The 2018 summer drought in Europe was particularly extreme in terms of intensity and impact due to the combination of low rainfall and high temperatures. However, it remains unclear how this drought developed in time and space in such an extreme way. In this study we aimed to get a better understanding of the role of land-atmosphere interactions. More specifically, we investigated whether there was a change in water vapor originating from land, if that caused a reduction in rainfall, and by this mechanism possibly the propagation and intensification of the drought in Europe. Our first step was to use remote sensing products for soil moisture content (SMC) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to see where the 2018 drought started and how it developed in time and space. Our SMC and NDVI analysis showed that the 2018 drought started to impact the soil and vegetation state in June in Scandinavia and the British Isles. After that it moved towards the West of Europe where it intensified in July and August. In September, it started to decay. In October, drought was observed in southeast Europe as well. Based on the observed patterns we divided Europe into six regions of similar spatiotemporal characteristics of SMC and NDVI. Then, we used a global gridded dataset of the fate of land evaporation (i.e., where it ends up as precipitation) to investigate whether the drought intensification and propagation was impacted by the reduction in water vapor transported from the regions that first experienced the drought. This impact was investigated by identifying the anomalies in the water vapor originating from land recycling, imports and exports within Europe during the spring, summer, and autumn seasons. From these regions we identified four drought regions and investigated the changes in water vapor originating from source regions on the development of drought in those regions. It was found that during the onset phase of the 2018 drought in Europe that the water vapor originating from land played an important role in mitigating the precipitation anomalies as, for example, the share of land evaporation contributing to precipitation increased from 27% (normal years) to 38% (2018) during July in West of Europe. Land evaporation played a minor role in amplifying it during the intensification phase of the drought as the share of land evaporation contribution to precipitation decreased from 23% (normal years) to 21% (2018) during August in West of Europe. These findings are somewhat in contrast to similar studies in other continents that found the land surface to play a strong amplifying role for drought development. Subsequently, we found that the relative increase in the amount of land water vapor originating from eastern half of Europe played a role in delaying the onset and accelerating the decay of the 2018 drought in West of Europe.

Abstract: The effect of some weather parameters (rainfall and temperature) on the production of oil palm in Peninsular Malaysia was investigated. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 20.0 version), with descriptive statistics, time series analysis, and multiple linear regression (MLR) carried out. SPSS and Microsoft Excel 2010 were used to analyse the results. The MLR model determined the strength of the relationship between oil palm yield (dependent variable) and the changing variables of temperature and rainfall (independent variables). The regression output returned three components; regression coefficients, regression statistics and ANOVA. The findings of the study revealed medium to high rainfall variability at the rate of 0.0008. This implies that rainfall is increasing over time with variations in its amount and intensity. As rainfall increases oil palm FFB production is predicted to increase at a slow rate of 0.0009. The estimation of average annual temperature indicated an increase of 5.6℃ at the rate of 0.0357℃ per year with a temperature maximum of 32.01℃ and minimum of 25.45℃. The result also revealed an increase in oil palm yield at the rate of 0.2581 per year with a mean value of 176247.6. Overall, there is a significant difference in the impact of rainfall and temperature on oil palm yield. This signifies that rainfall has a significant impact on oil palm yield (FFB) compared to temperature.

Minerals play many important functions in plant and animal metabolism. Therefore, we investigated the concentration of Se and other minerals and their relationships in soils and fodder plants in Kosovo. Seventy-three samples of each soil and fodder plants (grass, maize, and wheat) from 30 farms were collected. Both soil and plant samples, after processing and digestion, were analyzed for mineral concentration by ICP-MS. Mineral concentrations in soil and fodder crops, and the best predicting/explanatory models for micro minerals concentration, achieved by stepwise linear regression, are presented. Results showed very low concentration of Se in most of the soil and all fodder samples. In addition, the concentration of Co, Zn and Fe was not sufficient to satisfy requirements for all categories of farm animals. Plant Se concentration showed a positive relationship with Se concentration in soils. Plant Zn, Mo, Mn, Fe and Pb, in general, showed no significant relationship with their concentration in soil, while plant Co and Cd showed positive relationship only in maize, and Cu in wheat grain. Among the soil properties, pH had the highest effect on the concentrations of Co, Mo, Mn, Cd and Pb in fodder crops.

Natural disasters ravage the world's cities, valleys, and shores on a monthly basis. Having precise and efficient mechanisms for assessing infrastructure damage is essential to channel resources and minimize the loss of life. Using a dataset that includes labeled pre- and post- disaster satellite imagery, we train multiple convolutional neural networks to assess building damage on a per-building basis. In order to investigate how to best classify building damage, we present a highly interpretable deep-learning methodology that seeks to explicitly convey the most useful information required to train an accurate classification model. We also delve into which loss functions best optimize these models. Our findings include that ordinal-cross entropy loss is the most optimal loss function to use and that including the type of disaster that caused the damage in combination with a pre- and post-disaster image best predicts the level of damage caused. Our research seeks to computationally contribute to aiding in this ongoing and growing humanitarian crisis, heightened by climate change.

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) established a multi-dimensional hydrogen analysis system to evaluate a hydrogen release, distribution, and combustion in the containment of a nuclear power plant using MAAP, GASFLOW, and COM3D. KAERI developed the COM3D analysis methodology on the basis of the COM3D validation results against the experiments of ENACCEF and THAI. The proposed analysis methodology accurately predicts the peak overpressure with an error range of approximately ±10% using the Kawanabe turbulent flame speed model. KAERI performed a hydrogen flame acceleration analysis using the multi-dimensional hydrogen analysis system for a severe accident initiated by a station blackout (SBO) under the assumption of 100% metal-water reaction in the reactor pressure vessel for evaluating an overpressure buildup in the Advanced Power Reactor 1400 MWe (APR1400). The COM3D calculation results using the established analysis methodology showed that the calculated peak pressure in the containment was much lower than the fracture pressure of the APR1400 containment. This calculation result may have resulted from a large air volume of the containment, a reduced hydrogen concentration owing to passive auto-catalytic recombiners installed in the containment, and a lot of stem presence during the hydrogen flame acceleration in the containment. Therefore, we can know that the current design of the APR1400 containment maintains its integrity when the flame acceleration occurs during the severe accident initiated by the SBO accident.

There are many new land use and land cover (LULC) products emerging yet there is still a lack of in-situ data for training, validation, and change detection purposes. The LUCAS (Land Use Cover Area frame Sample) survey is one of the few authoritative in-situ field campaigns, which takes place every three years in European Union member countries. More recently, a study has considered whether citizen science and crowdsourcing could complement LUCAS survey data, e.g., through the FotoQuest Austria mobile app and crowdsourcing campaign. Although the data obtained from the campaign were promising when compared with authoritative LUCAS survey data, there were classes that were not well classified by the citizens, and the photographs submitted through the app were not always of sufficient quality. For this reason, in the latest FotoQuest Go Europe 2018 campaign, several improvements were made to the app to facilitate interaction with the citizens contributing and to improve their accuracy in LULC identification. In addition to extending the locations from Austria to Europe, a change detection component (comparing land cover in 2018 to the 2015 LUCAS photographs) was added, as well as an improved LC decision tree and a near real-time quality assurance system to provide feedback on the distance to the target location, the LULC classes chosen and the quality of the photographs. Another modification was the implementation of a monetary incentive scheme in which users received between 1 to 3 Euros for each successfully completed quest of sufficient quality. The purpose of this paper is to present these new features and to compare the results obtained by the citizens with authoritative LUCAS data from 2018 in terms of LULC and change in LC. We also compared the results between the FotoQuest campaigns in 2015 and 2018 and found a significant improvement in 2018, i.e., a much higher match of LC between FotoQuest Go Europe and LUCAS. Finally, we present the results from a user survey to discuss challenges encountered during the campaign and what further improvements could be made in the future, including better in-app navigation and offline maps, making FotoQuest a model for enabling the collection of large amounts of land cover data at a low cost.

Topography represented by high resolution digital elevation models are able to inform past and present morphological process on the terrain. High resolution LiDAR data taken by the General Directorate of Map at the surroundings of the Bergama city shows great opportunities to understand the morphological process on alluvial fan on which the city is located and the flood plain of Bakırçay river near the alluvial fan. In this paper the LiDAR data collected in 2015 have been used to create DEM’s to understand the geomorphological evolution of the alluvial fan and the flood plain around it. Since the proximal roots and medial parts of the alluvial fan have been the scene for a long human settlement most topographical traces of the morphological process have been distorted. Nevertheless, the traces of past and present morphological process at the distal fan which consist the contact zone with the flood plain are very clear on the DEM created from LiDAR data. The levees and some old courses of Bergama and Bakırçay rivers have been shown on the maps which are also important to understand the ancient roads which follows these levees.

El Niño is warming of the sea surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean. Extreme flooding, drought, lack of potable water for livestock and domestic use, food insecurity and market imbalance are associated with El Niño and La Niña in Ethiopia. Drought following El Niño caused 50 to 90% crop failure, in the eastern parts of Ethiopia. El Niño episodes are detected using different statistical indices such as Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), Agricultural Stress Index System (ASIS) and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), with magnitude ranging from weak to strong. Identifying the El Niño and La Niña seasons it is very important to adopt suitable adaptation strategies, which can resolve and/or reduce the negative impacts. Early warning and immediate support to the impacted areas have been carried out to minimize risks from El Niño animal feed for livestock from other areas has been transported to the vulnerable areas. Planting early maturing and drought resistant crops, supplementary irrigation, early waning information on weather and climate have been exercised as climate change adaptation strategies, early warning mechanisms by the government of Ethiopia. El Niño and La Niña are natural phenomena; however, it is necessary to study the occurrence and distribution of El Niño and La Niña episodes to enable early warning and identify suitable adaptation strategies and policy implications in the country.

Remote sensing data are essential for monitoring Earth’s surface waters, especially since the number of publicly available in-situ data is declining. Satellite altimetry provides valuable information on water level and its variations for lakes, reservoirs, and rivers. In combination with satellite imagery, the derived time series allow for monitoring lake storage changes and river discharge. However, satellite altimetry is limited in spatial resolution due to its measurement geometry, only providing information in nadir direction beneath the satellite’s orbit. In a case study in the Mississippi River Basin (MRB), this study investigates the potential and the limitations of past and current satellite missions to monitor basin-wide storage changes. For that purpose an automated target detection is developed and the extracted lake surfaces are merged with the satellites’ tracks. This reveals that the current altimeter configuration misses about 80% of all lakes larger than 0.1 km2 in the MRB, and still 20% of lakes larger than 10 km2, corresponding to 30% and 7% of surface area, respectively. Past altimetry configurations perform even worse. From the water bodies represented by a global hydrology model, at least 91% of targets and 98% of storage changes are captured by the current altimeter configuration. This will significantly improve with the launch of the planned SWOT mission.

Advanced-Differential Interferometric SAR (A-DInSAR) has been used to monitor surface deformations in open pit mines and tailings dams. In this paper, ground deformations have been detected on the area of the tailings Dam-I at the Córrego do Feijão Mine (Brumadinho, Brazil) before its catastrophic failure occurred on 25 January 2019. Two techniques optimized for different scattering models, SBAS (Small BAseline Subset) and PSI (Persistent Scatterer Interferometry), were used to perform the analysis based on 26 Sentinel-1B images in IW mode, acquired on descending orbits from 03 March 2018 to 22 January 2019. A WorldDEM DSM product was used to remove the topographic phase component. The results provided by both techniques showed a synoptic and informative view of the deformation process affecting the study area, with a detection of persistent trend of deformations on the top, middle and bottom sectors of the dam face until its collapse, as well as the expected natural settlements on the tailings. It is worth noting the detection of an acceleration in the displacement time-series for a short period near the failure. The maximum accumulated displacements detected along the downstream slope face were -39 mm (SBAS) and -48 mm (PSI). It is reasonable to consider that Sentinel-1 would provide decision makers complementary motion information to the in-situ monitoring system for risk assessment and for a better understanding of on-going instability phenomena affecting the tailings dam.

Geoscientists developed geoethics, an intra-disciplinary field of applied philosophical studies, during the last decade. Reaching beyond the sphere of professional geosciences, it led to professional, cultural, and philosophical approaches to handle the social-ecological structures of our planet ‘wherever human activities interact with the Earth system’. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 and considering geoscientists’ experiences dealing with disasters (related to hazards like tsunamis, floods, climate changes.), this essay (1) explores the geoethical approach, (2) re-casts geoethics within western philosophical systems, such as the Kantian imperatives, Kohlberg scale of moral adequacy, Jonas’ imperative of responsibility, and (3) advances a ‘geoethical thesis’. The latter takes the form of a hypothesis of a much broader scope of geoethics than initially envisioned. That hypothesis appears by suspecting a relationship between the relative successes in the COVID-19 battle with the positioning of agents (individual, collective, institutional) into ethical frameworks. The turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, calls for the transfer of experiences between different disciplinary domains to further sustainable governance, hence generalising the geoethical approach. It is emphasized that only when behaving as responsible and knowledgeable citizens, then people of any trade (including [geo-]scientists) can transgress the boundaries of ordinary governance practices with legitimacy.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the defining global health and socioeconomic crisis of our time and represents the greatest challenge faced by the world since the end of the Second World War. The academic literature indicates that climatic features, specifically the temperature and absolute humidity, are very important factors affecting infectious pulmonary disease epidemics (e.g., SARS, MERS); however, the influence of climatic parameters on COVID-19 remains extremely controversial. The goal of this study is to quantify the existing relationship between several daily climate parameters (temperature, relative humidity, accumulated precipitation, solar radiation, wind direction and intensity, and evaporation), local morphological parameters, and new daily positive swabs for COVID-19, which represents the only parameter that can be statistically used to quantify the pandemic. The daily deaths parameter was not considered because it is not reliable due to frequent administrative errors. Daily data on meteorological conditions and new cases of COVID-19 were collected for the Lombardy area from March 1, 2020, to April 20, 2020. This region in Italy exhibited the largest number of official deaths in the world per million inhabitants, with a value of approximately 1700 per million on june 30, 2020. Moreover, the apparent lethality was approximately 17% in this area, mainly due to the considerable housing density and the extensive presence of industrial and craft areas. The Mann-Kendall test and multivariate statistical analysis showed that none of the considered climatic variables exhibited statistically significant relationships with the epidemiological evolution of COVID-19, at least in the spring months in temperate subcontinental climate areas, with the exception of solar radiation, which was directly related and showed an otherwise low explained variability of approximately 20%. Furthermore, the average temperatures of two highly representative meteorological stations of Molise and Lucania, the most weakly affected by the pandemic. The temperatures at these stations were approximately 1.5°C lower than that in the cities in Lombardy of Bergamo and Brescia, again confirming that a significant relationship between the increase in temperature and decrease in virology from COVID-19 was not evident, at least in the Italian peninsula.

