Floods and livelihoods: The impact of changing water resources on wetland agro-ecological production systems in the Tana River Delta,Kenya     

Crystele Leauthaud  Stéphanie Duvail  Olivier Hamerlynck  Jean-Luc Paul  Hubert Cochet  Judith Nyunja  Jean Albergel  Olivier Grünberger 《Global Environmental Change》2013,23(1):252-263

Wetlands are highly dynamic and productive systems that have been under increased pressure from changes in land use and water management strategies. In Eastern Africa, wetlands provide resources at multiple spatial and temporal levels through farming, fishing, livestock ownership and a host of other ecosystem services that sustain the local economy and individual livelihoods. As part of a broader effort to describe future development scenarios for East African coastal wetlands, this qualitative study focuses on understanding the processes by which river water depletion has affected local food production systems in Kenya's Tana River Delta over the past 50 years, and how this situation has impacted residents’ livelihoods and well-being. Interviews performed in six villages among various ethnic groups, geographical locations and resource profiles indicated that the agro-ecological production systems formerly in place were adapted to the river's dynamic flooding patterns. As these flooding patterns changed, the local population diversified and abandoned or adopted various farming, fishing and livestock-rearing techniques. Despite these efforts, the decrease in water availability affected each subcomponent of the production systems under study, which led to their collapse in the 1990s. Water depletion negatively impacted local human well-being through the loss of food security. The current study provides a detailed account of the dynamics of agro-ecological production systems facing the effects of river water depletion in a wetland-associated environment in Sub-Saharan Africa.  相似文献   

Full-Scale Spectrum of Boundary-Layer Winds   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Xiaoli G. Larsén  Søren E. Larsen  Erik L. Petersen 《Boundary-Layer Meteorology》2016,159(2):349-371

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Subalpine fires: the roles of vegetation,climate and,ultimately, land uses     

Bérangère Leys  Christopher Carcaillet 《Climatic change》2016,135(3-4):683-697

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Can we learn from the past? Four hundred years of changes in adaptation to floods and droughts. Measuring the vulnerability in two Hispanic cities   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Salvador Gil-Guirado  José-Antonio Espín-Sánchez  María Del Rosario Prieto 《Climatic change》2016,139(2):183-200

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Nephelinite lavas at early stage of rift initiation (Hanang volcano,North Tanzanian Divergence)     

Céline Baudouin  Fleurice Parat  Carole M. M. Denis  Fredrik Mangasini 《Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology》2016,171(7):64

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Zinc-rich clays in supergene non-sulfide zinc deposits     

F. Choulet  M. Buatier  L. Barbanson  R. Guégan  A. Ennaciri 《Mineralium Deposita》2016,51(4):467-490

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External controls on the distribution,fabrics and mineralization of modern microbial mats in a coastal hypersaline lagoon,Cayo Coco (Cuba)   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1       下载免费PDF全文

Anthony Bouton  Emmanuelle Vennin  Aurélie Pace  Raphaël Bourillot  Christophe Dupraz  Christophe Thomazo  Arnaud Brayard  Guy Désaubliaux  Pieter T. Visscher 《Sedimentology》2016,63(4):972-1016

Active, carbonate‐mineralizing microbial mats flourish in a tropical, highly evaporative, marine‐fed lagoonal network to the south of Cayo Coco Island (Cuba). Hypersaline conditions support the development of a complex sedimentary microbial ecosystem with diverse morphologies, a variable intensity of mineralization and a potential for preservation. In this study, the role of intrinsic (i.e. microbial) and extrinsic (i.e. physicochemical) controls on microbial mat development, mineralization and preservation was investigated. The network consists of lagoons, forming in the interdune depressions of a Pleistocene aeolian substratum; they developed due to a progressive increase in sea‐level since the Holocene. The hydrological budget in the Cayo Coco lagoonal network changes from west to east, increasing the salinity. This change progressively excludes grazers and increases the saturation index of carbonate minerals, favouring the development and mineralization of microbial mats in the easternmost lagoons. Detailed mapping of the easternmost lagoon shows four zones with different flooding regimes. The microbial activity in the mats was recorded using light–dark shifts in conjunction with microelectrode O₂ and HS^? profiles. High rates of O₂ production and consumption, in addition to substantial amounts of exopolymeric substances, are indicative of a potentially strong intrinsic control on mineralization. Seasonal, climate‐driven water fluctuations are key for mat development, mineralization, morphology and distribution. Microbial mats show no mineralization in the permanently submersed zone, and moderate mineralization in zones with alternating immersion and exposure. It is suggested that mineralization is also driven by water‐level fluctuations and evaporation. Mineralized mats are laminated and consist of alternating trapping and binding of grains and microbially induced magnesium calcite and dolomite precipitation. The macrofabrics of the mats evolve from early colonizing Flat mats to complex Cerebroid or Terrace structures. The macrofabrics are influenced by the hydrodynamic regime: wind‐driven waves inducing relief terraces in windward areas and flat morphologies on the leeward side of the lagoon. Other external drivers include: (i) storm events that either promote (for example, by bioclasts covering) or prevent (for example, by causing erosion) microbial mat preservation; and (ii) subsurface degassing, through mangrove roots and desiccation cracks covered by Flat mats (i.e. forming Hemispheroids and Cerebroidal structures). These findings provide in‐depth insights into understanding fossil microbialite morphologies that formed in lagoonal settings.  相似文献   

