Simulating and delineating future land change trajectories across Europe

Explorations of future land use change are important to understand potential conflicts between competing land uses, trade-offs associated with particular land change trajectories, and the effectiveness of policies to steer land systems into desirable states. Most model-based explorations and scenario studies focused on conversions in broad land use classes, but disregarded changes in land management or focused on individual sectors only. Using the European Union (EU) as a case study, we developed an approach to identifying typical combinations of land cover and management changes by combining the results of multimodel simulations in the agriculture and forest sectors for four scenarios from 2000 to 2040. We visualized land change trajectories by mapping regional hotspots of change. Land change trajectories differed in extent and spatial pattern across the EU and among scenarios, indicating trajectory-specific option spaces for alternative land system outcomes. In spite of the large variation in the area of change, similar hotspots of land change were observed among the scenarios. All scenarios indicate a stronger polarization of land use in Europe, with a loss of multifunctional landscapes. We analyzed locations subject to change by comparing location characteristics associated with certain land change trajectories. Results indicate differences in the location conditions of different land change trajectories, with diverging impacts on ecosystem service provisioning. Policy and planning for future land use needs to account for the spatial variation of land change trajectories to achieve both overarching and location-specific targets.

     

Assessing groundwater quality and its sustainability in Joypurhat district of Bangladesh using GIS and multivariate statistical approaches

Sustainable groundwater quality is a key global concern and has become a major issue of disquiets in most parts of the world including Bangladesh. Hence, the assessment of groundwater quality is an important study to ensure its sustainability for various uses. In this study, a combination of multivariate statistics, geographical information system (GIS) and geochemical approaches was employed to evaluate the groundwater quality and its sustainability in Joypurhat district of Bangladesh. The results showed that the groundwater samples are mainly Ca–Mg–HCO₃ type. Principal component analysis (PCA) results revealed that geogenic sources (rock weathering and cation exchange) followed by anthropogenic activities (domestic sewage and agro-chemicals) were the major factors governing the groundwater quality of the study area. Furthermore, the results of PCA are validated using the cluster analysis and correlation matrix analysis. Based on the groundwater quality index (GWQI), it is found that all the groundwater samples belong to excellent to good water quality domains for human consumption, although iron, fluoride and iodide contaminated to the groundwater, which do not pose any significant health hazard according to World Health Organization’s and Bangladesh’s guideline values. The results of irrigation water quality index including sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), permeability index and sodium percentage (Na %) suggested that most of the groundwater samples are good quality water for agricultural uses. The spatial distribution of the measured values of GWQI, SAR, Fe (iron), EC (electrical conductivity) and TH (total hardness) were spatially mapped using the GIS tool in the study area.     

Sustainability indicators of water sharing compacts

There is an increasing crisis of fresh water availability throughout the world. Sharing the available water resources in a sustainable manner among numerous stakeholders in the backdrop of this crisis is more challenging. Very often water conflicts are triggered out in this challenging scenario. These conflicts are sometimes reconciled with compacts on sharing. Water sharing compacts on both surface and aquifer resources are very common. Whether these compacts are founded on postulates of sustainability is the important question we want to investigate. Conflicts resurface when the sustainability of a compact is at stake. In this paper, we are reviewing three compacts on surface water sharing to understand their sustainability perspectives and how it has helped addressing conflicts. An introduction to various legal instruments promulgated aiming water conflict abatement is given first. Different types of water sharing agreements being signed in the current water management practice are also looked into. Theoretical background of sustainability analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, applicable in the case of water sharing models is then discussed. This is followed by specific case study analysis of three interstate water sharing agreements executed in basins of different agro-climatic regions across the world. It includes the Colorado basin (USA), Murray Darling basin (Australia) and the Parambikulam Aliyar Project (PAP) basins (India). Interstate water sharing agreement of these basins is critically examined and compared to comment on its sustainability perspective. The Murray Darling basin and its compact appear to be better in its overall considerations of sustainability. Compared to Colorado and Murray Darling, PAP requires major revisions in its sustainability context. E flows and stochastic modeling are the thrust areas of PAP that require major revision.     

