Data associated with 'Projections of Domestic Water Demand over the Long-Term: A Case Study of London and the Thames Valley'

The dataset consists of files used in carrying out analysis reported in the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management paper published online in September 2019. Please note that these files do not contain Domestic Water User Survey data for which Thames Water Utilities Ltd. retains Intellectual Property Rights. Users should contact co-author Ross Henderson at TWUL for permission to access the SPSS saved system file containing the processed DWUS data. The “Water Demand Projections Final” provides summary data on projected numbers of households by type and Water Resource Zone. The underpinning population projections data are available via http://www.ethpop.org or the UK Data Archive via https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-852508 SN (Study Number): 852508 Title: NEWETHPOP - Ethnic population projections for UK local areas 2011-2061. The methods for transforming projected populations into projected households are described in Rees, P., Clark, S. and Nawaz, R. (2019) Household Forecasts for the Planning of Long-Term Domestic Water Demand: Application to London and the Thames Valley. Population, Space and Place., in press

Pervasive Rise of Small-scale Deforestation in Amazonia

Understanding forest loss patterns in Amazonia, the Earth’s largest rainforest region, is critical for effective forest conservation and management. Following the most detailed analysis to date, spanning the entire Amazon and extending over a 14-year period (2001–2014), we reveal significant shifts in deforestation dynamics of Amazonian forests. Firstly, hotspots of Amazonian forest loss are moving away from the southern Brazilian Amazon to Peru and Bolivia. Secondly, while the number of new large forest clearings (>50 ha) has declined significantly over time (46%), the number of new small clearings (<1 ha) increased by 34% between 2001–2007 and 2008–2014. Thirdly, we find that small-scale low-density forest loss expanded markedly in geographical extent during 2008–2014. This shift presents an important and alarming new challenge for forest conservation, despite reductions in overall deforestation rates

Forest fire history in Amazonia inferred from intensive soil charcoal sampling and radiocarbon dating

This study was supported by funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, NE/N011570/1 and NE/R017980/1) and a radiocarbon dating allocation (allocation 2122.0818) from the NERC-funded NEIF Radiocarbon Laboratory.Fire has a historical role in tropical forests related to past climate and ancient land use spanning the Holocene; however, it is unclear from charcoal records how fire varied at different spatiotemporal scales and what sampling strategies are required to determine fire history and their effects. We evaluated fire variation in structurally intact, terra-firme Amazon forests, by intensive soil charcoal sampling from three replicate soil pits in sites in Guyana and northern and southern Peru. We used radiocarbon (14C) measurement to assess (1) locally, how the timing of fires represented in our sample varied across the surface of forest plots and with soil depth, (2) basin-wide, how the age of fires varies across climate and environmental gradients, and (3) how many samples are appropriate when applying the 14C approach to assess the date of last fire. Considering all 14C dates (n = 33), the most recent fires occurred at a similar time at each of the three sites (median ages: 728–851 cal years BP), indicating that in terms of fire disturbance at least, these forests could be considered old-growth. The number of unique fire events ranged from 1 to 4 per pit and from 4 to 6 per site. Based upon our sampling strategy, the N-Peru site—with the highest annual precipitation—had the most fire events. Median fire return intervals varied from 455 to 2,950 cal years BP among sites. Based on available dates, at least three samples (1 from the top of each of 3 pits) are required for the sampling to have a reasonable likelihood of capturing the most recent fire for forests with no history of a recent fire. The maximum fire return interval for two sites was shorter than the time since the last fire, suggesting that over the past ∼800 years these forests have undergone a longer fire-free period than the past 2,000–3,500 years. Our analysis from terra-firme forest soils helps to improve understanding of changes in fire regime, information necessary to evaluate post-fire legacies on modern vegetation and soil and to calibrate models to predict forest response to fire under climate change.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Predicting the loss of forests, carbon stocks and biodiversity driven by a neotropical ‘gold rush’

