A Linking Test to reduce the number of hydraulic parameters necessary to simulate groundwater recharge in unsaturated soils

In environmental studies, numerical simulation models are valuable tools for testing hypothesis about systems functioning and to perform sensitivity studies under scenarios of land use or climate changes. The simulations depend upon parameters which are not always measurable quantities and must be calibrated against observations, using for instance inverse modelling. Due to the scarcity of these observations, it has been found that parameter sets allowing a good matching between simulated and measured quantities are often non-unique, leading to the problem of equifinality. This can lead to non-physical values, erroneous fluxes and misleading sensitivity analysis. Therefore, a simple but robust inverse method coined the Linking Test is presented to determine if the parameters are linked. Linked parameters are then sub-divided into classes according to their impact on water fluxes. The Linking Test establishes the causes of non-uniqueness of parameter sets and the feasibility of the inverse modelling.     

Field observations of an evolving rip current on a meso-macrotidal well-developed inner bar and rip morphology

The Aquitanian Coast (France) is a high-energy meso-macrotidal environment exhibiting a highly variable double sandbar system. The inner and the outer bar generally exhibit a bar and rip morphology and persistent crescentic patterns, respectively. In June 2007, an intense five-day field experiment was carried out at Biscarrosse Beach. A large array of sensors was deployed on a well-developed southward-oriented bar and rip morphology. Daily topographic surveys were carried out together with video imaging to investigate beach morphodynamic evolution. During the experiment, offshore significant wave height ranged from 0.5 to 3 m, with a persistent shore-normal angle. This paper identifies two types of behavior of an observed rip current: (1) for low-energy waves, the rip current is active only between low and mid tide with maximum mean rip current velocity reaching 0.8 m/s for an offshore significant wave height (H_s) lower than 1 m; (2) for high-energy waves (H_s≈ 2.5–3 m), the rip current was active over the whole tide cycle with the presence of persistent intense offshore-directed flows between mid and high tide. For both low and high-energy waves, very low-frequency pulsations (15–30 min) of the mean currents are observed on both feeder and rip channels.A persistent slow shoreward migration of the sandbar was observed during the experiment while no significant alongshore migration of the system was measured. Onshore migration during the high-energy waves can be explained by different sediment transport processes such as flow velocity skewness, wave asymmetry or bed ventilation. High-frequency local measurements of the bed evolution show the presence of significant (in the order of 10 cm) fluctuations (in the order of 1 h). These fluctuations, observed for both low- and high-energy waves, are thought to be ripples and megaripples, respectively and may play an important but still poorly understood role in the larger scale morphodynamics. The present dataset improves the knowledge of rip dynamics as well as the morphological response of strongly alongshore non-uniform meso-macrotidal beaches.     

Substrate influence and temporal changes on periphytic biomass accrual and metabolism in a tropical humic lagoon

We performed a field experiment in a tropical humic coastal lagoon to evaluate periphyton biomass accrual and metabolism on three different substrates (1) plastic ribbons, (2) green and (3) senescent leaves of the emergent macrophyte Typha domingensis) over 30 days. The contribution of autotrophic biomass decreased as total biomass increased over the time. Mean periphytic ash free dry weight ranged from 0.8 to 5.6 mg cm⁻², but periphyton chlorophyll a concentrations presented shorter amplitudes, which oscillated from 0.12 to 0.44 μg cm⁻² throughout the experiment. Periphyton metabolism was overall heterotrophic on all substrates, especially on senescent leaves. Our data show that substrate type influenced both biomass accrual and periphyton net productivity and respiration rates throughout periphyton development and highlighted the dominance of heterotrophic metabolism. The periphyton respiration may be subsidized by both water- and substrate-derived allochthonous energy pathways, shedding light on the role of periphytic assemblages to the carbon cycling, as a source of CO₂ to the system.     

Chemical Characterization of Biosolids from Three Spanish WWTPs: Transfer of Organics and Metallic Pollution from Urban Wastewater to Biosolids

The production of biosolids in three Spanish wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has been investigated. Biosolids produced from the treatment of urban wastewater in Spain are usually intended for agricultural use. The reliable production of biosolids mainly depends on both the quantity of suspended solids and the organic load influent to the treatment systems. The quality of the generated biosolids was independent of both the amount of treated water and the treatment process applied, with 20 to 25% dried matter, and 60 to 75%, 7% and 4% of organic matter, N and P, respectively, of the total matter. The biosolids contained ca. 11 to 19 g/kg of total metals in the dry matter, with Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn representing 97% of all of the metals present, and Hg being the minority metal. Such biosolids had the ability to concentrate the organic matter and metals from the wastewater up to 417 and 869 times, respectively, and thus, can be used in agricultural practice.     

Phytoplankton community variations in tropical coastal area affected where submarine groundwater occurs

The influence of subterranean water discharge on phytoplankton was studied at two localities (Progreso and Dzilam) on the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Hydrographic and phytoplankton samples were taken monthly between September 1998 and August 1999. High concentration of silicate (>65 μmol L⁻¹) and nitrate (>80 μmol L⁻¹) and low salinity showed the influence of submerged groundwater discharge (SGD) in the area. In Dzilam, hydrological conditions shows low salinity and high concentration of nitrate and silicate favored from the SGD. Meanwhile, high concentrations of ammonium, nitrite, and phosphate at Progreso (>150 000 inhabitants) suggest mixing of SGD and domestic waste waters. Thick-valve pennate diatoms dominated at Dzilam while dinoflagellates dominated in Progreso. Hydrological differences in both study zones suggest that local forcings, and interaction between coastal water masses and SGD plays an important role in hydrological conditions and primary productivity in the coastal zone of Yucatan. The anthropogenic modified SGD in Progreso may affect the nutrient regime and phytoplankton community structure, and may be used as indicator of eutrophication.     

