Compound climate events increase tree drought mortality across European forests

Increasing extreme climate events, intensifying traffic patterns and long-term underinvestment have led to the escalated deterioration of bridges within our road and rail transport networks. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems provide a means of objectively capturing and quantifying deterioration under operational conditions. Computer vision technology has gained considerable attention in the field of SHM due to its ability to obtain displacement data using non-contact methods at long distances. Additionally, it provides a low cost, rapid instrumentation solution with low interference to the normal operation of structures. However, even in the case of a medium span bridge, the need for many cameras to capture the global response can be cost-prohibitive. This research proposes a roving camera technique to capture a complete derivation of the response of a laboratory model bridge under live loading, in order to identify bridge damage. Displacement is identified as a suitable damage indicator, and two methods are used to assess the magnitude of the change in global displacement under changing boundary conditions in the laboratory bridge model. From this study, it is established that either approach could detect damage in the simulation model, providing an SHM solution that negates the requirement for complex sensor installations.

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Power outages, climate events and renewable energy: Reviewing energy storage policy and regulatory options for Australia

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews ◽

10.1016/j.rser.2020.110617 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 137 ◽

pp. 110617

Author(s):

Nigel Martin ◽

John Rice

Keyword(s):

Renewable Energy ◽

Energy Storage ◽

Power Outages ◽

Climate Events

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Streams and rural abandonment are related to the summer activity of the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii in protected European forests

Forest Ecology and Management ◽

10.1016/j.foreco.2021.118942 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 485 ◽

pp. 118942

Author(s):

Alberto Maceda-Veiga ◽

Sergio Albacete ◽

Miguel Carles-Tolrá ◽

Juli Pujade-Villar ◽

Jan Máca ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Invasive Pest ◽

Drosophila Suzukii ◽

European Forests

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Environmental Changes and Cultural Transitions in SW Iberia during the Early-Mid Holocene

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11083580 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. 3580

Author(s):

Cristina Val-Peón ◽

Juan I. Santisteban ◽

José A. López-Sáez ◽

Gerd-Christian Weniger ◽

Klaus Reicherter

Keyword(s):

Dietary Habits ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Source Area ◽

Direct Access ◽

Special Focus ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Archaeological Data ◽

Local Resources ◽

Climate Events ◽

The Impact

The SW coast of the Iberian Peninsula experiences a lack of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data. With the aim to fill this gap, we contribute with a new palynological and geochemical dataset obtained from a sediment core drilled in the continental shelf of the Algarve coast. Archaeological data have been correlated with our multi-proxy dataset to understand how human groups adapted to environmental changes during the Early-Mid Holocene, with special focus on the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition. Vegetation trends indicate warm conditions at the onset of the Holocene followed by increased moisture and forest development ca. 10–7 ka BP, after which woodlands are progressively replaced by heaths. Peaks of aridity were identified at 8.2 and 7. 5 ka BP. Compositional, textural, redox state, and weathering of source area geochemical proxies indicates abrupt palaeoceanographic modifications and gradual terrestrial changes at 8.2 ka BP, while the 7.5 ka BP event mirrors a decrease in land moisture availability. Mesolithic sites are mainly composed of seasonal camps with direct access to the coast for the exploitation of local resources. This pattern extends into the Early Neolithic, when these sites coexist with seasonal and permanent occupations located in inland areas near rivers. Changes in settlement patterns and dietary habits may be influenced by changes in coastal environments caused by the sea-level rise and the impact of the 8.2 and 7.5 ka BP climate events.

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Dry and Wet Climate Periods over Eastern South America: Identification and Characterization through the SPEI Index

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos12020155 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 155

Author(s):

Anita Drumond ◽

Milica Stojanovic ◽

Raquel Nieto ◽

Luis Gimeno ◽

Margarida L. R. Liberato ◽

...

Keyword(s):

South America ◽

Potential Evapotranspiration ◽

Monthly Precipitation ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Central Brazil ◽

Moisture Analysis ◽

Dry Conditions ◽

Wet Climate ◽

Climate Events

A large part of the population and the economic activities of South America are located in eastern regions of the continent, where extreme climate events are a recurrent phenomenon. This study identifies and characterizes the dry and wet climate periods at domain-scale occurring over the eastern South America (ESA) during 1980–2018 through the multi-scalar Standardized Precipitation–Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). For this study, the spatial extent of ESA was defined according to a Lagrangian approach for moisture analysis. It consists of the major continental sink of the moisture transported from the South Atlantic Ocean throughout the year, comprising the Amazonia, central Brazil, and the southeastern continental areas. The SPEI for 1, 3, 6, and 12 months of accumulation was calculated using monthly precipitation and potential evapotranspiration time series averaged on ESA. The analysis of the climate periods followed two different approaches: classification of the monthly SPEI values as mild, moderate, severe, and extreme; the computation of the events and their respective parameters (duration, severity, intensity, and peak). The results indicate that wet periods prevailed in the 1990s and 2000s, while dry conditions predominated in the 2010s, when the longest and more severe dry events have been identified at the four scales.

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Addressing the challenges of climate-driven community-led resettlement and site expansion: knowledge sharing, storytelling, healing, and collaborative coalition building

Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences ◽

10.1007/s13412-021-00695-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Julie Maldonado ◽

Itzel Flores Castillo Wang ◽

Fred Eningowuk ◽

Lesley Iaukea ◽

Aranzazu Lascurain ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Storm Surges ◽

Marshall Islands ◽

Community Leaders ◽

Coalition Building ◽

Adaptive Responses ◽

Individual Level ◽

Adaptive Challenges ◽

The Individual ◽

Adaptation Processes ◽

Climate Events

AbstractPresently coastal areas globally are becoming unviable, with people no longer able to maintain livelihoods and settlements due to, for example, increasing floods, storm surges, coastal erosion, and sea level rise, yet there exist significant policy obstacles and practical and regulatory challenges to community-led and community-wide responses. For many receiving support only at the individual level for relocation or other adaptive responses, individual and community harm is perpetuated through the loss of culture and identity incurred through forced assimilation policies. Often, challenges dealt to frontline communities are founded on centuries of injustices. Can these challenges of both norms and policies be addressed? Can we develop socially, culturally, environmentally, and economically just sustainable adaptation processes that supports community responses, maintenance and evolution of traditions, and rejuvenates regenerative life-supporting ecosystems? This article brings together Indigenous community leaders, knowledge-holders, and allied collaborators from Louisiana, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Borikén/Puerto Rico, and the Marshall Islands, to share their stories and lived experiences of the relocation and other adaptive challenges in their homelands and territories, the obstacles posed by the state or regional governments in community adaptation efforts, ideas for transforming the research paradigm from expecting communities to answer scientific questions to having scientists address community priorities, and the healing processes that communities are employing. The contributors are connected through the Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences, which brings together Indigenous, tribal, and community leaders, atmospheric, social, biological, and ecological scientists, students, educators, and other experts, and facilitates intercultural, relational-based approaches for understanding and adapting to extreme weather and climate events, climate variability, and climate change.

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