and cigars and can contaminate the environment and water sources. Studies show that the chemicals within cigarettes such as arsenic nicotine lead
and fresh water and be acutely toxic to aquatic microorganisms and fish. It is not only the cigarette ingredients that harm the environment
and other native vegetation that soak up rainwater from the roofs driveways or other impervious surfaces.
Wake Forest's Associate Director of Landscaping Services David Davis says a rain garden fills with a few inches of water after a storm
and the water slowly filters into the ground rather than running off. Rain gardens can be very diverse biomes full of life.
They offer a great opportunity to add beautiful water loving plants to the landscape and draw a host of butterflies birds and other wildlife that depend on these plants for survival.
Compared to a conventional patch of lawn a rain garden allows about 30 percent more water to soak into the ground keeping plants green and conserving water along the way.
or that tends to collect water. Your rain garden should be at least 10 feet away from building foundations underground utilities
If it is too deep the garden might pond water too long and can resemble a big hole in the ground.
On the other hand a shallow rain garden will need a lot of surface area to provide enough water storage to filtrate runoff from larger storms.
Make sure to have at least one inlet for water to flow into the garden and one outlet (an area slightly lower in grade where water can exit) for water to filter out.
Inlets and outlets generally need a cover of either vegetation or stone to prevent erosion. 3. Keep it on the level--Your excavated area should be relatively flat
or level so that water can disperse evenly over the surface. Wake Forest's horticulture crew excavated
You may need to water if your rain garden dries out which won't happen often.
Adaptation measures could include improved access to international agricultural markets to for instance sell cattle before droughts insurance systems to balance increased variability in crop yields from one year to another or water
and crop yield at scales as fine as 30 meters (90 feet) with spatial sources of information on soils water land use and other factors.
But he adds The real power of this framework is that it lets you look at different scenarios of land use change water and climate change.
Fleisher asks such as soil quality water availability and the amount of cropland. It's a complicated question to answer for the entire ESR at once so he Resop
Another key finding centered on water management. Increasing irrigation particularly in areas where potato farms are typically rain-fed such as Pennsylvania could result in substantial yield increases Fleisher says.
and as a control unprocessed cotton balls treated with water. Processed and unprocessed cotton balls appear slightly different so researchers could distinguish treated or untreated cotton in nests.
and containing black water barrels to store heat. The single-layer and double-layer designs appear to be the more appropriate technology for both locations for spinach
whereas the third model (double layer with water barrels) might be a reasonable option for lettuce in more-northern locations Uchanski said.
and resulted in higher probabilities of producing positive returns compared with the double layer with water barrel design.
extremes at either end of this variable signify drought or too much water for crops. Akin to the sweet spot on a baseball bat the best VPD condition is a value in its middle range.
The thickness of annual growth rings for these species is especially sensitive to water supply. Using samples from both living
As Bekker and his co-authors report in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association the west's climate usually fluctuates far more than it did in the 1900s.
We're trying to work with water managers to show the different flavors of droughts this region has had said Bekker.
and aquatic ecologist Carlos de la Rosa was passing slowing and quietly by and caught the moment on film.
It is not uncommon to see butterflies sipping mineral-laden water from mud puddles. When minerals are rare in the soil animals sometimes gather salt and other rare minerals and proteins from sweat tears urine and even blood.
Scientists at La Selva have discovered hundreds of species of aquatic insects that are unnamed still and undescribed.
It had emerged from its larval form in the small pool of water caught in the cupped leaves of a bromeliad plant.
According to a recent study by Kansas State university published in the Applied and Environmental Microbiology journal insects carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria from one point to another including from food animal farms and wastewater treatment
and poultry farms as well as wastewater treatment facilities that collect waste from multiple sources including hospitals.
and compared them to the bacteria present in the animal feces and wastewater. We found these insects carry the same bacteria found in the animal manure Zurek said.
The house flies collected from the wastewater treatment plants likewise carried the same bacteria found in the waste itself he said.
House flies collected several miles from the wastewater treatment plants in surrounding urban areas had a lower prevalence of the antibiotic-resistant bacteria than those examined from the facilities themselves
and resulting marketability of tomato juice growers have used traditionally techniques such as subjecting plants to salt and water stresses.
