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Abstract (from http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-13-00202.1): Traditional long-term (decadal) and large-scale (hundreds of kilometers) shoreline change modeling techniques, known as single transect, or ST, often overfit the data because they calculate shoreline statistics at closely spaced intervals along the shore. To reduce overfitting, recent work has used spatial basis functions such as polynomials, B splines, and principal components. Here, we explore an alternative to such basis functions by using regularization to reduce the dimension of the ST model space. In our regularized-ST method, traditional ST is an end member of a continuous spectrum of models. We use an evidence information criterion...
A cocktail of land-based sources of pollution threatens coral reef ecosystems, and addressing these has become a key management and policy challenge in the State of Hawaii, other US territories, and globally. In West Maui, Hawai'i, nearly one quarter of all living corals were lost between 1995 and 2008. Onsite disposal systems (OSDS) for sewage leak contaminants into drinking water sources and nearshore waters. In recognition of this risk, the Hawaii State Department of Health (DOH) is prioritizing areas for cesspool upgrades. Independently, we applied a decision analysis process to identify priority areas to address sewage pollution from OSDS in West Maui, with the objective of reducing nearshore coral reef exposure...
The National Climate Assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. A team of more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee produced the report, which was extensively reviewed by the public and experts, including federal agencies and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences. The report can be explored interactively at http://nca2014.globalchange.gov.
This study investigates potential changes in erosion rates in the Midwestern United States under climate change, including the adaptation of crop management to climate change. Previous studies of erosion under climate change have not taken into account farmer choices of crop rotations or planting dates, which will adjust to compensate for climate change. In this study, changes in management were assigned based on previous studies of crop yield, optimal planting date, and most profitable rotations under climate change in the Midwestern United States. Those studies predicted future shifts from maize and wheat to soybeans based on price and yield advantages to soybeans. In the results of our simulations, for 10 of...
This paper presents results of a study to assess the impacts of climate change on Midwestern streams and the ability of alternative regulations to maintain critical stream conditions. The study focuses on two generic types of regulations, those that restrict withdrawals to a constant flowrate at all times and those that allow withdrawals to increase and decrease with streamflow. Trading of water withdrawal permits is also considered as an adjunt to both policies. The study uses a modeling technique based on the SWAT model, applied to data for a Midwestern river basin. Streamflow was assumed stressed by agricultural irrigation, which is most intense during times when natural streamflows are at their lowest even without...
Much time and money has been spent over the last 40 years in the U.S. by farmers, soil scientists, hydrologists, geomorphologists, engineers, and ecologists attempting to document how agricultural best management practices, natural vegetation in riparian corridors, and stream rehabilitation or bank stabilization reduces sediment yields and improves ecological conditions at watershed outlets. These issues are especially pertinent in the steep erodible landscape of the Driftless Area in southwest Wisconsin, where many miles of world-class spring-fed trout streams remain on state impaired waters lists from excessive sedimentation and degraded habitat even though this area was the birthplace of the conservation movement...
Nitrate N from artificially drained soils of the upper Midwest USA is finding its way to the Mississippi River and then to the Gulf of Mexico. There is some concern that this nitrate N is causing hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. The DRAINMOD-N model was used to evaluate the long-term effect of N application rate and drain spacing on corn (Zea mays L.) yield and nitrate N losses. Prior to evaluation, the model was calibrated and then validated against long-term field data from southwestern Minnesota. A 24-yr simulation showed that climate plays a major role in determining drainage, yield, and nitrate N losses from a moderately well-drained Normania clay loam (fine-loamy, mixed, mesic Aquic Hapludoll) soil under continuous...
This project is part of the USDA's Mississippi River Basin Initiative. We are providing the water quality monitoring to assess the impact of various best management practices aimed at reducing nutrient runoff from agricultural lands.