The loss of tropical forests represents a major threat to biodiversity. With accelerating deforestation in large parts of the Amazon, the Guiana Shield region, with its large expanse of closed forest cover, has the potential to play a crucial role in both climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. However, the region is now facing increasing deforestation pressures, primarily from artisanal gold mining activities concentrated in the nation of Guyana. To identify areas of Guyana at the highest risk of deforestation over the next 25 years, we employed a spatio-temporal modelling approach that accounted for the stochastic and contagious nature of deforestation. Our model predicted a 9 % net decrease in total forest cover by 2043. While the primary drivers of deforestation were mining and human settlements, protected areas were shown to reduce the probability of deforestation. Therefore, we assessed the potential impact of a proposed expansion of the protected area network in Guyana, on forest loss, carbon stocks and habitat loss for the country's most threatened forest vertebrates. Establishing the proposed protected areas would reduce forest loss by 17 %, predicted habitat losses by an average of 1.9 % per vertebrate group, and aboveground carbon emissions by 466,968 t over the next 25 years. These findings highlight the utility of using predictive models to identify areas at risk of future deforestation, which can contribute to the development of effective strategies against tropical forest loss, biodiversity loss and climate change

Chapter 29: Restoration Priorities and Benefits within Landscapes and Catchments and Across the Amazon Basin

Restoration can be applied in many different Amazonian contexts but will be most effective at leveraging environmental and social benefits when it is prioritized across the Amazon Basin and within landscapes and catchments. Here we outline the considerations that are most relevant for planning and scaling restoration

Chapter 27: Conservation measures to counter the main threats to Amazonian biodiversity

Present-day human activities are reducing and altering Amazonian biodiversity and disrupting the functioning of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (Chapter 19 & 20). This chapter outlines some of the approaches required to address the main threats to the Amazon’s biodiversity and ecosystems, i.e.,deforestation, damming of rivers, mining, hunting, illegal trade, drug production and trafficking, illegal logging, overfishing, and infrastructure expansion. The role of restoration is addressed in Chapters 28 and 29

Chapter 28: Restoration Options for the Amazon

This chapter examines site-specific opportunities and approaches for restoring terrestrial and aquatic systems, focusing on local actions and their immediate benefits. Landscape, catchment, and biome-wide considerations are addressed in Chapter 29. Conservation approaches are addressed in Chapter 2

Long-term thermal sensitivity of Earth’s tropical forests

The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate controls on forest carbon. Maximum temperature is the most important predictor of aboveground biomass (−9.1 megagrams of carbon per hectare per degree Celsius), primarily by reducing woody productivity, and has a greater impact per °C in the hottest forests (>32.2°C). Our results nevertheless reveal greater thermal resilience than observations of short-term variation imply. To realize the long-term climate adaptation potential of tropical forests requires both protecting them and stabilizing Earth’s climate

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

Aim: Amazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types. Location: Amazonia. Taxon: Angiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots). Methods: Data for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran\u27s eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny. Results: In the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R$^{2}$ = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R$^{2}$ = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types. Main Conclusion: Numerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions

Geographic patterns of tree dispersal modes in Amazonia and their ecological correlates

Aim: To investigate the geographic patterns and ecological correlates in the geographic distribution of the most common tree dispersal modes in Amazonia (endozoochory, synzoochory, anemochory and hydrochory). We examined if the proportional abundance of these dispersal modes could be explained by the availability of dispersal agents (disperser-availability hypothesis) and/or the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits (resource-availability hypothesis). Time period: Tree-inventory plots established between 1934 and 2019. Major taxa studied: Trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 9.55 cm. Location: Amazonia, here defined as the lowland rain forests of the Amazon River basin and the Guiana Shield. Methods: We assigned dispersal modes to a total of 5433 species and morphospecies within 1877 tree-inventory plots across terra-firme, seasonally flooded, and permanently flooded forests. We investigated geographic patterns in the proportional abundance of dispersal modes. We performed an abundance-weighted mean pairwise distance (MPD) test and fit generalized linear models (GLMs) to explain the geographic distribution of dispersal modes. Results: Anemochory was significantly, positively associated with mean annual wind speed, and hydrochory was significantly higher in flooded forests. Dispersal modes did not consistently show significant associations with the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits. A lower dissimilarity in dispersal modes, resulting from a higher dominance of endozoochory, occurred in terra-firme forests (excluding podzols) compared to flooded forests. Main conclusions: The disperser-availability hypothesis was well supported for abiotic dispersal modes (anemochory and hydrochory). The availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits seems an unlikely explanation for the distribution of dispersal modes in Amazonia. The association between frugivores and the proportional abundance of zoochory requires further research, as tree recruitment not only depends on dispersal vectors but also on conditions that favour or limit seedling recruitment across forest types