Assessing the performance of a physically based hydrological model using a proxy‐catchment approach in an agricultural environment

Physically based models are useful frameworks for testing intervention strategies designed to reduce elevated sediment loads in agricultural catchments. Evaluating the success of these strategies depends on model accuracy, generally established by a calibration and evaluation process. In this contribution, the physically based SHETRAN model was assessed in two similar U.K. agricultural catchments. The model was calibrated on the Blackwater catchment (18 km²) and evaluated in the adjacent Kit Brook catchment (22 km²) using 4 years of 15 min discharge and suspended sediment flux data. Model sensitivity to changes in single and multiple combinations of parameters and sensitivity to changes in digital elevation model resolution were assessed. Model flow performance was reasonably accurate with a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient of 0.78 in Blackwater and 0.60 in Kit Brook. In terms of event prediction, the mean of the absolute percentage of difference (μAbs_diff) between measured and simulated flow volume (Qv), peak discharge (Qp), sediment yield (Sy), and peak sediment flux (Sp) showed larger values in Kit Brook (48% [Qv], 66% [Qp], 298% [Sy], and 438% [Sp]) compared with the Blackwater catchment (30% [Qv], 41% [Qp], 106% [Sy], and 86% [Sp]). Results indicate that SHETRAN can produce reasonable flow prediction but performs less well in estimation of sediment flux, despite reasonably similar hydrosedimentary behaviour between catchments. The sensitivity index showed flow volume sensitive to saturated hydraulic conductivity and peak discharge to the Strickler coefficient; sediment yield was sensitive to the overland flow erodibility coefficient and peak sediment flux to raindrop/leaf soil erodibility coefficient. The multiparameter sensitivity analysis showed that different combinations of parameters produced similar model responses. Model sensitivity to grid resolution presented similar flow volumes for different digital elevation model resolutions, whereas event peak and duration (for both flow and sediment flux) were highly sensitive to changes in grid size.     

The first description and confirmation of the Vista Alegre impact structure in the Paraná flood basalts of southern Brazil

Abstract– The Vista Alegre structure, centered at 25°57′S and 52°41′W, has been recently proposed as a meteorite impact structure. The 9.5 km‐diameter structure is located in the Paraná state of southern Brazil, within the Paraná Basin, which contains one of the largest and most extensive flood basalt provinces on Earth. The Paraná flood basalts belong to the Serra Geral Formation and are temporally related to the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean, having been dated at about 133–132 Ma. Tholeiitic basalts dominate the western portion of Paraná state, with some minor rhyodacites. Morphologically, Vista Alegre has a prominent circular outline, in the form of an incomplete ring of escarpments, and an inner depression. The presence of a central uplift is not obvious, but it is inferred by the occurrence of deformed sandstone blocks near the center of the structure. These sandstones are possibly related to the Triassic Pirambóia Formation and/or to the Cretaceous Botucatu Formation. These units are normally at stratigraphic depths of about 700–800 m below the present surface in this portion of the Paraná Basin. The structure appears to be in an advanced erosion stage and its interior is occupied by a soil cover several meters thick, extensively used for agriculture. As a result there are limited outcrops in the interior of the structure, all of polymict breccias, some of them melt‐bearing. We report the extensive occurrence of shatter cones, in the form of fine‐grained rock clasts within the polymict breccias. The shatter cone‐bearing breccias occur at different locations within the structure, separated by several kilometers. The nested shatter cones range in size from about 0.5 to 20 cm for individual cones, and up to half a meter for complete assemblages. The shatter cones formed in fine‐grained Parana flood basalt and might be the first examples of shatter cones in such a rock type. In addition, planar deformation features (PDFs) were found in quartz grains within sedimentary rock clasts of the polymict breccia. These findings confirm the impact origin of the Vista Alegre structure.     

Population change in the upper Braldu Valley,Baltistan, 1900-1990: all is not as it seems

"This paper examines population change in the upper Braldu Valley of the Karakoram range in northern Pakistan between 1900 and 1990. Population has declined over the 90-year period of observation and the majority of that decline is accounted for by females.... The paper discusses apparent demographic trends in a contemporary and historical context and questions the extension of vague, unqualified, context-independent population statistics to an area where apparently they do not apply. It argues that only by interpreting demographic change from within such a local context can the relevance of population control policies be scrutinized. This paper is not an exhaustive demographic analysis but presents data from a little-studied region of the Himalayan area and is meant to open avenues for future research there." (EXCERPT)     

Influence of Changing Atmospheric Circulation on Precipitation δO–Temperature Relations in Canada during the Holocene

