scholarly journals Observational gridded runoff estimates for Europe (E-RUN version 1.0)

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Gudmundsson ◽  
Sonia I. Seneviratne
Keyword(s):  
Cross Validation ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Climate Variable ◽  
Data Bases ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Terrestrial Water ◽  
Monthly Runoff ◽  
Derived Data ◽  
Combining Information

Abstract. River runoff is an essential climate variable as it is directly linked to the terrestrial water balance and controls a wide range of climatological and ecological processes. Despite its scientific and societal importance, there are to date no pan-European observation-based runoff estimates available. Here we employ a recently developed methodology to estimate monthly runoff rates on regular spatial grid in Europe. For this we first collect an unprecedented collection of river flow observations, combining information from three distinct data bases. Observed monthly runoff rates are first tested for homogeneity and then related to gridded atmospheric variables (E-OBS version 11) using machine learning. The resulting statistical model is then used to estimate monthly runoff rates (December 1950–December 2014) on a 0.5° × 0.5° grid. The performance of the newly derived runoff estimates is assessed in terms of cross validation. The paper closes with example applications, illustrating the potential of the new runoff estimates for climatological assessments and drought monitoring. The newly derived data are made publicly available at doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.845725.

scholarly journals Observation-based gridded runoff estimates for Europe (E-RUN version 1.1)

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Gudmundsson ◽  
Sonia I. Seneviratne
Keyword(s):  
Cross Validation ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Climate Variable ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Terrestrial Water ◽  
Spatial Grid ◽  
Monthly Runoff ◽  
Derived Data ◽  
Combining Information

Abstract. River runoff is an essential climate variable as it is directly linked to the terrestrial water balance and controls a wide range of climatological and ecological processes. Despite its scientific and societal importance, there are to date no pan-European observation-based runoff estimates available. Here we employ a recently developed methodology to estimate monthly runoff rates on regular spatial grid in Europe. For this we first assemble an unprecedented collection of river flow observations, combining information from three distinct databases. Observed monthly runoff rates are subsequently tested for homogeneity and then related to gridded atmospheric variables (E-OBS version 12) using machine learning. The resulting statistical model is then used to estimate monthly runoff rates (December 1950–December 2015) on a 0.5°  ×  0.5° grid. The performance of the newly derived runoff estimates is assessed in terms of cross validation. The paper closes with example applications, illustrating the potential of the new runoff estimates for climatological assessments and drought monitoring. The newly derived data are made publicly available at doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.861371.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Functional Zoning Concept under Climate Change to Expand the Portfolio of Adaptation Options

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 273
Author(s):  
Samuel Royer-Tardif ◽  
Jürgen Bauhus ◽  
Frédérik Doyon ◽  
Philippe Nolet ◽  
Nelson Thiffault ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Multiple Use ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Good Communication ◽  
Management Objectives ◽  
Functional Zoning ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Adaptation Options

Climate change is threatening our ability to manage forest ecosystems sustainably. Despite strong consensus on the need for a broad portfolio of options to face this challenge, diversified management options have yet to be widely implemented. Inspired by functional zoning, a concept aimed at optimizing biodiversity conservation and wood production in multiple-use forest landscapes, we present a portfolio of management options that intersects management objectives with forest vulnerability to better address the wide range of goals inherent to forest management under climate change. Using this approach, we illustrate how different adaptation options could be implemented when faced with impacts related to climate change and its uncertainty. These options range from establishing ecological reserves in climatic refuges, where self-organizing ecological processes can result in resilient forests, to intensive plantation silviculture that could ensure a stable wood supply in an uncertain future. While adaptation measures in forests that are less vulnerable correspond to the traditional functional zoning management objectives, forests with higher vulnerability might be candidates for transformative measures as they may be more susceptible to abrupt changes in structure and composition. To illustrate how this portfolio of management options could be applied, we present a theoretical case study for the eastern boreal forest of Canada. Even if these options are supported by solid evidence, their implementation across the landscape may present some challenges and will require good communication among stakeholders and with the public.

scholarly journals Role of Runoff–Infiltration Partitioning and Resolved Overland Flow on Land–Atmosphere Feedbacks: A Case Study with the WRF-Hydro Coupled Modeling System for West Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 1489-1516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Arnault ◽  
Sven Wagner ◽  
Thomas Rummler ◽  
Benjamin Fersch ◽  
Jan Bliefernicht ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Overland Flow ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Efficiency Coefficient ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Coupled Modeling ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Outer Domain ◽  
Terrestrial Water

