Everyday realities of climate change adaptation in Mozambique

This paper analyzes discourses and practices of flood response and adaptation to climate change in Mozambique. It builds on recent publications on climate change adaptation that suggest that the successes and failures of adaptation highly depend on the cultural and political realms of societal perceptions and the sensitivity of institutions. To capture this, the paper adopted a multi-sited ethnographic approach. Acknowledging that there is no central locus of representation that can unveil the working of disaster response in Mozambique, the paper brings together five vignettes of research in different ‘sites’ of concern to the rise in floods in Mozambique. These are the politics of climate change adaptation at the national institutional level, societal responses to increased flooding, local people's responses to floods, the evacuation and resettlement programme following the 2007 flood. The paper finds how adaptation to climate change becomes part of everyday politics, how actors aim to incorporate responses into the continuation of their normal behavior and how elites are better positioned to take advantage of adaptation programmes than the vulnerable people that were targeted. It argues that climate change adaptation must be made consonant with historically grown and ongoing social and institutional processes. It concludes with lessons that the analysis and methodology of the research can provide for the practice of climate change adaptation.     

Iodine-rich waters involved in supergene enrichment of the Mantos de la Luna argentiferous copper deposit,Atacama Desert,Chile

Recent studies have suggested the involvement of highly saline deep formation waters that modified preexisting Cu assemblages to form atacamite during supergene oxidation of Cu deposits in the Atacama region. In this report, we document the occurrence of (Ag–I) inclusions hosted by supergene chalcocite from Mantos de la Luna, an argentiferous Upper Jurassic stratabound Cu deposit in the Coastal Range of northern Chile. The presence of this unusual mineral assemblage indicates that iodargyrite precipitated from reducing iodine-rich waters, suggesting that the fluids involved in supergene enrichment of Cu deposits in the Coastal Range were more complex than previously thought. This suggests the prevalence of hyperarid conditions during the latest stages of supergene enrichment of the Mantos de la Luna Cu deposit in the Atacama region, supporting the notion that supergene enrichment processes in hyperarid areas are dynamic in nature and do not exclusively require the presence of meteoric water.     

Storage-discharge characteristics of an active rock glacier catchment in the Innere Ölgrube,Austrian Alps

The active rock glacier “Innere Ölgrube” and its catchment area (Ötztal Alps, Austria) are assessed using various hydro(geo)logical tools to provide a thorough catchment characterization and to quantify temporal variations in recharge and discharge components. During the period from June 2014 to July 2018, an average contribution derived from snowmelt, ice melt and rainfall of 35.8%, 27.6% and 36.6%, respectively, is modelled for the catchment using a rainfall-runoff model. Discharge components of the rock glacier springs are distinguished using isotopic data as well as other natural and artificial tracer data, when considering the potential sources rainfall, snowmelt, ice melt and longer stored groundwater. Seasonal as well as diurnal variations in runoff are quantified and the importance of shallow groundwater within this rock glacier-influenced catchment is emphasized. Water derived from ice melt is suggested to be provided mainly by melting of two small cirque glaciers within the catchment and subordinately by melting of permafrost ice of the rock glacier. The active rock glacier is characterized by a layered internal structure with an unfrozen base layer responsible for groundwater storage and retarded runoff, a main permafrost body contributing little to the discharge (at the moment) by permafrost thaw and an active layer responsible for fast lateral flow on top of the permafrost body. Snowmelt contributes at least 1/3rd of the annual recharge. During droughts, meltwater derived from two cirque glaciers provides runoff with diurnal runoff variations; however, this discharge pattern will change as these cirque glaciers will ultimately disappear in the future. The storage-discharge characteristics of the investigated active rock glacier catchment are an example of a shallow groundwater aquifer in alpine catchments that ought to be considered when analysing (future) river runoff characteristics in alpine catchments as these provide retarded runoff during periods with little or no recharge.     

Tettonische Probleme in den östlichen Hohen Tauern

Ohne ZusammenfassungDieser Aufsatz stellt eine etwas erweiterte Fassung des in der Versammlung der Geologischen Vereinigung zu Innsbruck am 25. September 1924 unter gleichem Titel gehaltenen Vortrags dar. Eine ausführliche Darlegung der Grundlagen und Beobachtungsergebnisse, die zu den hier mitgeteilten Schlußfolgerungen geführt haben, wird demnächst im Jahrbuch der Geologischen Bundesanstalt in Wien erfolgen.     

