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Stable water isotopes and water hydrochemistry of a catchment in the Alentejo region, south Portugal, were analysed to investigate source origins of water and nitrate flows towards a reservoir. The 353 km² headwater catchment of Roxo river, is strongly influenced by agricultural impacts, and high variations in water and chemical inflows into an important drinking and irrigation water supply (108 m³) are observed. This leads to regular disputes on water quantity and quality amongst local authorities and population. Three sampling campaigns in different seasons were used to address the temporal and spatial variations in stream and groundwater hydrochemistry and water isotopic signatures. A total of 27 sampling points from the stream network, shallow groundwater and reservoir were used. Isotopic signatures and chemistry of precipitation were obtained from local data of the Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) and the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAWSIS) network. Other meteorological, hydrological and environmental datasets were obtained from local authorities. The stable water isotopes deuterium (δ² H), oxygen-18 (δ18O) together with chloride (Cl-) and sulphate (Due to image rights restrictions, multiple line equation(s) cannot be graphically displayed.) were used as environmental tracers in the hydrological pathways. Water pathways were then related with nitrate concentrations to elucidate potential relationships between the water and nutrient sources. Interpretation of isotope signatures showed a high degree of isotope enrichment in both surface (stream flow) and shallow groundwater. For the entire period, most of stream waters were located right of the global meteoric water line or GMWL and plotted along a local evaporation line (LEL) established for the study area. The LEL showed slopes similar to stream systems in other dry environments. Monthly stream flow and precipitation, seasonal isotope compositions and major ion chemistry data were used for an evaluation of the relative contribution of water sources using an end-member mixing analysis. An extensive PCA or principal component analysis preceded the mixing analysis. Contributions of the three water end-members in the catchment: groundwater, surface runoff and precipitation to stream flow could be identified based on their ²H, 18O and Cl- signatures. Also two hydro chemical data outliers for Cl- and Due to image rights restrictions, multiple line equation(s) cannot be graphically displayed. from two sample points were identified by the analysis and could be related to local waste water outfalls, giving the method also diagnostic value for pollution source allocation. The shallow groundwater source could be related to stream nitrate concentrations during the wet seasons, indicating a linkage between hydrological flow paths, nitrate sources and season. Conversely, weak links between precipitation, and surprisingly also surface water runoff and nitrate levels were found. In this catchment, we found a consistent pattern of the particular groundwater end member, being main source of nitrate to the stream water and reservoir, based on conservative mixing of the different water sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluated the land cover change in the Upper Gilgel Abbay catchment in the Upper Blue Nile basin through classification analysis of remote sensing based land cover data and through assessing the changes in the hydrological regime by statistical analysis of stream flow observations. Results of the land cover classification analysis indicated that 50.9% and 16.7% of the catchment area was covered by forest in 1973 and 2001, respectively. This significant decrease in forest cover is mainly due to expansion of agricultural land. A comparison of stream flow time series of the Upper Gilgel Abbay catchment to stream flow time series from two neighbouring catchments shows a different trend and a statistically significant change over time. In 1986-2001, the annual and the high flows of the catchment increased by 13% and 46%, respectively while the low flows decreased by 35%. Generally, the results indicate significant changes in land cover and the hydrological regimes of the Upper Gilgel Abbay catchment over the past 30 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Eagle 2006 campaign intensive in-situ and air/space borne measurements were carried out over the Wolderwijd and Veluwemeer natural waters in the Netherlands. In this paper, we modify the GSM semi-analytical inversion model for these lakes to derive inherent optical properties (IOPs) and their spectral dependencies from air and space borne data. Uncertainties of the derived IOPs are estimated using a nonlinear regression technique. The modified model succeeded in deriving accurate estimates of IOPs with R[sub2] higher than 0.9 and RMSE values equal to 0.12 and 0.05 for absorption and scattering coefficients, respectively. Finally, we show that the uncertainty of derived absorption coefficients is slightly independent of absorption's magnitude. While the uncertainty of all derived IOPs increases with water turbidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) enables visualization of fiber trajectories in soft tissue using magnetic resonance imaging. DTT exploits the anisotropic nature of water diffusion in fibrous structures to identify diffusion pathways by generating streamlines based on the principal diffusion vector. Anomalies in these pathways can be linked to neural deficits. In a different field, contrast-enhanced ultrasound is used to assess anomalies in blood flow with the aim of locating cancer-induced angiogenesis. Like water diffusion, blood flow and transport of contrast agents also shows a principal direction; however, this is now determined by the local vasculature. Here we show how the tractographic techniques developed for magnetic resonance imaging DTT can be translated to contrast-enhanced ultrasound, by first estimating contrast flow velocity fields from contrast-enhanced ultrasound acquisitions, and then applying tractography. We performed 4D in-vivo contrast-enhanced ultrasound of three human prostates, proving the feasibility of the proposed approach with clinically acquired datasets. By comparing the results to histopathology after prostate resection, we observed qualitative agreement between the contrast flow tracts and typical markers of cancer angiogenic microvasculature: higher densities and tortuous geometries in tumor areas. The method can be used in-vivo using a standard contrast-enhanced ultrasound protocol, opening up new possibilities in the area of vascular characterization for cancer diagnostics.

