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A spring freeze is an unexpected freeze event occurring in late spring that can result in severe domestic crop loss. These events coincide with seasonal weather conditions that promote early crop development. As a consequence, early growth is most susceptible to freeze damage. Spring temperature fluctuations pose significant threat to crop yield and growth, when compared to onsistently cold springtime temperatures. In this study, a thirty-four-year span (1982 to 2015) of historical climate, agricultural and crop insurance data for Missouri was analyzed. Risk analysis was performed for each Missouri county to determine statistical relationships between crop loss and springtime warm-cold temperature fluctuations. Statewide, several regions were identified as having an increased susceptibility to freeze events, with Lafayette County emerging as the state’s leading county in agricultural losses due to freeze events. The window for peak freeze damage for Lafayette County was identified as the last week of March through the first week of April. The years 1985, 1996 and 2007 stood apart in the dataset as they correspond to the highest crop damages on record. Each of these years also corresponds to a doubling of severity in the reported crop losses.

The study examines the crisis of wildfire destruction in the United States and the various wildfire policies in place to mitigate the risk of wildfire. It also considers the factors affecting the incidence of wildfire in Missouri and finally it analyses the reasons for wildfire policy failure in the United States and suggestion on how to approach the challenge. The study concludes by examining the implication of social and demographic characteristics of forest landowners, land use change, wildland urban interface and climate change on wildfire risk reduction in Missouri.

This study examined the hydrological modeling of aquifers and their ground water potentials for the purposes of water resources planning and management. This was done using the electrical resistivity method employing the schlumberger electrode configuration at randomly selected stations to obtain the thicknesses and resistivities of each layer and depth to the presumably conglomeratic sand stone and its resistivity. Findings showed that the top soil layer resistivity values vary from 59.3 to 248.4 ohm-m and thickness of 0.6 to 3.9 m. The second layer has resistivity values ranging from 45.0 to 743.5 ohm-m and a thickness range of 1.5 to 13.8 m. The wet sand is characterized by resistivity values ranging from 144.8 to 1930.2 ohm-m and a thickness range of 3.8 to 65.8 m. The conglomeratic sand/sand stone has resistivity values ranging from 55.8 to 7719.8 ohm-m. The depth to this bottom layer varies from 6.6 to 89.5 m. Findings indicate that the entire profile is a sedimentary formation represented by lithological units of sand and clayey sand which make for a good groundwater potentials. However, the groundwater potential zones of the study area in terms of transmisivity revealed four distinct classes representing “very good” (Mgbuosimini, Rumuigbo, Okporo, Rumuomasi and Rumuodara), “good” (Alakahia, Rumuodomaya, Oginigba and Rumuola), “moderate” (Aluu, Rumuekeni, Rumuokoro, Rumuobiakani and Rumueme), and “low” (Ogbogoro, Ozuoba, Akpajio, Elelenwo, Eliozu, Rumuepirikon, Rumuokwuta, Rumuebekwe and Rumurolu) groundwater potential in the area. Well logging should therefore be incorporated in borehole development process for safe and sustainable yield of groundwater in Obio/Akpor.

Wildfire is a major environmental hazard causing property damage and destruction including biodiversity loss in the United States. In order to reduce property loss and destruction arising from wildfire, this study assessed and identified social vulnerability to wildfire in Missouri using the American Community Survey data on social and demographic variables for the state of Missouri and social vulnerability index (S0VI). The study divided Missouri into five geopolitical zones from which ten counties were randomly selected for this study. The selected counties formed the basis on which fourteen social and demographic indicators were identified and assessed using Bogardi, Birkmann and Cadona conceptual framework. The result of the analysis shows that S0VI estimated for the five geopolitical zones of Missouri is moderate with a rating scale of 1.42 – 1.71. Education, income and marital status have a rating scale of 2.0 - 3.0 attributed for the high value of Social Vulnerability to wildfire. Race / ethnicity, language spoken, employment and percentage of house units that are mobile homes had a low S0VI value of 1.0 thereby contributing positively to resilience to wildfire risk. The study observes that government involvement in wildfire risk reduction is quite impressive and should still be intensified. The policy implication of this study is that education and income are key variables that contribute to high wildfire risk in Missouri. The need for government to formulate a policy on environmental education of the populace especially for people of low income and education become imperative. This will go a long way in reducing damage and property loss arising from wildfire.

Worldwide, the mangrove ecosystem is in serious decline. The continuous conversion of mangrove vegetation to alternative usage is attributable to the lack of appreciation for the many ecological services, as well as products from the vegetation. As a result, seminal studies have been conducted severally to estimate the economic value of products and services derived from mangroves. However, mangroves also exhibit social value which has been called cultural services of ecosystems, cultural capital of ecosystems and sociocultural perspective of critical natural capital. The social value of mangroves is qualitative and thus antithetical, as well as distinguishable from quantitative economic value in which money is the natural common measurement unit. It is for this very reason that the social value of mangroves is often not captured for policy- and decision-making. This study, therefore, focuses on the social valuation of mangroves in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria using the following social value variabl...

