scholarly journals Long-Term Concentrations and Loads of Four Dissolved Macronutrients from Two Agroforestry Catchments in NW Spain

Hydrology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Rosane da Silva Dias ◽  
José Manuel Mirás-Avalos ◽  
Antonio Paz-González

Understanding hydrological processes controlling stream chemistry and quantifying solute concentrations over time is crucial for estimating future alterations of water quality due to land use or climate change impacts, as well as for setting preventive or remedial actions. In the current study, soluble sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), calcium (Ca2+), and magnesium (Mg2+) concentrations and loads were assessed in waters from two small catchments located at different distances to the sea (9 km Valiñas and 30 km Abelar) in NW Spain from 2003 to 2016. Solute concentrations were determined using spectrometric techniques, while streamflow data were employed for estimating loads. Moreover, concentration-discharge relations were calculated for each solute and catchment. The average concentrations of soluble Na+, K+, Ca2+ and Mg2+ were, respectively, 16.5, 2.6, 7.9 and 4.1 mg L−1 in Valiñas, and 8.2, 0.9, 2.9 and 3.4 mg L−1 in Abelar, although variability among samplings was high. The four soluble ions showed a dilution pattern in Valiñas, whereas in Abelar Na+ tended to a chemostatic behavior and K+ and Ca2+ were positively related to streamflow. In conclusion, the dominant processes controlling these relationships are local and depend on catchment characteristics such as land use (including slurry applications in Abelar), distance to the sea, and vegetation cover.

Ecosystems ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1056-1074
Author(s):  
Bethany J. Blakely ◽  
Adrian V. Rocha ◽  
Jason S. McLachalan

AbstractAnthropogenic land use affects climate by altering the energy balance of the Earth’s surface. In temperate regions, cooling from increased albedo is a common result of historical land-use change. However, this albedo cooling effect is dependent mainly on the exposure of snow cover following forest canopy removal and may change over time due to simultaneous changes in both land cover and snow cover. In this paper, we combine modern remote sensing data and historical records, incorporating over 100 years of realized land use and climatic change into an empirical assessment of centennial-scale surface forcings in the Upper Midwestern USA. We show that, although increases in surface albedo cooled through strong negative shortwave forcings, those forcings were reduced over time by a combination of forest regrowth and snow-cover loss. Deforestation cooled strongly (− 5.3 Wm−2) and mainly in winter, while composition shift cooled less strongly (− 3.03 Wm−2) and mainly in summer. Combined, changes in albedo due to deforestation, shifts in species composition, and the return of historical forest cover resulted in − 2.81 Wm−2 of regional radiative cooling, 55% less than full deforestation. Forcings due to changing vegetation were further reduced by 0.32 Wm−2 of warming from a shortened snow-covered season and a thinning of seasonal snowpack. Our findings suggest that accounting for long-term changes in land cover and snow cover reduces the estimated cooling impact of deforestation, with implications for long-term land-use planning.


2001 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.J. Foster ◽  
M.J. Lees ◽  
H.S. Wheater ◽  
C. Neal ◽  
B. Reynolds

Abstract. Recent concern about the risk to biota from acidification in upland areas, due to air pollution and land-use change (such as the planting of coniferous forests), has generated a need to model catchment hydro-chemistry to assess environmental risk and define protection strategies. Previous approaches have tended to concentrate on quantifying either spatial variability at a regional scale or temporal variability at a given location. However, to protect biota from ‘acid episodes’, an assessment of both temporal and spatial variability of stream chemistry is required at a catchment scale. In addition, quantification of temporal variability needs to represent both episodic event response and long term variability caused by deposition and/or land-use change. Both spatial and temporal variability in streamwater chemistry are considered in a new modelling methodology based on application to the Plynlimon catchments, central Wales. A two-component End-Member Mixing Analysis (EMMA) is used whereby low and high flow chemistry are taken to represent ‘groundwater’ and ‘soil water’ end-members. The conventional EMMA method is extended to incorporate spatial variability in the two end-members across the catchments by quantifying the Acid Neutralisation Capacity (ANC) of each in terms of a statistical distribution. These are then input as stochastic variables to a two-component mixing model, thereby accounting for variability of ANC both spatially and temporally. The model is coupled to a long-term acidification model (MAGIC) to predict the evolution of the end members and, hence, the response to future scenarios. The results can be plotted as a function of time and space, which enables better assessment of the likely effects of pollution deposition or land-use changes in the future on the stream chemistry than current methods which use catchment average values. The model is also a useful basis for further research into linkage between hydrochemistry and intra-catchment biological diversity. Keywords: hydrochemistry, End-Member Mixing Analysis (EMMA), uplands, acidification


Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 368 (6489) ◽  
pp. 417-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roel van Klink ◽  
Diana E. Bowler ◽  
Konstantin B. Gongalsky ◽  
Ann B. Swengel ◽  
Alessandro Gentile ◽  
...  