A stochastic Lagrangian micromixing model for the dispersion of reactive scalars in turbulent flows: role of concentration fluctuations and improvements to the conserved scalar theory under non-homogeneous conditions

Several reaction schemes, based on the conserved scalar theory, are implemented within a stochastic Lagrangian micromixing model to simulate the dispersion of reactive scalars in turbulent flows. In particular, the formulation of the reaction-dominated limit (RDL) reaction scheme is here extended to improve the model performance under non-homogeneous conditions (NHRDL scheme). The validation of the stochastic model is obtained by comparison with the available measurements of reactive pollutant concentrations in a grid-generated turbulent flow. This test case describes the dispersion of two atmospheric reactant species (NO and O₃) and their reaction product (NO₂) in an unbounded turbulent flow. Model inter-comparisons are also assessed, by considering the results of state-of-the-art models for pollutant dispersion. The present validation shows that RDL reaction scheme provides a systematic overestimation (relative error of ca. 85% around the centreline) in computing the local reactant consumption/production rate, whereas the NHRDL scheme drastically reduces this gap (relative error lower than 5% around the centreline). In terms of NO₂ production (or reactant consumption), neglecting concentration fluctuations determines overestimations of the product mean of around 100% and a NO₂ local production of one order of magnitude higher than the reference simulation. In terms of standard deviations, the concentration fluctuations of both the passive and reactive scalars are generally of the same order of magnitude or up to 1 or 2 orders of magnitudes higher than the corresponding ensemble mean values, except for the background reactant close to the plume edges. The study highlights the importance of modelling pollutant reactions depending on the instantaneous instead of the mean concentrations of the reactants, thus quantifying the role of the turbulent fluctuations of concentration, in terms of scalar statistics (mean, standard deviation, intensity of fluctuations, skewness and kurtosis of concentration, segregation coefficient, simulated reaction rate). This stochastic particle method represents an efficient numerical technique to solve the convection–diffusion equation for reactive scalars and involves several application fields: micro-scale air quality (urban and street-canyon scales), accidental releases, impact of odours, water quality and fluid flow industrial processes (e.g. combustion).     

Evaluation of existing equations for temporal scour depth around circular bridge piers

Scour is defined as the processes of removal of sediment particles from water stream bed by the erosive action of activated water, and also carries sediment away from the hydraulic structures. Scour is the main cause of pier failure. Numerous equations are available for estimating temporal and equilibrium scour depth. The present study describes the phenomenon of temporal scour depth variation at bridge piers and deals with the methods for its estimation. The accuracy of six temporal scour depth equations are also checked in this study. After graphical and statistical analysis, it was found that the relationship proposed by Oliveto and Hager (J Hydraul Eng (ASCE) 128(9):811–520, 2002) predicts temporal scour depth better than other equations. Three equations of equilibrium time of scour are also used for computing equilibrium time. Equilibrium time equation proposed by Choi and Choi (Water Environ J 30(1–2):14–21, 2016) gives better agreements with observed values.     

Simulation of dam/levee-break hydrodynamics with a three-dimensional implicit unstructured-mesh finite element model

Dam failures usually cause huge economic and life losses , especially in urban areas where there is a high concentration of inhabitants and economic actors. In order to understand the physical mechanisms of the formation and development of dam-break flooding, lots of efforts have been put into different types of modelling techniques. However, most of existing models are 1D (one-dimensional) or 2D models based on the shallow water equations. In this paper, we present a 3D numerical modelling investigation of dam-break flow hydrodynamics in an open L-shape channel. A newly developed 3D unstructured mesh finite element model is used here. An absorption-like term is introduced to the Navier–Stokes equations in order to control the conditioning of the matrix equation in the numerical solution process and thus improve the stability. A wetting and drying algorithm is used here to allow the free surface height to be treated with a high level of implicitness and stability. The 3D model has been validated by comparing the results with the published experimental data. Good agreement has been achieved at six selected locations. This study shows that the 3D unstructured mesh model is capable of capturing the 3D hydraulic aspects and complicated local flows around structures in simulation of dam-break flows.     

