Landslide disaster risk awareness in Mexico: community access to mapping at local scale

Recent investigations have sought to understand the spatial-temporal distribution of landslides in Teziutlán, Puebla, a municipality historically affected by landslides. The latest initiative, under the umbrella of the ICL-IPL Project “Landslide disaster risk communication in mountain areas,” was the publication of a book of Atlas type comprising a collection of 142 maps and their corresponding explanatory texts that included a context analysis of landslide disaster risk drivers at various scales, from regional to local. This paper aims to recognise and address the necessity to further enhance the guiding principle of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction to focus on the understanding of disaster risk drivers at local level, for the determination of measures to reduce disaster risk. We present an initial contribution to promote landslide disaster risk awareness in the urban area of Teziutlán by providing to the community direct access to maps of landslide disaster risk at local scale; this is a first step towards the establishment of a robust strategy to communicate landslide risk in the long term. Effective implementation calls for decreasing vulnerability and exposure. Beyond contexts of vulnerability reflected by social, economic, cultural, political, and institutional conditions, it may be difficult to picture the spatial interactions of exposure of communities, assets, and the environment because the means of analysing spatial relationships between society and nature are not commonly available in mountain areas. Therefore, for people to better understand risk, maps of landslide susceptibility and risk exposure present a good way for the inhabitants to familiarise themselves with the spatial context of the dynamics in which they are immersed.     

Multivariate analyses of water chemistry: surface and ground water interactions

Multivariate statistical methods (MSMs) applied to ground water chemistry provide valuable insight into the main hydrochemical species, hydrochemical processes, and water flowpaths important to ground water evolution. The MSMs of principal component factor analysis (FA) and k-means cluster analysis (CA) were sequentially applied to major ion chemistry from 211 different ground water-sampling locations in the Amargosa Desert. The FA reduces the number of variables describing the system and finds relationships between major ions. The CA of the reduced system produced objective hydrochemical facies, which are independent of, but in good agreement with, lithological data. The derived factors and hydrochemical facies are innovatively presented on biplots, revealing composition of hydrochemical processes and facies, and overlaid on a digital elevation model, displaying flowpaths and interactions with geologic and topographic features in the region. In particular, a distinct ground water chemical signature is observed beneath and surrounding the extended flowpath of Fortymile Wash, presenting some contradiction to contemporary water levels along with potential interaction with a fault line. The signature surrounding the ephemeral Fortymile Wash is believed to represent the relic of water that infiltrated during past pluvial periods when the amount of runoff in the wash was significantly larger than during the current drier period. This hypothesis and aforementioned analyses are supported by the examination of available chloride, oxygen-18, hydrogen-2, and carbon-14 data from the region.     

Behavior of ductile steel X-braced RC frames in seismic zones

A satisfactory ductile performance of moment-resisting reinforced concrete concentric braced frame structures (RC-MRCBFs) is not warranted by only following the provisions proposed in Mexico’s Federal District Code (MFDC-04). The nonlinear behavior of low to medium rise ductile RC-MRCBFs using steel X-bracing susceptible to buckling is evaluated in this study. The height of the studied structures ranges from 4 to 20 stories and they were located for design in the lake-bed zone of Mexico City. The design of RC-MRCBFs was carried out considering variable contribution of the two main lines of defense of the dual system (RC columns and steel braces). In order to observe the principal elements responsible for dissipating the earthquake input energy, yielding mappings for different load-steps were obtained using both nonlinear static and dynamic analyses. Some design parameters currently proposed in MFDC-04 as global ductility capacities, overstrength reduction factors and story drifts corresponding to different limit states were assessed as a function of both the considered shear strength and slenderness ratios for the studied RC-MRCBFs using pushover analyses. Additionally, envelopes of response maxima of dynamic parameters were obtained from the story and global hysteresis curves. Finally, a brief discussion regarding residual drifts, residual drift ratios, mappings of residual deformations in steel braces and residual rotations in RC beams and columns is presented. From the analysis of the obtained results, it is concluded that when a suitable design criterion is considered, good structural behavior of RC-MRCBFs with steel-X bracing can be obtained. It is also observed that the shear strength balance has an impact in the height-wise distribution of residual drifts, and an important “shake-down” effect is obtained for all cases. There is a need to improve design parameters currently proposed in MFDC to promote an adequate seismic performance of RC-MRCBFs.

