81 research outputs found

    Spatial uncertainty in sap velocity measurements and tree water use upscaling in american beech

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    4 páginas.-- 3 figuras.-- 10 referencias.-- Póster presentado en el XI Simposio Hispano-Portugués de Relaciones Hídricas en las Plantas, Sevilla 17-20 Sep. (2012)We examined the variation insap velocity radially, azimuthally, at different heights and across different tree sizes for the species Fagus grandifolia. The results demonstrate that the main sources of variability are radial variability and tree size. The implications for scaling up routine point measurements of sap velocity to the whole-tree andstand levels are discussed.This work was funded by the University of New Hampshire. We thank the US Forest Service at BEF and Hubbard Brook for the facilitation of research activities and permission to access sites.N

    The Uses of (Digital) Literacy

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    This article shares research facilitated by a multinational technology provider, converging mobile networked technology (tablets) used across school and home, a technology enhanced community ‘third space’ providing workshops for students aged 6-9 with their parents / carers. The approach taken avoids the instrumental measurement of functional digital literacy competences, but instead seeks to negotiate, with participants and the various stakeholders, a more nuanced and complex understanding of the ‘uses of literacy’ (from Hoggart, 1957) in digital contexts and in a deeply situated, specific local setting. Working with our findings, we later put Amartya Sen’s concept of capability (2005, 2008) to work on our data in order to provide a discussion on how the digital literacy community might distinguish digital competences as functionings from the ‘uses’ of such competences for a broader range of capabilities. Findings demonstrate initial successes in using networked mobile technology in bridging the school-family-community triad as a third space. However, the outcomes reveal the complexity and specificity of factors which restrict the potential for mobile technology in education to lead on to further reaching capabilities – delimiting the uses of digital literacy

    Economics of Water Security

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    In the immediate future, accessible runoff of fresh water is unlikely to increase more than the demand forecasted. It will have an impact on economic growth as it may reduce the per capita income of countries and create water conflicts. Such global threat creates a policy conundrum of how to meet basic needs and maximise the benefits from water resources. This chapter investigates different economic instruments in alleviating water-related risks and dealt with associated impacts.Anik Bhaduri, C. Dionisio Pérez-Blanco, Dolores Rey, Sayed Iftekhar, Aditya Kaushik, Alvar Escriva-Bou, Javier Calatrava, David Adamson, Sara Palomo-Hierro, Kelly Jones, Heidi Asbjornsen, Mónica A. Altamirano, Elena Lopez-Gunn, Maksym Polyakov, Mahsa Motlagh, and Maksud Bekchano

    Guidelines and considerations for designing field experiments simulating precipitation extremes in forest ecosystems

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    1. Precipitation regimes are changing in response to climate change, yet understanding of how forest ecosystems respond to extreme droughts and pluvials remains incomplete. As future precipitation extremes will likely fall outside the range of historical variability, precipitation manipulation experiments (PMEs) are critical to advancing knowledge about potential ecosystem responses. However, few PMEs have been conducted in forests compared to short‐statured ecosystems, and forest PMEs have unique design requirements and constraints. Moreover, past forest PMEs have lacked coordination, limiting cross‐site comparisons. Here, we review and synthesize approaches, challenges, and opportunities for conducting PMEs in forests, with the goal of guiding design decisions, while maximizing the potential for coordination. 2. We reviewed 63 forest PMEs at 70 sites world‐wide. Workshops, meetings, and communications with experimentalists were used to generate and build consensus around approaches for addressing the key challenges and enhancing coordination. 3. Past forest PMEs employed a variety of study designs related to treatment level, replication, plot and infrastructure characteristics, and measurement approaches. Important considerations for establishing new forest PMEs include: selecting appropriate treatment levels to reach ecological thresholds; balancing cost, logistical complexity, and effectiveness in infrastructure design; and preventing unintended water subsidies. Response variables in forest PMEs were organized into three broad tiers reflecting increasing complexity and resource intensiveness, with the first tier representing a recommended core set of common measurements. 4. Differences in site conditions combined with unique research questions of experimentalists necessitate careful adaptation of guidelines for forest PMEs to balance local objectives with coordination among experiments. We advocate adoption of a common framework for coordinating forest PME design to enhance cross‐site comparability and advance fundamental knowledge about the response and sensitivity of diverse forest ecosystems to precipitation extremes.New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, Grant/Award Number: NH00071-M; Northern States Research Cooperative, Grant/Award Number: 14-DG-11242307- 142; National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research, Grant/Award Number: 1637685; USDA Forest Service; University of New Hampshire; NASA, Grant/Award Number: NNX14AD31G; USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture McIntire- Stennis Project, Grant/Award Number: NH00071-M; U.S. Department of Energy; Office of Science’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Science program; Pacific Northwest National Labs’ LDRD program; MSCA-IF 2015; EU-Horizon2020 program; NSF’s Research Coordination Network Progra

