Set-asides for carbon sequestration: implications for permanence and leakage

This paper examines the potential role of forest set-asides in global carbon sequestration policy. While set asides that protect forests from timber harvests and land-use conversion may alleviate concerns with permanence, and they may provide large ancillary environmental benefits, they may also lead to large leakage. This paper uses a global land use and forestry model to examine the efficiency of three crediting schemes for set-asides. The results show that if set-asides are integrated into a global forestry carbon sequestration program that includes a wide range of other management options, then 300 million hectares of land would be set-aside, and up to 128 Pg C could be sequestered in global forests by 2105. Under alternative policies that focus exclusively on set-asides, more forestland can be set-asides, up to 3.2 billion hectare, but these policies invite large leakage in the near-term, and in the long-run, they less net carbon is removed from the atmosphere. Specifically, leakage is estimated to be 47–52%, depending on the policy, and by the end of the century, up to 17% less carbon will be sequestered in all forests.     

Recession of Milam Glacier,Kumaun Himalaya,Observed via Lichenometric Dating of Moraines

Glaciers being very sensitive to climate change have been identified as one of the best indicators of climate change and evidences have proved that most of the Himalayan glaciers have receded with an increased rate during the recent past under the influence of global warming. Lichenometric study was carried out on the moraines of Milam glacier (located in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand) with the help of lichen species Dimelaena oreina having an average annual growth rate of 1.31 mm. The study revealed that Milam glacier has receded 1450 m in last 69.37 years with an average recession rate of 20.90 m/year. Since lichenometric studies are cost effective and ecofriendly in comparison to carbon dating, satellite and remote sensing based studies and also reliable, hence, it should be promoted in Himalaya which is an abode of glaciers.     

三维电阻率成像技术的研究

电成像、电测深、电剖面法是目前3种最基本的电阻率探测技术.三维探测的观测系统主要有地表和钻井-地表这两种不同类型的测量.前者的电极阵列成矩形网格状,多采用单极-单极观测装置以增大探测深度,技术难点在于远电极的设置往往会带来难以消除的地电噪音,限制了单点电位测量的精度和应用范围;后者在油田生产的中后期的分层注水以及核废物注浆处理过程中,需要确定流体或者浆片的运移与分布,取深钻井的钢套管作为一个供电电极,形成垂直线电流源,再以钻井为中心对地表的环状网格进行二极或三极测量.可以取得视电阻率和自电位两种测量,得到三维电阻率和异常电荷概率分布的图像.     

High resolution facies record on late Holocene flood plain sediments from lower reaches of Narmada Valley,Western India

A high resolution quantitative granulometric record for site Uchediya [21°43′2.22″ N, 73° 6′26.22″ E; 10 m a. s. l.] gives understanding towards accretion history of the late Holocene flood plain in the lower reaches of Narmada River. Two sediment facies (sandy and muddy) and seven subfacies (sandy subfacies: St_MS+FS+CS, Sm_FS+MS, Sl_FS+VFS, and St_{MS + CS}; muddy subfacies: Fm_SILT+VFS+FS, Fm_SILT+VFS (O) and Fm_SILT+VFS (T)) are identified based on cluster analysis supplemented with sedimentary structures observed in field and other laboratory data. Changes in hydrodynamics are further deduced based on various sedimentological parameters and their ratios leading to arrive at a depositional model.     

Provenance of the Bosnian Flysch

Sandwiched between the Adriatic Carbonate Platform and the Dinaride Ophiolite Zone, the Bosnian Flysch forms a c. 3000 m thick, intensely folded stack of Upper Jurassic to Cretaceous mixed carbonate and siliciclastic sediments in the Dinarides. New petrographic, heavy mineral, zircon U/Pb and fission-track data as well as biostratigraphic evidence allow us to reconstruct the palaeogeology of the source areas of the Bosnian Flysch basin in late Mesozoic times. Middle Jurassic intraoceanic subduction of the Neotethys was shortly followed by exhumation of the overriding oceanic plate. Trench sedimentation was controlled by a dual sediment supply from the sub-ophiolitic high-grade metamorphic soles and from the distal continental margin of the Adriatic plate. Following obduction onto Adria, from the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition onwards a vast clastic wedge (Vranduk Formation) was developed in front of the leading edge, fed by continental basement units of Adria that experienced Early Cretaceous synsedimentary cooling, by the overlying ophiolitic thrust sheets and by redeposited elements of coeval Urgonian facies reefs grown on the thrust wedge complex. Following mid-Cretaceous deformation and thermal overprint of the Vranduk Formation, the depozone migrated further towards SW and received increasing amounts of redeposited carbonate detritus released from the Adriatic Carbonate Platform margin (Ugar Formation). Subordinate siliciclastic source components indicate changing source rocks on the upper plate, with ophiolites becoming subordinate. The zone of the continental basement previously affected by the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous thermal imprint has been removed; instead, the basement mostly supplied detritus with a wide range of pre-Jurassic cooling ages. However, a c. 80 Ma, largely synsedimentary cooling event is also recorded by the Ugar Formation, that contrasts the predominantly Early Cretaceous cooling of the Adriatic basement and suggests, at least locally, a fast exhumation.     

