Future changes of the terrestrial ecosystem based on a dynamic vegetation model driven with RCP8.5 climate projections from 19 GCMs

Future changes of terrestrial ecosystems due to changes in atmospheric CO₂ concentration and climate are subject to a large degree of uncertainty, especially for vegetation in the Tropics. Here, we evaluate the natural vegetation response to projected future changes using an improved version of a dynamic vegetation model (CLM-CN-DV) driven with climate change projections from 19 global climate models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The simulated equilibrium vegetation distribution under historical climate (1981–2000) has been compared with that under the projected future climate (2081–2100) scenario for Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) to qualitatively assess how natural potential vegetation might change in the future. With one outlier excluded, the ensemble average of vegetation changes corresponding to climates of 18 GCMs shows a poleward shift of forests in northern Eurasia and North America, which is consistent with findings from previous studies. It also shows a general “upgrade” of vegetation type in the Tropics and most of the temperate zones, in the form of deciduous trees and shrubs taking over C3 grass in Europe and broadleaf deciduous trees taking over C4 grasses in Central Africa and the Amazon. LAI and NPP are projected to increase in the high latitudes, southeastern Asia, southeastern North America, and Central Africa. This results from CO₂ fertilization, enhanced water use efficiency, and in the extra-tropics warming. However, both LAI and NPP are projected to decrease in the Amazon due to drought. The competing impacts of climate change and CO₂ fertilization lead to large uncertainties in the projection of future vegetation changes in the Tropics.     

FAO 56 Model and Remote Sensing for the Estimation of Crop-Water Requirement in Main Branch Canal of the Bhadra Command area, Karnataka State

Remote sensing and FAO 56 crop water model are used for estimating crop water requirement for paddy crop located in the main branch canal of Bhadra Command Area in Karnataka, India. The estimation of crop-water requirement depends on the meteorological factors, soil type and crop coefficients. The result obtained showed that water requirements of rabi crops higher than those of the kariff crops. The total irrigated area estimated from the IRS image is 29,353 ha. It is found that the total paddy crop acreage is 18,257 ha covering 62 % in the total irrigated area of the command area, Arecanut 20 %, coconut 15 % and sugarcane with other crops 3 %. The water requirement for paddy is 1180.4 mm for its entire growth period. The total water requirement for irrigation supply for crops in the entire command area is 5,790 at a demand of 0.10501 cusecs per ha.     

An investigation into the correlations among GNSS observations and their impact on height and zenith wet delay estimation for medium and long baselines

Most stochastic modelling techniques neglect the correlations among the raw un-differenced observations when forming the variance–covariance matrix of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations. Some methods were developed to model these correlations. One such method is the Minimum Norm Quadratic Unbiased Estimator (MINQUE). Studies have shown that MINQUE improves ambiguity resolution, and ultimately, the positioning solution in short baselines. However, its effect in cases of processing with longer baselines and on the estimation of zenith wet delay (ZWD) is somewhat unknown. In this paper, a comparison between the impact of neglecting the correlations among the observations using an elevation-angle-dependent model (EADM) and modelling the correlations using MINQUE on height determination and ZWD for medium and long baselines is carried out. The initial testing was carried out across two Australian GNSS stations with a medium-length baseline throughout a three-week campaign. The results showed that using MINQUE did not resolve the coordinate, height and wet delay components as accurately as the EADM. The results were further verified with two long-baseline campaigns whereby EADM was also able to provide better wet delay estimates. The coordinate results were, however, mixed. Overall, the study concluded that the inclusion of the correlations among the observations, in general, do not improve the resolution of the coordinate and wet delay estimates.     

Risk assessment of soil erosion in semi-arid mountainous watershed in Saudi Arabia by RUSLE model coupled with remote sensing and GIS

Soil erosion is the most important factor in land degradation and influences desertification in semi-arid areas. A comprehensive methodology that integrates revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) model and GIS was adopted to determine the soil erosion risk (SER) in semi-arid Aseer region, Saudi Arabia. Geoenvironmental factors viz. rainfall (R), soil erodibility (K), slope (LS), cover management and practice factors were computed to determine their effects on average annual soil loss. The high potential soil erosion, resulting from high denuded slope, devoid of vegetation cover and high intensity rainfall, is located towards the north western part of the study area. The analysis is investigated that the SER over the vegetation cover including dense vegetation, sparse vegetation and bushes increases with the higher altitude and higher slope angle. The erosion maps generated with RUSLE integrated with GIS can serve as effective inputs in deriving strategies for land planning/management in the environmentally sensitive mountainous areas.     

Salinité des ressources en eau: intrusion marine et interaction eaux–roches (Maroc occidental)

Résumé

Le flux migratoire de la population vers les grandes villes et la multiplication des activités industrielles et agricoles, lors des ces dernières années (1990–2006), ont provoqué un accroissement des besoins en eaux de la nappe du bassin du Rharb (ouest du Maroc). Cette forte sollicitation a produit une augmentation de la minéralisation et une dégradation de la qualité hydrochimique (salinité) des eaux souterraines. Cet article a pour objectif de suivre l'évolution spatiale de la qualité hydrochimique des eaux souterraines et de comprendre le processus de cette minéralisation en fonction de l'intrusion marine, le gradient hydraulique et l'interaction eaux–réservoirs. Les corrélations hydrochimiques réalisées dans la zone côtière révèlent une contamination par les eaux marines. L'intrusion marine et la caractérisation des complexes pré-Rifains ont été identifiées par les méthodes géophysiques électriques et sismiques.

Citation Zouhri, L., Toto, E. A., Carlier, E. & Debieche, T.-H. (2010) Salinité des ressources en eau: dilution marine et interaction eaux–roches (Maroc occidental). Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(8), 1337–1347.     

