Century‐long records reveal slight,ecoregion‐localized changes in Athabasca River flows

Reports of abruptly declining flows of Canada's Athabasca River have prompted concern because this large, free‐flowing river could be representative for northern North America, provides water for the massive Athabasca oil‐sands projects and flows to the extensive and biodiverse Peace–Athabasca, Slave and Mackenzie River deltas. To investigate historic hydrology along the river and its major tributaries, we expanded the time series with interpolations for short data gaps; calculations of annual discharges from early, summer‐only records; and by splicing records across sequential hydrometric gauges. These produced composite, century‐long records (1913–2011) and trend detection with linear Pearson correlation provided similar outcomes to nonparametric Kendall τ‐b tests. These revealed that the mountain and foothills reaches displayed slight increases in winter discharges versus larger declines in summer discharges and consequently declining annual flows (~0.16% per year at Hinton; p < 0.01). Conversely, with contrasting boreal contributions, the Athabasca River at Athabasca displayed no overall trend in monthly or annual flows, but there was correspondence with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation that contributed to a temporary flow decline from 1970 to 2000. These findings from century‐long records contrast with interpretations from numerous shorter‐term studies and emphasize the need for sufficient time series for hydrologic trend analyses. For Northern Hemisphere rivers, the study interval should be at least 80 years to span two Pacific Decadal Oscillation cycles and dampen the influence from phase transitions. Most prior trend analyses considered only a few decades, and this weakens interpretations of the hydrologic consequences of climate change. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中国城镇化地区贡献的内陆化演变与解释——基于1982-2008年省区数据的分析

改革开放30 年来,中国持续快速的经济发展和城镇化受到了世界关注.由于政策环境和地理基础的差异性,地带间差异成为中国城镇化空间差异的主要特征:在多元动力的共同推动下,东部十省的快速城镇化为全国的城镇化进程贡献了49%.新世纪以来,随着西部大开发、东北老工业基地振兴和中部崛起三大区域发展战略的相继提出,政策和地理基础的地带间差异逐步缩小,国内外投资重点向内陆转移,外出务工人员的回流与创业成为人口流动的新特征,带动中西部地区对全国城镇化的贡献迅速提升,中国城镇化的重心向内陆转移,省区城镇化趋同现象比较明显.这些新现象在2005 年以来更加强化.实证结果表明,区域发展战略的提出促进内陆省份对全国城镇化的贡献率提高了8.7%,但并没有对中国省区城镇化的动力机制产生影响;沿海地区产业转移和国际市场的开拓将成为内陆地区城镇化的重要依托.     

生态系统服务研究动态及地理学研究范式

生态系统服务是目前国际上相关研究热点之一.本文综述了国内外生态系统服务研究的进展、存在问题和发展趋势.在此基础上,针对目前生态系统服务研究生态学范式存在的问题,提出了地理学在此领域的研究范式和优先主题.研究认为,从地理学视角研究生态系统服务,应当以空间异质性和区域差异作为切入点,紧紧围绕生态系统结构与功能-生态系统服务-人类社会福祉这一主线,始终将"自然系统提供生态服务与社会经济系统内化消费"之间的耦合联系作为研究核心,综合集成分析社会经济系统对自然资本内化的响应.通过建构生态系统服务的地理学研究范式,不仅可以拓展生态系统服务研究的深度和广度,而且有助于提升自然和社会经济系统的集成分析水平,进而推动地理学综合研究进程.同时,也为地理学的核心命题--人地关系研究提供重要的实践领域.     

