Topic Review
Predicted Changing Danube Delta Ecosystems for Fish Species
The Danube Delta is one of Earth’s biodiversity hotspots and includes many endemic, rare, and important species of both major conservation and economic value. This unique complex of ecosystems also plays a key role for Danube River and Black Sea fish fauna through its role as a natural safe buffer, shelter, feeding, reproduction, and smooth transitional area for a large number of fish species. Climate change is inducing a progressive sea level rise in the Black Sea, a fact that is expected to impact the delta’s key complex and dynamic habitats, biocoenoses, and associated biota, and last but not least the key taxonomic group, namely, fish. Around one-third of the fish species of this delta will be greatly affected, sometimes negatively, by this climate change scenario, another one-third to a lesser extent, and the final one-third not at all.
  • 586
  • 20 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Agrivoltaics and Aquavoltaics
Agrivoltaics and aquavoltaics combine renewable energy production with agriculture and aquaculture. Agrivoltaics involves placing solar panels on farmland, while aquavoltaics integrates photovoltaic systems with water bodies and aquaculture. Benefits include dual land use, which allows farmers to produce clean energy while maintaining agricultural practices. They diversify renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. Solar panels in agrivoltaics provide shade, protect crops, reduce water needs, and increase yields. Challenges include high initial costs and limited accessibility, especially for small farmers. Integration with existing systems requires careful planning, considering irrigation, soil moisture, and crop or fish production. Maintenance and cleaning present additional challenges due to dust, debris, and algae. Policy and regulatory frameworks must support implementation, including incentives, grid integration, land use regulations, and conservation.
  • 586
  • 31 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Sustainability in a Matrix Approach
Considering that sustainability is a relative concept, but also that this limitation could be avoided through continuous adaptation of the evaluation tools by taking into account the directions of change (such as time, space, application domain), the goal of the present study is to elaborate a matrix for measuring the level of sustainability for small vegetable farms.
  • 585
  • 22 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Page LaPyout (Cartography)
Page layout, also called map layout or map composition, is the part of Cartographic design that involves assembling various map elements on a page. This may include the map image itself, along with titles, legends, scale indicators, inset maps, and other elements. It follows principles similar to page layout in graphic design, such as balance, gestalt, and visual hierarchy. The term map composition is also used for the assembling of features and symbols within the map image itself, which can cause some confusion; these two processes share a few common design principles but are distinct procedures in practice. Similar principles of layout design apply to maps produced in a variety of media, from large format wall maps to illustrations in books to interactive web maps, although each medium has unique constraints and opportunities.
  • 584
  • 24 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Level Mountain
Level Mountain is a large volcanic complex in the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is located 50 kilometres (31 miles) north-northwest of Telegraph Creek and 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of Dease Lake on the Nahlin Plateau. With a maximum elevation of 2,164 metres (7,100 feet), it is the second-highest of four large complexes in an extensive north–south trending volcanic region. Much of the mountain is gently-sloping; when measured from its base, Level Mountain is about 1,100 metres (3,600 feet) tall, slightly taller than its neighbour to the northwest, Heart Peaks. The lower, broader half of Level Mountain consists of a shield-like structure while its upper half has a more steep, jagged profile. Its broad summit is dominated by the Level Mountain Range, a small mountain range with prominent peaks cut by deep valleys. These valleys serve as a radial drainage for several small streams that flow from the mountain. Meszah Peak is the only named peak in the Level Mountain Range. The mountain began forming about 15 million years ago, with volcanism having continued up until geologically recent times. There have been four stages of activity throughout the long volcanic history of Level Mountain. The first stage commenced 14.9 million years ago with the eruption of voluminous lava flows; these created a large shield volcano. The second stage began 7.1 million years ago to form a structurally complicated stratovolcano located centrally atop the shield. A series of lava domes was established during the third stage, which began 4.5 million years ago. This was followed by the fourth and final stage with the eruption of lava flows and small volcanic cones in the last 2.5 million years. A wide range of rock types were produced during these stages, namely ankaramites, alkali basalts, trachybasalts, mugearites, hawaiites, phonolites, trachytes and rhyolites. Alkali basalts and ankaramites are the most voluminous and comprise much of Level Mountain. The remaining rock types are less extensive and are largely restricted to the central region of the volcanic complex. Several types of volcanic eruptions produced these rocks. Level Mountain lies in one of many ecoregions encompassing British Columbia. It can be ecologically divided into three sections: lodgepole pine and white spruce forests at its base, bog birch and subalpine fir forests on its flanks, and an alpine climate at its summit. The extent and flatness of the alpine on Level Mountain have produced many Arctic affinities that are particularly noticeable in the local biota. Several animal species thrive in the area of Level Mountain, with caribou being the most abundant. A trading post was established at Level Mountain in the 1890s, followed by geological studies of the mountain from the 1920s onwards. This remote area of Cassiar Land District has a relatively dry environment compared to the Coast Mountains in the west. Due to its remoteness, Level Mountain can only be accessed by air or by trekking great distances on foot. The closest communities are more than 30 kilometres (19 miles) away from the mountain.