Fossil fuels are non-renewable sources of energy, used particularly in developing countries. There are insufficient fossil fuels and their availability is gradually declining. This leads to a steady increase in prices. Renewable energy is clean, cost-effective and limitless. The considerable population growth and industrial growth have made the construction of solar power plants essential in developing countries. The study used Boolean logical-AHP techniques to select a suitable site for solar power in Duhok Governorate. The result indicated that 68.5% of the area in the governorate of Duhok is available for solar power station construction, especially the most appropriate zone which has 132.2 sq. km and can provide more than 8000 megawatts of solar energy. Most of the appropriate areas are in the south and southwest regions of the governorate, located mostly in the districts of Bardarash, Shekhan and Semel, situated between the major cities of Mosul, Erbil and Duhok. These locations can supply a significant amount of clean, renewable energy for these areas.

In no-tillage systems, there is an accumulation of crop residues (CR) which plays an important role in available of soil-N. A study was set up to provide information regarding the CR N credit, and the influence of N mineral fertilizer. An incubation was run in a loam soil with addition of a similar rate of residue (10 Mg ha-1; sugarcane, soybean, and brachiaria) and N mineral fertilizer (urea; 120 kg N ha-1). After the stabilization of biological activity, soil and remaining residues were collected, and N monitored. Results showed that the N credit was positive with application of soybean, sugarcane, and brachiaria. There was an expressive performance of soybean N credit represented by a positive balance, and a reduction from 2.49 to 0.9 g kg-1 of N in residue, with direct increase of 90% of soil-N. There is no need of N fertilizer to potentialize the soybean N credit, but it is requested to potentialize N credit of brachiaria and sugarcane. The urea demonstrated be a good enhancer of brachiaria N credit, but it was not adequate to sugarcane residues. Based in our result, the accumulation and incorporation of CR can be considered as a N credit with positive contribution in soil-N.

The 1783-1784 Laki eruption was one of the most severe natural catastrophes to occur in Iceland in historical times (since 1140 years). Vegetation damage by sulphate aerosol and fluorine poisoning caused a massive decimation of livestock. The impact of fluorine poisoning and sulphate aerosol on human mortality is uncertain, but the loss of animals caused a famine which took many lives. The vulnerability of the Icelandic society to famine is discussed. 18th Century Iceland was a Danish dependency and, despite the abundance of fish in the surrounding waters, a subsistence farming community and thus highly dependent on livestock. On the other hand, the farming community possessed coping strategies which mitigated the impact of livestock loss. During the famine, the Danish government was in principle willing to provide relief. However, local authorities in Iceland were slow to ask for help, and did not dare to exploit the means at their disposal (e.g. the right to ban the export of Icelandic foodstuff) without consent from Copenhagen. The Danish officials in turn were unwilling to act decisively upon incomplete information. These two factors prevented timely measures. While 4.4 × 10^5kg of grain were provided for famine relief in summer 1784, the merchants exported 1.2 × 10^6kg of fish, which greatly aggravated the hunger in the second winter. The effects of this ‘natural’ catastrophe could therefore have been significantly reduced by efficient government.

Riverbed farming (RbF) has emerged as an alternative form of agriculture. This farming supports the poor and marginalized farmers to adapt to climate change, especially in the degraded lands because of floods and flood-induced riverbank erosions every year. The government and non-government organizations (GOs/NGOs) have supported and built capacities of farmers to adopt this as an effective adaptation strategy in the region. This study aims to analyze the determinants of riverbed farming at the household level mainly in Deukhuri valley of Western Terai, Nepal. A total of 150 households were selected randomly for the study in Sisahaniya rural municipality for the household survey. The determinants of the adoption of riverbed farming have been analyzed utilizing independent variables such as age, gender, education, occupation, ethnicity, family size, and others. Education and occupation are positively significant for the adoption of riverbed farming whereas the family size is negatively significant. Agriculture is the main occupation in the area and education helped them to understand the concept and procedure of RbF as alternative farming in the degraded lands. However, not all the family members have actively contributed to the RbF. This is an interesting study that could be expanded with the support of GOs/NGOs.

In the last few decades, a lot has been written on the use of sustainable agriculture to improve ecosystem services for resilience to climate change. However, no tangible and systematic evidence exists on how this would participate in alleviating impacts on vulnerable rural communities. This paper provides a narrative systematic review (SR) integrated with a bibliometric analysis and a concept network analysis to understand how, in a changing climate, sustainable agriculture builds the resilience of agro-systems. The search was set from the date of the first relevant article until the end of 2018. Results generated have demonstrated that: a. Only single practices and methods have been studied to assess impacts on single ecosystem services. b. Soil quality and health are considered a key indicator of sustainable agriculture. c. Albeit the assessed practices and methods have shown to improve the biodiversity of agro-systems, which makes them more resilient to extreme climate events, we are still far from reaching interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional agriculture which integrates all management aspects and generates a full range of ecosystem services. In conclusion, the study addressed the following recommendations for the scientific community and for decision-makers to orient future research strategies and efforts: a. Integration of all agro-systems services into sustainable management using an ecosystem-based approach on a life-cycle basis using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method; b. Improving the scientific understanding of traditional knowledge for higher synergies and for further integration; c. Unification of assessment methods and indicators for the quantification of impacts; d. Creation of a platform to share, monitor, screen, and approve assessments and evaluations of sustainable agriculture by region.

High rates of phosphorus (P) currently being applied to soils for the production of vegetables in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam has led to the concern of its negative effect on the economics and the environment. This research presents a comprehensive study on the determination of P supplying capacity in this region of Vietnam to examine the possibility of reducing P fertilizer input. One hundred twenty (120) soil samples were collected to evaluate total P and Bray 1 available P in the soils. Phosphorus maximum sorption, degree of P saturation, P release, and the effect of P fertilizer on corn (Zea mays L.) yield in greenhouse and fields were also determined. Total P concentrations of 56.7% soil samples evaluated yielded high P concentrations (>560 mg P/kg), while 74.2% of the samples had high Bray 1 available P concentrations (>20 mg P/kg soil). Maximum P sorption ranged from 149 to 555 mg P/kg soil, respectively and has negative correlation to available P (r = - 0.63*), degrees of P saturation ranged from 0.63 to 5.46% correlated to available P (r = 0.98**) and maximum P release ranged from 1.2 to 61.9 mg P/kg soil, respectively correlated to available P (r = 0.96**). Corn grown in soils with available P concentrations >15 mg P/kg did not respond to P fertilizer in greenhouse or field experiments. We conclude that many farmers in this region can reduce P fertilizer input, thus increasing their profits and reducing negative environmental impacts associated with excess soil P for sustainable agriculture.

The pile foundation in the permafrost region is in a negative temperature environment, so the concrete is affected by the negative temperature of the surrounding soil.It not only affects the formation of concrete strength, but also leads to engineering quality accidents in serious cases.Based on the actual measurement of temperature at different strata depths and the comprehensive consideration of surface temperature, terrestrial heat flux and other parameters, the law curve of temperature change along depth in Greater Khingan is established.The calculated results of the curve are consistent with the measured results of ground temperature.The results show that the variation trend of ground temperature along the strata depth at different monitoring sites is basically the same. From June to November, the ground temperature at different depths tends to be constant.From December to May, the ground temperature at any depth within the depth range of 0 to 5.5m follows the law of the cosine function.Below 5.5m, the earth temperature no longer varies with depth.The research results can be used as reference for pile foundation construction under negative temperature environment.

Growing potato demands considerable external inputs of pesticides due to its susceptibility to various pests and pathogens. Here we present an attempt to differentiate the Slovak rural landscape with respect to the possibility of effective potato cultivation and to characterise soil parameters of current potato cultivation areas with the aim to increase the sustainability of the potato production. The selection was based on soil climatic, production and economic parameters. By using the GIS tools and existing databases on soil characteristics in Slovakia, maps of soil suitability categories for potato cultivation were generated. In Slovakia, it was found that 12.3% of farmland is very suitable for potato cultivation and that as much as 43.1% is not suitable. Later the specified categories were characterised in detail and specified with respect to geographic, soil, climatic, production and economic parameters. Currently, most potato crops are cultivated on Eutric Cambisols (27%), Chernozems (20%) and Mollic Fluvisols (18%). Loamy soils (65%), soils without gravel (62%), deep soils (74%) and soil situated on plains (55%) are dominant in these regions. We suggest that potato cultivation should be concentrated on the most suitable areas, thereby increasing the economic profitability, improving the ecological stability of the country and supporting the sustainability of the agriculture.

Demographic and socio-economic developments couple with other requirements to satisfy human needs result in rapid urban expansion sometimes with increasing rate of surface extent greater than the rate of growth of population, that result in continuous sealing of ground surface thereby affecting ecosystem services. This study applied remote sensing toward achieving the progress of SDGs and stage to determine the ratio of the rate of land consumption to the rate of population growth of Gombe metropolis. QGIS 2.18 was used for the image processing and classification analysis for the key Landsat ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper), Impervious Surface Indices and population data to inform on the urban trend and LCR/PGR for the periods 2000-2005, 2005-2010, and 2010-2015. The result appears that the LCR/PGR for the periods of study show split trends. During 2000-2005 the result shows that the study area expanded outward with LCR/PGR of 1.2. The result also indicate that during 2005-2010, the study area densified with little expansion with the LCR/PGR of 0.8. The result further reveals that during 2010-2015 the LCR/PGR reached 1.8. Pointing that the study area expanded outward with the rate of ground sealing getting high.

This study investigates the spatial signatures of seasonal snow in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observations at different spatial scales and for different physiographic regions. Sentinel-1 C-band (SAR) backscattering coefficients (BSC) were analyzed in the Swiss Alps (SA), in high elevation forest and grasslands in Grand Mesa (GM), Colorado, and in North Dakota (ND) croplands. GM BSC exhibit 10dB sensitivity to wetness at small scales (~100 m) over homogeneous grassland. Sensitivity decreases to 5 dB in the presence of trees, and it is demonstrated that VH BSC sensitivity enables wet snow mapping below the tree-line. Area-variance scaling relationships show minima at ~100 m and 150-250 m respectively in barren and grasslands in SA and GM, increasing up to 1 km and longer in GM forests and ND agricultural fields. The spatial organization of BSC (as described by 1D-directional BSC wavelength spectra) exhibits multi-scaling behavior in the 100 -1,000 m range with a break at (180-360 m) that is also present in UAVSAR L-band measurements in GM. Spectral slopes in GM forested areas steepen during accumulation and flatten in the melting season with mirror behavior for grasslands reflecting changes in scattering mechanisms with snow depth and wetness, and vegetation mass and structure. Overall, this study reveals persistent patterns of SAR scattering variability spatially organized by land-cover, topography and regional winds with large inter-annual variability tied to precipitation. This dynamic scaling behavior emerges as an integral physical expression of snowpack variability that can be used to model sub-km scales and for downscaling applications.

The 1783-1784 Lakagígar eruption was probably the most severe natural catastrophe to occur in Iceland. While contemporary records suggest that no or few human lives were lost directly due to the eruption, vegetation damage by acid rain and fluorine poisoning caused a massive decimation of livestock, which led to a famine lasting 1.5 years. Contagious diseases also took many lives, but may be an indirect result of hunger. 18th Century Iceland was a Danish dependency and a subsistence farming community highly vulnerable to famine. Development of the fisheries could have improved the situation, but this did not occur. Instead, Iceland remained trapped in a vicious circle of conservatism, poverty, and lack of technological means (seaworthy fishing boats) sustained by artificially low fish prices decreed by the Danish king. During the famine, the Danish government was in principle willing to provide relief. However, local authorities in Iceland were slow to ask for help, and did not dare to exploit the means at their disposal (e.g. the right to ban the export of Icelandic foodstuff) without consent from Copenhagen. The Danish officials in turn were unwilling to act decisively upon incomplete information. These two factors prevented timely measures. While 440,000kg of grain were provided for famine relief in summer 1784, the merchants exported 1,200,000kg of fish, which greatly aggravated the hunger in the second winter. The effects of this `natural' catastrophe could therefore have been significantly reduced by efficient government.

A recent study by the Wall Street Journal reveals that the hydrofractured horizontal wells in shales have been producing less than forecasted by the industry with the empirical hyperbolic decline curve analysis (DCA). As an alternative to DCA, we introduce a simple, fast and accurate method of estimating ultimate recovery (EUR) in oil shales. We adopt a physics-based scaling approach to analyze oil rates and ultimate recovery from 14,888 active horizontal oil wells in the Bakken shale. To predict EUR, we collapse production records from individual horizontal shale oil wells onto two segments of a master curve: (1) We find that cumulative oil production from 4,845 wells is still growing linearly with the square root of time; and (2) 6,401 wells are already in exponential decline after approximately seven years on production. In addition, 2,363 wells have discontinuous production records, because of refracturing or changes in downhole flowing pressure, and are matched with a linear combination of scaling curves superposed in time. The remaining 1,279 new wells with less than 12 months on production have too few production records to allow for robust matches. These wells are scaled with the slopes of other comparable wells in the square-root-of-time flow regime. In the end, we predict that total ultimate recovery from all existing horizontal wells in Bakken will be some 4.5 billion barrels of oil. We also find that wells completed in the Middle Bakken formation, in general, produce more oil than those completed in the Upper Three Forks formation. The newly completed longer wells with larger hydrofractures have higher initial production rates, but they decline faster and have EURs similar to the cheaper old wells. There is little correlation among EUR, lateral length, and the number and size of hydrofractures. Therefore, technology may not help much in boosting production of new wells completed in the poor immature areas along the edges of the Williston Basin. Operators and policy-makers may use our findings to optimize the possible futures of the Bakken shale and other plays. More importantly, petroleum industry may adopt our physics-based method as an alternative to the overly-optimistic hyperbolic DCA that yields an "illusory picture" of shale oil resources.

Rice is an essential crop for national food security in Egypt. Increasing the population calls for regular increases in rice production. At the same time, cultivated rice crop areas should be decreased because of the gradual scarcity of irrigation water. This means more rice production should be gained from less rice area. This situation calls for the annual accurate system for rice monitoring and yield estimation. Therefore, it is necessary to apply a remotely sensed based system for rice cultivation assessment using satellite imagery parallel with field measurements of some biophysical parameters. Multi-temporal normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) extracted from twelve sentinel-2 imagery cover the whole summer season with variance and maximum value assessed by ground control points (GCPs), were used to isolate uncultivated areas, then to isolate rice areas and other vegetation covers. object-based classification methods with kappa co-efficient 0.9261 and overall accuracy 94.92% was generated to discriminate rice crop area and other summer crops on the study area. Leaf area index (LAI) for the experiment the l site was calculated using the surface energy balance algorithm for Land (SEBAL) model and then tested versus measured (LAI). NDVI and LAI were used to generate an empirical ran rice yield prediction model. Then, this model was used to produce rice to yield a map. The study was carried out in an experimental site in Kafr Elsheikh governorate with a total area of 5040 Hectare. Produced cultivated land use map showed 95% overall accuracy. High similarity was observed between measured and calculated (LAI) with high accuracy of R2 = 0.94. of Rice, yield map showed expected to yield more to than a month before harvest. The generated yield map was tested using a correlation coefficient between actual yield and estimated yield with high accuracy R2 = 0.9. This method is applicable to estimate the acreage and productivity of rice in the northern Nile delta in adequate time before harvest.

United Nations Human Settlements Programme recommended equation and tools for reporting SDG indicator 11.3.1. This indicator aim at one ratio between population growth and land consumption rates in order to promote sustainable urban expansion. Because nowadays urban areas rapidly expand, with increasing rate of surface extent that over sweep the rate at which population grows. Trends.Earth was used for the key Impervious Surface Indices (30m resolution) and informed on urban trend, extent and SDG 11.3.1 of metropolitan Gombe for the periods 2000-2005, 2005-2010, and 2010-2015.The research reveals that SDG 11.3.1 for three periods stand at 0.4194, 0.4292, and 0.3041 respectively. The research also indicate that the population growth rate is greater than the land consumption.

Although the Slicing Method (SM) is effective for calculating the volume of point cloud objects (PCOs), it is restricted in terms of applicability and practicability because of a certain contingency and directional defects. The Co-Opposite-Direction Slicing Method (CODSM) proposed in this paper is an improved method for calculating PCO volume by increasing parallel (co-opposite-direction) observation and considering the two-way mean as the result. This method takes full advantage of the mutual offsetting of random errors and the compensation of systematic directional errors, which can effectively overcome (or mitigate) the effect of random errors and reduce the effect of systematic errors in SM. In this paper, two typical objects, a cone model and a stone lion base, are the examples for calculating PCO volume using CODSM. The results show that CODSM has all the inherent advantages of SM and effectively weakens the volatility of random errors and the directionality of systematic errors from SM. Therefore, CODSM is a robust configuration upgrade of SM.

Phosphorus (P) is an important element in a complete and balanced fertility program that can improve crop P use efficiency and ultimately productivity and profitability. Phosphatic fertilizers use without organic fertilizers leads to gradual decline in soil organic matter, native nutrient status and ultimately reduction in agricultural productivity and economic growth. The objectives of this was to evaluate P efficiencies with incorporation of peach sources, beneficial microbes and P application. From sustainability points of view, alternative use of different sources and forms of organic sources alone or in combination with inorganic P and beneficial microbes possess potential for improving productive capacity of the soil. Separate field experiments (one each on maize and soybean as a test crop) were conducted at Agriculture Research Institute Mingora Swat (ARI) for two consecutive years in summer season of 2016 (year one) and 2017 (year two). For the first time such a study were conducted to utilize peach leftovers and biomass (leaves, twigs, fruits, stones and barks partially decomposed, its compost and biochar) along with three phosphorus (P) levels (50, 75, 100 kg P ha-1) and two beneficial microbes (PSB and Trichoderma) on such a way to enhance soil sustainability and P use efficiency of soybean and maize. The results revealed that organic sources had significant effect on soybean and maize P use efficiency (PUE), P agronomic efficiency (PAE), partial factor productivity (PFPp) and soil P concentration. In experiment 1 among the organic sources, peach residues increased soil P (12.0 mg kg-1) as compared to peach compost and biochar (8.6 & 11.7 mg kg-1). Soil P concentration was maximum (12.1 mg kg-1) with PSB than Trichoderma (9.5 mg kg-1). Application of P at 100 kg ha-1increased soil P contents (16.9 mg kg-1) as compared to 50 and 75 kg P ha 1 (5.9 & 9.6 mg kg-1) respectively. P concentration was increased drastically in year 2 (12.4 mg kg-1) than year one (9.1 mg kg-1). PUE in both crops (soybean and maize) was maximum (25.6 & 28.4%) with peach biochar than compost and residues along with Trichoderma (21.7 & 27.8%). Highest PUE in soybean was recorded with 75 kg P ha-1(22.2%) however in maize maximum PUE was noted with 50 kg P ha-1(33.5%). PAE and PFPp in both crops was maximum with biochar and soil application of Trichoderma than other organic sources and PSB. Among the P levels highest PAE in soybean and maize was recorded with 75 kg ha-1whereas PFPp in soybean was maximum with 75 kg P ha-1 and interestingly in maize it was noted with 50 kg ha-1. Conclusively soybean and maize PAE, PFPp and PUE was higher with biochar, soil incorporation of Trichoderma and P at the rate of 75 kg ha-1 and can improve soybean and maize yield and soil productivity on sustainable basis.

In the last years, the development of low-cost GNSS sensors allowed monitoring in a continuous way movement related to natural processes like landslides with increasing accuracy and limited efforts. In this work, we present the first results of an experimental low-cost GNSS continuous monitoring applied to the unstable slope affecting the Madonna del Sasso Sanctuary (NW Italy). The courtyard of Sanctuary is built of two unstable blocks delimited by high cliff. Previous studies and non-continuous monitoring showed that blocks suffer a seasonal cycle of thermal expansion and long-term trend to downslope of few millimeters per year. The presence of continuous monitoring solution, could be an essential help to better understand the kinematics of unstable slope and to recognize the beginning of a possible paroxysm phase that could end with a failure of the unstable area. We tested the accuracy of the instruments and the first year of experimental measurements are presented. We also propose a methodological approach that considers the use of automatized procedures for the identification of anomalous trends and a risk communication strategy based on monitoring data.

In Portugal, cork oak (Quercus suber L.) stands cover 737 Mha, being the most predominant species of the montado agroforestry system, contributing for the economic, social and environmental development of the country. Cork oak decline is a known problem since the late years of the 19th century that has recently worsen. The causes of oak decline seem to be a result of slow and cumulative processes, although the role of each environmental factor is not yet established. The availability of Sentinel-2 high spatial and temporal resolution dense time series enables gradual processes monitoring. These processes can be monitored using spectral vegetation indices (VI) once their temporal dynamics are expected to be related with green biomass and photosynthetic efficiency. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is sensitive to structural canopy changes, however it tends to saturate at moderate-to-dense canopies. Modified VI have been proposed to incorporate the reflectance in the red-edge spectral region, which is highly sensitive to chlorophyll content while largely unaffected by structural properties. In this research, in-situ data on the location and vitality status of cork oak trees are used to assess the correlation between chlorophyll indices (CI) and NDVI time series trends and cork oak vitality at the tree level. Preliminary results seem to be promising since differences between healthy and unhealthy (diseased/dead) trees were observed.

The Casiquiare River is a natural channel that connects two of the greatest rivers in the world, the Orinoco and the Amazon in the South American Continent. The aim of this paper is to present a review and synthesis of the hydrological and sedimentological knowledge of the Casiquiare River, including the first hydro-sedimentary balance of the Casiquiare fluvial system conducted at the bifurcation and at the mouth on September 9-12, 2000, during the expedition ‘Humboldt-Amazonia 2000’. Bathymetric, flow discharge and physico-chemical measurements were made at the inlet and at the outlet of the Casiquiare Channel. The main conclusions of this study indicate that Casiquiare is taking a significant proportion of flow (20 to 30%) from the Upper Orinoco basin to the Amazon basin. Throughout its 356 km-course, this chameleon channel undergoes significant morphological, hydrological and bio-geochemical variations between the inlet and the outlet, whose most visible witnesses are the increase in its width (3 to 4 times), flow (7 to 9 times) and its change in water color (white to black water), under the influence of tributaries coming from vast forest plains.

Rainfall is a major climate parameter whose variation in space and time influences activities in different weather sensitive sectors such as agriculture, transport, and energy among others. Therefore, accurately forecasting rainfall is of paramount importance to the development of these sectors. In this regard, this study sought to contribute to quantitative forecasting of rainfall over Eastern Uganda through assessing the Weather Research and Forecasting model’s ability to simulate the intra–seasonal characteristics of the September to December rain season. These were: onset and cessation dates; wet days and lengths of the wet spells. The data used in the study included daily ground rainfall observations and lateral and boundary conditions data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) final analysis at 1 0 horizontal resolution and at a temporal resolution of 6 hours for the entire study period were used to initialize the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The study considered four weather synoptic weather stations namely; Jinja, Serere, Soroti and Tororo. The results show that the WRF model generally simulated fewer wet days at each station except for Tororo. Also, the WRF model simulated earlier onset and cessation dates of the rainfall season and overestimated the length of the wet spells.

Wetlands are one of the crucial natural resources. They provide invaluable biodiversity resources, aid in water quality improvement, support ground water recharge, help in moderating climate change and support flood control. Environment is in the other hand, where we live and something, we are very familiar with our day to day life. Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing and Global Positioning System (GPS) were a useful tool for wetland and environmental change analysis and to improve on the classification accuracy. This study investigates population and environmental change of Jarmet wetland and its surrounding area change analysis over the period of 1972 to 2015. The purpose of this study was to show land use/ land cover change of Jarmet wetland and its surrounding environment over years as a response to population growth. For this purpose, multi-temporal satellite imageries (Landsat MSS 1972, TM1986, ETM+ 2000, 2005 and 2015 and SRTM 2000) were obtained and used for LULC change analysis, elevation analysis and change detection analysis. ERDAS Imagine 2015, ARC GIS 10.5.1, Global Mapper11, ENVI 5.0 and DNR Garmin softwares were used to process the image data and accuracy assessment analysis. The result of LULC showed that there is spatial reduction in wetland, forest, Shrubland and grassland in the period of 43 years (1972-2015) by -1,722.8 ha, -296.2 ha, -1,718.7 ha and -661.9 ha respectively, due to increase in the farmland and plantation area as a response to overpopulation, lack of environmental policy implementation and irresponsible for natural resource degradation. The accuracy assessment of LULC change are done for recent satellite image showed the overall accuracy of 84.06% with Kappa index 75.19% this means this classification is accurately classified and handle greater than 75% of error. Finally, this study suggests that create strictly natural resource conservation law, stopping illegal expansion of farmland, educating society about the value of natural resource especially wetland and create a source of income for society rather than farming.

Persistent, non-explosive passive degassing is a common characteristic of active volcanoes. Distinct periodic components in measurable parameters of gas release have been widely identified over timescales ranging from seconds to months. The development and implementation of high temporal resolution gas measurement techniques now enables the robust quantification of high frequency processes operating on timescales comparable to those detectable in geophysical datasets. This review presents an overview of the current state of understanding regarding periodic volcanic degassing, and evaluates the methods available for detecting periodicity, e.g., autocorrelation, variations of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), and the continuous wavelet transform (CWT). Periodicities in volcanic degassing from published studies are summarised and statistically analysed, together with analyses of literature-derived datasets where periodicity had not previously been investigated. Finally, an overview of current knowledge on drivers of periodicity is presented and discussed in the framework of four main generating categories, including: (1) non-volcanic (e.g., atmospheric or tidally generated); (2) gas-driven, shallow conduit processes; (3) magma movement, intermediate to shallow storage zone; and (4) deep magmatic processes.

There are frequently interactions between active folds and major rivers (mean annual water discharges > 70 m³s^-1). The major river may incise across the fold, to produce a water gap across the fold, or a bevelling (or lateral planation) of the top of the fold. Alternatively, the major river may be defeated to produce a diversion of the river around the fold, with wind gaps forming across the fold in some cases, or ponding of the river behind the fold. Why a river incises or diverts is often unclear, though influential characteristics and processes have been identified. A new scheme for investigating fold-river interactions has been devised, involving a short description of the major river, climate, and structural geology, and 13 characteristics of river and fold geomorphology: 1) Channel width at location of fold axis, w, 2) Channel-belt width at location of fold axis, cbw, 3) Floodplain width at location of fold axis, fpw, 4) Channel sinuosity, Sc, 5) Braiding index, BI, 6) General river course direction, RCD, 7) Distance from fold core to location of river crossing, C-RC, 8) Distance from fold core to river basin margin, C-BM, 9) Width of geological structure at location of river crossing, Wgs, 10) Estimate of erosion resistance of surface sediments/rocks and deeper sediments/rocks in fold, ERs, ERd, 11) Channel water surface slope at location of fold axis, s, 12) Average channel migration rate, Rm, 13) Estimate of fold total uplift rate, TUR. The first 10 geomorphological characteristics should be readily determinable for nearly all major rivers using widely available satellite imagery and fine scale geological maps. The last 3 characteristics should be determinable for most major rivers where other data sources are available. This study demonstrates the methodology of this scheme, using the example of the major rivers Karun and Dez interacting with active folds in the foreland basin tectonic setting of lowland south-west Iran. For the rivers Karun and Dez (mean annual water discharges 575 m³s^-1 and 230 m³s^-1, respectively), it was found that geomorphological characteristics Nos. 2, 3 and 7 had statistically significant differences (p-value ≤ 0.05) between the categories of river incision across a fold and river diversion around a fold. For river incision, at the fold axis, channel-belt width was always < 2.7 km, and floodplain width was generally (80 % of cases) < 5.7 km; whereas for river diversion, at the projection of the fold axis, these two characteristics had a wide range of values. For river incision, the distance from the fold core to the location where the river channel crossed the fold axis, was generally (80 % of cases) ≤ 8.5 km; whereas for river diversion, this distance was always > 22 km. Since it is highly likely that different characteristics will be important for other major rivers interacting with other folds, it is recommended that this scheme is now used to investigate a variety of major rivers from across the globe. By comparing the same parameters for different major rivers, a better understanding of fold-river interactions should be achieved.

