Facies Structure and Quantitative Parameters of Pleistocene Sediments of the Bering Sea

Lithofacies zoning is described for the first time for the Neo- and Eopleistocene of the Bering Sea. Four lithofacies sedimentation zones are distinguished: (I) terrigenous; (II) siliceous–terrigenous; (III) siliceous, and (IV) volcanoterrigenous ones. Corresponding maps were treated using Ronov volumetric method to quantify sedimentation parameters for distinguished lithofacies zones (subzones) and types of Pleistocene sediments. It was revealed that terrigenous sediments predominate over other sediments. Accumulation of the terrigenous sediments was more intense (by 1.4 times) in the Neopleistocene than in the Eopleistocene. The sedimentation rate of siliceous sediments of the Bowers Ridge in the Eopleistocene was two times higher than in the Neopleistocene.     

The Upper Middle Rhine Valley as a risk area

The Upper Middle Rhine Valley, granted the status of a World Heritage site, is well known for its unique inner narrow valley of Quaternary age with its historical legacy of numerous medieval castles and old towns. Less known is that this has always been a risk area of floods and gravitative mass movements. Up to the recent past, mainly ice floods caused enormous damage. The inhabitants of the valley were well aware that they lived in a risk area, but they had learned to handle the flood hazard. With the demise of ice floods over the last 40 years, due to climate change and because of the additional heating of the river water by power plants, the awareness of flood hazards has been much diminished, in contrast to that of potential damage by rockfalls and landslides which were also much feared in the past, though at the local level only. Still in the people’s memory is the Kaub catastrophe of March 10, 1876, when 28 persons were killed by a landslide. Nowadays, even minor rockfalls are a major threat, as they will affect the much-used traffic lines on both banks of the river, in particular the railroads. Therefore, since 2002, on behalf of German Rail (Deutsche Bahn, DB), all problematic slopes have been protected by costly steel-ring nets, although they are an aesthetic problem by UNESCO standards. The feeling of absolute safety created among the public is only subjective, though, as planners are well aware of. Moreover, the impact of modern climate change on slope stability is nearly unknown. Therefore, it is still necessary to develop a risk map for the narrow valley, with emphasis on gravitational hazards.     

Resolving the landfill siting impasse: modelling technocratic and indigenous perspectives using GIS multicriteria approach

Increase in waste generation calls for an effective waste management as this has become a necessity for environmental sustainability. Several methods are adopted in managing waste, which include waste reduction, reuse, thermal treatment, recycling and landfilling. The landfill method is recognised as the most used of all the waste management methods in developing countries such as Ghana. However, the selection of a suitable landfill site is very difficult and tedious. This is because it involves a consideration of many factors such as environmental, topographic, economic, socio-cultural and civil engineering. This research sought to identify a suitable landfill site by applying GIS multicriteria and weighted overlay approach in the Bongo District of Northern Ghana. The analysis relied on criteria and weights provided by the technocrats and the indigenes in the district as a way of demonstrating how landfill siting impasse can be resolved by incorporating the various stakeholders. The results obtained provided clear areas for landfill sites in the study area from the technocratic and the indigenous perspectives. However, the technocratic perspective failed to include an important cultural criterion, sacred groves, as a factor. The indigenous perspective also compromised on the factor related to nearness to residential areas, and is equally not sufficient on its own. The optimal landfill sites, which meets the expectations of both the technocrats and indigenes, was identified. This perspective has produced technically favourable and socio-culturally acceptable landfill site. However, it is recommended an environmental impact assessment (EIA) be conducted to identify the full environmental and social cost of the site. It is concluded that in landfill site selection much attention be given to cultural factors in the same way as the technical factors.     

Influence of wind upon water quality in Liverpool Bay

Comprehensive distribution patterns of physical and chemical characteristics have been obtained from a series of cruises in Liverpool Bay. The marked feature of these distributions was their temporal variability, suggesting that the surface residual circulation is also temporally variable. The influence of wind stress upon the circulation pattern and hence water quality of this sea area is illustrated.     

