This thesis presents precipitation, streamwater and soil chemistry from three upland catchments in Scotland situated upon granite parent material and receiving different deposition loadings. Marine ions are identified as important components of precipitation and streamwater at the two coastal sites (Bealach and Cardoon) and lesser importance at the inland site (Allt a'Mharcaidh). Similar ratios of Na:Ca:Mg in precipitation and streamwater indicate the importance of catchment hydrology and organic soils in controlling streamwater chemistry. Input/output budgets indicate SO4-S and H+ loss from the Cardoon (a region of high acid deposition inputs) compared with the other two less polluted sites which exhibit SO4-S and H + retention. The SO4-S loss from the Cardoon is also associated with a high DOC flux in streamwater. In all three catchments differences were found between published critical load values and those calculated as part of this study. Seasonal and annual variations in critical loads for freshwaters at all sites indicate sampling for the national mapping exercise does not reflect the most acid-sensitive periods. Streamwater was also more sensitive than standing waters, with lower critical load values. Soil critical load values were lower than published soil critical load values as well as freshwater critical loads calculated in this study. Inclusion of marine-derived base-cations in PROFILE calculations of soil critical loads increased values markedly (1 keq ha-1yr -1) at the 2 coastal sites. Soil critical load varied little between horizons, suggesting that the identification of hydrologically important mineral horizon was not important. Lowest critical load values for freshwaters were controlled by the organic horizons which are not considered in PROFILE calculations. The implications of the omission of organic horizons from critical load calculations for soil in upland catchments are discussed and the use of critical loads at a catchment based level addressed.

Submitted by Jean Medeiros (jeanletras@uepb.edu.br) on 2016-05-12T12:41:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Magno Ferreira da Silva.pdf: 2667909 bytes, checksum: 7b2a4349f2b8d350eb7b2685af53d135 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-12T12:41:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Magno Ferreira da Silva.pdf: 2667909 bytes, checksum: 7b2a4349f2b8d350eb7b2685af53d135 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-26 / The present study examined the changes of the caatinga vegetation in response to climatic conditions in the municipality of Gado Bravo in the State of Paraíba, corresponding to the Agreste region. To this end, images from the MODIS sensor/land of the municipality, have been processed to obtain the Normalized Difference vegetation index-NDVI, rainy and dry periods during the years from 2011 to 2014. The use of historical data of precipitation rainfall of the Executive Agency for the Management of Waters of the State of Paraiba -EAWS, allowed to evaluate the wettest months of the year (April, may and June), the drought season months (september, october, november and december) and the months of low precipitation (january, february, march, august and july). In the years of study, the month of may was the wettest december and the drought season. Most plants in the drought season, has a typical adaptation, consisting of the miss of the leaves avoiding the dehydration through the process of transpiration, thus the caatinga biome appears to be a poor in biodiversity and/or high levels of degradation. However, during the rainy season, the plants respond quickly to rainfall, showing a biological regeneration. The NDVI is an index of the remote sensing that is directly connected the photosynthetic activity of vegetation, and is calculated by a normalized difference between two bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, the spectral band of red and near infrared band. The greater the difference between the spectral bands of red and near infrared vegetation is in full photosynthetic activity, and if the grass for some reason is having a stress where its components are vegetables at low photosynthetic activity, the differences between the reflectâncias of spectral bands decrease and with this the results of NDVI are smaller. In the study period, one can realize that there is a differentiation in the caatinga vegetation of the municipality of Gado Bravo-PB, in response to climate change that occurred in the annual cycle of precipitation and in the biological cycle of vegetation. The loss of leaves during the dry season, appears as adaptive process that can interfere directly on the results of the NDVI, because the vegetation without leaves presents significant photosynthetic activity and the results next to zero of the NDVI can be understood as an area degraded or severely degraded. / O presente estudo analisou as mudanças da vegetação do bioma caatinga em resposta as condições climáticas no município de Gado Bravo no Estado da Paraíba, correspondente a microrregião do agreste. Para tanto, imagens do sensor MODIS/TERRA do território do município foram processadas para obtenção do Índice de Vegetação por Diferença Normalizada – NDVI, dos períodos chuvosos e de estiagem durante os anos de 2011 à 2014. A utilização dos dados históricos de precipitação pluviométricas da Agência Executiva de Gestão das Águas do Estado da Paraíba – AESA permitiu avaliar os meses mais chuvosos do ano (abril, maio e junho), os meses de estiagem (setembro, outubro, novembro e dezembro) e os meses de baixa precipitação pluviométrica (janeiro, fevereiro, março agosto e julho). Nos anos de estudo , o mês de maio foi o mais chuvoso e o mês de dezembro o de estiagem. A maioria das plantas, no período de estiagem, possui uma adaptação típica, que consiste na perca das folhas, evitando a desidratação por meio do processo de transpiração, deste modo à caatinga aparenta ser um bioma pobre em sua biodiversidade e/ou com altos índices de degradação. Porém, no período chuvoso, as plantas respondem rapidamente à pluviosidade, apresentando uma regeneração biológica. O NDVI é um índice do sensoriamento remoto que está diretamente ligado as atividades fotossintéticas da vegetação e é calculado por uma diferença normalizadas entre duas bandas do espectro eletromagnético, a banda espectral do vermelho e a banda do infravermelho próximo. Quanto maior a diferença entre as bandas espectrais do vermelho e do Infravermelho próximo a vegetação está em plena atividade fotossintética, e se a vegetação por algum motivo estiver passando por um estresse onde seus componentes vegetais estejam em baixas atividades fotossintética, as diferenças entre as reflectâncias das bandas espectrais diminuem e com isso os resultados do NDVI são menores. No período de estudo, pode-se perceber que ocorre uma diferenciação na vegetação do bioma caatinga do município de Gado Bravo-PB, em resposta às mudanças climáticas ocorridas no ciclo anual de precipitação pluviométrica e no ciclo biológico da vegetação. A perda das folhas, durante o período de estiagem, configura-se como processo adaptativo que pode interferir diretamente nos resultados do NDVI, pois a vegetação sem folhas não apresenta atividades fotossintéticas significativas e os resultados próximos a zero do NDVI podem ser compreendidos como uma área degradada ou severamente degradada.