Abstract The analysis of land–atmosphere feedbacks requires detailed representation of land processes in atmospheric models. The focus here is on runoff–infiltration partitioning and resolved overland flow. In the standard version of WRF, runoff–infiltration partitioning is described as a purely vertical process. In WRF-Hydro, runoff is enhanced with lateral water flows. The study region is the Sissili catchment (12 800 km2) in West Africa, and the study period is from March 2003 to February 2004. The WRF setup here includes an outer and inner domain at 10- and 2-km resolution covering the West Africa and Sissili regions, respectively. In this WRF-Hydro setup, the inner domain is coupled with a subgrid at 500-m resolution to compute overland and river flow. Model results are compared with TRMM precipitation, model tree ensemble (MTE) evapotranspiration, Climate Change Initiative (CCI) soil moisture, CRU temperature, and streamflow observation. The role of runoff–infiltration partitioning and resolved overland flow on land–atmosphere feedbacks is addressed with a sensitivity analysis of WRF results to the runoff–infiltration partitioning parameter and a comparison between WRF and WRF-Hydro results, respectively. In the outer domain, precipitation is sensitive to runoff–infiltration partitioning at the scale of the Sissili area (~100 × 100 km2), but not of area A (500 × 2500 km2). In the inner domain, where precipitation patterns are mainly prescribed by lateral boundary conditions, sensitivity is small, but additionally resolved overland flow here clearly increases infiltration and evapotranspiration at the beginning of the wet season when soils are still dry. The WRF-Hydro setup presented here shows potential for joint atmospheric and terrestrial water balance studies and reproduces observed daily discharge with a Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient of 0.43.

scholarly journals ORCHIDEE-ROUTING: A new river routing scheme using a high resolution hydrological database

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trung Nguyen-Quang ◽  
Jan Polcher ◽  
Agnès Ducharne ◽  
Thomas Arsouze ◽  
Xudong Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Routing Scheme ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
River Routing

Abstract. This study presents a revised river routing scheme (RRS) for the Organising Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) land surface model. The revision is carried out to benefit from the high resolution topography provided the Hydrological data and maps based on SHuttle Elevation Derivatives at multiple Scales (HydroSHEDS), processed to a resolution of approximately 1 kilometer. The RRS scheme of the ORCHIDEE uses a unit-to-unit routing concept which allows to preserve as much of the hydrological information of the HydroSHEDS as the user requires. The evaluation focuses on 12 rivers of contrasted size and climate which contribute freshwater to the Mediterranean Sea. First, the numerical aspect of the new RRS is investigated, to identify the practical configuration offering the best trade-off between computational cost and simulation quality for ensuing validations. Second, the performance of the revised scheme is evaluated against observations at both monthly and daily timescales. The new RRS captures satisfactorily the seasonal variability of river discharges, although important biases come from the water budget simulated by the ORCHIDEE model. The results highlight that realistic streamflow simulations require accurate precipitation forcing data and a precise river catchment description over a wide range of scales, as permitted by the new RRS. Detailed analyses at the daily timescale show promising performances of this high resolution RRS for replicating river flow variation at various frequencies. Eventually, this RRS is well adapted for further developments in the ORCHIDEE land surface model to assess anthropogenic impacts on river processes (e.g. damming for irrigation operation).

scholarly journals Deep6mA: A deep learning framework for exploring similar patterns in DNA N6-methyladenine sites across different species

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. e1008767
Author(s):  
Zutan Li ◽  
Hangjin Jiang ◽  
Lingpeng Kong ◽  
Yuanyuan Chen ◽  
Kun Lang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Prediction Accuracy ◽  
Cross Validation ◽  
Biological Processes ◽  
Biological Functions ◽  
Learning Framework ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Genomic Scale ◽  
Downstream Gene Expression ◽  
Fold Cross Validation

N6-methyladenine (6mA) is an important DNA modification form associated with a wide range of biological processes. Identifying accurately 6mA sites on a genomic scale is crucial for under-standing of 6mA’s biological functions. However, the existing experimental techniques for detecting 6mA sites are cost-ineffective, which implies the great need of developing new computational methods for this problem. In this paper, we developed, without requiring any prior knowledge of 6mA and manually crafted sequence features, a deep learning framework named Deep6mA to identify DNA 6mA sites, and its performance is superior to other DNA 6mA prediction tools. Specifically, the 5-fold cross-validation on a benchmark dataset of rice gives the sensitivity and specificity of Deep6mA as 92.96% and 95.06%, respectively, and the overall prediction accuracy is 94%. Importantly, we find that the sequences with 6mA sites share similar patterns across different species. The model trained with rice data predicts well the 6mA sites of other three species: Arabidopsis thaliana, Fragaria vesca and Rosa chinensis with a prediction accuracy over 90%. In addition, we find that (1) 6mA tends to occur at GAGG motifs, which means the sequence near the 6mA site may be conservative; (2) 6mA is enriched in the TATA box of the promoter, which may be the main source of its regulating downstream gene expression.

