Water renewal estimates for aquaculture developments in the Richibucto estuary,Canada

Water renewal in semi-enclosed coastal areas is crucial for the supply of oxygen and seston and for the removal of organic loadings from finfish or shellfish aquaculture sites. Water renewal depends on hydrodynamic processes and can have a complex spatial distribution due to irregular topographic features. This study describes some physical oceanography observations gathered in the Richibucto estuary, New Brunswick, Canada, and provides an estimate of the spatial distribution of water renewal in the North Arm, a location in the estuary where the largest American oyster (Crassostrea virginica) aquaculture operation in eastern Canada is located. The estuary changes from a well mixed estuary to a partially stratified estuary depending on runoff conditions. Tides are mixed but mainly diurnal due to the nearby presence of the second M₂ amphidromic point in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Tidal amplitudes vary from 0.3 to 0.6 m and show a slight increase some 35 km upstream. Currents in the main channel can reach over 0.60 m s⁻¹ during ebb and 0.3 m s⁻¹ during flood, with a slack water period of approximately 8 h. Low frequency sea level fluctuations have a range of 0.5 m at the mouth and are coherent within the estuary. Hydrodynamic and advection-dispersion models are used to calculate the spatial distribution of the local renewal time (LRT) in the North Arm for high and low freshwater discharge conditions, using the dissolved tracer method. Results show that the LRT varies from less than 5 d at the downstream end of the North Arm to over 100 d further upstream. When averaged over the entire North Arm, the integral renewal time (IRT) is estimated to vary only from 8 to 21 d depending on the season. The LRT and IRT estimates are major improvements over conventional renewal estimates using tidal prism methods.     

2D equivalent linear site effect simulation: example applications to two deep valleys

In the framework of the Sismovalp European project, an equivalent linear 2D code was developed to compute the response of a valley to SH waves, using the discrete wave-number method proposed by Aki and Larner (Aki K, Larner KL (1970) J Geophys Res 75:5). To overcome the frequency upper bound limitation, the Aki and Larner’s method is combined with a one-dimensional computation using a classical multi-layer method (Aki K, Richards PG (1980) Quantitative Seismology: Theory and Methods, vols. 1 & 2. W.H. Freeman & Co, San Francisco). The so-called “Aki–Larner extended method” is associated to an iterative algorithm, as proposed by Seed and Idriss (Seed HB, Idriss IM (1969) Report No. EERC 70–10, Earthquake Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, California) which accounts for the modulus and damping degradation using a linear visco-elastic model. A comparison of the results in the linear and the equivalent linear cases, for a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, shows that the account for the equivalent linear behaviour of the soil significantly reduces the amplification level, especially at frequencies higher than the fundamental resonance frequency of the site. In the case of site effects or microzonation studies devoted to produce design spectra for engineering structures, this can have a major impact on the associated results and costs, depending on the frequency of interest for the considered structure. As a first application of the developed technique, 2D equivalent linear Aki–Larner computations are used to perform the seismic microzonation study of the upper Rhone valley, in the Visp area (Switzerland), a typical 2D alpine valley. These investigations made it possible to determine site specific spectra, associated with different zones, to be used instead of the code spectra that do not take into account the local 2D amplification.     

Simulation of scree‐slope dynamics: investigating the distribution of debris avalanche events in an idealized two‐dimensional model

We present a two‐dimensional model of the development of scree slopes using the discrete‐element method. We concentrate on the dynamics of the accumulating debris at the cliff foot rather than on the failure modes of the cliff‐face or shape of the underlying rock surface. The evolution of this unconsolidated material is intermittent and systematically changing over time, with an early high disturbance regime, dominated by a characteristic event size (where 65% of particles in the debris are in motion to some extent), replaced at later times by many shallow slides interspersed with infrequent large events that involve motion through almost the full scree depth. These large slides lead to a stratigraphy in which the layers of material are stretched almost horizontal near the base of the slope. The scree surface thus shows a gradient in age with most recent rock‐fall close to the cliff and the oldest rock‐fall debris outcropping at the foot. The final surface slope tends to show little curvature, and the final mean slope is well correlated with the angle of internal friction of the particles, although the change is very small over a wide range of friction angles [final slope (in degrees relative to horizontal) ~ 0.043 × internal friction angle + 17.49, with a correlation coefficient of 0.89, p‐value 0.0001]. Some weak size‐segregation of the debris is found, but this seems to have little to do with individual particles bounding down the slope. The shape of the rock core agrees largely with the analytic forms given by Fisher–Lehmann and Bakker–Le Heux expressions, but the original simple Fisher quadratic can give the best fit. Overall the evolution shows a remarkable insensitivity to the model parameters, suggesting that the controls on dry scree‐slope evolution are primarily geometric in character. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

