Modeling the spatial and temporal trends of water quality in boreal managed watersheds

Land use changes have altered natural hydrological pathways and biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, among other elements, affecting the quality of aquatic ecosystems such as rivers, lakes and coastal areas. In this dissertation, the spatial and temporal trends of water quality variation in Finnish managed watersheds was studied by applying methods of multivariate statistics, time-series analysis, ecohydrological modeling and high-resolution geospatial data. The results show the complex effects of current land use, particularly agriculture, on stream water quality. New emerging trends of nutrient concentrations and loads were detected in the time-series analysis, such as an increase in the concentrations and loads of dissolved reactive phosphorus and total nitrogen, and a decrease in suspended sediment concentration in streams. This might be linked to the current erosion reduction strategy of land management for water protection. An ecohydrological modeling assessment showed an increasing downstream nutrient export from agricultural watershed under climate change scenarios. The modeling results also showed a potential nutrient export reduction by restoring potential biogeochemical hotspot areas - wet areas or areas prone to water saturation. These areas can function as nutrient sinks and enhance the watershed resiliency. High-resolution geospatial data allowed easier and more accurate mapping of wet areas as well as the extracting of their hydraulic characteristics. However, the ecohydrological models involved several sources of uncertainties, which need to be carefully addressed with extensive observational data, expert knowledge of model parameter definitions, proper modeling unit selection and empirical knowledge of the functioning of the studied watershed system. The results of this dissertation highlight the importance of combined methods for watershed management research, and the proper identification of the biophysical processes in the modeling of non-point pollutant sources; this can in turn lead to an efficient water protection measure, and restoring biogeochemical hotspot areas within the watershed.Vedenlaadun alueellisten ja ajallisten vaihteluiden mallintaminen viileän vyöhykkeen valuma-alueilla. Maankäytön muutokset ovat vaikuttaneet luonnollisiin hydrologisiin prosesseihin sekä hiilen, typen ja fosforin biogeokemiallisiin kiertoihin. Nämä puolestaan vaikuttavat vesiekosysteemien tilaan joissa, järvissä ja rannikkoalueella. Väitöstutkimuksessa tutkittiin vedenlaadun alueellisia ja ajallisia muutoksia suomalaisessa maaseutumaisemassa käyttäen monimuuttujamenetelmiä, aikasarja-analyysejä, ekohydrologista mallinnusta ja erotuskyvyltään tarkkoja paikkatietoaineistoja. Tulokset todentavat maatalouteen kytkeytyvien maankäytön piirteiden kompleksisia vaikutuksia jokivesien laatuun. Aikasarja-analyysit osoittivat myös aiemmin tuntemattomia trendejä jokivesien ravinteiden määrissä ja pitoisuuksissa, esimerkkeinä liuenneen reaktiivisen fosforin määrän ja pitoisuuden lisääntyminen sekä sedimenttisuspension väheneminen; molemmat eroosion vähentämiseen tähtäävien vesiensuojelutoimien seurauksena. Ekohydrologinen mallinnus osoitti myös sen, että ravinteiden huuhtoutuminen maatalousvaltaisilla valuma-alueilla lisääntyy ilmastonmuutoksen seurauksena. Tulokset kannustavat biogeokemiallisten avainalueiden, kuten kosteikkojen ja vettä keräävien painanteiden kunnostamiseen, jolloin ravinteiden huuhtoutuminen vähenee. Ravinnenieluina toimiessaan ne voivat myös parantaa valumaalueen ekologista kestävyyttä ja palautumiskykyä. Tutkimuksessa osoitettiin myös erotuskyvyltään tarkkojen paikkatietoaineistojen hyödyllisyys avainalueiden kartoituksessa ja alueiden hydrologisten ominaisuuksien tunnistamisessa. Ekohydrologiseen mallinnukseen sisältyy toisaalta myös epävarmuustekijöitä, joihin tulisi paneutua vielä kattavammin hyödyntäen asiantuntijatietoa parametrien täsmentämisessä, määrittämällä tarkennettuja mallinnusyksiköitä tai hyödyntäen empiirisiä tutkimustietoja valuma-alueen toiminnasta. Väitöstutkimus osoittaa myös sen, miten erilaisten tutkimusmenetelmien yhdistely vahvistaa valuma-aluetarkastelua ja siihen liittyen erilaisten biofysikaalisten prosessien ymmärtämistä ja keskeisten päästölähteiden mallintamista. Näin muodoin yhdistelmämenetelmien käyttö tukee entistä tehokkaampien vesiensuojelutoimien kehittämistä ja valumaalueiden biogeokemiallisten avainalueiden kunnostamistaModelado de las tendencias temporales y espaciales de la calidad del agua en cuencas hidrográficas boreales manejados. El cambio del uso del suelo ha alterado los procesos hidrológicos naturales y los ciclos biogeoquímicos del carbono, el nitrógeno y el fósforo, entre otros elementos, afectando directamente la calidad de los ecosistemas acuáticos como los ríos, lagos y zonas costeras. En esta disertación, las tendencias espaciales y temporales de la variación de la calidad del agua en cuencas hidrográficas finlandesas se estudiaron mediante la aplicación de métodos de estadística multivariante, análisis de series de tiempo, modelos ecohidrológicos y datos geoespaciales de alta resolución. Los resultados muestran los efectos complejos del uso actual del suelo, particularmente la agricultura, en la calidad del agua de los ríos y corrientes. Se detectaron nuevas tendencias emergentes de concentraciones y cargas de nutrientes en el análisis de series temporales, como un aumento en la concentración y carga del fósforo disuelto reactive y nitrógeno total, y una disminución en la concentración de sedimentos en suspensión en los ríos y corrientes. Esto podría estar vinculado a la estrategia actual de manejo del suelo, orientado a la reducción de la erosión para la protección del agua. Una evaluación a través de modelización ecohidrológica mostró un aumento de la exportación de nutrientes aguas abajo de la cuenca agrícola bajo escenarios de cambio climático. Los resultados de la modelización también mostraron una posible reducción de la exportación de nutrientes mediante la restauración de posibles zonas críticas biogeoquímicas: áreas húmedas o áreas propensas a la saturación de agua. Estas áreas pueden funcionar como sumideros de nutrientes y mejorar la resiliencia de la cuenca. Los datos geoespaciales de alta resolución permitieron un fácil y más preciso cartografiado de las áreas húmedas, así como la extracción de sus características hidráulicas. Sin embargo, los modelos ecohidrológicos involucraron varias fuentes de incertidumbre, que deben abordarse cuidadosamente con bastantes datos de observación, conocimiento experto de las definiciones de los parámetros del modelo, selección adecuada de la unidad de modelado y conocimiento empírico del funcionamiento del sistema de la cuenca estudiada. Los resultados de esta disertación destacan la importancia de los métodos combinados para la investigación de gestión de cuencas hidrográficas y la identificación adecuada de los procesos biofísicos en la modelización de fuentes contaminantes difusas; esto a su vez puede conducir a una medidaeficiente de protección del agua, y restauración de áreas claves de alta función biogeoquímica dentro de la cuenca