    Global transpiration data from sap flow measurements: The SAPFLUXNET database

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    Plant transpiration links physiological responses of vegetation to water supply and demand with hydrological, energy, and carbon budgets at the land-atmosphere interface. However, despite being the main land evaporative flux at the global scale, transpiration and its response to environmental drivers are currently not well constrained by observations. Here we introduce the first global compilation of whole-plant transpiration data from sap flow measurements (SAPFLUXNET, https://sapfluxnet.creaf.cat/, last access: 8 June 2021). We harmonized and quality-controlled individual datasets supplied by contributors worldwide in a semi-automatic data workflow implemented in the R programming language. Datasets include sub-daily time series of sap flow and hydrometeorological drivers for one or more growing seasons, as well as metadata on the stand characteristics, plant attributes, and technical details of the measurements. SAPFLUXNET contains 202 globally distributed datasets with sap flow time series for 2714 plants, mostly trees, of 174 species. SAPFLUXNET has a broad bioclimatic coverage, with woodland/shrubland and temperate forest biomes especially well represented (80% of the datasets). The measurements cover a wide variety of stand structural characteristics and plant sizes. The datasets encompass the period between 1995 and 2018, with 50% of the datasets being at least 3 years long. Accompanying radiation and vapour pressure deficit data are available for most of the datasets, while on-site soil water content is available for 56% of the datasets. Many datasets contain data for species that make up 90% or more of the total stand basal area, allowing the estimation of stand transpiration in diverse ecological settings. SAPFLUXNET adds to existing plant trait datasets, ecosystem flux networks, and remote sensing products to help increase our understanding of plant water use, plant responses to drought, and ecohydrological processes. SAPFLUXNET version 0.1.5 is freely available from the Zenodo repository (10.5281/zenodo.3971689; Poyatos et al., 2020a). The "sapfluxnetr"R package-designed to access, visualize, and process SAPFLUXNET data-is available from CRAN. © 2021 Rafael Poyatos et al.This research was supported by the Minis-terio de Economía y Competitividad (grant no. CGL2014-55883-JIN), the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (grant no. RTI2018-095297-J-I00), the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (grant no. CAS16/00207), the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (grant no. SGR1001), the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (RP)), and the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (Academia Award (JMV)). Víctor Flo was supported by the doctoral fellowship FPU15/03939 (MECD, Spain)

    Global transpiration data from sap flow measurements : the SAPFLUXNET database

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    Plant transpiration links physiological responses of vegetation to water supply and demand with hydrological, energy, and carbon budgets at the land-atmosphere interface. However, despite being the main land evaporative flux at the global scale, transpiration and its response to environmental drivers are currently not well constrained by observations. Here we introduce the first global compilation of whole-plant transpiration data from sap flow measurements (SAPFLUXNET, https://sapfluxnet.creaf.cat/, last access: 8 June 2021). We harmonized and quality-controlled individual datasets supplied by contributors worldwide in a semi-automatic data workflow implemented in the R programming language. Datasets include sub-daily time series of sap flow and hydrometeorological drivers for one or more growing seasons, as well as metadata on the stand characteristics, plant attributes, and technical details of the measurements. SAPFLUXNET contains 202 globally distributed datasets with sap flow time series for 2714 plants, mostly trees, of 174 species. SAPFLUXNET has a broad bioclimatic coverage, with woodland/shrubland and temperate forest biomes especially well represented (80 % of the datasets). The measurements cover a wide variety of stand structural characteristics and plant sizes. The datasets encompass the period between 1995 and 2018, with 50 % of the datasets being at least 3 years long. Accompanying radiation and vapour pressure deficit data are available for most of the datasets, while on-site soil water content is available for 56 % of the datasets. Many datasets contain data for species that make up 90 % or more of the total stand basal area, allowing the estimation of stand transpiration in diverse ecological settings. SAPFLUXNET adds to existing plant trait datasets, ecosystem flux networks, and remote sensing products to help increase our understanding of plant water use, plant responses to drought, and ecohydrological processes. SAPFLUXNET version 0.1.5 is freely available from the Zenodo repository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3971689; Poyatos et al., 2020a). The "sapfluxnetr" R package - designed to access, visualize, and process SAPFLUXNET data - is available from CRAN.Peer reviewe