地缘政治演变驱动力变化与地缘政治学研究新趋势

随着科技进步和经济、社会的发展,影响地缘政治格局演变的驱动力因子发生了显著变化。首先,技术的进步、高速运输工具的诞生,传统的地理空间关系和地域联系都发生了很大的变化,空间距离所产生的效应在降低;其次,地缘政治博弈主体间的力量对比发生变化,借助互联网,原来相对弱势的个人和非政府组织的地位和作用在上升;第三,在全球化的背景下,经济利益在国家战略中的地位上升,地缘政治的冲突逻辑,正逐渐让位于地缘经济的竞争逻辑;第四,与气候变化相关联的新因素对地缘政治格局的影响越来越显著,碳排放权等相对虚化的权利发展成为新的地缘政治争夺对象。在上述驱动力的作用下,地缘政治学发展和研究出现了新的趋势：① 更加关注全球问题和从全人类视角研究问题,传统的主权国家概念受到严重挑战;② 从对土地、能源矿产和海上战略通道等实体资源争夺,向信息权、碳排放权等相对虚拟的资源转变;③ 重视新的能源类型和新的地域空间对地缘政治格局的影响;④ 通过对传统地缘政治学的批判,在研究内容上向所谓的“低政治”问题拓展,地缘政治与地缘经济、地缘文化等交叉和融合成为趋势;⑤ 地缘政治学研究方法和手段更加多元;⑥ 中国实力的快速增长成为改变世界地缘政治格局的重要力量,也为地缘政治研究带来机遇。     

Meteorological Observations 2002 at the Arctic Station,Qeqertarsuaq (69°15'N), Central West Greenland

An automatic meteorological station has been operating at the Arctic Station (69°15'N, 53°31'W) in West Greenland since 1990. This paper summarises meteorological parameters during 2002, including snow cover, ground temperatures and active layer development, and air temperatures at the Station during the last 12 years are compared to large scale trends during the last century.

A compilation of 93 sedimentation rate determinations based on ²¹⁰Pb dating has been carried out for the North Sea-Baltic Sea transition area from a database containing 165 determinations carried out by Danish institutions. In the depositional parts of the area sedimentation rates generally range 25–6403 g m^?2 y^?1. An extreme rate of 13351 g m^?2 y^?1 is observed on a station in the Skagerrak. Sedimentation rates significantly increase with depth indicating that the Skagerrak and northern parts of the Kattegat as well as the deep basins in the Baltic Sea act as depocentres for fine-grained sediments. Apparently, sedimentation rates have increased in recent years.     

Trends in Spatial Statistics

With many leading spatial analysts nearing retirement, reflection on the discipline becomes beneficial. To capture some of their collective perspective, fifty-eight researchers were surveyed on key spatial analysis developments, future challenges, and essential readings for newcomers. Geographic information systems (GIS), new data sources, improved understanding of spatial autocorrelation, spatially local methods, and the spread of spatial analysis beyond geography featured prominently among the twenty-four respondents. Future challenges included overcoming methodological limitations and retaining spatial analysis within geography. Twelve books highlighted by respondents are also summarized. Finally, a synthesis and some thoughts based on survey results are presented.     

The Evolution and Research Trends of Port Geography

Despite the long existence of port geography research, there has been no systematic investigation on its evolution and research trends. Hence, through investigating 155 port geography articles featured in geography journals between 1956 and 2011, this article studied the evolution and research trends of port geography. The article argues that port geography had gradually evolved from a secondary and encyclopedic subdiscipline within transport and human geographies to a primary and specialized one. Such a trend had blurred its “geographicalness,” however, with port geography moving toward the more applied and interdisciplinary transportation. The article also indicates that further research would be required to understand the communication between port geography and other disciplines, as well as philosophical and epistemological issues.     

