of beach curvature. In highly curved beaches, there is a well-developed shadow zone and a range of morphodynamic conditions, from a sheltered low-energy beach adjacent to the downdrift headland to a high-energy exposed beach on the straight end of the headland-bay beach. The less curved beaches instead, tend to show more uniform behaviour since they are directly exposed to incident waves. There is no obvious relationship between average wave height and mean grain size, showing the importance of sediment source to characterize the sedimentary distribution patterns in the study area. The analysis of beaches showed that beach morphodynamics and sequence profiles for a bay–headland coast in a microtidal east coast environment is a function of geological inheritance (e.g., distance between headlands and orientation, nearshore and inner shelf morphology, coastal plain morphology, and sediment source), and hydrodynamic factors (wave conditions, oceanic wave exposure and relative tidal range).     

Effects of length and application rate of rice straw mulch on surface runoff and soil loss under laboratory simulated rainfall

Forest land affected by deforestation yields high soil and water losses.Suitable management practices need to be found that can reduce these losses and achieve ecological and hydrological sustainability of the deforested areas.Mulch has been found to be effective in reducing soil losses;straw mulch is easy to apply,contributes soil organic matter,and is efficient since the day of application.However,the complex effects of rice straw mulch with different application rates and lengths on surface runoff and soil loss have not been clarified in depth.The current paper evaluates the efficiency of rice straw mulch in reducing the hydrological response of a silty clay loam soil under high intensity and low frequency rainfall events(tap water with total depth of 49 mm and intensity of 98 mm/h)simulated in the laboratory.Surface runoff and soil loss at three lengths of the straw(10,30,and 200 mm)and three application rates(1,2,and 3 Mg/ha)were measured in 50 cm(width)×100 cm(length)×10 cm(depth)plots with disturbed soil samples(aggregate soil size<4 mm)collected in a deforested area.Bare soil was used as control experiment.Runoff volume and erosion were significantly(at p<0.05)lower in mulched soils compared to control plots.These reductions were ascribed to the water absorption capacity of the rice straw and the protection cover of the mulch layer.The minimum runoff was observed for a mulch layer of3 Mg/ha of straw with a length of 200 mm.The lowest soil losses were found with straw length of10 mm.The models developed predict runoff and erosion based on simple linear functions of mulch application rate and length,and can be used for a suitable hydrological management of soil.It is concluded that,thanks to rice straw mulch used as an organic soil conditioner,soil erosion and surface runoff are significantly(at p<0.05)reduced,and the mulch protection contributes to reduce the risk of soil degradation.Further research is,however,needed to analyze the upscaling of the hydrological effects of mulching from the plot to the hillslope scale.     

Spatiotemporal modeling of relative risk of dengue disease in Colombia

Spatiotemporal modeling of relative risk of dengue disease provides useful risk maps for surveillance and forecasting. The objective of the study was to generate smoothed estimates of relative risk applying hierarchical Bayesian spatiotemporal models, including covariates derived from satellite images containing land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index, for the period January 2009–December 2015, in a medium–sized Colombian city. Our models are based on the spatiotemporal interaction modeling framework of relative risk, where the interaction effects are unstructured, temporal, spatial or inseparable, at a small spatial and temporal scales. We fitted the models using Markov chain MonteCarlo Simulations, selecting the best model using leave-one-out cross-validation and widely applicable information criteria. Our best model was the inseparable spatiotemporal interaction-effects plus LST with constant coefficient model. We found a weak, positive association between LST and cases of dengue. We discussed the strengths and weaknesses of our spatiotemporal models given the spatial and temporal resolution selected in the study.     

