Biotic Indicators for Ecological State Change in Amazonian Floodplains

Riverine floodplains are biologically diverse and productive ecosystems. Although tropical floodplains remain relatively conserved and ecologically functional compared to those at higher latitudes, they face accelerated hydropower development, climate change, and deforestation. Alterations to the flood pulse could act synergistically with other drivers of change to promote profound ecological state change at a large spatial scale. State change occurs when an ecosystem reaches a critical threshold or tipping point, which leads to an alternative qualitative state for the ecosystem. Visualizing an alternative state for Amazonian floodplains is not straightforward. Yet, it is critical to recognize that changes to the flood pulse could push tropical floodplain ecosystems over a tipping point with cascading adverse effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services. We characterize the Amazonian flood pulse regime, summarize evidence of flood pulse change, assess potential ecological repercussions, and provide a monitoring framework for tracking flood pulse change and detecting biotic responses

Biotic indicators for ecological state change in Amazonian floodplains

Riverine floodplains are biologically diverse and productive ecosystems. Although tropical floodplains remain relatively conserved and ecologically functional compared to those at higher latitudes, they face accelerated hydropower development, climate change, and deforestation. Alterations to the flood pulse could act synergistically with other drivers of change to promote profound ecological state change at a large spatial scale. State change occurs when an ecosystem reaches a critical threshold or tipping point, which leads to an alternative qualitative state for the ecosystem. Visualizing an alternative state for Amazonian floodplains is not straightforward. Yet, it is critical to recognize that changes to the flood pulse could push tropical floodplain ecosystems over a tipping point with cascading adverse effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services. We characterize the Amazonian flood pulse regime, summarize evidence of flood pulse change, assess potential ecological repercussions, and provide a monitoring framework for tracking flood pulse change and detecting biotic responses

TDMP-Reliable Target Driven and Mobility Prediction based Routing Protocol in Complex VANET

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication in the vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), an infrastructure-free mechanism, has emerged as a crucial component in the advanced Intelligent Transport System (ITS) for special information transmission and inter-vehicular communications. One of the main research challenges in VANET is the design and implementation of network routing protocols which manage to trigger V2X communication with the reliable end-to-end connectivity and efficient packet transmission. The organically changing nature of road transport vehicles poses a significant threat to VANET with respect to the accuracy and reliability of packet delivery. Therefore, a position-based routing protocol tends to be the predominant method in VANET as they overcome rapid changes in vehicle movements effectively. However, existing routing protocols have some limitations such as (i) inaccurate in high dynamic network topology, (ii) defective link-state estimation (iii) poor movement prediction in heterogeneous road layouts. In this paper, a target-driven and mobility prediction (TDMP) based routing protocol is therefore developed for high-speed mobility and dynamic topology of vehicles, fluctuant traffic flow and diverse road layouts in VANET. The primary idea in TDMP is that the destination target of a driver is included in the mobility prediction to assist the implementation of the routing protocol. Compared to existing geographic routing protocols which mainly greedily forward the packet to the next-hop based on its current position and partial road layout, TDMP is developed to enhance the packet transmission with the consideration of the estimation of inter-vehicles link status, and the prediction of vehicle positions dynamically in fluctuant mobility and global road layout.Comment: 35 pages,16 Figure

Inundações em múltiplas escalas na América do Sul : de áreas úmidas a áreas de risco