Freshwater, Fish and the Future: Proceedings of the Global Cross-Sectoral Conference

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Freshwater Fish ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Fish Assemblages ◽  
Physical Habitat ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Tropical Island

<em>Abstract.</em> —Freshwater tropical island environments support a variety of fishes that provide cultural, economic, and ecological services for humans but receive limited scientific, conservation, and public attention. Puerto Rico is a Caribbean tropical island that may serve as a model to illustrate the interactions between humans and natural resources in such complex ecosystems. The native freshwater fish assemblage of Puerto Rico is distinct from mainland assemblages in that the assemblage is not diverse, all species are diadromous, and they may be exploited at multiple life stages (e.g., postlarva, juvenile, adult). Primary large-scale drivers of recent water-use policy include economic growth, human population density, and urbanization, with climate change as an overarching influence. Watershed and riparian land use, water quality, river flow and instream physical habitat, river habitat connectivity, exotic species, and aquatic resource exploitation are important proximate factors affecting the ecosystem and fisheries. Research on ecological processes and components of the stream and river fish assemblages has expanded the knowledge base in the past decade with the goal of providing critical information for guiding the conservation and management of the lotic resource to optimize ecosystem function and services. The greatest challenge facing Caribbean island society is developing policies that balance the needs for human water use and associated activities with maintaining aquatic biodiversity, ecological integrity and services, and sustainable fisheries. Achieving this goal will require broad cooperation and sustained commitment among public officials, agency administrators, biologists, and the public toward effective resource management.

Landscape Heterogeneity and Dynamics

2019 ◽  
pp. 42-126
Author(s):  
Kimberly A. With
Keyword(s):  
Landscape Ecology ◽  
Spatial Heterogeneity ◽  
Landscape Structure ◽  
Landscape Heterogeneity ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Anthropogenic Disturbances ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Disturbance Dynamics ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Over Time

Heterogeneity is a defining characteristic of landscapes and therefore central to the study of landscape ecology. Landscape ecology investigates what factors give rise to heterogeneity, how that heterogeneity is maintained or altered by natural and anthropogenic disturbances, and how heterogeneity ultimately influences ecological processes and flows across the landscape. Because heterogeneity is expressed across a wide range of spatial scales, the landscape perspective can be applied to address these sorts of questions at any level of ecological organization, and in aquatic and marine systems as well as terrestrial ones. Disturbances—both natural and anthropogenic—are a ubiquitous feature of any landscape, contributing to its structure and dynamics. Although the focus in landscape ecology is typically on spatial heterogeneity, disturbance dynamics produce changes in landscape structure over time as well as in space. Heterogeneity and disturbance dynamics are thus inextricably linked and are therefore covered together in this chapter.

Rewilding

Ecology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith Root-Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Large Species ◽  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Apex Predators ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Large Herbivore ◽  
Large Herbivores ◽  
True Nature ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wide Range

Rewilding is an increasingly recognized approach to conservation and restoration, among academics, land managers, and the public. Although a number of different definitions have been proposed for rewilding (see Definitions of Rewilding), most approaches called “rewilding” include ideas about restoring a habitat to a less-anthropogenic state, restoring ecological processes and allowing them to take their own course without managing for a target ecosystem condition and (re)-introducing missing (usually large) species as a way to restore those ecological processes. Conceptualizations of rewilding and actual rewilding projects draw on a wide range of cultural and ecological ideas and practical knowledge, which are detailed in this article. Several organizations now represent rewilding interests to policymakers and the public and set up or facilitate rewilding initiatives in Europe and the Americas. Much of their philosophies, practice, data, and outcomes are not published. The Wildland Research Institute is an influential source of research on wilderness mapping, rewilding, restoration, and policy analysis in Europe. The European Centre for Nature Conservation (ECNC) supports and facilitates the conservation of large herbivore populations and their habitats at large scales in Eurasia through its Large Herbivore Network. Rewilding Europe implements rewilding projects throughout Europe, bringing together financing for large herbivore reintroductions and luxury wilderness tourism. Their European Rewilding Network brings together rewilding-related services and knowledge exchange. Similarly, the True Nature Foundation is a European foundation that works to restore habitats, reintroduce primarily large herbivores, and create sustainable tourism in nature areas. Wild Europe seeks to promote and lobby for the protection of large, “wild” natural areas. Similarly, the European Wilderness Society is an advocacy organization that identifies and promotes the stewardship and protection of large wilderness areas. The Rewilding Foundation is an international organization promoting and working toward the conservation of large areas of habitat and corridors for large carnivores. The Wildlands Network is an American organization that similarly seeks to conserve and connect large habitat areas and reintroduce apex predators. The Rewilding Institute in the United States also promotes protecting large habitats and creating corridors for large carnivores. There are also numerous site-based rewilding projects, which largely preceded the consolidation of rewilding as a concept. Many of these, through their creative rethinking of ecological and paleo-ecological orthodoxy, have influenced the development of rewilding practice and theory.

