Effects of changes in canopy interception on stream runoff response and recovery following clear-cutting of a Japanese coniferous forest in Fukuroyamasawa Experimental Watershed in Japan

Understanding changes in evapotranspiration during forest regrowth is essential to predict changes of stream runoff and recovery after forest cutting. Canopy interception (Ic) is an important component of evapotranspiration, however Ic changes and the impact on stream runoff during regrowth after cutting remains unclear due to limited observations. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of Ic changes on long-term stream runoff in a regrowth Japanese cedar and Japanese cypress forest following clear-cutting. This study was conducted in two 1-ha paired headwater catchments at Fukuroyamasawa Experimental Watershed in Japan. The catchments were 100% covered by Japanese coniferous plantation forest, one of which was 100% clear-cut in 1999 when the forest was 70 years old. In the treated catchment, annual runoff increased by 301 mm/year (14% of precipitation) the year following clear-cutting, and remained 185 mm/year (7.9% of precipitation) higher in the young regrowth forest for 12–14 years compared to the estimated runoff assuming no clear-cutting. The Ic change was −358 mm/year (17% of precipitation) after cutting and was −168 mm/year (6.7% of precipitation) in the 12–14 years old regrowth forest compared to the observed Ic during the pre-cutting period. Stream runoff increased in all seasons, and the Ic change was the main fraction of evapotranspiration change in all seasons throughout the observation period. These results suggest that the change in Ic accounted for most of the runoff response following forest cutting and the subsequent runoff recovery in this coniferous forest.     

Growing season evapotranspiration in boreal fens in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region: Variability and environmental controls

Current efforts to assess changes to the wetland hydrology caused by growing anthropogenic pressures in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) require well-founded spatial and temporal estimates of actual evapotranspiration (ET), which is the dominant component of the water budget in this region. This study assessed growing season (May–September) and peak growing season (July) ET variability at a treed moderate-rich fen and treed poor fen (in 2013–2018), open poor fen (in 2011–2014), and saline fen (in 2015–2018) using eddy covariance technique and a set of complementary environmental data. Seasonal fluctuations in ET were positively related to net radiation, air temperature and vapour pressure deficit and followed trends typical for the Boreal Plains (BP) and AOSR with highest rates in June–July. However, no strong effect of water table position on ET was found. Strong surface control on ET is evident from lower ET values than potential evapotranspiration (PET); the lowest ET/PET was observed at saline fen, followed by open fen, moderately treed fen, and heavily treed fen, suggesting a strong influence of vegetation on water loss. In most years PET exceeded precipitation (P), and positive relations between P/PET and ET were observed with the highest July ET rates occurring under P/PET ~1. However, during months with P/PET > 1, increased P/PET was associated with decreased July ET. With respect to 30-year mean values of air temperature and P in the area, both dry and wet, cool and warm growing seasons (GS) were observed. No clear trends between ET values and GS wetness/coldness were found, but all wet GS were characterized by peak growing seasons with high daily ET variability.     

Long-term hydrology and aquatic biogeochemistry data from H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest,Cascade Mountains,Oregon

The H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest (HJA) encompasses the 6400 ha Lookout Creek watershed in western Oregon, USA. Hydrologic, chemistry and precipitation data have been collected, curated, and archived for up to 70 years. The HJA was established in 1948 to study the effects of harvest of old-growth conifer forest and logging-road construction on water quality, quantity and vegetation succession. Over time, research questions have expanded to include terrestrial and aquatic species, communities and ecosystem dynamics. There are nine small experimental watersheds and 10 gaging stations in the HJA, including both reference and experimentally treated watersheds. Gaged watershed areas range from 8.5 to 6242 ha. All gaging stations record stage height, water conductivity, water temperature and above-stream air temperature. At nine of the gage sites, flow-proportional water samples are collected and composited over 3-week intervals for chemical analysis. Analysis of stream and precipitation chemistry began in 1968. Analytes include dissolved and particulate species of nitrogen and phosphorus, dissolved organic carbon, pH, specific conductance, suspended sediment, alkalinity, and major cations and anions. Supporting climate measurements began in the 1950s in association with the first small watershed experiments. Over time, and following the initiation of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) grant in 1980, infrastructure expanded to include a set of benchmark and secondary meteorological stations located in clearings spanning the elevation range within the Lookout Creek watershed, as well as a large number of forest understory temperature stations. Extensive metadata on sensor configurations, changes in methods over time, sensor accuracy and precision, and data quality control flags are associated with the HJA data.     