South America hosts some of the major river systems on Earth, often associated with large floodplains that are inundated every year, such as the Pantanal and many Amazon wetlands. Interfluvial wetland complexes are also found across the continent, with particular geomorphic settings and unique savanna or grassland vegetation. South American wetlands can provide distinctive ecosystem services such as biodiversity supporting, food provision and flood attenuation. On the other hand, humans have settled around wetlands for millennia, benefiting from all resources they provide, and have adapted to its flood regime as well adapted its landscape, defining what has been called human-water systems. Yet, an increasing number of South American people have been negatively affected by extreme floods. Moving from continental to local scales, this thesis invites the readers to a journey across major South American wetland systems and their unique hydrological dynamics, under the light of the satellite era and the breakthrough advances on hydrologic-hydrodynamic modeling in the last decades. This work is founded on the proposition of a continental wetland research agenda, and based on a comparative hydrology approach. Floods are studied through both natural wetland processes and hazard dimensions. The first part presents a set of studies on the Amazon basin wetlands, from the development of 1D and 2D models to simulate hydrological processes in contrasting wetland types in the Negro river basin to the basin-wide intercomparison of 29 inundation products and assessment of long-term inundation trends. While most wetland studies have been conducted over the central Amazon floodplains, major knowledge gaps remain for understanding the hydrological dynamics of interfluvial areas such as the Llanos de Moxos and Negro savannas, where the inundation is less predictable and shallower. The second part of the thesis leverages satellite-based datasets of multiple hydrological variables (water levels, total water storage, inundation extent, precipitation and evapotranspiration) to address the hydrology of 12 large wetland systems in the continent. It shows the major differences among river floodplains and interfluvial wetlands on the water level annual amplitude, time lag between precipitation and inundation, and evapotranspiration dynamics. Finally, the third part addresses the flood hazard component of human-wetland interactions through large-scale assessments of flood hazard dynamics and effects of built infrastructure (dams) on flood attenuation. The dynamics of the great 1983 floods, one of the most extreme years ever recorded in the continent, is assessed with a continental hydrological model. Then, the capabilities of continental models to simulate the river-floodplain-reservoir continuum that exists across large river basins are assessed with case studies for major river basins affected by human intervention (Itajaí-Açu and upper Paraná river basins in Brazil). While this thesis enlightens some relevant hydrological processes regarding South American floods and their positive and negative effects to human societies and ecosystems in general, major knowledge gaps persist and provide great research opportunities for the near future. The launching of many hydrology-oriented satellite missions, and an ever-growing computational capacity, make the continental hydrology agenda related to wetlands and floods a great research topic for the upcoming years.A América do Sul abriga alguns dos maiores sistemas hídricos do planeta, frequentemente associados a grandes planícies de inundação, como o Pantanal e várias áreas da Amazônia. Áreas úmidas (AU’s) interfluviais são também encontrados no continente, com características geomorfológicas particulares, e vegetações de savana e gramíneas únicas. As AU’s da América do Sul provêm diversos serviços ecossistêmicos, como suporte à biodiversidade, provisão de alimento e atenuação de cheias. Humanos têm se estabelecido ao redor de AU’s por milênios, se beneficiando dos recursos providos por elas. Eles se adaptaram ao seu regime de inundação, e adaptaram sua paisagem, definindo o que tem sido chamado de sistemas sociedade-água. Por outro lado, um número crescente de pessoas têm sido negativamente afetado por cheias extremas. Da escala continental à local, esta tese convida o leitor a uma jornada através de importantes AU’s da América do Sul e suas particulares dinâmicas de inundação, sob a luz da era dos satélites e dos grandes avanços em modelagem hidrológica-hidrodinâmica das últimas décadas. Este trabalho é baseado na proposta de uma escala continental de pesquisa sobre AU’s, e é baseado em uma abordagem de hidrologia comparativa. Inundações são estudadas em múltiplas dimensões, de processos de AU’s naturais à questão do perigo para humanos. A primeira parte apresenta uma série de estudos sobre as AU’s da bacia amazônica, desde o desenvolvimento de modelos 1D e 2D para simular processos hidrológicos em tipos contrastantes de AU’s na bacia do Rio Negro, até a intercomparação de 29 produtos de inundação e avaliação de tendências de inundações de longo prazo para a escala da bacia amazônica. Enquanto a maioria dos estudos de AU’s foi conduzida nas várzeas do rio Amazonas, importantes lacunas do conhecimento permanecem para a compreensão da dinâmica hidrológica de áreas interfluviais como Llanos de Moxos e as savanas do rio Negro, onde a inundação é menos previsível e mais rasa. A segunda parte da tese utiliza dados oriundos de satélites relacionados a múltiplas variáveis hidrológicas (níveis d’água, armazenamento total de água, extensão de áreas inundadas, precipitação e evapotranspiração) para estudar a hidrologia de 12 grandes sistemas de AU’s do continente. São destacadas as grandes diferenças entre planícies de inundação e AU’s interfluviais em termos de amplitude anual de níveis d’água, defasagem entre precipitação e inundação, e dinâmica de evapotranspiração. Por fim, a última parte da tese aborda o componente de perigo de inundação das interações sociedade-água através de avaliações em grande escala da dinâmica de inundação e dos efeitos de infraestruturas construídas (como barragens) na atenuação de cheias. A dinâmica das grandes cheias de 1983, um dos anos mais extremos já registrados no continente, é avaliada com um modelo hidrológico continental. Depois, a capacidade de modelos continentais para simular o continuum entre rios, planícies de inundação e reservatórios que existe em grandes bacias hidrográficas é avaliada com estudos de casos para importantes bacias afetadas pela intervenção humana (bacia dos rios Paraná e Itajaí-Açu). Enquanto esta tese avança a compreensão de relevantes processos hidrológicos relacionados a inundações na América do Sul em múltiplas escalas, bem como seus efeitos positivos e negativos nas sociedades humanas e ecossistemas em geral, importantes lacunas do conhecimento persistem e fomentam importantes oportunidades de pesquisa futuras. O lançamento de várias missões satelitais orientadas a hidrologia, e uma cada vez mais crescente capacidade computacional, faz da agenda continental de hidrologia relacionada a AU’s e inundações um grande tópico de pesquisa para os próximos anos

Phenology:Climate change is shifting the rhythm of nature

The chapter titled Phenology: Climate change is shifting the rhythm of nature looks at how climate change is disrupting the life cycle patterns of plant and animal species, its consequences, and the need to address this issue by restoring ecological connectivity and biological diversity and most importantly, reducing greenhouse gas emissions