Screening long-term variability and change of soil moisture in a changing climate

Acknowledgments We acknowledge support for this work from the Swedish Research Council (VR; Project Number 2009-3221), and the strategic research program Ekoklim at Stockholm University.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Screening variability and change of soil moisture under wide-ranging climate conditions : Snow dynamics effects

Acknowledgments This work has been supported by the Stockholm University strategic environmental research program Ekoklim and The Swedish Research Council Formas (project 2012-790).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Data-model comparison of temporal variability in long-term time series of large-scale soil moisture

Acknowledgments This work has been supported by the Swedish University strategic environmental research program Ekoklim and the Swedish Research Council Formas (project 2012-790). The soil moisture data were downloaded from the Ameriflux website: funding for AmeriFlux data resources was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. GPCC Precipitation data, GHCN Gridded V2 data, NARR data, and CPC US Unified Precipitation data were obtained from the Web site of NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Nature-based solutions for flood-drought risk mitigation in vulnerable urbanizing parts of East-Africa

Urbanization and climate changes have direct impacts on ecosystems and the services they provide to society, thus influencing human well-being and health. Urban sprawl may conflict with ecosystem services, e.g. enhancing water-related stresses and risks of, e.g., droughts and floods, with significant economic, environmental and societal impacts. Such hydro-climatic extremes and their societal impacts are evident around the world. East Africa is a region with highly vulnerable populations to frequent floods and droughts. To achieve long-term sustainable solutions to such water-related risks and problems, we need to understand and plan for the feedback mechanisms between population expansion and associated land-use changes and their impacts on ecosystem services. The potential of nature-based solutions to mitigate these risk and problems in urban development under climate change needs to be considered and accounted for in spatial planning and management strategies.</p

Prenatal diagnosis for CF using High Resolution Melting Analysis and simultaneous haplotype analysis through QF-PCR

AbstractBackgroundHigh Resolution Melting (HRM) Analysis is a validated, robust, low-cost, high throughput CF screening method. Here, we report the development and retrospective evaluation of the diagnostic value of a novel multiplex HRM, genotyping and haplotyping method for CF prenatal diagnosis (generic HRM/haplotyping).Methods80 study samples from 20 carrier couples referred for PND (whole blood in EDTA and CVS or amniotic fluid) were genotyped retrospectively using the suggested protocol.ResultsAll DNA samples (variable sources, extraction methods and unknown concentrations) were successfully amplified by the 1st and 2nd round PCR. The Se, Sp, NPV and PPV for the generic HRM/haplotyping method are calculated at 100%.ConclusionsThis generic protocol for PND using HRM, facilitates the simultaneous analysis of DNA samples from various sources in a fast, robust and efficient way. It can be easily adapted and applied for any genetic condition

Trend correlations for coastal eutrophication and its main local and whole-sea drivers – Application to the Baltic Sea

Coastal eutrophication is a major environmental issue worldwide. In the Baltic Sea, eutrophication affects both the coastal waters and the open sea. Various policy frameworks aim to hinder its progress but eutrophicationrelevant water quality variables, such as chlorophyll-a concentrations, still exhibit opposite temporal trends in various Baltic Sea marine and coastal waters. In this study, we investigate the temporal-trend linkages of measured water quality variables and their various anthropogenic, climatic and hydrospheric drivers over the period 1990-2020 with focus on the Swedish coastal waters and related marine basins in the Baltic Sea. We find that it is necessary to distinguish more and less isolated coastal waters, based on their water exchanges with the open sea, to capture different coastal eutrophication dynamics. In less isolated coastal waters, eutrophication is primarily related to nitrogen concentrations, while it is more related to phosphorus concentrations in more isolated coastal waters. In the open sea, trends in eutrophication conditions correlate best with trends in climatic and hydrospheric drivers, like wind speed and water salinity, respectively. In the coastal waters, driver signals are more mixed, with considerable influences from anthropogenic land-based nutrient loads and sea ice cover duration. Summer chlorophyll-a concentration in the open sea stands out as a main change driver of summer chlorophyll-a concentration in less isolated coastal waters. Overall, coastal waters are a melting pot of driver influences over various scales, from local land-based drivers to large-scale total catchment and open sea conditions. The latter in turn depend on long-term integration of pathway-dependent influences from the various coastal parts of the Baltic Sea and their land-based nutrient load drivers, combined with overarching climate conditions and internal feedback loops. As such, our results challenge any unidirectional local source-to-sea paradigm and emphasize a need for concerted local land-catchment and whole-sea measures for robust coastal eutrophication management. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Effectiveness of Nature-Based Solutions in Mitigating Flood Hazard in a Mediterranean Peri-Urban Catchment

