Hydrological Alteration Index as an Indicator of the Calibration Complexity of Water Quantity and Quality Modeling in the Context of Global Change

Modeling is a useful way to understand human and climate change impacts on the water resources of agricultural watersheds. Calibration and validation methodologies are crucial in forecasting assessments. This study explores the best calibration methodology depending on the level of hydrological alteration due to human-derived stressors. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is used to evaluate hydrology in South-West Europe in a context of intensive agriculture and water scarcity. The Index of Hydrological Alteration (IHA) is calculated using discharge observation data. A comparison of two SWAT calibration methodologies are done; a conventional calibration (CC) based on recorded in-stream water quality and quantity and an additional calibration (AC) adding crop managements practices. Even if the water quality and quantity trends are similar between CC and AC, water balance, irrigation and crop yields are different. In the context of rainfall decrease, water yield decreases in both CC and AC, while crop productions present opposite trends (+33% in CC and -31% in AC). Hydrological performance between CC and AC is correlated to IHA: When the level of IHA is under 80%, AC methodology is necessary. The combination of both calibrations appears essential to better constrain the model and to forecast the impact of climate change or anthropogenic influences on water resources

Nature-Inspired Circular-Economy Recycling for Proteins: Proof of Concept

The billion tons of synthetic-polymer-based materials (i.e. plastics) produced yearly are a great challenge for humanity. Nature produces even more natural polymers, yet they are sustainable. Proteins are sequence-defined natural polymers that are constantly recycled when living systems feed. Digestion is the protein depolymerization into amino acids (the monomers) followed by their re-assembly into new proteins of arbitrarily different sequence and function. This breaks a common recycling paradigm where a material is recycled into itself. Organisms feed off of random protein mixtures that are "recycled" into new proteins whose identity depends on the cell's specific needs. In this study, mixtures of several peptides and/or proteins are depolymerized into their amino acid constituents, and these amino acids are used to synthesize new fluorescent, and bioactive proteins extracellularly by using an amino-acid-free, cell-free transcription-translation (TX-TL) system. Specifically, three peptides (magainin II, glucagon, and somatostatin 28) are digested using thermolysin first and then using leucine aminopeptidase. The amino acids so produced are added to a commercial TX-TL system to produce fluorescent proteins. Furthermore, proteins with high relevance in materials engineering (beta-lactoglobulin films, used for water filtration, or silk fibroin solutions) are successfully recycled into biotechnologically relevant proteins (fluorescent proteins, catechol 2,3-dioxygenase).ISSN:0935-9648ISSN:1521-409