Permanent and temporary ponds in Doñana National Park (SW Spain) are threatened by desiccation

In Doñana National Park, most aquatic habitats are temporary. Ponds dry up during the summer, and are filled again when phreatic levels rise after heavy rains. Permanent and semipermanent ponds, and a chain of long-hydroperiod ponds are formed in an area of the park where discharges of the dune and regional aquifers coincide. Over the last few decades, groundwater abstractions have severely affected the park. Using Landsat images (1975-2014), we estimated the variation in the inundated areas of the park’s largest ponds. All ponds have increased their dependency on annual rainfall in recent decades. Two seasonal ponds located close to urban pumping stations are currently dry. We found that other seasonal ponds have tended to have shorter hydroperiod and have dried up in the summer in recent years, including in very rainy years. The largest permanent pond had not such wide interannual fluctuations in its inundated area in the 1970s as those experienced recently. During the last decades, its inundated area is strongly correlated with annual rainfall, and the pond is close to desiccation in years of low rainfall. These results show that this pond network is severely threatened by desiccation. It is urgent to control groundwater extraction in the area to preserve the integrity of this important wetlandEn Doñana, la mayoría de los hábitats acuáticos son temporales. Las lagunas se desecan en verano y vuelven a inundarse con la elevación del nivel freático que se produce tras las abundantes lluvias otoñales o invernales. En la zona central del parque se localizan las lagunas permanentes y semipermanentes, que junto con otras de largo hidroperiodo forman una cadena de lagunas donde coinciden las descargas del acuífero dunar y el gran acuífero regional. En las últimas décadas, se han realizado extracciones de agua del acuífero que han afectado seriamente al parque. En este estudio, usando imágenes del satélite Landsat (1975-2014), hemos estimado la variación de la superficie inundada de las mayores lagunas del parque. En todas se observa un incremento en las últimas décadas de su dependencia de las lluvias anuales. Dos lagunas estacionales, situadas en las proximidades de estaciones de bombeo de aguas se consideran actualmente secas. En algunas lagunas, se observa una tendencia a acortar su periodo de inundación, secándose en los veranos de los años más recientes, incluso en años lluviosos. La laguna más permanente no sufría tan amplias variaciones en la superficie que mantenía inundada en verano en los años 70, como las que observan en la actualidad, cuando su inundación en verano está estrechamente correlacionada con las lluvias anuales, llegando en los últimos veranos a niveles muy próximos a la desecación. Estos resultados indican que la red de lagunas está severamente amenazada de desecación. Para preservar la integridad de este importante humedal, es urgente controlar las extracciones de agua del acuíferoPeer reviewe

Effect of Protection Level in the Hydroperiod of Water Bodies on Doñana’s Aeolian Sands

Mediterranean temporary ponds on Doñana’s aeolian sands form an extensive system of small dynamic water bodies, dependent on precipitation and groundwater, of considerable importance for biodiversity conservation. Different areas of the aeolian sands have received different levels of environmental protection since 1969, and this has influenced the degree of conservation and the flooding dynamic of these temporary surface waters. We use the Landsat series of satellite images from 1985 to 2014 to study the temporal dynamic of small temporary water bodies on the aeolian sands in relation to the protection level and to distance to water abstraction pressures from agriculture and residential areas. The results show that even with small and ephemeral water bodies optical remote sensing time-series are an effective way to study their flooding temporal dynamics. The protected areas of the aeolian sands hold a better preserved system of temporary ponds, with a flooding dynamic that fluctuates with precipitation. The unprotected area shows an increase in mean hydroperiod duration, and surface flooded, and a decline in hydroperiod variability. This seems to be due to the creation of irrigation ponds and the artificialization of the flooding regime of the natural temporary ponds, that either receive excess irrigation water or dry-up due to the lowering of the groundwater table level. Although a decline in hydroperiod duration of temporary ponds is seen as negative to the system, an increase in hydroperiod of surface waters due to artificialization, or a decline in variability cannot be considered as positive compensatory effects.Peer reviewe

