Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 46
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Book Description
Semi-arid urban coastal streams are at an increased risk of future fire disturbances due to climate change and anthropogenic activity. These disturbances can impact ecosystem services such as rainfall-runoff processes and the transportation of soil-bound contaminants. Soil moisture content and infiltration are important antecedent hydrologic conditions for rainfall-runoff processes that can influence the transport and storage of toxic heavy metals like mercury (Hg). Inorganic mercury can be converted into a potent neurotoxin, methylmercury (MeHg), and mobilized to coastal waterways through runoff and erosion. This thesis analyzed soil moisture content, infiltration, and soil Hg concentration (total mercury (THg) and MeHg) in a perennial semi-arid urban stream channel in Southern California. In June 2018, a 38-acre fire burned a portion of the riparian zone in Alvarado Creek, a tributary of the San Diego River in California, United States. Three transects (two unburned and one burned) were monitored monthly to the evaluate the complex spatial and temporal dynamics of soil moisture and infiltration patterns. Multiple soil samples across all three transects were obtained to investigate the consequences of fire for the transport and storage of THg and MeHg concentrations. Average dry season soil moisture content was less than 5 percent volume water content (%VWC) for all transects, and the burned transect exhibited the lowest %VWC during the wet season. Infiltration rates displayed a high degree of spatial and temporal variability, however the location with the highest burn severity had the lowest average infiltration rate. THg concentrations ranged from 10.63 ng/g to 182.38 ng/g, and MeHg concentrations ranged from 0.03 ng/g to 1.58 ng/g. THg and MeHg concentrations increased at all transects after the first significant post-fire precipitation event of the wet season, and the largest increase was displayed at the downstream locations of the burned area. This thesis demonstrated the differences of hydrologic properties and terrestrial Hg contamination among burned and unburned transects in a fire disturbed semi-arid urban stream channel. The research improves the characterization of post-fire hydrologic conditions for rainfall-runoff processes and provides the first high resolution mercury soil analysis of an urban fire disturbed stream in Southern California.
Author: Southern California Coastal Water Research Project
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Marine biology
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
Author: Gregory L. Simon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520292804
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
Flame and Fortune in the American West creatively and meticulously investigates the ongoing politics, folly, and avarice shaping the production of increasingly widespread yet dangerous suburban and exurban landscapes. The 1991 Oakland Hills Tunnel Fire is used as a starting point to better understand these complex social-environmental processes. The Tunnel Fire isÊthe most destructive fireÑin terms of structures lostÑinÊCalifornia history. More than 3,000 residential structures burned and 25 lives were lost. Although this fire occurred in Oakland and Berkeley, others like it sear through landscapes in California and the American West that have experienced urban growth and development within areas historically prone to fire. Ê Simon skillfully blends techniques from environmental history, political ecology, and science studies to closely examine the Tunnel Fire within a broader historical and spatial context of regional economic development and natural-resource management, such as the widespread planting of eucalyptus trees as an exotic lure for homeowners and the creation of hillside neighborhoods for tax revenueÑdecisions that produced communities with increased vulnerability to fire. Simon demonstrates how in OaklandÊa drive for affluence led to a state of vulnerability for rich and poor alike that has only been exacerbated by the rebuilding of neighborhoods after the fire. Despite these troubling trends, Flame and Fortune in the American West illustrates how many popular and scientific debates on fire limit the scope and efficacy of policy responses.Ê Ê These risky yet profitable developments (what the author refers to as theÊIncendiary), as well as proposed strategies for challenging them, are discussed in the context of urbanizing areas around the American West and hold global applicability within hazard-prone areas.
Author: Harold Mooney
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520278801
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 1008
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Book Description
This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for CaliforniaÕs remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem typeÑits distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed. Each chapter evaluates natural processes for a specific ecosystem, describes drivers of change, and discusses how that ecosystem may be altered in the future. This book also explores the drivers of CaliforniaÕs ecological patterns and the history of the stateÕs various ecosystems, outlining how the challenges of climate change and invasive species and opportunities for regulation and stewardship could potentially affect the stateÕs ecosystems. The text explicitly incorporates both human impacts and conservation and restoration efforts and shows how ecosystems support human well-being. Edited by two esteemed ecosystem ecologists and with overviews by leading experts on each ecosystem, this definitive work will be indispensable for natural resource management and conservation professionals as well as for undergraduate or graduate students of CaliforniaÕs environment and curious naturalists.
Author: Phelicia Marie Gomes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fire ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Author: Earl Shaver
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Urban runoff
Languages : en
Pages : 327
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Book Description
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hydrology
Languages : en
Pages : 898
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Book Description
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 864
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Book Description
Author: Ellen Hanak
Publisher: Public Policy Instit. of CA
ISBN: 1582131414
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 500
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Book Description
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309125391
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 611
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Book Description
The rapid conversion of land to urban and suburban areas has profoundly altered how water flows during and following storm events, putting higher volumes of water and more pollutants into the nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries. These changes have degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system. The Clean Water Act regulatory framework for addressing sewage and industrial wastes is not well suited to the more difficult problem of stormwater discharges. This book calls for an entirely new permitting structure that would put authority and accountability for stormwater discharges at the municipal level. A number of additional actions, such as conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover (e.g., roads and parking lots), and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater, are recommended.
