Real-time prediction of rain-triggered lahars: incorporating seasonality and catchment recovery

Rain-triggered lahars are a significant secondary hydrological and geomorphic hazard at volcanoes where unconsolidated pyroclastic material produced by explosive eruptions is exposed to intense rainfall, often occurring for years to decades after the initial eruptive activity. Previous studies have shown that secondary lahar initiation is a function of rainfall parameters, source material characteristics and time since eruptive activity. In this study, probabilistic rain-triggered lahar forecasting models are developed using the lahar occurrence and rainfall record of the Belham River valley at the Soufrière Hills volcano (SHV), Montserrat, collected between April 2010 and April 2012. In addition to the use of peak rainfall intensity (PRI) as a base forecasting parameter, considerations for the effects of rainfall seasonality and catchment evolution upon the initiation of rain-triggered lahars and the predictability of lahar generation are also incorporated into these models. Lahar probability increases with peak 1 h rainfall intensity throughout the 2-year dataset and is higher under given rainfall conditions in year 1 than year 2. The probability of lahars is also enhanced during the wet season, when large-scale synoptic weather systems (including tropical cyclones) are more common and antecedent rainfall and thus levels of deposit saturation are typically increased. The incorporation of antecedent conditions and catchment evolution into logistic-regression-based rain-triggered lahar probability estimation models is shown to enhance model performance and displays the potential for successful real-time prediction of lahars, even in areas featuring strongly seasonal climates and temporal catchment recovery

Increased reports of severe myocarditis associated with enterovirus infection in neonates, United Kingdom, 27 June 2022 to 26 April 2023

Enteroviruses are a common cause of seasonal childhood infections. The vast majority of enterovirus infections are mild and self-limiting, although neonates can sometimes develop severe disease. Myocarditis is a rare complication of enterovirus infection. Between June 2022 and April 2023, twenty cases of severe neonatal enteroviral myocarditis caused by coxsackie B viruses were reported in the United Kingdom. Sixteen required critical care support and two died. Enterovirus PCR on whole blood was the most sensitive diagnostic test. We describe the initial public health investigation into this cluster and aim to raise awareness among paediatricians, laboratories and public health specialists

Making subaltern shikaris: histories of the hunted in colonial central India

Academic histories of hunting or shikar in India have almost entirely focused on the sports hunting of British colonists and Indian royalty. This article attempts to balance this elite bias by focusing on the meaning of shikar in the construction of the Gond ‘tribal’ identity in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century colonial central India. Coining the term ‘subaltern shikaris’ to refer to the class of poor, rural hunters, typically ignored in this historiography, the article explores how the British managed to use hunting as a means of state penetration into central India’s forest interior, where they came to regard their Gond forest-dwelling subjects as essentially and eternally primitive hunting tribes. Subaltern shikaris were employed by elite sportsmen and were also paid to hunt in the colonial regime’s vermin eradication programme, which targeted tigers, wolves, bears and other species identified by the state as ‘dangerous beasts’. When offered economic incentives, forest dwellers usually willingly participated in new modes of hunting, even as impact on wildlife rapidly accelerated and became unsustainable. Yet as non-indigenous approaches to nature became normative, there was sometimes also resistance from Gond communities. As overkill accelerated, this led to exclusion of local peoples from natural resources, to their increasing incorporation into dominant political and economic systems, and to the eventual collapse of hunting as a livelihood. All of this raises the question: To what extent were subaltern subjects, like wildlife, ‘the hunted’ in colonial India

The Eastern Hutt hills : management options and implications

4 maps scanned separately.Physical, biological and cultural information relevant to the management of the Eastern Hutt Hills (an area of steep lowland hill country flanking the Lower Hutt urban area) is described. The vegetation maps and descriptions in this section are original work, compiled specifically for this study. Present natural regeneration pathways are described, related to the present vegetation patterns, and. used to discuss future vegetational development. Potential commercial uses for the hills are evaluated - farming, exotic afforestation, urban development, multiple use exotic afforestation, afforestation for firewood, and honey production. Natural regeneration is seen as the logical management option for most of the hills. Supplementary planting of fire resistant belts of vegetation in certain high fire risk areas is suggested, as well as a small multiple use woodlot/motor cycle course. The present uses and the potential for non-vehicular and off-road vehicle recreation is discussed. Possible solutions to the conflicts between off-road vehicle recreation and the community are suggested. The report concludes with a series of proposed management objectives

The nature of natural: defining natural character for the New Zealand context

New Zealand has a long-standing statutory policy goal to preserve the natural character of the coastal environmentand various freshwater environments and their margins. In the absence of an authoritative definition, it has not been possibleto develop a method to measure natural character and its change, nor the outcomes of the long-standing national policy goal.Here we develop a definition of natural character that is relevant and useful in the New Zealand environmental, cultural andlegal/policy context. Literature-derived interpretations of natural character and equivalent concepts are evaluated as to theirpotential suitability for developing a biophysical definition of natural character. Using a set of carefully designed criteria asubset of interpretations are condensed into a definition of natural character. The application of this definition is qualifiedfollowing consideration of the literature addressing human perception and experiences of natural character. Appropriatereference conditions and baselines for evaluating natural character in different contexts are discussed

Heat flux, urban properties, and regional weather

The flux of heat from human activities such as commercial energy use, renewable source combustion, and the human metabolism has been incorporated into a variable resolution global weather forecast model, along with improved urban surface roughness and radiative properties. Sensitivity studies of these changes were used to show that the addition of anthropogenic heat improves the accuracy of surface air temperature forecasts. The addition of urban surface radiative properties has a secondary effect on the forecast temperature, and the addition of urban surface roughness changes has a minimal effect. Comparisons between observed and forecast boundary layer heights suggest that this parameter is poorly predicted by the model employed here, but that the impact of anthropogenic heating is likely to be a substantial increase in PBL heights over urban regions. Decreased atmospheric stability is also evidenced by comparisons of the diffusion constants for heat and moisture between the original and modified models, which show increases from a factor of 2 to a factor of 16 near the surface, depending on the size of the city. An examination of the effects of spatial averaging on heat flux suggests that significant sub-gridscale anthropogenic heating effects may occur, and implies that the results of the current simulations represent lower bounds. The simulations suggest that anthropogenic heat flux has a large local impact, with important implications for simulations of air-quality and radiative balance on regional and global scales