Sustainability, particularly in construction materials, has been a subject of growing interest. Civil construction is one of the industries where more materials are consumed, which leads to high energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The production of cement, especially clinker is largely responsible for these problems. As a solution, new materials emerge, which do not require much energy for their production, which are the alkaline cements, specifically the geopolymers. Geopolymers are inorganic polymers obtained by the alkaline activation of aluminosilicate precursors. In the present study geopolymers were developed with low grade kaolin (as a precursor) from a Portuguese company. The development of these geopolymers will be, due to their properties, a good solution for rehabilitation of earth buildings, especially in adobe. The development of these geopolymers is also a contribution to the sustainability of kaolin exploitations as it opens new markets for the low grade kaolins, presently not easily commercialized. As mechanical strength of adobe materials ranges in literature from 0.6 to 8.3 MPa, the values obtained for the developed geopolymers (between ~2 to 10 MPa) can be considered as totally adequate.

This paper describe the influence of the Rift Molango during the mineralization of elements of the platinum group and some light rare earths elements in a sedimentary exhalative ore deposit.

The discovery and settlement of the tiny and remote Easter Island (Rapa Nui) has been a classical controversy for decades. Present-day aboriginal people and their culture are undoubtedly of Polynesian origin but it has been debated whether Native Americans discovered the island before the Polynesian settlement. Until recently, the paradigm was that Easter Island was discovered and settled just once by Polynesians in their millennial-scale eastward migration across the Pacific. However, the evidence for cultivation and consumption of an American plant, the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), on the island before the European contact (1722 CE), even prior to the Europe-America contact (1492 CE), revived the controversy. This paper reviews the classical archaeological, ethnological and paleoecological literature on the subject and summarizes the information into four main hypotheses to explain the sweet potato enigma: the long-distance-dispersal hypothesis, the back-and-forth hypothesis, the Heyerdahl hypothesis and the newcomer’s hypothesis. These hypotheses are evaluated in light of the more recent evidence (last decade), including molecular DNA phylogeny and phylogeography of humans and associated plants and animals, physical anthropology (craniometry, dietary analysis) and new paleoecological findings. It is concluded that, with the available evidence, none of the former hypotheses may be rejected and, therefore, all possibilities remain open. For future work, it is recommended to use the multiple-working-hypothesis framework and the strong inference method of hypothesis testing, rather than the ruling theory approach, very common in Easter Island’s research.

In Australia, orthodox soil scientists and alternative practitioners who promote ‘regenerative agriculture’ have not been communicating and engaging effectively with each other. Over many years scientists in CSIRO, state departments and universities have made significant achievements in mapping soil distribution, describing soil behaviour and identifying key soil properties and processes that are fundamental to healthy soil function. However, many alternative practitioners are dismissive of these achievements and highly critical of orthodox soil science. Yet many of the tools of soil science are essential to conduct evidence-based research towards elucidating how and why the exceptional results claimed by some alternative practitioners are achieved. We stress the importance of effective engagement and communication among all parties to resolve this ‘clash of cultures’.

The discovery and settlement of the tiny and remote Easter Island (Rapa Nui) has been a classical controversy for decades. Present-day aboriginal people and their culture are undoubtedly of Polynesian origin but it has been debated whether Amerindians discovered the island before the Polynesian settlement. Until recently, the paradigm was that Easter Island was discovered and settled just once by Polynesians in their millennial-scale eastward migration across the Pacific. However, the evidence for cultivation and consumption of an American plant, the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), on the island before the European contact (1722 CE), even prior to the Europe-America contact (1492 CE), revived the controversy. This paper reviews the classical archaeological, ethnological and paleoecological literature on the subject and summarizes the information into four main hypotheses to explain the sweet potato enigma: the long-distance-dispersal hypothesis, the back-and-forth hypothesis, the Heyerdahl hypothesis and the newcomer’s hypothesis. These hypotheses are evaluated in light of the more recent evidence (last decade), including molecular DNA phylogeny and phylogeography of humans and associated plants and animals, physical anthropology (craniometry, dietary analysis) and new paleoecological findings. It is concluded that, with the available evidence, none of the former hypotheses could be falsified and, therefore, all possibilities remain open. For future work, it is recommended to use the multiple-working-hypothesis framework and the strong inference method of hypothesis testing, rather than the ruling theory approach, very common in Easter Island’s research.

In this work we aim to experimentally study the nucleation and growth of CaCO3 phases precipitated from supersaturated aqueous solutions in the presence of varying concentrations of sulphate oxyanion. The experiments were conducted under pH conditions close to neutral (7.6) and considering a wide range of initial (SO42-)/(CO32-) ratios (0 to ~ 68) in the aqueous solution. We paid special attention to the evolution of the precipitates during ageing within a time framework of 14 days. The mineralogy, morphology and composition of the precipitates were studied by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and EDX microanalysis. The concentration of sulphate ions in the reacted aqueous solution was study by ICPs. The experimental results show that the mineral composition of the precipitate recovered in each run varied with the (SO42-)/(CO32-) ratio in the parental solution, which influences the mineral evolution of the precipitates during ageing. We observe that high concentrations of sulphate in the aqueous solution stabilize the vaterite precipitates and inhibit calcite formation. Furthermore, aragonite never precipitates directly form the solution and it is only formed via a dissolution-precipitation process in solutions with high (SO42-)/(CO32-) ratio after long reaction times. Finally, gypsum only precipitates after long ageing in those aqueous solutions with the highest concentration of sulphate. The reaction pathways during ageing, the morphology of the calcite crystals and the composition of vaterite and calcite are discussed considering both, kinetic and thermodynamic factors. These results show a considerably more complex behavior of the system than that observed in experiments conducted under higher pHs and supersaturation levels and lower (SO42-)/(CO32-) ratios in the aqueous phase.

A number of studies have shown that assimilation of satellite derived soil moisture using the ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) can improve soil moisture estimates, particularly for the surface zone. However, the EnKF is computationally expensive since an ensemble of model integrations have to be propagated forward in time. Here, assimilating satellite soil moisture data from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, we compare the EnKF with the computationally cheaper ensemble Optimal Interpolation (EnOI) method over the contiguous United States (CONUS). The background error-covariance in the EnOI is sampled in two ways: i) by using the stochastic spread from an ensemble open-loop run, and ii) sampling from the model spinup climatology. Our results indicate that the EnKF is only marginally superior to one version of the EnOI. Furthermore the assimilation of SMAP data using the EnKF and EnOI is found to improve the surface zone correlation with in-situ observations at a 95% significance level. The EnKF assimilation of SMAP data is also found to improve root-zone correlation with independent in-situ data at the same significance level; however this improvement is dependent on which in-situ network we are validating against. We evaluate how the quality of the atmospheric forcing affects the analysis results by prescribing the land surface data assimilation system with either observation corrected or model derived precipitation. Surface zone correlation skill increases for the analysis using both the corrected and model derived precipitation, but only the latter shows an improvement at the 95% significance level. The study also suggest that the EnOI can be used for bias-correction of the atmospheric fields where post-processed data are not available. Finally, we assimilate three different Level-2 satellite derived soil moisture products from ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI), SMAP and SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) using the EnOI, and then compare the relative performance of the three resulting analyses against in-situ soil moisture observations. In this comparison, we find that all three analyses offer improvements over an open-loop run when comparing to in-situ observations. The assimilation of SMAP data is found to perform marginally better than the assimilation of SMOS data, while assimilation of the ESA CCI data shows the smallest improvement of the three analysis products.

Speleothem oxygen isotope records from the Caribbean, Central, and North America reveal climatic controls that include orbital variation, deglacial forcing related to ocean circulation and ice sheet retreat, and the influence of local and remote sea surface temperature variations. Here, we review these records and the global climate teleconnections they suggest following the recent publication of the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis (SISAL) database. We find that low-latitude records generally reflect changes in precipitation, whereas higher latitude records are sensitive to temperature and moisture source variability. Tropical records suggest precipitation variability is forced by orbital precession and North Atlantic Ocean circulation driven changes in atmospheric convection on long timescales, and tropical sea surface temperature variations on short timescales. On millennial timescales, precipitation seasonality in southwestern North America is related to North Atlantic climate variability. Great Basin speleothem records are closely linked with changes in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. Although speleothems have revealed these critical global climate teleconnections, the paucity of continuous records precludes our ability to investigate climate drivers from the whole of Central and North America for the Pleistocene through modern. This underscores the need to improve spatial and temporal coverage of speleothem records across this climatically variable region.

The Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian Age) Smackover Formation is a significant source for hydrocarbon production in southwest Alabama. Brooklyn Field is in southeast Conecuh County, Alabama and has been a major producer of oil and natural gas for the state. The Smackover is a carbonate formation that is divided into seven distinct lithofacies. In southwest Alabama, the Smackover Formation is heavily influenced by paleotopography from the underlying Paleozoic rocks of the Appalachian system. The goal of this study is to determine elemental ratios in rock core within the Smackover Formation using a X-ray fluorescence (XRF) handheld scanner, to correlate between lithofacies in the Smackover Formation and elementally characterize the upper oolitic grainstone reservoir and the lower thrombolite boundstone. Eight wells were used for the study within Brooklyn Field and Little Cedar Creek fields. Cores from the eight wells were scanned on six-inch intervals. Chemical logs were produced to show elemental weights in relation to depth and lithofacies. Well data collected for chemical signatures within producing zones were correlated to reservoir lithofacies and porosity. Aluminum, silicon, calcium, titanium, and iron were the most significant (>95% confidence level) predictors of porosity and is related to the depositional environment and subsequent diageneses of the strata. XRF data suggests relative enrichments in iron, titanium, and potassium may be related to deposition in relatively restricted marine waters.

Due to the increasing importance of mangroves in climate change mitigation projects, more accurate and cost-effective aboveground biomass (AGB) monitoring methods are required. However, field measurement of AGB may be a challenge because of its remote location and the difficulty to walk in these areas. This study is based on the Livelihoods Fund’ Oceanium project of 10,000 hectare mangrove plantations monitoring. In a first step, the possibility of replacing traditional field measurements of sample plots in a young mangrove plantation by a semiautomatic processing of UAV-based photogrammetric point clouds was assessed. In a second step, Sentinel-1 radar and Sentinel-2 optical imagery were used as auxiliary information to estimate AGB and its variance for the entire study area under a model-assisted framework. AGB was measured using UAV imagery in a total of 95 sample plots. UAV plot data was used in combination with non-parametric Support Vector Regression (SVR) models for the estimation of the study area AGB using model-assisted estimators. Purely UAV-based AGB estimates and their associated standard error (SE) were compared with model-assisted estimates using (1) Sentinel-1, (2) Sentinel-2 and (3) a combination of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data as auxiliary information. The validation of the UAV-based individual tree height and crown diameter measurements showed a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.21 m and 0.32 m respectively. Relative efficiency of the three model-assisted scenarios ranged between 1.61 and 2.15. Although all SVR models improved the efficiency of the monitoring over UAV-based estimates, the best results were achieved when a combination of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data was used. Results indicated that the methodology used in this research can provide accurate and cost-effective estimates of AGB in mangrove young plantations.

The region of Eastern Europe & Turkey contributed to the SISAL (Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and AnaLysis) global database with stable carbon- and oxygen isotope time-series from 18 entities from 14 cave systems. The currently available oldest record from this region is the ABA-2 flowstone record (Abaliget Cave; Hungary) reaching back to MIS 6. The temporal distribution of the compiled 18 entities points out a ~20-kyr-long period, centering around 100 ka, lacking speleothem stable isotope record in the region. The regional subset of SISAL_v1 records displays a continuous coverage for the past ~90 kyr for both δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C, with a mean temporal resolution of ~12 yr for the Holocene, and >50 yr for the pre-Holocene period. The highest temporal resolution both for the Holocene and the pre-Holocene was achieved in the So-1 record (Sofular Cave; Turkey). Assessing the data, an important split was found regarding the climatic interpretation of speleothem δ¹⁸O. While the oxygen isotope composition of more continental formations is thought to reflect mainly temperature variations and changes in moisture transport trajectories, it may strongly reflect fluctuations of precipitation amount in the southern part of the region. Variations of δ¹³C primarily interpreted as humidity changes reflecting dry/wet periods across the region. Elevation gradients from three non-overlapping time periods from the region - for the last 5kyr - indicated systematically prevailing elevational gradients around -0.26‰ 100m^-1 in δ¹⁸O. The regional comparison of SISAL_v1 speleothem δ¹⁸O and the temporal distribution of coarsely crystalline cryogenic cave carbonate occurrences back to 45ka does not appear to confirm the finding that occurrence of the latter coincides with the warming from stadial to interstadial conditions.

The Loess Plateau is an important region for vegetation restoration in China, however, changes in soil organic carbon (SOC), soil nutrients, and stoichiometry after restoration in this vulnerable ecoregion are not well understood. Typical restoration types, including orchardland (OL), grassland (GL), shrubland (SL), and forestland (FL) were chosen to examine changes in the stocks and stoichiometry of SOC, soil total nitrogen (TN), and soil total phosphorus (TP) at different soil depths and recovery times. Results showed that SOC stocks first increased and then stabilized in OL, GL, and SL at 0–30 cm depth, while in FL, stocks gradually increased. Soil TN stocks first increased and then decreased in OL, SL, and FL with vegetation age at 0–30 cm depth, while soil TP stocks showed little variation between restoration types. In the later stages of restoration, the stocks of SOC and soil TN at 0–30 cm soil depth were still lower than those in natural grassland (NG) and natural forest (NF). The overall C:N, C:P, and N:P ratios increased with vegetation age. Additionally, the SOC, soil TN and soil TP stocks, and C:N, C:P, and N:P ratios decreased with soil depth. The FL had the highest rate of change in SOC and soil TN stocks, at 0-10 cm soil depth. These results indicate a complex response of SOC, soil TN, and soil TP stocks and stoichiometry to vegetation restoration, which could have important implications for understanding C, N, and P changes and nutrient limitations after vegetation restoration.

