Global exposure to river and coastal flooding: Long term trends and changes

Flood damage modelling has traditionally been limited to the local, regional or national scale. Recent flood events, population growth and climate change concerns have increased the need for global methods with both spatial and temporal dynamics. This paper presents a first estimation of global economic exposure to both river and coastal flooding for the period 1970–2050, using two different methods for damage assessment. One method is based on population and the second is based on land-use within areas subject to 1/100 year flood events. On the basis of population density and GDP per capita, we estimate a total global exposure to river and coastal flooding of 46 trillion USD in 2010. By 2050, these numbers are projected to increase to 158 trillion USD. Using a land-use based assessment, we estimated a total flood exposure of 27 trillion USD in 2010. For 2050 we simulate a total exposure of 80 trillion USD. The largest absolute exposure changes between 1970 and 2050 are simulated in North America and Asia. In relative terms we project the largest increases in North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. The models also show systematically larger growth in the population living within hazard zones compared to total population growth. While the methods unveil similar overall trends in flood exposure, there are significant differences in the estimates and geographical distribution. These differences result from inherent model characteristics and the varying relationship between population density and the total urban area in the regions of analysis. We propose further research on the modelling of inundation characteristics and flood protection standards, which can complement the methodologies presented in this paper to enable the development of a global flood risk framework.     

Spatial and temporal temperature trends in Nigeria, 1901–2000

Trends and periodicity analyses can provide information on climate variability inherent in a particular variable. In this study, trend tests and spectral analysis are used to examine the existence of trends and cycles in temperature series (1901–2000) of Nigeria. Periods 1901–1929 and 1942–1980 exhibited cooling trends while 1930–1941 and 1981–2000 showed warming trends. The warmest years in Nigeria were 1941, 1935, 1931 and 1987. The coldest years were 1929, 1975, 1925 and 1974. Whereas no significant trends were detected for 1901–1930 period, the standard period 1931–1960 was marked by significant cooling while 1961–1990 was marked with significant warming. Annual temperature has risen by 0.03?°C/decade during the last century. The overall warming was mostly confined to the south of 12°N especially during April and June. Changes in minimum temperature are higher than that of maximum temperature. The quasi-biennial oscillation was found in annual data for all the six zones with periods of about 2–4?years. Nigeria landscape is under strong North Atlantic Oscillation influence in dry season and under ENSO influence during wet season. Annual temperature series was also found to exhibit significant negative correlation with SOI.     

Future climate in the Pacific Northwest

Climate models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) on the whole reproduce the observed seasonal cycle and twentieth century warming trend of 0.8°C (1.5°F) in the Pacific Northwest, and point to much greater warming for the next century. These models project increases in annual temperature of, on average, 1.1°C (2.0°F) by the 2020s, 1.8°C (3.2°F) by the 2040s, and 3.0°C (5.3°F) by the 2080s, compared with the average from 1970 to 1999, averaged across all climate models. Rates of warming range from 0.1°C to 0.6°C (0.2°F to 1.0°F) per decade. Projected changes in annual precipitation, averaged over all models, are small (+1% to +2%), but some models project an enhanced seasonal cycle with changes toward wetter autumns and winters and drier summers. Changes in nearshore sea surface temperatures, though smaller than on land, are likely to substantially exceed interannual variability, but coastal upwelling changes little. Rates of twenty-first century sea level rise will depend on poorly known factors like ice sheet instability in Greenland and Antarctica, and could be as low as twentieth century values (20 cm, 8^″) or as large as 1.3 m (50^″).     

A petrographic and fluid inclusion comparison of silver-poor and silver-rich zinc-lead ores,N.E. Washington State

Many of the zinc-lead deposits of NE Washington State are poorly known examples of Mississippi Valley Type (MVT) mineralization. This study compares inclusion fluids from the Josephine Breccia ores with the later cross-cutting sulfide-bearing quartz veins. The breccia ores are cemented mainly by open space fillings of dolomite, sphalerite, quartz, galena, jasperoid and calcite. Replacement is of minor importance. Ore and gangue deposition occurred over the range 150–250 °C with most of the temperatures less than 200 °C. The aqueous brines typically contain 17–23 equivalent weight percent NaCl with often substantial amounts of Ca and/or Mg chlorides. Homogenization temperatures do not delineate any cooling or paragenetic sequence. The cross-cutting vein quartz contains CO₂-rich inclusions with overall densities usually less than 0.7 g/cc and homogenization temperatures from 250–325 °C. Sulfur isotope analyses yield two populations with the quartz vein ores being lighter (<13 permil CDT) than the average for the conformable ores. The later veins are not remobilized MVT sulfides but represent a separate, high-silver period of mineralization.     

