A User-Oriented Perspective of Error-sensitive GIS Development

The current lack of error-sensitive functionality found in commercial GIS is at odds with the research focus error-sensitive GIS development has enjoyed over recent years. In an attempt to address this undesirable situation, this paper explores the development of error handling capabilities within GIS from the perspective of GIS users. Increasingly, GIS users need to fulfil a variety of different roles, from database designers and data capture personnel through to decision makers, each of which may require an awareness of data quality issues. The user-oriented approach taken here contrasts with the predominately developer-oriented perspective in the literature. The paper concludes that from a user's perspective it is possible to identify a number of simple reformulations of current research that would help bring about the desired increase in availability and use of error-sensitive functionality within commercial GIS technology and applications.     

Multiple re‐advances of a Lake Vättern outlet glacier during Fennoscandian Ice Sheet retreat,south‐central Sweden

Lake Vättern represents a critical region geographically and dynamically in the deglaciation of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet. The outlet glacier that occupied the basin and its behaviour during ice‐sheet retreat were key to the development and drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake, dammed just west of the basin, yet its geometry, extent, thickness, margin dynamics, timing and sensitivity to regional retreat forcing are rather poorly known. The submerged sediment archives of Lake Vättern represent a missing component of the regional Swedish deglaciation history. Newly collected geophysical data, including high‐resolution multibeam bathymetry of the lake floor and seismic reflection profiles of southern Lake Vättern, are used here together with a unique 74‐m sediment record recently acquired by drill coring, and with onshore LiDAR‐based geomorphological analysis, to investigate the deglacial environments and dynamics in the basin and its terrestrial environs. Five stratigraphical units comprise a thick subglacial package attributed to the last glacial period (and probably earlier), and an overlying >120‐m deglacial sequence. Three distinct retreat–re‐advance episodes occurred in southern Lake Vättern between the initial deglaciation and the Younger Dryas. In the most recent of these, ice overrode proglacial lake sediments and re‐advanced from north of Visingsö to the southern reaches of the lake, where ice up to 400 m thick encroached on land in a lobate fashion, moulding crag‐and‐tail lineations and depositing till above earlier glacifluvial sediments. This event precedes the Younger Dryas, which our data reveal was probably restricted to north‐central sectors of the basin. These dynamics, and their position within the regional retreat chronology, indicate a highly active ice margin during deglaciation, with retreat rates on average 175 m a^?1. The pronounced topography of the Vättern basin and its deep proglacial‐dammed lake are likely to have encouraged the dynamic behaviour of this major Fennoscandian outlet glacier.     

The Horizontal Reactive Media Treatment Well (HRX Well®) for Passive In‐Situ Remediation

A new in‐situ remediation concept termed a Horizontal Reactive Media Treatment Well (HRX Well®) is presented that utilizes horizontal wells filled with reactive media to passively treat contaminated groundwater in‐situ. The approach involves the use of large‐diameter directionally drilled horizontal wells filled with granular reactive media generally installed parallel to the direction of groundwater flow. The design leverages natural “flow‐focusing” behavior induced by the high in‐well hydraulic conductivity of the reactive media relative to the aquifer hydraulic conductivity to passively capture and treat proportionally large volumes of groundwater within the well. Clean groundwater then exits the horizontal well along its downgradient sections. Many different types of solid granular reactive media are already available (e.g., zero valent iron, activated carbon, ion exchange resins, zeolite, apatite, chitin); therefore, this concept could be used to address a wide range of contaminants. Three‐dimensional flow and transport simulations were completed to assess the general hydraulic performance, capture zones, residence times, effects of aquifer heterogeneity, and treatment effectiveness of the concept. The results demonstrate that capture and treatment widths of up to tens of feet can be achieved for many aquifer settings, and that reductions in downgradient concentrations and contaminant mass flux are nearly immediate. For a representative example, the predicted treatment zone width for the HRX Well is approximately 27 to 44 feet, and contaminant concentrations immediately downgradient of the HRX Well decreased an order of magnitude within 10 days. A series of laboratory‐scale physical tests (i.e., tank tests) were completed that further demonstrate the concept and confirm model prediction performance. For example, the breakthrough time, peak concentration and total mass recovery of methylene blue (reactive tracer) was about 2, 35, and 20 times (respectively) less than chloride (conservative tracer) at the outlet of the tank‐scale HRX Well.     