Elevational Shifts in the Topographic Position of Polylepis Forest Stands in the Andes of Southern Peru

 The patchy distribution of high-Andean treeline forests has provoked discussion aboutthe relative importance of anthropogenic and climatic causes of this pattern, both of whichvary with topography. We aimed to understand the topographic controls on the distribution ofPolylepis subsericans  treeline forests in the Andes of southern Peru, and the changes in these controlsalong an elevational gradient. We mapped Polylepis  forests in the Cordillera Urubamba, Cusco,using high-resolution aerial images and related forest cover to topographic variables extracted from adigital terrain model (30-m resolution). The variables were selected based on their expected biologicalrelevance for tree growth at high elevations. We constructed logistic regression models of forestcover, separately for each of five 100-m elevational belts. To deal with spatial autocorrelation, modelswere based on randomized 10% subsampling of the data with 1000 repetitions. The results suggest aconsistent shift in topographic preference with elevation, with forests at lower elevations showinga preference for topographically protected sites near rivers and forests at higher elevations beingincreasingly restricted to north-facing and well-drained sites. Our study offers the first indication ofthe ability of Andean treeline forests to benefit from the topographic heterogeneity of the high-Andes.Providing that dispersal and establishment are possible, local relocation between microsites could help these forests to persist regionally in spite of changing climatic conditions.</p