Satellite altimeters have been used to monitor river and reservoir water levels, from which water storage estimates can be derived. Inland water altimetry can therefore play an important role in continental water resource management. Traditionally, satellite altimeters were designed to monitor homogeneous surfaces such as oceans or ice sheets, resulting in a poor performance over small inland water bodies due to the contribution from land contamination in the returned waveforms. The advent of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) altimetry (with its improved along-track spatial resolution) has enabled the measurement of inland water levels with a better accuracy and an increased spatial resolution. This paper presents three specialized algorithms or retrackers to retrieve water levels from SAR altimeter data over inland water bodies dedicated to minimizing land contamination from the waveforms. The performances of the proposed waveform portion selection method with three retrackers, namely, the threshold retracker, Offset Centre of Gravity (OCOG) retracker and 2-step physical-based retracker, are compared. Time series of water levels are retrieved for water bodies in the Ebro River basin (Spain). The results show good agreement with in situ measurements from the Ebro Reservoir (width is approximately 1.8 km) and Ribarroja Reservoir (width is approximately 400 m) with un-biased root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) of approximately 0.28 m and 0.16 m, respectively. The performances of all three retrackers are also compared with the European Space Agency’s ocean retracker in the Sentinel-3 Level-2 product.

An oceanic radar altimeter such as TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) is typically for observing elevation changes over the open oceans or large inland lakes/rivers, with limited applications over solid earth due to its large footprint and susceptibility to waveform contamination and slope effect. Here we demonstrate that it is possible to construct a long-term time series of glacier elevation change from T/P-series radar altimeters over two flat surfaces near a glacier terminus and an icefield (Sites A and B, with slopes of 2° and 0.8°) in Mt. Tanggula, Tibet, at elevations over 5400 m. We retracked radar waveforms using the subwaveform threshold algorithm, selected quality altimeter data (1/4 of the original) with nearly the same slope and adjusted the original elevations by fitting with a time-varying, 2nd order surface. The glacier elevation changes at the two sites from T/P (1993–2002) show seasonal elevation oscillations with linear rates at about −3 m/year and abnormal seasonal changes around the 1997–98 El Niño. Site A is over a deep valley in southern Tanggula. Its elevation dropped about 30 m over 1993–2002 (from T/P) and the glacier almost disappeared by 2016 (from altimeters and satellite images). Despite the sporadic Jason-2 and Jason-3 altimeter data, we also derived long-term rates of glacier elevation change over 1993–2017. Landsat-derived glacier area and elevation changes near the two sites confirm the rapid glacier thinning from the altimeters. The glacier meltwater near Site A supplied increasing source water to Chibuzhang Co west of Mt. Tanggula, contributing partially to its accelerated rising lake level. The glacier thinning at Site B (icefield) was correlated with the increased discharge of the Tuotuo River in eastern Mt. Tanggula, a source region of the Yangtze River. The successful detection of glacier thinning at the two sites shows that T/P-series altimeters can serve as a virtual station at a flat glacier spot to monitor long-term glacier elevation changes in connection to climate change. This virtual station concept is particularly useful for inaccessible glaciers, but its implementation faces two challenging issues: increasing the volume of quality altimeter data and improving the ranging accuracy over a targeted mountain glacier spot.

The finding of important explanatory variables for the location parameter and the scale parameter of the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution, when the latter is used for the modelling of annual streamflow maxima, is known to have reduced the uncertainties in inferences, as estimated through regional flood frequency analysis frameworks. However, important explanatory variables have not been found for the GEV shape parameter, despite its critical significance, which stems from the fact that it determines the behaviour of the upper tail of the distribution. Here we examine the nature of the shape parameter by revealing its relationships with basin attributes. We use a dataset that comprises information about daily streamflow and forcing, climatic indices, topographic, land cover, soil and geological characteristics of 591 basins with minimal human influence in the contiguous United States. We propose a framework that uses random forests and linear models to find (a) important predictor variables of the shape parameter and (b) an interpretable model with high predictive performance. The process of study comprises of assessing the predictive performance of the models, selecting a parsimonious predicting model and interpreting the results in an ad-hoc manner. The findings suggest that the shape parameter mostly depends on climatic indices, while the selected prediction model results in more than 20% higher accuracy in terms of RMSE compared to a naïve approach. The implications are important, since incorporating the regression model into regional flood frequency analysis frameworks can considerably reduce the predictive uncertainties.

In order to study the petrogenesis and tectonic setting of Permian A-type granites and their relationships with hydrothermal mineralization along the Hegenshan-Heihe suture zone (HHSZ) in northeastern China, we select the newly discovered Hongyan Cu-polymetallic deposit in the northeastern part of the HHSZ that develops three stages of mineralization associated with the Shanshenfu alkali-feldspar granite (SAFG). The zircon U-Pb dating and whole rock geochemistry suggest that the SAFG is a typical A-type granite formed in the Early Permian. The zircon Hf isotopes and trace elements suggest that the SAFG has high Ti-in-zircon temperature (721–990℃), high magmatic oxygen fugacity and largely positive εHf(t) (+6.0 to +9.9). Therefore, we propose that the SAFG was derived from the crustal assimilation and fractional crystallization of the charnockitized juvenile crust. The high oxygen fugacity favors the chalcophile elements (e.g., Cu, Au, Ag) of the source region enriched in the fluid phases after magmatic fractional crystallization, consequently facilitating subsequent hydrothermal mineralization, which is also consistent with the characteristics of ore-forming fluids that changed from the initial high temperature, high salinity, high fO2 and CO2-rich magmatic-hydrothermal fluids of stage I to CO2-poor, dilute, and cooling meteoric fluids of stage III. Combined with regional geological background, the Permian A2-type granites along the HHSZ can be formed in post-collisional slab break-off process. In subsequent exploration for hydrothermal deposits along the HHSZ, the Permian A-type granites with arc-related juvenile crustal source and high fO2 have great potential and need more attention.

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is a high priority on the agenda of main stakeholders involved in sustainable development and Earth Observation (EO) can provide useful, timely and economical information in this context. This short communication outlines the European Space Agency’s (ESA) specific initiative to promote the use and uptake of satellite data in the global development community: ‘Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD)’. One activity area under EO4SD is devoted to Disaster Risk Reduction: EO4SD DRR. Within this project, a team of European companies and institutions are tasked to develop EO services for supporting the implementation of DRR in International Financial Institutions’ (IFI) projects. Integration of satellite-borne data and ancillary data to generate insight and actionable information is thereby considered a key factor for improved decision making. To understand and fully account for the essential user requirements (IFI & Client States), engagement with technical leaders is crucial. Fit-for-purpose use of data and comprehensive capacity building eventually ensure scalability and long-term transferability. Future perspectives of EO4SD and DRR regarding mainstreaming are also highlighted.

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, to be launched in 2021, will provide water surface elevations, slopes, and river width measurements for rivers wider than 100 m. In this study, synthetic SWOT data are assimilated in a regional hydrometeorological model in order to improve the dynamics of continental waters over the Garonne catchment, one of the major French catchments. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the sequential assimilation of SWOT-like river depths allows the correction of river bed roughness coefficients and thus simulated river depths. An extended Kalman Filter is implemented and the data assimilation strategy was applied to four experiments of gradually increasing complexity regarding observation and model error over the 1995-2000 period. With respect to a “true” river state, assimilating river depths allows the proper retrieval of constant and spatially distributed roughness coefficients with a root mean square error of 1 m1/3 s-1, and the estimation of associated river depths. It was also shown that river depth differences can be assimilated, resulting in a higher root mean square error for roughness coefficients with respect to the true river state. The last study shows how one can take into account more realistic sources of SWOT error measurements, in particular the importance of the estimation of the tropospheric water content in the process.

Sea ice surface roughness affects ice-atmosphere interactions, serves as an indicator of ice age, shows patterns of ice convergence and divergence, affects the spatial extent of summer melt ponds, and ice albedo. We have developed a method for mapping sea ice surface roughness using angular reflectance data from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) and lidar-derived roughness measurements from the Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM). Using an empirical data modeling approach, we derived estimates of Arctic sea ice roughness ranging from centimeters to decimeters meters within the MISR 275-m pixel size. Using independent ATM data for validation, we find that histograms of lidar and multi-angular roughness values are nearly identical for areas with roughness <20 cm but that for rougher regions, the MISR-derived roughness has a narrower range of values than the ATM data. The algorithm is able to accurately identify areas that transition between smooth and rough ice. Because of its coarser spatial scale, MISR-derived roughness data have a variance of about half that ATM roughness data.

The analysis of methods of cleaning and processing of saponite-bearing technogenic waters of diamond mining enterprises of the Arkhangelsk region is carried out. The perspective of the electrochemical separation method for extracting saponite from man-caused waters, providing a targeted change in its structural-texture, physico-chemical and mechanical properties, is shown. The possible directions of realization of saponite and products of its modification in various branches of industry are considered.

Drilling centers are collaborative environments dedicated to facilitate decision-making in the well construction, where multidisciplinary teams work to support operations. The oil operators usually have drilling centers with different types of ergonomic features with considerable potential of integration, creating the opportunity to an Ergonomic Workplace Analysis. This paper aims to present the analysis of infrastructure requirements of one specific company in Brazil. The method was based on a survey with employees, which, coped with a statistical analysis, enabled understanding the impact of the layout requirements. The result is an approach to design collaborative environments, standardizing and defining models for the industry.

High-resolution laboratory-based thermal infrared spectroscopy is an up-and-coming tool in the field of geological remote sensing. Its spatial resolution allows for detailed analyses at centimeter to sub-millimeter scale. However, this increase in resolution creates challenges with sample characteristics such as grain size, surface roughness and porosity that can influence the spectral signature. This research explores the effect of rock sample surface preparation on the TIR spectral signatures. We applied three surface preparation methods (split, saw and polish) to determine how the resulting differences in surface roughness affects both the spectral shape as well as the spectral contrast. The selected samples are a pure quartz sandstone, a quartz sandstone containing a small percentage of kaolinite, and an intermediate-grained gabbro. To avoid instrument or measurement type biases we conducted measurements on three TIR instruments, resulting in directional hemispherical reflectance spectra, emissivity spectra and bi-directional reflectance images. Surface imaging and analyses were performed with scanning electron microscopy and profilometer measurements. We demonstrate that surface preparation affects the TIR spectral signatures influencing both the spectral contrast as well as the spectral shape. The results show that polished surfaces predominantly display a high spectral contrast while the sawed and split surfaces display up to 25% lower reflectance values. Furthermore, the sawed and split surfaces display spectral signature shape differences at specific wavelengths, which we link to mineral transmission features, surface orientation effects and multiple reflections in fine-grained minerals. Hence, the influence of rock surface preparation should be taken in consideration to avoid an inaccurate geological interpretation.

In the coming years, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) will submit its proposal on the ‘Anthropocene’ as a new geological epoch to the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) for approval. If approved, the proposal will be send to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) for ratification. If the proposal is approved and ratified, the ‘Anthropocene’ will be formalised and the Holocene Series/Epoch will be officially terminated. Currently, the ‘Anthropocene’ is a broadly used term and concept in a wide range of scientific and non-scientific situations and, for many, the official acceptance of this term is only a matter of time. However, the AWG proposal, in its present state, seems to not fully meet the ICS requirements for a new geological epoch. This paper asks what could happen if the current ‘Anthropocene’ proposal is not formalised by the ICS/IUGS. The possible stratigraphic alternatives are evaluated on the basis of the more recent literature and the personal opinions of distinguished AWG and ICS members. The eventual impact on environmental sciences and on non-scientific sectors, where the ‘Anthropocene’ seems already firmly rooted and de facto accepted as a new geological epoch, are also discussed.

The snow melt from the High Atlas is a critical water resource in Morocco. In spite of its importance, monitoring the spatio-temporal evolution of key snow cover properties like the snow water equivalent remains challenging due to the lack of in situ measurements at high elevation. Since 2015, the Sentinel-2 mission provides high spatial resolution images with a 5 day revisit time, which offers new opportunities to characterize snow cover distribution in mountain regions. Here we present a new data assimilation scheme to estimate the state of the snowpack without in situ data. The model was forced using MERRA-2 data and a particle filter was developed to dynamically reduce the biases in temperature and precipitation using Sentinel-2 observations of the snow cover area. The assimilation scheme was implemented using SnowModel, a distributed energy-balance snowpack model and tested in a pilot catchment in the High Atlas. The study period covers 2015-2016 snow season which corresponds to the first operational year of Sentinel-2A, therefore the full revisit capacity was not yet achieved. Yet, we show that the data assimilation led to a better agreement with independent observations of the snow height at an automatic weather station and the snow cover extent from MODIS. The performance of the data assimilation scheme should benefit from the continuous improvements in MERRA-2 reanalyses and the full revisit capacity of Sentinel-2.

Land consolidation engineering inevitably interferes with terrestrial ecosystems, leading to natural capital loss. Therefore, conducting an ecological sensitivity evaluation of a project area before consolidation engineering is very important for reducing unnecessary human interference. Conservation of terrestrial ecosystems and the biodiversity therein to the greatest possible extent is urgently needed. This research analyzes the interference by human activities caused by land consolidation engineering in terrestrial ecosystems. GIS technology, ecological values, landscape pattern indexes, and an ecological risk evaluation were used to construct an ecological sensitivity evaluation index. The coefficient of variation method and a comprehensive sensitivity rating evaluation were used to calculate the weights and results. The project area was divided into sensitivity zones according to the results, and the results and suggestions are as follows: In the highly eco-sensitive zone, where bare rocks, gravel, and grass-covered areas compose the main landscape type, vegetation should be restored, and forests should be planted. In the medium eco-sensitivity zone, where irrigated paddy fields and arid land compose the main landscape type, land parcels should be merged, and agricultural infrastructure should be constructed or improved. In the low eco-sensitivity zone, where forests compose the main landscape type, roads should be closed, natural habitat should be restored, and buffer zones should be created. This study provides suggestions for future land management decisions.

