Synergies and tradeoffs in how managers,scientists, and fishers value coral reef ecosystem services

Managing ecosystems in a changing environment faces the challenge of balancing diverse competing perspectives on which ecosystem services – nature's benefits – to prioritize. Consequently, we measured and compared how different stakeholders (managers, scientists and fishers) prioritize specific coral reef ecosystem services. Managers’ priorities were more aligned with scientists’ priorities but all stakeholder groups agreed that fishery, education, and habitat were high priorities. However, stakeholder groups differed in the extent to which they prioritized certain services. Fishers tended to assigned greater estimates to fishery and education, managers to culture, and scientists to coastal protection. Furthermore, using network analysis to map the interactions between stakeholders’ priorities, we found distinct synergies and trade-offs in how ecosystem services were prioritized, representing areas of agreement and conflict. In the fishers’ network, trade-offs emerged between two services, both of a higher priority, such as fishery and habitat. Conversely, in the scientists’ network, trade-offs emerged between services of a higher and lower priority, such as habitat and culture. The trade-offs and synergies that emerged in the managers’ network overlap with both fishers’ and scientists’ suggesting a potential brokering role that managers can play in balancing both priorities and conflicts. We suggest that measuring ecosystem service priorities can highlight key areas of agreement and conflict, both within and across stakeholder groups, to be addressed when communicating and prioritizing decisions.     

Influences of upstream reservoir stratification and downstream tidal fluctuations on the summer thermal regime of a regulated coastal river

This study focused on the effects of upstream reservoir thermal dynamics and downstream tidal influences on temperatures in a 25-km reach of Alouette River (coastal British Columbia, Canada) below a control dam and upstream of its confluence with Pitt River. Temperature was monitored during summer 2013 using 25 sensors. Water was released from the reservoir through a low level outlet at approximately 2.7 m³ s⁻¹, except during late spring when a higher flow was released over the dam spillway. Temperature variations in the lowest section of Alouette River, and in the lower portion of a tributary, were distinct from those further upstream due to backwatering effects associated with a semi-diurnal tide, which can cause flow reversals in Pitt River. An internal seiche was identified in the reservoir during mid-summer that resulted in oscillating releases of warmer and cooler water with an amplitude of up to 6°C and a period of approximately 12 hr. Wavelet analysis and band-pass filtering indicated that the 12-hr signal declined in strength with downstream distance, but remained detectable about 15 km below the dam. In contrast, the 24-hr diel signal increased in strength with distance below the dam. Travel times computed via cross-correlation of the 12-hr signals with that at the low level outlet were within ±10% of those estimated from measured mean velocities. Lagrangian tracking of water parcels using the derived travel times indicated that the cooling effect of periodic releases of cold water during the seiching period persisted to the lower extent of the non-tidal reach. The tidally influenced locations experienced higher temperatures than those recorded in the non-tidal portion of Alouette River, although the relative roles of heating in the upstream tidal reach versus upstream advection of water associated with tide-driven flow reversals in Pitt River require further study.     

An assessment of the utility of regional diatom‐based tidal‐level transfer functions

In order to understand natural sea‐level variability, and to enhance future predictions, accurate and precise estimates of Holocene tidal levels are required. Although the application of diatom‐based transfer functions can yield such data, these work best when underpinned by local training sets. Urbanized estuaries offer little prospect of obtaining local training sets and, instead, the reliability of regional transfer functions has to be assessed. The performance of a published regional (UK) diatom‐based tidal‐level transfer function applied to fossil assemblages from two contrasting core sites in the Mersey Estuary, UK, is assessed using modern analogue techniques and sediment isotope data. We find that, although estimated tidal levels coincide with changes in organic matter source, the frequent lack of modern analogues mean that palaeotide estimates are without basis. This is likely a consequence of the site‐specific nature of diatom assemblages in higher intertidal and supratidal areas in particular, where local factors are expected to exert a greater control on their ecology. This situation may be partly resolved by constructing and applying much larger regional training sets from multiple higher intertidal and supratidal sites (where intact). Otherwise the application of alternative techniques, such as regional foraminiferal tidal‐level transfer functions, may be more appropriate. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of methods for quantifying surface sublimation over seasonally snow‐covered terrain