We investigated whether coiling wire around the lower part of the plant stems to reduce the capacity of xylem to transport water to the shoot would result in low shoot moisture conditions
and water stresses the authors said They noted that basal wire coiling is less complex than other treatments such as subjecting tomato plants to salt or water stress
Since basal wire coiling in this experiment markedly suppressed root growth presumably by impeding photosynthate translocation through the phloem to the roots we assume that water absorption was decreased also by this treatment Takahata
Furthermore impeding water transport through the xylem to the upper parts of the plant by this treatment should accelerate a reduction in the moisture content of the shoot.
and water management and to calculate the economic impacts for producers and consumers. The article's summary can be found online at:
since the spores are able to move considerable distances thanks to the wind or irrigation water.
which have been shown to improve nutrient and water acquisition. The authors of a new study say that until now little research has been conducted on water requirements for sweet cherry.
Their study reveals important information about irrigation strategies for growers and includes recommendations that can inform management practices.
of two sweet cherry cultivars to a variety of nutrient and water management strategies (Hortscience February 2014.
and water management although variations were associated closely with variations in cropload. The authors noted that low croploads during the study period may also have contributed to reduced effects of treatments on cherry quality characteristics other than size.
The observed effects of climate change have an impact on people's health land and marine ecosystems water supplies and people's livelihoods from the polar regions to the tropics and from small islands to continents.
In Finland the effects of climate change may weaken the water quality of water systems as the ground remains unfrozen for longer periods of time in the autumn and winter.
Water protection efforts will have to adapt to increased run off erosion and nutrition loads. This will result in new challenges particularly in agricultural water protection.
The warming of Finland's climate is already evident in Finnish fauna; birds for example are migrating earlier in the spring and later in the autumn.
Water warming has altered also the distribution of large species of fish found in the open sea.
and earnings from it will decrease due to the insufficient availability of drinking and irrigation water and the decreasing productivity of farming.
Extreme weather events will hinder important basic services such as water electricity and health and rescue services.
In Europe the EU's adaptations strategy has led to adaptation planning being incorporated into for example the use and management of coastal areas and water systems and the risk management of natural disasters.
which showed that better nitrogen management will help reduce air water and soil pollution greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously reducing threats to human health biodiversity and food security.
The UNECE Task force on Reactive Nitrogen is tasked with providing policy makers in the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air pollution with scientific evidence to support international decision making on environmental policies especially as these link air pollution with water
Intensive farming often results in significant declines in soil organic carbon stocks as well as reducing the ability of soils to store water and nutrients and damaging soil structure which can lead to soil erosion.
because most climate models predict tropical forests may be under stress due to increasing severe water shortages in a warmer and drier 21st century climate Zhou said.
The browning of the forest canopy is observed consistent with decreases in the amount of water available to plants
whether that is in the form of rainfall water stored in the ground water in near-surface soils or water within the vegetation.
These changes in available water were detected in part with NASA satellites including the NASA/JAXA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission NASA's Quick Scatterometer (Quikscat) and NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
Bark beetles change Rocky mountain stream flows, affect water qualityon Earth Week--and in fact every week now--trees in mountains across the western United states are dying thanks to an infestation of bark beetles that reproduce in the trees'inner bark.
What effect do all these dead trees have on stream flow and water quality? Plenty according to new research findings reported this week.
Dead trees don't drink waterthe unprecedented tree deaths caused by these beetles provided a new approach to estimating the interaction of trees with the water cycle in mountain headwaters like those of the Colorado
As the trees die they stop taking up water from the soil known as transpiration. Transpiration is the process of water movement through a plant and its evaporation from leaves stems and flowers.
The unused water then becomes part of the local groundwater and leads to increased water flows in nearby streams.
The research is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Water Sustainability and Climate (WSC) Program.
WSC is part of NSF's Science Engineering and Education for Sustainability initiative. Large-scale tree death due to pine beetles has many negative effects says Tom Torgersen of NSF's Directorate for Geosciences and lead WSC program director.
This loss of trees increases groundwater flow and water availability seemingly a positive Torgersen says.
