Impacts of Anthropogenic Activities on Watersheds in a Changing Climate

The immediate goal of this Special Issue was the characterization of land uses and occupations (LULC) in watersheds and the assessment of impacts caused by anthropogenic activities. The goal was immediate because the ultimate purpose was to help bring disturbed watersheds to a better condition or a utopian sustainable status. The steps followed to attain this objective included publishing studies on the understanding of factors and variables that control hydrology and water quality changes in response to human activities. Following this first step, the Special Issue selected work that described adaption measures capable of improving the watershed condition (water availability and quality), namely LULC conversions (e.g., monocultures into agro-forestry systems). Concerning the LULC measures, however, efficacy was questioned unless supported by public programs that force consumers to participate in concomitant costs, because conversions may be viewed as an environmental service

Water use of Prosopis juliflora and its impacts on catchment water budget and rural livelihoods in Afar Region, Ethiopia

CITATION: Shiferaw, H. et al. 2021. Water use of Prosopis juliflora and its impacts on catchment water budget and rural livelihoods in Afar Region, Ethiopia. Scientific Reports, 11:2688,doi:10.1038/s41598-021-81776-6.The original publication is available at https://www.nature.comDense impenetrable thickets of invasive trees and shrubs compete with other water users and thus disrupt ecosystem functioning and services. This study assessed water use by the evergreen Prosopis juliflora, one of the dominant invasive tree species in semi-arid and arid ecosystems in the tropical regions of Eastern Africa. The objectives of the study were to (1) analyze the seasonal water use patterns of P. juliflora in various locations in Afar Region, Ethiopia, (2) up-scale the water use from individual tree transpiration and stand evapotranspiration (ET) to the entire invaded area, and 3) estimate the monetary value of water lost due to the invasion. The sap flow rates of individual P. juliflora trees were measured using the heat ratio method while stand ET was quantified using the eddy covariance method. Transpiration by individual trees ranged from 1–36 L/day, with an average of 7 L of water per tree per day. The daily average transpiration of a Prosopis tree was about 3.4 (± 0.5) mm and the daily average ET of a dense Prosopis stand was about 3.7 (± 1.6) mm. Using a fractional cover map of P. juliflora (over an area of 1.18 million ha), water use of P. juliflora in Afar Region was estimated to be approximately 3.1–3.3 billion m3/yr. This volume of water would be sufficient to irrigate about 460,000 ha of cotton or 330,000 ha of sugar cane, the main crops in the area, which would generate an estimated net benefit of approximately US$320 million and US$ 470 million per growing season from cotton and sugarcane, respectively. Hence, P. juliflora invasion in the Afar Region has serious impacts on water availability and on the provision of other ecosystem services and ultimately on rural livelihoods.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81776-6Publisher's versio

Using remote sensing and ecosystem accounting to assess changes in ecosystems, with an illustration for the Orinoco river basin

A further step in understanding the connections between ecosystems and the economy has been the development of ecosystem accounting. Ecosystem accounting assess changes on ecosystems and ecosystem services using cartographical and statistic information. However, such information is often non-existent or scarce, inaccessible and expensive. Remote sensing provides timely data over large coverages and can be a useful source of spatially explicit data at relatively low cost. This thesis shows the use of MODIS land surface products to support ecosystem accounting in the assessment of unsustainable changes in ecosystems. Examples of how the MODIS products can be used to populate the extent, condition and capacity accounts have been demonstrated in the chapters of this thesis. Moreover, examples of how ecosystem accounting can be combined with other multidisciplinary quantitative frameworks and on how ecosystem accounting can be applied in the assessment of human-managed ecosystems have been also provided. The potential use of the moderate resolution sensor VIIRS and the high-resolution sensors on board the Landsat 8 and Sentinel satellites as a source of spatially explicit information to populate accounts was recognized in the synthesis chapter. Moreover, the potential use of other MODIS products such as the atmosphere, cryosphere and ocean products to expand the assessment of other ecological areas such as the atmosphere and the sea were identified in the synthesis chapter.</p

Proceedings...

