Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Female Sportswriters as Targets for Sexual Harassment

Professional sports are big business in the United States, and so perhaps it is no surprise that reporters from magazines, newspapers, and television shows and networks flock to pro locker rooms and practice fields to interview the players and coaches. The situation can become a bit more complex when the person on the other end of the microphone is a woman. Female sportswriters often find themselves as targets for sexual harassment and lewd behavior. This Note considers the possible legal options that sportswriters may have when they are victimized by the athletes and coaches they are charged with reporting on. However, because a showing of severity or pervasiveness is necessary to state a claim, most reporters\u27 experiences fall short of the requirements for a Title VII sexual harassment suit. While various tort claims may provide for recovery, this Note proposes that a far better solution could come from the teams and organizations themselves. All professional sports leagues can and should develop comprehensive media policies that clearly set forth behavioral expectations, both of the players and the media. Teams should undergo training specifically tailored to the unique circumstances of professional sports, and a combination of meaningful fines plus suspensions should be the consequence for players that engage in inappropriate behavior

Soil, Snow, Weather, and Sub-Surface Storage Data from a Mountain Catchment in the Rain–Snow Transition Zone

A comprehensive hydroclimatic data set is presented for the 2011 water year to improve understanding of hydrologic processes in the rain-snow transition zone. This type of dataset is extremely rare in scientific literature because of the quality and quantity of soil depth, soil texture, soil moisture, and soil temperature data. Standard meteorological and snow cover data for the entire 2011 water year are included, which include several rain-on-snow events. Surface soil textures and soil depths from 57 points are presented as well as soil texture profiles from 14 points. Meteorological data include continuous hourly shielded, unshielded, and wind corrected precipitation, wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity, dew point temperature, and incoming solar and thermal radiation data. Sub-surface data included are hourly soil moisture data from multiple depths from 7 soil profiles within the catchment, and soil temperatures from multiple depths from 2 soil profiles. Hydrologic response data include hourly stream discharge from the catchment outlet weir, continuous snow depths from one location, intermittent snow depths from 5 locations, and snow depth and density data from ten weekly snow surveys. Though it represents only a single water year, the presentation of both above and below ground hydrologic condition makes it one of the most detailed and complete hydro-climatic datasets from the climatically sensitive rainsnow transition zone for a wide range of modeling and descriptive studies. Data are available at doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.819837

Spatial organisation of groundwater dynamics and streamflow response from different hydropedological units in a montane catchment

Funding was provided by the Leibniz Association (SAW-2012-IGB 4167) within the International Leibniz Graduate School: Aquatic boundaries and linkages- Aqualink. We would like to thank the NRI staff for their help during field work.Peer reviewedPostprin

Groundwater isoscapes in a montane headwater catchment show dominance of well-mixed storage

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the European Research Council (ERC, project GA 335910 VeWa) for funding. We further thank Jonathan Dick for running the isotope analysis.Peer reviewedPostprin

Hydrological Partitioning in the Critical Zone: Recent Advances and Opportunities for Developing Transferable Understanding of Water Cycle Dynamics

Hydrology is an integrative discipline linking the broad array of water-related research with physical, ecological, and social sciences. The increasing breadth of hydrological research, often where subdisciplines of hydrology partner with related sciences, reflects the central importance of water to environmental science, while highlighting the fractured nature of the discipline itself. This lack of coordination among hydrologic subdisciplines has hindered the development of hydrologic theory and integrated models capable of predicting hydrologic partitioning across time and space. The recent development of the concept of the critical zone (CZ), an open system extending from the top of the canopy to the base of groundwater, brings together multiple hydrological subdisciplines with related physical and ecological sciences. Observations obtained by CZ researchers provide a diverse range of complementary process and structural data to evaluate both conceptual and numerical models. Consequently, a cross-site focus on ‘‘critical zone hydrology’’ has potential to advance the discipline of hydrology and to facilitate the transition of CZ observatories into a research network with immediate societal relevance. Here we review recent work in catchment hydrology and hydrochemistry, hydrogeology, and ecohydrology that highlights a common knowledge gap in how precipitation is partitioned in the critical zone: ‘‘how is the amount, routing, and residence time of water in the subsurface related to the biogeophysical structure of the CZ?’’ Addressing this question will require coordination among hydrologic subdisciplines and interfacing sciences, and catalyze rapid progress in understanding current CZ structure and predicting how climate and land cover changes will affect hydrologic partitioning

Groundwater Recharge Estimation Using Chloride Mass Balance Dry Creek Experimental Watershed

