The paper examines the quality of satellite-based precipitation estimates for the lower Mahanadi River basin (eastern India). The considered data sets known as 3B42 and 3B42-RT (version 7/7A) are ...routinely produced by the tropical rainfall measuring mission (TRMM) from passive microwave and infrared recordings. While the 3B42-RT data are disseminated in real time, the gauge-adjusted 3B42 data set is published with a delay of some months. The quality of the two products was assessed in a two-step procedure. First, the correspondence between the remotely sensed precipitation rates and rain gauge data was evaluated at the sub-basin scale. Second, the quality of the rainfall estimates was assessed by analysing their performance in the context of rainfall–runoff simulation. At sub-basin level (4000 to 16 000 km2) the satellite-based areal precipitation estimates were found to be moderately correlated with the gauge-based counterparts (R2 of 0.64–0.74 for 3B42 and 0.59–0.72 for 3B42-RT). Significant discrepancies between TRMM data and ground observations were identified at high-intensity levels. The rainfall depth derived from rain gauge data is often not reflected by the TRMM estimates (hit rate < 0.6 for ground-based intensities > 80 mm day-1). At the same time, the remotely sensed rainfall rates frequently exceed the gauge-based equivalents (false alarm ratios of 0.2–0.6). In addition, the real-time product 3B42-RT was found to suffer from a spatially consistent negative bias. Since the regionalisation of rain gauge data is potentially associated with a number of errors, the above results are subject to uncertainty. Hence, a validation against independent information, such as stream flow, was essential. In this case study, the outcome of rainfall–runoff simulation experiments was consistent with the above-mentioned findings. The best fit between observed and simulated stream flow was obtained if rain gauge data were used as model input (Nash–Sutcliffe index of 0.76–0.88 at gauges not affected by reservoir operation). This compares to the values of 0.71–0.78 for the gauge-adjusted TRMM 3B42 data and 0.65–0.77 for the 3B42-RT real-time data. Whether the 3B42-RT data are useful in the context of operational runoff prediction in spite of the identified problems remains a question for further research.
Climate change triggers changes in temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, etc. and has a significant impact on water resources in many regions. Considering the increasing scarcity of water ...as a result of climate change, conservation of water and groundwater recharge have become crucial factors for water resources planning and management. In this paper, an attempt is made to study the detailed hydrological behaviour of a treated watershed using physically based distributed hydrological modelling system MIKE SHE to assess the impact of conservation measures on watershed hydrology considering future climate change. Three hypothetical management scenarios are simulated for the period 2010–2040. RegCM4 regional climate model is used in the study for RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. Detailed hydrological water balance is extracted for individual years from 1979 to 2009 to compare relevant components. The evaluation for base period shows 10.06% reduction in surface runoff and 11.33% enhancement in groundwater recharge. Further simulation with RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios show notable reduction in surface runoff and increase in groundwater recharge. The structures in the micro-watershed influence the surface runoff and increase infiltration into the soil, resulting in higher groundwater recharge. MIKE SHE simulations for various structures management scenarios establish the role of conservation measures in reducing surface runoff and enhancing groundwater recharge under substantial effect of climate change. The results will assist in decision-making on watershed development plans in quantitative terms, including planning for water conservation measures in the face of climate change.
Existing flood modeling studies over coastal catchments involving different combinations of model chain setup imparting complex information fails to entail the needs of policy or decision-makers. ...Thus, a comprehensive framework that pertains to the requirements of practitioners and provides more perspicuous flood hazard information is required. In this paper, a novel approach translating complex flood hazard information in the form of decision priority maps derived using a rational combination of models (physical and statistical) is elucidated at the finest administrative scale. The proposed methodology is illustrated over a highly flood-prone deltaic region in Mahanadi River Basin, India, to characterize impacts of climate change for a 1:100 years return period flood event under future conditions (2026–2055). The modeled flood events are further analyzed to capture the transformation dynamics of flood hazard classes (FHCs) in near-future, for prioritizing areas with greater hazard potential. Interestingly, the results capture a high transformation characteristic from low to high FHCs in agriculture-dominated areas, which are significantly greater than the areas experiencing flood hazard reduction. The results show a significant increase of 12.5% and 27.35% in areas with high FHCs under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively. Moreover, a notable climate change response is indicated under both climate change scenarios, with approximately 22% (RCP4.5) and 25% (RCP8.5) in villages showing a drastic increment in flood hazard magnitude. The results thus highlight the importance of identifying and prioritizing the areas for flood adaptation where a relative change in flood hazard potential is higher due to climate change. Therefore, we conclude that this study can provide an insight into the implication of new approaches for effective communication of flood information by bridging the gaps between scientific communities and decision-makers in appraisal for better flood adaptation measures.
