Rainfall Erosivity in Soil Erosion Processes

This book gathers recent international research on the association between aggressive rainfall and soil loss and landscape degradation. Different contributions explore these complex relationships and highlight the importance of the spatial patterns of precipitation intensity on land flow under erosive storms, with the support of observational and modelling data. This is a large and multifaceted area of research of growing importance that outlines the challenge of protecting land from natural hazards. The increase in the number of high temporal resolution rainfall records together with the development of new modelling capabilities has opened up new opportunities for the use of large-scale planning and risk prevention methods. These new perspectives should no longer be considered as an independent research topic, but should, above all, support comprehensive land use planning, which is at the core of environmental decision-making and operations. Textbooks such as this one demonstrate the significance of how hydrological science can enable tangible progress in understanding the complexity of water management and its current and future challenges

The effect of habitat change on nutrient removal in the Atchafalaya River Basin, Louisiana

The Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers are the major sources of freshwater and nutrients to the Gulf of Mexico. Increased nutrient loads from these rivers exacerbate eutrophication in coastal receiving waters and contribute to the large area of hypoxia that develops seasonally in the Gulf. Levees along the Mississippi River have reduced contact between the river and the historic floodplain; this limits the ability of floodplain wetlands to naturally mitigate excess nutrients. However, the Atchafalaya River diverges from the Mississippi 217 km from the Gulf and enters a large river floodplain with a widely spaced levee system. This enhances the ability of the Atchafalaya River Basin to remove and sequester nutrients, potentially reducing downstream eutrophication. Overbank flow spreads river-water and sediment across the floodplain. Over time, sedimentation has filled in many of the open water areas on the floodplain, such that lakes are transitioning to baldcypress swamps and bottomland hardwood forests. These habitats differ in their available nutrient reservoirs and the rates at which they transform and store nutrients. This dissertation investigated the major retention and removal mechanisms for carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus within bottomland hardwood forests, baldcypress swamps, and lakes of the Atchafalaya River Basin. These reservoirs include denitrification, sedimentation, and assimilation by aboveground biomass. Results estimate that nutrient retention and removal within bottomland hardwood forests ranges from 1,177,605—1,561,805 t C yr-1, 46,049—47,603 t N yr-1 and 20,040—20,175 t P yr-1. Within baldcypress swamps, rates range from 493,953—600,180 t C yr-1, 21,821—22,364t N yr-1 and 2,168—2,202 t P yr-1. Rates in the lakes were 57,490 t C yr-1, 5,140—5,390 t N yr-1 and 2,550 t P yr-1. Total retention and removal for the entire basin is on the order of 1,177,605—1,561,805 t C yr-1, 46,049—47,603 t N yr-1, and 20,040—20,175 t P yr-1. Rates varied by habitat, highlighting the need to consider habitat change when developing management strategies to improve water quality. Data from this dissertation can be used to parameterize nutrient models for the Atchafalaya River Basin, as well as for river diversions and floodplains with similar habitat types

Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 3D printing Special Interest Group (SIG): Guidelines for medical 3D printing and appropriateness for clinical scenarios

Este número da revista Cadernos de Estudos Sociais estava em organização quando fomos colhidos pela morte do sociólogo Ernesto Laclau. Seu falecimento em 13 de abril de 2014 surpreendeu a todos, e particularmente ao editor Joanildo Burity, que foi seu orientando de doutorado na University of Essex, Inglaterra, e que recentemente o trouxe à Fundação Joaquim Nabuco para uma palestra, permitindo que muitos pudessem dialogar com um dos grandes intelectuais latinoamericanos contemporâneos. Assim, buscamos fazer uma homenagem ao sociólogo argentino publicando uma entrevista inédita concedida durante a sua passagem pelo Recife, em 2013, encerrando essa revista com uma sessão especial sobre a sua trajetória

Symmetry in Structural Health Monitoring

In this Special Issue on symmetry, we mainly discuss the application of symmetry in various structural health monitoring. For example, considering the health monitoring of a known structure, by obtaining the static or dynamic response of the structure, using different signal processing methods, including some advanced filtering methods, to remove the influence of environmental noise, and extract structural feature parameters to determine the safety of the structure. These damage diagnosis methods can also be effectively applied to various types of infrastructure and mechanical equipment. For this reason, the vibration control of various structures and the knowledge of random structure dynamics should be considered, which will promote the rapid development of the structural health monitoring. Among them, signal extraction and evaluation methods are also worthy of study. The improvement of signal acquisition instruments and acquisition methods improves the accuracy of data. A good evaluation method will help to correctly understand the performance with different types of infrastructure and mechanical equipment

Vegetation Dynamics Revealed by Remote Sensing and Its Feedback to Regional and Global Climate

This book focuses on some significant progress in vegetation dynamics and their response to climate change revealed by remote sensing data. The development of satellite remote sensing and its derived products offer fantastic opportunities to investigate vegetation changes and their feedback to regional and global climate systems. Special attention is given in the book to vegetation changes and their drivers, the effects of extreme climate events on vegetation, land surface albedo associated with vegetation changes, plant fingerprints, and vegetation dynamics in climate modeling

Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability- Volume 5

This volume of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability covers topics on greenhouse gas emissions, climatic impacts, climate models and prediction, and analytical methods. Issues related to two major greenhouse gas emissions, namely of carbon dioxide and methane, particularly in wetlands and agriculture sector, and radiative energy flux variations along with cloudiness are explored in this volume. Further, climate change impacts such as rainfall, heavy lake-effect snowfall, extreme temperature, impacts on grassland phenology, impacts on wind and wave energy, and heat island effects are explored. A major focus of this volume is on climate models that are of significance to projection and to visualise future climate pathways and possible impacts and vulnerabilities. Such models are widely used by scientists and for the generation of mitigation and adaptation scenarios. However, dealing with uncertainties has always been a critical issue in climate modelling. Therefore, methods are explored for improving climate projection accuracy through addressing the stochastic properties of the distributions of climate variables, addressing variational problems with unknown weights, and improving grid resolution in climatic models. Results reported in this book are conducive to a better understanding of global warming mechanisms, climate-induced impacts, and forecasting models. We expect the book to benefit decision makers, practitioners, and researchers in different fields and contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation