Designing a Suite of Models to Explore Critical Zone Function

Critical Zone; weathering; hydrology; ecology; watershedsThe Critical Zone (CZ) incorporates all aspects of the earth's environment from the vegetation canopy to the bottom of groundwater. CZ researchers target processes that cross timescales from that of water fluxes (milliseconds to decades) to that of the evolution of landforms (thousands to tens of millions of years). Conceptual and numerical models are used to investigate the important fluxes: water, energy, solutes, carbon, nitrogen, and sediments. Depending upon the questions addressed, these models must calculate the distribution of landforms, regolith structure and chemistry, biota, and the chemistry of water, solutes, sediments, and soil atmospheres. No single model can accomplish all these objectives. We are designing a group of models or model capabilities to explore the CZ and testing them at the Susquehanna Shale Hills CZ Observatory. To examine processes over different timescales, we establish the core hydrologic fluxes using the Penn State Integrated Hydrologic Model (PIHM) – and then augment PIHM with simulation modules. For example, most land-atmosphere models currently do not incorporate an accurate representation of the geologic subsurface. We are exploring what aspects of subsurface structure must be accurately modelled to simulate water, carbon, energy, and sediment fluxes accurately. Only with a suite of modeling tools will we learn to forecast – earthcast -- the future CZ

Designing a Suite of Models to Explore Critical Zone Function

Critical Zone; weathering; hydrology; ecology; watershedsThe Critical Zone (CZ) incorporates all aspects of the earth's environment from the vegetation canopy to the bottom of groundwater. CZ researchers target processes that cross timescales from that of water fluxes (milliseconds to decades) to that of the evolution of landforms (thousands to tens of millions of years). Conceptual and numerical models are used to investigate the important fluxes: water, energy, solutes, carbon, nitrogen, and sediments. Depending upon the questions addressed, these models must calculate the distribution of landforms, regolith structure and chemistry, biota, and the chemistry of water, solutes, sediments, and soil atmospheres. No single model can accomplish all these objectives. We are designing a group of models or model capabilities to explore the CZ and testing them at the Susquehanna Shale Hills CZ Observatory. To examine processes over different timescales, we establish the core hydrologic fluxes using the Penn State Integrated Hydrologic Model (PIHM) – and then augment PIHM with simulation modules. For example, most land-atmosphere models currently do not incorporate an accurate representation of the geologic subsurface. We are exploring what aspects of subsurface structure must be accurately modelled to simulate water, carbon, energy, and sediment fluxes accurately. Only with a suite of modeling tools will we learn to forecast – earthcast -- the future CZ

Environmental contaminants exposure and preterm birth: a systematic review

Preterm birth is an obstetric condition associated with a high risk of infant mortality and morbidities in both the neonatal period and later in life, which has also a significant public health impact because it carries an important societal economic burden. As in many cases the etiology is unknown, it is important to identify environmental factors that may be involved in the occurrence of this condition. In this review, we report all the studies published in PubMed and Scopus databases from January 1992 to January 2019, accessible as full-text articles, written in English, including clinical studies, original studies, and reviews. We excluded articles not written in English, duplicates, considering inappropriate populations and/or exposures or irrelevant outcomes and patients with known risk factors for preterm birth (PTB). The aim of this article is to identify and summarize the studies that examine environmental toxicants exposure associated with preterm birth. This knowledge will strengthen the possibility to develop strategies to reduce the exposure to these toxicants and apply clinical measures for preterm birth prevention

HydroDS: Data Services in Support of Physically Based, Distributed Hydrological Models

Physically based distributed hydrologic models require geospatial and time-series data that take considerable time and effort in processing them into model inputs. Tools that automate and speed up input processing facilitate the application of these models. In this study, we developed a set of web-based data services called HydroDS to provide hydrologic data processing ‘software as a service.’ HydroDS provides functions for processing watershed, terrain, canopy, climate, and soil data. The services are accessed through a Python client library that facilitates developing simple but effective data processing workflows with Python. Evaluations of HydroDS by setting up the Utah Energy Balance and TOPNET models for multiple headwater watersheds in the Colorado River basin show that HydroDS reduces the input preparation time compared to manual processing. It also removes the requirements for software installation and maintenance by the user, and the Python workflows enhance reproducibility of hydrologic data processing and tracking of provenance

Small-scale Fisheries in India: An Appraisal

The fishing practices followed in India are as diverse and complex as diversity of fishes. On an average 700 species of fishes are harvested annually from Indian coastal waters. Various craft-gear combinations are used for harvesting these resources. The wide variety of fisheries resources are targeted with specific gear and craft unlike monopolized individual species-based targeted commercialized fishing activities practiced globally, especially in temperate and sub-tropical coastal waters. Indian fisheries sector is still heavily relying on less capital-intensive fishing. With the global standards of commercialized fishing grown to much higher proportions, it is possible to address the whole of Indian fisheries as small-scale, except for the few industrial trawlers which operated earlier under the letter of permit (LOP) scheme of the government of India. But with the definitions on smallscale fishery (SSF) reiterated in various fora during different occasions by United Nations, we have tried to define the small-scale fisheries in the Indian context. Further, in this chapter we have provided information based on the prevailing data sets on marine fishery by looking upon the various aspects of SSF inclusive of resources vis-a-vis fleet size, climate related perils, market related issues, its role in poverty alleviation, governance, institutional framework for governance and pertinent issues in SSF

Challenges for implementation of the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Small-scale Fisheries. A case study of Small-Scale fisheries governance in India

For years, small-scale fisheries were marginalized until this sector gained international recognition after the FAO's voluntary guidelines for securing SSFs were endorsed in 2014. Since then, there has been active research, especially in developing countries, to implement these guidelines. Small-scale fisheries that are diverse, complex, and dynamic are challenging to govern and require a transformed governance system to govern and implement the guidelines. This study builds upon the interactive governance theory to look for gaps in both the system-to-be governed and the governing system in Indian Fisheries. System- to- be- governed and the governing system characteristics are analyzed on diversity, complexity, dynamic, and scale. Thus, by this analysis, obstacles are identified in both the systems, which suggests reforms in the Indian governing system to secure small-scale fisheries as per the goal of FAO voluntary guidelines. Overall, the study indicates that the Indian small-scale fisheries are difficult to be governed and how strengthening the governance system in the Hierarchal mode can benefit SSFs in India. Keywords: Small-scale Fisheries, FAO Voluntary Guidelines, Interactive Governance

Implications of mountain shading on calculating energy for snowmelt using unstructured triangular meshes

In many parts of the world, the snowmelt energy balance is dominated by net solar shortwave radiation. This is the case in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, where clear skies dominate the winter and spring. In mountainous regions, solar irradiance at the snow surface is not only affected by solar angles, atmospheric transmittance, and the slope and aspect of immediate topography, but also by shadows from surrounding terrain. Many hydrological models do not consider such horizon-shadows. The accumulation of errors in estimating solar irradiance by neglecting horizon-shadows can lead to significant errors in calculating the timing and rate of snowmelt due to the seasonal storage of internal energy in the snowpack. A common approach to representing the landscape is through structured meshes. However, such representations introduce errors due to the rigid nature of the mesh, creating artefacts and other constraints. Unstructured triangular meshes are more efficient in their representation of the terrain by allowing for a variable resolution. These meshes do not suffer from the artefact problems of a structured mesh. This thesis demonstrates the increased accuracy of using a horizon-shading model with an unstructured mesh versus standard self-shading algorithms in Marmot Creek Research Basin (MCRB), Alberta, Canada. A systematic basin-wide over-prediction (basin mean expressed as phase change mass: 14 mm, maximum: 200 mm) in net shortwave is observed when only self-shadows are considered. The horizon-shadow model was run at a point scale at three sites throughout MCRB to investigate the effects of scale on the model results. It was found that small triangles were best suited for this topographic region and that shadow patterns were captured accurately. Large triangles were found to be too easily shaded by the model, created many disjointed regions. As well, model results were compared to measurements of mountain shadows by timelapse digital cameras. These images were orthorectified and the shadow regions extracted allowing for a quantitative comparison. It was found that the horizon-model produced results within 10 m of the measured shadows, and properly captured shadow transits. A point-scale energy balance model SNOBAL was run via The Cold Regions Hydrological Model, an HRU based hydrologic model. It was found that in the highly shaded valleys, snowpack ablation could be incorrect by approximately 4 days. Although MCRB was generally not significantly impacted by the over-estimation in irradiance in this study, insight into the horizon-shadowing process was possible as a result of the existing network of radiometers and other meteorological stations at MCRB. Because down-stream processes such as flooding depend on correct headwater snowmelt predictions, quantitative results demonstrating inaccuracies in a modelled component of the surface energy balance can help improve snowmelt modelling