Meltwater discharge during the Holocene from the Wilkes subglacial basin revealed by beryllium isotope analysis of marine sediments

Understanding Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics related to global climate change is of scientific and societal interest as the future behaviour of the ice sheet under the currently changing climate is unknown. We present beryllium‐10 (¹⁰Be) analysis of a high‐resolution marine sediment core from the Adélie Basin near the eastern Wilkes Land margin, which is susceptible to marine ice sheet instability due to the low‐lying nature and down‐sloping trough of the Wilkes Subglacial Basin. Combined with a newly constructed age model using compound specific radiocarbon dates, the data reveal three events associated with high meteoric ¹⁰Be at ca. ~10 ka, ca. ~6.5 ka and from ca. ~4 ka. We interpret these high meteoric ¹⁰Be events to be derived from the deposition of ¹⁰Be released from the ice sheet during meltwater discharge. In particular, the shift to higher meteoric ¹⁰Be concentration at~4 ka may correspond to changes in climate patterns at this time. Copyright © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implementation of Solute Transport in the Vadose Zone into the “HYDRUS Package for MODFLOW”

The “HYDRUS package for MODFLOW” is an existing MODFLOW package that allows MODFLOW to simultaneously evaluate transient water flow in both unsaturated and saturated zones. The package is based on incorporating parts of the HYDRUS-1D model (to simulate unsaturated water flow in the vadose zone) into MODFLOW (to simulate saturated groundwater flow). The coupled model is effective in addressing spatially variable saturated-unsaturated hydrological processes at the regional scale. However, one of the major limitations of this coupled model is that it does not have the capability to simulate solute transport along with water flow and therefore, the model cannot be employed for evaluating groundwater contamination. In this work, a modified unsaturated flow and transport package (modified HYDRUS package for MODFLOW and MT3DMS) has been developed and linked to the three-dimensional (3D) groundwater flow model MODFLOW and the 3D groundwater solute transport model MT3DMS. The new package can simulate, in addition to water flow in the vadose zone, also solute transport involving many biogeochemical processes and reactions, including first-order degradation, volatilization, linear or nonlinear sorption, one-site kinetic sorption, two-site sorption, and two-kinetic sites sorption. Due to complex interactions at the groundwater table, certain modifications of the pressure head (compared to the original coupling) and solute concentration profiles were incorporated into the modified HYDRUS package. The performance of the newly developed model is evaluated using HYDRUS (2D/3D), and the results indicate that the new model is effective in simulating the movement of water and contaminants in the saturated-unsaturated flow domains.     

Consistency of precipitation products over the Arabian Peninsula and interactions with soil moisture and water storage

The regional-scale consistency between four precipitation products from the GPCC, TRMM, WM, and CMORPH datasets over the Arabian Peninsula was assessed. Their macroscale relationships were inter-compared with soil moisture and total water storage (TWS) estimates from AMSR-E and GRACE. The consistency analysis was studied with multivariate statistical hypothesis testing and Pearson correlation metrics for the period from January 2000 to December 2010. The products and GRACE estimates were assessed over a representative sub-domain (United Arab Emirates) with available in situ well observations. Next, geographically temporally weighted regression (GTWR) was employed to examine the interdependencies among the peninsula’s hydrological components. The results showed GPCC-TRMM recording the highest correlation (0.85) with insignificant mean differences over more than 90% of the peninsula. The highest GTWR predictive performance of TWS (R² = 0.84) was achieved with TRMM forcing, which indicates its potential to monitor changes in TWS over the arid peninsular region.     

Cognitive and Affective Predictors of Illinois Residents’ Perceived Risks from Gray Wolves

Abstract

Increasing wolf populations are a concern for wildlife managers in the Midwestern U.S. Understanding the psychological mechanisms that contribute to public perceptions of risk will enable development of strategies that seek to mitigate these risks, and suggest where outreach efforts may facilitate acceptance of wolves. We examined the psychological factors that influence Illinois residents’ perceived risks from wolves. We hypothesized that individuals’ perceived risks from wolves were a function of their attitudes toward wolves, negative affect toward wolves, and basic beliefs about wildlife. Data were obtained from a survey of the Illinois public (n?=?784). Negative affect and attitudes toward wolves were direct predictors of perceived risks. Basic beliefs predicted attitudes and negative affect toward wolves. Negative affect predicted attitudes. Basic beliefs had direct and indirect effects on perceived risks.     