Recent case studies showing substantial declines of insect abundances have raised alarm, but how widespread such patterns are remains unclear. We compiled data from 166 long-term surveys of insect assemblages across 1676 sites to investigate trends in insect abundances over time. Overall, we found considerable variation in trends even among adjacent sites but an average decline of terrestrial insect abundance by ~9% per decade and an increase of freshwater insect abundance by ~11% per decade. Both patterns were largely driven by strong trends in North America and some European regions. We found some associations with potential drivers (e.g., land-use drivers), and trends in protected areas tended to be weaker. Our findings provide a more nuanced view of spatiotemporal patterns of insect abundance trends than previously suggested.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 7395-7424 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Chang ◽  
P. Thiers ◽  
N. R. Netusil ◽  
J. A. Yeakley ◽  
G. Rollwagen-Bollens ◽  
...  

Abstract. We investigate relationships between environmental governance and water quality in two adjacent, growing metropolitan areas in the western US. While the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington metro areas share many biophysical characteristics, they have different land development histories and water governance structures, providing a unique opportunity for examining a coupled human and natural system (CHANS). We conceptualize feedback loops in which water quality influences governance directly, using monitoring efforts as a metric, and indirectly, using the metric of changes in the sale price of single-family residential properties. Governance then influences water quality directly through, for example, changes in the monitoring regime and riparian restoration and indirectly through land use policy. We investigate these hypotheses by presenting evidence of these linkages. Our results show that changes in monitoring regimes and land use differed in response to differences in governance systems. On the other hand, property sale prices increased in response to water quality improvement for both studied watersheds. Our results show that sales prices responded positively to improved water quality (i.e. DO) in both cities. Furthermore, riparian restoration efforts improved over time for both cities, indicating the positive effect of governance on this land-based resource that may result in improved water quality. However, as of yet, there were no substantial differences across study areas in changes in water temperature over time. While urban areas expanded more than 20% over 24 yr, water temperature did not change. The mechanisms by which water quality was maintained was similar in the sense that both cities benefited from riparian restoration, but different in the sense that Portland benefitted indirectly from land use policy. A combination of a long-term legacy effect of land development and a relatively short history of riparian restoration in both the Portland and Vancouver regions may have masked any subtle differences in both regions. An alternative explanation is that both cities exhibited combinations of positive indirect and direct water quality governance that resulted in maintenance of water quality in the face of increased urban growth. These findings suggest that a long-term water quality monitoring effort is needed to identify the effectiveness of alternative land development and water governance policies.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 8665-8700 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Tague ◽  
J. S. Choate ◽  
G. Grant

Abstract. Hydrologic models are one of the core tools used to project how water resources may change under a warming climate. These models are typically applied over a range of scales, from headwater streams to higher order rivers, and for a variety of purposes, such as evaluating changes to aquatic habitat or reservoir operation. Most hydrologic models require streamflow data to calibrate subsurface drainage parameters. In many cases, long-term gage records may not be available for calibration, particularly when assessments are focused on low order stream reaches. Consequently, hydrologic modeling of climate change impacts is often performed in the absence of sufficient data to fully parameterize these hydrologic models. In this paper, we assess a geologic-based strategy for assigning drainage parameters. We examine the performance of this modeling strategy for the McKenzie River watershed in the US Oregon Cascades, a region where previous work has demonstrated sharp contrasts in hydrology based primarily on geological differences between the High and Western Cascades. Based on calibration and verification using existing streamflow data, we demonstrate that: (1) a set of streams ranging from 1st to 3rd order within the Western Cascade geologic region can share the same drainage parameter set, and (2) streams from the High Cascade geologic region, however, require a distinctive parameter set. Further, we show that a watershed comprised of a mixture of High and Western Cascade geology can be modeled without additional calibration by transferring parameters from these distinctive High and Western Cascade end-member parameter sets. Using this geologically-based parameter transfer scheme, our model predictions for all watersheds capture dominant historic streamflow patterns, and are sufficiently accurate to resolve geo-climatic differences in how these different watersheds are likely to respond to simple warming scenarios.


