scholarly journals Design droughts as planning tool for ecosystem establishment in post-mining landscapes

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 4809-4849 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Halwatura ◽  
A. M. Lechner ◽  
S. Arnold

Abstract. Eastern Australia has considerable mineral and energy resources and areas of high biodiversity value co-occurring over a broad range of agro-climatic environments. Water is the primary abiotic stressor for (agro)ecosystems in many parts of Eastern Australia. In the context of mined land rehabilitation quantifying the severity-duration-frequency (SDF) of droughts is crucial for successful ecosystem rehabilitation to overcome challenges of early vegetation establishment and long-term ecosystem resilience. The objective of this study was to quantify the SDF of short-term and long-term drought events of 11 selected locations across a broad range of agro-climatic environments in Eastern Australia by using three drought indices at different time scales: the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI), and the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Based on the indices we derived bivariate distribution functions of drought severity and duration, and estimated the recurrence intervals of drought events at different time scales. The correlation between the simple SPI and the more complex SPEI or RDI was stronger for the tropical and temperate locations than for the arid locations, indicating that SPEI or RDI can be replaced by SPI if evaporation plays a minor role for plant available water. Both short-term and long-term droughts were most severe and prolonged, and occurred most frequently in arid regions, but were relatively rare in tropical and temperate regions. Our approach is similar to intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) analyses of rainfall crucial to design infrastructure. In this regard, we propose to apply SDF analyses of droughts to design ecosystem components in post-mining landscapes. Together with design rainfalls, design droughts should be used to assess rehabilitation strategies and ecological management based on drought recurrence intervals, thereby minimising the risk of failure of initial ecosystem establishment due to ignorance of fundamental abiotic and site-specific environmental barriers.

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 1069-1091 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Halwatura ◽  
A. M. Lechner ◽  
S. Arnold

Abstract. Eastern Australia has considerable mineral and energy resources, with areas of high biodiversity value co-occurring over a broad range of agro-climatic environments. Lack of water is the primary abiotic stressor for (agro)ecosystems in many parts of eastern Australia. In the context of mined land rehabilitation quantifying the severity–duration–frequency (SDF) of droughts is crucial for successful ecosystem rehabilitation to overcome challenges of early vegetation establishment and long-term ecosystem resilience. The objective of this study was to quantify the SDF of short-term and long-term drought events of 11 selected locations across a broad range of agro-climatic environments in eastern Australia by using three drought indices at different timescales: the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI), and the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Based on the indices we derived bivariate distribution functions of drought severity and duration, and estimated the recurrence intervals of drought events at different timescales. The correlation between the simple SPI and the more complex SPEI or RDI was stronger for the tropical and temperate locations than for the arid locations, indicating that SPEI or RDI can be replaced by SPI if evaporation plays a minor role for plant available water (tropics). Both short-term and long-term droughts were most severe and prolonged, and recurred most frequently in arid regions, but were relatively rare in tropical and temperate regions. Our approach is similar to intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) analyses of rainfall, which are crucial for the design of hydraulic infrastructure. In this regard, we propose to apply SDF analyses of droughts to design ecosystem components in post-mining landscapes. Together with design rainfalls, design droughts should be used to assess rehabilitation strategies and ecological management using drought recurrence intervals, thereby minimising the risk of failure of initial ecosystem establishment due to ignorance of fundamental abiotic and site-specific environmental barriers, such as flood and drought events.


2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 523-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Vicente-Serrano ◽  
J. I. López-Moreno

Abstract. At present, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is the most widely used drought index to provide good estimations about the intensity, magnitude and spatial extent of droughts. The main advantage of the SPI in comparison with other indices is the fact that the SPI enables both determination of drought conditions at different time scales and monitoring of different drought types. It is widely accepted that SPI time scales affect different sub-systems in the hydrological cycle due to the fact that the response of the different water usable sources to precipitation shortages can be very different. The long time scales of SPI are related to hydrological droughts (river flows and reservoir storages). Nevertheless, few analyses empirically verify these statements or the usefulness of the SPI time scales to monitor drought. In this paper, the SPI at different time scales is compared with surface hydrological variables in a big closed basin located in the central Spanish Pyrenees. We provide evidence about the way in which the longer (>12 months) SPI time scales may not be useful for drought quantification in this area. In general, the surface flows respond to short SPI time scales whereas the reservoir storages respond to longer time scales (7–10 months). Nevertheless, important seasonal differences can be identified in the SPI-usable water sources relationships. This suggests that it is necessary to test the drought indices and time scales in relation to their usefulness for monitoring different drought types under different environmental conditions and water demand situations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianliang Jiang ◽  
Xiaoling Su