Anais e resumos dos trabalhos apresentados na II SIGEE.bitstream/item/152904/1/Second-International-Symposium-II-SIGEE.pdfCoordenador: Roberto Giolo de Almeida. Organizadores: Patrícia Perondi Anchão Oliveira; Maurício Saito; Cleber Oliveira Soares; Lucas Galvan; Lucimara Chiari; Fabiana Villa Alves; Davi José Bungenstab

TWINLATIN: Twinning European and Latin-American river basins for research enabling sustainable water resources management. Combined Report D3.1 Hydrological modelling report and D3.2 Evaluation report

Water use has almost tripled over the past 50 years and in some regions the water demand already exceeds supply (Vorosmarty et al., 2000). The world is facing a “global water crisis”; in many countries, current levels of water use are unsustainable, with systems vulnerable to collapse from even small changes in water availability. The need for a scientifically-based assessment of the potential impacts on water resources of future changes, as a basis for society to adapt to such changes, is strong for most parts of the world. Although the focus of such assessments has tended to be climate change, socio-economic changes can have as significant an impact on water availability across the four main use sectors i.e. domestic, agricultural, industrial (including energy) and environmental. Withdrawal and consumption of water is expected to continue to grow substantially over the next 20-50 years (Cosgrove & Rijsberman, 2002), and consequent changes in availability may drastically affect society and economies. One of the most needed improvements in Latin American river basin management is a higher level of detail in hydrological modelling and erosion risk assessment, as a basis for identification and analysis of mitigation actions, as well as for analysis of global change scenarios. Flow measurements are too costly to be realised at more than a few locations, which means that modelled data are required for the rest of the basin. Hence, TWINLATIN Work Package 3 “Hydrological modelling and extremes” was formulated to provide methods and tools to be used by other WPs, in particular WP6 on “Pollution pressure and impact analysis” and WP8 on “Change effects and vulnerability assessment”. With an emphasis on high and low flows and their impacts, WP3 was originally called “Hydrological modelling, flooding, erosion, water scarcity and water abstraction”. However, at the TWINLATIN kick-off meeting it was agreed that some of these issues resided more appropriately in WP6 and WP8, and so WP3 was renamed to focus on hydrological modelling and hydrological extremes. The specific objectives of WP3 as set out in the Description of Work are

Seeing the forest for the streams: A multiscale study of land-use change and stream ecosystems in the Amazon's agricultural frontier

