Twenty years of land use and livelihood changes in SE-Niger: Obsolete and short-sighted adaptation to climatic and demographic pressures?

This paper explores the evolution of land use and natural resource management strategies over the past twenty to fifty years in a remote Sahelian region. The empirical example is Karagou village in SE Niger. Building on an in-depth survey from 1992 and a targeted, follow-up analysis of contemporary land use strategies in 2011, the change process is scrutinized.The analysis uses the conceptual lenses of land systems science, human–environmental timelines, and the notion of multiple exposures. Enabling and constraining conditions for local livelihoods in terms of the resource base (landscape, water, and population) are described. Results characterize how land use strategies have developed and how local people opportunistically use different landscape elements such as dune landscapes, valley bottoms (bas-fonds) and oases (cuvettes). Major concerns are rainfall variability, saturation of cropland, and perceived dwindling groundwater resources. It is concluded that the land use and livelihood strategies have remained remarkably stable in the face of the changing socio-ecological fringe conditions, but that this situation may hamper a sustainable transformation.     

Water-level fluctuations, emersion regimes, and variations of echinoid populations on a Caribbean reef flat

This paper examines fluctuations in water level over a Caribbean reef flat at Punta Galeta, Panamá. In an analysis of approximately ten years of records, the mean diurnal range of the tides was 24·5 cm and varied <2 cm from year to year. Daily mean water levels varied erratically over a range of approximately 30 cm. Monthly mean water levels fluctuated seasonally over a range of about 10 cm and were consistently higher than those at the regional tidal reference station at Cristóbal. On days with more wave action, water levels at Galeta increased relative to those at Cristóbal, suggesting that waves were ‘pumping’ water onto the reef flat. The monthly mean water levels at the two sites were not correlated, indicating that tidal data from conventional stations in deeper water cannot be extrapolated to reef flats, except as estimates of minimum potential water levels.Most of the reef flat was within 6 cm vertical span just below mean lower low water. The highest elevations within this range were exposed above water level for an average of 918 hours per year, as compared with 144 hours per year at the lowest elevation. Most exposures lasted less than 10 hours, with a modal duration of 3–5 hours; however, exposures longer than 12 hours occurred at nearly all elevations in all years. Exposures of the reef flat were most frequent between February and June and between August and November, a pattern apparently caused by a combination of seasonal oscillations of regional sea levels, the annual pattern of the solstitial tides, and waves generated by seasonal trade winds.The fluctuations in water levels apparently affected the abundances of some species of sea urchins on the reef flat. Populations of Lytechinus variegatus and Diadema antillarum declined or disappeared from the reef flat during seasons of repeated subaerial exposures, but recolonized the habitat in periods of higher water levels. Although they are reported to suffer heavy mortality during emersion, Echinometra lucunter and E. viridis did not exhibit reductions in abundance that were synchronous with the seasonal exposures of the reef flat.     

Resolved images of an unknown sector on the surface of Mercury

We took electronic photographs of Mercury on the side of the planet that was not photographed from the Mariner-10 spacecraft in 1973–1975 by the millisecond-exposure method in ground-based observations. Based on these photographs, we synthesized resolved images of the surface of unknown regions of the planet. The capabilities of the method are limited by the small angular size of the planetary disk (only 7.3 arcsec at average quadrature), specific difficulties of Mercury’s ground-based observations, their very limited duration, and the laboriousness of the subsequent computer-aided observational data processing. The millisecond-exposure method is complex, but a sufficient number of primary electronic photographs can be taken under good seeing conditions for the subsequent synthesis of Mercurian images with a resolution of no worse than the diffraction limit. A giant basin about 2000 km in diameter and other large structures are distinguished in the synthesized images of the planet. In the regions where radar data are available, these structures can be identified with previously found ones. In some measure, the synthesized images allow the relief of the longitude sector 210°–290° W to be reconstructed on Mercury. It can be asserted with caution that the large relief features are distributed asymmetrically over the surface of Mercury, much as observed on other terrestrial planets, the Moon, and many satellites of giant planets.     

