Influence of water level fluctuation on the spatial dynamic of the water chemistry at Lake Fertõ/Neusiedler See

Lake Fertõ/Neusiedler See is a steppe lake situated on the Hungarian-Austrian border with a surface area of 309 km². It is an extremely shallow lake with regulated outflow. 54% of the whole lake and 85% of the Hungarian part (75 km²) is covered by reed. There are numerous reedless areas (inner ponds) of variable size within the reed belt, which is enmeshed with canals connecting the inner ponds with the open water areas. Fundamental differences were recorded in the water chemistry of the three water type areas, open water, canals and inner ponds. The degree of these differences is basically determined by the distance from the open water areas and the water level of the actual years. An extremely high, an average and an extremely low water level year was examined, in order to present the spatial and temporal differences in the water chemistry of the investigated water bodies. Differences due to the water level fluctuation between years in the three different water types are discussed on the basis of electrical conductivity, cation, and anion concentration changes of the water. Our results support the concept of high instability of Lake Fertõ and describe habitats with remarkable temporal and spatial variability. The high influence of water level on habitat conditions at different sites of the lake recommend a carefull water level regulation strategy.     

The use of plastic debris as nesting material by a colonial seabird and associated entanglement mortality

Entanglement with plastic debris is a major cause of mortality in marine taxa, but the population-level consequences are unknown. Some seabirds collect marine debris for nesting material, which may lead to entanglement. Here we investigate the use of plastics as nesting material by northern gannets Morus bassanus and assess the associated levels of mortality. On average gannet nests contained 469.91 g (range 0-1293 g) of plastic, equating to an estimated colony total of 18.46 tonnes (range 4.47-42.34 tonnes). The majority of nesting material was synthetic rope, which appears to be used preferentially. On average 62.85 ± 26.84 (range minima 33-109) birds were entangled each year, totalling 525 individuals over eight years, the majority of which were nestlings. Although mortality rates are high, they are unlikely to have population-level effects. The use of synthetic fibres as nesting material is a common strategy among seabirds, but the impacts of entanglement warrants further investigation.     

Mapping of erosion rates in marly badlands based on a coupling of anatomical changes in exposed roots with slope maps derived from LiDAR data

Black marls form very extensive outcrops in the Alps and constitute some of the most eroded terrains, thus causing major problems of sedimentation in artificial storage systems (e.g. reservoirs) and river systems. In the experimental catchments near Draix (France), soil erosion rates have been measured in the past at the plot scale through a detailed monitoring of surface elevation changes and at the catchment scale through continuous monitoring of sediment yield in traps at basin outlets. More recently, erosion rates have been determined by means of dendrogeomorphic techniques in three monitored catchments of the Draix basin. A total of 48 exposed roots of Scots pine have been sampled and anatomical variations in annual growth rings resulting from denudation analysed. At the plot scale, average medium‐term soil erosion rates derived from exposed roots vary between 1·8 and 13·8 mm yr^?1 (average: 5·9 mm yr^?1) and values are significantly correlated with slope angle. The dendrogeomorphic record of point‐scale soil erosion rates matches very well with soil erosion rates measured in the Draix basins. Based on the point‐scale measurements and dendrogeomorphic results obtained at the point scale, a linear regression model involving slope angle was derived and coupled to high‐resolution slope maps obtained from a LiDAR‐generated digital elevation model so as to generate high‐resolution soil erosion maps. The resulting regression model is statistically significant and average soil erosion rates obtained from the areal erosion map (5·8, 5·2 and 6·2 mm yr^?1 for the Roubine, Moulin and Laval catchments, respectively) prove to be well in concert with average annual erosion rates measured in traps at the outlet of these catchments since 1985 (6·3, 4·1 and 6·4 mm yr^?1). This contribution demonstrates that dendrogeomorphic analyses of roots clearly have significant potential and that they are a powerful tool for the quantification and mapping of soil erosion rates in areas where measurements of past erosion is lacking. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A review of the LATEX project: mesoscale to submesoscale processes in a coastal environment

