Search results for "BASIN"

Old World Megadroughts and Pluvials During the Common Era

2015

An atlas of megadroughts in Europe and in the Mediterranean Basin during the Common Era provides insights into climate variability.

Quantifying the spatial extent and intensity of recent extreme drought events in the Amazon rainforest and their impacts on the carbon cycle

2020

Over the last decades, the Amazon rainforest was hit by multiple severe drought events. Here we assess the severity and spatial extent of the extreme drought years 2005, 2010, and 2015/2016 in the Amazon region and their impacts on the carbon cycle. As an indicator of drought stress in the Amazon rainforest, we use the widely applied maximum cumulative water deficit (ΔMCWD). Evaluating an ensemble of ten state-of-the-art precipitation datasets for the Amazon region, we find that the spatial extent of the drought in 2005 ranges from 2.8 to 4.2 (mean = 3.2) million km2 (46–71 % of the Amazon basin, mean = 53 %) where ΔMCWD indicates at le…

Climate change impact on SWAT simulated streamflow in western Kenya

2009

12 pages (3/4 p.); International audience; Weather and climate extremes such as droughts and floods have far reaching impacts in Kenya. They have had implications in a variety of sectors including agriculture, water resources, health, energy, and disaster management among others. Lake Victoria and its catchment support millions of people and any impact on its ability to support the livelihoods of the communities in this region is of major concern. Thus, the main objective of this study was to assess the potential future climatic changes on the Nzoia catchment in the Lake Victoria basin, and how they might affect streamflow. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool was used to investigate the impa…

2021

Abstract. Foreland fold-and-thrust belts (FTBs) record long-lived tectono-sedimentary activity, from passive margin sedimentation, flexuring, and further evolution into wedge accretion ahead of an advancing orogen. Therefore, dating fault activity is fundamental for plate movement reconstruction, resource exploration, and earthquake hazard assessment. Here, we report U–Pb ages of syn-tectonic calcite mineralizations from four thrusts and three tear faults sampled at the regional scale across the Jura fold-and-thrust belt in the northwestern Alpine foreland (eastern France). Three regional tectonic phases are recognized in the middle Eocene–Pliocene interval: (1) pre-orogenic faulting at 48.…

Introduction to Hydrology

2013

Hydrology deals with the occurrence, movement, and storage of water in the earth system. Hydrologic science comprises understanding the underlying physical and stochastic processes involved and estimating the quantity and quality of water in the various phases and stores. The study of hydrology also includes quantifying the effects of such human interventions on the natural system at watershed, river basin, regional, country, continental, and global scales. The process of water circulating from precipitation in the atmosphere falling to the ground, traveling through a river basin (or through the entire earth system), and then evaporating back to the atmosphere is known as the hydrologic cyc…

The orophilous communities of the Pino-Juniperetea class in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean area

2001

Orophilous plant communities of the Pino-Juniperetea class, occurring in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean area, are examined. This vegetation is characterized by the dominance of trees and shrubs, mostly represented by conifers belonging to the genera Juniperus, Abies and Pinus. These communities are nowadays relegated to the supra- and oromediterranean belt, and show a fragmentary distribution, which is an evident proof of their relict connotation. The comparison among these communities, based on original and literature data, has highlighted a remarkable floristic and structural homogeneity, together with a series of geographical vicariances. From the phytosociological point of view, …

West Nile virus in Spain: Forecasting the geographical distribution of risky areas with an ecological niche modelling approach.

2021

West Nile virus (WNV), a well-known emerging vector-borne arbovirus with a zoonotic life cycle, represents a threat to both public and animal health. Transmitted by ornithophilic mosquitoes, its transmission is difficult to predict and even more difficult to prevent. The massive and unprecedented number of human cases and equid outbreaks in Spain during 2020 interpellates for new approaches. For the first time, we present an integrate analysis from a niche perspective to provide an insight to the situation of West Nile disease (WND) in Spain. Our modelling approach benefits from the combined use of global occurrence records of outbreaks of WND in equids and of its two alleged main vectors i…

Factors affecting the distribution of recent lacustrine ostracoda from the Caicedo de Yuso-Arreo Lake (Western Ebro Basin, Spain)

2005

Recent Ostracoda assemblages of the Caicedo de Yuso Lake have been described as representative of palustrine/lacustrine environments in Iberian temperate lakes. This study considers the changes in assemblages at a fixed station during two consecutive annual cycles, as well as their distribution in summer and winter profiles of the lake. Total sample-assemblages have been quantified as species diversities, measured by the Shannon-Wiener index H (S). The trends of this index are compared to physical parameters (temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, CO2) of the bottom waters of this lake. The Ostracoda assemblages (8100 adults and juvenile living specimens, belonging to 20 species) are …

Faunal invasions as a source of morphological constraints and innovations? The diversification of the early Cardioceratidae (Ammonoidea; Middle Juras…

2005

Abstract Multivariate analysis of shell characters and quantification of morphological diversity (morphospace occupation and disparity) are used here to investigate the modes of morphological diversification of ammonites. We define five events in early cardioceratid history that connect geographical changes causing emigration or immigration phases with biodiversity dynamics: (1) the initial colonization of the Arctic Basin by the Cardioceratidae at the end of the Bajocian, Middle Jurassic; (2) the first appearance of the Kosmoceratidae clade in the Boreal Realm during the Bathonian; (3) the ensuing expansion phase of this clade in the Boreal Realm; (4) the first phase of migration of the Ca…

‘Back to the Future’—Oak wood-pasture for wildfire prevention in the Mediterranean

2021

In the summer of 2021, enormous wildfires in the Mediterranean eliminated huge areas of mainly coniferous forest, destroyed adjacent settlements and claimed the lives of many people. The fires indicate effects of climate change and expose consequences of rural demographic changes, deficits in regional and touristic development planning and shortcomings in forest policy. This forum article highlights the dimensions of the problem, calls for a paradigm shift and shows solutions. Land abandonment, woody plant encroachment and non-reflective afforestation are leading to increasing amounts of combustible biomass. To prevent disastrous fires in future, fundamental changes in tree species composit…