Comparison of Two Methods Used to Model Shape Parameters of Pareto Distributions

Two methods are compared for estimating the shape parameters of Pareto field-size (or pool-size) distributions for petroleum resource assessment. Both methods assume mature exploration in which most of the larger fields have been discovered. Both methods use the sizes of larger discovered fields to estimate the numbers and sizes of smaller fields: (1) the tail-truncated method uses a plot of field size versus size rank, and (2) the log–geometric method uses data binned in field-size classes and the ratios of adjacent bin counts. Simulation experiments were conducted using discovered oil and gas pool-size distributions from four petroleum systems in Alberta, Canada and using Pareto distributions generated by Monte Carlo simulation. The estimates of the shape parameters of the Pareto distributions, calculated by both the tail-truncated and log–geometric methods, generally stabilize where discovered pool numbers are greater than 100. However, with fewer than 100 discoveries, these estimates can vary greatly with each new discovery. The estimated shape parameters of the tail-truncated method are more stable and larger than those of the log–geometric method where the number of discovered pools is more than 100. Both methods, however, tend to underestimate the shape parameter. Monte Carlo simulation was also used to create sequences of discovered pool sizes by sampling from a Pareto distribution with a discovery process model using a defined exploration efficiency (in order to show how biased the sampling was in favor of larger fields being discovered first). A higher (more biased) exploration efficiency gives better estimates of the Pareto shape parameters.     

Pockmarks in the inner Oslofjord,Norway

Multibeam bathymetric surveys of the Inner Oslofjord, Norway have revealed a high density of pockmarks in the 179-km² inner fjord area, which contains over 500 pockmarks of varying size, typically 20–50 m in diameter and 2–10 m deep. These pockmarks have been investigated with a variety of techniques, including acoustic subbottom profiling, sedimentological and geochemical analyses of cores, remotely operated vehicle observation, and morphometry. Both the distribution and shapes of the pockmarks suggest that they are related to structures in the bedrock underlying relatively thin (<50 m) unconsolidated glacial and postglacial sediments. The data provide no direct indication of a particular mode of pockmark formation, but release of large amounts of biogenic, shallow methane seems unlikely. Several lines of evidence point to a continuous process of pockmark formation followed by inactivity, with some pockmarks recently active whereas others have been inactive for a considerable time. Some pockmarks are characterised by coarse sediment in their centres. The density, variety and easy access make this pockmark field an ideal model area for pockmark research. John S. Gray is deceased.     

Fishing for diatoms: fish gut analysis reveals water quality changes over a 75-year period

Defining the reference state of some perturbed streams and rivers is challenging since their non-altered state is undocumented. Despite the near-absence of pristine sites in highly anthropogenic areas, information about aquatic communities that existed prior to human disturbance can be obtained from historic sources. Sediment coring is commonly used in paleolimnology to estimate past environmental conditions of lakes, but this technique is often not appropriate for studies of lotic systems. An alternative is to use diatom assemblages present in the guts of fish that were captured in the streams prior to significant human disturbance. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the biological integrity of several streams in Ontario and Québec during the early twentieth century based on “paleo” diatom assemblages extracted from the guts of fish stored in museums. The Eastern Canadian diatom index (IDEC: Indice Diatomées de l’Est du Canada) was used to evaluate the biological status of “paleo” and “modern” diatom assemblages. The IDEC shows the position of diatom assemblages on a general pollution gradient. The comparison of IDEC values calculated for the 1925–1948 and the 2003–2007 periods showed that several streams were severely polluted in the early 1900s. In general, present water quality has declined compared to the early 1900s. The biological integrity of only three of the 22 sites has increased. IDEC values were not influenced by the species of fish studied.     

Ensemble clustering for efficient robust optimization of naturally fractured reservoirs

In the development of naturally fractured reservoirs (NFRs), the existence of natural fractures induces severe fingering and breakthrough. To manage the flooding process and improve the ultimate recovery, we propose a numerical workflow to generate optimal production schedules for smart wells, in which the inflow control valve (ICV) settings can be controlled individually. To properly consider the uncertainty introduced by randomly distributed natural fractures, the robust optimization would require a large ensemble size and it would be computationally demanding. In this work, a hierarchical clustering method is proposed to select representative models for the robust optimization in order to avoid redundant simulation runs and improve the efficiency of the robust optimization. By reducing the full ensemble of models into a small subset ensemble, the efficiency of the robust optimization algorithm is significantly improved. The robust optimization is performed using the StoSAG scheme to find the optimal well controls that maximize the net-present-value (NPV) of the NFR’s development. Due to the discrete property of a natural fracture field, traditional feature extraction methods such as model-parameter-based clustering may not be directly applicable. Therefore, two different kinds of clustering-based optimization methods, a state-based (e.g., s _w profiles) clustering and a response-based (e.g., production rates) clustering, are proposed and compared. The computational results show that the robust clustering optimization could increase the computational efficiency significantly without sacrificing much expected NPV of the robust optimization. Moreover, the performance of different clustering algorithms varies widely in correspondence to different selections of clustering features. By properly extracting model features, the clustered subset could adequately represent the uncertainty of the full ensemble.     

Progress in China’s sustainable development research: Contribution of Chinese geographers

Sustainable development has always been a hotspot in Chinese geographical research. Herein, we conduct a systematic statistical analysis of the contribution of Chinese geographers to sustainable development research using bibliometric methods. Based on the review of a vast amount of literature, we identify the main research teams, research funding sources, journals, and key research fields. The findings are as follows: (1) the resources and environmental institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have a significant influence on sustainable development research; (2) China’s central government foundations (the National Natural Science Foundation of China and National Social Sciences Fund) are the main research funding sources; (3) most of the highly cited articles are published in journals sponsored by the Geographical Society of China; and (4) sustainable development theory and its research areas are being constantly enriched and perfected. Based on the statistics of keywords, the theory, research methods, research regional scales, and key research areas are summarized and expounded.