The total effect however of the extensive tree death and increased water flow has to be evaluated for how much of an increase
what's the water quality of the resulting flow? The answers aren't always good ones.
Red-and gray-phase trees--those affected by beetle infestations--stop transpiring leading to higher water tables and greater water availability for groundwater flow to streams.
Water budget analysis confirms that transpiration loss resulting from beetle kill can account for the increase in groundwater contributions to streams write Maxwell and scientists Lindsay Bearup and John Mccray of the Colorado School Of mines and David
Dead trees create changes in water qualityusing'fingerprints'of different water sources defined by the sources'water chemistry we found that a higher fraction of late-summer streamflow in affected watersheds comes from groundwater rather than surface
Our approach using water chemistry allows us to'dissect'the water in streams and better understand its source.
if the trees stop using water? Our findings not only identify this change but quantify how much water trees use.
An important implication of the research Bearup says is that the change can alter water quality.
The new results she says help explain earlier work by Colorado School Of mines scientists. That research found an unexpected spike in carcinogenic disinfection by-products in late summer in water treatment plants.
Where were those water treatment plants located? In bark beetle-infested watersheds. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by National Science Foundation.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#New technology for greenhouses developedagricultural and fruit producers could acquire high-tech greenhouses at a considerably less cost thanks to experts from the Autonomous University of Zacatecas (UAZ) in the North of Mexico developing computer systems to control
Automatic control of microclimates has the potential to mitigate the total cost of water for agriculture which in Mexico amounts to almost 70 percent of the vital liquid.
and coconut water ranked eighth among the popular nonalcoholic beverage trends in restaurants for 2014.
Based on the national experience with alcohol and tobacco it seems prudent from a public health perspective to open up the marijuana market slowly with tight controls to test the waters
The reason for the discrepancies according to the study's authors is that island biogeographic theory was originally based on actual islands surrounded by water
People are losing many of nature's benefits such as water purification provided by forests and wetlands and pest control provided by birds and bats.
For the first time in human history food production will be limited on a global scale by the availability of land water
and the organic matter helps hold water so it provides some adaptation to the droughts
and ecosystem services including water quality and wildlife. So this sector has some opportunities to help improve the quality of land resources as well as mitigating climate change.
and bats and provide ecosystem services such as filtering water and air stabilizing soil during heavy rains storing carbon and replenishing soil nutrients.
precious habitat for the long-billed curlewdespite the recent rainfall California is still in a drought (snowpack 32%of average) so not only are limited water supplies
but demand for water is increasing from a variety of uses. In a recent study published by Point Blue Conservation Science (Point Blue)
As the drought continues mirroring conditions that are projected to be more common in the future scientists say the need for allocating water reliably to wetlands
Curlews can't survive in the Central Valley without irrigated agriculture given the loss of most of their historic shallow-water habitats in summer
In the future irrigated agriculture will face increased water costs driven by competing needs of an increasing human population
Once deforestation has occurred the solar energy that rainforests would otherwise use to evaporate water accumulates near the Earth's surface causing the atmosphere to warm.
Within a day or two most of the NOX changes into nitrate a water-soluble molecule essential to life that gets deposited in soil and snow.
What's more airborne nitrate dissolves in water and falls at the poles as snow.
and oxygen or for the water molecules used to calculate temperature variations through time. But acidity in air could influence deposition
Before they reach our supermarkets baby salad leaves undergo rigorous processing that includes harvesting transportation washing sanitization removal of excess water and packaging.
In the course of the project the researchers also made the unexpected discovery that using less water
if you reduce water use in intensive salad production by about 20 percent you actually develop smaller tougher leaves with stiff cells walls
and at the same time the company can reduce their water footprint. So we've used fundamental biological knowledge
and geographies aimed at driving down the use of water whilst improving crop quality and shelf life.
This co-location approach could prove especially useful in sunny arid regions such as the southwestern United states where water is said scarce Sujith Ravi who is conducting postdoctoral research with professors David Lobell and Chris Field both
but water is required to remove dust and dirt from the panels to ensure they operate at maximum efficiency.
