The impact of urban forest structure and its spatial location on urban cool island intensity

Abstract Potential management policies of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) designed to enhance nontimber values were examined to estimate their impact on permissible harvest levels, forest composition and spatial attributes of aspen in Itasca County, Minnesota. An allowable cut equal to the Long Run Sustained Yield (LRSY) was estimated and used as the target harvest level for each management policy. Results were analyzed in a number of ways including Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The study illustrates that the selection of specific management policies can have significant impacts on timber supply as well as forest structures. Therefore, any suggested policy should always be reviewed for its potential impacts and associated trade-offs before implementation. North. J. Appl. For. 16(4):177-184.

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Hurricane impacts on a pair of coastal forested watersheds: implications of selective hurricane damage to forest structure and streamflow dynamics

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-18-1151-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 1151-1164 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

A. D. Jayakaran ◽

T. M. Williams ◽

H. Ssegane ◽

D. M. Amatya ◽

B. Song ◽

...

Keyword(s):

South Carolina ◽

Forest Structure ◽

Forested Wetland ◽

Potential Contribution ◽

Watershed Hydrology ◽

Hurricane Damage ◽

Before And After ◽

Hurricane Impact ◽

Paired Watersheds ◽

The Impact

Abstract. Hurricanes are infrequent but influential disruptors of ecosystem processes in the southeastern Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Every southeastern forested wetland has the potential to be struck by a tropical cyclone. We examined the impact of Hurricane Hugo on two paired coastal South Carolina watersheds in terms of streamflow and vegetation dynamics, both before and after the hurricane's passage in 1989. The study objectives were to quantify the magnitude and timing of changes including a reversal in relative streamflow difference between two paired watersheds, and to examine the selective impacts of a hurricane on the vegetative composition of the forest. We related these impacts to their potential contribution to change watershed hydrology through altered evapotranspiration processes. Using over 30 years of monthly rainfall and streamflow data we showed that there was a significant transformation in the hydrologic character of the two watersheds – a transformation that occurred soon after the hurricane's passage. We linked the change in the rainfall–runoff relationship to a catastrophic change in forest vegetation due to selective hurricane damage. While both watersheds were located in the path of the hurricane, extant forest structure varied between the two watersheds as a function of experimental forest management techniques on the treatment watershed. We showed that the primary damage was to older pines, and to some extent larger hardwood trees. We believe that lowered vegetative water use impacted both watersheds with increased outflows on both watersheds due to loss of trees following hurricane impact. However, one watershed was able to recover to pre hurricane levels of evapotranspiration at a quicker rate due to the greater abundance of pine seedlings and saplings in that watershed.

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Selection and spatial arrangement of building materials during the construction of nest turrets by grass-cutting ants

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.201312 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (10) ◽

pp. 201312

Author(s):

Daniela Römer ◽

Marcela I. Cosarinsky ◽

Flavio Roces

Keyword(s):

Building Materials ◽

Material Selection ◽

Spatial Location ◽

Spatial Arrangement ◽

The Self ◽

Nest Entrance ◽

Self Organized ◽

The Impact ◽

Over Time ◽

Selection Of

Ants build complex nest structures by reacting to simple, local stimuli. While underground nests result from the space generated by digging, some leaf- and grass-cutting ants also construct conspicuous aboveground turrets around nest openings. We investigated whether the selection of specific building materials occurs during turret construction in Acromyrmex fracticornis grass-cutting ants, and asked whether single building decisions at the beginning can modify the final turret architecture. To quantify workers' material selection, the original nest turret was removed and a choice between two artificial building materials, thin and thick sticks, was offered for rebuilding. Workers preferred thick sticks at the very beginning of turret construction, showed varying preferences thereafter, and changed to prefer thin sticks for the upper, final part of the turret, indicating that they selected different building materials over time to create a stable structure. The impact of a single building choice on turret architecture was evaluated by placing artificial beams that divided a colony's nest entrance at the beginning of turret rebuilding. Splitting the nest entrance led to the self-organized construction of turrets with branched galleries ending in multiple openings, showing that the spatial location of a single building material can strongly influence turret morphology.

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Quantifying urban forest structure with open-access remote sensing data sets

Urban Forestry & Urban Greening ◽

10.1016/j.ufug.2020.126653 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 50 ◽

pp. 126653 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Oliver Baines ◽

Phil Wilkes ◽

Mathias Disney

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Open Access ◽

Forest Structure ◽

Urban Forest ◽

Remote Sensing Data ◽

Data Sets ◽

Sensing Data

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The impact of forest structure on near-ground temperatures during two years of contrasting temperature extremes

Agricultural and Forest Meteorology ◽

10.1016/s0168-1923(00)00220-3 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 106 (4) ◽

pp. 331-336 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Brian E Potter ◽

Ronald M Teclaw ◽

John C Zasada

Keyword(s):

Forest Structure ◽

Temperature Extremes ◽

Ground Temperatures ◽

The Impact

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Nature-Based Solutions: Dependency of Effectiveness on Spatial Configuration

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-10899 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ian Pattison

Keyword(s):

