Hydrological projections of future climate change over the source region of Yellow River and Yangtze River in the Tibetan Plateau: A comprehensive assessment by coupling RegCM4 and VIC model

Understanding climate change impacts on hydrological regime and assessing future water supplies are essential to effective water resources management and planning, which is particularly true for the Tibetan Plateau (TP), one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change. In this study, future climate change in the TP was projected for 2041–2060 by a high‐resolution regional climate model, RegCM4, under 3 representative concentration pathways (RCPs): 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5. Response of all key hydrological elements, that is, evapotranspiration, surface run‐off, baseflow, and snowmelt, to future climate in 2 typical catchments, the source regions of Yellow and Yangtze rivers, was further investigated by the variable infiltration capacity microscale hydrological model incorporated with a 2‐layer energy balance snow model and a frozen soil/permafrost algorithm at a 0.25°×0.25° spatial scale. The results reveal that (a) spatial patterns of precipitation and temperature from RegCM4 agree fairly well with the data from China Meteorological Forcing Dataset, indicating that RegCM4 well reproduces historical climatic information and thus is reliable to support future projection; (b) precipitation increase by 0–70% and temperature rise by 1–4 °C would occur in the TP under 3 RCPs. A clear south‐eastern–north‐western spatial increasing gradient in precipitation would be seen. Besides, under RCP8.5, the peak increase in temperature would approach to 4 °C in spring and autumn in the east of the TP; (c) evapotranspiration would increase by 10–60% in 2 source regions due to the temperature rise, surface run‐off and baseflow in higher elevation region would experience larger increase dominantly due to the precipitation increase, and streamflow would display general increases by more than 3% and 5% in the source regions of Yellow and Yangtze rivers, respectively; (d) snowmelt contributes 11.1% and 16.2% to total run‐off in the source regions of Yellow and Yangtze rivers, respectively, during the baseline period. In the source region of Yangtze River, snowmelt run‐off would become more important with increase of 17.5% and 18.3%, respectively, under RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 but decrease of 15.0% under RCP8.5.     

Does Aqueous‐Phase Oxidation of HCHO Opens a Pathway to Formic Acids in Atmosphere?

Formic acid is the major contributor to acid rain in some regions but its sources are not fully understood. We investigated the aqueous‐phase reactions of HCHO (aq) and OH ^. radicals at enlarged rainwater pH values (2.49–5.89) in Guiyang, China from May 2006 to April 2007. Our results show that there were no significant correlation between the [HCOOH]_t/[HCHO] (aq) and the rainwater pH. The ratio did not appear to vary consistently as a function of rainwater pH as predicted by theoretical model. In addition, we saw no clear evidence that oxidation of HCHO (aq) would produce significant HCOOH (aq) which indicates this reaction may be only a minor contribution to the budget of HCOOH (g) in atmosphere. Further investigation is strongly suggested to be carried out in field cloud water, fog water, or rainwater because the ratios would be diverged from equilibrium value as a result of other chemical or physical processes.     

Effect of deposit alterations on the dating of herbivorous teeth from Arago cave by the ESR–U-series method

Geochemical alteration processes in archaeological sites may affect the environmental dose rate during the burial history and cause inaccuracy in age determination by palaeodosimetric dating methods, such as luminescence or ESR. In Arago Cave (Tautavel, France), the original composition of the sandy aeolian sediments of palaeoanthropological level G, where the Homo heidelbergensis Arago XXI skull was found, has been modified by both carbonation and phosphatization processes. Eight fossil teeth were collected from different geochemically affected parts of level G and analyzed by the ESR–U-series method. All the teeth are presumably contemporaneous. The results show that the samples from the phosphated area agree within error with those from the carbonated area. Surprisingly, the samples from the non-altered area show ages 100–150 ka younger. This difference is mainly due to the remarkable changes in the gamma dose rate over time. The measured in situ dose rate accounts for more than 50% of the total dose rate for all the samples. We observed that the samples' equivalent dose (D_E) were generally 20% lower in the non-altered area than in the carbonated and phosphated ones. These results show the crucial effect of the geochemical processes affecting the age calculation by ESR–U-series method in comparison with independent chronological data.     

Using the Newtonian relaxation technique in numerical sensitivity studies

In model-based sensitivity studies, the growth of model error over long-term integrations may lead to serious deviations between the simulated and actual states. To reduce these errors, we have developed a new modeling approach with application of the Newtonian relaxation technique, or nudging. In this approach, an identical artificial Newtonian relaxation term that reflects the difference between the model reference state and its analysis (available in many sensitivity studies) is added to the prognostic equations of the two simulated states, the reference state and the perturbed state (for which observations are nonexistent). We have conducted idealized sensitivity experiments with a shallow-water model to evaluate the benefits and viability of this approach and to test its sensitivity to changes in the nudging period and error in the analysis data. The experimental results confirm that this approach lead to more credible atmospheric responses to modified external forcing if the data error is within a reasonable range. The results also indicate that a 12-hour period is more favorable for nudging than a 24-hour period.     