Structural and magnetic properties of Co2Al4Si5O18 and Mn2Al4Si5O18 cordierite

The crystal structures, lattice dynamics and magnetic properties of synthetic Co-cordierite, Co₂Al₄Si₅O₁₈, and Mn-cordierite, Mn₂Al₄Si₅O₁₈ have been studied by neutron powder diffraction, infrared spectroscopy and magnetisation measurements. Due to different synthesis conditions, the Co-cordierite used here crystallised in the hexagonal α-cordierite structure with a disordered Si/Al distribution in the framework, while for the Mn-cordierite the orthorhombic β-structure has been determined. The experimentally determined paramagnetic moments, _exp (Mn) = 5.47(6) _B and _exp (Co) = 3.88(4) _B , are in good agreement with theoretical predictions for octahedrally coordinated Mn²⁺ and Co²⁺, respectively. In both compounds there is no magnetic long-range order down to at least 1.5 K. However, the onset of an anti-ferromagnetic short-range correlation of magnetic moments along [001] has been observed for Mn-cordierite by magnetisation and neutron diffraction measurements. This short-range magnetic correlation becomes evident from diffuse scattering observed at 2 K. The diffuse scattering has been interpreted in terms of a Blech-Averbach function. Received: 30 June 1998 / Revised, accepted: 3 March 1999     

Investigating groundwater flow components in an Alpine relict rock glacier (Austria) using a numerical model

Relict rock glaciers are complex hydrogeological systems that might act as relevant groundwater storages; therefore, the discharge behavior of these alpine landforms needs to be better understood. Hydrogeological and geophysical investigations at a relict rock glacier in the Niedere Tauern Range (Austria) reveal a slow and fast flow component that appear to be related to the heterogeneous structure of the aquifer. A numerical groundwater flow model was used to indicate the influence of important internal structures such as layering, preferential flow paths and aquifer-base topography. Discharge dynamics can be reproduced reasonably by both introducing layers of strongly different hydraulic conductivities or by a network of highly conductive channels within a low-conductivity zone. Moreover, the topography of the aquifer base influences the discharge dynamics, which can be observed particularly in simply structured aquifers. Hydraulic conductivity differences of three orders of magnitude are required to account for the observed discharge behavior: a highly conductive layer and/or channel network controlling the fast and flashy spring responses to recharge events, as opposed to less conductive sediment accumulations sustaining the long-term base flow. The results show that the hydraulic behavior of this relict rock glacier and likely that of others can be adequately represented by two aquifer components. However, the attempt to characterize the two components by inverse modeling results in ambiguity of internal structures when solely discharge data are available.     

Environmental change,hydromorphological reference conditions and the restoration of Polish Carpathian rivers

In the twentieth century Polish Carpathian rivers were considerably modified by channelization and gravel mining, with significant detrimental effects to their ecological integrity, vertical stability of the streambeds and flood hazard to downstream river reaches. Restoration of the rivers is thus necessary to improve their ecological status and re‐establish geomorphic dynamic equilibrium conditions. Various approaches to defining hydromorphological reference conditions, proposed to date in river restoration literature, have serious deficiencies. In particular, environmental changes that took place in the catchments of Carpathian rivers during the twentieth century invalidate the historical state of the rivers as reference for their restoration. This is illustrated by a change from bar‐braided to island‐braided channel pattern that occurred in the past century in unmanaged sections of the Czarny Dunajec in response to a reduction in flow and sediment dynamics of the river. We indicate that reference conditions should be defined as those which exist or would exist under present environmental conditions in the catchment but without human influence on the channel, riparian zone and floodplain of the river which is to be restored. This assumption was tested through the evaluation of hydromorphological river quality of the Czarny Dunajec according to the European Standard EN‐14614. The evaluation confirmed a high‐status hydromorphological quality in an unmanaged channel section, which can thus be used as a reference for restoration of impacted river sections. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Remote Sensing Data Binary Classification Using Boosting with Simple Classifiers

Boosting is a classification method which has been proven useful in non-satellite image processing while it is still new to satellite remote sensing. It is a meta-algorithm, which builds a strong classifier from many weak ones in iterative way. We adapt the AdaBoost.M1 boosting algorithm in a new land cover classification scenario based on utilization of very simple threshold classifiers employing spectral and contextual information. Thresholds for the classifiers are automatically calculated adaptively to data statistics.The proposed method is employed for the exemplary problem of artificial area identification. Classification of IKONOS multispectral data results in short computational time and overall accuracy of 94.4% comparing to 94.0% obtained by using AdaBoost.M1 with trees and 93.8% achieved using Random Forest. The influence of a manipulation of the final threshold of the strong classifier on classification results is reported.