Search results for "Water"

Simulation of nitrous oxide emissions from wheat-cropped soils using CERES

2005

Estimation of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from arable soils, in relation to crop fertilization, is essential to devise strategies to mitigate the impact of agriculture on global warming. This paper presents the development and test of a N2O model resulting from the linkage of a dynamic soil-crop simulation model (CERES) with two sub-models of N2O production and reduction in soils. These sub-models (NOE and NGAS) account for both the nitrification and denitrification pathways. The resulting models (CERES–NOE and CERES–NGAS) were tested against experimental data collected on three contrasting wheat-cropped soils representative of the Beauce agricultural region in France. Although the input …

A risk assessment of the effects of mercury on Baltic Sea, Greater North Sea and North Atlantic wildlife, fish and bivalves

2021

Abstract: A wide range of species, including marine mammals, seabirds, birds of prey, fish and bivalves, were investigated for potential population health risks resulting from contemporary (post 2000) mercury (Hg) exposure, using novel risk thresholds based on literature and de novo contamination data. The main geographic focus is on the Baltic Sea, while data from the same species in adjacent waters, such as the Greater North Sea and North Atlantic, were included for comparative purposes. For marine mammals, 23% of the groups, each composing individuals of a specific sex and maturity from the same species in a specific study region, showed Hg-concentrations within the High Risk Category (H…

Soil erosion in sloping vineyards assessed by using botanical indicators and sediment collectors in the Ruwer-Mosel valley

2016

Steep slopes, erodible soils, rill and ephemeral gullies, compaction due to wheel. traffic and human trampling are common features in vineyards around the world and result in high soil erosion rates. However, little is known about seasonal and spatial variations of soil erosion rates due to factors such as the impact of the vine plantation, harvest, and tillage on the soil redistribution over the long-term temporal scale. The goal of this study is to assess long-term soil erosion rates and the impact of management on sediment and runoff yield by means of Gerlach troughs and a topographical approach based on botanic benchmarks in two paired vineyards with different ages (3 and 35 years) loca…

An improved understanding of the Alaska Coastal Current: the application of a bivalve growth-temperature model to reconstruct freshwater-influenced p…

2011

Shells of intertidal bivalve mollusks contain sub-seasonally to interannually resolved records of temperature and salinity variations in coastal settings. Such data are essential to understand changing land-sea interactions through time, specifically atmospheric (precipitation rate, glacial meltwater, river discharge) and oceanographic circulation patterns; however, independent temperature and salinity proxies are currently not available. We established a model for reconstructing daily water temperatures with an average standard error of ∼1.3 °C based on variations in the width of lunar daily growth increments of Saxidomus gigantea from southwestern Alaska, United States. Temperature explai…

2017

Abstract. Mollusks record valuable information in their hard parts that reflect ambient environmental conditions. For this reason, shells can serve as excellent archives to reconstruct past climate and environmental variability. However, animal physiology and biomineralization, which are often poorly understood, can make the decoding of environmental signals a challenging task. Many of the routinely used shell-based proxies are sensitive to multiple different environmental and physiological variables. Therefore, the identification and interpretation of individual environmental signals (e.g., water temperature) often is particularly difficult. Additional proxies not influenced by multiple en…

Methane production and oxidation potentials in relation to water table fluctuations in two boreal mires

1999

We studied the response of methane production and oxidation potentials in a minerotrophic and an ombrotrophic mire to water table fluctuations. In profiles where water table had not varied, the water-saturated layers showed significant potentials while the unsaturated layers did not. The production potentials in the saturated layers below water level ranged from 0.1 to 2.4 m gC H4 h ˇ1 (g d.w.) ˇ 1 and oxidation potentials (first order reaction rate constants) betweenˇ0.010 andˇ0.120 h ˇ1 (g d.w.) ˇ 1 . In profiles with constant water level, the maximal production potential occurred 20 cm and maximal oxidation potential 10 cm below water level. When water table varied only a little, product…

Estimating Profit, Price, and Productivity Changes in Water Industry Using Bennet-Bowley Indicator

2019

AbstractThe assessment of profit, productivity, and price change over time is valuable for regulators and companies when setting tariffs. This paper innovates by comparing profit, price, and produc...

The key role played by the Augusta basin (southern Italy) in the mercury contamination of the Mediterranean Sea.

2011

The Augusta basin, located in SE Sicily (southern Italy), is a semi-enclosed marine area, labelled as a highly contaminated site. The release of mercury into the harbour seawater and its dispersion to the blue water, make the Augusta basin a potential source of anthropogenic pollution for the Mediterranean Sea. A mass balance was implemented to calculate the HgT budget in the Augusta basin. Results suggest that an average of ∼0.073 kmol of HgT is released, by diffusion, on a yearly basis, from sediments to the seawater, with a consequent output of 0.162 kmol y(-1) to coastal and offshore waters; this makes the Augusta area an important contributor of mercury to the Mediterranean Sea. Owing …

Chemical speciation of Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn, Cd, Cu, Co, Ni and Cr in the suspended particulate matter off the Mejerda River Delta (Gulf of Tunis, Tunisia)

2016

International audience; Fluxes of suspended particulate matter (SPM) and their associated metals were performed off the Mejerda River Delta during both the wet (March) and the dry (July) seasons in 2012, using sediment traps at study stations at depths of 10, 20 and 40 m. Fluxes nearest to the Mejerda outlet were more significant, especially during winter (36 g m−2 day−1), but dissipated further offshore, 24.5–6 g m−2 day−1 at the 20 m and 21.8–4.8 g m−2 day−1 at the 40 m stations. Many variations observed in seasonal and spatial metal fluxes are similar to those of SPM, in particular Pb and Zn, probably because they are associated with the mining activity characteristic of the Mejerda catc…

Implementation of a comprehensive ice crystal formation parameterization for cirrus and mixed-phase clouds in the EMAC model (based on MESSy 2.53)

2018

A comprehensive ice nucleation parameterization has been implemented in the global chemistry-climate model EMAC to improve the representation of ice crystal number concentrations (ICNCs). The parameterization of Barahona and Nenes (2009, hereafter BN09) allows for the treatment of ice nucleation taking into account the competition for water vapour between homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation in cirrus clouds. Furthermore, the influence of chemically heterogeneous, polydisperse aerosols is considered by applying one of the multiple ice nucleating particle parameterizations which are included in BN09 to compute the heterogeneously formed ice crystals. BN09 has been modified in order to co…