The main objective of the LAgrangian Transport EXperiment (LATEX) project was to study the influence of coastal mesoscale and submesoscale physical processes on circulation dynamics, cross-shelf exchanges, and biogeochemistry in the western continental shelf of the Gulf of Lion, Northwestern Mediterranean Sea. LATEX was a five-year multidisciplinary project based on the combined analysis of numerical model simulations and multi-platform field experiments. The model component included a ten-year realistic 3D numerical simulation, with a 1 km horizontal resolution over the gulf, nested in a coarser 3 km resolution model. The in situ component involved four cruises, including a large-scale multidisciplinary campaign with two research vessels in 2010. This review concentrates on the physics results of LATEX, addressing three main subjects: (1) the investigation of the mesoscale to submesoscale processes. The eddies are elliptic, baroclinic, and anticyclonic; the strong thermal and saline front is density compensated. Their generation processes are studied; (2) the development of sampling strategies for their direct observations. LATEX has implemented an adaptive strategy Lagrangian tool, with a reference software available on the web, to perform offshore campaigns in a Lagrangian framework; (3) the quantification of horizontal mixing and cross-shelf exchanges. Lateral diffusivity coefficients, calculated in various ways including a novel technique, are in the range classically encountered for their associated scales. Cross-shelf fluxes have been calculated, after retrieving the near-inertial oscillation contribution. Further perspectives are discussed, especially for the ongoing challenge of studying submesoscale features remotely and from in situ data.     

How does water near clay mineral surfaces influence the rock physics of shales?

Clays and clay‐bearing rocks like shale are extremely water sensitive. This is partly due to the interaction between water and mineral surfaces, strengthened by the presence of nanometer‐size pores and related large specific surface areas. Molecular‐scale numerical simulations, using a discrete‐element model, show that shear rigidity can be associated with structurally ordered (bound or adsorbed) water near charged surfaces. Building on these and other molecular dynamics simulations plus nanoscale experiments from the literature, the water monolayer adjacent to hydrophilic solid surfaces appears to be characterised by shear stiffness and/or enhanced viscosity. In both cases, elastic wave propagation will be affected by the bound or adsorbed water. Using a simple rock physics model, bound water properties were adjusted to match laboratory measured P‐ and S‐wave velocities on pure water‐saturated kaolinite and smectite. To fit the measured stress sensitivity, particularly for kaolinite, the contribution from solid‐grain contact stiffness needs to be added. The model predicts, particularly for S‐waves, that viscoelastic bound water could be a source of dispersion in clay and clay‐rich rocks. The bound‐water‐based rock physics model is found to represent a lower bound to laboratory‐measured velocities obtained with shales of different mineralogy and porosity levels.     

Transport of salt and freshwater in the Atlantic Subpolar Gyre

Transport of salt in the Irminger Current, the northern branch of the Atlantic Subpolar Gyre coupling the eastern and western subpolar North Atlantic, plays an important role for climate variability across a wide range of time scales. High-resolution ocean modeling and observations indicate that salinities in the eastern subpolar North Atlantic decrease with enhanced circulation of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG). This has led to the perception that a stronger SPG also transports less salt westward. In this study, we analyze a regional ocean model and a comprehensive global coupled climate model, and show that a stronger SPG transports more salt in the Irminger Current irrespective of lower salinities in its source region. The additional salt converges in the Labrador Sea and the Irminger Basin by eddy transports, increases surface salinity in the western SPG, and favors more intense deep convection. This is part of a positive feedback mechanism with potentially large implications for climate variability and predictability.     

Active channel width as a proxy of sediment supply from mining sites in New Caledonia

Although the channel morphology of upland fluvial systems is known to be strongly controlled by sediment supply from hillslopes, it is still difficult to isolate this effect from the other controlling factors of channel forms, such as the sediment transport capacity (depending notably on the size of the catchment) and local conditions (e.g. confinement, riparian vegetation, valley-floor slope). The rivers in New Caledonia offer an interesting field laboratory to isolate the morphological effect of contrasted sediment supply conditions. Some of these rivers are known to be highly impacted by the coarse sediment waves induced by the mining of nickel deposits that started in the early 1870s, which was particularly intensive between the 1940s and 1970s. The propagation of the sediment pulses from the mining sites can be traced by the presence of wide and aggraded active channels along the stream network of nickel-rich peridotite massifs. A first set of 63 undisturbed catchments in peridotite massifs distributed across the Grande Terre was used to fit a classic scaling law between active channel width and drainage area. A second set of 86 impacted sites, where the presence of sediment waves was clearly attested by recent aerial imagery, showed systematically wider active channels, with a width ratio around 5 (established from the intercept ratio of width–area power laws). More importantly, this second set of disturbed sites confirmed that the residual of active channel widths, computed from the scaling law of undisturbed sites, is statistically positively related to the catchment-scale relative area of major mining sediment sources. It is therefore confirmed that the characterization of sediment supply conditions is crucial for the understanding of spatial patterns of active channel width, and this should be more thoroughly considered in morphological studies of rivers draining environments with contrasted geomorphic activities on hillslopes. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.