Global demand for agricultural products is an increasingly important driver of deforestation in the Amazon Basin. This dissertation examines the consequences of agricultural expansion for stream ecosystems in the southern Amazon's agricultural frontier. At regional scales, the removal of watershed forest cover is known to change the energy balance and influence hydro-climatic cycling by altering stream flow, regional rainfall patterns, and land surface temperatures. At the landscape scale, these physical changes may be further exacerbated by land management practices that lead to the degradation of riparian forest buffers; decreases in connectivity; changes in the amount of light, nutrient, and sediment inputs; and decreases in water quality. Together, land use and management influence the quality and distribution of aquatic habitats within stream networks, potentially decreasing stream biotic integrity and resilience to further disturbances. Brazil's Mato Grosso state is one of the most actively expanding agricultural frontiers in the world and represents an ideal case study for examining the linkages among tropical deforestation, agricultural expansion, and the conservation of freshwater ecosystems. Mato Grosso accounted for 40% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the early 2000s - primarily due to the expansion of soybeans and cattle ranching. Deforestation rates have since dropped throughout the Amazon, but there is a lack of spatially explicit information about the land use transitions accompanying this decline. To address this gap, I combined government data on deforestation and production with the MODIS satellite time series to quantify the spatial-temporal dynamics of land use change in the region. Although agricultural expansion during this period slowed with declining commodity prices, the decline in deforestation is partly explained by a shift from soybean expansion into forests (26% of expansion from 2001-2005) to expansion into already cleared pasture lands (9% of expansion form 2006-2010). Beyond documenting these trends, the resulting dataset is a critical first step in evaluating the influence of land use and land use history on freshwater ecosystems at multiple scales. In the headwaters region of the Xingu River Basin, the proportion of small watersheds (microbasins) dominated by agriculture (>60% of area) increased from 20 to 40% from 2001 to 2010. At the same time, the stream network became increasingly fragmented by the removal of riparian forest buffers and installation of farm impoundments. I used high resolution satellite data (ASTER) to produce the first landscape-level documentation of farm impoundments in the region, mapping approximately 10,000 impoundments (one per 7.6 km of stream length) in 2007. At the catchment scale, I collected field data in 12 headwater streams to examine the effect of land management on instream water quality. Watershed forest cover (from MODIS), the density of impoundments (from ASTER), and the percent forest in upstream riparian buffers (from Landsat) were all associated with substantial increases in stream temperature. These increases in fragmentation and water temperature may have large cumulative effects on the stream network and reduce the ability of downstream protected areas to conserve freshwater resources. At the scale of the Amazon Basin, my analysis indicates that 30% of indigenous lands and protected areas are highly vulnerable to future reductions in hydrologic connectivity, simply because of their location within their watersheds. These impacts could be substantially mitigated through enforcement of existing legislation to protect riparian buffers and new regulations to limit the number of impoundments in emerging agricultural landscapes

Fire

Vegetation plays a crucial role in regulating environmental conditions, including weather and climate. The amount of water and carbon dioxide in the air and the albedo of our planet are all influenced by vegetation, which in turn influences all life on Earth. Soil properties are also strongly influenced by vegetation, through biogeochemical cycles and feedback loops (see Volume 1A—Section 4). Vegetated landscapes on Earth provide habitat and energy for a rich diversity of animal species, including humans. Vegetation is also a major component of the world economy, through the global production of food, fibre, fuel, medicine, and other plantbased resources for human consumptio

Great Plains Research, Spring 2011, Vol. 21, No. 1 (complete issue)