     

Drought and Spatiotemporal Variability of Forest Fires Across Mexico

Understanding the spatiotemporal links between drought and forest fire occurrence is crucial for improving decision-making in fire management under current and future climatic conditions. We quantified forest fire activity in Mexico using georeferenced fire records for the period of 2005–2015 and examined its spatial and temporal relationships with a multiscalar drought index, the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index(SPEI). A total of 47975 fire counts were recorded in the 11-year long study period, with the peak in fire frequency occurring in 2011. We identified four fire clusters, i.e., regions where there is a high density of fire records in Mexico using the Getis-Ord G spatial statistic. Then, we examined fire frequency data in the clustered regions and assessed how fire activity related to the SPEI for the entire study period and also for the year 2011. Associations between the SPEI and fire frequency varied across Mexico and fire-SPEI relationships also varied across the months of major fire occurrence and related SPEI temporal scales. In particular, in the two fire clusters located in northern Mexico(Chihuahua, northern Baja California), drier conditions over the previous 5 months triggered fire occurrence. In contrast, we did not observe a significant relationship between drought severity and fire frequency in the central Mexico cluster, which exhibited the highest fire frequency. We also found moderate fire-drought associations in the cluster situated in the tropical southern Chiapas where agriculture activities are the main causes of forest fire occurrence. These results are useful for improving our understanding of the spatiotemporal patterns of fire occurrence as related to drought severity in megadiverse countries hosting many forest types as Mexico.     

Temporal evolution of surface humidity in Spain: recent trends and possible physical mechanisms

We analyzed the evolution of surface relative humidity (RH) and specific humidity (q) in Spain, based on complete records available from the State Meteorological Agency of Spain. The surface RH records used span the period 1920–2011, but because of spatial and temporal constraints in the dataset we used a subset of the data, covering the period 1961–2011. The subset contained 50 monthly series of RH, which were created through a process of quality control, reconstruction and homogenization. The data shows that there was a large decrease in RH over mainland Spain from 1961 to 2011, which was greatest in spring and summer. In contrast, there was no overall change in the specific humidity in this period, except in spring, when an increase was observed. The decrease in RH affected the entire country, but the changes in specific humidity were less homogeneous. For specific humidity there was a general increase in the northern and eastern parts of Spain, whereas negative trends dominated in the central and southern areas, mainly during the summer months. The results suggest that an increase in the water holding capacity of the atmosphere as a consequence of warming during recent decades has not been accompanied by an increase in the surface water vapor content, probably because the supply of water vapor from the main terrestrial and oceanic areas has been constrained. We discuss the implications of these findings for evapotranspiration processes, precipitation and water management in Spain.     

The Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in southern Iberia

New data and a review of historiographic information from Neolithic sites of the Malaga and Algarve coasts (southern Iberian Peninsula) and from the Maghreb (North Africa) reveal the existence of a Neolithic settlement at least from 7.5 cal ka BP. The agricultural and pastoralist food producing economy of that population rapidly replaced the coastal economies of the Mesolithic populations. The timing of this population and economic turnover coincided with major changes in the continental and marine ecosystems, including upwelling intensity, sea-level changes and increased aridity in the Sahara and along the Iberian coast. These changes likely impacted the subsistence strategies of the Mesolithic populations along the Iberian seascapes and resulted in abandonments manifested as sedimentary hiatuses in some areas during the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition. The rapid expansion and area of dispersal of the early Neolithic traits suggest the use of marine technology. Different evidences for a Maghrebian origin for the first colonists have been summarized. The recognition of an early North-African Neolithic influence in Southern Iberia and the Maghreb is vital for understanding the appearance and development of the Neolithic in Western Europe. Our review suggests links between climate change, resource allocation, and population turnover.     

Geostatistical simulation of spatial variability of convective storms in Mexico City Valley

Precipitation is one of the main components of the hydrological cycle and knowledge of its spatial distribution is fundamental for the prediction of other closely related environmental variables, for example, runoff, flooding and aquifer recharge. Most of the precipitation in Mexico City is due to convective storms characterized by a high spatial variability, implying that modeling its behavior is very complex. In this work stochastic simulation techniques with a geostatistical approach were applied to model the spatial variability of the rainfall of three convective storms. The analysis of the results shows that using the proposed methodology spatial distributions of rain are obtained that reproduce the statistical characteristics present in the available information.     