Nitrogen (N) removal by vegetation uptake is one of the most important functions of riparian buffer zones in preventing non-point source pollution (NSP), and many studies about N uptake at the river reach scale have proven the effectiveness of plants in controlling nutrient pollution. However, at the watershed level, the riparian zones form dendritic networks and, as such, may be the predominant spatially structured feature in catchments and landscapes. Thus, assessing the functions of riparian system at the basin scale is important. In this study, a new method coupling remote sensing and ecological models was used to assess the N removal by riparian vegetation on a large spatial scale. The study site is located around the Guanting reservoir in Beijing, China, which was abandoned as the source water system for Beijing due to serious NSP in 1997. SPOT 5 data was used to map the land cover, and Landsat-5 TM time series images were used to retrieve land surface parameters. A modified forest nutrient cycling and biomass model (ForNBM) was used to simulate N removal, and the modified net primary productivity (NPP) module was driven by remote sensing image time series. Besides the remote sensing data, the necessary database included meteorological data, soil chemical and physical data and plant nutrient data. Pot and plot experiments were used to calibrate and validate the simulations. Our study has proven that, by coupling remote sensing data and parameters retrieval techniques to plant growth process models, catchment scale estimations of nitrogen uptake rates can be improved by spatial pixel-based modelling., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Riparian ecosystems have critical impacts on controlling the non-point source pollution and maintaining the health of aquatic ecosystems. In this study, a process oriented soil denitrification model was extended with algorithms from a simple nitrogen (N) cycle model and coupled to land surface remote sensing data to enhance its performance in spatial and temporal prediction of gaseous N emissions from soils in the riparian buffer zone surrounding the Guanting reservoir (China). The N emission model is based on chemical and physical relationships that govern the heat budget, soil moisture variations and nitrogen movement in soils. Besides soil water and heat processes, it includes nitrification, denitrification and ammonia (NH(3)) volatilization. SPOT-5 and Landsat-5 TM satellite data were used to derive spatial land surface information and the temporal variation in land cover parameters was also used to drive the model. A laboratory-scale anaerobic incubation experiment was used to estimate the soil denitrification model parameters for the different soil types. An in situ field-scale experiment was conducted to calibrate and validate the soil temperature, moisture and nitrogen sub-models. An indirect method was used to verify simulated N emissions, resulting in a coefficient of determination of R(2)=0.83 between simulated and observed values. Then the model was applied to the whole riparian buffer zone catchment, using the spatial resolution (10m) of the SPOT-5 image. Model sensitivity analysis showed that soil moisture was the most sensitive parameter for gaseous N emissions and soil denitrification was the main process affecting N losses to the atmosphere in the riparian area. From the aspect of land use management around the Guanting reservoir, the spatial structure and distribution of land cover and land use types in the riparian area should be adapted, to enhance faster ecological restoration of the wetland ecological system surrounding this strategically important water resource., (Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

An eco-hydrological model system (RIP_ N) was constructed to simulate the nitrogen (N) removal by riparian zone in reservoir catchment scale. As a case study, the N removal in Guanting Reservoir riparian zone from March to September in 2007 was estimated. At same time, the field simulated experiment was carried out in Yanqing experimental station, which lies in the northeast part of the catchment. With the experimental data and previous studies, the RIP_ N model was calibrated. RIP_ N model was consisted with two parts, which were soil chemical process modeling and plant growth modeling. Soil chemical processes considered the soil denitrification, nitrification and ammonium volatilization. Plant growth included net primary productivity (NPP) module, plant production allocation module and nutrition uptake module. The research indicated that the correlation coefficient between simulated value and monitored value was larger than 0.5, which proved the effectiveness and reliability of RIP_ N model in catchment scale simulating. The simulated results showed that the N removal loss by riparian zone in Guanting Reservoir catchment from March to September was 5.91 x 10(3) t. The model also identified the N removal functions of different land use. At present land use condition, the bottomland, forest land and grassland contributed positively environmental benefits and removed most of N. In the temporal scale, the N removal from March to September consisted 76.5% of annual removal load. On the contrary, the wetlands just removed 5.9% of N of whole watershed. By comparison, the riparian zone was recognized as critical location for non point source pollution prevention.