Agricultural land use dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon based on remote sensing and census data     

Giovana M. de Espindola  Ana Paula D. de AguiarEdzer Pebesma  Gilberto CâmaraLeila Fonseca 《Applied geography (Sevenoaks, England)》2012,32(2):240-252

The potential impact of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon on greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere calls for policies that take account of changes in forest cover. Although much research has focused on the location and effects of deforestation, little is known about the distribution and reasons for the agricultural uses that replace forest cover. We used Landsat TM-based deforestation and agricultural census data to generate maps of the distribution and proportion of four major agricultural land uses throughout the Brazilian Amazon in 1997 and 2007. We built linear and spatial regression models to assess the determinant factors of deforestation and those major agricultural land uses - pasture, temporary agriculture and permanent agriculture - for the states of Pará, Rondônia, and Mato Grosso. The data include 30 determinant factors that were grouped into two years (1996 and 2006) and in four categories: accessibility to markets, public policies, agrarian structure, and environment. We found an overall expansion of the total agricultural area between 1997 and 2007, and notable differences between the states of Pará, Rondônia, and Mato Grosso in land use changes during this period. Regression models for deforestation and pasture indicated that determinant factors such as distance to roads were more influential in 1997 than in 2007. The number of settled families played an important role in the deforestation and pasture, the effect was stronger in 2007 than 1997. Indigenous lands were significant in preventing deforestation in high-pressure areas in 2007. For temporary and permanent agricultures, our results show that in 1997 the effect of small farms was stronger than in 2007. The mapped land use time series and the models explain empirically the effects of land use changes across the region over one decade.  相似文献   

Coma Structures in Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, Components B and C,Between January and May 2006     

Jean-Baptiste Vincent  Hermann Böhnhardt  Ivano Bertini  Luisa-Maria Lara  Michael Küppers  Rafael Rodrigo 《Earth, Moon, and Planets》2010,106(1):27-35

The Jupiter family comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has been widely observed since 1995 after a nucleus break-up event produced at least five components labeled 73P-A to E. During the 2006 appearance, two of them (B and C) showed very strong coma activity. Our R-filter imaging of 73P-B & C from 21 January to 25 May 2006 revealed the presence of fan-like structures in the comae of both components and evidence for further fragmentation events in component B. As of early April 2006, component C showed two jets emanating from the nucleus, with one continuously visible. Through a simulation of the orbital geometry we infer that the rotation axis of 73P-C has an inclination of 20° to the orbital plane and a longitude of 45° at perihelion. The coma activity of component B was highly variable, displaying signatures of at least 3 fragmentation events. The coma was characterized by the continuous presence of a jet roughly in sunward direction, starting from the beginning of May. The first fragmentation event of component B may have happened between April 16 and April 26, leading to the presence of at least 6 fragments detected in images of May 2. The second one happened on or shortly before May 8, the third one between May 18 and 24. For the rotation axis of 73P-B we infer an inclination of 5°–15° to the orbital plane and a longitude of 20°–30° at perihelion.  相似文献   

Seasonal variations of water quality in a highly populated drainage basin,SE Brazil: water chemistry assessment and geochemical modeling approaches     

Eduardo Duarte Marques  Emmanoel V. Silva-Filho  Giovana V. C. Souza  Olga Venimar O. Gomes 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2016,75(24):1498

The São João Drainage Basin is a very important and strategic waterbody located in the Lagos Region, Rio de Janeiro State, one of the most popular tourist regions of Brazil. However, the fast economic and subsequent population growth in that region has created untreated wastes from several anthropogenic activities, which include the trace metals disposal into the surface waterbody. This study aims to relate the major ions and trace metals behavior during a 1-year sampling campaign and to provide information about the sources of chemical constituents and the factors that control their concentrations in the three main fluvial compartments of the drainage basin, including the Juturnaíba Reservoir which has a crucial role for water supply in the Lagos Region. The chemical data reveal that rainfall is the main factor responsible for the physicochemical parameters and the water dissolved constituent’s variations. The geological and anthropogenic factors which are the main sources of water constituents were assessed by the Inorganic Chemical Index. Those data corroborate the great influence of rainfall and reveal the importance of anthropogenic sources of chemical constituents in some parts of the Juturnaíba Reservoir. The geochemical modeling suggests that hydrolysis reactions are primarily responsible for the trace metals availability in the three fluvial compartments in both dry and wet seasons, followed by carbonate and sulfate complexation.  相似文献   

Were Pleistocene hippopotamuses exposed to climate‐driven body size changes?     

