The Fill–Spill Hydrology of Prairie Wetland Complexes during Drought and Deluge

The fill–spill of surface depressions (wetlands) results in intermittent surface water connectivity between wetlands in the prairie wetland region of North America. Dynamic connectivity between wetlands results in dynamic contributing areas for runoff. However, the effect of fill–spill and the resultant variable or dynamic basin contributing area has largely been disregarded in the hydrological community. Long‐term field observations recorded at the St. Denis National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, allow fill–spill in the basin to be identified and quantified. Along with historical water‐level observations dating back to 1968, recent data collected for the basin include snow surveys, surface water survey and production of a light detection and ranging–derived digital elevation model. Data collection for the basin includes both wet and dry antecedent basin conditions during spring runoff events. A surface water survey at St. Denis in 2006 reveals a disconnected channel network during the spring freshet runoff event. Rather than 100% of the basin contributing runoff to the outlet, which most hydrological models assume, only approximately 39% of the basin contributes to the outlet. Anthropogenic features, such as culverts and roads, were found to influence the extent and spatial distribution of contributing areas in the basin. Historical pond depth records illustrate the effect of antecedent basin conditions on fill–spill and basin contributing area. A large pond at the outlet of the St. Denis basin, which only receives local runoff during dry years when upstream surface storage has not been satisfied, has pond runoff volumes that increase by a factor of 20 or more during wet years when upstream antecedent basin surface storage is satisfied and basin‐wide runoff contributes to the pond. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improving soil moisture accounting and streamflow prediction in SWAT by incorporating a modified time‐dependent Curve Number method

The objective of this study is to incorporate a time‐dependent Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) based Curve Number method (SMA_CN) in Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and compare its performance with the existing CN method in SWAT by simulating the hydrology of two agricultural watersheds in Indiana, USA. Results show that fusion of the SMA_CN method causes decrease in runoff volume and increase in profile soil moisture content, associated with larger groundwater contribution to the streamflow. In addition, the higher amount of moisture in the soil profile slightly elevates the actual evapotranspiration. The SMA‐based SWAT configuration consistently produces improved goodness‐of‐fit scores and less uncertain outputs with respect to streamflow during both calibration and validation. The SMA_CN method exhibits a better match with the observed data for all flow regimes, thereby addressing issues related to peak and low flow predictions by SWAT in many past studies. Comparison of the calibrated model outputs with field‐scale soil moisture observations reveals that the SMA overhauling enables SWAT to represent soil moisture condition more accurately, with better response to the incident rainfall dynamics. While the results from the modification of the CN method in SWAT are promising, more studies including watersheds with various physical and climatic settings are needed to validate the proposed approach. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Occurrence and seasonal variations of algal toxins in water, phytoplankton and shellfish from North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia

A number of marine microalgae are known to produce toxins that can accumulate in shellfish and when eaten, lead to toxic and potentially fatal reactions in humans. This paper reports on the occurrence and seasonal variations of algal toxins in the waters, phytoplankton and shellfish of Southeast Queensland, Australia. These algal toxins include okadaic acid (OA), domoic acid (DA), gymnodimine (GD), pectenotoxin-2 (PTX-2) and pectenotoxin-2-seco acid (PTX-2-SA), which were detected in the sampled shellfish and phytoplankton, via HPLC-MS/MS. Dissolved OA, PTX-2 and GD were also detected in the samples collected from the water column. This was the first occasion that DA and GD have been reported in shellfish, phytoplankton and the water column in Queensland waters. Phytoplankton tows contained both the toxic Dinophysis and Pseudo-nitzschia algae species, and are suspected of being the most likely producers of the OA, PTX-2s and DA found in shellfish of this area. The number of cells, however, did not correlate with the amount of toxins present in either shellfish or phytoplankton. This indicates that toxin production by algae varies with time and the species present and that number of cells alone cannot be used as an indicator for the presence of toxins. The presence of OA and PTX-2s were more frequently seen in the summer, while DA and GD were detected throughout the year and without any obvious seasonal patterns.     

Making local futures tangible—Synthesizing, downscaling, and visualizing climate change scenarios for participatory capacity building

Local in its causes and global in its impacts, climate change still poses an unresolved challenge for scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs, and citizens. Climate change research is largely global in focus, aims at enhanced understanding, and is driven by experts, all of which seem to be insufficient to anchor climate change action in regional and local contexts. We present results from a participatory scenario study conducted in collaboration with the municipality of Delta in SW British Columbia, Canada. This study applies a participatory capacity building approach for climate change action at the local level where the sources of emissions and the mechanisms of adaptation reside and where climate change is meaningful to decision-makers and stakeholders alike. The multi-scale scenario approach consists of synthesizing global climate change scenarios, downscaling them to the regional and local level, and finally visualizing alternative climate scenarios out to 2100 in 3D views of familiar, local places. We critically discuss the scenarios produced and the strengths and weaknesses of the approach applied.     