Flood Risk ◽

Critical Infrastructure ◽

Spatial Configuration ◽

Storm Track ◽

Spatial Location ◽

Flood Management ◽

Clear Understanding ◽

Storm Events ◽

Catchment Scale ◽

The Impact

Several recent large flood events have had severe economic and social impacts. The winter 2015-16 UK floods resulted in 16,000 properties flooding and damage to critical infrastructure. It is increasingly being recognised that traditional approaches of flood defence are not sustainable due to the pressures of climate change and economic constraints. The solution to the flood risk problem in cities is no longer seen as being just on-site, and thinking is shifting upstream and to the catchment/landscape scales, known as Nature-Based Solutions or Natural Flood Management (NFM). The approach consists of measures that &#8220;Work with Natural Processes&#8221;, such as storing water in ponds, and slowing the flow in rivers. The evidence for the impacts is strong at the local scale, but the larger spatial scale impact is highly uncertain due to the cumulative impacts resulting from amplifying/mitigating effects of different interventions, controlled by spatial location and storm-track interaction.To date, Nature-Based Solution schemes have proceeded on an opportunistic basis, without a clear design strategy (which measure and where to implement it). However, if schemes are implemented without clear understanding of their impacts, they may, at best, fail to achieve the optimum flood reduction benefit downstream, or, at worst, make flooding more severe (if implemented in inappropriate locations, when tributaries&#8217; flows are synchronised).&#160;&#160;Impacts of NFM measures are spatially and temporally dependent i.e. the same intervention in two locations will have different effects on flows, and the same intervention will have different impacts during different storm events. Therefore, it is essential that when strategically designing NFM schemes for catchments, that WHERE? and WHAT? are answered together to optimise the impact, as it is possible that whilst upstream NFM may be beneficial locally it may make tributary peaks coincide and make flood magnitudes worse downstream. Here we demonstrate the importance of the spatial configuration of Nature-Based Solutions on their catchment scale effectiveness in reducing flood risk.

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Using Random Effects to Build Impact Models When the Available Historical Record Is Short

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology ◽

10.1175/jamc-d-11-0125.1 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 51 (11) ◽

pp. 1994-2004 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Filipe Aires

Keyword(s):

Random Effects ◽

Spatial Data ◽

Spatial Location ◽

Historical Record ◽

Impact Model ◽

Local Conditions ◽

Real World Application ◽

Socioeconomic Data ◽

The Impact ◽

Impact Models

AbstractThe analysis of the affect of weather and climate on human activities requires the construction of impact models that are able to describe the complex links between weather and socioeconomic data. In practice, one of the biggest challenges is the lack of data, because it is generally difficult to obtain time series that are long enough. As a consequence, derived impact models predict well the historical record but are unable to perform well on real forecasts. To avoid this data-limitation problem, it is possible to train the impact model over a large spatial domain by “pooling” data from multiple locations. This general impact model needs to be spatially corrected to take local conditions into account, however. This is particularly true, for example, in agriculture: it is not efficient to pool all of the spatial data into a single very general impact model, but it is also not efficient to develop one impact model for each spatial location. To solve these aggregation problems, mixed-effects (ME) models have been developed. They are based on the idea that each datum belongs to a particular group, and the ME model takes into account the particularities of each group. In this paper, ME models and, in particular, random-effects (RE) models are tested and are compared with more-traditional methods using a real-world application: the sales of salt for winter road deicing by public service vehicles. It is shown that the performance of RE models is higher than that of more-traditional regression models. The development of impact models should strongly benefit from the use of RE and ME models.

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Physiological and structural differences in spatially distinct subpopulations of cardiac mitochondria: influence of cardiac pathologies

AJP Heart and Circulatory Physiology ◽

10.1152/ajpheart.00747.2013 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 307 (1) ◽

pp. H1-H14 ◽

Cited By ~ 71

Author(s):

John M. Hollander ◽

Dharendra Thapa ◽

Danielle L. Shepherd

Keyword(s):

Cardiac Tissue ◽

Ischemia Reperfusion ◽

Subcellular Location ◽

Spatial Location ◽

Spatial Arrangement ◽

Heart Tissue ◽

Absolute Size ◽

Functional Studies ◽

Interfibrillar Mitochondria ◽

The Impact

Cardiac tissue contains discrete pools of mitochondria that are characterized by their subcellular spatial arrangement. Subsarcolemmal mitochondria (SSM) exist below the cell membrane, interfibrillar mitochondria (IFM) reside in rows between the myofibrils, and perinuclear mitochondria are situated at the nuclear poles. Microstructural imaging of heart tissue coupled with the development of differential isolation techniques designed to sequentially separate spatially distinct mitochondrial subpopulations have revealed differences in morphological features including shape, absolute size, and internal cristae arrangement. These findings have been complemented by functional studies indicating differences in biochemical parameters and, potentially, functional roles for the ATP generated, based upon subcellular location. Consequently, mitochondrial subpopulations appear to be influenced differently during cardiac pathologies including ischemia/reperfusion, heart failure, aging, exercise, and diabetes mellitus. These influences may be the result of specific structural and functional disparities between mitochondrial subpopulations such that the stress elicited by a given cardiac insult differentially impacts subcellular locales and the mitochondria contained within. The goal of this review is to highlight some of the inherent structural and functional differences that exist between spatially distinct cardiac mitochondrial subpopulations as well as provide an overview of the differential impact of various cardiac pathologies on spatially distinct mitochondrial subpopulations. As an outcome, we will instill a basis for incorporating subcellular spatial location when evaluating the impact of cardiac pathologies on the mitochondrion. Incorporation of subcellular spatial location may offer the greatest potential for delineating the influence of cardiac pathology on this critical organelle.

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