加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省温哥华岛纳奈莫群的帆翼龙类化石

An unusual jaw found in a calcite nodule from Collishaw Point, Hornby Island, British Columbia (off the east coast of Vancouver Island) represents the first definitive pterosaur found in British Columbia, and the first istiodactylid from Canada.     

Water flux measurement and prediction in young cashew trees using sap flow data

Measurements of sap flow, meteorological parameters, soil water content and tension were made for 4 months in a young cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) plantation during the 2002 rainy season in Ejura, Ghana. This experiment was part of a sustainable water management project in West Africa. The Granier system was used to measure half‐hourly whole‐tree sap flow. Weather variables were observed with an automatic weather station, whereas soil moisture and tension were measured with a Delta‐T profile probe and tensiometers respectively. Clearness index (CI), a measure of the sky condition, was significantly correlated with tree transpiration (r² = 0·73) and potential evaporation (r² = 0·86). Both diurnal and daily stomata conductance were poorly correlated with the climatic variables. Estimated daily canopy conductance g_c ranged from 4·0 to 21·2 mm s⁻¹, with a mean value of 8·0 ± 3·3 mm s⁻¹. Water flux variation was related to a range of environmental variables: soil water content, air temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity and vapour pressure deficit. Linear and non‐linear regression models, as well as a modified Priestley–Taylor formula, were fitted with transpiration, and the well‐correlated variables, using half‐hourly measurements. Measured and predicted transpiration using these regression models were in good agreement, with r² ranging from 0·71 to 0·84. The computed measure of accuracy δ indicated that a non‐linear model is better than its corresponding linear one. Furthermore, solar radiation, CI, clouds and rain were found to influence tree water flux. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A scientifically based nationwide assessment of groundwater quality in the United States

Beginning in 1986, the U.S. Geological Survey began an effort to develop a National Water-Quality Assessment Program. The basic premise underlying this initiative is that a better understanding of the quality of water resources across the country, both surface- and groundwater, is needed to develop effective programs and policies to meet the nation's water-quality concerns. The program will focus on water-quality conditions that are prevalent or large in scale, such as occur from nonpoint sources of pollution or from a high density of point sources.The design of the program is substantially different from the traditional approach of a diffuse national monitoring network.The major activities of the assessment program will be clustered within a set of hydrologic systems (river basins and aquifer systems), referred to as study units. In aggregate, the study units will account for a large part of the nation's water use and represent a wide range of settings across the country.Unique attributes of the program include: (1) the use of consistent study approaches, field and laboratory methods, water-quality measurements, and ancillary data measurements for all study units; (2) the development of a progressive understanding of water-quality conditions and trends in each study unit through long-term studies that rotate periods of intensive data collection and analysis with periods during which the assessment activities are less intensive; and (3) the focus of considerable effort on synthesizing results from among the study units to provide information on regional and national water-quality issues.Paper presented at 28th International Geological Congress, Washington, D.C., July 10, 1989.     

Organic geochemical studies of a recent Inner Great Barrier Reef sediment—I. Assessment of input sources

The concentration of solvent-extractable (SE) and bound hydrocarbons, ketones, alcohols, sterols, monocarboxylic acids, hydroxyacids and α,ω-dicarboxylic acids of a surface sample (0–2.5 cm) from a recent carbonate tropical sediment taken at 60ft (18m) depth north-west of the Low Isles, North Queensland, are reported in detail. n-Alkanes are a minor constituent in the SE and bound hydrocarbon fractions with the major component being unresolved complex hydrocarbon material which is not an anthropogenic input. 6,10,14-Trimethylpentadecan-2-one derived from chlorophyll, as well as phytol, were identified as major components of the ketone and alcohol constituents. No chlorophyll pigments or pigmented degradation products were present, implying degradation before incorporation into the sediment. This conclusion is consistent with evidence for higher-plant input in which all sensitive lipids have been degraded before incorporation. SE and bound fractions have been studied in detail and show considerable differences probably arising from the importance of viable biomass in the SE fraction. Inputs to the sediment are determined as higher plants, algae, bacteria, fungi and meiofauna in descending order of importance.     