scholarly journals ORCHIDEE-ROUTING: revising the river routing scheme using a high-resolution hydrological database

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 4965-4985 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trung Nguyen-Quang ◽  
Jan Polcher ◽  
Agnès Ducharne ◽  
Thomas Arsouze ◽  
Xudong Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Routing Scheme ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
River Routing

Abstract. The river routing scheme (RRS) in the Organising Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) land surface model is a valuable tool for closing the water cycle in a coupled environment and for validating the model performance. This study presents a revision of the RRS of the ORCHIDEE model that aims to benefit from the high-resolution topography provided by the Hydrological data and maps based on SHuttle Elevation Derivatives at multiple Scales (HydroSHEDS), which is processed to a resolution of approximately 1 km. Adapting a new algorithm to construct river networks, the new RRS in ORCHIDEE allows for the preservation of as much of the hydrological information from HydroSHEDS as the user requires. The evaluation focuses on 12 rivers of contrasting size and climate which contribute freshwater to the Mediterranean Sea. First, the numerical aspect of the new RRS is investigated, in order to identify the practical configuration offering the best trade-off between computational cost and simulation quality for ensuing validations. Second, the performance of the new scheme is evaluated against observations at both monthly and daily timescales. The new RRS satisfactorily captures the seasonal variability of river discharge, although important biases stem from the water budget simulated by the ORCHIDEE model. The results highlight that realistic streamflow simulations require accurate precipitation forcing data and a precise river catchment description over a wide range of scales, as permitted by the new RRS. Detailed analyses at the daily timescale show the promising performance of this high-resolution RRS with respect to replicating river flow variation at various frequencies. Furthermore, this RRS may also eventually be well adapted for further developments in the ORCHIDEE land surface model to assess anthropogenic impacts on river processes (e.g. damming for irrigation operation).

scholarly journals Global Evaluation of the ISBA-TRIP Continental Hydrological System. Part I: Comparison to GRACE Terrestrial Water Storage Estimates and In Situ River Discharges

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Alkama ◽  
B. Decharme ◽  
H. Douville ◽  
M. Becker ◽  
A. Cazenave ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Discharge ◽  
Water Storage ◽  
Additional Constraint ◽  
Terrestrial Water Storage ◽  
Discharge Data ◽  
Continental Hydrology ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Terrestrial Water ◽  
Hydrological System

Abstract In earth system models, the partitioning of precipitation among the variations of continental water storage, evapotranspiration, and freshwater runoff to the ocean has a major influence on the terrestrial water and energy budgets and thereby on simulated climate on a wide range of scales. The evaluation of continental hydrology is therefore a crucial task that requires offline simulations driven by realistic atmospheric forcing to avoid the systematic biases commonly found in global atmospheric models. Generally, this evaluation is done mainly by comparison with in situ river discharge data, which does not guarantee that the spatiotemporal distribution of water storage and evapotranspiration is correctly simulated. In this context, the Interactions between Soil, Biosphere, and Atmosphere–Total Runoff Integrating Pathways (ISBA-TRIP) continental hydrological system of the Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques is evaluated by using the additional constraint of terrestrial water storage (TWS) variations derived from three independent gravity field retrievals (datasets) from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). On the one hand, the results show that, in general, ISBA-TRIP captures the seasonal and the interannual variability in both TWS and discharges. GRACE provides an additional constraint on the simulated hydrology and consolidates the former evaluation only based on river discharge observations. On the other hand, results indicate that river storage variations represent a significant contribution to GRACE measurements. While this remark highlights the need to improve the TRIP river routing model for a more useful comparison with GRACE [Decharme et al. (Part II of the present study)], it also suggests that low-resolution gravimetry products do not necessarily represent a strong additional constraint for model evaluation, especially in downstream areas of large river basins where long-term discharge data are available.

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