Republican military aerodromes in Alt Empordà county (1936-1939)

A l’Alt Empordà, durant la guerra civil, es varen habilitar i construir, com a mínim, tres camps d’aviació militars republicans: Figueres Sud (Aeròdrom Canudas o Camp del Manol), Figueres Nord (Cabanes/Vilabertran), i Garriguella (Vilajuïga/Pedret i Marzà). Són peces del gran trencaclosques del 36-39 que aporten més definició a la imatge general del conflicte. Aquest treball és una aproximació a la història i al patrimoni de cadascun dels aeròdroms, que el  RAG (Grup de Recerca de l’Aviació a Girona, equip de treball no oficial que ha estudiat els camps d’aviació militars republicans a Girona), ampliarà en un futur llibre, però és de justícia que en els Annals de l’IEE es publiqui un resum d’allò relacionat amb el nostre territori, avançant el capítol de la futura obra així com ja vaig fer amb Tocant el Cel i Ales Negres i Xampinyons.During the Civil War, at least three military airfields were constructed by the Republicans in the Alt Empordà county: Figueres South (also known as Canudas Aerodrome or Manol Fields), Figueres North (Cabanes / Vilabertran) and Garriguella (Vilajuïga / Pedret Marzà). These are pieces of the big puzzle that is the 1936-39 period and provide more definition to the general picture of the conflict. This work is an approach to the history and heritage of each aerodrome, which the GRAG (Aviation Research Group in Girona, an unofficial research group that studies the Republican military airfields in the Girona region) will expand on in a future book. In this Journal, we want to advance a summary of topics related to the Alt Empordà county, which will be included in a chapter of the forthcoming book, as I already did in Tocant el Cel and Ales Negres i Xampinyons

Respiration of aged soil carbon during fall in permafrost peatlands enhanced by active layer deepening following wildfire but limited following thermokarst

Permafrost peatlands store globally significant amounts of soil organic carbon (SOC) that may be vulnerable to climate change. Permafrost thaw exposes deeper, older SOC to microbial activity, but SOC vulnerability to mineralization and release as carbon dioxide is likely influenced by the soil environmental conditions that follow thaw. Permafrost thaw in peat plateaus, the dominant type of permafrost peatlands in North America, occurs both through deepening of the active layer and through thermokarst. Active layer deepening exposes aged SOC to predominately oxic conditions, while thermokarst is associated with complete permafrost thaw which leads to ground subsidence, inundation and soil anoxic conditions. Thermokarst often follows active layer deepening, and wildfire is an important trigger of this sequence. We compared the mineralization rate of aged SOC at an intact peat plateau (∼70 cm oxic active layer), a burned peat plateau (∼120 cm oxic active layer), and a thermokarst bog (∼550 cm anoxic peat profile) by measuring respired 14C-CO2. Measurements were done in fall when surface temperatures were near-freezing while deeper soil temperatures were still close to their seasonal maxima. Aged SOC (1600 yrs BP) contributed 22.1 ± 11.3% and 3.5 ± 3.1% to soil respiration in the burned and intact peat plateau, respectively, indicating a fivefold higher rate of aged SOC mineralization in the burned than intact peat plateau (0.15 ± 0.07 versus 0.03 ± 0.03 g CO2-C m−2 d−1). None or minimal contribution of aged SOC to soil respiration was detected within the thermokarst bog, regardless of whether thaw had occurred decades or centuries ago. While more data from other sites and seasons are required, our study provides strong evidence of substantially increased respiration of aged SOC from burned peat plateaus with deepened active layer, while also suggesting inhibition of aged SOC respiration under anoxic conditions in thermokarst bogs

Long-Term Monitoring of the Flooding Regime and Hydroperiod of Doñana Marshes with Landsat Time Series (1974–2014)