Estimates of groundwater recharge conducted via chloride mass balance application at multiple catchment scales within Dry Creek Experimental Watershed delineate both a percentage of annual precipitation partitioned to recharge and spatial variability within the recharge. Inclusion of stream flow discharge in the chloride mass balance equation further qualifies the recharge estimates as net groundwater recharge values representing water available to deeper mountain block groundwater flow paths. The estimate of annual precipitation partitioned to net groundwater recharge for the entire catchment, water year July 2004 through June 2005, is zero to 11%. However, application at multiple catchment scales within Dry Creek Experimental Watershed indicates as much as 22% of annual precipitation being partitioned to net groundwater recharge in higher elevation subcatchments during the same period. Results for the second study year, July 2005 through June 2006, were predominantly assessed as invalid due to mobilization of inter-annually stored unsaturated zone chloride. Spring and stream chloride concentration time-series data applied to hydro graph separation were utilized to determine the timing of unsaturated zone chloride mobilization and concurrent vertical and lateral transport toward bedrock infiltration and stream channels. Additionally, gain/loss analyses conducted using the stream chloride concentration time-series data provide evidence of stream flow loss to groundwater recharge. The contrasting results for water year 2004-2005 versus 2005-2006 emphasize caution necessary in addressing assumptions underlying application of chloride mass balance to recharge estimation and the need for careful delineation of an appropriate multi-annual period of integration toward an estimate of average annual groundwater recharge

Bedrock Infiltration and Mountain Block Recharge Accounting Using Chloride Mass Balance

Mountain front catchment net groundwater recharge (NR) represents the upper end of mountain block recharge (MBR) groundwater flow paths. Using environmental chloride in precipitation, streamflow and groundwater, we apply chloride mass balance (CMB) to estimate NR at multiple catchment scales within the 27 km2 Dry Creek Experimental Watershed (DCEW) on the Boise Front, southwestern Idaho. The estimate for average annual precipitation partitioning to NR is approximately 14% for DCEW. In contrast, as much as 44% of annual precipitation routes to NR in ephemeral headwater catchments. NR in headwater catchments is likely routed to downgradient springs, baseflow, and MBR, while downgradient streamflow losses contribute further to MBR. A key assumption in the CMB approach is that the change in stored chloride during the study period is zero. We found that this assumption is violated in some individual years, but that a 5-year integration period is sufficient

Small Soil Storage Capacity Limits Benefit of Winter Snowpack to Upland Vegetation

In the western United States, the mountain snowpack is an important natural reservoir that extends spring and summer water delivery to downstream users and ecosystems. The importance of winter snow accumulation to upland ecosystems is not as clearly defined. This study investigates the relative contribution of winter precipitation to upland spring and summer soil moisture storage and availability in a semi-arid mountainous watershed. At this site, coarse soil textures and shallow soil depths limit soil storage capacity to 6–16 cm. Winter precipitation exceeds soil storage capacity by 2.5 times. Accordingly, soil moisture profiles at most locations in the watershed reach field capacity in early winter. With soil storage near capacity, water released by snowmelt primarily contributes to deep drainage and makes a limited contribution to the soil moisture reservoir. Water that is retained by the soil after the snowpack melts is lost to evapotranspiration in as little as 10 days. In contrast, spring precipitation extends moist soil conditions by up to 90 days into the warm season, when ecological water demand is highest. These field observations suggest that changes in spring precipitation, not winter snowpack, may have the greater impact on upland ecosystems in this environment. Furthermore, because winter precipitation is in excess compared to the soil storage capacity, soil moisture availability may be fairly insensitive to climate change-induced transitions from snow to rain

Soil, snow, weather, and sub-surface storage data from a mountain catchment in the rain-snow transition zone

A comprehensive hydroclimatic data set is presented for the 2011 water year to improve understanding of hydrologic processes in the rain-snow transition zone. This type of dataset is extremely rare in scientific literature because of the quality and quantity of soil depth, soil texture, soil moisture, and soil temperature data. Standard meteorological and snow cover data for the entire 2011 water year are included, which include several rain-on-snow events. Surface soil textures and soil depths from 57 points are presented as well as soil texture profiles from 14 points. Meteorological data include continuous hourly shielded, unshielded, and wind corrected precipitation, wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity, dew point temperature, and incoming solar and thermal radiation data. Sub-surface data included are hourly soil moisture data from multiple depths from 7 soil profiles within the catchment, and soil temperatures from multiple depths from 2 soil profiles. Hydrologic response data include hourly stream discharge from the catchment outlet weir, continuous snow depths from one location, intermittent snow depths from 5 locations, and snow depth and density data from ten weekly snow surveys. Though it represents only a single water year, the presentation of both above and below ground hydrologic condition makes it one of the most detailed and complete hydro-climatic datasets from the climatically sensitive rain-snow transition zone for a wide range of modeling and descriptive studies