Paul P. A. Mazza  Adele Bertini 《Boreas: An International Journal of Quaternary Research》2013,42(1):194-209

This study proposes a working hypothesis that Mediterranean hippopotamuses, and perhaps European ones as well, reduced their size, sometimes even drastically, from the ‘Mid‐Pleistocene Revolution’ (MPR, c.1.2–0.5 Ma) to the Late Pleistocene. In contrast to the Early Pleistocene, during this time period glacial/interglacial cycling was dominated by a 100‐ka periodicity, with more extended glacial phases (up to 85 ka) alternating with shorter interglacial phases (up to 15 ka). These changes seem to have somehow affected the size of hippopotamuses. While relatively larger hippopotamuses have been found in warmer and somewhat more humid intervals, data seem to indicate that they might not have grown as large under less favourable conditions, namely during colder and comparatively drier times. This is a possible response to climate‐driven fluctuations in food availability, but Pleistocene habitat fragmentation may also have had an influence. Environmental break‐up during the late Quaternary led to the isolation of megafauna populations, which underwent modifications similar to those observed in insular mammals. Although the amount of remains available is still limited, it is nonetheless a fact that hippopotamuses changed their body size through time, normally becoming smaller. If the conclusions are confirmed as data continue to accumulate, hippopotamuses might cast doubt on the generality of Bergmann's rule.  相似文献   

A multidisciplinary study of the Cape Peloro brackish area (Messina, Italy): characterisation of trophic conditions, microbial abundances and activities     

Marcella Leonardi  Filippo Azzaro  Maurizio Azzaro  Gabriella Caruso  Monique Mancuso  Luis Salvador Monticelli  Giovana Maimone  Rosabruna La Ferla  Francesco Raffa  & Renata Zaccone 《Marine Ecology》2009,30(S1):33-42

In the framework of the VECTOR DIVCOST Project, a 2-year investigation was started in 2006, with the aim of testing the sensibility of microbial parameters to environmental changes and of assessing whether they can provide information about functional changes in the carbon cycle. The investigation was performed in the surface waters of two small brackish ponds (Ganzirri and Faro), located in the Cape Peloro transitional area (Sicily, Italy). The seasonal changes in both the microbial compartment [bacterioplankton, vibrios, exoenzymatic hydrolysis of proteins and polysaccharides, bacterial secondary production (HBP) and community respiration] and the trophic state of suspended matter [total suspended matter (TSM), particulate organic carbon (POC), particulate organic nitrogen (PON), C/N] were analysed in relation to the hydrological characteristics [temperature, salinity, oxygen, fluorescence, NH₄, NO₂, NO₃, PO₄]. Despite marked differences in the nutritional input and the diversification in both carbon budget and trophic level, the two ponds show similar trends in many of the investigated factors, hardly influenced by seasonal variations. Temporally coupled trends were observed for some parameters (enzyme activities, vibrios abundances, respiratory activity), whereas others (POC, PON, heterotrophic bacterial production, bacterioplankton) showed a seasonal shift between the two lakes. The different behaviour found for the some biotic parameters suggests that their response to environmental conditions may be modulated differently between the two lakes, which, despite their spatial proximity and reciprocal connection, do not always show contemporaneous functional processes.  相似文献   

Main Belt Comets: A new class of small bodies in the solar system     

Ivano Bertini 《Planetary and Space Science》2011,59(5-6):365-377

Comets and asteroids have traditionally been considered two distinct separate populations of small bodies in the solar system, according to their different dynamical, observational, and compositional characteristics.The discovery of a new class of objects, the so-called, Main Belt Comets (MBCs), exhibiting a clear cometary activity but having at the same time orbits indistinguishable from the ones of asteroids in the Main Belt provided further evidence that asteroids and comets, rather than two distinct separate classes, represent the end-members of a continuum of small bodies, with compositions from the very rocky to the very icy.Their study is nowadays deepening our knowledge of the formation mechanisms of the solar system and of the distribution of volatile materials in the protoplanetary disk.In this paper the present knowledge of MBCs is reviewed in terms of physical properties derived from observations, dynamical studies about the origin and formation, thermal modeling of the nuclei, investigations about the activation mechanisms, and the eventual contribution to the presence of water on our planet. An overview of the large-scale surveys dedicated to their discovery and of the detection techniques used so far is also given. Moreover, open question and indications for future observations and modeling are outlined.  相似文献   

