Converting tropical rain forest to forest plantation in sabah,malaysia. Part I. Dynamics and net losses of nutrients in control catchment streams

Streamwatcr chemistry was monitored for five years in six streams in a paired catchment experiment in Mendolong, Sabah, Malaysia, including controls in rain forest and secondary vegetation after the [Borneo fire] of 1982–3 and comparing the effects of different ways of establishing forest plantations with Acacia mangium. Three catchments were covered with selectively logged lowland hill dipterocarp forest (W4-W6) and three (W1-W3) with secondary vegetation after forest fires. The control catchments, W3 and W6 reported in this paper, had no treatments applied. Reference monitoring at all streams was for 25 months and the total period of study reported here is 64 months. The soils in the catchments were mainly Orthic Acrisol in W3 and Gleyic Podsol in W6 and a mix of both soil types in the other catchments. Element baseflow concentrations were generally low and not significantly different from stormflow concentrations for all streams during the reference period. Concentrations were also generally consistently low for the two control streams during the whole period of measurement. Chemical inputs as wet deposition were low as a result of a high input from local convection. The rain forest on the Podsol had a tight nutrient circulation indicated by small net losses of macronutrients. The Podsol was found to have poorer conditions for soil mineralization and more surficial runoff, resulting in higher loads of S, C and N in the organic phases, with higher organic C/N ratio, in the discharge. Nitrogen was found to accumulate in both catchments. An almost double accumulation of N in W3 was attributed to a larger biomass accumulation continuing after the forest fire 3–8 years earlier. On the other hand, the Acrisol in W3 had much larger net losses of S, Si, K, Ca, Mg and Na. Most of differences could be attributed to differences in weathering between the soils and local mineralogical differences.     

Closed-form underwater acoustic direction-finding with arbitrarilyspaced vector hydrophones at unknown locations

This paper introduces a novel ESPRIT-based closed-form source localization algorithm applicable to arbitrarily spaced three-dimensional arrays of vector hydrophones, whose locations need not be known. Each vector hydrophone consists of two or three identical but orthogonally oriented velocity hydrophones plus one pressure hydrophone, all spatially co-located in a point-like geometry. A velocity hydrophone measures one Cartesian component of the incident sonar wavefield's velocity vector, whereas a pressure hydrophone measures the acoustic wavefield's pressure. Velocity-hydrophone technology is well established in underwater acoustics and a great variety of commercial models have long been available. ESPRIT is realized herein by exploiting the nonspatial interrelations among each vector hydrophone's constituent hydrophones, such that ESPRIT's eigenvalues become independent of array geometry. Simulation results verify the efficacy and versatility of this innovative scheme     

Geometric consistency for regression model estimation and testing in climatology and meteorology

Abstract

The effects of outliers on linear regression are examined. The sensitivity of classical least‐squares (LS) procedures to outliers is shown to be associated with the geometric inconsistency between the data space and the analysis space. This is illustrated for both estimation and inference. A geometrically consistent procedure based on the Euclidean distance is proposed. This procedure involves the least absolute deviation (LAD) regression and a new permutation test for matched pairs (PTMP). Comparisons made with LS techniques demonstrate that the proposed procedure is more resistant to the existence of outliers in the data set and leads to more intuitive results. Applications and illustrations using meteorological and climatological data are also discussed.     

Using benthic macrofauna to assess environmental quality of four intertidal mudflats in Hong Kong and Shenzhen Coast

Abstract-Intertidal zone is a significant wetland between land and ocean. It plays an important rolein maintaining local ecological balance. Both Mai Po and Futian intertidal mudflats are located in Shen-zhen Bay and are important "refueling" point along the East Asian/Australian flyway of migratory birds.The environmental quality of Mai Po and Futian mudflats have aroused great concern due to rapid eco-nomic developments in Hong Kong and Shenzhen in recent decades. Microinfauna of Mai Po and Futianmudflats was investigated in December 2000 and the faunal data were used to assess their environmentalquality. Two other mudflats, namely Ma Wan Typhoon Shelter (a more disturbed area) and Luk Kengintertidal mudflat (a place with relatively less human disturbance), were also sampled for macroinfaunaand used as reference mudflats. Shannon-Weaver species diversity index (I_(sd)), biotic coefficient (C_b)and macrofaunal pollution index (I_(mp)) of the macrofauna community on four intertidal mudflats wereused to     

