Twinning European and South Asian river basins to enhance capacity and implement adaptive integrated water resources management approaches – results from the EC-project BRAHMATWINN

The EC-project BRAHMATWINN was carrying out a harmonised integrated water resources management (IWRM) approach as addressed by the European Water Initiative (EWI) in headwater river systems of alpine mountain massifs of the twinning Upper Danube River Basin (UDRB) and the Upper Brahmaputra River Basins (UBRB) in Europe and Southeast Asia respectively. Social and natural scientists in cooperation with water law experts and local stakeholders produced the project outcomes presented in Chapter 2 till Chapter 10 of this publication. BRAHMATWINN applied a holistic approach towards IWRM comprising climate modelling, socio-economic and governance analysis and concepts together with methods and integrated tools of applied Geoinformatics. A detailed description of the deliverables produced by the BRAHMATWINN project is published on the project homepage <a href="http://www.brahmatwinn.uni-jena.de/" target="_blank">http://www.brahmatwinn.uni-jena.de</a>

PERMIAN CORALS FROM CHITRAL (NW PAKISTAN)

The present paper describes the species Pseudobuangia chitralica,  Yatsengia hangchowensis, ? Protomichelinia multitabulata multitabulata,  Protomichelinia guizhouensis flexuosa, Protomichelinia siyangensis and Sinopora ? cf. syrinx  from the Baroghil region of NW Pakistan. The fauna originates from different levels, from the Sakmarian to the Artinskian, or even a more younger

Development of adaptive IWRM options for climate change mitigation and adaptation

Adaptive Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) options related to the impacts of climate change in the twinning basins of the Upper Danube River Basin (UDRB) and the Upper Brahmaputra River Basin (UBRB) are developed based on the results obtained in the different work packages of the BRAHMATWINN project. They have been described and discussed in Chapter 2 till Chapter 9 and the paper is referring to and is integrating these findings with respect to their application and interpretation for the development of adaptive IWRM options addressing impacts of climate change in river basins. The data and information related to the results discussed in Chapter 2 till 8 have been input to the RBIS as a central component of the IWRMS (Chapter 9). Meanwhile the UDRB has been analysed with respect to IWRM and climate change impacts by various projects, i.e. the GLOWA-Danube BMBF funded project (GLOWA Danube, 2009; Mauser and Ludwig, 2002) the UBRB has not been studied so far in a similar way as it was done in the BRAHMATWINN project. Therefore the IWRM option development is focussing on the UBRB but the methodology presented can be applied for the UDRB and other river basins as well. Data presented and analysed in this chapter have been elaborated by the BRAHMATWINN project partners and are published in the project deliverable reports available from the project homepage http://www.brahmatwinn.uni-jena.de/index.php?id=5311&L=2

Development and application of the modelling system J2000-S for the EU-water framework directive

The scientific sound definition of measures to achieve the goals of the EU water framework directive (WFD) acquires spatially distributed analyses of the water and substance dynamics in meso- to macro-scale catchments. For this purpose, modelling tools or systems are needed which are robust and fast enough to be applied on such scales, but which are also able to simulate the impact of changes on single fields or small areas of a specific land use in the catchment. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; To face these challenges, we combined the fully-distributed hydrological model J2000 with the nitrogen transport routines of the Soil Water Assessment Tool SWAT model, which are normally applied in a semi-distributive approach. With this combination, we could extend the quantitative focus of J2000 with qualitative processes and could overcome the semi-distributed limitation of SWAT. For the implementation and combination of the components, we used the Jena Adaptable Modelling System JAMS (Kralisch and Krause, 2006) which helped tremendously in the relatively rapid and easy development of the new resultant model J2000-S (J2000-Substance). &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; The modelling system was applied in the upper Gera watershed, located in Thuringia, Germany. The catchment has an area of 844 km&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; and includes three of the typical landscape forms of Thuringia. The application showed, that the new modelling system was able to reproduce the daily hydrological as well as the nitrogen dynamics with a sufficient quality. The paper will describe the results of the new model and compare them with the results obtained with the original semi-distributed application of SWAT