HF transionospheric long range propagation from satellite observed at Florence     

P. Beni  F. Bertini  P.F. Pellegrini 《Planetary and Space Science》1978,26(1):37-49

Results are presented of a statistical analysis of experimental data on the long range HF transionospheric propagation obtained by using the radio signals emitted by the 1970-34 A satellite, and received at the Florence station, Italy.The satellite emission was generated above the F2 h_max region. The signal, which penetrates the ionosphere and propagates to remote distances, has frequently been received on Earth's surface with low attenuation. Ray-tracing techniques were employed to verify the consistency of the partially-guided low-loss paths.An analysis of the signal amplitude received is presented. An improvement over free-space propagation losses up to 6 dB over ranges of 12,000 km, and up to 8 dB for nearly antipodal satellite passes have been observed, confirming the existence and the importance of guided propagation for long-range communications between satellites and ground terminals, and also for transionospheric links.The role played by horizontal gradients in the ionospheric electron distribution, which are notably present in the sunrise and sunset regions, was investigated. These allow satellite-to-ground long range propagation, as also confirmed by ray-tracing analysis.Experimental observations are presented of the reception occurrence, path-losses and signal amplitude statistics as a function of the geometry of the link and the ionospheric situation; the propagation mechanisms involved are investigated.  相似文献   

Cesi,an early Middle Pleistocene site in the Colfiorito Basin (Umbro-Marchean Apennine), central Italy     

G. Ficcarelli  L. Abbazzi  A. Albianelli  A. Bertini  M. Coltorti  M. Magnatti  F. Masini  P. Mazza  C. Mezzabotta  G. Napoleone  L. Rook  M. Rustioni  D. Torre 《第四纪科学杂志》1997,12(6):507-518

Near the village of Cesi, at the head of the Chienti River, in the Colfiorito Basin (Umbro-Marchean Apennines, central Italy), fluvio-lacustrine deposits have yielded mammal fossil remains. The results of a multidisciplinary investigation indicate that the vertebrate-bearing sediments date about 700 ka and accordingly provide a fossil assemblage for the Middle–Late Galerian. Palynological investigations carried out from sediments underlying the fossiliferous level suggest predominantly cold and dry conditions, whereas the fauna suggests a slight climatic amelioration towards cool and moist conditions in the uppermost part of the sequence. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Pollen record from Colle Curti and Cesi: Early and Middle Pleistocene mammal sites in the Umbro–Marchean Apennine Mountains (central Italy)     

Adele Bertini 《第四纪科学杂志》2000,15(8):825-840

The palynological record from the Colle Curti and Cesi continental deposits has been examined in order to identify the main palaeofloristic and vegetational changes between 0.99 and 0.6–0.7 Ma. These data show a progressive increase in aridity, as well as a progressive decrease in temperature, which are associated with the transition in dominance from the 41 to 100 ka cyclicity in the Milankovitch orbital record during the Middle Pleistocene. The disappearance of Tsuga, recorded during the lower part of the Brunhes Chron, also has been related to a shift in global aridity. During the successive open vegetational phases (glacials), Chenopodiaceae and Artemisia progressively increase, whereas Cyperaceae decrease. Forest phases (interglacials) are successively dominated by Tsuga, Abies with Picea and, finally, Pinus; but all lack significant expansion of broad‐leaved deciduous taxa. Palynological and sedimentological data, in addition to taphonomic interpretations, demonstrate the occurrence of several hiatuses in the lower parts of the interglacials. These hiatuses are considered to represent the palaeoenvironmental response to climatic changes affecting local sedimentological and geomorphological conditions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Geological structure of a long‐living geothermal system,Larderello, Italy     

Giovanni Bertini  Michele Casini  Giovanni Gianelli  Enrico Pandeli 《地学学报》2006,18(3):163-169

We have examined the data of 600 geothermal wells and re‐interpreted approximately 500 km seismic profiles through the field of Larderello, Italy. We conclude that the two main seismic reflectors present below the geothermal area host two different fluids: (1) superheated steam in the upper H‐horizon (reached by drillholes) and (2) supercritical fluid in the deeper K‐horizon (reached by few unproductive or damaged wells). The superheated steam has the physical and chemical connotation of the geothermal fluid exploited so far at Larderello, whereas the supercritical fluid represents a potential unconventional deep‐seated resource still to be assessed. The high temperatures existing in correspondence of the K‐horizon suggest that the silica‐rich rocks are close to a plastic state and the fluids should remain confined in a medium sealed to the confining rocks, unless occasional fluid overpressure and abrupt high strain rates occur.  相似文献