Submarine Groundwater Discharge Estimates Using Radium Isotopes and Related Nutrient Inputs into Tauranga Harbour (New Zealand)     

Benjamin T. Stewart  Karin R. Bryan  Conrad A. Pilditch  Isaac R. Santos 《Estuaries and Coasts》2018,41(2):384-403

Land-based pollutants such as fertilizers and wastewater can infiltrate into aquifers and discharge into surrounding coastal water bodies as submarine groundwater discharge (SGD). Oceanic islands, with a large coast length to land area ratio, may be hot spots of SGD into the global ocean. Although SGD may be a major pathway of dissolved nutrients, carbon and metals to coastal waters, studies have been limited due to the difficulties in measuring this often diffuse process. This study used radium isotopes (²²³Ra, ²²⁴Ra, ²²⁶Ra) to investigate SGD and the associated fluxes of nutrients into Tauranga Harbour, New Zealand. We calculated the apparent water mass ages of the harbour to be between ~4.1 and 7.8 days, which was similar to a previous numerical model of ~2–8 days. A ²²⁶Ra mass balance was constructed to quantify SGD fluxes at the harbour scale. A minimum SGD flux rate of 0.53 cm day^?1 was calculated by using the maximum groundwater end-member value from 22 sample sites. However, using the geometric mean from these samples as a representative end-member, a final value of 2.83 cm day^?1 or a flux of 3.09 × 10⁶ m³ day^?1 was calculated. These values were between ~1 and 2.8 times greater than all the major river and creeks discharging into the harbour during the sampling period. Due to the higher observed nutrient concentrations in groundwater, the SGD-derived dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and total dissolved phosphorus (TDP) fluxes were calculated to be 1.07, 0.87 and 0.05 mmol m² day^?1, respectively. These SGD inputs were ~5 times (for nitrogen) and ~8 times (for phosphorus) greater than the input from surrounding rivers and streams. The average N:P ratio in groundwater samples was 36:1 (which was greatly in excess of the Redfield ratio of 16). The harbour water had a N:P ratio of ~17:1. A positive relationship between radium isotopes and N:P ratios in the harbour further supported the hypothesis that SGD can have major implications for primary production, including recurrent algal bloom events which occur in the harbour. We suggest SGD as a major driver of nutrient dynamics in Tauranga Harbour and potentially other similar coastal lagoon systems and estuaries on oceanic islands.  相似文献   

Direct measurement of the size, shape, and pole of 511 Davida with Keck AO in a single night     

A.R. Conrad  C. Dumas  J.D. Drummond  R.W. Goodrich  F.H. Chaffee  S.H. Kwok 《Icarus》2007,191(2):616-627

Using the high-quality data set of 165 images taken at 11 epochs over the 5.13 h rotation of the large C-type Asteroid 511 Davida, we find the dimensions of its triaxial ellipsoid model to be 357±2×294±2×231±50 km. The images were acquired with the adaptive optics system on the 10 m Keck II telescope on December 27, 2002. The a and b diameters are much better determined than previously estimated from speckle interferometry and indirect measurements, and our mean diameter, (abc)^1/3=289±21 km, is 19% below previous estimates. We find the pole to lie within 2° of [RA=295°; Dec=0°] or in Ecliptic coordinates [λ=297°; β=+21°], a significant improvement to the pole direction. Otherwise, previous determinations of the axial ratios agree with our new results. These observations illustrate that our technique of finding the dimensions and pole of an asteroid from its changing projected size and shape is very powerful because it can be done in essentially one night as opposed to decades of lightcurves. Average departures of 3% (5 km) of the asteroid's mean radius from a smooth outline are detected, with at least two local positive-relief features and at least one flat facet showing approximately 15 km deviations from the reference best-fit ellipsoid. The facet is reminiscent of large global-scale craters on Asteroid 253 Mathilde (also a C-type) when seen edge-on in close-up images from the NEAR mission flyby. We show that giant craters (up to 150 km diameter, the size of the largest facets seen on Davida) can be expected from the impactor size distribution, without likelihood of catastrophic disruption of Davida.  相似文献   

Keck adaptive optics imaging of near-Earth Asteroid 2004 XP14     

Michael W. Busch  Shrinivas R. Kulkarni  A.R. Conrad 《Icarus》2007,189(2):589-590

We present resolved near-infrared images of near-Earth Asteroid 2004 XP14, obtained with the adaptive optics system on Keck II during July 2006. This is the first time a near-Earth asteroid has been directly imaged from the ground. Our result illustrates the capabilities of adaptive optics and complements radar and spectral observations.  相似文献   

An experiment to gauge an ungauged catchment: rapid data assessment and eco-hydrological modelling in a data-scarce rural catchment     

Conrad Jackisch  Erwin Zehe  Luis Samaniego  Anupam K. Singh 《水文科学杂志》2013,58(12):2103-2125

Abstract

We conducted a PUB (predictions in ungauged basins) experiment looking at hydrology and crop dynamics in the semi-arid rural Mod catchment in India. The experiment was motivated by the aims (a) to develop a coupled eco-hydrological model capable of analysing land-use strategies concerning crop water need, erosion protection, crop yield and resistivity against droughts and floods, and (b) to assess the feasibility of a strategy for collecting the necessary data in a data-scarce region. Our experiment combines parsimonious data assessment and eco-hydrological model coupling at the lower mesoscale. Linking bottom-up sampling of functionally representative soil classes and top-down regionalization based on spectral properties of the same resulted in a comprehensive distributed data basis for the model. A clear focus on the dominating processes and the catena as the organizing landscape element in the given environmental setting enabled this. We employed the WASA (Water Availability in Semi-Arid environments) model for uncalibrated process-based water balance modelling and integrated a crop simulation subroutine based on the SWAP (Soil Water Atmosphere Plant) model to account for crop dynamics, feedbacks and yield estimation. While we found the data assessment strategy and the hydrological model application largely feasible, in terms of its accounting for scale, processes and model concepts, the simulation of feedbacks with crops was problematic. Contributing to the PUB issue, more general conclusions are drawn concerning spatially-distributed structural information and uncalibrated modelling.