Factors and processes of permanent gully evolution in a Mediterranean marly environment (Cape Bon,Tunisia)

Abstract

Gully erosion is considered to be one of the most important soil erosion processes in Mediterranean marly environments, but its actual contribution to total soil loss is still under discussion. The objectives of this paper are: (a) to acquire the distributed value of erosion rate in a permanent gully developed on a marly substratum in a Mediterranean environment; and (b) to quantify the key factors responsible for the spatial and temporal differences in erosion rates observed within the gully. A permanent gully located in Cap Bon (northeastern Tunisia) has been intensively and regularly monitored over a 7-year period with electronic survey equipment (total station) to give five field topographic surveys, as well as hydrological measurements at the gully outlet. The net soil loss for the 7-year period comprised a denudation of 51 m³ of sediment on the gully bank slopes, which corresponds to a mean soil loss of 61 m³ ha^?1 year^?1 or 6.1 mm year^?1. Denudation was observed on bed units with a slope gradient greater than 20%, while the remainder showed deposition. By confirming the factors involved in gully evolution, and by refining the statistical link between factors and erosion rates within the gully, the results provide important information to predict gully erosion rates in Mediterranean marly environments.

Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Associate editor G. Mahé

Citation El Khalili, A., Raclot, D., Habaieb, H., and Lamachère, J.M., 2013. Factors and processes of permanent gully evolution in a Mediterranean marly environment (Cape Bon, Tunisia). Hydrological Sciences Journal, 58 (7), 1519–1531.     

Dynamics of shock waves in a contracting cloud

The contraction of an interstellar cloud is followed. The results indicates that there are shock waves appear during contraction. In order to study the effect of shock waves, two models have been studied. The post-shock temperature for the two models are, respectively, 3006 K and 2984 K. The density increases by more than three orders of magnitude. The gas is generally cooled by atoms, molecules, and grains. The dominant cooling process changes according to the chemical composition and the temperature of the gas. The thermal equilibrium depends on the existing physical conditions.     

New magnetic chemically peculiar stars

Our observations with the 6-m telescope revealed six new magnetic chemically peculiar (CP) stars among objects with large depressions in the continuum: HDE 293764, BD+17°3622, HD 169887, HDE 231054, HDE 338226, and HDE 343872. The presence of a magnetic field is suspected in several other CP stars. The maximum longitudinal field component B _e exceeds 1.5 kG for all six stars; in HDE 293764 and HDE 343872, it reaches 3.8 kG. For each object, we present our magnetic-field measurements and published data on previous studies. The method of searching for magnetic stars based on an analysis of spectrophotometry shows its efficiency.     

The influence of carbonate textures and rock composition on durability cycles and geomechanical aspects of carbonate rocks

Acta Geotechnica - One of the most important geotechnical parameters in studying the engineering behavior of a rock mass is slake durability. The major goal of this research is to test how a series...     

Studying the Evolution of Earthquake Network Measures for the Main Shock on June 24, 2015 in Egypt

Geotectonics - The monitoring of network measures, such as degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and clustering coefficient is performed, aiming to identify the periods that the earthquake...     

Adaptation to climate change in desertified lands of the marginal regions in Egypt through sustainable crop and livestock diversification systems

Environmental degradation resulting from current climate changes, including prolonged drought, land degradation, desertification, and loss of biodiversity, is presenting enormous challenges to achieve ...     

Land desertification and restoration in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is characterized by high population growth, degraded and fragile nat-ural ecosystems, and a limited amount of arable lands. It is one of the most water-sc...     

Influence d'un changement climatique dû à une hausse de gaz à effet de serre sur l'agriculture au quebec

Abstract

This study, using a climate change scenario generated by the Canadian Climate Centre (CCC) general circulation model (GCM) examines the impacts of such a climate change on agriculture in southern Quebec. Using a crop model from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), yield responses of a variety of cereals, legumes, oleaginous and special crops to climate change are analysed and discussed.

Results show that under the 2 × CO₂ climate scenario the growing season would be longer and accumulation of corn heat units and growing degree days would be more important than under actual climate (1961–1990). One of the more important results of this study is that, on the one hand yield of C₃ cereals would be lower and that of C₄ cereals higher in most agricultural regions. On the other hand, the direct fertilisation effect of increased CO₂ is not considered. It must be cautioned however that we can not generalise results obtained for one legume crop to all legumes.     

Potential for small scale added value of RCM’s downscaled climate change signal

In recent decades, the need of future climate information at local scales have pushed the climate modelling community to perform increasingly higher resolution simulations and to develop alternative approaches to obtain fine-scale climatic information. In this article, various nested regional climate model (RCM) simulations have been used to try to identify regions across North America where high-resolution downscaling generates fine-scale details in the climate projection derived using the “delta method”. Two necessary conditions were identified for an RCM to produce added value (AV) over lower resolution atmosphere-ocean general circulation models in the fine-scale component of the climate change (CC) signal. First, the RCM-derived CC signal must contain some non-negligible fine-scale information—independently of the RCM ability to produce AV in the present climate. Second, the uncertainty related with the estimation of this fine-scale information should be relatively small compared with the information itself in order to suggest that RCMs are able to simulate robust fine-scale features in the CC signal. Clearly, considering necessary (but not sufficient) conditions means that we are studying the “potential” of RCMs to add value instead of the AV, which preempts and avoids any discussion of the actual skill and hence the need for hindcast comparisons. The analysis concentrates on the CC signal obtained from the seasonal-averaged temperature and precipitation fields and shows that the fine-scale variability of the CC signal is generally small compared to its large-scale component, suggesting that little AV can be expected for the time-averaged fields. For the temperature variable, the largest potential for fine-scale added value appears in coastal regions mainly related with differential warming in land and oceanic surfaces. Fine-scale features can account for nearly 60 % of the total CC signal in some coastal regions although for most regions the fine scale contributions to the total CC signal are of around ～5 %. For the precipitation variable, fine scales contribute to a change of generally less than 15 % of the seasonal-averaged precipitation in present climate with a continental North American average of ～5 % in both summer and winter seasons. In the case of precipitation, uncertainty due to sampling issues may further dilute the information present in the downscaled fine scales. These results suggest that users of RCM simulations for climate change studies in a delta method framework have little high-resolution information to gain from RCMs at least if they limit themselves to the study of first-order statistical moments. Other possible benefits arising from the use of RCMs—such as in the large scale of the downscaled fields– were not explored in this research.