Water is used also to dampen the ground to prevent the buildup and spread of dust.
Crops planted beneath the solar panels would capture the runoff water used for cleaning the PV panels
and colleagues suggest that these two factors together could lead to a reduction in the overall amount of water that solar farms need to operate.
Water is limited already in many areas and could be a major constraint in the future. This approach could allow us to produce energy and agriculture with the same water.
But which crops to use? Many solar farms operate in sunny but arid regions that are inhospitable to most food crops.
Sujith's work is a great example of how thinking beyond a single challenge like water
#Farming for improved ecosystem services seen as economically feasibleby changing row-crop management practices in economically and environmentally stable ways US farms could contribute to improved water quality biological diversity pest suppression
But growing crops for biofuel requires thousands of acres of land and vast quantities of fertilizer and water.
In some parts of the United states it takes more than 800 gallons of water to grow a bushel of corn which in turn yields about 3 gallons of ethanol.
-and water-use issues surrounding ethanol production today. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of making ethanol by electrocatalysis Kanan said.
For the Nature study Kanan and Li built an electrochemical cell--a device consisting of two electrodes placed in water saturated with carbon monoxide gas.
and water is converted to oxygen gas at one electrode (the anode) and hydrogen gas at the other electrode (the cathode).
The challenge was to find a cathode that would reduce carbon monoxide to ethanol instead of reducing water to hydrogen.
and exclusively react with water Kanan said. Copper is the only exception but conventional copper is very inefficient.
That means that it either stays dissolved in the water for a long time before it's deposited
when the material enters the water. Airborne soot gets into the ocean via rainfall and runoff from streams.
and amounts of black carbon that were dissolved in seawater trapped in sediments and contained in oceangoing particles tiny specs of matter that gradually sink to the seafloor.
We found that black carbon is taken up by particles that are produced in the water column said Coppola.
Coppola said black carbon tends to stay dissolved in seawater and only occasionally gets snagged by a passing marine particle.
if certain foods make your mouth water but it is unhealthy if foods make your nose run
#Putting a price on ecological restorationputting a price on clean water and soil fertility helps the UN set ecological restoration targets for degraded
Forests provide essential ecosystem services for people including timber food and water. For those struggling with the after-effects of deforestation the main hope lies in rebuilding forest resources through ecological restoration.
The methodology assigns financial value to ecosystem services such as the provision of clean water carbon storage
In fact a new study shows that the CO2 outgassed by the river is drawn only from the river system itself by the semiaquatic vegetation on the flood plains.
Now researchers have shown just that the CO2 outgassed by the waters of the Amazon is drawn in reality only from the river system itself.
This CO2 comes from the decomposition of the organic matter produced by semiaquatic vegetation in the Amazon wetlands.
The link between aquatic vegetation and CO2EMISSIONTEN French and Brazilian teams within the framework of the ANR-CARBAMA project
The measurements of CO2 concentrations dissolved in the water compared to the satellite map of vegetation showed a very strong correlation between the intensity of CO2 outgassing and the area of flooded vegetation and floating aquatic plants.
over time as the water level varies during the year; and in space as the proportion of vegetation diminishes from upstream of the study area where flooded forests dominate to downstream where the majority of the lakes are found.
According to the researcher's estimates the majority of these emissions come from the respiration of the roots and the fall and decay of the semiaquatic vegetation in the flood plains.
In fact the researchers showed a very high export ratio toward the aquatic environment of the gross primary production of the Amazon wetlands:
its waters release the same quantity of carbon into the atmosphere as is fixed by its vegetation.
Nevertheless this study highlights the very heavy contribution of inland waters to CO2 emissions. It sheds light on the need to consider the specific properties of wetlands in global carbon footprints.
while using less water seem like a dream for a world with a burgeoning population and already strained food and water resources.
but using 13 percent less water and reflecting 34 percent more radiation back into space by breeding for slightly different leaf distribution angles and reflectivity.
--if you're in an arid zone you can structure things to maximize the water efficiency.
or using water and nutrients liberally to the detriment of neighboring plants. However in an agricultural setting the plants don't need such competitive measures.
and conserve water and nutrients so we have been looking at what leaf arrangements would best do this.