Magmatic diversity of western Mexico as a function of metamorphic transformations in the subducted oceanic plate

This geochemical study of the Mexican subduction zone elucidates how metamorphic and dehydration reactions affecting the subducted oceanic plate at different depths can influence magmatic diversity. In the western Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, there is a narrow potassic volcanic front running in parallel to the Middle American Trench that becomes replaced by intraplate-like high-Nb rocks to the north, and by more typical calc-alkaline products to the southeast. Potassic rocks have high MgO and are enriched in incompatible trace elements, but have lower heavy rare earth element contents than more evolved calc-alkaline and high-Nb magmas, and slightly more enriched Sr, Nd and Pb isotopes. Potassic magmas also have higher Rb/Cs and Ba/Cs ratios than the calc-alkaline and high-Nb suites, and extend to unusually high Nb/Ta ratios that correlate positively with Rb/Ta, Zr/Ta, La/Ta and Gd/Yb. These chemical variations are inconsistent with different extents of melting of a peridotitic source, but are also incompatible with melting of a phlogopite-rich mantle (vein-plus-wall-rock relationship), unless mica is totally consumed during melting, and a titaniferous phase such as rutile remains in the residue together with garnet. This assemblage is unlikely in the source region of primitive hydrous magmas, but it is what would be expected during dissolution of phengite and monazite/allanite in the subducted slab, with the concurrent formation of an anhydrous rutile-bearing eclogite. The magmatic diversity of western Mexico can thus be explained by invoking contributions of chemically different subduction agents as a function of slab depth and residual mineralogy: a low-pressure/temperature aqueous fluid would induce melting of the peridotitic mantle wedge and form typical calc-alkaline volcanoes, whereas a deeper and hotter slab-derived melt (or supercritical liquid) would contribute to the formation of potassic magmas due to phengite/monazite/allanite disintegration. In this context, intraplate-like magmas derive from decompression melting of the upper mantle as a natural consequence of subduction geodynamics.     

Pollution and eutrophication history AD 1800–2005 as recorded in sediments from five lakes in Central Chile

One of the fundamental problems to quantifying past impact of anthropogenic activities is that long series of observational data for pollutant deposition and changes in the nutrient cycling of ecosystems (eutrophication) are often not available. Lake sediments may provide suitable archives to decipher the history of local and regional pollution and eutrophication.Here we provide quantitative high-resolution data for the history of airborne pollutants and eutrophication from sediments of five lakes in Central Chile between ca. AD 1800–2005. We use spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs) from fossil fuel combustion and excess atmospheric Cu deposition from mining activities as a proxy for atmospheric deposition. Organic carbon and nitrogen flux rates to the sediments and C/N ratios are used as a proxy for aquatic primary production and eutrophication.We show that the lake sediment SCP and Cu records are highly consistent and depict in great detail the local and regional history of urban, industrial and transportation history as reported in independent documentary sources and statistics. The pre-industrial and pre-1950 background concentrations (and flux rates) of the substances can be quantified. We can also show that technical measures taken in the early 1980s to trim down Cu emissions from the copper mines reduced the excess atmospheric Cu fallout to the lakes by about 50%.Eutrophication of the lakes did not start before ca. 1980. Prior to that time, warm season temperatures explain most of the variance in TOC and N flux to the sediments. The three dimictic lakes show only moderate eutrophication responses to enhanced N supply (as atmospheric fallout; enrichment factors for TOC and N 1.1–2.6), suggesting that mainly phosphorus controls aquatic primary production. The meromictic lake, where phosphorus recycling is likely, shows the largest response (enrichment factors for TOC and N between 9–20).While all five lakes show overall consistent and similar trends for the pollution history during the 19th and 20th century, there are significant differences in the details of the individual profiles. This suggests that local sources are highly important and the common regional (background) signal is relatively marginal. This is very different from Europe.     

Revealing the “fingerprints” of the magnetic precursor of C-shocks

We present the first C-shock and radiative transfer model that calculates the evolution of the line profiles of neutral and ion species like SiO, H¹³CO⁺ and HN¹³C for different flow times along the propagation of the shock through the unperturbed gas. We find that the line profiles of SiO characteristic of the magnetic precursor stage have very narrow linewidths and are centered at velocities close to the ambient cloud velocity, as observed toward the young shocks in the L1448-mm outflow. Consistently with previous works, our model also reproduces the broad SiO emission detected in the high velocity gas in this outflow, for the downstream postshock gas in the shock. This implies that the different velocity components observed in L1448-mm are due to the coexistence of different shocks at different evolutionary stages.