Survival under chronic stress from sediment load: spatial patterns of hard coral communities in the southern islands of Singapore

Six reef sites were chosen along the west coasts of Singapore's southern islands, to: (1) quantitatively assess and compare coral community composition and structure, and recruitment rates, (2) assess the relationship between the aforementioned patterns and the environmental conditions, and (3) provide insights on potential processes that incorporate history at these study sites. Chronic exposure to high sediment load was the most obvious form of anthropogenic stress. Recruitment rates on ceramic tiles were low (1.4+/-1.0-20+/-14.7 recruits m(-2)year(-1)) but decreased towards the main island of Singapore as did hard coral cover and coral density. Coral fauna consisted of genera generally found in deeper waters (e.g., fungiids, foliose Oxypora, Leptoseris, and Echinopora) or those well adapted to turbid waters (e.g., Porites, Pectinia, Leptastrea, Montipora). Light extinction coefficient (K) and % live coral cover (%LCC) showed a strong and inverse curvilinear relationship (%LCC=13.60 *K(-3.40)). Similarly, the rate of sediment deposition (DFSPM) (Recruitment rate, RR=1.51-0.17 *DFSPM) and water clarity (RR=3.56-2.92 *K) exhibited strong and inverse relationships with recruitment rates. Although measured levels of the down-ward flux of suspended particulate matter and suspended solids were well within "normal" levels recorded in the literature, it was the proportion of benthic space, generic coral composition, and site history that offered compelling evidence of chronic exposure to increased sediment load. Clearly a reduction in both water clarity and live-coral cover has taken place since monitoring efforts began in the early 1970s, in fact coral cover has more than halved at all sites examined since the 1980s and benthic space was predominantly occupied by dead corals covered with sediment and filamentous algae.     

EVA: GPS-based extended velocity and acceleration determination

In this work, a new GPS carrier phase-based velocity and acceleration determination method is presented that extends the effective range of previous techniques. The method is named ‘EVA’, and may find applications in fields such as airborne gravimetry when rough terrain or water bodies make difficult or impractical to set up nearby GPS reference receivers. The EVA method is similar to methods such as Kennedy (Precise acceleration determination from carrier phase measurements. In: Proceedings of the 15th international technical meeting of the satellite division of the Institute of Navigation. ION GPS 2002, Portland pp 962–972, 2002b) since it uses L1 carrier phase observables for velocity and acceleration determination. However, it introduces a wide network of stations and it is independent of precise clock information because it estimates satellite clock drifts and drift rates ‘on-the-fly’, requiring only orbit data of sufficient quality. Moreover, with EVA the solution rate is only limited by data rate, and not by the available precise satellite clocks data rate. The results obtained are more robust for long baselines than the results obtained with the reference Kennedy method. An advantage of being independent of precise clock information is that, beside IGS Final products, also the Rapid, Ultra-Rapid (observed) and Ultra-Rapid (predicted) products may be used. Moreover, the EVA technique may also use the undifferenced ionosphere-free carrier phase combination (LC), overcoming baseline limitations in cases where ionosphere gradients may be an issue and very low biases are required. During the development of this work, some problems were found in the velocity estimation process of the Kennedy method. The sources of the problems were identified, and an improved version of the Kennedy method was used for this research work. An experiment was performed using a light aircraft flying over the Pyrenees, showing that both EVA and the improved Kennedy methods are able to cope with the dynamics of mountainous flight. A RTK-derived solution was also generated, and when comparing the three methods to a known zero-velocity reference the results yielded similar performance. The EVA and the improved-Kennedy methods outperformed the RTK solutions, and the EVA method provided the best results in this experiment. Finally, both the improved version of the Kennedy method and the EVA method were applied to a network in equatorial South America with baselines of more than 1,770 km, and during local noon. Under this tough scenario, the EVA method showed a clear advantage for all components of velocity and acceleration, yielding better and more robust results.     

Heterotrophic bacteria and their relationship with plankton in a New Zealand freshwater lake

The viable heterotrophic bacteria of Lake Grasmere in inland Canterbury (43° 05 S, 171° 45 E) were studied. Numbers of bacteria in water above a spring were positively correlated with rainfall in the 7 days before sampling, but bacteria in open water and from over the macrophyte Elodea canadensis were not. There was some increase in the bacterial population in the water over E. canadensis in the autumn to winter months. Numbers of bacteria in the open water ranged from 55 to 1020 cells per millilitre, and were outnumbered by algae by a factor of between 4 and 34. The bacterial population tended to increase after blooms of zooplankton, but there was little or no response to changes in phytoplankton populations. Benthic bacteria rarely increased in numbers after the deposition of organic matter.     