    Scaling from single-point sap velocity measurements to stand transpiration in a multispecies deciduous forest: Uncertainty sources, stand structure effect, and future scenarios

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    9 páginas.-- 5 figuras.-- 2 tablas.-- 58 referencias[EN] A major challenge in studies estimating stand water use in mixed-species forests is how to effectively scale data from individual trees to the stand. This is the case for forest ecosystems in the northeastern USA where differences in water use among species and across different size classes have not been extensively studied, despite their relevance for a wide range of ecosystem services. Our objectives were to assess the importance of different sources of variability on transpiration upscaling and explore the potential impacts of future shifts in species composition on the forest water budget. We measured sap velocity in five tree species (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh., Acer rubrum L., Acer saccharum Marsh., Betula alleghaniensis Britton, and Betula papyrifera Marsh.) in a mature stand and a young stand in New Hampshire, USA. Our results showed that the greatest potential source of error was radial variability and that tree size was more important than species in determining sap velocity. Total sapwood area was demonstrated to exert a strong controlling influence on transpiration, varying depending on tree size and species. We conclude that the effect of potential species shifts on transpiration will depend on the sap velocity, determined not only by radial variation and tree size, but also by the sapwood area distribution in the stand.[FR] Les études dont le but est d'estimer l'utilisation de l'eau a` l'échelle du peuplement dans les forêts mélangées font face a` un défi majeur : comment passer efficacement de l'échelle des arbres individuels a` l'échelle du peuplement. C'est le cas pour les écosystèmes forestiers dans le nord-est des États-Unis où les différences dans l'utilisation de l'eau entre les espèces et parmi les différentes catégories de taille n'ont pas fait l'objet d'études approfondies malgré leur pertinence pour une vaste gamme de services de l'écosystème. Nos objectifs consistaient a` évaluer l'importance des différentes sources de variation sur l'extrapolation de la transpiration et a` explorer les impacts potentiels des changements futurs dans la composition en espèces sur le bilan hydrique de la forêt. Nous avons mesuré la vitesse de la sève chez cinq espèces d'arbre (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh., Acer rubrum L., Acer saccharum Marsh., Betula alleghaniensis Britton et Betula papyrifera Marsh.) dans un peuplement mature et dans un jeune peuplement au New Hampshire (É.-U.). Nos résultats ont montré que la plus grande source potentielle d'erreur était la variation radiale et que la vitesse de la sève était davantage déterminée par la taille des arbres que par l'espèce. La surface totale de bois d'aubier avait un effet très déterminant sur la transpiration qui variait selon la taille et l'espèce d'arbre. Nous concluons que l'effet des changements potentiels dans la composition en espèces sur la transpiration dépendra de la vitesse de la sève qui est principalement déterminée par la variation radiale et la taille des arbres mais aussi de la distribution de la surface de bois d'aubier dans le peuplement.This work was funded by the University of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. The Bartlett Experimental Forest is operated by the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station. S. Mcgraw, P. Pellissier, C. Breton, S. Alvarado-Barrientos, R. Snyder, and Z. Aldag assisted in the field and in the lab. The 2011 stand inventory was led by S. Goswami. Tree heights were measured and compiled by C. Blodgett, T. Fahey, and L. Liu. A. Richardson shared meteorology and solar radiation data from the Bartlett Amerflux tower. The stands used in this experiment are maintained and monitored by the MELNHE project under the direction of R. Yanai and M. Fisk, with funding from NSF grants DEB 0235650 and DEB 0949324Peer reviewe

    On-Line Estimation of Heat Capacity of Process Fluids Using Dynamic Excitation of Temperature.

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    In process control involving energy balances the heat capacity of the process fluid is needed. Although many methods for accurate heat capacity measurements are available for the laboratory, an instrument for online heat capacity measurement has yet to be successfully developed
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