<p>Although the concept of ecological drought was first defined by the Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) in 2016, there remains no widely accepted drought index for monitoring ecological drought. Therefore, this study constructed a new ecological drought monitoring index, the standardized ecological water deficit index (SEWDI). The SEWDI is based on the difference between ecological water requirements and consumption, referred to as the standardized precipitation index (SPI) method, which was used to monitor ecological drought in Northwestern China (NWRC). The performances of the SEWDI and four widely-used drought indices [standardized root soil moisture index (SSI), self-calibrated Palmer drought index (scPDSI), standardized precipitation-evaporation drought index (SPEI), and SPI) in monitoring ecological drought were evaluated through comparing the Pearson correlations between these indices and the standardized normalized difference vegetation index (SNDVI) under different time scales, wetness, and water use efficiencies (WUEs) of vegetation. Finally, the rotational empirical orthogonal function (REOF) was used to decompose the SEWDI at a 12-month scale in the NWRC during 1982–2015 to obtain five ecological drought regions. The characteristics of ecological drought in the NWRC, including intensity, duration, and frequency, were extracted using run theory. The results showed that the performance of the SEWDI in monitoring ecological drought was highest among the commonly-used drought indices evaluated under different time scales [average correlation coefficient values (r) between SNDVI and drought indices: SEWDI<sub></sub>= 0.34, SSI<sub></sub>= 0.24, scPDSI<sub></sub>= 0.23, SPI<sub></sub>= 0.20, SPEI<sub></sub>= 0.18), and the 12-month-scale SEWDI was largely unaffected by wetness and WUE. In addition, the results of the monitoring indicated that serious ecological droughts in the NWRC mainly occurred in 1982–1986, 1990–1996, and 2005–2010, primarily in regions I, II, and V, regions II, and IV, and in region III, IV, and V, respectively. This study provides a robust approach for quantifying ecological drought severity across natural vegetation areas and scientific evidence for governmental decision makers.</p>


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 3427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geovanny Marulanda ◽  
Antonio Bello ◽  
Jenny Cifuentes ◽  
Javier Reneses

Wind power has been increasing its participation in electricity markets in many countries around the world. Due to its economical and environmental benefits, wind power generation is one of the most powerful technologies to deal with global warming and climate change. However, as wind power grows, uncertainty in power supply increases due to wind intermittence. In this context, accurate wind power scenarios are needed to guide decision-making in power systems. In this paper, a novel methodology to generate realistic wind power scenarios for the long term is proposed. Unlike most of the literature that tackles this problem, this paper is focused on the generation of realistic wind power production scenarios in the long term. Moreover, spatial-temporal dependencies in multi-area markets have been considered. The results show that capturing the dependencies at the monthly level could improve the quality of scenarios at different time scales. In addition, an evaluation at different time scales is needed to select the best approach in terms of the distribution functions of the generated scenarios. To evaluate the proposed methodology, several tests have been made using real data of wind power generation for Spain, Portugal and France.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1134
Author(s):  
Antonio Samuel Alves da Silva ◽  
Moacyr Cunha Filho ◽  
Rômulo Simões Cezar Menezes ◽  
Tatijana Stosic ◽  
Borko Stosic

We analyze trend and persistence in Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) time series derived from monthly rainfall data at 133 gauging stations in Pernambuco state, Brazil, using a suite of complementary methods to address the spatially explicit tendencies, and persistence. SPI was calculated for 1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month time scales from 1950 to 2012. We use Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope to determine sign and magnitude of the trend, and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) method to quantify long-term correlations. For all time scales significant negative trends are obtained in the Sertão (deep inland) region, while significant positive trends are found in the Agreste (intermediate inland), and Zona da Mata (coastal) regions. The values of DFA exponents show different scaling behavior for different time scales. For short-term conditions described by SPI-1 the DFA exponent is close to 0.5 indicating weak persistency and low predictability, while for medium-term conditions (SPI-3 and SPI-6) DFA exponents are greater than 0.5 and increase with time scale indicating stronger persistency and higher predictability. For SPI-12 that describes long-term precipitation patterns, the values of DFA exponents for inland regions are around 1, indicating strong persistency, while in the shoreline the value of the DFA exponent is between 1.0 and 1.5, indicating anti-persistent fractional Brownian motion. These results should be useful for agricultural planning and water resource management in the region.


2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 1221-1246 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Vicente-Serrano ◽  
J. I. López-Moreno

Abstract. At present, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is the most widely used drought index to provide good estimations about the intensity, magnitude and spatial extent of droughts. The main advantage of the SPI in comparison with other indices is the fact that the SPI enables both determination of drought conditions at different time scales and monitoring of different drought types. It is widely accepted that SPI time scales affect different sub-systems in the hydrological cycle due to the fact that the response of the different water usable sources to precipitation shortages can be very different. The long time scales of SPI are related to hydrological droughts (river flows and reservoir storages). Nevertheless, few analyses empirically verify these statements or the usefulness of the SPI time scales to monitor drought. In this paper, the SPI at different time scales is compared with surface hydrological variables in a big closed basin located in the central Spanish Pyrenees. We provide evidence about the way in which the higher (>12 months) SPI time scales may not be useful for drought quantification in this area. In general, the surface flows respond to short SPI time scales whereas the reservoir storages respond to higher time scales (7–10 months). Nevertheless, important seasonal differences can be identified in the SPI-usable water sources relationships. This suggests that it is necessary to test the drought indices and time scales in relation to their usefulness for monitoring different drought types under different environmental conditions and water demand situations.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenxin Zhang ◽  
Per-Erik Jansson ◽  
Bo Elberling