Multi-Scale Modelling of Cold Regions Hydrology

Numerical computer simulations are increasingly important tools required to address both research and operational water resource issues related to the hydrological cycle. Cold region hydrological models have requirements to calculate phase change in water via consideration of the energy balance which has high spatial variability. This motivates the inclusion of explicit spatial heterogeneity and field-testable process representations in such models. However, standard techniques for spatial representation such as raster discretization can lead to prohibitively large computational costs and increased uncertainty due to increased degrees of freedom. As well, semi-distributed approaches may not sufficiently represent all the spatial variability. Further, there is uncertainty regarding which process conceptualizations are used and the degree of required complexity, motivating modelling approaches that allow testing multiple working hypotheses. This thesis considers two themes. In the first, the development of improved modelling techniques to efficiently include spatial heterogeneity, investigate warranted model complexity, and appropriate process representation in cold region models is addressed. In the second, the issues of non-linear process cascades, emergence, and compensatory behaviours in cold regions hydrological process representations is addressed. To address these themes, a new modelling framework, the Canadian Hydrological Model (CHM), is presented. Key design goals for CHM include the ability to: capture spatial heterogeneity in an efficient manner, include multiple process representations, be able to change, remove, and decouple hydrological process algorithms, work both at point and spatially distributed scales, reduce computational overhead to facilitate uncertainty analysis, scale over multiple spatial extents, and utilize a variety of boundary and initial conditions. To enable multi-scale modelling in CHM, a novel multi-objective unstructured mesh generation software *mesher* is presented. Mesher represents the landscape using a multi-scale, variable resolution surface mesh. It was found that this explicitly captured the spatial heterogeneity important for emergent behaviours and cold regions processes, and reduced the total number of computational elements by 50\% to 90\% from that of a uniform mesh. Four energy balance snowpack models of varying complexity and degree of coupling of the energy and mass budget were used to simulate SWE in a forest clearing in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It was found that 1) a compensatory response was present in the fully coupled models’ energy and mass balance that reduced their sensitivity to errors in meteorology and albedo and 2) the weakly coupled models produced less accurate simulations and were more sensitive to errors in forcing meteorology and albedo. The results suggest that the inclusion of a fully coupled mass and energy budget improves prediction of snow accumulation and ablation, but there was little advantage by introducing a multi-layered snowpack scheme. This helps define warranted complexity model decisions for this region. Lastly, a 3-D advection-diffusion blowing snow transport and sublimation model using a finite volume method discretization via a variable resolution unstructured mesh was developed. This found that the blowing snow calculation was able to represent the spatial redistribution of SWE over a sub-arctic mountain basin when compared to detailed snow surveys and the use of the unstructured mesh provided a 62\% reduction in computational elements. Without the inclusion of blowing snow, unrealistic homogeneous snow covers were simulated which would lead to incorrect melt rates and runoff contributions. This thesis shows that there is a need to: use fully coupled energy and mass balance models in mountains terrain, capture snow-drift resolving scales in next-generation hydrological models, employ variable resolution unstructured meshes as a way to reduce computational time, and consider cascading process interactions