Skeletal linear extension rates of the foliose scleractinian coral Merulina ampliata (Ellis & Solander, 1786) in a turbid environment

Skeletal linear extension rates of a foliaceous, IndoPacific, skiophilous, heterotrophic, scleractinian Merulina ampliata (Ellis & Solander 1786) were obtained along a sediment/nutrient load gradient at the southern islands of Singapore. Measurements were made during November 1999– November 2000 using the alizarin red‐S staining technique. Suspended particulate matter concentration (r²_adj = 0.76), turbidity (r²_adj = 0.59), the organic content of suspended sediments (r² = 0.50), and nitrite‐nitrate concentration (r²_adj = 0.50) were significant predictors of the skeletal linear extension rate of M. ampliata. Maximum linear extension growth rates of M. ampliata (mean ± SD: 1.43 ± 0.67–3.26 ± 0.59 cm·year^?1) were comparable to 15‐year‐old accounts at the same research sites, indicating adaptation to low‐light, high‐sediment waters.     

High resolution time series of lead and zinc in sediments of Lake Constance

Sediments in Lake Constance have been dated by radiometric methods and lamination counting. Investigations into the concentrations of lead and zinc in the sediments were carried out to get detailed information about environmental history. Maximum concentrations were found at the beginning of the 1960's. The lead maximum contamination occurred 3 years before the zinc maximum and has an unidentified source. The use of coal, leaded gasoline or the remobilization within the sediment could be excluded to result in the lead maximum. The fluctuations in zinc contamination could be explained with increasing and decreasing pollution (industry, coal burning, building of sewage plants). The greatest fluctuations of both metals occur during periods of great change in the economic history of Germany.     

Mapping potential evapotranspiration: the smooth interpolation of isolines with a low density station network

The criteria which may be employed when selecting an approach to a particular evapotranspiration mapping problem are discussed in the light of previous attempts at mapping evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration mapping involves two main stages: firstly the derivation of point evapotranspiration estimates, and secondly the interpolation of isolines around these estimates. Many studies have emphasized the first stage, frequently applying estimation formulae to data from climate stations, and have given substantially less attention to the interpolation of isolines. In the present study, where potential evapotranspiration estimates were derived for only 70 stations over the area of the European Economic Community and where maps showing the general trends in potential evapotranspiration were required, the technique of isoline interpolation was of great importance. Two forms of polynomial trend surface analysis were applied to the point estimates and a technique employing a restricted use of all three dimensions of location was found to be appropriate for denning the position of the smoothed evapotranspiration isolines.     

Trees as riparian engineers: the Tagliamento river,Italy

Pristine river corridors were characterized by island and floodplain development driven by the inter‐play of flows, sediments and woody vegetation. Here we explore these relationships within topographically controlled settings within the upper, middle and lower reaches of a large, semi‐natural alpine to mediterranean river. These reaches have expanding or contracting valley floors within which we show that there are more or less predictable patterns of stream power and rates of vegetation growth, reflecting water availability during dry periods and also the availability of sand and finer sediment. We relate these to the pattern of island distribution that is repeated within the three reaches and is indicative of the engineering role of riparian trees. Islands are shown to develop within thresholds defined by stream power, rates of woody vegetation growth and rates of sedimentation, and to develop most quickly where riparian species include those capable of sprouting from driftwood. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Process identification at a slow‐moving landslide in the Vorarlberg Alps

A fine‐grained slope that exhibits slow movement rates was investigated to understand how geohydrological processes contribute to a consecutive development of mass movements in the Vorarlberg Alps, Austria. For that purpose intensive hydrometeorological, hydrogeological and geotechnical observations as well as surveying of surface movement rates were conducted during 1998–2001. Subsurface water dynamics at the creeping slope turned out to be dominated by a three‐dimensional pressure system. The pressure reaction is triggered by fast infiltration of surface water and subsequent lateral water flow in the south‐western part of the hillslope. The related pressure signal was shown to propagate further downhill, causing fast reactions of the piezometric head at 5·5 m depth on a daily time scale. The observed pressure reactions might belong to a temporary hillslope water body that extends further downhill. The related buoyancy forces could be one of the driving forces for the mass movement. A physically based hydrological model was adopted to model simultaneously surface and subsurface water dynamics including evapotranspiration and runoff production. It was possible to reproduce surface runoff and observed pressure reactions in principle. However, as soil hydraulic functions were only estimated on pedotransfer functions, a quantitative comparison between observed and simulated subsurface dynamics is not feasible. Nevertheless, the results suggest that it is possible to reconstruct important spatial structures based on sparse observations in the field which allow reasonable simulations with a physically based hydrological model. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.