2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 349-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Germer ◽  
Christopher Neill ◽  
Tobias Vetter ◽  
Joaquín Chaves ◽  
Alex V. Krusche ◽  
...  

Three hypotheses have been proposed to explain recent lake acidification in northwest Europe; the acid-deposition, the land-use and the long-term hypotheses. The hypothesis of natural, long-term soil acidification is not relevant for explaining recent, rapid lake acidification. A critical requirement in testing the first two hypotheses is to distinguish unambiguously between lake acidification due to atmospheric deposition and lake acidification following land-use and associated soil changes, such as the accumulation of raw humus. Hill-top lakes are small, deep basins perched on tops of cliffs and hills. They have very small catchments, often consisting of bare rock. The chemistry of these lakes is primarily influenced by the chemical composition of precipitation and by the underlying bedrock. Because of their very small catchments, their chemistry cannot be influenced by changes in catchment land-use. Hill-top lakes are thus ideal situations in which to test the two hypotheses, because any acidification in these lakes cannot be a result of changes in land-use, but only of acid precipitation. Thus if hill-top lakes have acidified recently, the land-use hypothesis would be falsified for these sites. On the other hand, the acid-deposition hypothesis would clearly be supported.


2007 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison J. Blyth ◽  
Asfawossen Asrat ◽  
Andy Baker ◽  
Pauline Gulliver ◽  
Melanie J. Leng ◽  
...  

AbstractA hundred-year stalagmite lipid biomarker record from Mechara, southeastern Ethiopia, is presented. The record has been recovered at a 10-yr temporal resolution, marking the first time this has been achieved in stalagmite biomarker work and providing the first opportunity to investigate the relationship between stalagmite lipid records and hydrological transport lags, a vital issue in interpreting palaeoenvironmental signals. Preserved plant-derived n-alkanes and n-alkanols show clear changes in composition over time, relating to known land-use changes in the area, particularly the expansion of agriculture in the early twentieth century. The level of environmental detail provided by this technique, combined with the long-term chronological framework offered by stalagmites, holds significant promise for the investigation of early human environments and their associated climatic and anthropogenic controls.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1659-1671
Author(s):  
Isahaque Ali ◽  
Rameeja Shaik ◽  
Maruthi A. Y. ◽  
Azlinda Azman ◽  
Paramjit Singh ◽  
...  

Earth and coastal ecosystems are not static, and they usually respond to environmental changes, mostly anthropogenic and climatic. Here, the authors described natural values, coastal landforms, and types of infrastructure that are most likely to be affected by climate change (CC) and provide information for assessing inundation, erosion, and recession risks for a chosen location. In this chapter, the authors focused on the land uses, the vulnerability of coastal infrastructure, and argued for effective linkages between CC issues and development planning. They also recommended the incorporation of CC impact and risk assessment into long-term national development strategies. Policies will be presented to implement these recommendations for adaptation to climate variability and global CC. The authors provide general recommendations and identify challenges for the incorporation of climate change impacts and risk assessment into long-term land-use national development plans and strategies. Overall, this chapter provides an overview of the implications for CC to coastal management.


Author(s):  
Isahaque Ali ◽  
Rameeja Shaik ◽  
Maruthi A. Y. ◽  
Azlinda Azman ◽  
Paramjit Singh ◽  
...  

Earth and coastal ecosystems are not static, and they usually respond to environmental changes, mostly anthropogenic and climatic. Here, the authors described natural values, coastal landforms, and types of infrastructure that are most likely to be affected by climate change (CC) and provide information for assessing inundation, erosion, and recession risks for a chosen location. In this chapter, the authors focused on the land uses, the vulnerability of coastal infrastructure, and argued for effective linkages between CC issues and development planning. They also recommended the incorporation of CC impact and risk assessment into long-term national development strategies. Policies will be presented to implement these recommendations for adaptation to climate variability and global CC. The authors provide general recommendations and identify challenges for the incorporation of climate change impacts and risk assessment into long-term land-use national development plans and strategies. Overall, this chapter provides an overview of the implications for CC to coastal management.


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