The contribution of old and new water to a storm hydrograph determined by tracer addition to a whole catchment

Two tracer experiments have been carried out at an enclosed catchment in southern Norway. The catchment was brought to steady state with respect to rainfall and runoff prior to the tracer addition. A known concentration of lithium bromide was then added to the rainfall for the duration of each event. The tight control on tracer concentration and rainfall amount enabled assessment of the contribution of old and new water to runoff, the dominant flow pathways and soil water residence times during a storm event. A significant volume of ‘old’ water contributes to runoff despite the hydrologically responsive nature of the catchment and several hours of tracer injected rainfall are required before ‘new’ water becomes the dominant runoff source. After 34 h of tracer injection, ‘new’ water apparently contributes c. 83% to instantaneous flow and c. 55% of the total tracer input to the catchment has been lost in runoff. Recovery of the tracer from soil water indicates that the organic soil surface layer is the dominant flow pathway for rainwater through the catchment and that a significant pathway also exists at the soil–bedrock interface. New water is retained in deep pockets of soil for several days. Assessment of the conservative behaviour of the tracer suggests that 10–14% of the input Br⁻ is retained in the soil and the tracer is not conservative. Laboratory experiments indicate that sorption of Br⁻ to organic soil is the likely mechanism of retention. This process is probably concentration dependent and will have occurred predominantly during the initial period of tracer application. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do international factors influence the passage of climate change legislation?

The number of climate change laws in major economies has grown from less than 40 in 1997 to almost 500 at the end of 2013. The passage of these laws is influenced by both domestic and international factors. This article reviews the main international factors, drawing on a powerful new dataset of climate legislation in 66 national jurisdictions. We find that the propensity to legislate on climate change is heavily influenced by the passage of similar laws elsewhere, suggesting a strong and so far under-appreciated role for international policy diffusion. International treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol work in two ways. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol itself is limited to countries with formal obligations under the treaty. In addition, the prestige of hosting an international climate summit is associated with a subsequent boost in legislation. Legislators seem to respond to the expectations of climate leadership that these events bestow on their host.

Policy relevance

A global solution to climate change will ultimately have to be anchored in domestic legislation, which creates the legal basis for countries to take action. Countries are passing climate legislation in a growing number. This article asks to what extent they are motivated to do so by international factors, such as existing treaty obligations. We find that the Kyoto Protocol has been a less important factor in explaining climate legislation outside Annex I than the passage of similar laws elsewhere. This suggests that international policy diffusion plays an important and so far under-appreciated role in global climate policy, complementing formal treaty obligations.     

Annual floods in New England (USA) and Atlantic Canada: synoptic climatology and generating mechanisms

New England and Atlantic Canada are characterized by mixed flood regimes that reflect different storm types, antecedent land surface conditions, and flood seasonality. Mixed flood regimes are known to complicate flood risk analyses, yet the synoptic climatology and precipitation mechanisms that generate annual floods in this region have not been described in detail. We analyzed a set of long-term annual flood records at climate-sensitive stream gauges across the region and classified the synoptic climatology of each annual flood, quantitatively describing the precipitation mechanisms, and characterize flood seasonality. We find that annual floods here are dominantly generated by Great Lakes-sourced storms and Coastal lows, known locally as ‘nor’easters.’ Great Lakes storms tend to be associated with lower magnitude annual floods (<75th percentile) and Coastal lows are more clearly associated with higher magnitude events (>75th percentile). Tropical cyclones account for few of all annual floods, including extreme events, despite causing some of the region’s largest and most destructive floods. Late winter/early spring is when the greatest number of annual floods occur region wide, and rainfall is the dominant flood-producing mechanism. Rainfall in combination with snowmelt is also important. Both mechanisms are expected to be impacted by projected regional climate change. We find little evidence for associations between flood-producing synoptic storm types or precipitation mechanisms and large-scale atmospheric circulation indices or time periods, despite upward trends in New England annual flood magnitudes. To more completely investigate such associations, partial duration flood series that include more floods than just the largest of each year, and their associated synoptic climatologies and precipitation mechanisms, should be analyzed.     