Snow sublimation can be an important component of the snow‐cover mass balance, and there is considerable interest in quantifying the role of this process within the water and energy balance of snow‐covered regions. In recent years, robust eddy covariance (EC) instrumentation has been used to quantify snow sublimation over snow‐covered surfaces in complex mountainous terrain. However, EC can be challenging for monitoring turbulent fluxes in snow‐covered environments because of intensive data, power, and fetch requirements, and alternative methods of estimating snow sublimation are often relied upon. To evaluate the relative merits of methods for quantifying surface sublimation, fluxes calculated by the EC, Bowen ratio–energy balance (BR), bulk aerodynamic flux (BF), and aerodynamic profile (AP) methods and their associated uncertainty were compared at two forested openings in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Biases between methods are evaluated over a range of environmental conditions, and limitations of each method are discussed. Mean surface sublimation rates from both sites ranged from 0.33 to 0.36 mm day^?1, 0.14 to 0.37 mm day^?1, 0.10 to 0.17 mm day^?1, and 0.03 to 0.10 mm day^?1 for the EC, BR, BF and AP methods, respectively. The EC and/or BF methods are concluded to be superior for estimating surface sublimation in snow‐covered forested openings. The surface sublimation rates quantified in this study are generally smaller in magnitude compared with previously published studies in this region and help to refine sublimation estimates for forested openings in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tropical Pacific – mid-latitude teleconnections in medieval times

Terrestrial and marine late Holocene proxy records from the western and central US suggest that climate between approximately 500 and 1350 a.d. was marked by generally arid conditions with episodes of severe centennial-scale drought, elevated incidence of wild fire, cool sea surface temperatures (SSTs) along the California coast, and dune mobilization in the western plains. This Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) was followed by wetter conditions and warming coastal SSTs during the transition into the “Little Ice Age” (LIA). Proxy records from the tropical Pacific Ocean show contemporaneous changes indicating cool central and eastern tropical Pacific SSTs during the MCA, with warmer than modern temperatures in the western equatorial Pacific. This pattern of mid-latitude and tropical climate conditions is consistent with the hypothesis that the dry MCA in the western US resulted (at least in part) from tropically forced changes in winter NH circulation patterns like those associated with modern La Niña episodes. We examine this hypothesis, and present other analyses showing that the imprint of MCA climate change appears in proxy records from widely distributed regions around the planet, and in many cases is consistent with a cool medieval tropical Pacific. One example, explored with numerical model results, is the suggestion of increased westerlies and warmer winter temperatures over northern Europe during medieval times. An analog technique for the combined use of proxy records and model results, Proxy Surrogate Reconstruction (PSR), is introduced.     

Characterization of a multilayer aquifer using open well dilution tests

An approach to characterization of multilayer aquifer systems using open well borehole dilution is described. The approach involves measuring observation well flow velocities while a nearby extraction well is pumped by introducing a saline tracer into observation wells and collecting dilution vs. depth profiles. Inspection of tracer profile evolution allows discrete permeable layers within the aquifer to be identified. Dilution profiles for well sections between permeable layers are then converted into vertical borehole flow velocities and their evolution, using an analytic solution to the advection-dispersion equation applied to borehole flow. The dilution approach is potentially able to measure much smaller flow velocities that would be detectable using flowmeters. Vertical flow velocity data from the observation wells are then matched to those generated using a hydraulic model of the aquifer system, "shorted" by the observation wells, to yield the hydraulic properties of the constituent layers. Observation well flow monitoring of pumping tests represents a cost-effective alternative or preliminary approach to pump testing each layer of a multilayer aquifer system separately using straddle packers or screened wells and requires no prior knowledge of permeable layer depths and thicknesses. The modification described here, of using tracer dilution rather than flowmeter logging to obtain well flow velocities, allows the approach to be extended to greater well separations, thus characterizing a larger volume of the aquifer. An example of the application of this approach to a multilayer Chalk Aquifer in Yorkshire, Northeast England, is presented.     