Occurrence and distribution of sulfur in peat-forming environments of southern Florida

Cores and surface samples of peats from the Everglades—Mangrove region of Southern Florida were analyzed for total sulfur and pyritic sulfur. These values were compared with the petrographic-botanical components of the peats as determined from point-counts of oriented microtome sections. Pyrite occurs as individual euhedral crystals, loosely packed framboids, and lenses or crusts of minute crystals. Framboids and minute crystals are often associated with organic matter and sometimes with bacteria and fungi. Pyrite tends to selectively occur in void spaces in or between peat tissues. In samples containing very small amounts of pyrite, framboidal pyrite is the prevalent form.Marine to brackish peats contain the highest pyrite and total sulfur contents, with brackish peats generally containing more pyrite than marine peats. Pyrite tends to be lower in all peats within 30 cm of the surface, whether marine or brackish.Burial of freshwater peats beneath marine or brackish peats tends to increase the total sulfur and pyritic sulfur in the underlying peats. Burial beneath brackish-water, clay-rich deposits (such as splays) tends to increase total sulfur and pyritic sulfur in the underlying deposits more than burial beneath less clay-rich deposits.     

Towards the detection and attribution of an anthropogenic effect on climate

It has been hypothesized recently that regional-scale cooling caused by anthropogenic sulfate aerosols may be partially obscuring a warming signal associated with changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. Here we use results from model experiments in which sulfate and carbon dioxide have been varied individually and in combination in order to test this hypothesis. We use centered [R (t)] and uncentered [C (t)] pattern similarity statistics to compare observed time-evolving surface temperature change patterns with the model-predicted equilibrium signal patterns. We show that in most cases, the C (t) statistic reduces to a measure of observed global-mean temperature changes, and is of limited use in attributing observed climate changes to a specific causal mechanism. We therefore focus on R (t), which is a more useful statistic for discriminating between forcing mechanisms with different pattern signatures but similar rates of global mean change. Our results indicate that over the last 50 years, the summer (JJA) and fall (SON) observed patterns of near-surface temperature change show increasing similarity to the model-simulated response to combined sulfate aerosol/CO₂ forcing. At least some of this increasing spatial congruence occurs in areas where the real world has cooled. To assess the significance of the most recent trends in R (t) and C (t), we use data from multi-century control integrations performed with two different coupled atmosphere-ocean models, which provide information on the statistical behavior of 'unforced' trends in the pattern correlation statistics. For the combined sulfate aerosol/CO₂ experiment, the 50-year R (t) trends for the JJA and SON signals are highly significant. Results are robust in that they do not depend on the choice of control run used to estimate natural variability noise properties. The R (t) trends for the CO₂-only signal are not significant in any season. C (t) trends for signals from both the CO₂-only and combined forcing experiments are highly significant in all seasons and for all trend lengths (except for trends over the last 10 years), indicating large global-mean changes relative to the two natural variability estimates used here. The caveats regarding the signals and natural variability noise which form the basis of this study are numerous. Nevertheless, we have provided first evidence that both the largest-scale (global-mean) and smaller-scale (spatial anomalies about the global mean) components of a combined CO₂/anthropogenic sulfate aerosol signal are identifiable in the observed near-surface air temperature data. If the coupled-model noise estimates used here are realistic, we can be highly confident that the anthropogenic signal that we have identified is distinctly different from internally generated natural variability noise. The fact that we have been able to detect the detailed spatial signature in response to combined CO₂ and sulfate aerosol forcing, but not in response to CO₂ forcing alone, suggests that some of the regional-scale background noise (against which we were trying to detect a CO₂-only signal) is in fact part of the signal of a sulfate aerosol effect on climate. The large effect of sulfate aerosols found in this study demonstrates the importance of their inclusion in experiments designed to simulate past and future climate change. Received: 10 November 1994 / Accepted: 19 July 1995