This paper presents a semi-automatic procedure to discriminate seasonally flooded areas in the shallow temporary marshes of Doñana National Park (SW Spain) by using a radiommetrically normalized long time series of Landsat MSS, TM, and ETM+ images (1974–2014). Extensive field campaigns for ground truth data retrieval were carried out simultaneous to Landsat overpasses. Ground truth was used as training and testing areas to check the performance of the method. Simple thresholds on TM and ETM band 5 (1.55–1.75 μm) worked significantly better than other empirical modeling techniques and supervised classification methods to delineate flooded areas at Doñana marshes. A classification tree was applied to band 5 reflectance values to classify flooded versus non-flooded pixels for every scene. Inter-scene cross-validation identified the most accurate threshold on band 5 reflectance (ρ < 0.186) to classify flooded areas (Kappa = 0.65). A joint TM-MSS acquisition was used to find the MSS band 4 (0.8 a 1.1 μm) threshold. The TM flooded area was identical to the results from MSS 4 band threshold ρ < 0.10 despite spectral and spatial resolution differences. Band slicing was retrospectively applied to the complete time series of MSS and TM images. About 391 flood masks were used to reconstruct historical spatial and temporal patterns of Doñana marshes flooding, including hydroperiod. Hydroperiod historical trends were used as a baseline to understand Doñana’s flooding regime, test hydrodynamic models, and give an assessment of relevant management and restoration decisions. The historical trends in the hydroperiod of Doñana marshes show two opposite spatial patterns. While the north-western part of the marsh is increasing its hydroperiod, the southwestern part shows a steady decline. Anomalies in each flooding cycle allowed us to assess recent management decisions and monitor their hydrological effects.: This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the research projects HYDRA (#CGL2006-02247/BOS) and HYDRA2 (CGL2009-09801/BOS), and by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 641762 to ECOPOTENTIAL project. The Espacio Natural de Doñana provided permits for fieldwork in protected areas with restricted access and historical data from water column readings. We are grateful to many MSc students who helped in image processing and field sampling. We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).Peer reviewe

Communication Robustness Analysis and improvements in Leclanch'e BMS systems

This master thesis have been done in the circumstance of an internship contract in a Swiss company called Leclanch'e SA. This company is develops, designs and manufactures complete battery storage solutions, covering the entire technology chain. From cells to pack solutions for Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) and Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), as well as the Battery Management System which is the scope of this thesis. Customers of the company have reported errors on the communication interface of the Battery Management System of the company, known as G2 Leclanché BMS. The purpose of the study done in this thesis is to find root causes of problems in the communication interface and its constraints. To this end, faulty BMS samples returned by clients have been analysed and some special testing setups have been prepared in order to study communication constraints as baud rate, cable length, maximum number of nodes, etc. Conclusions extracted from this robustness analysis of communication on G2 Leclanch'e BMS will be used for the next generation of BMS which is being developed by the company

Computational intelligence techniques in medicine

El advenimiento de la Era de la Información, también conocida como la Era Digital, ha realizado un profundo impacto en las ciencias de la salud. Vastas cantidades de conjuntos de datos fluyen ahora a través de los diferentes estratos de las organizaciones sanitarias, y existe un requisito importante para extraer el conocimiento y emplearlo en la mejora de estos centros en todos los aspectos. Los sistemas informáticos inteligentes proporcionan apoyo a los profesionales de la salud implicados tanto en los contextos médicos como administrativos. Entre estos sistemas, métodos de inteligencia computacional han adquirido una creciente popularidad, dada su capacidad para hacer frente a grandes cantidades de datos clínicos e información precisa.El fin de esta edición especial es ofrecer una amplia visión de este apasionante campo, cuya creciente importancia es impulsada por el aumento de la disponibilidad de datos y sus potenciales de cálculo. The advent of the information age, also commonly known as the digital age, has made a profound impact on health sciences. Vast amounts of datasets now flow through the different stages of healthcare organizations, and there is a major requirement to extract knowledge and employ it to improve these centres in all respects. Intelligent computer systems provide support to health professionals involved both in the medical and managerial contexts. Amongst these systems, computational intelligence approaches have gained increasing popularity given their ability to cope with large amounts of clinical data and uncertain information. Thegoal of this special issue is to offer a broad view of this exciting field, the ever-growing importance of which is driven by the increasing availability of data and computational power.peerReviewe