Postglacial precipitation δ¹⁸O history has been reconstructed for two regions of Canada. Long-term shifts in the oxygen-isotope composition of annual precipitation (δ¹⁸O_p) in southern Ontario appear to have occurred with a consistent isotope–temperature relation throughout the past 11,500¹⁴C yr. The modern isotope–temperature relation in central Canada near present boreal treeline evidently became established between 5000 and 4000 years ago, although the relation during the last glacial maximum and deglaciation may also have been similar to present. In the early Holocene, however, unusually high δ¹⁸O_papparently persisted, in spite of low temperature locally, probably associated with high zonal index. A rudimentary sensitivity analysis suggests that a small reduction in distillation of moisture in Pacific air masses traversing the western Cordillera, perhaps accompanied by a higher summer:winter precipitation ratio, could have been responsible for the observed effect. Equivalent isotope–temperature “anomalies” apparently occurred elsewhere in western North America in response to changing early-Holocene atmospheric circulation patterns, suggesting that a time-slice map of δ¹⁸O_pfor North America during this period might provide a useful target for testing and validation of atmospheric general circulation model simulations using isotopic water tracers.     

On the origin of fore-arc basins: new evidence of formation by rifting from the Jurassic of Alexander Island, Antarctica

The Middle Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous Fossil Bluff Group of Alexander Island, Antarctica represents the fill of a fore-arc basin unconformably overlying an accretionary complex. Like most fore-arc basins, this example had been considered to have a passive origin, as a topographic hollow between the arc and the trench-slope break. Recent discoveries of igneous rock coeval with sedimentation have altered this view. Oxfordian–Kimmeridgian basaltic and rhyolitic sills and lava flows are found in a restricted area at the north of the basin, within a single formation. Chemically, most basalts are high-Nb types, which cannot have originated in a supra-subduction zone setting. Since the age of emplacement of these rocks coincides with a gap in the record of plutonism in the Antarctic Peninsula volcanic arc, it is concluded that a late Jurassic pause in subduction led to active rifting to form the fore-arc basin.     

Photo-identification and habitat use of Atlantic humpback dolphins Sousa teuszii around the Río Nuñez Estuary in Guinea,West Africa

Ecological data for the Atlantic humpback dolphin Sousa teuszii are scant. Six on-effort Sousa teuszii sightings were recorded during 817.6?km of boat-based effort in the Río Nuñez region of Guinea during October and November 2013. Two incidental sightings were also reported. Groups comprised 1–25 animals. Photo-identification produced a minimum population estimate of 47 animals. Most sightings (n = 5) were located close (<1?km) to shore along a 5.7?km stretch of coast on the west side of Île de Taïdi, primarily over shallow, sand–mud habitat. Two very distinctive individuals were present in all four Taïdi photo-identification encounters, suggesting high site fidelity and stable associations. Two sightings occurred in the outer Río Nuñez Estuary much farther from the coast (5–12?km) but in relatively shallow water (≤15?m) over sand–mud sediment. Focal follows (n = 5: 0.2–3.8?h duration) produced 9.02?h of behavioural data. Travel (51%), foraging (39%) and feeding (9.2%) dominated, with Taïdi dolphins spending more time foraging and feeding than the outer estuary groups. Three individuals had linear-severed dorsal fins consistent with injuries from fishing line. Some management implications of variation in habitat, site fidelity and movements of Sousa teuszii groups are discussed.     

A Transit of Venus Possibly Misinterpreted as an Unaided-Eye Sunspot Observation in China on 9 December 1874

Solar Physics - Large sunspots can be observed with the unaided eye under suitable atmospheric seeing conditions. Such observations are of particular value because the frequency of their appearance...     

Permits to burn: weeds,slow violence,and the extractive future of northern Australia

ABSTRACT

This essay narrates the ‘slow violence’, or creeping environmental harms taking place within contemporary environmental governance. It centres on a tall, dense and highly flammable introduced pasture species Gamba grass (Andropogon gayanus), which was listed as a weed across north Australian jurisdictions in 2008. Since this time, it has continued to expand its reach across the Northern Territory (NT). With a potential invasion range of over 380,000?sqkm², this grass is a serious threat to many more-than-human worlds in the north, including Indigenous-led and Indigenous-owned environmental service economies and multimillion-dollar projects engaged in savanna fire management for carbon credits. Drawing upon fieldwork and interviews with a range of public servants, landholders and researchers in the NT between 2015 and 2018, this essay demonstrates how environmental governance is being undermined through specific institutions and practices. Through an ethnographic reading of weed management documents, including several legal permits to grow Gamba grass within the NT’s ‘eradication zone’, this essay narrates the diverse threads of a pressing ‘slow’ disaster. The unfolding story of Gamba grass, we suggest, is instructive for those seeking to understand the present and future of resource extraction or ‘extractivism’ in Australia and elsewhere.