Relationship between Mean Annual Precipitation and Inventories of Fallout Radionuclides (137Cs and 210Pbexcess) in Undisturbed Soils around the World: A Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (9) ◽  
pp. 1332-1341
Author(s):  
F. Sedighi ◽  
A. Khaledi Darvishan ◽  
V. Golosov ◽  
M. R. Zare
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayalew Assefa ◽  
Abebe Tibebu ◽  
Amare Bihon ◽  
Alemu Dagnachew ◽  
Yimer Muktar

Abstract African horse sickness is a vector-borne, non-contagious and highly infectious disease of equines caused by African Horse Sickness viruses (AHSv) that mainly affect horses. The occurrence of the disease causes huge economic impacts because of its fatality rate is high, trade ban and disease control costs. In planning of vectors and vector borne diseases, the application of Ecological niche models (ENM) used an enormous contribution in exactly delineating the suitable habitats of the vector. We developed an ENM with the objective of delineating the global suitability of AHSv outbreaks retrospective based on data records from 2005–2019. The model was developed in R software program using Biomod2 package with an Ensemble modeling technique. Predictive environmental variables like mean diurnal range, mean precipitation of driest month(mm), precipitation seasonality (cv), mean annual maximum temperature (oc), mean annual minimum temperature (oc) mean precipitation of warmest quarter(mm), mean precipitation of coldest quarter (mm) mean annual precipitation (mm), solar radiation (kj /day), elevation/altitude (m), wind speed (m/s) were used to develop the model. From these variables, solar radiation, mean maximum temperature, average annual precipitation, altitude and precipitation seasonality contributed 36.83%, 17.1%, 14.34%, 7.61%, and 6.4%, respectively. The model depicted the sub-Sahara African continent as the most suitable area for the virus. Mainly Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Malawi are African countries identified as highly suitable countries for the virus. Besides, OIE-listed disease-free countries like India, Australia, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia have been found suitable for the virusThis model can be used as an epidemiological tool in planning control and surveillance of diseases nationally or internationally.


Botany ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis R. Björk

A region of contrastively wetter and milder climate occurs in inland northwest North America, separated from similar climates of the Pacific coast by 200–400 km. Researchers have long noted that numerous vascular plants divide their ranges between the interior wetbelt and coastal regions, although many such disjunctions have hitherto gone undocumented. Here I summarize all vascular plants shared between coastal and interior wetbelt regions, disjunct by at least 200 km. These disjunct taxa are assigned to north-coast and south-coast lists according to whether the coastal portions of the ranges occur primarily north or south of the southern limits of maximum continental glaciation. A list of interior wetbelt endemic taxa is also presented, focusing on those that occur at forested elevations. Presence/absence for coastal disjunct and endemic taxa were assigned to grid of 1° × 1° latitude–longitude cells. Using this grid, concentrations of disjunct and endemic taxa were detected, and total values per cell were tested in linear regression for a relationship to mean annual precipitation. In total, 116 coastal disjunct taxa were detected, 31 of them north-coastal and 85 south-coastal. Interior wetbelt endemic and subendemic taxa total 95, and of these, 46 were found primarily at forested elevations. North-coast taxa were found over a wide latitudinal range both north and south of the glacial limits, and their distribution had a weak positive relationship with annual precipitation. South-coast and endemic taxa were found mostly south of the glacial limits, and their distribution did not correlate to annual precipitation. The greatest concentrations of south coastal disjunct and endemic taxa occurred in the Clearwater region of north-central Idaho; a region noted by previous researchers to be a likely ice-age refugium for wet-climate dependent plants and animals. Inferences are made from these patterns, both for biogeographical understanding of the roles played by the interior wetbelt and some regions connecting to the coast, as well as for preservation of biodiversity and ecosystem continuity.


Author(s):  
P. Das ◽  
M. D. Behera ◽  
P. S. Roy

The impact of long term climate change that imparts stress on forest could be perceived by studying the regime shift of forest ecosystem. With the change of significant precipitation, forest may go through density change around globe at different spatial and temporal scale. The 100 class high resolution (60 meter spatial resolution) Indian vegetation type map was used in this study recoded into four broad categories depending on phrenology as (i) forest, (ii) scrubland, (iii) grassland and (iv) treeless area. The percentage occupancy of forest, scrub, grass and treeless were observed as 19.9&amp;thinsp;%, 5.05&amp;thinsp;%, 1.89&amp;thinsp;% and 7.79&amp;thinsp;% respectively. Rest of the 65.37&amp;thinsp;% land area was occupied by the cropland, built-up, water body and snow covers. The majority forest cover were appended into a 5&amp;thinsp;km&amp;thinsp;&amp;times;&amp;thinsp;5&amp;thinsp;km grid, along with the mean annual precipitation taken from Bioclim data. The binary presence and absence of different vegetation categories in relates to the annual precipitation was analyzed to calculate their resilience expressed in probability values ranging from 0 to 1. Forest cover observed having resilience probability (Pr) &amp;lt;&amp;thinsp;0.3 in only 0.3&amp;thinsp;% (200&amp;thinsp;km<sup>2</sup>) of total forest cover in India, which was 4.3&amp;thinsp;% &amp;lt;&amp;thinsp;0.5&amp;thinsp;Pr. Majority of the scrubs and grass (64.92&amp;thinsp;% Pr&amp;thinsp;&amp;lt;&amp;thinsp;0.5) from North East India which were the shifting cultivation lands showing low resilience, having their high tendency to be transform to forest. These results have spatial explicitness to highlight the resilient and non-resilient distribution of forest, scrub and grass, and treeless areas in India.