In the coming years, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) will submit its proposal on the ‘Anthropocene’ as a new geological epoch to the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) for approval. If approved, the proposal will be send to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) for ratification. If the proposal is approved and ratified, the ‘Anthropocene’ will be formalised and the Holocene Series/Epoch will be officially terminated. Currently, the ‘Anthropocene’ is a broadly used term and concept in a wide range of scientific and non-scientific situations and, for many, the official acceptance of this term is only a matter of time. However, the AWG proposal, in its present state, seems to not fully meet the ICS requirements for a new geological epoch. This paper asks what could happen if the current ‘Anthropocene’ proposal is not formalised by the ICS/IUGS. The possible stratigraphic alternatives are evaluated on the basis of the more recent literature and the personal opinions of distinguished AWG and ICS members. The eventual impact on environmental sciences and on non-scientific sectors, where the ‘Anthropocene’ seems already firmly rooted and de facto accepted as a new geological epoch, are also discussed.

In the coming years, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) will submit its proposal on the ‘Anthropocene’ as a new geological epoch to the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) for approval. If approved, the proposal will be send to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) for ratification. If the proposal is approved and ratified, the ‘Anthropocene’ will be formalised and the Holocene Series/Epoch will be officially terminated. Currently, the ‘Anthropocene’ is a broadly used term and concept in a wide range of scientific and non-scientific situations and, for many, the official acceptance of this term is only a matter of time. However, the AWG proposal, in its present state, seems to not fully meet the ICS requirements for a new geological epoch. This paper asks what could happen if the current ‘Anthropocene’ proposal is not formalised by the ICS/IUGS. The possible stratigraphic alternatives are evaluated on the basis of the more recent literature and the personal opinions of distinguished AWG and ICS members. The eventual impact on environmental sciences and on non-scientific sectors, where the ‘Anthropocene’ seems already firmly rooted and de facto accepted as a new geological epoch, are also discussed.

Africa spans the hemispheres from temperate region to temperate region, has a long history of hominin evolution and yet has a relatively poorly understood Quaternary climate history. Speleothems, as archives of terrestrial hydroclimate variability, can help reveal this history, and here we review the progress made to date, with a focus on the first version of the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis & Analysis (SISAL) database. The geology of Africa has limited development of large karst regions to four areas - the northern and eastern coasts bordering the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, west Africa and southern Africa. Exploitation of the speleothem palaeoclimate archives in these regions is uneven, with long histories of research in South Africa and Morocco but no investigations elsewhere e.g. West Africa. Consequently, the evidence of past climate change reviewed here is irregularly sampled in both time and space. Nevertheless, we show evidence of migration of the monsoon belt, with enhanced rainfall during interglacials observed in northeast Africa, southern Arabia and the northern part of southern Africa. Evidence from East Africa also indicates significant centennial scale rainfall variability. In northwestern and southern Africa precession and eccentricity influence speleothem growth, largely through changing synoptic storm activity.

New approaches to collect in-situ data are needed to complement the high spatial (10~m) and temporal (5-day) resolution of Copernicus Sentinel satellite observations. Making sense of Sentinel observations requires high quality and timely in-situ data for training and validation. Classical ground truth collection is expensive, lacks scale, fails to exploit opportunities for automation, and is prone to sampling error. Here we evaluate the potential contribution of opportunistically exploiting crowd-sourced street-level imagery to collect massive high-quality in-situ data in the context of crop monitoring. This study assesses this potential by answering two questions: 1) what is the spatial availability of these images across the European Union (EU)? and 2) can these images be transformed to useful data? To answer the first question, we evaluated the EU availability of street-level images on Mapillary - the largest open-access platform for such images - against the Land Use and land Cover Area frame Survey (LUCAS) 2018, a systematic surveyed sampling of 337031 points. For 37.78% of the LUCAS points a crowd-sourced image is available within a 2-km buffer, with a mean distance of 816.11 m. We estimate that 9.44% of the EU territory has a crowd-sourced image within 300-m from a LUCAS point, illustrating the huge potential of crowd-sourcing as a complementary sampling tool. After artificial and built up (63.14%), and inland water (43.67%) land cover classes, arable land has the highest availability at 40.78%. To answer the second question, we focus on identifying crops at parcel level using all 13.6 million Mapillary images collected in the Netherlands. Only 1.9% of the contributors generated 75.15% of the images. A procedure was developed to select and harvest the pictures potentially best suited to identify crops using the geometries of 785710 Dutch parcels and the pictures' meta-data such as camera orientation and focal length. Availability of crowd-sourced imagery looking at parcels was assessed for 8 different crop groups with the 2017 parcel level declarations. Parcel revisits during the growing season allowed to track crop growth. Examples illustrate the capacity to recognize crops and their phenological development on crowd-sourced street-level imagery. Consecutive images taken during the same capture track allow selecting the image with the best unobstructed view. In the future, dedicated crop capture tasks can improve image quality and expand coverage in rural areas.

As one of the most prominent seasonally recurring atmospheric circulation patterns, the Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) plays a vital role for the life and livelihood of about a third of the global population. Changes in the strength and seasonality of the ASM significantly affect the region, yet the drivers of change and the varied regional responses of the ASM are not well understood. In the last two decades, there have been a number of studies reconstructing the ASM using stalagmite-based proxies such as oxygen isotopes (18O). Such reconstructions allow examination of the drivers and responses, increasing monsoon predictability. In this review paper, we focus on stalagmite 18O records from India at the proximal end of the ASM region. Indian stalagmite 18O records show well dated, high amplitude changes in response to the dominant drivers of the ASM on orbital to multi-centennial timescales and indicate the magnitude of monsoon variability in response to these drivers. We examine Indian stalagmite records collated in SISAL_v1 (version 1) database (http://researchdata.reading.ac.uk/139/) and support the database with a summary of record quality and regional climatic interpretations of the 18O record during different climate states. We highlight current debates and suggest the most useful time periods (climatic events) and locations for further work using tools such as data-model comparisons, spectral analysis methods, multi-proxy investigations and monitoring work

Oral mucositis is most frequently a toxic effect of chemotherapeutic and/or radiotherapeutic treatment, resulting from complex multifaceted biological events involving DNA damage. The clinical manifestations have a negative impact on the life quality of cancer patients. Preventive measures and curative treatment of mucositis are still not well established. The glycine has anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and cytoprotective actions, being a potential therapeutic in mucositis. The objective was to evaluate the effects of glycine on the expression of collagen and growth factors, platelet and epidermal in oral mucositis. The mucositis of which was induced by the protocol of Sonis. 40 hamsters were used, divided into two groups: Group I- control; Group II- supplemented with 5% intraperitoneal glycine, 2,0 mg/g diluted in hepes. Histopathological sections were used to perform the immune-histochemical method, the evaluation collagen expression and the growth factors: EGF and PDGF. It was observed that the group supplemented with glycine higher amounts of collagen expression and predominance type of collagen I. The glycine group presented lower immunoexpression of the growth factors, EGF and PDGF. The group supplemented with glycine showed a marked healing process of the oral mucosite, demonstrated by the predominance of collagen type I and reduction of growth factors, EGF and PDGF.

Rapid and extensive urbanization has adversely impacted humans and ecological entities in the recent decades through a decrease in surface permeability and the emergence of urban heat islands (UHI). While detailed and continuous assessments of surface permeability and UHI are crucial for urban planning and management of landuse zones, they have mostly involved time consuming and expensive field studies, and single sensor derived large scale aerial and satellite imageries. We demonstrated the advantage of fusing imageries from multiple sensors for landuse and landcover (LULC) change assessments as well as for assessing surface permeability and UHI emergence in Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu, India. Cartosat-2 and Landsat-7 ETM+ imageries from 2007 and 2017 were fused and classified using a Rotation Forest (RF), while surface permeability and temperature were quantified using Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) index, respectively. Fused images exhibited higher classification accuracies than non-fused images, i.e. overall kappa coefficient values 0.83 and 0.75, respectively. We observed an overall increase of 20 km2 (45%) in the coverage of urban (dry, real estate plots and built-up) areas, while a decrease of 27 km2 (37%) for vegetated (cropland and forest) areas in Tirunelveli between 2007 and 2017. The SAVI values indicated an extensive decrease in surface permeability for Tirunelveli overall (0.4) and also for almost all LULC zones. The LST values exhibited an associated overall increase (1.30C) of surface temperature in Tirunelveli with the highest increase (2.40C) for urban built-up areas between 2007 and 2017. The SAVI-LST combined metric depicted the Southeastern built-up areas in Tirunelveli as a potential UHI hotspot, while a caution for the Western riparian zone for UHI emergence in 2017. Our results provide important metrics for surface permeability and UHI monitoring, and inform urban and zonal planning authorities about the advantages of satellite image fusion.

Land-cover classification that uses very-high-resolution (VHR) remote sensing images is a topic of considerable interest. Although many classification methods have been developed, there is still room for improvements in the accuracy and usability of classification systems. In this paper, a novel post-processing approach based on a dual-adaptive majority voting strategy (D-AMVS) is proposed for improving the performance of initial classification maps. D-AMVS defines a strategy for refining each label of a classified map that is obtained by different classification methods from the same original image and fusing the different refined classification maps to generate a final classification result. The proposed D-AMVS contains three main blocks. 1) An adaptive region is generated by extending gradually the region around a central pixel based on two predefined parameters (T1 and T2) in order to utilize the spatial feature of ground targets in a VHR image. 2) For each classified map, the label of the central pixel is refined according to the majority voting rule within the adaptive region. This is defined as adaptive majority voting (AMV). Each initial classified map is refined in this manner pixel by pixel. 3) Finally, the refined classified maps are used to generate a final classification map, and the label of the central pixel in the final classification map is determined by applying AMV again. Each entire classified map is scanned and refined pixel by pixel based on the proposed D-AMVS. The accuracies of the proposed D-AMVS approach are investigated through two remote sensing images with high spatial resolutions of 1.0 and 1.3 m, respectively. Compared with the classical majority voting method and a relatively new post-processing method called general post-classification framework, the proposed D-AMVS can achieve a land-cover classification map with less noise and higher classification accuracies.

Monitoring the ratio of forested and deforested areas plays a key role in studying the dynamics of forest areas. Appropriate mapping of anthropogenic forest disturbances is particularly important in the context of sustainable forest management. It provides ecological, social and economic information which is crucial for forest policymakers. In the last two decades, the forest areas of the Moldo-Transylvanian Carpathians have been subject to a high rate of deforestation which at present state lacks proper quantification. We present a novel methodology for monitoring the forest disturbance dynamics in Moldo-Transylvanian Carpathians by use of fractal analysis including entropy, Fractal Fragmentation Index (FFI) and Tug-of-War lacunarity (Λ_(T-o-W)). This was necessary to quantify and identify the disorder (entropy), the fragmentation (FFI) and heterogeneity of the spatial distribution (Λ_(T-o-W)) patterns. Based on satellite images of the forest areas (annually 2000-2014), increased fragmentation was demonstrated by FFI increase, a measure of the degree of disorder (entropy) and heterogeneity (lacunarity). Our results revealed that textural and fractal analysis can be an effective tool for the extraction of quantitative information about the spatiotemporal dynamics of forest disturbance. The methods developed, and results obtained are a complementary approach to forest disturbance mapping (based on traditional image classification) for future development and adaptation of forestry management policies to ensure a sustainable management and exploitation of forest areas.

Tanzania like any other developing countries is depending on uncertain rainfall for their subsistence and commercial agriculture. In this paper the start and end of rains for Mbeya Meteorological Station in Tanzania Mainland was analyzed and critically examined. Data were kindly given by Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) during face to face Statistics in Applied Climatology (fSIAC) workshop which was held at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) the year 2013 prior to online Course on Statistics in Applied climatology (eSIAC). In this study data were analyzed using Instat (for windows version 3.3.7) package developed by the Statistical Services Centre of the University of Reading. The analysis showed that much of rains start early December all the way to May. There is also 50 percent chance of having below and above the mean for both total annual rainfall and number of rains, in other word one in two years the total rains are below means likewise the number of rain days.

For Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), the normal baseline is one of the main factors that affect the accuracy of the ground elevation. For Gaofen-3 (GF-3) InSAR processing, the poor accuracy of the real-time orbit determination resulting in a large baseline error, leads to the modulation error in azimuth and the slope error in range for timely Digital Elevation Model (DEM) generation. In order to address this problem, a baseline estimation method based on external DEM is proposed in this paper. Firstly, according to the characteristic of the real-time orbit of GF-3 images, orbit fitting is executed to remove the non-linear error factor. Secondly, the height errors are obtained in slant-range plane between Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) DEM and the GF-3 generated DEM after orbit fitting. At the same time, the height errors are used to estimate the baseline error which has a linear variation. In this way, the orbit error can be calibrated by the estimated baseline error. Finally, DEM generation is performed by using the modified baseline and orbit. This procedure is implemented iteratively to achieve a higher accuracy DEM. Based on the results of GF-3 interferometric SAR data for Hebei, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified and the accuracy of GF-3 real-time DEM products can be improved extensively.

Inadequate data linking geology and health in Developing Countries contributes immensely to the challenges to identify sources and causes of many of the emerging diseases. Deficiencies and toxicities of trace elements generally impact human and animal health. The review of the geology of Ghana suggests the presence of oxides and sulphide minerals that are released into the natural environment during the geological process of weathering which introduce both essential and, potentially harmful elements. Of great concern is the fact that majority of the Ghanaian population eat locally cultivated food and expect to be nourished from the diet. Furthermore, archived reports on Ghana rural drinking water indicates most of the aquifers are enriched in As and F while deficient in Mg. Medical geology, the emerging discipline that attempts to address the environmental health issues emanating from geological processes is known in developed nations but not much of its activities are recognized in Ghana. This review has identified the concentrations of a number of elements in different geological settings and have linked these concentrations with health issues. There is therefore a need for medical geologists to work together with other disciplines to devise preventive as well as mitigative techniques in addressing many geology related health issues in Ghana.