Temporal and spatial dynamical simulation of groundwater characteristics in Minqin Oasis

Application scope of geostatistics has been gradually extended from original geologic field to soil science and ecological field, etc. and its successful application results have been widely demonstrated. But little information is reported as to the direct use of geostatistical method to work out the distribu- tion map of groundwater characteristics. In this paper the semivariogram of geostatistics, in combina- tion with GIS, was used to quantitatively study the spatial variation characteristics of groundwater table depth and mineralization degree and their relation to the landuse changes. F test of the used spherical model reached a very significant level, and the theoretical model can well reflect the spatial structural characteristics of groundwater table depth and mineralization degree and achieve an ideal result. This shows that the application of the method in the dynamical simulation of groundwater is feasible. And this paper also provides useful reference for the application of geostatistics in the study of the dy- namical variations of groundwater resources in the oasis.     

A Long-Term Decrease of the Mid-Size Segmentation Lengths Observed in the He <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">ii</Emphasis> (30.4 nm) Solar EUV Emission

Power spectra of segmentation-cell length (a dominant length scale of EUV emission in the transition region) from full-disk He?ii extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images observed by the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during periods of quiet-Sun conditions for a time interval from 1996 to 2015 were analyzed. The spatial power as a function of the spatial frequency from about 0.04 to 0.27 (EIT) or up to 0.48 (AIA) Mm^?1 depends on the distribution of the observed segmentation-cell dimensions – a structure of the solar EUV network. The temporal variations of the spatial power reported by Didkovsky and Gurman (Solar Phys. 289, 153, 2014) were suggested as decreases at the mid-spatial frequencies for the compared spectra when the power curves at the highest spatial frequencies of 0.5 pix^?1 were adjusted to match each other. This approach has been extended in this work to compare spectral ratios at high spatial frequencies expressed in the solar spatial frequency units of Mm^?1. A model of EIT and AIA spatial responses allowed us to directly compare spatial spectral ratios at high spatial frequencies for five years of joint operation of EIT and AIA, from 2010 to 2015. Based on this approach, we represent these ratio changes as a long-term network transformation that may be interpreted as a continuous dissipation of mid-size network structures to the smaller-size structures in the transition region. In contrast to expected cycling of the segmentation-cell dimension structures and associated spatial power in the spectra with the solar cycle, the spectra demonstrate a significant and steady change of the EUV network. The temporal trend across these structural spectra is not critically sensitive to any long-term instrumental changes, e.g. degradation of sensitivity, but to the change of the segmentation-cell dimensions of the EUV network structure.     

Climatic and geographic factors affect ecosystem multifunctionality through biodiversity in the Tibetan alpine grasslands

Ecosystem multifunctionality(EMF), the simultaneous provision of multiple ecosystem functions, is often affected by biodiversity and environmental factors. We know little about how the interactions between biodiversity and environmental factors affect EMF. In this case study, a structural equation model was used to clarify climatic and geographic pathways that affect EMF by varying biodiversity in the Tibetan alpine grasslands. In addition to services related to carbon, nitrogen, and water cycling, forage supply, which is related to plantproductivity and palatability, was included in the EMF index. The results showed that 72% of the variation in EMF could be explained by biodiversity and other environmental factors. The ratio of palatable richness to all species richness explained 8.3% of the EMF variation. We found that air temperature, elevation, and latitude all affected EMF, but in different ways. Air temperature and elevation impacted the aboveground parts of the ecosystem, which included plant height, aboveground biomass, richness of palatable species, and ratio of palatable richness to all species richness. Latitude affected EMF by varying both aboveground and belowground parts of the ecosystem, which included palatable speciesrichness and belowground biomass. Our results indicated that there are still uncertainties in the biodiversity–EMF relationships related to the variable components of EMF, and climatic and geographic factors. Clarification of pathways that affect EMF using structural equation modeling techniques could elucidate the mechanisms by which environmental changes affect EMF.     

A New Approach for Scientific Data Dissemination in Developing Countries: A Case of Indonesia

This short paper is a progress report on our experiences in Indonesia of collecting, integrating and disseminating both global and local scientific data across the country through the web. Our recent efforts are concentrated on improving local public access to global scientific data, and encouraging local scientific data to be more accessible for global communities. We have maintained a well-connected infrastructure and web-based information management systems to realize these objectives. This paper is especially focused on introducing the ARSIP system for mirroring global data and sharing local scientific data, and the newly developed Indonesian Scientific Index for integrating local scientific data through an automated intelligent indexing system.