Soil Erosion

SOIL EROSION

: public.globalnet.hr/~gvlahovi/ekologija/ecolo...

: eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/.../sect_h6.htm

Soil Erosion in the Alps (spatial analysis of causes and risk assessment) Meusburger, K. & Alewell, C. In mountain environments, difficulties in accessibility and data acquisitation are paired with a high degree in small-scale heterogeneity. Thus, successful approaches to assess susceptibility to erosion at catchment scale are bound to regionalization of data with GIS based modeling and remote sensing. The aim of this work is to identify causes of soil erosion in form of shallow landslides as well as the mapping of risk areas rather than an exact quantification of sediment rates. The first aim will be achieved by field observation and multidimensional spatial evaluation of influencing factors on soil erosion. This requires informative data layers such as surface cover, geology, geomorphology, land use, soil and erosion. Erosion mapping is done by field mapping and from aerial photographs. The aerial photographs are analyzed for different years in order to implicate the progress of erosion with climate parameters and land use changes. The gained knowledge will be incorporated into a GIS based soil erosion model that will concentrate on the relative differences between source strength of degraded soils. The methods to determine erosion risk are developed within a subcatchment and validated by of by upscaling to the 30 km2.

Soil erosion maps derived from aerial photographs are spatially compared to divers thematic maps. The project is funded by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (BAFU). : pages.unibas.ch/.../Soil_degr_AlpsCA_e_01.htm

Erosion modeling Bänninger, D. & Alewell, C. & Konz Hohwieler, N. & Meusburger, K.

For erosion modeling an essential requirement is to be able to spatially describe hydrology. From literature it was found that usual algorithms applied for this purpose do not route the water flow correctly between adjacent cells. Thus, the first step to make progress in erosion modeling is to get a spatially explicit hydrological model that calculates the water flow correct. First we propose to use irregular instead of frequently used regular grids because the complex topography of mountain areas can be described with a smaller number of grid nodes and thus reduces computation time. Second, we developed an algorithm which is simple in its implementation and efficient in computation (Bänninger, 2007). From the results of our water routing algorithm we can qualitatively conclude that the water routing over the irregular mesh runs correctly and the velocity of water flow routing is independent of the mesh resolution. Qualitative comparison of these results with the results of frequently used algorithms, for example the D8 algorithm, illustrates the advances in hydrological modeling (Figure 9). To make advances in erosion modeling each process has to be considered in a similar way.

Figure 9: Comparison of our algorithm (left) with the D8 algorithm (right). The blue color assigns water saturation, red means saturation. At the boundary of the cones we did not allow water outflow.

pages.unibas.ch/.../Soil_degr_AlpsCA_e_01.htm

FLASH FLOOD

library.thinkquest.org/.../flashfloods.html

library.thinkquest.org/.../flashfloods.html

HEAVY RAIN AND FLASH FLOODS In Johor Baru, Johor on 18 April 2006

Prepared by Malaysian Meteorological Department

1.

Introduction

Heavy rain from localized thunderstorm activity between 3.30pm and 5.30pm caused flash floods in downtown Johor Baru on 18 April 2006. Light variable winds near the earth’s surface and an unstable atmosphere which are charateristics of the intermonsoon season favors strong convective activity resulting in localized thundertorm and heavy rains in the late afternoon and early eveining, mainly over the west coast states of Peninsular Malaysia. In this report, analyses of the rainfall, satellite and radar imageries during the period of this heavy rain episode is presented.

www.kjc.gov.my/.../weather/Senai_e20060418.html

www.tutorgig.com/ed/2006_in_Malaysia •

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SAO PAULO - Army soldiers used boats, trucks and helicopters Wednesday to tote food and water to scores of cities and towns isolated by floods that have killed at least 30 people and left nearly 200,000 homeless. But in an ominous sign that worried civil defense officials, rain continued to fall across a vast region stretching from the Amazon jungle to the northeastern Atlantic coast and meteorologists predicted the bad weather could last for weeks. Isolated looting was reported in communities...

article.wn.com/.../

LAND SLIDE

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www.redcrescent.org.my/selangor/uploads/extga...

KUALA LUMPUR, Sat.: The quiet in Taman Bukit Mewah and Taman Bukit Utama in Bukit Antarabangsa was shattered by the sound of strong wind and an explosion just before the landslide hit the neighbourhood in the wee hours of the morning, according to an eyewitness. Businessman Hassan Saad, 48, said he was watching television in his sitting room at 4am when he heard what sounded like strong wind but when he looked out, the air was still and the trees were not swaying. He returned to watching the TV but suddenly he heard an explosion like that of a bomb. He ran out of the house and saw the earth sliding down the hillslope and hitting his neighbour’s house in front. Hassan said he shouted to wake up his family and alert his neighbours to run for their lives. His family of 10, including his mother-in-law and two cousins managed to run to safety. As at 10.30am, Selangor police chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar confirmed that three people had died in the landslide which buried 14 bungalows in the upscale housing estate. Hassan, who has been living there for 15 years, said it was the first time that such a thing had happened in the area. “Last month, eight trees fell on the hillslop about 20m behind my house and I informed the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) about it. “They came and chopped the trees. I thought that everything was okay then,” he told reporters at the scene. Another resident, Lian Wan Jian of Taman Bukit Mewah, said he heard two loud noises and thought that it was an earthquake. He said he was still awake at that time but his wife and two children were jolted from their sleep by the noises. When he opened the door to run out, he and his family saw the force of the earth movement lifting the cars and felt his house being pushed towards the neighbour’s house. He and his family, however, manged to run to safety. “Maybe we we wer able to save ourselves because our house is at the end (of the row),” he said at the centre for the victims at the Addinniah surau in Taman Bukit Mewah.