RELIGION AND POLITICS: NEW RELIGIOUS SITES AND SPATIAL TRANSGRESSION IN ISRAEL*

ABSTRACT. In order to view the establishment of new religions centers and how they are received by local populations, I analyze such basic geographical concepts as scale, space, location, and image. I see how these can alter the perception and further refine the concept of spatial transgression in three case studies in Israel: the building of the Mormon Center in Jerusalem, the establishment of the Bahá‘í Gardens in Haifa, and the struggle to build a mosque in Nazareth. In this article I seek to identify the factors influencing the presence or absence of conflict to help explain the different “stories” revealed. The article also constitutes an addition to the literature on Israeli (and Palestinian) religiogeographical controversies by focusing on nonmainstream or nondominant cases and by comparing the relative roles of different factors that shape the success or failure of spatial transgressions in religious geography.     

Fingerprinting the sources of water-mobilized sediment threatening agricultural and water resource sustainability: Progress,challenges and prospects in China

Sediment source fingerprinting apportions the sources of sediment produced by water erosion by linking sampled sediment mixtures and landscape source materials using diagnostic and conservative fingerprints.Using this approach,the nature and location of active sediment sources across the catchment can be elucidated,generating information which is a key prerequisite for the design and implementation of catchment management strategies.The science of sediment source fingerprinting continues to attract much research globally,but to date,there have been relatively few fingerprinting studies in China.Here,there remain major challenges for the fingerprinting approach arising from the uniqueness of Chinese landscapes,including for instance,the complex land use configuration with highly fragmented or mosaic patches and the highly dynamic land use conversion rates,generating a need to test the physical basis for the discriminatory power and environmental behavior of both traditional and novel tracers.Future research is needed to investigate the applicability of tracer properties in different physiographic settings and to evaluate the potential strategic utility of the approach for supporting the improved management of soil and water sustainability.Here,the strategic availability of independent observation data for different components of catchment sediment budgets and well-maintained research infrastructure for plots,micro-catchments and drainage basins provides immediate opportunity for testing the approach and refining procedures.Such detailed testing across scales would be invaluable for promoting sediment source fingerprinting as both a scientific and management tool for informing soil and water conservation practices in China.     

Environmental Health Injustice: Exposure to Air Toxics and Children's Respiratory Hospital Admissions in El Paso,Texas

Although much environmental justice research tacitly assumes that unequal environmental exposures produce geographic disparities in adverse health outcomes, very few empirical environmental justice studies have tested that assumption. This article does so by using estimates of exposure to air toxics disaggregated by emission source (point and mobile) to predict children's hospitalization rates for both asthma and respiratory infections in El Paso, Texas. Air toxics emissions from most source categories were found to be significant predictors of children's respiratory infection hospitalization rates, but not asthma hospitalization rates, at the census tract level. Findings suggest that sociospatial disparities in respiratory infection rates might be linked to environmental inequalities.     

Causes and extent of environmental impacts of landslide hazard in the Himalayan region: a case study of Murree, Pakistan

Pakistan is located at the cross-roads of plate boundaries, experiencing multiple hazards of earthquake, flood, drought, water-logging, salinization and recurrent landslides. This paper examines the causes and environmental impacts of frequently occurring landslide hazards in the Murree area of Pakistan??s Himalayan region. These are wide ranging in nature and in terms of the damage that result. The area under research was divided into eight blocks and randomly data collected. It was observed that landslides mostly occur along the road network and disturbed slopes. Immature geology, a wide variation in climate and degradation of the natural resource-base were found to be some of the causal factors responsible for the landslide hazards. During the past three decades, rapid expansion of urban zones contributed to the changing vulnerability of the area. The analysis revealed that a large majority of the households (75%) in the area have been directly or indirectly affected by landslide hazards. Damages to already scarce agricultural land, infrastructure and other properties are each year a regular and escalating phenomenon. Landslide size, frequency and consequent costs of damage have increased considerably.