Improving runoff prediction using agronomical information in a cropped,loess covered catchment

Predicting runoff hot spots and hot‐moments within a headwater crop‐catchment is of the utmost importance to reduce adverse effects on aquatic ecosystems by adapting land use management to control runoff. Reliable predictions of runoff patterns during a crop growing season remain challenging. This is mainly due to the large spatial and temporal variations of topsoil hydraulic properties controlled by complex interactions between weather, growing vegetation, and cropping operations. This interaction can significantly modify runoff patterns and few process‐based models can integrate this evolution of topsoil properties during a crop growing season at the catchment scale. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to better constrain the event‐based hydrological model Limburg Soil Erosion Model by incorporating temporal constraints for input topsoil properties during a crop growing season (LISEM). The results of the temporal constraint strategy (TCS) were compared with a classical event per event calibration strategy (EES) using multi‐scale runoff information (from plot to catchment). The EES and TCS approaches were applied in a loess catchment of 47 ha located 30 km northeast of Strasbourg (Alsace, France). A slight decrease of the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency criterion on runoff discharge for TCS compared to EES was counterbalanced by a clear improvement of the spatial runoff patterns within the catchment. This study showed that limited agronomical and climatic information added during the calibration step improved the spatial runoff predictions of an event‐based model. Reliable prediction of runoff source, connectivity, and dynamics can then be derived and discussed with stakeholders to identify runoff hot spots and hot‐moments for subsequent land use and crop management modifications.     

A clear and present danger: Ladakh's increasing vulnerability to flash floods and debris flows

This preliminary investigation of the recent spate of deadly flash floods and debris flows in Ladakh (India) over the last decade identifies uncontrolled development in hazardous locations as an important factor contributing to loss of life and property damage in this high mountain desert. The sediments exposed in the channel banks and on the alluvial fans of several mountain streams in the area indicate a long history of flash floods and debris flows resulting from intense storms, which appear to have increased in frequency within the last decade. The signposts of these recurrent hazards are being ignored as a growing economy, which is boosted by a well‐established tourism industry, is now driving development onto lands that are susceptible to floods and debris flow hazards. In this science briefing we argue that the increasing vulnerability in Ladakh should be addressed with sound disaster governance strategies that are proactive, rather than reactionary. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantification of uncertainty in design water levels due to uncertain bed form roughness in the Dutch river Waal

Hydrodynamic river models are applied to design and evaluate measures for purposes such as safety against flooding. The modelling of river processes involves numerous uncertainties, resulting in uncertain model results. Knowledge of the type and magnitude of these uncertainties is crucial for a meaningful interpretation of the model results. Uncertainty in the hydraulic roughness due to bed forms is one of the main contributors to the uncertainty in the modelled water levels. The aim of this study was to quantify the uncertainty in the bed form roughness under design conditions and quantify the effect on the design water levels in the Dutch river Waal. Five roughness models that predict bed form roughness based on measured bed form and flow characteristics were extrapolated to design conditions. The results show that the 95% confidence interval of the predicted Nikuradse roughness values under design conditions ranges from 0.32 to 1.03 m. This uncertainty was propagated through the two‐dimensional hydrodynamic model, WAQUA, by means of a Monte Carlo simulation for an idealized schematization of the Dutch river Waal. The uncertain bed form roughness results in an uncertainty in the design water levels, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.53 m, which is significant for Dutch river management practice. The uncertainty in the bed form roughness was mainly caused by a lack of knowledge about the physical process of bed form evolution that causes roughness. An improved estimation of bed form roughness can significantly reduce the uncertainty in the design water levels. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Precambrian–Cambrian nonconformity at the Ercall Quarries,The Wrekin,Shropshire, UK

The Precambrian–Cambrian boundary is iconic, marking the first appearance of shelly fauna in the fossil record, and opening the Phanerozoic Eon. In England and Wales, the transition from predominantly Precambrian igneous rocks to Cambrian sedimentary strata is generally unconformable. An exceptional exposure of this transition can be observed in the Ercall Quarries in Shropshire, a classic locality in all senses of the word.     