Urbanization alters natural hydrological processes and enhances runoff, which affects flood hazard. Interest in nature-based solutions (NBS) for sustainable mitigation and adaptation to urban floods is growing, but the magnitudes of NBS effects are still poorly investigated. This study explores the potential of NBS for flood hazard mitigation in a small peri-urban catchment in central Portugal, prone to flash floods driven by urbanization and short but intense rainfall events typical of the Mediterranean region. Flood extent and flood depth are assessed by manually coupling the hydrologic HEC-HMS and hydraulic HEC-RAS models. The coupled model was run for single rainfall events with recurrence periods of 10–, 20–, 50–, and 100–years, considering four simulation scenarios: current conditions (without NBS), and with an upslope NBS, a downslope NBS, and a combination of both. The model-simulation approach provides good estimates of flood magnitude (NSE = 0.91, RMSE = 0.08, MAE = 0.07, R2 = 0.93), and shows that diverting streamflow into abandoned fields has positive impacts in mitigating downslope flood hazard. The implementation of an upslope NBS can decrease the water depth at the catchment outlet by 0.02 m, whereas a downslope NBS can reduce it from 0.10 m to 0.23 m for increasing return periods. Combined upslope and downslope NBS have a marginal additional impact in reducing water depth, ranging from 0.11 m to 0.24 m for 10– and 100–year floods. Decreases in water depth provided by NBS are useful in flood mitigation and adaptation within the peri-urban catchment. A network of NBS, rather than small isolated strategies, needs to be created for efficient flood-risk management at a larger scale

Evolution of the hydro-climate system in the Lake Baikal basin

SummaryClimatic changes can profoundly alter hydrological conditions in river basins. Lake Baikal is the deepest and largest freshwater reservoir on Earth, and has a unique ecosystem with numerous endemic animal and plant species. We here identify long-term historical (1938–2009) and projected future hydro-climatic trends in the Selenga River Basin, which is the largest sub-basin (>60% inflow) of Lake Baikal. Our analysis is based on long-term river monitoring and historical hydro-climatic observation data, as well as ensemble mean and 22 individual model results of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5 (CMIP5). Study of the latter considers a historical period (from 1961) and projections for 2010–2039 and 2070–2099. Observations show almost twice as fast warming as the global average during the period 1938–2009. Decreased intra-annual variability of river discharge over this period indicates basin-scale permafrost degradation. CMIP5 ensemble projections show further future warming, implying continued permafrost thaw. Modelling of runoff change, however, is highly uncertain, with many models (64%) and their ensemble mean failing to reproduce historical behaviour, and with indicated future increase being small relative to the large differences among individual model results

Is wetter better? Exploring agriculturally-relevant rainfall characteristics over four decades in the Sahel

The semi-arid Sahel is a global hotspot for poverty and malnutrition. Rainfed agriculture is the main source of food and income, making the well-being of rural population highly sensitive to rainfall variability. Studies have reported an upward trend in annual precipitation in the Sahel since the drought of the 1970s and early ‘80s, yet farmers have questioned improvements in conditions for agriculture, suggesting that intraseasonal dynamics play a crucial role. Using high-resolution daily precipitation data spanning 1981–2017 and focusing on agriculturally-relevant areas of the Sahel, we re-examined the extent of rainfall increase and investigated whether the increases have been accompanied by changes in two aspects of intraseasonal variability that have relevance for agriculture: rainy season duration and occurrence of prolonged dry spells during vulnerable crop growth stages. We found that annual rainfall increased across 56% of the region, but remained largely the same elsewhere. Rainy season duration increased almost exclusively in areas with upward trends in annual precipitation (23% of them). Association between annual rain and dry spell occurrence was less clear: increasing and decreasing frequencies of false starts (dry spells after first rains) and post-floral dry spells (towards the end of the season) were found to almost equal extent both in areas with positive and those with no significant trend in annual precipitation. Overall, improvements in at least two of the three intraseasonal variables (and no declines in any) were found in 10% of the region, while over a half of the area experienced declines in at least one intraseasonal variable, or no improvement in any. We conclude that rainfall conditions for agriculture have improved overall only in scattered areas across the Sahel since the 1980s, and increased annual rainfall is only weakly, if at all, associated with changes in the agriculturally-relevant intraseasonal rainfall characteristics

Data evaluation and numerical modeling of hydrological interactions between active layer, lake and talik in a permafrost catchment, Western Greenland

SummaryThis study investigates annual water balance conditions and their spatiotemporal variability under a wide variety of atmospheric driving conditions in the periglacial permafrost catchment of Two Boat Lake in Western Greenland. The study uses and combines a comprehensive hydrological multi-parameter dataset measured at the site with site conceptualization and numerical model development, application and testing. The model result reproduces measured lake and groundwater levels, as well as observations made by time-lapse cameras. The results highlights the importance of numerical modeling that takes into account and combines evapotranspiration with other surface and subsurface hydrological processes at various depths, in order to quantitatively understand and represent the dynamics and complexity of the interactions between meteorology, active layer hydrology, lakes, and unfrozen groundwater below permafrost in periglacial catchments. Regarding these interactions, the water flow between the studied lake and a through talik within and beneath it is found to be small compared to other water balance components. The modeling results show that recharge and discharge conditions in the talik can shift in time, while the lake and active layer conditions in the studied catchment are independent of catchment-external landscape features, such as the unfrozen groundwater system below the permafrost and the nearby continental-scale ice sheet