Correction to: Evaluation of a synthetic rainfall model,P-CLIPER,for use in coastal flood modeling

Natural Hazards - Equation 3 was found to have a typographical error that produced negative rainfall rates.     

Temporal dynamics and spatial scales: Modeling deforestation in the southern Yucatán peninsular region

Two spatially explicit econometric land use change models are presented, focusing on tropical deforestation caused by agricultural expansion in the southern Yucatán peninsula, Mexico. The two models developed are both based on conceptually similar theoretical models of farmer behavior. However, there are different empirical specifications of this theoretical model according to the scale of the analysis as well as the availability of temporal data on the observation of deforestation. For both models, the unit of observation for the dependent variable of deforestation is the TM pixel from satellite data. However, the socio-economic explanatory variables are derived from different sources. The first econometric model links the satellite data for the entire study region with aggregate census data at the village level. This model is estimated using a discrete choice logit model over a single time period. The second econometric model uses individual household survey data for a small random sample of the region, linked to satellite data for the plots of each household over multiple time periods. This model is estimated using a dynamic hazard model that estimates the risk of a specific pixel converting from forest to agricultural use. Both estimated models are used to predict deforestation and the results of the two modeling approaches are compared.     

On climate change and cultural geography: farming on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK

Climate change as a global problem has moved relatively swiftly into high profile political debates over the last 20?years or so, with a concomitant diffusion from the natural sciences into the social sciences. The study of the human dimensions of climate change has been growing in momentum through research which attempts to describe, evaluate, quantify and model perceptions of climate change, understand more about risk and assess the construction of policy. Cultural geographers?? concerns with the construction of knowledge, the workings of social relations in space and the politics and poetics of place-based identities provide a lens through which personal, collective and institutional responses to climate change can be evaluated using critical and interpretative methodologies. Adopting a cultural geography approach, this paper examines how climate change as a particular environmental discourse is constructed through memory, observation and conversation, as well as materialised in farming practices on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK.     

The Geoid Slope Validation Survey 2014 and GRAV-D airborne gravity enhanced geoid comparison results in Iowa

Three Geoid Slope Validation Surveys were planned by the National Geodetic Survey for validating geoid improvement gained by incorporating airborne gravity data collected by the “Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum” (GRAV-D) project in flat, medium and rough topographic areas, respectively. The first survey GSVS11 over a flat topographic area in Texas confirmed that a 1-cm differential accuracy geoid over baseline lengths between 0.4 and 320 km is achievable with GRAV-D data included (Smith et al. in J Geod 87:885–907, 2013). The second survey, Geoid Slope Validation Survey 2014 (GSVS14) took place in Iowa in an area with moderate topography but significant gravity variation. Two sets of geoidal heights were computed from GPS/leveling data and observed astrogeodetic deflections of the vertical at 204 GSVS14 official marks. They agree with each other at a \({\pm }1.2\,\, \hbox {cm}\) level, which attests to the high quality of the GSVS14 data. In total, four geoid models were computed. Three models combined the GOCO03/5S satellite gravity model with terrestrial and GRAV-D gravity with different strategies. The fourth model, called xGEOID15A, had no airborne gravity data and served as the benchmark to quantify the contribution of GRAV-D to the geoid improvement. The comparisons show that each model agrees with the GPS/leveling geoid height by 1.5 cm in mark-by-mark comparisons. In differential comparisons, all geoid models have a predicted accuracy of 1–2 cm at baseline lengths from 1.6 to 247 km. The contribution of GRAV-D is not apparent due to a 9-cm slope in the western 50-km section of the traverse for all gravimetric geoid models, and it was determined that the slopes have been caused by a 5 mGal bias in the terrestrial gravity data. If that western 50-km section of the testing line is excluded in the comparisons, then the improvement with GRAV-D is clearly evident. In that case, 1-cm differential accuracy on baselines of any length is achieved with the GRAV-D-enhanced geoid models and exhibits a clear improvement over the geoid models without GRAV-D data. GSVS14 confirmed that the geoid differential accuracies are in the 1–2 cm range at various baseline lengths. The accuracy increases to 1 cm with GRAV-D gravity when the west 50 km line is not included. The data collected by the surveys have high accuracy and have the potential to be used for validation of other geodetic techniques, e.g., the chronometric leveling. To reach the 1-cm height differences of the GSVS data, a clock with frequency accuracy of \(10^{-18}\) is required. Using the GSVS data, the accuracy of ellipsoidal height differences can also be estimated.     

Influence of salt front position on the occurrence of uncommon marine fishes in the Hudson River estuary

Six species of marine fishes, the Atlantic cutlassfish Trichiurus lepturus; planehead filefish, Monacanthus hispidus; guaguanche, Sphyraena guachancho; pigfish, Orthopristic chrysoptera; freckled blenny, Hypsoblenius ionthas; and short bigeye, Pristigenys alta, were observed for the first time in the Hudson River estuary in 1985. Their occurrence was associated with low freshwater runoff and the resulting upstream penetration of the salt front to historic levels. These conditions may have facilitated the dispersal of marine fishes from coastal areas into the lower Hudson River estuary.