  • 584
  • 02 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Late Glacial Interstadial
The Late Glacial Interstadial (LGI) c.14,670 to c.12,890 BP represents the first pronounced warming since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Human populations, which had previously forced into refuge areas, gradually begin to repopulate the Northern Hemisphere's Eurasian landmass and eventually populate North America via Beringia for the first time. Evidence for its occurrence stems from two main types of analysis. The first is the use of oxygen isotope stages (OIS) gathered from stratified deep-sea sediment cores. Samples are gathered and measured for change in isotope levels to determine temperature fluctuation for given periods of time. The second is a proxy measurement, the observation of certain reappearing fauna and flora fossils that can survive only in temperate climates, thus indicating warming trends for a given geographic area. Archaeological evidence of settlement and resettlement in certain areas by humans also serve as proxy measurements. Towards the end of OIS 2 in which the Last Glacial Maximum occurs, the deep-sea sediment cores indicate a gradually warming climate, and the reappearance of certain warm-weather flora and fauna remains throughout the Northern Hemisphere correlate with that trend. The Late Glacial Interstadial was followed by a severe decline in temperatures during the Younger Dryas from c.12,890 to c.11,650 BP.
  • 584
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Freshet
thumb|An example of usage of the term "freshet" is shown in the text on a historic marker at Durgin Bridge near Sandwich, New Hampshire. The term freshet is most commonly used to describe a spring thaw resulting from snow and ice melt in rivers located in upper North America. A spring freshet can sometimes last several weeks on large river systems, resulting in significant inundation of flood plains as the snowpack melts in the river's watershed. Freshets can occur with differing strength and duration depending upon the depth of the snowpack and the local average rates of warming temperatures. Deeper snowpacks which melt quickly can result in more severe flooding. Late spring melts allow for faster flooding; this is because the relatively longer days and higher solar angle allow for average melting temperatures to be reached quickly, causing snow to melt rapidly. Snowpacks at higher altitudes and in mountainous areas remain cold and tend to melt over a longer period of time and thus do not contribute to major flooding. Serious flooding from southern freshets are more often related to rain storms of large tropical weather systems rolling in from the South Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico, to add their powerful heating capacity to lesser snow packs. Tropically induced rainfall influenced quick melts can also affect snow cover to latitudes as far north as southern Canada, so long as the generally colder air mass is not blocking northward movement of low pressure systems. In the eastern part of the continent, annual freshets occur from the Canada Taiga ranging along both sides of the Great Lakes then down through the heavily forested Appalachian mountain chain and St. Lawrence valley from Northern Maine and New Brunswick into barrier ranges in North Carolina and Tennessee . In the western part of the continent, freshets occur throughout the generally much higher elevations of the various west coast mountain ranges that extend southward down from Alaska even into the northern parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
  • 584
  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Automatic Identification of Addresses
Address matching continues to play a central role at various levels, through geocoding and data integration from different sources, with a view to promote activities such as urban planning, location-based services, and the construction of databases like those used in census operations. Closely associated to address matching is the task of address parsing or address segmentation, which consists of decomposing an address into its different components, such as a street name or a postal code. However, these tasks continue to face several challenges, such as non-standard or incomplete address records or addresses written in more complex languages.
  • 583
  • 10 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Participation of Marginalised Groups in Climate Change Governance
For many of the world’s poor people, adaptation to climate change is not a choice but a reality. Existing evidence suggests that the poor, particularly those in the developing world, are the most vulnerable to any changes in climate variability and change. Climate change is having devastating impacts on the livelihood-supporting systems of many poor and rural households in South Africa. These changes are not only affecting the biophysical elements of the natural resource base, but they are also greatly compromising the ability of many small-scale farmers, especially women, who, in most cases, lack any form of productive assets to deploy so as to minimise the impacts of climate change.
  • 582
  • 23 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Ecological Land in Arid Hilly
Cities in hilly arid areas of northwest China have generally experienced a low level of economic development; they also have unique natural characteristics such as climate, soil, terrain, environment, and surface cover. High quality ecological lands are those that provide humans and the environment with relatively high levels of ecological services including soil, water, and air purification, adsorbing pollutants, or providing water or nutrients needed by plants. This paper uses an improved model to evaluate the importance of ecological land in the core urban area of Lanzhou with specific attention to natural ecology and human needs. The purpose of this research is mainly twofold: (1) to construct a significant evaluation system for ecological land in the northwest arid hilly area, via the study’s methodology; (2) to explore the structure and spatial distribution characteristics of ecological land in the core area of Lanzhou in a practical sense, to reveal the development characteristics of ur-ban ecological land in the arid hilly region of northwest China, and to provide some guidance for the long-term development of Lanzhou.
  • 581
  • 17 Sep 2021
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