This study aimed to determine whether rainfall regime has driven differentiation in the Australian perennial grass, Austrodanthonia caespitosa, resulting in local ecotypes possessing characters, such as deep rootedness or summer activity, that may be particularly useful in reducing deep drainage for salinity mitigation, or whether the species shows a plastic response in root growth to soil water distribution. Rainfall regime varies within a given annual rainfall because size and ditribution of rainfall event vary. This can have an important effect on soil water distribution, both spatially and temporally. This study investigates the relationship between rainfall regime and the structure of root systems in local populations of Austrodanthonia caespitosa (Gaudich.), Firstly, it examined a number of indices useful in quantifying variation in small-scale rainfall regime, including seasonal bias, event size, event frequency, and the clustering of events, as well as how rainfall event size may be changing over time across Australia. The variation in soil water distribution that results from different rainfall regimes is expected to interact with root distribution in plants, either acting as a selective force and driving genotypic differentiation in response to soil water availability, or through plasticity in root placement. The relationship between rainfall regime and root depth distribution was examined in Austrodanthonia caespitosa (Gaudich.), or white-top wallaby grass, a perennial grass common across southern Australia. Growth and reproductive traits of plants grown from seeds collected from across the range of this species under a single rainfall regime were compared and correlated with the rainfall indices and soil type in order to establish possible abiotic explanations for trait variability. Phenological characters were found to be particularly variable between ecotypes, but high local variation between ecotypes suggested factors operating on a spatial scale smaller than the rainfall gradients are responsible for population differentiation. In order to investigate the interaction between rainfall event size and root depth, an experiment was conducted to investigate plant response to watering pulse size and frequency, with plants grown under a range of controlled watering regimes, and root depth distribution compared. The primary response in root growth was plastic, with shallow roots being developed under small, frequent events, and deep roots developed under large, infrequent waterings. Differences between ecotypes were less important, and there was no interaction between ecotype and watering treatment, indicating the same degree of plasticity in all ecotypes. Plants from a range of populations were grown under a controlled climate, first under winter conditions, then under summer conditions, with summer water withheld from half the plants, in order to determine the response to summer watering and summer drought. Plants that were watered over summer showed a strong growth response, increasing shoot biomass significantly. This effect was particularly strong in South Australian populations, which was unexpected as they originate from a region with low, unpredictable summer rainfall. Root depth was not strongly influenced by summer watering treatment. Finally, an evolutionary algorithm model was constructed in order to examine optimal plant traits under a variety of rainfall regimes. The model highlighted the importance of the interaction between rainfall regime and soil type in determining optimal root placement. Variable root cost with depth was also found to be an important trade-off to be considered, with high root loss in the surface soil layers, due to high temperatures, making a shallow rooted strategy less efficient than if root costs were equal throughout the root system. Overall, no ecotypes of A.caespitosa could be identified that had characters particularly suited to deep drainage reduction, as the drought tolerant nature of the species, and the dormancy during times of drought, may lead to low overall water use. However, it may be a useful native component in pasture systems, due to its strong growth response to summer rainfall, a characteristic found to be particularly strong in a number of South Australian ecotypes. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, 2008