Multiscale investigations in a mesoscale catchment ? hydrological modelling in the Gera catchment

International audienceThe application of the hydrological process-oriented model J2000 (J2K) is part of a cooperation project between the Thuringian Environmental Agency (Thüringer Landesanstalt für Umwelt und Geologie ? TLUG) and the Department of Geoinformatics of the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena focussing on the implementation of the EU water framework directive (WFD). In the first project phase J2K was parametrised and calibrated for a mesoscale catchment to quantify if it can be used as hydrological part of a multi-objective tool-box needed for the implementation of the WFD. The main objectives for that pilot study were: The development and application of a suitable distribution concept which provide the spatial data basis for various tasks and which reflects the specific physiogeographical variability and heterogeneity of river basins adequately. This distribution concept should consider the following constraints: The absolute number of spatial entities, which forms the basis for any distributive modelling should be as small as possible, but the spatial distributed factors, which controls quantitative and qualitative hydrological processes should not be generalised to much. The distribution concept of hydrological response units HRUs (Flügel, 1995) was selected and enhanced by a topological routing scheme (Staudenrausch, 2001) for the simulation of lateral flow processes. J2K should be calibrated for one subbasin of the pilot watershed only. Then the parameter set should be used on the other subbasins (referred as transfer basins) to investigate and quantify the transferability of a calibrated model and potential spatial dependencies of its parameter set. In addition, potential structural problems in the process description should be identified by the transfer to basins which show a different process dominance as the one which was used for calibration does. Model calibration and selection of efficiency criteria for the quantification of the model quality should be based on a comprehensive sensitivity and uncertainty analysis (Bäse, 2005) and multi-response validations with independent data sets (Krause and Flügel, 2005) carried out in advance in the headwater part of the calibration basin. To obtain good results in the transfer basins the calibrated parameter set could be adjusted slightly. This step was considered as necessary because of specific constraints which were not of significant importance in the calibration basin. This readjustment should be carried out on parameters which show a sensitive reaction on the identified differences in the environmental setup. Potential scaling problems of the process description, distribution concept or model structure should be identified by the comparison of the modelling results obtained in a small headwater region of the calibration basin with observed streamflow to find out if the selected efficiency measures show a significant change

Release of prostaglandin D2 by murine mast cells: importance of metabolite formation for antiproliferative activity.

Prostaglandin (PG) D2, PGJ2 and delta12-PGJ2 are antiproliferative eicosanoids. We investigated the production of PGD2 by murine bone marrow-derived mast cells (BMMC) taking into consideration metabolism of PGD2 to PGD2 and delta12-PGJ2. PG-metabolites were quantified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) combined with radioimmunoassay (RIA). Stimulated with calcium ionophore A23187 BMMC released eight-fold more PGJ2 and delta12-PGJ2 than PGD2. Conversion of endogenously produced PGD2 to PGJ2 and delta12-PGJ2 proceeded rapidly in contrast to metabolism of exogenously added PGD2. The antiproliferative potency of these prostaglandins is demonstrated in vitro. We conclude that determination of PGD2 production by mast cells must take into consideration rapid conversion to active derivatives, which may play a significant role in growth regulation

Tidal flat deposits of the Lower Proterozoic Campbell Group along the southwestern margin of the Kaapvaal Craton, Northern Cape Province, South Africa

Lower Proterozoic stromatolites and associated clastic carbonate deposits of the Campbell Group, from the southern margin (Prieska area) of the Kaapvaal Craton, northern Cape Province, are described. Contrary to previous interpretations (Beukes, 1978; 1980a) shallow subtidal to supratidal facies are recognised and discussed in regional context. An alternative model for the facies development of the Campbell Group is proposed