Contact stresses and ground motion generated by soil-structure interaction

A study has been made of the dynamic contact stresses that the foundation of a nine-storey reinforced concrete building exerts on the soil during forced vibration tests. The effects of the flexibility of the foundation on the contact stress distribution and on the force-displacement relationship for the foundation have been examined in an attempt at testing several simplifying assumptions commonly used in soil-structure interaction studies. Comparisons of calculated and observed ground displacements induced by soil-structure interaction in the immediate neighbourhood of the building have also been presented.     

On the spatial structure of currents across the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal

The Chesapeake and Delaware (C&;D) Canal is a man-made waterway connecting two of the largest estuaries on the east coast of the United States: Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay. A set of current meter data collected during April–May 1975 along two cross-sections of the C&;D Canal was used to examine the spatial distributions of the currents at tidal and subtidal time scales. The different responses of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays to tidal and wind forcing produce significant differences in sea level fluctuations between the two ends of the canal. These alongcanal surface slopes produce significant barotropic current fluctuations at both tidal (semidiurnal and diurnal) and subtidal (2-d to 3-d) time scales. Under the influence of bottom friction, the barotropic currents near the surface are stronger than those at depth, but these currents do not exhibit significant lateral variations across the canal. On the other hand, the long-term flow in the canal exhibits strong lateral variability with eastward flow off the south shore of the canal and westward flow off the north shore of the canal. The lateral structure of the long-term flow may carry significant implications for the long-term exchange of material between the two bays.     

Cracking Processes in Rock-Like Material Containing a Single Flaw Under Uniaxial Compression: A Numerical Study Based on Parallel Bonded-Particle Model Approach

Cracking processes have been extensively studied in brittle rock and rock-like materials. Due to the experimental limitations and the complexity of rock texture, details of the cracking processes could not always be observed and assessed comprehensively. To contribute to this field of research, a numerical approach based on the particle element model was used in present study. It would give us insights into what is happening to crack initiation, propagation and coalescence. Parallel bond model, a type of bonded-particle model, was used to numerically simulate the cracking process in rock-like material containing a single flaw under uniaxial vertical compression. The single flaw’s inclinations varied from 0° to 75° measured from the horizontal. As the uniaxial compression load was increased, multiple new microcracks initiated in the rock, which later propagated and eventually coalesced into longer macrocracks. The inclination of the pre-existing flaw was found to have a strong influence on the crack initiation and propagation patterns. The simulations replicated most of the phenomena observed in the physical experiments, such as the type, the initiation location and the initiate angle of the first cracks, as well as the development of hair-line cracks, which later evolved to macrocracks. Analyses of the parallel bond forces and displacement fields revealed some important mechanisms of the cracking processes. The first cracks typically initiated from the tensile stress concentration regions, in which the tensile stress was partially released after their initiation. The tensile stress concentration regions subsequently shifted outwards close to the propagating tips of the first cracks. The initiation and propagation of the first cracks would not significantly influence the compressive stress singularity at the flaw tips, which was the driving force of the initiation of secondary cracks. The initiation of microcracking zone consisting almost exclusively of micro-tensile cracks, and that of microcracking zone consisting of micro-tensile cracks and mixed micro-tensile and shear cracks, were found to be correlated with two distinct types of displacement fields, namely type I (DF_I) and type II (DF_II), respectively.     