Assessing coastal benthic macrofauna community condition using best professional judgement - Developing consensus across North America and Europe

Benthic indices are typically developed independently by habitat, making their incorporation into large geographic scale assessments potentially problematic because of scaling inequities. A potential solution is to establish common scaling using expert best professional judgment (BPJ). To test if experts from different geographies agree on condition assessment, sixteen experts from four regions in USA and Europe were provided species-abundance data for twelve sites per region. They ranked samples from best to worst condition and classified samples into four condition (quality) categories. Site rankings were highly correlated among experts, regardless of whether they were assessing samples from their home region. There was also good agreement on condition category, though agreement was better for samples at extremes of the disturbance gradient. The absence of regional bias suggests that expert judgment is a viable means for establishing a uniform scale to calibrate indices consistently across geographic regions.     

Traveltime approximations for q‐P waves in vertical transversely isotropy media*

As exploration targets have become deeper, cable lengths have increased accordingly, making the conventional two term hyperbolic traveltime approximation produce increasingly erroneous traveltimes. To overcome this problem, many traveltime formulas were proposed in the literature that provide approximations of different quality. In this paper, we concentrate on simple traveltime approximations that depend on a single anisotropy parameter. We give an overview of a collection of such traveltime approximations found in the literature and compare their quality. Moreover, we propose some new single‐parameter traveltime approximations based on the approximations found in the literature. The main advantage of our approximations is that some of them are rather simple analytic expressions that make them easy to use, while achieving the same quality as the better of the established formulas.     

POTASSIUM—ARGON AGE OF THE RACO METEORITE (ARGENTINA)

The Raco meteorite fell in Raco, a small village in the Province of Tucumán, Argentina, on November 17, 1957. In the Centro de Pesquisas Geocronologicas of the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), the authors determined its K-Ar age: 4.400±28 m.y.     

The Santa Filomena meteorite shower: Trajectory,classification, and opaque phases as indicators of metamorphic conditions

On August 19, 2020, at 13:18—UTC, a meteor event ended as a meteorite shower in Santa Filomena, a city in the Pernambuco State, northeast Brazil. The heliocentric orbital parameters resulting from images by cameras of the weather broadcasting system were semimajor axis a = 2.1 ± 0.1 au, eccentricity e = 0.55 ± 0.03, and inclination i = 0.15^o ± 0.05. The data identified the body as an Apollo object, an Earth-crossing object with a pericenter interior to the Earth's orbit. The chemical, mineralogical, and petrological evaluations, as well as the physical analysis, followed several traditional techniques. The meteorite was identified as a H5-6 S4 W0 ordinary chondrite genomict breccia. The large amount of metal in the meteorite made a metallographic evaluation based on the opaque phases possible. The monocrystalline kamacite crystals suggest a higher petrological type and the distorted Neumann lines imply at least two different shock events. The absence of the plessite phase shows that the meteorite did not reach the highest shock levels S5 and S6. The well-defined polycrystalline taenite is indicative of petrologic types 4 and 5 due to the conserved internal tetrataenite rim at the boundaries. The presence of polycrystalline taenites and the characteristics of the Agrell Effect suggest that the Santa Filomena meteorite did not reheat above 700°C. The absence of martensite confirms reheating temperatures <800°C and a slow cooling rate. The Ni contents and sizes of the zoned taenite particles indicate a slow cooling rate ranging from 1 to 10 K Myr⁻¹.     

Rainfall-induced landslide susceptibility zonation of Puerto Rico

Landslides are a major geologic hazard with estimated tens of deaths and $1–2 billion in economic losses per year in the US alone. The island of Puerto Rico experiences one or two large events per year, often triggered in steeply sloped areas by prolonged and heavy rainfall. Identifying areas susceptible to landslides thus has great potential value for Puerto Rico and would allow better management of its territory. Landslide susceptibility zonation (LSZ) procedures identify areas prone to failure based on the characteristics of past events. LSZs are here developed based on two widely applied methodologies: bivariate frequency ratio (FR method) and logistic regression (LR method). With these methodologies, the correlations among eight possible landslide-inducing factors over the island have been investigated in detail. Both methodologies indicate aspect, slope, elevation, geological discontinuities, and geology as highly significant landslide-inducing factors, together with land-cover for the FR method and distance from road for the LR method. The LR method is grounded in rigorous statistical testing and model building but did not improve results over the simpler FR method. Accordingly, the FR method has been selected to generate a landslide susceptibility map for Puerto Rico. The landslide susceptibility predictions were tested against previous landslide analyses and other landslide inventories. This independent evaluation demonstrated that the two methods are consistent with landslide susceptibility zonation from those earlier studies and showed this analysis to have resulted in a robust and verifiable landslide susceptibility zonation map for the whole island of Puerto Rico.