Lake Fitri, located northeast of the Republic of Chad’s Capital, N’Djamena, and southeast of Lake Chad, is especially important because it serves as an alternative source to Lake Chad in supporting the livelihood of pastoralists and subsidence farmers displaced from the Lake Chad region. It therefore serves to relieve population pressures on Lake Chad, which has undergone drastic reduction in total water volume in the last few decades. The area has also been the epicenter of recent violent campaigns and devastating insurgency mounted by the so-called Boko Haram. This study investigated the land use land cover around Lake Fitri from 1986 to 2003, and from 2003 to 2013 using Landsat 5 (TM), Landsat 7 (ETM+), and Landsat 8 (OLI_TIRS). The satellite imageries were retrieved from the Global Visualization (GloVis) web-based platform and analyzed using ERDAS Imagine 2014. Supervised classification of areas around the lake was performed into five land use land cover classes. The results revealed significant changes in three land use types, namely Farmland and Grassland combined, Forest, Savanna, and Steppe combined, and Wetland. Farmland and Grassland combined increased from a mere 0.38% of the total study area in 1986 to 41.05% in 2013. At the same time, Forest, Savanna, and Steppe combined decreased from about 23% in 1986 to about 7.40% in 2013. This increase in farmlands and grasslands coverage and the concomitant decrease in trees and shrubs can be explained by the persistent pressures on land from increasing population and livestock in the area. The findings also show a major decline in Wetland, which decreased from about 14% of the total study area to 3% in the same time period. This loss in wetland coverage is regrettable because of the important environmental and ecological functions of wetlands.

This study was carried out with the primary aim of understanding how the mangrove ecosystem in the Niger Delta has been altered recently. Specifically, we determined the spatial extent of the mangrove forest in the Niger Delta using remotely sensed satellite data and estimated changes in the spatial extent of the forest from the mid-1980s through 2003. Overall, about 21,340 hectares of Mangrove forest was lost over the study period. Fieldwork confirmed that these losses were primarily due to urbanization, dredging activities, activities of the oil and gas industries, and the spread of Nypa Palm (Nypa frutican) plant species.

In this study, the combined effect of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the Lake Chad (LC) level variability is explored. Our results show that the lake level at the Bol monitoring station has a statistically significant correlation with precipitation (R2 = 0.6, at the 99.5% confidence level). The period between the late 1960s and early 1970s marked a turning point in the response of the regional rainfall to climatic drivers, thereby severely affecting the LC level. Our results also suggest that the negative impact of the cold phase of AMO on Sahel precipitation masks and supersedes the positive effect of La Nina in the early the 1970s. The drop in the size of LC level from 282.5 m in the early 1960s to about 278.1 m in 1983/1984 was the largest to occur within the period of study (1900–2010) and coincides with the combined cold phase of AMO and strong El Nino phase of ENSO. Further analyses show that the current warm phase of AMO and increasing...

[1] This study utilizes a satellite-based methodology to assess the urban heat-island influence during warm season months for over 4400 stations included in the Global Historical Climatology Network of climate stations. The methodology includes local and regional satellite retrievals of an indicator of the presence green photosynthetically active vegetation at and around the stations. The difference in local and regional samples of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to estimate differences in mean air temperature. Stations classified as urban averaged 0.90°C (N. Hemisphere) and 0.92°C (S. Hemisphere) warmer than the surrounding environment on the basis of the NDVI-derived temperature estimates. Additionally, stations classified as rural averaged 0.19°C (N. Hemisphere) and 0.16°C (S. Hemisphere) warmer than the surrounding environment. The NDVI-derived temperature estimates were found to be in reasonable agreement with temperature differences observed between climate stations. The results suggest that satellite-derived data sets can be used to estimate the urban heat-island temperature influence on a global basis and that a more detailed analysis of rural stations and their surrounding environment may be necessary to assure that temperature trends derived from assumed rural environments are not influenced by changes in land use/land cover.

The United States Midwest over the last two decades has experienced marked warm season climate anomalies, including droughts and major floods. While the development of these extreme events can usually be traced to anomalies in atmospheric circulation, and may include teleconnections, studies based on model simulations have shown that land surface forcing may be partly responsible for the persistence of these climate anomalies. This study evaluates the presence and strength of long-term land surface-climate interactions in the U.S. Midwest. We do this via an analysis of the cross-seasonal (spring and summer) associations between temperature and moisture (Palmer Drought Severity Index-PDSI, Crop Moisture-Z Index, and precipitation) anomalies. Direct and lag correlations for the 1895–1995 and 1948–1995 periods show that warm and dry summers tend to follow warm spring seasons. These results imply that springtime precipitation anomalies may help to determine the temperature regime of the following summer, possibly via the moisture content of the upper soil. We also show that broad land cover types tend to modulate summer climate anomalies in the U. S. Midwest.

This paper documents the diverse role of land-use/land-cover change on precipitation. Since land conversion continues at a rapid pace, this type of human disturbance of the climate system will continue and become even more significant in the coming decades.DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0889.2007.00251.x