The New Straights Time

POLLUTION

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GLOBAL WARMING

netmar.com/~maat/announce/ann_dryice.htm

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OZONE DEPLETION

HOW THE OZONE LAYER IS ATTACKED The ozone depletion process begins when CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances (ODS) leak from equipment (1). Winds efficiently mix the troposphere and evenly distribute the gases. CFCs are extremely stable, and do not dissolve in rain. After a period of several years, ODS molecules reach the stratosphere, about 10 kilometres above the Earth's surface (2). Strong ultra-violet (UV) light breaks apart the ODS molecule. CFCs release chlorine atoms, and halons release bromine atoms (3). It is these atoms that actually destroy ozone. It is estimated that one chlorine atom can destroy over 100,000 ozone atoms before finally being removed from the stratosphere (4). Ozone is constantly being produced and destroyed in a natural cycle. However, the overall amount of ozone is essentially stable. This balance can be thought of as a stream's depth at a particular location. Although individual water molecules are moving past the observer, the total depth remains constant. Similarly, while ozone production and destruction are balanced, ozone levels remain stable. The situation began to change several decades ago. Large increases in stratospheric chlorine and bromine, have upset that balance. In effect, they have added a siphon downstream, removing ozone faster than natural ozone creation reactions can keep up. Therefore, ozone levels fall. Since ozone filters out harmful UVB radiation, less ozone means higher UVB levels at the surface. The more depletion, the larger the increase in incoming UVB (5). UVB has been linked to skin cancer, cataracts, damage to materials like plastics, and harm to certain crops and marine organisms. Although some UVB reaches the surface even without ozone depletion, its harmful effects will increase as a result of this problem (6).

Source: EPA's Stratospheric Protection Division

Study links smog exposure to premature death Posted on March 13th, 2009 Posted in Featured News Stories, Air pollution and air quality, Human health, Environmental health, Ozone depletion | By: Robin Bravender Long-term exposure to concentrated smog significantly raises the risk of dying from lung disease, a new study shows. The study, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the risk of dying from respiratory disease is more than three times higher in metropolitan areas with the most concentrated ozone — a precursor of smog — than in those with the lowest ozone concentrations.

Developed nations using methyl bromide irresponsibly, experts say Posted on November 27th, 2007 Posted in Featured News Stories, Environmental Policy, International enviro issues, Agriculture and food, Ozone depletion | Developed nations such as the United States are being irresponsible in their continued allowances of the use of an agricultural fumigant pesticide called methyl bromide, which is 50 times more damaging to earth’s atmosphere than CFCs that were blamed in the 1970s and 1980s for causing holes in the ozone, a United Nations official and environmental experts said this week. “There are several developing countries that are phasing out methyl bromide earlier than [their] required phaseout date,” U.N. Ozone Secretariat Senior Scientific Affairs Officer Megumi Seki said. A U.N. conference in Canada this week is discussing global methyl bromide issues.

Green clamp on A/C units Posted on May 26th, 2007 Posted in Climate change, Technology, Ozone depletion | Air-conditioning systems in about 50 large buildings in Bahrain will be affected by a soon to be implemented treaty that bans imports of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons). Within 30 months under the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, all available CFCs will be phased out and imports will be banned in Bahrain and other countries in the West Asia region.

CLIMATIC CHANGE

A Picture is Worth... The Future of Spain Under Climate Change? by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.10.07

Photograph courtesy of Pedro Armestre Is this what a future Spain besieged by global warming look like? The digitally retouched picture - part of a new book, Photoclima, released this week by Greenpeace - uses statistics gleaned from the UN panel on climate change to paint a revelatory picture of a La Manga del Mar following a sea level rise. Via ::Guardian Unlimited: Spain shown perils of climate change (news website)...

www.treehugger.com/2007/11/04-week/

gstaadblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/climat...