Neighborhood Disadvantage, Greenness, and Population Density as Predictors of Breastfeeding Practices : A Population Cohort Study from Finland

Background Many environmental factors are known to hinder breastfeeding, yet the role of the family living environment in this regard is still poorly understood. Objectives We used data from a large cohort to identify associations between neighborhood characteristics and breastfeeding behavior. Methods Our observational study included 11,038 children (0-2 years) from the Southwest Finland Birth Cohort. Participant information was obtained from the Medical Birth Register and municipal follow-up clinics. Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, greenness, and population density were measured for a period of 5 years prior to childbirth within the residential neighborhood on a 250 x 250-m grid. Any breastfeeding and breastfeeding at 6 months were the primary outcomes. Binary logistic regression models were adjusted for maternal health and socioeconomic factors. Results Adjusted analyses suggest that mothers living in less populated areas were less likely to display any breastfeeding (OR: 0.46; 95% CI: 0.36, 0.59) and breastfeeding at 6 months (OR: 0.37; 95% CI: 0.34, 0.40). Mothers living in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods were less likely to display any breastfeeding if the neighborhood was less populated (OR: 0.54; 95% CI: 0.30, 0.95) but more likely to breastfeed at 6 months if the neighborhood was highly populated (OR: 3.74; 95% CI: 1.92, 7.29). Low greenness was associated with higher likelihood of any breastfeeding (OR: 3.82; 95% CI: 1.53, 9.55) and breastfeeding at 6 months (OR: 4.41; 95% CI: 3.44, 5). Conclusions Our results suggest that neighborhood characteristics are associated with breastfeeding behavior in Finland. Unravelling breastfeeding decisions linked to the living environment could help identify interventions that will allow the appropriate support for all mothers and infants across different environmental challenges.Peer reviewe

Residential green environments are associated with human milk oligosaccharide diversity and composition

Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).Increased exposure to greener environments has been suggested to lead to health benefits in children, but the associated mechanisms in early life, particularly via biological mediators such as altered maternal milk composition, remain largely unexplored. We investigated the associations between properties of the mother’s residential green environment, measured as (1) greenness (Normalized Difference Vegetation index, NDVI), (2) Vegetation Cover Diversity (VCDI) and (3) Naturalness Index (NI), and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), known for their immune- and microbiota-related health effects on the infant (N = 795 mothers). We show that HMO diversity increases and concentrations of several individual HMOs and HMO groups change with increased VCDI and NI in residential green environments. This suggests that variation in residential green environments may influence the infant via maternal milk through modified HMO composition. The results emphasize the mediating role of breastfeeding between the residential green environments and health in early life.Peer reviewe

Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) in the Integrated Hydrological and Fluvial Systems Modeling: Review of Current Applications and Trends

This paper reviews the current GeoAI and machine learning applications in hydrological and hydraulic modeling, hydrological optimization problems, water quality modeling, and fluvial geomorphic and morphodynamic mapping. GeoAI effectively harnesses the vast amount of spatial and non-spatial data collected with the new automatic technologies. The fast development of GeoAI provides multiple methods and techniques, although it also makes comparisons between different methods challenging. Overall, selecting a particular GeoAI method depends on the application's objective, data availability, and user expertise. GeoAI has shown advantages in non-linear modeling, computational efficiency, integration of multiple data sources, high accurate prediction capability, and the unraveling of new hydrological patterns and processes. A major drawback in most GeoAI models is the adequate model setting and low physical interpretability, explainability, and model generalization. The most recent research on hydrological GeoAI has focused on integrating the physical-based models' principles with the GeoAI methods and on the progress towards autonomous prediction and forecasting systems

Neighborhood disadvantage, greenness and population density as predictors of breastfeeding practices: a population cohort study from Finland