Surface-bounded atmosphere of Europa

A 1-D collisional Monte Carlo model of Europa's atmosphere is described in which the sublimation and sputtering sources of H₂O molecules and their molecular fragments are accounted for as well as the radiolytically produced O₂. Dissociation and ionization of H₂O and O₂ by magnetospheric electron, solar UV-photon and photo-electron impact, and collisional ejection from the atmosphere by the low-energy plasma are taken into account. Reactions with the surface are discussed, but only adsorption and atomic oxygen recombination are included in this model. The size of the surface-bounded oxygen atmosphere of Europa is primarily determined by a balance between atmospheric sources from irradiation of the satellite's icy surface by the high-energy magnetospheric charged particles and atmospheric losses from collisional ejection by the low-energy plasma, photo- and electron-impact dissociation, and ionization and pick-up from the surface-bounded atmosphere. A range of sources rates for O₂ to H₂O are used with a larger oxygen-to-water ratio than suggested by laboratory measurements in order to account for differences in adsorption onto grains in the regolith. These calculations show that the atmospheric composition is determined by both the water and oxygen photochemistry in the near-surface region, escape of suprathermal oxygen and water into the jovian system, and the exchange of radiolytic water products with the porous regolith. For the electron impact ionization rates used, pick-up ionization is the dominant oxygen loss process, whereas photo-dissociation and atmospheric sputtering are the dominant sources of neutral oxygen for Europa's neutral torus. Including desorption and loss of water enhances the supply of oxygen species to the neutral torus, but hydrogen produced by radiolysis is the dominant source of neutrals for Europa's torus in these models.     

Wetland economic valuation approaches and prospects in China

Ecosystem services valuation seeks to increase the social relevance of ecosystem characteristics, the underlying biological mechanisms that support services, by making the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being explicit. Economic valuation can help management by clarifying the full range of benefits and costs of proposed management actions. In the past two decades, economic valuation of wetland ecosystem services has become one of the most significant scientific priorities for wetland protection. In this paper, we provide an overview of ecosystem services, and summarize the main interdisciplinary approaches to measure and value wetland ecosystem services. We identified four main methodological gaps preventing progress on wetland valuation of ecosystem services in China, which are: 1) confusion on terminology like intermediate and final ecosystem services, 2) lack of ecological production functions to link ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services, 3) static valuation making it difficult to evaluate the trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services, and 4) lack of clear guidance on relating ecological compensation programs to conservation targets. Overcoming these gaps is important to inform wetland compensation mechanisms and conservation policies. We propose future research on wetland ecosystem services in China should be focused on: 1) defining final ecosystem services based on beneficiary preferences and underlying biophysical mechanisms, 2) establishing wetland monitoring programs at specific sites to collect data on final ecosystem service indicators and ecosystem characteristic metrics to create ecological production functions for economic valuation and rescaling techniques, and 3) incorporating wetland ecosystem service values into decision-making processes to inform wetland management.     

The inversion of anelastic coefficient,source parameters and site respond using genetic algorithm

It gradually becomes a common work using large seismic wave data to obtain source parameters, such as seismic moment, break radius, stress drop, with completingof digital seismic network in China (Hough, et al, 1999; Bindi, et al, 2001). These parameters are useful on earthquake prediction and seismic hazard analysis.Although the computation methods of source parameters are simple in principle and the many research works have been done, it is not easy to obtain the parameters accurately. There are two factors affecting the stability of computation results. The first one is the effect of spread path and site respond on signal. According to the research results, there are different geometrical spreading coefficients on different epicenter distance. The better method is to introduce trilinear geometrical spreading model (Atkinson, Mereu, 1992; Atkinson, Boore, 1995; WONG, et al, 2002). In addition, traditional site respond is estimated by comparing with rock station, such as linear inversion method (Andrews, 1982), but the comparative estimation will introduce some errors when selecting different stations. Some recent research results show that site respond is not flat for rock station (Moya, et al, 2000; ZHANG,. et al, 2001; JIN, et al, 2000; Dutta, et al, 2001). The second factor is to obtain low-frequency level and corner frequency fromdisplacement spectrum. Because the source spectrum model is nonlinear function,these values are obtained by eye. The subjectivity is strong. The small change of corner frequency will affect significantly the result of stress drop.