www.tacc.utexas.edu/.../climatechange.php

Climate Models and Ground Truth Climate models follow the exchanges of energy between the sun and the various components of the climate system: atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and cryosphere [snow and sea ice]. The processes that govern these exchanges take place in the natural world on a broad spectrum of space and time scales. They range from microphysical events (the nucleation of raindrops on micron-size aerosols) through diurnal and seasonal cycles to long-term changes beyond the scope of most models (e.g., entire ice ages). Climate models are best at keeping track of the large-scale exchanges of energy that take place within and among the fluid motions of the atmosphere and oceans. Global models resolve processes taking place on scales down to just one or two degrees of latitude or longitude, but many significant processes take place on smaller spatial scales that are not resolved in the models. Most important among these microphysical processes are the hydrological: those that govern cloud formation and rainout. To incorporate such processes, models use "parameterizations"--formulas that estimate the effects on the larger scales of the "subgrid-scale" physics. All parameterizations include parameters (think of them as knobs to turn and tweak) that provide flexibility so the model may be coaxed into better agreement with what we actually observe in nature. The choice of values for these parameters inevitably introduces some arbitrariness into the modeling process, since the parameters often do not correspond directly to quantities physically measurable in nature. The arbitrary choices can and do lead to differences in the models' sensitivities to external forcings, such as their estimates of the degree of warming that will take place due to a doubling of greenhouse gases. Current climate research focuses on the task of understanding the way nature maintains energy balances within the climate system and on the equally difficult task of correctly representing these processes within computer simulations of climate

www.tacc.utexas.edu/.../climatechange.php

LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY

www.sundancechannel.com/UPLOADS/blog/treehugg...

American Media & The Green Movement November 10th, 2008 by Sundance Channel Modern media shapes nearly everything in our culture. The TV set, the daily newspaper, the internet and radio stations have become the central meeting point for curious minds. It is not hard to understand why the messages that the media puts out into society can have a tremendous impact on everything that society does. Modern media can be a powerful tool for focusing people’s attention on their role in the green movement. Your voice wields more influence than you might expect. There is a wonderful event about modern media and its role in promoting the green movement. Read below for more details on the discussion panel leaders. Actress, author and green activist Annabelle Gurwitch [www.annabellegurwitch.com], host of “Wa$ted” on Planet Green, moderates a robust discussion about the media’s role in the green movement. The panel of experts includes Elizabeth Royte [www.bottlemania.net] (author of Bottlemania and Garbageland), Graham Hill [www.treehugger.com] (founder of Treehugger.com and co-author of Ready Set Green ), Lynne Kirby (Senior VP, Original Programming & Development, Sundance Channel ) , Andrew C. Revkin (Chief Environment Reporter for the NY Times) and Ira Flatow [www.npr.org]] (host of Science Friday on NPR). Date & Time: Thu, Nov 13, 2008, 7:00pm Location: 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street Venue: 92YTribeca Lecture Hall www.sundancechannel.com/.../tag/treehugger/

The Future is Green: Natural Habitats and Culture and Heritage January 3rd, 2008 by Sundance Channel

Today, we’ll move away from the stuff that surrounds our lives every day and open up the aperture a bit, to look at how our green future interacts with natural habitats and wildlife, and culture and heritage. Again, it might not seem like there’s a huge connection here, but there really is. And it’s terribly important that we consider them both. Considering biodiversity [www.sundancechannel.com] and natural habitat is another great study in the interconnectedness of everything. One Planet says the challenge stems from, “Loss of biodiversity and habitats due to development in natural areas and overexploitation of natural resources,” and it certainly does, but as we encroach further into natural habitat, we cut down more trees (and trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow), which leads to less water retention in the soil (which leads to less groundwater that we can access with wells) and less stable topsoil [www.sundancechannel.com] (which leads to more mudslides). What to do? “Regenerate degraded environments and halt biodiversity loss, and protect or regenerate existing natural environments and the habitats they provide to fauna and flora; create new habitats,” says One Planet. This one is interesting because it requires nothing but our due diligence; we don’t need any fancy technology for this (though it helps); we just have to care enough to make a difference. Judging by the groundswell of interesting environmental issues over the past year, we certainly do. Culture and heritage might make less sense as a way for a greener future; in order to give this one proper treatment, we have to look to the past. The problem, defined by One Planet as, “Local cultural heritage lost throughout the world due to globalization, resulting in a loss of local identity and wisdom,” is equally about what we’ve done in the past and what we do today. Think about it this way: in Italy, there’s a cultural history surrounding food and wine (something like pasta and Chianti, very generally) that dictates how things are done, and where they come from. Italians don’t prefer cheese from Parma and tomatoes from Roma because it’s greener; they prefer them because they’re distinctly Italian, and because it helps define their culture and heritage. In America, we have no such connection to a given cultural history; as a melting pot, we have the benefit of deriving culture from many different sources, but it leaves us without a specific tradition on which we can hang our hats. So, we tend to care less about where our stuff comes from, and that goes for everything from food and water to materials and even energy. Though this sounds like a bit of a bummer, it’s a great opportunity for us to rebuild a culture of sustainability, and it’s already happening: with farmer’s markets and local food; with green energy we harvest ourselves; with water and resources we’re able to save through increased efficiency. Being green is becoming cultural iconography of it’s own, and it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Don’t wait to get on the bandwagon!

www.sundancechannel.com/.../tag/treehugger/

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EUTROPHICATION

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api ning.com./Eutrophication

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