Mechanism of the intermittent motion of two-phase debris flows

A typical two-phase debris flow exhibits a high and steep flow head consisting of rolling boulders and cobbles with intermittent or fluctuating velocity. The relative motion between the solid phase and the liquid phase is obvious. The motion of a two-phase debris flow depends not only on the rheological properties of the flow, but also on the energy transmission between the solid and liquid phases. Several models have been developed to study two-phase debris flows. An essential shortcoming of most of these models is the omission of the interaction between the two phases and identification of the different roles of the different materials in two-phase debris flows. The tracer particles were used for the velocity of solid phase and the velocity of liquid phase was calculated by the water velocity on the surface of the debris flow in the experiments. This paper analyzed the intermittent feature of two-phase debris flows based on videos of debris flows in the field and flume experiments. The experiments showed that the height of the head of the two-phase debris flow increased gradually in the initiation stage and reached equilibrium at a certain distance from the start of the debris flow. The height growth and the velocity of the flow head showed fluctuating characteristics. Model equations were established and the analyses proved that the average velocity of the two-phase debris flow head was proportional to the flood discharge and inversely proportional to the volume of the debris flow head.     

Froude scaling limitations in modeling of turbidity currents

The scaling problem associated with the modeling of turbidity currents has been recognized but is yet to be explored systematically. This paper presents an analysis of the dimensionless governing equations of turbidity currents to investigate the scale effect. Three types of flow conditions are considered: (i) conservative density current; (ii) purely depositional turbidity current; and (iii) mixed erosional/depositional turbidity current. Two controlling dimensionless numbers, the Froude number and the Reynolds number, appear in the non-dimensional governing equations. When densimetric Froude similarity is satisfied, the analysis shows that the results would be scale-invariant for conservative density current under the rough turbulent condition. In the case of purely depositional flows, truly scale-invariant results cannot be obtained, as the Reynolds-mediated scale effects appear in the bottom boundary conditions of the flow velocity and sediment fall velocity. However, the scale effect would be relatively modest. The Reynolds effect becomes more significant for erosional or mixed erosional/depositional turbidity currents as Reynolds-mediated scale effects also appear in the sediment entrainment relation. Numerical simulations have been conducted at three different scales by considering densimetric Froude scaling alone as well as combined densimetric Froude and Reynolds similarity. Simulation results confirm that although the scaling of densimetric Froude number alone can produce scale-invariable results for conservative density currents, variations occur in the case of turbidity currents. The results become scale invariant when densimetric Froude and Reynolds similarities are satisfied simultaneously.     

Using linear regression to measure bird abundance

This study investigated methods for identifying daily incidence rates for bird species. It focused on relationships between incidence rates, site and season. We used sightings of 23 common resident species routinely reported every month from January 2004 to December 2007 at seven wetland locations in the Thale Noi non-hunting area of southern Thailand. Our findings revealed that the log-linear model gives a quite satisfactory fit, so it appears a suitable type of model for bird abundance. On taking logarithms of the incidence rates though, the zero counts must be replaced by an appropriate constant. Our model suggests that Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) was found at the Thale Noi non-hunting area with the highest incidence rate. In contrast, we found a low mean of model outputs for Lesser Whistling-Duck (Dendrocygna javanica) relative to the mean in the data, and this species was not observed on at least 25 % or 3 days per year. These data had a low number of zeros and a large number of various species. Therefore, we recognize a remark on “what is being counted” that it is important to reasonably explain the species abundance in terms of statistical and ecological approaches.