Second water usage. Third combating climate change by reflecting more sunlight off the leaves. To address all three they used the unique tactic of computationally modeling the whole soybean plant.
The model looks at biological functions such as photosynthesis and water use as well as the physical environment.
A less dense canopy uses less water without affecting productivity. And changing the angle of the leaves can let the plant reflect back more solar radiation to offset climate change.
--and yet will have to do that with probably no more water while at the same time dealing with climate change.
We've shown that by altering leaf arrangement we could have a yield increase without using more water
To simulate cold weather conditions one hand of the subject was dipped into 39 degree water (or 4 degrees Celsius) while Figueroa's team took their blood pressure and other vital measurements.
and cardiac stress while both at rest and while they were exposed to the cold water. That means less overload to the heart so the heart is going to work easily during a stressful situation such as cold exposure Figueroa said.
It's a surprise to find methane is such a big source of energy in these gin-clear waters famed for their luxuriant plant growth said co-author Professor Mark Trimmer Head of the Aquatic Ecology Group at Queen Mary
. In addition to historical records and ground observations the researchers will use newly available Earth System Data Records from NASA--satellite images of the Amazon and its tributaries over the complete high-and low-water cycles.
The researchers will look at how the natural seasonality of river levels influences aquatic and terrestrial grasses fisheries
Amazonian grasses sometimes called macrophytes convert atmospheric carbon to plant biomass which is processed then by aquatic microorganisms upon decomposition.
when water levels are low sequestering some carbon and then die when the floods arrive releasing the carbon into the aquatic system said Thiago Silva an assistant professor of geography at SãO Paulo State university in Rio Claro Brazil.
They are followed by aquatic grasses that need to grow extremely fast to surpass the rising floods
and then die off during the receding-water period. Although most of the macrophyte carbon is released back to the atmosphere in the same form that it is assimilated carbon dioxide some of it is exported actually to the ocean as dissolved carbon
or released to the atmosphere as methane a gas that has a warming potential 20 times larger than carbon dioxide said John Melack a professor at the University of California Santa barbara. Researchers will measure plant growth
We will combine water level fishing effort and fish life-history traits to understand the impact of droughts
and weight of the catch for 40 species. The hydrological data include daily water level measurements recorded in the Madeira Purus and Amazonas-Solimã es rivers.
and productivity of floodplain forests--those enriched by rising waters called whitewater river forests and nutrient-poor blackwater river forests.
For example extreme droughts may reduce productivity due to water stress and increases in the frequency and severity of forest fires.
According to the researchers particles in fine clay-like soil seem to have a larger surface area to bind nutrients and water.
Even if precipitation changes in the future are uncertain there are good reasons to be concerned about water resources. In its latest climate report the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that soil moisture is expected to decline globally
Large cities especially in arid regions will need to carefully manage their water supplies he added. The study builds on an emerging body of research looking at how evaporative demand influences hydroclimate.
The Corn belt for example receives water from the Mississippi river. Accounting for irrigation is currently a challenge for models
Thin fluids like water and ethylene glycol flow easily but don't conduct heat well while traditional heat-transfer fluids can be affected by stability viscosity surface charge layering agglomeration and other factors that limit essential flow.
and water management practices that increase agricultural productivity can save watersheds from degradation. A study conducted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in the Gabayan watershed in eastern Bohol Philippines has shown that agroforestry systems create a more sustainably managed watershed that allows people living there to benefit from the ecosystem.
and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate the effects of different land uses on watershed hydrology
Watersheds not only supply water for domestic use but also provide a multitude of ecological and cultural services including water for irrigation
and industry shelter habitats for biodiversity and in very poor areas sources of livelihoods. Over the years however many watersheds throughout the world have suffered from intensive resource extraction and mismanagement.
whose livelihoods depend on subsistence agriculturefarmers here have reported environmental problems such as floods droughts reductions in water quality and increases in soil erosion and downstream sedimentation of irrigation networks.
Specifically the use of restored areas that have vegetation next to water resources and contour planting in grasslands appear to be the most effective techniques to reduce sediment transfer to the watershed river network says Wilson.
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