Abstract. Ecosystem CO2 fluxes in high Arctic are rather dynamic, as they are sensitive to climatic variability through multiple ecosystem processes, for instance, vegetation and snow dynamics as well as permafrost thawing, operating at different time scales. Uncertainties from both high-frequency measurements and model assumptions challenge model calibration to describe both short- and long-term phenomena related to weather and climate variabilities. In this study, we generated three model ensembles using a Monte-Carlo based uncertainty approach with acceptance criteria for 15 years of eddy covariance CO2 measurements of a high Arctic heath ecosystem based on the time-integrated CO2 fluxes within the day, the year and the entire period. The temporal distribution of residuals between the model and measurements indicated that the three model ensembles reasonably simulated diurnal, seasonal and long-term behaviours of CO2 fluxes respectively. The inter-annual variation of CO2 fluxes over 15 years showed the current ecosystem is at a transition from being a C sink to a C neutral balance. The long-term behaviour model ensemble simulated a more intensified diurnal C cycle than the short-term behaviour model ensembles. The intensified C cycle was mainly attributed to a faster depletion of the soil C pools. The sensitivities of posterior parameters to the model performance index (coefficient of determination, R2) reflected that parameters in the processes of soil water and heat transfer and snow dynamics regulated the short-term behaviour of CO2 fluxes, while parameters in the process of soil decomposition regulated the long-term behaviour of CO2 fluxes. Our results suggest that the development of ecosystem models should diagnose their effectiveness in capturing ecosystem CO2 exchange behaviour across different time scales. A clear trade-off may exist when the model is tuned to capture both the short- and long-term variation of CO2 fluxes. To constrain the model with the time-integrated CO2 fluxes is a simple and useful method to reduce the non-explained errors and to identify the crucial link to controlling parameters and processes.


Data ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Matthew P. Lucas ◽  
Clay Trauernicht ◽  
Abby G. Frazier ◽  
Tomoaki Miura

Spatially explicit, wall-to-wall rainfall data provide foundational climatic information but alone are inadequate for characterizing meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, or ecological drought. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is one of the most widely used indicators of drought and defines localized conditions of both drought and excess rainfall based on period-specific (e.g., 1-month, 6-month, 12-month) accumulated precipitation relative to multi-year averages. A 93-year (1920–2012), high-resolution (250 m) gridded dataset of monthly rainfall available for the State of Hawai‘i was used to derive gridded, monthly SPI values for 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, 12-, 24-, 36-, 48-, and 60-month intervals. Gridded SPI data were validated against independent, station-based calculations of SPI provided by the National Weather Service. The gridded SPI product was also compared with the U.S. Drought Monitor during the overlapping period. This SPI product provides several advantages over currently available drought indices for Hawai‘i in that it has statewide coverage over a long historical period at high spatial resolution to capture fine-scale climatic gradients and monitor changes in local drought severity.


1999 ◽  
Vol 169 ◽  
pp. 251-254
Author(s):  
Otmar Stahl

LBV’s are variable on many different time scales from weeks to years or even decades. The typical LBV variations on timescales of years or longer are covered in the paper by Humphreys (this volume). Here I discuss variations of LBV’s on timescales from weeks to years.Most classes of stars are little studied on these timescales. This also holds true for LBV’s. Therefore the hot star group of the Landessternwarte Heidelberg Started a monitoring program of a few bright LBV’s (and other objects) using the 70cm-telescopes at the Landessternwarte and later the ESO 50cm-telescope at La Silla. For more details about the project see the paper by Kaufer (this volume).


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Mohammadi ◽  
Mojgan Abasi ◽  
Javad Bazrafshan

Abstract The monitoring of drought is the most important factor in water resources management. This study focuses on evaluation of the drought characteristics such as intensity, frequency and duration drought using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) in different time scales such as: SPI1, SPI3 months, during 1980-2012. The results show that selection of different time scales can be based on management goals and kind of drought. The results of the drought occurrence frequency showed that, with increase of length of time scales, drought duration will increase and maximum frequency was at the normal level and there is no particular procedure in different time scales. Furthermore, Drought patterns maps showed that the northern and central parts of study area had experienced these recent droughts more than other places, and these place have potential to destroy the lands. So, by identification of sensitivity regions can be take appropriate management to prevent damage resulting of drought.


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