Precambrian history of the Zona Transversal of the Borborema Province,NE Brazil: Insights from Sm–Nd and U–Pb geochronology

The Borborema Province has three major subprovinces. The northern subprovince lies north of the Patos shear zone and is comprised of Paleoproterozoic cratonic basement with Archean nuclei, plus overlying Neoproterozoic supracrustal rocks and Brasiliano plutonic rocks. The central subprovince occurs between the Patos and Pernambuco shear zones and is mainly comprised of the Zona Transversal. The southern subprovince occurs between the Pernamabuco shear zone and the São Francisco craton and is comprised of a tectonic collage of various blocks, terranes, or domains ranging in age from Archean to Neoproterozoic. This report focuses on the Zona Transversal, especially on Brasiliano rocks for which we have the most new information.Paleoproterozoic gneisses with ages of 2.0–2.2 Ga occur discontinuously throughout the Zona Transversal. The Cariris Velhos suite consists of metavolcanic, metasedimentary, and metaplutonic rocks yielding U–Pb zircon ages of 995–960 Ma. This suite is mainly confined to a 100 km wide belt that extends for more than 700 km within the Alto Pajeú terrane. Sm–Nd model ages in metaigneous rocks cluster about 1.3–1.6 Ga, indicating that older crust was involved in genesis of their magmas. Brasiliano supracrustal rocks dominate the Piancó-Alto Brígida terrane, and they probably also constitute significant parts of the Alto Pajeú and Rio Capibaribe terranes. They are only slightly older than early stages of Brasiliano plutonism, with detrital zircon ages at least as young as 620 Ma; most T_DM ages range from 1.2 to 1.6 Ga.Brasiliano plutons range from ca. 640 to 540 Ma, and their T_DM ages range from 1.2 to 2.5 Ga. Previous workers have shown significant correlations among U–Pb ages, Sm–Nd model ages, petrology, and geochemistry, and we are able to reinforce and extend these correlations. Stage I plutons formed 640–610 Ma and have T_DM ages less than 1.5 Ga. Stage II (610–590 Ma) contains few plutons, but coincides with the peak of compressional deformation, metamorphism, and formation of migmatites. Stage III plutons (590 to ca. 575 Ma) have older T_DM ages (ca. 1.8–2.0 Ga), as do Stage IV plutons (575 to ca. 550 Ma; T_DM from 1.9 to 2.4 Ga). Stage III plutons formed during the transition from compressional to transcurrent deformation, while Stage IV plutons are mainly post-tectonic. Stage V plutons (550–530 Ma) are commonly undeformed (except along younger shear zones) and have A-type geochemistry. The five stages have distinct geochemical properties, which suggest that the tectonic settings evolved from early, arc-related magma-genesis (Stage I) to within-plate magma-genesis (Stage V), with perhaps some intermediate phases of extensional environments.     

Constraints on the late Quaternary glaciations in Tibet from cosmogenic exposure ages of moraine surfaces