Basic hydrology,limnology, and meteorology of modern Lake El’gygytgyn,Siberia

A survey of the modern physical setting of Lake El’gygytgyn, northeastern Siberia, is presented here to facilitate interpretation of a 250,000-year climate record derived from sediment cores from the lake bottom. The lake lies inside a meteorite impact crater that is approximately 18 km in diameter, with a total watershed area of 293 km², 110 km² of which is lake surface. The only surface water entering the lake comes from the approximately 50 streams draining from within the crater rim; a numbering system for these inlet streams is adopted to facilitate scientific discussion. We created a digital elevation model for the watershed and used it to create hypsometries, channel networks, and drainage area statistics for each of the inlet streams. Many of the streams enter shallow lagoons dammed by gravel berms at the lakeshore; these lagoons may play a significant role in the thermal and biological dynamics of the lake due to their higher water temperatures (>6°C). The lake itself is approximately 12 km wide and 175 m deep, with a volume of 14.1 km³. Water temperature within a column of water near the center of this oligotrophic, monomictic lake never exceeded 4°C over a 2.5 year record, though the shallow shelves (<10 m) surrounding the lake can reach 5°C in summer. Though thermally stratified in winter, the water appears completely mixed shortly after lake ice breakup in July. Mean annual air temperature measured about 200 m from the lake was −10.3°C in 2002, and an unshielded rain gage there recorded 70 mm of rain in summer of 2002. End of winter snow water equivalent on the lake was approximately 110 mm in May 2002. Analysis of NCEP reanalysis air temperatures (1948–2002) reveals that the 8 warmest years and 10 warmest winters have occurred since 1989, with the number of days below −30°C dropping from a pre-1989 mean of 35 to near 0 in recent years. The crater region is windy as well as cold, with hourly wind speeds exceeding 13.4 m s⁻¹ (30 mph) typically at least once each month and 17.8 m s⁻¹ (40 mph) in winter months, with only a few calm days per month; wind may also play an important role in controlling the modern shape of the lake. Numerous lines of evidence suggest that the physical hydrology and limnology of the lake has changed substantially over the past 3.6 million years, and some of the implications of these changes on paleoclimate reconstructions are discussed. This is the second in a series of eleven papers published in this special issue dedicated to initial studies of El'gygytgyn Crater Lake and its catchment in NE Russia. Julie Brigham-Grette, Martin Melles, Pavel Minyuk were guest editors of this special issue.     

Mining candidate causal relationships in movement patterns

In many applications, the environmental context for and drivers of movement patterns are just as important as the patterns themselves. This article adapts standard data mining techniques, combined with a foundational ontology of causation, with the objective of helping domain experts identify candidate causal relationships between movement patterns and their environmental context. In addition to data about movement and its dynamic environmental context, our approach requires as input definitions of the states and events of interest. The technique outputs causal and causal-like relationships of potential interest, along with associated measures of support and confidence. As a validation of our approach, the analysis is applied to real data about fish movement in the Murray River in Australia. The results demonstrate that the technique is capable of identifying statistically significant patterns of movement indicative of causal and causal-like relationships.     

Choosing the Right Policy Tools to Encourage Watershed Stewardship through the Study of Attitude

Recently, a number of “Payment for Watershed Services” programs have aimed to engage private landowners in watershed stewardship initiatives by offering financial incentives for adopting watershed best management practices. However, a growing field of research suggests that financial incentives alone may be of limited utility to encourage widespread and long-standing behavior change, and other policy tools may be required. This research examines how attitudes may influence enrollment in watershed stewardship programs to shed light the application of incentive, capacity building, and symbolic policy tools. We distributed a questionnaire to rural landowners in the Clackamas River watershed, OR, and received 281 valid responses (29% response rate). We found that attitudes associated with trust, ecological understanding, and technical capacity played more fundamental roles compared with financial considerations. We interpret these findings by evaluating the likely efficacy of various policy tools, and stress the importance of engaging landowners by building capacity and trust.     

A relativistically smeared spectrum in the neutron star X-ray binary 4U 1705−44: looking at the inner accretion disc with X-ray spectroscopy

Iron emission lines at 6.4–6.97 keV, identified with fluorescent Kα transitions, are among the strongest discrete features in the X-ray band. These are therefore one of the most powerful probes to infer the properties of the plasma in the innermost part of the accretion disc around a compact object. In this paper, we present a recent XMM–Newton observation of the X-ray burster 4U 1705−44, where we clearly detect a relativistically smeared iron line at about 6.7 keV, testifying with high statistical significance that the line profile is distorted by high-velocity motion in the accretion disc. As expected from disc reflection models, we also find a significant absorption edge at about 8.3 keV; this feature appears to be smeared, and is compatible with being produced in the same region where the iron line is produced. From the line profile, we derive the physical parameters of the inner accretion disc with large precision. The line is identified with the Kα transition of highly ionized iron, Fe  xxv , the inner disc radius is   R _in= 14 ± 2  R _g  (where R _g is the Gravitational radius,   GM / c ²  ), the emissivity dependence from the disc radius is   r ^{−2.27±0.08}  , the inclination angle with respect to the line of sight is   i = 39°± 1°  . Finally, the XMM–Newton spectrum shows evidences of other low-energy emission lines, which again appear broad and their profiles are compatible with being produced in the same region where the iron line is produced.