Evolution of the distribution of neutron exposures in the Galaxy disc: An analytical model

In this work, based on the analytical model with delayed production approximation developed by Pagel & Tautvaišienė (1995) for the Galaxy, the analytic solutions of the distribution of neutron exposures of the Galaxy (hereafter NEG) are obtained. The present results appear to reasonably reproduce the distribution of neutron exposures of the solar system (hereafter NES). The strong component and the main component of the NES are built up in different epochs. Firstly, the strong component is produced by the s-process nucleosynthesis in the metal-poor AGB stars, starting from [Fe/H] ≈ −1.16 to [Fe/H] ≈ −0.66, corresponding to the time interval 1.06 < t < 2.6 Gyr. Secondly, the main component is produced by the s-process in the galactic disk AGB stars, starting from [Fe/H] ≈ −0.66 to [Fe/H] ≈ 0, corresponding to the time interval t > 2.6 Gyr. The analytic solutions have the advantage of an understanding of the structure and the properties of the NEG. The NEG is believed to be an effective tool to study the s-process element abundance distributions in the Galaxy at different epochs and the galactic chemical evolution of the neutron-capture elements.     

Growth faults above shale – Seismic-scale outcrop analogues from the Makran foreland,SW Pakistan

The southern Makran fold-thrust belt, Pakistan, displays unique outcrop examples of well-exposed, kilometre-scale, listric growth faults that displace Miocene-age deltaic growth strata by several hundreds of metres to kilometers. The largest growth faults are counter-regional (landward-dipping), bounding major clastic depocentres exposed over areas > 1000 km². Stratal offset along these faults can exceed 1.5 km. Fault-zone thicknesses range between ca. 100 and 400 m, and average fault thickness-displacement ratios are around 1:10. High-resolution satellite data show in unprecedented detail the faults and the stratigraphic architecture of associated growth sequences, which comprise kilometre-scale progradational clinoforms, thick mudstone units and basinwards wedging sandstone-shale deposits. The true vertical thickness of the syn-kinematic record is, in places, up to 8 km, making the outcrop examples equivalent to major growth faulted successions known from seismic data of large deltas, and at least an order of magnitude larger than other outcrop examples. A comparison of the Makran outcrops with seismic-reflection examples offshore NW Borneo reveals distinct similarities in the gross depocentre geometries and internal architecture. The key control for growth faulting is interpreted to result from sedimentary loading, with rapid sedimentary progradation causing the development of rollover synclines by differential compaction and fluid expulsion, and counter-regional growth faults preferentially forming on the basinward side of these synclines. The data and interpretations presented can be used to assess the key parameters that contribute to the development of growth faults and growth successions above shale, reinforcing structural and stratigraphic observations from seismic interpretation and modelling studies in demonstrating their occurrence in exposure.     

Causal relations and land use transformation in the Sahel: conceptual lenses for processes,temporal totality and inertia

The paper addresses the challenge of conceptualizing and analyzing complex change processes and causal explanations in human–environment systems. To illustrate this challenge empirically, the paper takes its point of departure in the apparent paradox that the agricultural practices in the desert fringe zone of the Sahel seem to remain remarkably unchanged despite huge and accelerating changes in major driving forces such as climate variations, population pressure, policies and market access. Such partly unexpected trends suggest that novel insight is needed into the human environment interactions that shape the use of land for cultivating purposes in this region. As a background for the paper’s conceptual discussion, recent developments in the Sahelian land use system are briefly described, using documentation from empirical case studies conducted in the northernmost region of Burkina Faso over the past 20?years. Specific attention is given to presenting (a) main trends in the transformation of the land use and livelihoods, (b) the co-evolution of possible driving forces that enables and constrains conditions for change and (c) characteristic trajectories of change. Inspired by the notions of process, temporal totality and inertia, the paper suggests employing a portfolio of complementary perspectives to investigate change processes. More precisely, four different conceptual lenses to analyze human–environment interaction are proposed and examined (the land change science framework, the double exposure notion, the system dynamics (SD) approach and coupled human–environmental timelines). Specific attention is given to the potential contribution of these respective lenses to enhancing our understanding of the land SD and to uncovering important causal relations. It is concluded that these conceptual lenses, in concert, can help to put process, in the sense of a sequence of successive stages, in the centre of our understanding of change and causal relationships in human–environmental systems.