Author(s):  
William K. Lauenroth ◽  
Daniel G. Milchunas

Net primary production (NPP), the amount of carbon or energy fixed by green plants in excess of their respiratory needs, is the fundamental quantity upon which all heterotrophs and the ecosystem processes they are associated with depend. Understanding NPP is therefore a prerequisite to understanding ecosystem dynamics. Our objectives for this chapter are to describe the current state of our knowledge about the temporal and spatial patterns of NPP in the shortgrass steppe, to evaluate the important variables that control NPP, and to discuss the future of NPP in the shortgrass steppe given current hypotheses about global change. Most of the data available for NPP in the shortgrass steppe are for aboveground net primary production (ANPP), so most of our presentation will focus on ANPP and we will deal with belowground net primary production (BNPP) as a separate topic. Furthermore, our treatment of NPP in this chapter will ignore the effects of herbivory, which will be covered in detail in chapter 16. Our approach will be to start with a regional-scale view of ANPP in shortgrass ecosystems and work toward a site-scale view. We will begin by briefly placing ANPP in the shortgrass steppe in its larger context of the central North American grassland region. We will then describe the regional-scale patterns and controls on ANPP, and then move to the site-scale patterns and controls on ANPP. At the site scale, we will describe both temporal and spatial dynamics, and controls on ANPP as well as BNPP. We will then discuss relationships between spatial and temporal patterns in ANPP and end the chapter with a short, speculative section on how future global change may influence NPP in the shortgrass steppe. Temperate grasslands in central North America are found over a range of mean annual precipitation from 200 to 1200 mm.y–1 and mean annual temperatures from 0 to 20 oC (Lauenroth et al., 1999). The widely cited relationship between mean annual precipitation and average annual ANPP allows us to convert the precipitation gradient into a production gradient (Lauenroth, 1979; Lauenroth et al., 1999; Noy-Meir, 1973; Rutherford, 1980; Sala et al., 1988b).


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tewodros M. Tena ◽  
Phenny Mwaanga ◽  
Alick Nguvulu

The Chongwe River Catchment (CRC) is located in Zambia. It receives a mean annual precipitation of 889 mm. The catchment is facing growing anthropogenic and socio-economic activities leading to severe water shortages in recent years, particularly from July to October. The objective of this study was to assess the available water resources by investigating the important hydrological components and estimating the catchment water balance using the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model. The average precipitation over a 52 year period and a 34 year period of streamflow measurement data for four stations were used in the hydrological balance model. The results revealed that the catchment received an estimated mean annual precipitation of 4603.12 Mm3. It also released an estimated mean annual runoff and evapotranspiration of 321.94 Mm3 and 4063.69 Mm3, respectively. The estimated mean annual total abstractions in the catchment was 119.87 Mm3. The average annual change in the catchment storage was 120.18 Mm3. The study also determined an external inflow of 22.55 Mm3 from the Kafue River catchment. The simulated mean monthly streamflow at the outlet of the CRC was 10.32 m3/s. The estimated minimum and maximum streamflow volume of the Chongwe River was about 1.01 Mm3 in September and 79.7 Mm3 in February, respectively. The performance of the WEAP model simulation was assessed statistically using the coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.97) and the Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient (NSE = 0.64). The R2 and NSE values indicated a satisfactory model fit and result. Meeting the water demand of the growing population and associated socio-economic development activities in the CRC is possible but requires appropriate water resource management options.


1993 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Webb ◽  
Katherine H. Anderson ◽  
Thompson Webb

AbstractQuantitative estimates of late-Quaternary climate in the northeastern United States are reconstructed from fossil pollen data to evaluate changes in the regional moisture balance inferred from water-level fluctuations. We use environmental response surfaces to calibrate modern pollen data (for 17 different taxa) to an index of effective soil moisture and mean annual precipitation. We apply these response surfaces to fossil pollen data from 60 sites in the region to reconstruct changes in soil moisture and mean annual precipitation at 3000-yr intervals from 12,000 yr B.P. to present. The mapped reconstructions of soil moisture and mean annual precipitation illustrate how the regional moisture balance of the Northeast may have changed over the last 12,000 yr in response to changing climate. Reconstructions of annual precipitation show a gradual increase from 30% below modern values at 12,000 yr B.P. to near-modern values by 6000 yr B.P. and then remain relatively constant thereafter. Reconstructed changes in the index of effective soil moisture, however, show a pattern of near-modern values at 12,000, 6000, and 3000 yr B.P., with significantly lower values estimated for 9000 yr B.P., the time of maximum pine pollen abundances in the Northeast. This pattern of change is similar to the change in regional moisture balance inferred from stratigraphic records of water-level fluctuations. These results confirm previous interpretations, based on records of water-level fluctuations, that conditions in the Northeast were significantly drier during the early to middle Holocene than at other times during the last 12,000 yr.


2006 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Nordt ◽  
Maria Orosz ◽  
Steven Driese ◽  
Jack Tubbs

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