Development of flood exposure in the Netherlands during the 20th and 21st century

Flood risks of deltaic areas increase because of population growth, economic development, land subsidence and climatic changes such as sea-level rise. In this study, we analyze trends in flood exposure by combining spatially explicit historical, present, and future land-use data with detailed information on the maximum flood inundation in the Netherlands. We show that the total amount of urban area that can potentially become inundated due to floods from the sea or main rivers has increased six-fold during the 20th century, and may double again during the 21st century. Moreover, these developments took, and probably will take, place in areas with progressively higher potential inundation depths. Potential flood damage has increased exponentially over the 20th century (16 times) and is expected to continue to increase exponentially (∼ten-fold by 2100 with respect to 2000) assuming a high economic growth scenario. Flood damages increase more moderately (two- to three-fold by 2100 with respect to 2000) assuming a low growth scenario. The capacity to deal with catastrophic flood losses - expressed as the ratio damage/GDP - will, however, decrease slightly in the low growth scenario (by about 20%). This trend deviates from the historical trend of the 20th century, which shows an increasing capacity to cope with flood damage (almost doubling). Under the high growth scenario the capacity to deal with such losses eventually increases slightly (by about 25%). These findings illustrate that, despite higher projections of potential flood damage, high economic growth scenarios may not necessarily be worse than low growth scenarios in terms of the impact of floods.     

RESIDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD EXURBAN DEVELOPMENT IN A RURAL ONTARIO TOWNSHIP

Rural areas proximate to urban centers have recently experienced substantial exurban development. This paper examines attitudes of residents in a rural township in southern Ontario toward further residential development both in the open countryside and in small villages. The Fishbein attitude model provides the conceptual framework for the empirical analysis. Residents associate a variety of attributes with development, including higher land values and improvements in services. Attitudes toward residential development are shown to be heterogeneous, although they are not well differentiated between farm, nonfarm, and village residents.     

Novel applications of fluid inclusions and isotope geochemistry in unravelling the genesis of fossil travertine systems

The Denizli Basin is a fault‐bounded Neogene–Quaternary depression located in the Western Anatolian Extensional Province, Western Turkey. The basin is a unique geological site with abundant active and fossil (Quaternary) travertine and tufa deposits. Fluid inclusion microthermometry and isotopic analysis were applied to study the genesis of the Ball?k fossil travertine deposits, located in the south‐eastern part of the basin. Microthermometry on fluid inclusions indicates that the main travertine precipitating and cementing fluids are characterized by low salinity (<0·7 wt% NaCl equivalent) and variable temperatures that cluster at <50°C and ca 100°C. Fluids of meteoric origin have been heated by migration to the deeper subsurface, possibly in a local high geothermal gradient setting. A later uncommon cementation phase is related to a fluid with a significantly higher salinity (25·5 to 26·0 wt% bulk). The fluid obtained its salinity by interaction with Late Triassic evaporite layers. Strontium isotopes indicate that the parent carbonate source rock of the different travertine precipitates is very likely to be the Triassic limestone of the Lycian Nappes. Carbon isotopes suggest that the parent CO₂ gas originated from thermal decarbonation of the Lycian limestones with minor contributions of magmatic degassing and organic soil CO₂. Oxygen isotopes confirm the meteoric origin of the fluids and indicate disequilibrium precipitation because of evaporation and degassing. Results were integrated within the available geological data of the Denizli Basin in a generalized travertine precipitation model, which enhanced the understanding of fossil travertine systems. The study highlights the novel application of fluid inclusion research in unravelling the genesis of continental carbonates and provides several recommendations for hydrocarbon exploration in travertine‐bearing sedimentary basins. The findings suggest that travertine bodies and their parent carbonate source rocks have the potential to constitute interesting subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs.     

Paleofloods and ancient fishing weirs in NW Iberian rivers

A 15-m-thick, fluvial sedimentary record of the NW Iberian lower Miño River was studied. Grain-size analyses were performed and twelve samples were dated using optically stimulated luminescence dating techniques, documenting a 1300-yr-old reconstructed fluvial record that does not match with known climate fluctuations in the area, but is linked instead to the construction of a series of ancient fishing weirs (pesqueiras). The sedimentation phases are in agreement with known episodes of increased population density, which suggests active use of the pesqueiras. A number of sedimentation hiatuses in the fluvial record point towards damage to the pesqueiras during large-scale flooding in the Miño River basin, and a sudden drop in population probably due to the arrival of the plague in the 13th century AD. The oldest sedimentation phases started just after 700 AD, and we infer that the first pesqueiras were constructed around this time. This timing coincides with the transition of the NW Iberian landscape towards a more intensively used agricultural landscape, as evidenced from other geo-archeological investigations. The results demonstrate that the pesqueiras are several hundreds of years older than known from historical records, but not so old as to date back to the Roman occupation.     

Mercury biogeochemistry: Paradigm shifts,outstanding issues and research needs

Half a century of mercury research has provided scientists and policy makers with a detailed understanding of mercury toxicology, biogeochemical cycling and past and future impacts on human exposure. The complexity of the global biogeochemical mercury cycle has led to repeated and ongoing paradigm shifts in numerous mercury-related disciplines and outstanding questions remain. In this review, we highlight some of the paradigm shifts and questions on mercury toxicity, the risks and benefits of seafood consumption, the source of mercury in seafood, and the Arctic mercury cycle. We see a continued need for research on mercury toxicology and epidemiology, for marine mercury dynamics and ecology, and for a closer collaboration between observational mercury science and mercury modeling in general. As anthropogenic mercury emissions are closely tied to the energy cycle (in particular coal combustion), mercury exposure to humans and wildlife are likely to persist unless drastic emission reductions are put in place.     

Modelling sediment dynamics due to hillslope–river interactions: incorporating fluvial behaviour in landscape evolution model LAPSUS

Landscape evolution models (LEMs) simulate the three‐dimensional development of landscapes over time. Different LEMs have different foci, e.g. erosional behaviour, river dynamics, the fluvial domain, hillslopes or a combination. LEM LAPSUS is a relatively simple cellular model operating on timescales of centuries to millennia and using annual timesteps that has had a hillslope focus. Our objective was to incorporate fluvial behaviour in LAPSUS without changing the existing model equations. The model should be able to reproduce alternating aggradation and incision in the floodplains of catchments, depending on simulated conditions. Testing was done using an artificial digital elevation model (DEM) and a demonstration of the ability for fluvial simulation was performed for a real landscape (Torrealvilla catchment, southeast Spain). Model equations to calculate sediment dynamics and water routing were similar for both hillslope and fluvial conditions, but different parameter values were used for these domains, defined based on annual discharge. Parameters changing between the domains are convergence factor p, which is used in the multiple flow algorithm to route water, and discharge and gradient exponents m and n, used in transport capacity calculations. Erodibility and ‘sedimentability’ factors K and P were changed between cold (little vegetation, high erodibility) and warm conditions (more vegetation, lower erodibility). Results show that the adapted parameters reproduced alternating aggradation – due to divergent flow in the floodplain and sediment supply under cold conditions – and incision due to reduced sediment supply and resulting clean water erosion during simulated warm conditions. The simulated results are due to interactions between hillslopes and floodplains, as the former provide the sediments that are deposited in the latter. Similar behaviour was demonstrated when using the real DEM. Sensitivity and resolution analysis showed that the model is sensitive to changes in m, n and p and that model behaviour is influenced by DEM resolution. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.