River-aquifer interactions, geologic heterogeneity, and low-flow management

Low river flows are commonly controlled by river-aquifer exchange, the magnitude of which is governed by hydraulic properties of both aquifer and aquitard materials beneath the river. Low flows are often important ecologically. Numerical simulations were used to assess how textural heterogeneity of an alluvial system influences river seepage and low flows. The Cosumnes River in California was used as a test case. Declining fall flows in the Cosumnes River have threatened Chinook salmon runs. A ground water-surface water model for the lower river basin was developed, which incorporates detailed geostatistical simulations of aquifer heterogeneity. Six different realizations of heterogeneity and a homogenous model were run for a 3-year period. Net annual seepage from the river was found to be similar among the models. However, spatial distribution of seepage along the channel, water table configuration and the level of local connection, and disconnection between the river and aquifer showed strong variations among the different heterogeneous models. Most importantly, the heterogeneous models suggest that river seepage losses can be reduced by local reconnections, even when the regional water table remains well below the riverbed. The percentage of river channel responsible for 50% of total river seepage ranged from 10% to 26% in the heterogeneous models as opposed to 23% in the homogeneous model. Differences in seepage between the models resulted in up to 13 d difference in the number of days the river was open for salmon migration during the critical fall months in one given year.     

Determining Titan surface topography from Cassini SAR data

A technique, referred to as SARTopo, has been developed for obtaining surface height estimates with 10 km horizontal resolution and 75 m vertical resolution of the surface of Titan along each Cassini Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) swath. We describe the technique and present maps of the co-located data sets. A global map and regional maps of Xanadu and the northern hemisphere hydrocarbon lakes district are included in the results. A strength of the technique is that it provides topographic information co-located with SAR imagery. Having a topographic context vastly improves the interpretability of the SAR imagery and is essential for understanding Titan.SARTopo is capable of estimating surface heights for most of the SAR-imaged surface of Titan. Currently nearly 30% of the surface is within 100 km of a SARTopo height profile. Other competing techniques provide orders of magnitude less coverage.We validate the SARTopo technique through comparison with known geomorphological features such as mountain ranges and craters, and by comparison with co-located nadir altimetry, including a 3000 km strip that had been observed by SAR a month earlier. In this area, the SARTopo and nadir altimetry data sets are co-located tightly (within 5-10 km for one 500 km section), have similar resolution, and as expected agree closely in surface height. Furthermore the region contains prominent high spatial resolution topography, so it provides an excellent test of the resolution and precision of both techniques.     

Resolving the 180° Ambiguity in Solar Vector Magnetic Field Data: Evaluating the Effects of Noise,Spatial Resolution,and Method Assumptions

The objective testing of algorithms for performing ambiguity resolution in vector magnetic field data is continued, with an examination of the effects of noise in the data. Through the use of analytic magnetic field models, two types of noise are “added” prior to resolving: noise to simulate Poisson photon noise in the observed polarization spectra, and a spatial binning to simulate the effects of unresolved structure. The results are compared through the use of quantitative metrics and performance maps. We find that while no algorithm severely propagates the effects of Poisson noise beyond very local influences, some algorithms are more robust against high photon-noise levels than others. In the case of limited spatial resolution, loss of information regarding fine-scale structure can easily result in erroneous solutions. Our tests imply that photon noise and limited spatial resolution can act so as to make assumptions used in some ambiguity resolution algorithms no longer consistent with the observed magnetogram. We confirm a finding of the earlier comparison study that results can be very sensitive to the details of the treatment of the observed boundary and the assumptions governing that treatment. We discuss the implications of these findings, given the relative sensitivities of the algorithms to the two sources of noise tested here. We also touch on further implications for interpreting observational vector magnetic field data for general solar physics research.