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:31:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-05-05Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:02:21Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 rickli_li_dr_botfca.pdf: 601367 bytes, checksum: abdaa96dc222f7b27de2cdeb6898ad34 (MD5) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / O aumento populacional do planeta tem exigido cada vez mais produtividade na agricultura objetivando suprir suas necessidades alimenticias. Um dos mais importantes fatores que determinam o sucesso ou o fracasso desta producao sao as variaveis climaticas, dentre elas, pode-se citar a precipitacao pluviometrica. A presente pesquisa analisou a eficiencia dos fatores funcionais no processo de simulacao de dados diarios de precipitacao utilizando a distribuicao Gama. Foram utilizadas series climatologicas diarias para as localidades de Piracicaba . SP e Ponta Grossa . PR. Para determinacao dos estimadores dos parametros da distribuicao Gama (ãá e ãâ), foram avaliados os procedimentos baseados no metodo dos momentos, da verossimilhanca e o metodo numerico de Greenwood & Durand. Avaliou-se tres geradores de numeros pseudo-aleatorios congruencias e dois algoritmos computacionais para geracao da variavel aleatorias Gama que foram implementados no simulador Sedac_R. Por meio de procedimentos estatisticos a validacao apontou que a escolha adequada do metodo para estimativa dos parametros da distribuicao Gama e o algoritmo computacional para geracao da variavel aleatoria Gama devem ser levados em consideracao na simulacao de series climaticas de precipitacao. Em relacao ao gerador de numeros pseudo-aleatorios os resultados indicaram... / The increase of people in the planet has required more productivity in the agriculture field in order to supply the food need. One of the most important factors that determine the success or the failures of that productivity are the climatic variables, such as the rain precipitation. This research analyzed the efficiency of the functional factors in the precipitation daily data simulation process, using the Gamma distribution. Daily climatic series related to the Piracicaba - SP and Ponta Grossa - PR cities were used. The procedures based on the Greenwood & Durand numerical, Likelihood and Moment methods were evaluated aiming to determine the approximation of the parameters of the Gamma distribution (á and â). Three congruent pseudorandom generators and two computational algorithms to generate the Gamma random variable implemented in the Sedac_R simulator were evaluated. By way of statistics procedures, the validation indicated that the suitable choose to both the approximation method of the parameters of the Gamma distribution (á and â) and the computational algorithm to generate the Gamma random variable must be taken into consideration in the precipitation climatic series simulation. Related to the numerical pseudo-random generator the results showed that it doesn t interferes in the accuracy of the generated data.

Resumo: O aumento populacional do planeta tem exigido cada vez mais produtividade na agricultura objetivando suprir suas necessidades alimenticias. Um dos mais importantes fatores que determinam o sucesso ou o fracasso desta producao sao as variaveis climaticas, dentre elas, pode-se citar a precipitacao pluviometrica. A presente pesquisa analisou a eficiencia dos fatores funcionais no processo de simulacao de dados diarios de precipitacao utilizando a distribuicao Gama. Foram utilizadas series climatologicas diarias para as localidades de Piracicaba . SP e Ponta Grossa . PR. Para determinacao dos estimadores dos parametros da distribuicao Gama (ãá e ãâ), foram avaliados os procedimentos baseados no metodo dos momentos, da verossimilhanca e o metodo numerico de Greenwood & Durand. Avaliou-se tres geradores de numeros pseudo-aleatorios congruencias e dois algoritmos computacionais para geracao da variavel aleatorias Gama que foram implementados no simulador Sedac_R. Por meio de procedimentos estatisticos a validacao apontou que a escolha adequada do metodo para estimativa dos parametros da distribuicao Gama e o algoritmo computacional para geracao da variavel aleatoria Gama devem ser levados em consideracao na simulacao de series climaticas de precipitacao. Em relacao ao gerador de numeros pseudo-aleatorios os resultados indicaram... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The increase of people in the planet has required more productivity in the agriculture field in order to supply the food need. One of the most important factors that determine the success or the failures of that productivity are the climatic variables, such as the rain precipitation. This research analyzed the efficiency of the functional factors in the precipitation daily data simulation process, using the Gamma distribution. Daily climatic series related to the Piracicaba - SP and Ponta Grossa - PR cities were used. The procedures based on the Greenwood & Durand numerical, Likelihood and Moment methods were evaluated aiming to determine the approximation of the parameters of the Gamma distribution (á and â). Three congruent pseudorandom generators and two computational algorithms to generate the Gamma random variable implemented in the Sedac_R simulator were evaluated. By way of statistics procedures, the validation indicated that the suitable choose to both the approximation method of the parameters of the Gamma distribution (á and â) and the computational algorithm to generate the Gamma random variable must be taken into consideration in the precipitation climatic series simulation. Related to the numerical pseudo-random generator the results showed that it doesn’t interferes in the accuracy of the generated data. / Orientador: Ângelo Catâneo / Coorientador: Jorim Souza Virgens Filho / Banca: Célia Regina Lopes Zimback / Banca: Manoel Henrique Salgado / Banca: Marcelo Giovaneti Canteri / Banca: José Fernando Mantovani Micali / Doutor

The paper describes a theoretical base and realization of realistic volumetric clouds visualization in an environment of real-time simulator. The first part is concerned with a meteorological background of this problem. I show international classification of ten basic cloud types including a short description and cases of occurence. The following part is concerned with an interaction between cloudiness and simulation core, which is based on the fact, that each cloud acts as a mechanical or an electromagnetic obstacle. This should be considered on some way in simulation. The next part describes technologies and practical implementations of visualization and evaluates their characteristics. Finally, the last chapter describes my implementation and tries to outline project advancement.