电离层水平不均匀性对无线电掩星资料反演的影响

电离层水平不均匀结构是引起掩星资料反演的主要误差源.本文模拟不均匀结构对无线电掩星资料反演的影响.首先利用3-D全球射线追踪技术进行了模拟.结果指出:电离层电子密度20%的变化可能引起GPS的时延增加约12m.其次,将90%的掩星时延对应的路径长度,定义为电离层掩星测量的水平分辨率,其值为1200-2000 km.最后,计算了不同纬度电离层当地正午、子夜和日出时的电离层水平不对称指数.它表明:低纬夏季日出时,不对称指数达-78%,反演结果可能有较大误差.     

On the utility of identification schemes for digital earth science data: an assessment and recommendations

In recent years, a number of data identification technologies have been developed which purport to permanently identify digital objects. In this paper, nine technologies and systems for assigning persistent identifiers are assessed for their applicability to Earth science data (ARKs, DOIs, XRIs, Handles, LSIDs, OIDs, PURLs, URIs/URNs/URLs, and UUIDs). The evaluation used four use cases that focused on the suitability of each scheme to provide Unique Identifiers for Earth science data objects, to provide Unique Locators for the objects, to serve as Citable Locators, and to uniquely identify the scientific contents of data objects if the data were reformatted. Of all the identifier schemes assessed, the one that most closely meets all of the requirements for an Unique Identifier is the UUID scheme. Any of the URL/URI/IRI-based identifier schemes assessed could be used for Unique Locators. Since there are currently no strong market leaders to help make the choice among them, the decision must be based on secondary criteria. While most publications now allow the use of URLs in citations, so that all of the URL/URI/IRI based identification schemes discussed in this paper could potentially be used as a Citable Locator, DOIs are the identification scheme currently adopted by most commercial publishers. None of the identifier schemes assessed here even minimally address identification of scientifically identical numerical data sets under reformatting.     

GIS-based determination of the mean long-term groundwater recharge in Lower Saxony

This paper presents the findings of a collaborative research project of the Geological Survey of Lower Saxony (NLfB) and the Programme Group Systems Analysis and Technology Evaluation (STE) of Research Centre Jülich on the GIS-based determination of the mean long-term groundwater recharge in Lower Saxony using high-resolution digital data (Dörhöfer and others 2001). The model calculations were performed on the basis of the water-balance model GROWA (Kunkel and Wendland 2002) with a spatial resolution of 100x100 m². The accuracy of the calculated groundwater recharge values for the period 1961–1990 was verified on the basis of data from gauging stations and displayed a good agreement between observed runoff values and model results.     

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Recent lake sediments—I. Compounds having anthropogenic origins

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in sediment cores from Lake Lucerne, Lake Zürich, and Greifensee, Switzerland, and Lake Washington, northwest U.S.A., have been isolated, identified and quantified by glass capillary gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Surface sediment layers are greatly enriched in PAH—up to 40 times—compared to deeper layers. In addition, concentration increases in upper sediments generally correspond to increasing industrialization and urbanization in the catchment basins of the lakes. Few PAH could be detected in pre-industrial revolution sediments, indicating that background levels for most PAH in aquatic sediments are extremely low.These results are consistent with an anthropogenic source for most of the aromatic hydrocarbons present in the modern sediments. A comparison of PAH distributions in the sediments and in possible source materials shows that urban runoff of street dust may be the most important PAH input to these lacustrine sediments. There is evidence that a significant contribution to the PAH content of street dust comes from material associated with asphalt.