Patchy charnockites from Jenapore, Eastern Ghats granulite belt, India: Structural and petrochemical evidences attesting to their relict nature

The charnockite patches that occur within leptynite host, in and around Jenapore, northern sector of the Eastern Ghats granulite belt, are disposed in a linear fashion and generally have sharp lithological contact with the host leptynite. Sometimes the patches and foliations of the host are cofolded. Also, the patches sometimes have the internalS ₁ foliation, while the host leptynite records onlyS2 foliation. Mineralogically and chemically patchy charnockites and host leptynites are distinct entities, and cannot be related by any prograde and retrograde reactions. Particularly important is the peraluminous granitic composition and high Rb/Sr ratios of the leptynites, presumably resulting from biotite-dehydration melting; as against metaluminous granodioritic to tonalitic composition and low Rb/Sr ratios of the patchy charnockites, presumably resulting from hornblende-dehydration melting. The charnockite patches here can be interpreted as caught up patches or xenolith within granitic melt (leptynite). Mg-rich rims of garnet in the charnockite patch were probably caused by heat from the crystallising melt or decompression during ascent of melt.     

The Silent Lake Pluton,Ontario: a nodular,sedimentary, intrusive complex

The Precambrian Silent Lake pluton, Cardiff township, Ontario, consists of granitic rocks containing, in many localities, abundant quartz-sillimanite nodules.The intrusive form of the Pluton and massive character of most rocks suggests a magmatic origin. Lack of (a) sharp contacts, (b) apophyses, (c) contact metamorphism, (d) evidence of systematic magma evolution in the haplogranite system, (e) country-rock xenoliths, suggest non-magmatic origin. Polyhedral textures indicate annealing after emplacement. Bulk chemical composition, including very low Ca, low Mg, low Sr, high Sr/Ca indicate sedimentary (arkosic) origin. The rocks appear to be Hermon formation leptites mobilized and emplaced by ductile flow, followed by annealing.Structural, mineralogical, chemical and oxygen isotopic evidence indicate the nodules to have formed by deformation and de-alkalization of quartz-feldspar veins within the mobilized leptites.     

A miniature three-dimensional anemometer for use within and above plant canopies

A miniature anemometer has been designed for the measurement of turbulent transport within canopies. The sensing element utilizes a relatively new concept in hot-film anemometry, in which the angular measurement is derived from the non-uniformity in heat transfer coefficient around the circumference of the cylindrical hot-film. The element is split along its length to form two separate conducting films and the relative magnitudes of the heat convected from each side are used to calculate the elevation angle of the wind. An electromechanical servosystem operated by a second split-film keeps the sensing head facing into the wind. The anemometer measures all three components of velocity over the complete solid angle without octant ambiguity and at velocities as low as 20 cm s^–1. It is a research instrument and because of its non-linear response characteristics, data handling is best accomplished by digital computer.The response of the split-film elements extends to high frequencies. The servo-system follows turbulent fluctuations up to approximately 5 Hz and keeps the probe within a few degrees of the wind at all times. In field tests, total wind speed and wind component measurements compared well with more conventional anemometers; eddy-correlation measurements of shear-stress with the split-film anemometer were in good agreement with measurements from a shear stress lysimeter and from a pressure-sphere anemometer.     

Coments on “derivation of water vapor fluxes from lidar measurements” by W. E. Eichingeret al.

Eichingeret al. (1993) discuss the use of a Raman lidar for measurements of water vapor fluxes and suggest that the method is superior to the use of standard micrometeorological, point sensor measurements. Although the lidar shows considerable promise for some purposes, we believe that their criticisms of point sensors are not warranted; that there are difficulties with their application of dissipation techniques to extract fluxes; and that they misinterpret the existence of plume structures as statistically significant spatial variations of turbulent fluxes.     

A comparison of some aerodynamic resistance methods using measurements over cotton and grass from the 1991 California ozone deposition experiment

Measurements of dry, deposition velocities (V _d ) of O₃ (using the eddy correlation technique) made over a cotton field and senescent grass near Fresno California during July and August 1991 were used to test some dry deposition velocity models. Over the cotton field, the observed maximum daytimeV _d was about 0.8 cm s^–1 and the average nighttime value was about 0.2 cm s^–1. Over the grass, daytime values averaged about 0.2 cm s^–1 and nighttime values about 0.05 cm s^–1. Application of a site-specific model known as ADOM (Acid Deposition and Oxidant Model) over the cotton field generally overestimated the observations except for a few hours in the afternoon when the observations were underestimated The overestimation was attributed to inadequacies in the surface resistance formulation and the underestimation to uncertainties in the aerodynamic formulation. Unlike previous studies which focused on the role of surface resistance, we perform additional tests using a large variety of aerodynamic resistance formulae, in addition to those in ADOM, to determine their influence on the modelledV _d of O₃ over, cotton. Over grass, ADOM considerably overestimated the observations but showed improvement when other surface resistance formulations were applied.