Pre-existing fracture and secondary cracks in rock mass are formed by natural power, such as magma condensed to igneous rocks and tectonic movement. The orientation and inclination of these fractures obey certain laws relating to the stress, temperature, minerals, water and so on. Therefore, cracks react differently under the same external loading on the condition of various inclination, fissure apertures, stiffness and joint roughness. To simulate the crack propagation, experiments on hollow cylinder cut by one oblique interface mimicking single fracture accumulated numerous data discovering the failure criterion in accordance with the Mohr-Coulomb criterion. And theory on the Terzaghi’s effective principle take an essential role in controlling the behavior of triggering fault. This paper introduced a series of oblique plane cutting the cylinder regarded as fractures at different inclination to concentrate on how the fracture characteristics effect the stress and strain distribution inside the specimen, especially, the relationship between displacement and water head. The key point of this numerical simulation is coupling the solid phase and the fluid phase, specifically, the mechanic and seepage field. According to the statics, curves referring to deformation and water head could be described as increasing lines. Besides, simulation on coupling solid phase and fluid phase can supply crucial evaluation on activating existing fault, and thus predicting induced seismicity in reservoirs or estimating damage in shale gas exploration.

Abstract: Comparing outcrop data to laboratory results is important to verify and validate experiments of analogue and reservoir materials especially regarding conditions for deformation experiments. This is important better understand highly complex carbonate reservoir strata and their response to changes in subsurface conditions, reducing subsurface uncertainty. This study develops methods to allow for a more straightforward comparison of outcrop data (m-scale) with experimentally created fracture arrays developed in cylindrical samples (cm-scale). The main objective is to assess usefulness of experimentally-produced fracture networks as analogues for subsurface structures, typically at the meter and above scale by developing new techniques to use the lab deformation. It analyses key characteristics of laboratory-induced fracture networks by adapting scanline methods to use with x-ray tomography (XRT) images to allow for comparison with outcrop and field data. To test and verify these new methods two low permeability carbonate samples were used for deformation testing and analysis. Applying the different scanline methods we show that they can be used to analyse lab induced fractures (mm to cm-scale) identified in XRT images for comparison with outcrop data (m-scale). In addition, these methods also allow for quantification of fracture network attributes e.g. fracture spacing, fracture apertures, orientation. This new data bridges the gap between micro-scanlines using thin sections and outcrop scanlines.

Tsygankoite, ideally Mn8Tl8Hg2(Sb21Pb2Tl)Σ24S48, is a new sulfosalt discovered at the Vorontsovskoe gold deposit, Northern Urals, Russia. It occurs as lath-like elongated crystals up to 0.2 mm embedded in calcite-dolomite-clinochlore matrix. The associating minerals also include aktashite, alabandite, arsenopyrite, barite, cinnabar, fluorapatite, orpiment, pyrite, realgar, routhierite, sphalerite, tilasite, titanite, etc. The new mineral is non-fluorescent, black, opaque with a metallic lustre and black streak. It is brittle with an uneven fracture and no obvious parting and cleavage. Its Vickers hardness (VHN10) is 144 kg/mm2 (range 131–167) and its calculated density is 5.450 g cm-3. In reflected light tsygankoite is white; between crossed polars it is dark-grey to black. It is strongly anisotropic: rotation tints vary from light-grey to dark-grey to black. Pleochroism and internal reflections are not observed. The chemical composition of tsygankoite (wt.%, electron-microprobe data) is: Mn 6.29, Fe 0.02, Cu 0.02, Ag 0.01, Hg 5.42, Tl 26.05, Pb 5.84, As 3.39, Sb 30.89, S 21.87, Se 0.01, total 99.81. The empirical formula, calculated on the basis of 90 atoms pfu, is: Mn8.06Tl8.00(Hg1.90Fe0.03Cu0.02Ag0.01)Σ1.96(Sb17.85As3.18Pb1.98Tl0.97)Σ23.98(S48.00Se0.01)Σ48.01. Tsygankoite is monoclinic, space group C2/m, a = 21.362(4) Å, b = 3.8579(10) Å, c = 27.135(4) Å, β= 106.944(14)°, V = 2139.19(17) Å3 and Z = 1. The five strongest diffraction peaks from X-ray powder pattern [listed as (d,Å(I)(hkl)] are: 3.587(100)(112), 3.353(70)(-114), 3.204(88)(405), 2.841(72)(-513) and 2.786(99)(-514). The crystal structure of tsygankoite was refined from single-crystal X-ray diffraction data to R = 0.0607 and consists of an alternation of two thick layer-like arrays, one based on PbS-archetype and second – on SnS-archetype. Tsygankoite has been approved by the IMA-CNMNC under the number 2017-088. It is named for Mikhail V. Tsyganko, mineral collector from Northern Urals, who collected the samples where the new mineral was discovered.

Texas ranks first in number of natural hazard fatalities in the United States (U.S.). Based on data culled from the National Climatic Data Center databases from 1959 to 2016, the number of hydrometeorological fatalities in Texas have increased over the 58-year study period, but the per capita fatalities have significantly decreased. Spatial review found that flooding is the predominant hydrometeorological disaster in a majority of the Texas counties located in “Flash Flood Alley” and accounts for 43% of all hydrometeorological fatalities in the state. Flooding fatalities are highest on “Transportation Routes” followed by heat fatalities in “Permanent Residences”. Seasonal and monthly stratification identifies Spring and Summer as the deadliest seasons, with the month of May registering the highest number of total fatalities dominated by flooding and tornado fatalities. Demographic trends of hydrometeorological disaster fatalities indicated that approximately twice as many male fatalities occurred during the study period than female fatalities, but with decreasing gender disparity over time. Adults are the highest fatality risk group overall, children most at risk to die in flooding, and the elderly at greatest risk of heat-related death.

The new mineral species oyonite, ideally Ag3Mn2Pb4Sb7As4S24, has been discovered in the Uchucchacua polymetallic deposit, Oyon district, Catajambo, Lima Department, Peru, as very rare black metallic subhedral to anhedral crystals, up to 100 μm in length, associated with orpiment, tennantite/tetrahedrite, menchettiite, and other unnamed minerals of the system Pb-Ag-Sb-Mn-As-S, in calcite matrix. Its Vickers hardness (VHN100) is 137 kg/mm2 (range 132–147). In reflected light, oyonite is weakly to moderately bireflectant and weakly pleochroic from dark grey to a dark green. Internal reflections are absent. Reflectance values for the four COM wavelengths (Rmin, Rmax (%) (λ in nm)) are: 33.9, 40.2 (471.1); 32.5, 38.9 (548.3), 31.6, 38.0 (586.6); and 29.8, 36.5 (652.3). Electron microprobe analysis gave (in wt %, average of 5 spot analyses): Cu 0.76 (2), Ag 8.39 (10), Mn 3.02 (7), Pb 24.70 (25), As 9.54 (12), Sb 28.87 (21), S 24.30 (18), total 99.58 (23). On the basis of 20 cations per formula unit, the chemical formula of oyonite is Cu0.38Ag2.48Mn1.75Pb3.79Sb7.55As4.05S24.12. The main diffraction lines are (d in Å, hkl and relative intensity): 3.34 (-312; 40), 3.29 (-520; 100), 2.920 (-132; 40), 2.821 (-232; 70), 2.045 (004; 50). The crystal structure study revealed oyonite to be monoclinic, space group P21/n, with unit-cell parameters a = 19.1806 (18), b = 12.7755 (14), c = 8.1789 (10) Å, β = 90.471 (11)°, V = 2004.1 (4) Å3, Z = 2. The crystal structure was refined to a final R1 = 0.032 for 6272 independent reflections. Oyonite belongs to the Sb-rich members of the andorite homeotypic sub-series within the lillianite homologous series. The name oyonite is after the Oyon district, Lima Department, Peru, the district where the type locality (Uchucchacua mine) is located.

The historic view of metadata as “data about data” is expanding to include data about other items that must be created, used and understood throughout the data and project life cycles. In this context, metadata might better be defined as the structured and standard part of documentation and the metadata life cycle can be described as the metadata content that is required for documentation in each phase of the project and data life cycles. This incremental approach to metadata creation is similar to the spiral model used in software development. Each phase also has distinct users and specific questions they need answers to. In many cases, the metadata life cycle involves hierarchies where latter phases have increased numbers of items. The relationships between metadata in different phases can be captured through structure in the metadata standard or through conventions for identifiers. Metadata creation and management can be streamlined and simplified by re-using metadata across many records. Many of these ideas are being used in metadata for documenting the life cycle of research projects in the Arctic.

Understanding the chalk-fluid interactions and the associated mineralogical and mechanical alteration at sub-micron scale are major goals in Enhanced Oil Recovery. Mechanical strength, porosity, and permeability of chalk are linked to mineral dissolution that occurs during brine injections, and affect the reservoir potential. This paper presents a novel "single grain" methodology to recognize the varieties of carbonates in rocks and loose sediments: Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive, quick, and user-friendly technique representing a powerful tool to identify minerals down to 1 µm. An innovative working technique for oil exploration is proposed, as the mineralogy of micron-sized crystals grown in two flooded chalk samples (Liége, Belgium) was successfully investigated by Raman spectroscopy. The drilled chalk cores were flooded with MgCl₂ for c. 1.5 (Long Term Test) and 3 years (Ultra Long Term Test) under North Sea reservoir conditions (Long Term Test: 130°C, 1 PV/day, 9.3 MPa effective stress; Ultra Long Term Test: 130°C, varying between 1-3 PV/day, 10.4 MPa effective stress). Raman spectroscopy was able to identify the presence of recrystallized magnesite along the core of the Long Term Test up to 4 cm from the injection surface, down to the crystal size of 1-2 µm. In the Ultra Long Term Test core the growth of MgCO₃ affected nearly the entire core (7 cm). In both samples, no dolomite or high-magnesium calcite secondary growth could be detected when analysing 557 and 90 Raman spectra on the Long and Ultra Long Term Test, respectively. This study can offer Raman spectroscopy as a breakthrough tool in petroleum exploration of unconventional reservoirs, due to its quickness, spatial resolution, and non-destructive acquisition of data. These characteristics would encourage its use coupled with electron microscopes and energy dispersive systems or even electron microprobe studies.

Numerical weather prediction is an initial-value problem, for determination of the initial conditions, there are many methods and one of the most classical methods is variational methods in three dimensions, or 3D-Var. In this approach, with a defined cost function proportional to the square of the distance between the analysis and both the background and the observations, one can obtain the analysis. In the cost function, the background and the observations are reshaped to vectors; within this step, the order of the background error covariance matrix and the observational error covariance matrix becomes huge, which is not convenient to one to obtain the analysis. In this paper, according to the matrix analysis approach, we put forward some possible improvements to the dimension-reduction algorithm of 3D-Var, so that provide some references for data assimilation.

Accurate, detailed and recent Information about land cover/use is important and much more needed for different aspects of sustainable development and environmental management. As remote sensing datasets are becomes one of the most important and effective tools to generate such information, this study aimed to generating land cover map for sub area in Al-Ahasaa Oasis, Saudi Arabia, by using and classifying a subset of Landsat-ETM+ image of the selected study area, as bases and required input for future studies and researches. Different image preprocessing techniques in addition to a will-known and widely used classification method (i.e., Maximum Likelihood classifier) were applied. To be reliable with the final product, accuracy assessment was carried out with 89% agreement and accepted according to the applied method. Different land cover classes were found in the study area, which includes (Sand dunes, Water bodies, Sabakha, Bare soil, Urban, and Agricultural lands). The study also revealed that the dominant land cover class is sand dunes with approximately ± 70% in area. The study strongly indicated that the area has long been affected by sand movement. Finally, the study suggested that, further researches with more advanced methods rather than traditional methods are needed in the future to support the findings of this study, with high degree of accuracy.

A low-cost data logging platform is presented for environmental monitoring projects that provides long-term operation in remote or submerged environments. Three premade “breakout boards” from the open-source Arduino ecosystem are assembled into the core of the platform. The components are selected based on low-cost and ready availability, making the loggers easy to build and modify without specialized tools, or a significant background in electronics. Power optimization techniques are explained. The platform has proven to be highly reliable, and capable of operating for more than a year on standard AA batteries. The flexibility of the system is illustrated with two ongoing field studies recording drip rates in a cave, and water flow in a flooded cave system.

To date, several different approaches are available to study sediment dynamics at reach or watershed scale, based on very different hypothesis. One of such assumptions, the so-called “morphodynamic equilibrium hypothesis” is becoming little unpopular for its embedded simplifications. The aim of this work is to demonstrate how this approach proves yet effective in modelling landscape morphodynamics at the watershed scale, for what concerns the longitudinal profile of a river and the sedimentary aspects. The application of a 1-D model based on the equilibrium hypothesis has been implemented for several large rivers worldwide. Geomorphological parameters have been analysed, which describe the evolution of longitudinal profile (concavity) and sediments characteristics (aggrading and fining), and the results show a reasonably good correspondence with qualitative estimation of the same parameters. At the scale of analysis and for the chosen systems, which show high inertia to geomorphological changes likely owing to their longitudinal extension, the model can detect where the present conditions reflect a big disturbance to the “natural equilibrium” thus allowing water managers to identify present issues to be addressed.

Arctic feedbacks will accelerate climate change and could jeopardise mitigation efforts. The permafrost carbon feedback releases carbon to the atmosphere from thawing permafrost and the sea ice albedo feedback increases solar absorption in the Arctic Ocean. A constant positive albedo feedback and zero permafrost feedback have been used in nearly all climate policy studies to date, while observations and models show that the permafrost feedback is significant and that both feedbacks are nonlinear. Using novel dynamic emulators in the integrated assessment model PAGE-ICE, we investigate nonlinear interactions of the two feedbacks with the climate and economy under a range of climate scenarios consistent with the Paris Agreement. The permafrost feedback interacts with the land and ocean carbon uptake processes, and the albedo feedback evolves through a sequence of nonlinear transitions associated with the loss of Arctic sea ice in different months of the year. The US’s withdrawal from the current national pledges could increase the total discounted economic impact of the two Arctic feedbacks until 2300 by $25 trillion, reaching nearly $120 trillion, while meeting the 1.5 °C and 2 °C targets will reduce the impact by an order of magnitude.