This contribution provides new constraints on the timing of Tibetan glacial recessions recorded by the abandonment of moraines. We present cosmogenic radionuclide ¹⁰Be inventories at 17 sites in southern and western Tibet (32 crests, 249 samples) and infer the range of permissible emplacement ages based on these analyses. Individual large embedded rock and boulder samples were collected from the crests of moraine surfaces and analyzed for ¹⁰Be abundance. We consider two scenarios to interpret the age of glacial recession leading to the moraine surface formation from these sample exposure ages: 1) Erosion of the moraine surface is insignificant and so the emplacement age of the moraines is reflected by the mean sample age; and 2) Erosion progressively exposes large boulders with little prior exposure, and so the oldest sample age records the minimum moraine emplacement age. We found that depending on the scenario chosen, the moraine emplacement age can vary by > 50% for ～100 ka-old samples. We consider two scaling models for estimating the production rates of ¹⁰Be in Tibet, which has an important, although lesser, effect on inferred moraine ages. While the data presented herein effectively increase the database of sample exposure ages from Tibet by ～20%, we find that uncertainties related to the interpretation of the ¹⁰Be abundance within individual samples in terms of moraine emplacement ages are sufficient to accommodate either a view in which glacial advances are associated with temperature minima or precipitation maxima that are recorded by independent paleoclimate proxies. A reanalysis of published data from moraines throughout Tibet shows that the variation we observe is not unique to our dataset but rather is a robust feature of the Tibetan moraine age database. Thus, when viewed in a similar way with other samples collected from this area, uncertainties within moraine exposure ages obscure attribution of Tibetan glacial advances to temperature minima or precipitation maxima. Our work suggests that more reliable chronologies of Tibetan glaciations will come from improvements in production rate models for this portion of the world, as well as a better understanding of the processes that form and modify these geomorphic surfaces.     

Evolution of forest precipitation water storage measurement methods

Precipitation intercepted by forests plays a major role in more than one‐fourth of the global land area's hydrologic cycle. Direct in situ measurement of intercepted precipitation is challenging, and thus, it is typically indirectly estimated through comparing precipitation under forest cover and in the open. We discuss/compare measurement methods for forest precipitation interception beyond classical budgeting and then recommend future directions for improving water storage estimation. Comparison of techniques shows that methods submerging tree components produce the largest water storage capacity values. Whole‐tree lysimeters have been used with great success at quantifying water storage for the integrated system yet are unable to separate trunk versus canopy storage. Remote sensing, particularly signal attenuation, may permit this separation. Mechanical displacement methods show great promise and variety of techniques: pulley/spring system, branch strain sensors, trunk compression sensors and photography. Relating wind sway to water storage also shows great promise with negligible environmental disruption yet is currently at the proof‐of‐concept stage. Suggested future directions focus on development of common features regarding all discussed methods: (i) measurement uncertainties or processes beyond interception influencing the observed signal, (ii) scaling approaches to move from single tree components to the single‐tree and forest scales and (iii) temporal scaling to estimate the relevance of single‐interception components over longer timescales. Through addressing these research needs, we hope the scientific community can develop an ‘integrated’ monitoring plan incorporating multiple measurement techniques to characterize forest‐scale water storage dynamics while simultaneously investigating underlying (smaller‐scale) components driving those dynamics across the spectrum of precipitation and forest conditions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Depositional processes across the Sinú Accretionary Prism,offshore Colombia

The Pliocene to Recent of the Sinú Accretionary Prism, offshore Colombia, features gravity current dominated basins characterised primarily by channel- and sheet-like architectures and those with dominantly hemipelagic fills. The prism is fed by rivers that drain from uplifted older basins and volcanic Andean terranes to the south and east which source large volumes of sediment to the Colombian Shelf into the Colombian Basin. Some basin fills show evidence of both localised fold-induced sediment failure and regional-scale shelf collapse, both related to the generation and destruction of oversteepened slopes. Large scale collapses can create new sediment routing pathways and/or local depocentres into which sediment subsequently accumulates. In the Colombian Basin, even relatively distal basins show evidence of channel activity related primarily to the creation of new sediment distribution pathways through breaches in the substrate barriers between basins. These channels are often orientated parallel to the regional drainage trend, suggesting that regional sediment transport trends can assert themselves relatively early in a basin filling history regardless of the local bathymetric grain. While, at a regional scale, sediment dispersal fairways reflect drainage from the continental shelf to the basin floor, intraslope basins form local bathymetric obstructions that can drive local spatial variations in sediment distribution. Thus, both local and regional length scales of bathymetric control are evident within the intraslope basins of the Sinú Accretionary Prism. Although regional dispersal patterns generally become more important in time, individual intraslope basins exhibit more complex filling histories because events such as sill or shelf collapse may serve to disrupt established distribution pathways, initiating repeated episodes of adjustment.