Thresholds of intrabed flow and other interactions of turbidity currents with soft muddy substrates          下载免费PDF全文

Jaco H. Baas  Rafael Manica  Eduardo Puhl  Ana Luiza de Oliveira Borges 《Sedimentology》2016,63(7):2002-2036

Controlled laboratory experiments reveal that the lower part of turbidity currents has the ability to enter fluid mud substrates, if the bed shear stress is higher than the yield stress of the fluid mud and the density of the turbidity current is higher than the density of the substrate. Upon entering the substrate, the turbidity current either induces mixing between flow‐derived sediment and substrate sediment, or it forms a stable horizontal flow front inside the fluid mud. Such ‘intrabed’ flow is surrounded by plastically deformed mud; otherwise it resembles the front of a ‘bottom‐hugging’ turbidity current. The ‘suprabed’ portion of the turbidity current, i.e. the upper part of the flow that does not enter the substrate, is typically separated from the intrabed flow by a long horizontal layer of mud which originates from the mud that is swept over the top of the intrabed flow and then incorporated into the flow. The intrabed flow and the mixing mechanism are specific types of interaction between turbidity currents and muddy substrates that are part of a larger group of interactions, which also include bypass, deposition, erosion and soft sediment deformation. A classification scheme for these types of interactions is proposed, based on an excess bed shear stress parameter, which includes the difference in the bed shear stress imposed by the flow and the yield stress of the substrate and an excess density parameter, which relies on the density difference between the flow and the substrate. Based on this classification scheme, as well as on the sedimentological properties of the laboratory deposits, an existing facies model for intrabed turbidites is extended to the other types of interaction involving soft muddy substrates. The physical threshold of flow‐substrate mixing versus stable intrabed flow is defined using the gradient Richardson number, and this method is validated successfully with the laboratory data. The gradient Richardson number is also used to verify that stable intrabed flow is possible in natural turbidity currents, and to determine under which conditions intrabed flow is likely to be unstable. It appears that intrabed flow is likely only in natural turbidity currents with flow velocities well below ca 3·5 m s^?1, although a wider range of flows is capable of entering fluid muds. Below this threshold velocity, intrabed flow is stable only at high‐density gradients and low‐velocity gradients across the upper boundary of the turbidity current. Finally, the gradient Richardson number is used as a scaling parameter to set the flow velocity limits of a natural turbidity current that formed an inferred intrabed turbidite in the deep‐marine Aberystwyth Grits Group, West Wales, United Kingdom.  相似文献   

A Criterion for Brittle Failure of Rocks Using the Theory of Critical Distances     

Jorge Castro  Sergio Cicero  César Sagaseta 《Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering》2016,49(1):63-77

This paper presents a new analytical criterion for brittle failure of rocks and heavily over-consolidated soils. Griffith’s model of a randomly oriented defect under a biaxial stress state is used to keep the criterion simple. The Griffith’s criterion is improved because the maximum tensile strength is not evaluated at the boundary of the defect but at a certain distance from the boundary, known as half of the critical distance. This fracture criterion is known as the point method, and is part of the theory of critical distances, which is utilised in fracture mechanics. The proposed failure criterion has two parameters: the inherent tensile strength, σ ₀, and the ratio of the half-length of the initial crack/flaw to the critical distance, a/L. These parameters are difficult to measure but they may be correlated with the uniaxial compressive and tensile strengths, σ _c and σ _t. The proposed criterion is able to reproduce the common range of strength ratios for rocks and heavily overconsolidated soils (σ _c/σ _t = 3–50) and the influence of several microstructural rock properties, such as texture and porosity. Good agreement with laboratory tests reported in the literature is found for tensile and low-confining stresses.  相似文献   

Analysis of extreme rainfall in the Ebre Observatory (Spain)     

Núria Pérez-Zanón  M. Carmen Casas-Castillo  Raúl Rodríguez-Solà  Juan Carlos Peña  Anna Rius  J. Germán Solé  Ángel Redaño 《Theoretical and Applied Climatology》2016,124(3-4):935-944

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