Containing hundreds of spectral bands (features), hyperspectral images (HSIs) have high ability in discrimination of land cover classes. Traditional HSIs data processing methods consider the same importance for all bands in the original feature space (OFS), while different spectral bands play different roles in identification of samples of different classes. In order to explore the relative importance of each feature, we learn a weighting matrix and obtain the relative weighted feature space (RWFS) as an enriched feature space for HSIs data analysis in this paper. To overcome the difficulty of limited labeled samples which is common case in HSIs data analysis, we extend our method to semisupervised framework. To transfer available knowledge to unlabeled samples, we employ graph based clustering where low rank representation (LRR) is used to define the similarity function for graph. After construction the RWFS, any arbitrary dimension reduction method and classification algorithm can be employed in RWFS. The experimental results on two well-known HSIs data set show that some dimension reduction algorithms have better performance in the new weighted feature space.

The water cushion depth of stilling basin with shallow-water cushion is a key factor that affects the flow regime of hydraulic jump in the basin. However, the specific depth at which the water cushion is considered as “shallow” has not be stated clearly for now, and only conceptual description is provided. This paper attempts to specify the best water cushion depth based on the flow regime of hydraulic jump and underflow speed; namely, in case of critical hydraulic jump in the basin, the best water cushion depth is located where the minimum distance to the bottom plate of the stilling basin is 1/5~1/4 of the water cushion depth. The theoretical analysis indicates, at different inclinations of discharge chute (θ) and depth ratios of inlet (m), instead of monotonic change, the Froude number (Fr) at inlet of the stilling basin with shallow-water cushion firstly reduces and then increases as the flow velocity at discharge chute inlet (V) increases; the parameters of inflection point (critical flow velocity and critical Fr) increase as the inclinations of discharge chute (θ) and depth ratios of inlet (m) increase. Such regularity is the theoretical basis for selecting representative study cases. The reliability of the large eddy simulation calculation results are verified by a model test; in the paper, 30 cases including five different Froude numbers and six shallow-water cushion depths are selected, for calculating the hydraulic factors such as flow profile, flow regime and flow velocity in the stilling basin with shallow-water cushion; and the varying pattern between the best depth of stilling basin with shallow-water cushion (depth-to-length ratio) and the inflow Froude number is obtained which indicates that the best depth of stilling basin with shallow-water cushion varies little as the change of the Froude number before reaching the critical Froude number; however, the best depth-to-length ratio of stilling basin with shallow-water cushion increases as the Froude number increases after the critical Froude number is reached. The study results in this paper are of reference significance to design and calculation of the stilling basin with shallow-water cushion.

An adaptive spatial clustering (ASC) algorithm is proposed in this present study, which employs sweep-circle techniques and a dynamic threshold setting based on the Gestalt theory to detect spatial clusters. The proposed algorithm can automatically discover clusters in one pass, rather than through the modification of the initial model (for example, a minimal spanning tree, Delaunay triangulation or Voronoi diagram). It can quickly identify arbitrarily-shaped clusters while adapting efficiently to non-homogeneous density characteristics of spatial data, without the need of prior knowledge or parameters. The proposed algorithm is also ideal for use in data streaming technology with dynamic characteristics flowing in the form of spatial clustering in large data sets.

The hazard and the carcinogenic risks due to the exposure to some potentially toxic elements by the Santiago Island (Cape Verde) population where calculated, considering soil ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact as exposure pathways. The topsoil of Santiago Island is enriched in Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, V, Zn, Mn and Cd to upper crust values. Hazard indices (HI) were calculated for these metals and As exposures, of Santiago Island population and the calculations were performed for children and adults. For children HI are higher than 1 for Co, Cr and Mn. So there is indication of potential non-carcinogenic risk for children, due to the high Co (HI=2.995), Cr (HI=1.329) and Mn (HI=1.126), values in soils. For the other elements and for adults there is no potential non-carcinogenic risk. Cancer risk was calculated for As, Cd, Cr and Ni exposures, for adults and children and the results are always lower than the carcinogenic target risk of 1x10-6, for As, Cd, and Ni. However, cancer risk are higher than the carcinogenic target risk for Cr, for adults. Regarding As, for children the fraction due to Riskingestion represents 51.6%, while Riskinhalation represents 48.0% and Riskdermalcontact represents only 0.4% of total risk. For adults Riskinhalation represents 81.3%, Riskingestion represents 16.6% and Riskdermal contact represents 2.1%. These results reflect the higher daily ingestion dose for children and the higher inhalation rate and higher dermal contact surface for adults. For the other elements and for adults the cancer risk due to Cr, Ni and Cd inhalation is always higher than for children, reflecting the higher inhalation rate for adults.

The hazard and the carcinogenic risks due to the exposure to some potentially toxic elements by the Santiago Island (Cape Verde) population where calculated, considering soil ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact as exposure pathways. The topsoil of Santiago Island is enriched in Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, V, Zn, Mn and Cd to upper crust values. Hazard indices (HI) were calculated for these metals and As exposures, of Santiago Island population and the calculations were performed for children and adults. For children HI are higher than 1 for Co, Cr and Mn. So there is indication of potential non-carcinogenic risk for children, due to the high Co (HI=2.995), Cr (HI=1.329) and Mn (HI=1.126), values in soils. For the other elements and for adults there is no potential non-carcinogenic risk. Cancer risk was calculated for As, Cd, Cr and Ni exposures, for adults and children and the results are always lower than the carcinogenic target risk of 1x10-6, for As, Cd, and Ni. However, cancer risk are higher than the carcinogenic target risk for Cr, for adults. Regarding As, for children the fraction due to Riskingestion represents 51.6%, while Riskinhalation represents 48.0% and Riskdermalcontact represents only 0.4% of total risk. For adults Riskinhalation represents 81.3%, Riskingestion represents 16.6% and Riskdermal contact represents 2.1%. These results reflect the higher daily ingestion dose for children and the higher inhalation rate and higher dermal contact surface for adults. For the other elements and for adults the cancer risk due to Cr, Ni and Cd inhalation is always higher than for children, reflecting the higher inhalation rate for adults.

An adaptive spatial clustering (ASC) algorithm is proposed that employs sweep-circle techniques and a dynamic threshold setting based on Gestalt theory to detect spatial clusters. The proposed algorithm can automatically discover clusters in one pass, rather than through the modification of the initial model (for example, a minimal spanning tree, Delaunay triangulation, or Voronoi diagram). It can quickly identify arbitrarily shaped clusters while adapting efficiently to non-homogeneous density characteristics of spatial data, without the need of priori knowledge or parameters. The proposed algorithm is also ideal for use in data streaming technology with dynamic characteristics flowing in the form of spatial clustering large data sets.

The processing of cloud free geo-referenced imagery is one of the preliminary processing step of any land application. This letter describe the methodology developed to obtain a seamless cloud free composite of Africa for 2016 using Sentinel-2A data at 10 meters resolution freely available from the European Space Agency. The method is based on an hybrid method resulting from the merging of the two most robust time series methods namely the "darkest pixel" and the "maximum NDVI" previously developed with AVHRR time series.

Edge detection is one of the key issues in the field of computer vision and remote sensing image analysis. Although many different edge-detection methods have been proposed for gray-scale, color, and multispectral images, they still face difficulties when extracting edge features from hyperspectral images (HSIs) that contain a large number of bands with very narrow gap in the spectral domain. Inspired by the clustering characteristic of the gravitation, a novel edge-detection algorithm for HSIs is presented in this paper. In the proposed method, we first construct a joint feature space by combining the spatial and spectral features. Each pixel of HSI is assumed to be a celestial object in the joint feature space, which exerts gravitational force to each of its neighboring pixel. Accordingly, each object travels in the joint feature space until it reaches a stable equilibrium. At the equilibrium, the image is smoothed and the edges are enhanced, where the edge pixels can be easily distinguished by calculating the gravitational potential energy. The proposed edge-detection method is tested on several benchmark HSIs and the obtained results were compared with those of three state-of-the-art approaches. The experimental results confirm the efficacy of the proposed method

With the development of hyperspectral technology, to establish an effective spectral data compressive reconstruction method that can improving data storage, transmission and maintaining spectral information is critical for quantitative remote sensing research and application in vegetation. By introducing the idea of compressive sensing in compressed reconstruction, the spectral adaptive grouping distributed compressive sensing algorithm is proposed, which enables a distributed compressed sensing reconstruction of plant hyperspectral data. The experimental results showed that comparing with orthogonal matching pursuit(OMP) and gradient projection reconstruction(GPSR), the proposed algorithm can significantly improve the visual effect of image reconstruction in the spatial domain. The PSNR in low sampling rate(sampling rate is lower than 0.2) increases by 13.72dB than OMP and 1.66dB than GPSR. In the spectral domain, the average normalized root mean square error、the mean absolute percentage error and the mean absolute error of the proposed algorithm is35.38%，31.83% and 33.33% lower than GPSR respectively.. Therefore, the proposed algorithm can achieve relatively high reconstructed efficiency.

The mechanism underlying microbiologically induced carbonate precipitation have not been thoroughly characterized, although numerous scholars and experts have specifically investigated questions regarding minerals induced by bacteria. The study of the precipitation of carbonate minerals induced by halophilic bacteria has aroused wide concern. The present study aimed to investigate the characterization and process of biomineralization in high salt systems by a halophilic bacterium, Chromohalobacter israelensis strain LD532 (GenBank: KX766026), which was isolated from the Yinjiashan Saltern in China. Carbonate minerals induced by LD532 were investigated in several sets of comparative experiments that employed magnesium sulfate and magnesium chloride as Mg resources. Magnesium calcite and aragonite were induced by LD532 bacteria, whereas these minerals did not appear in the control group. The mineral phases, micromorphologies, and crystal structures were analysed using X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray detection. The carbonic anhydrase and urease secreted by strain LD532 through metabolism increased the pH value of the liquid medium and promoted the process of carbonate precipitation. Further study using high resolution transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray detection and analysis of ultrathin slices showed that the nucleation sites of carbonate minerals were located on extracellular polymeric substances and the membranes of intracellular vesicles of LD532 bacteria, which provided favourable conditions for the growth of carbonate mineral crystals. The morphologies and compositions of minerals formed in solutions of MgSO₄ and MgCl₂ display significant differences, indicating that different sources of Mg²⁺ may also affect the physiological and biochemical activities of microorganisms and thus mineral deposition. This study will be of some interest for the interpretation of carbonate biomineralization in natural salt environments and has some value as a reference in understanding sedimentary carbonates in ancient marine environments, such as tidal flats.

A numerical mechanism connecting ice algal ecodynamics with the buildup of organic macromolecules is tested within modeled pan-Arctic brine channels. The simulations take place offline in a reduced representation of sea ice geochemistry. Physical driver quantities derive from the global sea ice code CICE, including snow cover, thickness and internal temperature. The framework is averaged over ten boreal biogeographic zones. Computed nutrient-light-salt limited algal growth supports grazing, mortality and carbon flow. Vertical transport is diffusive but responds to pore structure. Simulated bottom layer chlorophyll maxima are reasonable, though delayed by about a month relative to observations due to uncertainties in snow variability. Upper level biota arise intermittently during flooding events. Macromolecular concentrations are tracked as proxy proteins, polysaccharides, lipids and refractory humics. The fresh biopolymers undergo succession and removal by bacteria. Baseline organics enter solely through cell disruption, so that the internal carbon content is initially biased low. By including exudation, agreement with dissolved organic or individual biopolymer data is achieved given strong release coupled to light intensity. Detrital carbon then reaches hundreds of micromolar, sufficient to support structural changes to the ice matrix.

Remote sensing datasets are increasingly being used to provide spatially explicit large scale evapotranspiration (ET) estimates. The focus of this study was to estimate and thematically map on a pixel-by-pixel basis, the actual evapotranspiration (ET_a) of the Wonji Shoa Sugarcane Estate using the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL), Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEB) and Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) algorithms. The results obtained revealed that the ranges of the daily ETa estimated on January 25, February 26, September 06 and October 08, 2002 using SEBAL were 0.0 - 6.85, 0.0 – 9.36, 0.0 – 3.61, 0.0 – 6.83 mm/day; using SSEB 0.0 - 6.78, 0.0 – 7.81, 0.0 – 3.65, 0.0 – 6.46 mm/day, and SSEBop were 0.05 - 8.25, 0.0 – 8.82, 0.2 – 4.0, 0.0 – 7.40 mm/day, respectively. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values between SSEB and SEBAL, SSEBop and SEBAL, and SSEB and SSEBop were 0.548, 0.548, and 0.99 for January 25, 2002; 0.739, 0.753, and 0.994 for February 26, 2002;0.847, 0.846, and 0.999 for September 06, 2002; 0.573, 0.573, and 1.00 for October 08, 2002, respectively. The standard deviation of ET_a over the sugarcane estate showed high spatio-temporal variability perhaps due to soil moisture variability and surface cover. The three algorithm results showed that well watered sugarcane fields in the mid-season growing stage of the crop had higher ET_a values compared with the other dry agricultural fields confirming that they consumptively use more water. Generally during the dry season, ET_a is limited to water surplus areas only and in wet season, ET_a was high throughout the entire sugarcane estate. The evaporation fraction (ETrF) results also followed the same pattern as the daily ET_a over the sugarcane estate. The total crop and irrigation water requirement and effective rainfall estimated using the Cropwat model were 2468.8, 2061.6 and 423.8 mm/yr for January 2001 planted and 2281.9, 1851.0 and 437.8 mm/yr for March 2001 planted sugarcanes, respectively. The mean annual ET_a estimated for the whole estate were 107 Mm³, 140 Mm³, and 178 Mm³ using SEBAL, SSEB, and SSEBop, respectively. Even though the algorithms should be validated through field observation, they have potential to be used for effective estimation of ET in the sugarcane estate.