Simulating alternative sustainable water futures

In the United States of America, urban areas of the arid Southwest are prone to drought risk and changing precipitation patterns; future water supplies are uncertain. A collaborative working group of researchers and practitioners developed alternative future scenarios for 2060—sustainable water futures—that incorporate standard and novel water-adaptation strategies for the Phoenix metropolitan area (hereafter “Phoenix”) in central Arizona, USA. The authors adapted WaterSim-6, a water policy and planning model, to explore differences in water demand and supply for three scenarios as influenced by (1) runoff from the rivers that supply surface water to Phoenix, (2) population growth, (3) water use efficiency, (4) annual rainfall, and (5) land-cover land-use changes. Centralized water-management strategies (direct and indirect potable water reuse and reclaimed supplies) and decentralized strategies (rainwater harvesting and greywater use) were explored. We observed decreased reliance on surface water supplies, offset by increased municipal groundwater pumping in the Strategic scenario, but by alternative water supplies (non-potable water sources including greywater, reclaimed water, and rainwater harvested) in the Desert Wetland and Almost Zero Waste (AZW) scenarios. Even under modest policy implementation and service-connection adoption rates associated with our Strategic scenario, by 2060 alternative supplies from non-potable sources could offset 30% or more of outdoor water demand. Aggressive policy implementations associated with the AZW scenario suggest that up to 80% of outdoor water demand could likewise be met. The WaterSim platform combined with co-produced future scenarios illuminates tradeoffs in support of decision making for long-term sustainability of a water-limited region

Diverse Cretaceous larvae reveal the evolutionary and behavioural history of antlions and lacewings

Larvae of the Myrmeleontiformia, which include antlions, are not well preserved in much of the fossil record. Here, Badano et al. describe a collection of predatory myrmeleontiform larvae from Cretaceous amber, resolving their evolutionary relationships and inferring their ecology

EDGE2D-EIRENE simulations of the influence of isotope effects and anomalous transport coefficients on near scrape-off layer radial electric field

EDGE2D-EIRENE (the 'code') simulations show that radial electric field, Er, in the near scrape-off layer (SOL) of tokamaks can have large variations leading to a strong local E x B shear greatly exceeding that in the core region. This was pointed out in simulations of JET plasmas with varying divertor geometry, where the magnetic configuration with larger predicted near SOL E-r was found to have lower H-mode power threshold, suggesting that turbulence suppression in the SOL by local E. x. B shear can be a player in the L-H transition physics (Delabie et al 2015 42nd EPS Conf. on Plasma Physics (Lisbon, Portugal, 22-26 June 2015) paper O3.113 (http://ocs.ciemat.es/EPS2015PAP/pdf/O3.113.pdf), Chankin et al 2017 Nucl. Mater. Energy 12 273). Further code modeling of JET plasmas by changing hydrogen isotopes (H-D-T) showed that the magnitude of the near SOL E-r is lower in H cases in which the H-mode threshold power is higher (Chankin et al 2017 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 59 045012). From the experiment it is also known that hydrogen plasmas have poorer particle and energy confinement than deuterium plasmas, consistent with the code simulation results showing larger particle diffusion coefficients at the plasma edge, including SOL, in hydrogen plasmas (Maggi et al 2018 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 60 014045). All these experimental observations and code results support the hypothesis that the near SOL E x B shear can have an impact on the plasma confinement. The present work analyzes neutral ionization patterns of JET plasmas with different hydrogen isotopes in L-mode cases with fixed input power and gas puffing rate, and its impact on target electron temperature, T-e, and SOL E-r. The possibility of a self-feeding mechanism for the increase in the SOL E-r via the interplay between poloidal E x B drift and target T-e is discussed. It is also shown that reducing anomalous turbulent transport coefficients, particle diffusion and electron and ion heat conductivities, leads to higher peak target T-e and larger E-r, suggesting the possibility of a positive feedback loop, under an implicitly made assumption that the E x B shear in the SOL is capable of suppressing turbulence

A power-balance model of the density limit in fusion plasmas: application to the L-mode tokamak

A power-balance model, with radiation losses from impurities and neutrals, gives a unified description of the density limit (DL) of the stellarator, the L-mode tokamak, and the reversed field pinch (RFP). The model predicts a Sudo-like scaling for the stellarator, a Greenwald- like scaling, alpha I-p(8/9), for the RFP and the ohmic tokamak, a mixed scaling, alpha (PIp4/9)-I-4/9, for the additionally heated L-mode tokamak. In a previous paper (Zanca et al 2017 Nucl. Fusion 57 056010) the model was compared with ohmic tokamak, RFP and stellarator experiments. Here, we address the issue of the DL dependence on heating power in the L-mode tokamak. Experimental data from high-density disrupted L-mode discharges performed at JET, as well as in other machines, arc taken as a term of comparison. The model fits the observed maximum densities better than the pure Greenwald limit

Direct gyrokinetic comparison of pedestal transport in JET with carbon and ITER-like walls

This paper compares the gyrokinetic instabilities and transport in two representative JET pedestals, one (pulse 78697) from the JET configuration with a carbon wall (C) and another (pulse 92432) from after the installation of JET's ITER-like Wall (ILW). The discharges were selected for a comparison of JET-ILW and JET-C discharges with good confinement at high current (3 MA, corresponding also to low rho(*)) and retain the distinguishing features of JET-C and JET-ILW, notably, decreased pedestal top temperature for JET-ILW. A comparison of the profiles and heating power reveals a stark qualitative difference between the discharges: the JET-ILW pulse (92432) requires twice the heating power, at a gas rate of 1.9 x 10(22) e s(-1), to sustain roughly half the temperature gradient of the JET-C pulse (78697), operated at zero gas rate. This points to heat transport as a central component of the dynamics limiting the JET-ILW pedestal and reinforces the following emerging JET-ILW pedestal transport paradigm, which is proposed for further examination by both theory and experiment. ILW conditions modify the density pedestal in ways that decrease the normalized pedestal density gradient a/L-n, often via an outward shift in relation to the temperature pedestal. This is attributable to some combination of direct metal wall effects and the need for increased fueling to mitigate tungsten contamination. The modification to the density profile increases eta = L-n/L-T, thereby producing more robust ion temperature gradient (ITG) and electron temperature gradient driven instability. The decreased pedestal gradients for JET-ILW (92432) also result in a strongly reduced E x B shear rate, further enhancing the ion scale turbulence. Collectively, these effects limit the pedestal temperature and demand more heating power to achieve good pedestal performance. Our simulations, consistent with basic theoretical arguments, find higher ITG turbulence, stronger stiffness, and higher pedestal transport in the ILW plasma at lower rho(*)