Spatio-temporal analysis of tree height in a young cork oak plantation

Cork oak is one of the most valuable natural forest genera in the Mediterranean basin. Modelling cork oak growth has been a challenge for foresters in recent years because of strong site and genetic influences, below-ground competition, management regimes and age effects. Because cork productivity is related to forest height, which is, in turn, related directly with site characteristics, an increase in the accuracy of height prediction implies improved productivity estimation. A Bayesian maximum entropy (BME) geostatistical model was applied to characterize the space–time pattern of height of young cork oak in a forest stand from central Sardinia in the years 2000, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2008. Cork oak height maps were produced for each of the 5 years. The main goals were to analyse and interpret through time (i) the changes in spatial correlation and (ii) the changes in spatial distribution of cork oak height. The plantation was characterized by an increasing spatial dependence through time, whereas the temporal range was 2 years. Cork oak height was significantly correlated with wind speed (reduced by a neighbouring forest) in all the years implying a single trend. The correlations were larger for 2006 and 2008 than for previous years. Three other environmental variables (shade, elevation and slope) were less significant and their influence restricted to 2 years only. This research has several implications for the management of cork oak in the young phase.     

Hydro-climatic trends in the Abay/Upper Blue Nile basin,Ethiopia

Trends of the three hydro-meteorological variables precipitation, temperature and stream flow, represented by 13, 12, and 9 gauging stations, respectively, within the Abay/Upper Blue Nile basin have been studied to support water management in the region. The Trends were evaluated over different time periods depending on data availability at the stations. The statistical Mann–Kendall and Pettitt tests have been used to assess trends and change points respectively. The tests have been applied to mean annual, monthly, seasonal, 1- and 7-days annual minimum and maximum values for streamflow, while mean annual, monthly and seasonal timescales were applied to meteorological variables. The results are heterogeneous and depict statistically significant increasing/decreasing trends. Besides, it showed significant abrupt change of point upward/downward shift for streamflow and temperature time series. However, precipitation time series did not show any statistically significant trends in mean annual and seasonal scales across the examined stations.Increasing trends in temperature at different weather stations for the mean annual, rainy, dry and small rainy seasons are apparent. The mean temperature at Bahir Dar – typical station in the Lake Tana sub basin, has been increasing at the rate of about 0.5 °C/decade, 0.3 °C/decade in rainy season (June–September), 0.6 °C/decade in small rainy season (March–May), and 0.6 °C/decade in dry season (October–February). Other stations in the Abay/Upper Blue Nile show comparable results. Overall it is found that trends and change point times varied considerably across the stations and catchment to catchment. Identified significant trends can help to make better planning decisions for water management. However, the cause attributes to the observed changes in hydro-meteorological variables need further research. In particular the combined effects of land use/land cover change and climate variability on streamflow of Abay/Blue Nile basin and its tributaries needs to be understood better.     

The contrasted evolution of high and low flows and precipitation indices in the Duero basin (Spain)

Abstract

Trends in high and low flows are valuable indicators of hydrological change because they highlight changes in various parts of the frequency distribution of streamflow series. This enables improved assessment of water availability in regions with high seasonal and inter-annual variability. There has been a substantial reduction in water resources in the Duero basin (Iberian Peninsula, Spain) and other areas of the Mediterranean region during the last 50 years, and this is likely to continue because of climate change. In this study, we investigated the evolution and trends in high and low flows in the Spanish part of the Duero basin, and in equivalent or closely-related precipitation indices for the period 1961–2005. The results showed a general trend of decrease in the frequency and magnitude of high flows throughout most of the basin. Moreover, the number of days with low flows significantly increased over this period. No clear relationship was evident between the evolution of high/low flows and changes in the distribution frequencies of the precipitation series. In contrast to what was expected, the number of days with heavy precipitation and the mean annual precipitation did not show significant trends across the basin, and the number of days without rainfall decreased slightly. The divergence between precipitation and runoff evolution was more accentuated in spring and summer. In the absence of trends in precipitation, it is possible that reforestation processes in the region, and increasing temperatures in recent decades, could be related to the decreasing frequency of high flows and the increasing frequency of low flows.

Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Associate editor S. Grimaldi

Citation Morán-Tejeda, E., López-Moreno, J.I., Vicente-Serrano, S.M., Lorenzo-Lacruz, J. and Ceballos-Barbancho, A., 2012. The contrasted evolution of high and low flows and precipitation indices in the Duero basin (Spain). Hydrological Sciences Journal, 57 (4), 591–611.