Contribution de la gravimétrie à l’étude de la structure profonde du bassin de Bou-Houria (Maroc Nord-oriental) : implications hydrogéologiques

Résumé

Cette étude vise à améliorer la connaissance de la structure du bassin de Bou-Houria en se basant sur l’analyse et l’interprétation de données gravimétriques. Des cartes de l’anomalie résiduelle, du gradient vertical et du gradient horizontal ont été calculées à partir de la carte de l’anomalie de Bouguer. Ces cartes fournissent des informations sur la variation de la densité dans le sous-sol et permettent de mieux cerner la structure de la zone d’étude en mettant en évidence les principales unités et accidents tectoniques généralement masqués par les dépôts quaternaires. L’ensemble des résultats obtenus conduit à l’amélioration de la carte structurale de la zone d’étude, qui pourrait constituer un document de base pour orienter les futurs travaux d’exploration des eaux souterraines dans le bassin.     

Predicting Pesticide Attenuation in a Fractured Aquifer Using Lumped‐Parameter Models

Neighboring springs draining fractured‐rock aquifers can display large differences in water quality and flow regime, depending on local variations of the connectivity and the aperture size distribution of the fracture network. Consequently, because homogeneous equivalent parameters cannot be assumed a priori for the entire regional aquifer, the vulnerability to pollution of such springs has to be studied on a case by case basis. In this paper, a simple lumped‐parameter model usually applied to estimate the mean transit time of water (or tracer) is presented. The original exponential piston‐flow model was modified to take land‐use distribution into account and applied to predict the evolution of atrazine concentration in a series of springs draining a fractured sandstone aquifer in Luxembourg, where despite a nationwide ban in 2005, atrazine concentrations still had not begun to decrease in 2009. This persistence could be explained by exponentially distributed residence times in the aquifer, demonstrating that in some real world cases, models based on the groundwater residence time distribution can be a powerful tool for trend reversal assessments as recommended for instance by current European Union guidelines.     

Reliability assessment of water structures subject to data scarcity using the SCS-CN model

ABSTRACT

When discharge measurements are not available, design of water structures relies on using frequency analysis of rainfall data and applying a rainfall–runoff model to estimate a hydrograph. The Soil Conservation Service (SCS) method estimates the design hydrograph first through a rainfall–runoff transformation and next by propagating runoff to the basin outlet via the SCS unit hydrograph (UH) method. The method uses two parameters, the Curve Number (CN) and the time of concentration (T_c). However, in data-scarce areas, the calibration of CN and T_c from nearby gauged watersheds is limited and subject to high uncertainties. Therefore, the inherent uncertainty/variability of the SCS parameters may have considerable ramifications on the safety of design. In this research, a reliability approach is used to evaluate the impact of incorporating the uncertainty of CN and T_c in flood design. The sensitivity of the probabilistic outcome against the uncertainty of input parameters is calculated using the First Order Reliability Method (FORM). The results of FORM are compared with the conventional SCS results, taking solely the uncertainty of the rainfall event. The relative importance of the uncertainty of the SCS parameters is also estimated. It is found that the conventional approach, used by many practitioners, might grossly underestimate the risk of failure of water structures, due to neglecting the probabilistic nature of the SCS parameters and especially the Curve Number. The most predominant factors against which the SCS-CN method is highly uncertain are when the average rainfall value is low (less than 20 mm) or its coefficient of variation is not significant (less than 0.5), i.e. when the resulting rainfall at the design return period is low. A case study is presented for Egypt using rainfall data and CN values driven from satellite information, to determine the regions of acceptance of the SCS-CN method.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis; ASSOCIATE EDITOR A. Efstratiadis     

Enhancing streamflow forecasting using the augmenting ensemble procedure coupled machine learning models: case study of Aswan High Dam

ABSTRACT

The potential of the most recent pre-processing tool, namely, complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN), is examined for providing AI models (artificial neural network, ANN; M5-model tree, M5-MT; and multivariate adaptive regression spline, MARS) with more informative input–output data and, thence, evaluate their forecasting accuracy. A 130-year inflow dataset for Aswan High Dam, Egypt, is considered for training, validating and testing the proposed models to forecast the reservoir inflow up to six months ahead. The results show that, after the pre-processing analysis, there is a significant enhancement in the forecasting accuracy. The MARS model combined with CEEMDAN gave superior performance compared to the other models – CEEMDAN-ANN and CEEMDAN-M5-MT – with an increase in accuracy of, respectively, about 13–25% and 6–20% in terms of the root mean square error.     

Electrical properties and geochemistry of carbonate rocks from the Qasr El‐Sagha Formation,El‐Faiyum,Egypt

Understanding petrographical, geochemical and electrical properties of rocks is essential for investigating minerals. This paper presents a study of the petrographical, geochemical and A.C. electrical properties of carbonate rock samples. The samples collected show six lithostratigraphic rock units. Electrical properties were measured using a non‐polarizing electrode at room temperature (～20°C) and a relative atmospheric humidity of ～50% by weight in the frequency range from 42 Hz to 5 MHz. The difference in electrical properties between the samples was attributed to the change in composition and texture between the samples. Electrical properties generally change with many factors (grain size, chemical composition, grain shape and facies). The dielectric constant decreases with frequency and increases with conductor composition. The conductivity increases with the increase of conductor paths between electrodes. Many parameters can contribute to the same result of the electrical properties. The main objective of the present study is to shed more light on the relation between the texture and geochemical composition of measured samples (carbonates that contain clays and quartz grains) through electrical laboratory measurements (conductivity and dielectric constant as a function of frequency).