Workplace Religious Accommodation for Muslims and the Promise of State Constitutionalism • Peter J. Longo and Joan M. Blauwkamp . 3 Using Euro-American Hunting Data to Assess Western Great Plains Biogeography, 1806-35 • Cody Newton . 17 The Political Consequences of Population Consolidation in Nebraska • Diane L. Duffin . 27 Cottonwood Riparian Site Selection on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation • Julie A. Thorstenson, Diane H. Rickerl, and Janet H. Gritzner . 39 Do Invasive Riparian Woody Plants Affect Hydrology and Ecosystem Processes? • Julie A. Huddle, Tala Awada, Derrel L. Martin, Xinhua Zhou, Sue Ellen Pegg, and Scott J. Josiah . 49 Estimation of Land Surface Evapotranspiration with a Satellite Remote Sensing Procedure • Ayse Irmak, Ian Ratcliffe, Pariskhit Ranade, Kenneth G. Hubbard, Ramesh K. Singh, Babuarao Kamble, and Jeppe Kjaersgaard . 73 Health and Fertility Implications Related to Seasonal Changes in Kidney Fat Index of White-tailed Jackrabbits in South Dakota • Dustin Schaible and Charles Dieter . 89 Historic and Contemporary Trends of the Conservation Reserve Program and Ring-necked Pheasants in South Dakota • Christopher R. Laingen . 95 BOOK REVIEWS . 105 Phillips, Caroline, and Harry Allen, eds. Bridging the Divide: Indigenous Communities and Archaeology into the 21st Century • Reviewed by Larry J. Zimmerman . 105 Larson, Mary Lou, Marcel Kornfeld, and George C. Frison, eds. Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies • Reviewed by Jack W. Brink . 105 Dingus, Lowell, and Mark A. Norell Barnum Brown: The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus rex. • Reviewed by Donald M. Henderson . 106 Nicholls, Steve Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery • Reviewed by John Herron . 107 Barrow, Mark V, Jr. Nature\u27s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology • Reviewed by Peter A. Bednekoff . 107 Lovelock, James; Foreword by Martin Rees The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning • Reviewed by R.F. Diffendal, Jr . 108 Marchildon, Gregory P., ed. A Dry Oasis: Institutional Adaptation to Climate on the Canadian Plains • Reviewed by Sian Mooney . 109 Armstrong, Christopher, Matthew Evenden, and H.v. Nelles The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow •Reviewed by Ted Binnema and David Vogt. . 109 Helzer, Chris The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States •Reviewed by David J. Gibson . 110 Smith, Daryl, Dave Williams, Greg Houseal, and Kirk Henderson The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Prairie Restoration in the Upper Midwest •Reviewed by Gerry Steinauer . 110 Williams, Dave The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Seed and Seedling Identification in the Upper Midwest •Reviewed by H.L. Hillhouse . 111 Gupta, Ram B., and Ayhan Demirbas Gasoline, Diesel, and Ethanol Biofuels from Grasses and Plants •Reviewed by Adam J. Liska . 112 Reaume, Tom 620 Wild Plants of North America: Fully Illustrated Reviewed by MarkJ. Leoschke . 112 Janovy, John, Jr. Pieces of the Plains: Memories and Predictions from the Heart of America Reviewed by Mark Hammer . 113 Cartron, Jean-Luc E., ed. Raptors of New Mexico Reviewed by Brian A. Millsap . 114 Nigge, Klaus Whooping Crane: Images from the Wild •Reviewed by Paul A. Johnsgard . 114 Hornocker, Maurice, and Sharon Negri, eds. Cougar: Ecology and Conservation •Reviewed by Ora nit Gilad . 115 Popadiuk, Roman The Leadership of George Bush: An Insider\u27s View of the Forty-First President •Reviewed by Caroline Heldman . 115 Flentje, H. Edward, and Joseph A. Aistrup Kansas Politics and Government: The Clash of Political Cultures •Reviewed by Burdett A. Loomis . 116 Miller, J.R. Compact, Contract, Covenant: Aboriginal TreatyMaking in Canada •Reviewed by Sidney L. Harring . 117 Borrows, John Canada\u27s Indigenous Constitution •Reviewed by Signa A. Daum Shanks . 117 Knafla, Louis A., and Haijo Westra, eds. Aboriginal Title and Indigenous Peoples: Canada, Australia, and New Zealand •Reviewed by Dwight Newman . 118 Schick, Carol, and James McNinch, eds. I Thought Pocahontas Was a Movie : Perspectives on Race/Culture Binaries in Education and Service Professions •Reviewed by Tracy L. Friedel . 119 Work, L. Susan; Foreword by Lindsay G. Robertson The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma: A Legal History •Reviewed by Andrew K. Frank . 119 Meadows, William C. Kiowa Military Societies: Ethnohistory and Ritual •Reviewed by Gregory R. Campbell . 120 Marchildon, Gregory P., ed. Immigration and Settlement, 1870-1939 •Reviewed by Hans Werner . 121 Loewen, Royden, and Gerald Friesen Immigrants in Prairie Cities: Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth-Century Canada •Reviewed by Lori Wilkinson . 121 Swearingen, William Scott, Jr. Environmental City: People, Place, Politics, and the Meaning of Modern Austin •Reviewed by Jonathan R. Wynn . 122 Long, Joshua Weird City: Sense of Place and Creative Resistance in Austin, Texas •Reviewed by Sally Caldwell . 123 Carr, Patrick J., and Maria J. Kefalas Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means for America •Reviewed by Peter F. Korsching . 123 NEWS AND NOTES