Rock crevices determine woody and herbaceous plant cover in the karst critical zone

The study of the critical zones(CZs) of the Earth link the composition and function of aboveground vegetation with the characteristics of the rock layers, providing a new way to study how the unique rock and soil conditions in karst regions affect the aboveground vegetation. Based on survey results of the rocks, soils and vegetation in the dolomite and limestone distribution areas in the karst area of central Guizhou, it was found that woody plant cover increases linearly with the number of cracks with a width of more than 1 mm, while the cover of herbaceous plants shows the opposite trend(p0.01). The dolomite distribution area is characterized by undeveloped crevices, and the thickness of the soil layer is generally less than 20 cm, which is suitable for the distribution of herbaceous plants with shallow roots. Due to the development of crevices in the limestone distribution area, the soil is deeply distributed through the crevices for the deep roots of trees, which leads to a diversified species composition and a complicated structure in the aboveground vegetation. Based on moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer(MODIS) remote sensing data from 2001 to 2010, the normalized differentiated vegetation index(NDVI) and annual net primary productivity(NPP) results for each phase of a 16-day interval further indicate that the NDVI of the limestone distribution area is significantly higher than that in the dolomite distribution area, but the average annual NPP is the opposite. The results of this paper indicate that in karst CZs, the lithology determines the structure and distribution of the soil, which further determines the cover of woody and herbaceous plants in the aboveground vegetation. Although the amount of soil in the limestone area may be less than that in the dolomite area, the developed crevice structure is more suitable for the growth of trees with deep roots, and the vegetation activity is strong. At present, the treatment of rocky desertification in karst regions needs to fully consider the rock-soilvegetation-air interactions in karst CZs and propose vegetation restoration measures suitable for different lithologies.     

The brecciated texture of polymict eucrites: Petrographic investigations of unequilibrated meteorites from the Antarctic Yamato collection

We report on the petrography and mineralogy of five Yamato polymict eucrites to better constrain the formation and alteration of crustal material on differentiated asteroids. Each sample consists of different lithic clasts that altogether form four dominant textures and therefore appear to originate from closely related petrological areas within Vesta′s crust. The textures range from subophitic to brecciated, porphyritic, and quench‐textured, that differ from section to section. Comparison with literature data for these samples is therefore difficult, which stresses that polymict eucrites are extremely complex in their petrography and investigation of only one thick section may not be representative for the host rock. We also show that sample Y‐793548 consists of more than one lithic unit and must therefore be classified as polymict instead of monomict. The variety and nature of lithic textures in the investigated Yamato meteorites indicate shock events, intense post‐magmatic thermal annealing, and secondary alteration. These postmagmatic features occur in different intensities, varying from clast to clast or among coexisting mineral fragments on a small, local scale. Several clasts within the eucrites studied have been modified by late‐stage alteration processes that caused deposition of Fe‐rich olivine and Fe enrichment along cracks crosscutting pyroxene crystals. However, formation of these secondary phases seems to be independent of the degree of thermal metamorphism observed within every type of clast, which would support a late‐stage metasomatism model for their formation.     

Unveiling buried aeolian landscapes: reconstructing a late Holocene dune environment using 3D ground-penetrating radar

Across the UK, sandy beaches and dunes protect coastal infrastructure from waves and extreme water levels during large-scale storms, while providing important habitats and recreational opportunities. Understanding their long-term evolution is vital in managing their condition in a changing climate. Recently, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) methods have grown in popularity in geomorphological applications, yielding centimetre-scale resolution images of near-surface stratigraphy and structure, thus allowing landscape evolution to be reconstructed. Additionally, abrupt changes in palaeo-environments can be visualized in three dimensions. Although often complemented by core data, GPR allows interpretations to be extended into areas with minimal ground-truth control. Nonetheless, GPR data interpretation can be non-intuitive and ambiguous, and radargrams may not initially resemble the expected subsurface geometry. Interpretation can be made yet more onerous when handling the large 3D data volumes that are facilitated with modern GPR technology. Here we describe the development of novel semi-automated GPR feature-extraction tools, based on ‘edge detection’ and ‘thresholding’ methods, which detect regions of increased GPR reflectivity which can be applied to aid in the reconstruction of a range Quaternary landscapes. Since reflectivity can be related to lithological and/or pore fluid changes, the 3D architecture of the palaeo-landscape can be reconstructed from the features extracted from a geophysical dataset. We present 500 MHz GPR data collected over a buried Holocene coastal dune system in North Wales, UK, now reclaimed for use as an airfield. Core data from the site, reaching a maximum depth 2 m, suggest rapid vertical changes from sand to silty-organic units, and GPR profiles suggest similar lateral complexity. By applying thresholding methods to GPR depth slices, these lateral complexities are effectively and automatically mapped. Furthermore, automatic extraction of the local reflection power yields a strong correlation with the depth variation of organic content, suggesting it is a cause of reflectivity contrast. GPR-interpolated analyses away from core control thus offer a powerful proxy for parameters derived from invasive core logging. The GPR data collected at Llanbedr airfield highlight a complex dune system to a depth of 2.8 m, probably deposited in several phases over ~700 years, similar to elsewhere in North Wales.