Numerical insights on the seismic behavior of a non-isolated historical masonry tower

In this paper, numerical insights on the seismic behavior of a non-isolated historical masonry tower are presented and discussed. The tower under study is the main tower of the fortress of San Felice sul Panaro, a town located near the city of Modena (Italy). Such a tower is surrounded by adjacent structural elements and, therefore, is not isolated. This historical monument has been hit by the devastating seismic sequence occurred in May 2012 in the Northern part of the Emilia region (the so-called “Emilia earthquake”), showing a huge and widespread damage. Here, in order to understand the behavior of the structure, its interaction with the adjacent buildings and the reasons of the occurred damage, advanced numerical analyses (both nonlinear static and dynamic) are performed on a 3D finite element model with different levels of constraint supplied by the adjacent structural elements and a detailed comparison between the simulated damage and the actual one is carried out. The results of the conducted numerical campaign show a good agreement with the actual crack pattern, particularly for the model of the tower that considers the adjacent structural elements.     

Understanding the dynamics and contamination of an urban aquifer system using groundwater age (14C, 3H,CFCs) and chemistry

The quality of the groundwater supplying drinking water to the Guadalajara metropolitan area has deteriorated due to both endogenic and exogenic processes. Previous studies of this complex neotectonic volcanic environment suggest that the sources of contamination here are underground fluids derived from an active volcanic center and surface wastewater derived from regional land‐use intensification. This study uses isotopic, gaseous, and chemical signatures to more comprehensively characterize this groundwater flow and its contamination paths. Groundwater is mainly recharged at the La Primavera Caldera to the west and is discharged into the Santiago River to the east. The exception to this trend is the Toluquilla area, where groundwater most likely represents rainfall originating from outside the basin limits. Evaporation affects groundwater in these areas, especially waters that have been affected by recycling below urban areas in the Atejamac area and by intensive agricultural activity in the Toluquilla area. Additionally, we present evidence that groundwater flow through alluvial sediments and tuffs in deeper wells mixes with a lower aquifer unit in basaltic‐andesitic rocks, which are in contact with hydrothermal fluids. Groundwater ages range from postbomb in the western and northwestern regions of the study area (i.e., the Atemajac aquifer unit) to Late Pleistocene in the southern and southeastern regions (i.e., the Toluquilla aquifer unit). Recently recharged water records little mixing and is located mostly in or near the La Primavera volcanic system. As groundwater undergoes gravitational flow towards discharge areas, it mixes with older water components. Chloride and sodium concentrations above natural background levels are primarily related to volcanic activity, nitrate is associated with human activities, and sulfate originates from both anthropogenic sources and water–rock interactions. Nitrate originating from land‐use activities (such as sewers, septic tanks, landfills, and agricultural fields) that is introduced into the deeper part of the groundwater system is expected to travel with the groundwater to the discharge areas because oxidizing conditions will prevent microbial reduction. See Supplementary Information.     

The role of urban growth,climate change,and their interplay in altering runoff extremes

Changes in climate and urban growth are the most influential factors affecting hydrological characteristics in urban and extra‐urban contexts. The assessment of the impacts of these changes on the extreme rainfall–runoff events may have important implications on urban and extra‐urban management policies against severe events, such as floods, and on the design of hydraulic infrastructures. Understanding the effects of the interaction between climate change and urban growth on the generation of runoff extremes is the main aim of this paper. We carried out a synthetic experiment on a river catchment of 64 km² to generate hourly runoff time series under different hypothetical scenarios. We imposed a growth of the percentage of urban coverage within the basin (from 1.5% to 25%), a rise in mean temperature of 2.6 °C, and an alternatively increase/decrease in mean annual precipitation of 25%; changes in mean annual precipitation were imposed following different schemes, either changing rainstorm frequency or rainstorm intensity. The modelling framework consists of a physically based distributed hydrological model, which simulates fast and slow mechanisms of runoff generation directly connected with the impervious areas, a land‐use change model, and a weather generator. The results indicate that the peaks over threshold and the hourly annual peaks, used as hydrological indicators, are very sensitive to the rainstorm intensity. Moreover, the effects of climate changes dominate on those of urban growth determining an exacerbation of the fast runoff component in extreme events and a reduction of the slow and deep runoff component, thus limiting changes in the overall runoff.     

A spatio-temporal hierarchical Markov switching model for the early detection of influenza outbreaks

Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment - Rapidly detecting the beginning of influenza outbreaks helps health authorities to reduce their impact. Accounting for the spatial...