Hyperspectral Sensors as a Management Tool to Prevent the Invasion of the Exotic Cordgrass Spartina densiflora in the Doñana Wetlands

We test the use of hyperspectral sensors for the early detection of the invasive dense-flowered cordgrass (Spartina densiflora Brongn.) in the Guadalquivir River marshes, Southwestern Spain. We flew in tandem a CASI-1500 (368–1052 nm) and an AHS (430–13,000 nm) airborne sensors in an area with presence of S. densiflora. We simplified the processing of hyperspectral data (no atmospheric correction and no data-reduction techniques) to test if these treatments were necessary for accurate S. densiflora detection in the area. We tested several statistical signal detection algorithms implemented in ENVI software as spectral target detection techniques (matched filtering, constrained energy minimization, orthogonal subspace projection, target-constrained interference minimized filter, and adaptive coherence estimator) and compared them to the well-known spectral angle mapper, using spectra extracted from ground-truth locations in the images. The target S. densiflora was easy to detect in the marshes by all algorithms in images of both sensors. The best methods (adaptive coherence estimator and target-constrained interference minimized filter) on the best sensor (AHS) produced 100% discrimination (Kappa = 1, AUC = 1) at the study site and only some decline in performance when extrapolated to a new nearby area. AHS outperformed CASI in spite of having a coarser spatial resolution (4-m vs. 1-m) and lower spectral resolution in the visible and near-infrared range, but had a better signal to noise ratio. The larger spectral range of AHS in the short-wave and thermal infrared was of no particular advantage. Our conclusions are that it is possible to use hyperspectral sensors to map the early spread S. densiflora in the Guadalquivir River marshes. AHS is the most suitable airborne hyperspectral sensor for this task and the signal processing techniques target-constrained interference minimized filter (TCIMF) and adaptive coherence estimator (ACE) are the best performing target detection techniques that can be employed operationally with a simplified processing of hyperspectral images.This study has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the research projects HYDRA (No. CGL2006-02247/BOS) and HYDRA2 (CGL2009-09801/BOS), by the National Parks Authority (Organismo Autonomo de Parques Nacionales) of the Spanish Ministry of Environment to project OAPN 042/2007, and by funding from the European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 641762 to ECOPOTENTIAL project. The Espacio Natural de Doñana provided permits for field work in protected areas with restricted access. We are grateful to the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), Spain, for performing the airborne campaign and the geometric correction of the images. J.B. has to acknowledge a sabbatical stay at Pye Laboratory of the Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Australia, and at the Climate Change Cluster (C3) of the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, during data analysis and writing of this paper. This publication is a contribution from CEIMAR and also a contribution from CEICAMBIO. We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI

Nacimiento y Desarrollo de los grupos de hombres por la Igualdad en España

Desde el punto de vista internacional los grupos de hombres han desempeñado un papel importante en la reivindicación de derechos políticos y civiles. Sin embargo este tipo de movimientos en España ha sido poco estudiado. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el surgimiento de los grupos de hombres por la igualdad en el estado español incidiendo en los aspectos relacionados con su desarrollo, su acción sociopolítica, sus relaciones con el movimiento feminista y su concepción de la masculinidad. Para ello, a partir de un diseño cualitativo de análisis, se examinan los discursos y las vivencias de un grupo de hombres y mujeres involucrados con este movimiento. Los resultados muestran su papel significativo en la denuncia de las situaciones de violencia de género y a favor de la igualdad entre hombres y mujeres presentando modelos alternativos a la masculinidad hegemónica. Asimismo, se destacan las relaciones ambivalentes y en ocasiones conflictivas con los movimientos feministas. Finalmente, se analiza su presencia social y pública y los retos respecto al futuro