应急预案在地震应急响应中的作用——以唐山地震、汶川地震为例

为了更好地促进地震应急工作,本文以20世纪90年代初我国地震应急预案工作起步为分界,选取1976年唐山地震和2008年汶川地震为例,通过对比两次地震后在应急组织与指挥、灾情信息传送与发布、应急响应与救援3个方面的情况,解释地震应急预案在地震应对中的作用及其存在的问题,为今后我国地震应急救援工作提供有益的启示。     

A macro-evolutionary multi-objective immune algorithm with application to optimal allocation of water resources in Dongjiang River basins, South China

Macro-evolution is a new kind of high-level species evolution inspired by the dynamics of species extinction and diversification at large time scales. Immune algorithms are a set of computational systems inspired by the defense process of the biological immune system. By taking advantage of the macro-evolutionary algorithm and immune learning of artificial immune systems, this article proposes a macro-evolutionary multi-objective immune algorithm (MEMOIA) for optimizing multi-objective allocation of water resources in river basins. A benchmark test problem, namely the Viennet problem, is utilized to evaluate the performance of the proposed new algorithm. The study indicates that the proposed algorithm yields a much better spread of solutions and converges closer to the true Pareto frontier compared with The Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm and Improving the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm. MEMOIA is applied to a water allocation problem in the Dongjiang River basin in southern China, with three objectives named economic interests (OF ₁), water shortages (OF ₂) and the amount of organic pollutants in water (OF ₃). The results demonstrate the capabilities of MEMOIA as well as its suitability as a viable alternative for enhanced water allocation and management in a river basin.     

Effects of Rhizosphere Ventilation on Soil Enzyme Activities of Potted Tomato under Different Soil Water Stress

In order to improve the growing environment of root zone, and investigate the effects of different rhizosphere ventilation environments on soil enzyme activities, we supplied gas for potted tomato by air compressor, and set three irrigation levels (70–90% field capacity). Each irrigation level has different ventilation volume coefficient (0.4, 0.8, 1.2, and 1.6) with the reference standard as 50% soil porosity. The results showed that the changing trend of soil catalase, urease, and dehydrogenase activity showed the first increase and then the decrease in the tomato growth period, and activities of soil catalase, urease, and dehydrogenase under the ventilation treatment are higher than those of the non‐ventilation. When the irrigation level was 80% the field capacity and the ventilation coefficient was 0.8, the activities of three soil enzyme reached the highest value. Their activities of soil catalase, urease, and dehydrogenase were particularly sensitive to rhizosphere ventilation in fruit expanding process. Tomato had more dry matter accumulation and output under the ventilation treatment than that of the non‐ventilation. The results prove that rhizosphere ventilation can improve the potted tomato root zone environment, increase the soil enzyme activity, and promote the nutrients uptake, thus promoting plant growth and fruit output and improving soil quality.     

Modifying Transition Matrix to Evaluate Soil Quality: A Case Study in Karst Region in the West‐Southern China

The soil aggregate stability is a key property of soil quality and reflects soil quality and anti‐erosion ability. The transition matrix between initial and final aggregates condition was established by modifying Niewczas and Witkowska‐Walczak's method by not considering the artificial weights and each size of aggregates fraction on the basis of three reasonable assumptions, and soil aggregate stability index (ASI) was formed through preserving each size of aggregates probability. This ASI is identical to the result by reference, and the transition matrix can be showed to evaluate the soil aggregates stability. Using the transition matrix was furthermore to analyze anti‐breaking ability of different size aggregate by reference material. We found there were different effects for each size aggregate by four methods, simulation rainfall, one cycle of wetting–drying, ten cycles of wetting–drying, and Yoder wetting–sieving. The Yoder wetting–sieving is a severe method that destructed soil aggregates. The ASI by modifying transition matrix method was used to evaluate the aggregates stability under different land utilization in Karst region in Chongqing, China. The ASI of agricultural utilization was lower than abounded cultivated land, shrub‐grass land, secondary forest land, and primeval forest land. For some selected soil properties, when SOM content was <60 g/kg, ASI increased along with the SOM increase. Once the SOM content was >60 g/kg, the ASI was almost unchanged. The sorption moisture content of air‐drying acutely affected ASI too, and the ASI increased along the sorption moisture increasing. SOM content and sorption markedly affected the preserving probability of larger aggregates such as 10–5, 5–3, 3–2, 2–1, and 1–0.5 mm size class. Although CaCO₃ and clay content did not influence preserving probability of each size class of aggregates fiercely, but the influence on small aggregates was higher than that of larger aggregates. The modified transition matrix method could not only calculate soil aggregates stability index, but also analyze more parameters of aggregate experiment, and bring out the each size aggregates characteristics. Thus, the modified transition matrix method could be a better tool to understand soil quality.