BackgroundMany environmental factors are known to hinder breastfeeding, yet the role of the family living environment in this regard is still poorly understood.ObjectivesTherefore, we used data from a large cohort to identify associations between neighborhood characteristics and breastfeeding behavior.MethodsOur observational study included 11,038 children (0-2 years) from the Southwest Finland Birth Cohort. Participant information were obtained from the Medical Birth Register and municipal follow-up clinics. Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, greenness and population density were measured for a period of 5 years prior to childbirth within the residential neighborhood on a 250×250m grid. Any breastfeeding and breastfeeding at six months were the primary outcomes. Binary logistic regression models were adjusted for maternal health and socioeconomic factors.ResultsAdjusted analyses suggest that mothers living in less populated areas were less likely to display any breastfeeding (OR: 0.46; 95% CI 0.36, 0.59) and breastfeeding at six months (OR: 0.37; 95% CI: 0.34, 0.40). Mothers living in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods were less likely to display any breastfeeding if the neighborhood was less populated (OR: 0.54, 95% CI: 0.30, 0.95) but more likely to breastfeed at six months if the neighborhood was highly populated (OR: 3.74; 95% CI: 1.92, 7.29). Low greenness was associated with higher likelihood of any breastfeeding (OR: 3.82; 95% CI: 1.53, 9.55) and breastfeeding at six months (OR: 4.41; 95% CI: 3.44, 5).ConclusionsOur results suggest that neighborhood characteristics is associated with breastfeeding behavior in Finland. Unravelling breastfeeding decisions linked to the living environment may help identify interventions that will allow the appropriate support for all mothers and infants across different environmental challenges.</p

Modifications to residential neighbourhood characteristics and risk of 79 common health conditions: a prospective cohort study

Background Observational studies have identified a link between unfavourable neighbourhood characteristics and increased risk of morbidity, but it is unclear whether changes in neighbourhoods affect future disease risk. We used a data-driven approach to assess the impact of neighbourhood modification on 79 health outcomes.Methods In this prospective cohort study, we used pooled, individual-level data from two Finnish cohort studies: the Health and Social Support study and the Finnish Public Sector study. Neighbourhood characteristics (mean educational level, median income, and employment rate of residents, and neighbourhood green space) and individual lifestyle factors of community-dwelling individuals were assessed at baseline (at different waves starting between 1998 and 2013). We repeated assessment of neighbourhood characteristics and lifestyle factors approximately 5 years from each baseline assessment, after which follow-up began for health conditions diagnosed according to the WHO International Classification of Diseases for 79 common health conditions using linkage to electronic health records. We used Cox proportional hazard regression models to compute adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of incident disease associated with neighbourhood characteristics and changes in neighbourhood characteristics over time and logistic regression analysis to compute adjusted odds of association between changes in neighbourhood characteristics and individual lifestyle factors.Findings 114786 individuals (87012 [75.8%] women; mean age 44.4 years [SD 11.1]) had complete data and were included in this cohort study. During 1.17 million person-years at risk, we recorded 164368 new-onset health conditions and 3438 deaths. Favourable changes in neighbourhood characteristics were associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality and incidence of 19 specific health conditions. Unfavourable changes were correspondingly associated with increased risk of mortality and 27 specific health conditions. Among participants who did not move residence during the observation period, relative to individuals who continually lived in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, those who experienced favourable modifications in neighbourhood characteristics had a lower risk of future diabetes (HR 0.84, 95% CI 0.75-0.93), stroke (0.49, 0. 29-0.83), skin disease (0.72,0.53-0. 97), and osteoarthritis (0.87, 0.77-0.99). Living in a neighbourhood with improving characteristics was also associated with improvements in individual-level health-related lifestyle factors. Among participants who lived in advantaged residential environments at baseline, unfavourable changes in neighbourhood characteristics were associated with an increased risk of diabetes, stroke, skin disease, and osteoarthritis compared with individuals who lived in advantaged neighbourhoods throughout the study period.Interpretation Favourable modifications to residential neighbourhoods showed robust, longitudinal associations with a range of improvements in health outcomes, including improved health behaviours and reduced risk of cardiometabolic, infectious, and orthopaedic conditions.</div