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•Model chain setup involved for quantification of hydro-meteorological information.•Top-down approach is used to understand basin's response to climate change.•Signature changes in flood hazard are observed over agriculture-dominated villages.•Transformation of hazard classes is illustrated at the finest administrative scale.•Novel concept of decision priority mapping introduced for effective decision making.
“Capsule”:
Factors affecting uptake and phytotoxicity of cobalt, chromium and copper in cauliflower are explored.
Cauliflower (
Brassica oleracea L. var. Botrytis cv. Maghi) was grown in refined sand ...with complete nutrition (control) and at 0.5 mM each of Co, Cr and Cu. In cauliflower, compared to that of excess Cu or Cr, the visible effects of excess Co appeared first and were most pronounced. Excess of each heavy metal restricted the biomass of cauliflower, concentrations of Fe, chlorophylls
a and
b, protein and activity of catalase in leaves in the order Co>Cu>Cr. The translocation of Cr from roots to tops was minimum and that of Co was maximum when cauliflower was individually supplied with excess Co, Cu or Cr. In cauliflower each heavy metal inhibited the concentration of most of the macro- and micronutrients. The translocation of P, S, Mn, Zn and Cu from roots to tops of cauliflower were affected most significantly by Co and least by Cr. In contrast to excess Cu or Cr, Co significantly decreased the water potential and transpiration rates and increased diffusive resistance and relative water content in leaves of cauliflower.
Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) is widely cultivated for its nutritional and medicinal value yet remains an orphan crop as productivity has not been improved because of a lack of genome and non‐coding ...genome information. Non‐coding RNAs, like miRNAs and long non‐coding RNAs (lncRNAs), are involved in regulation of growth, metabolism, development, and stress response, and have a critical role in post‐transcriptional gene regulation (PTGR).
We attempted to elucidate the roles of miRNAs and lncRNAs in pigeon pea through experimental validation of computationally predicted miRNAs and lncRNAs and targets of miRNAs on mRNAs.
We experimentally validated 20 miRNAs and 11 lncRNAs. We predicted cleavage sites of three miRNA targets: serine/threonine‐protein kinase, polygalacturonase, beta‐galactosidase. We identified 469 targets of 265 miRNAs and their functional annotations using computational methods. We built a miRNA‐mRNA‐lncRNA network model, with the miRNAs targeting both mRNAs and lncRNAs, to obtain information on the interplay of these three molecules.
A confirmed interaction through experimental validation was established between miRNA, namely cca‐miR1535a targeting the mRNA for beta‐galactosidase, as well as the lncRNA cca‐lnc‐020033. Our findings increase knowledge of the non‐coding genome of pigeon pea and their roles in PTGR and in improving agronomic traits of this pulse crop.
Studying miRNA‐lncRNA‐mRNA interactions to decipher non‐coding RNA mediated post‐transcriptional gene regulation in Cajanus cajan.
Indian Ganga Basin (IGB), one of the most densely populated areas in the world, is facing a significant threat to food grain production, besides increased yield gap between actual and potential ...production, due to climate change. We have analyzed the spatial variability of climate change impacts on rice and wheat yields at three different locations representing the upper, middle and lower IGB. The DSSAT model is used to simulate the effects of climate variability and climate change on rice and wheat yields by analyzing: (i) spatial crop yield response to current climate, and (ii) impact of a changing climate as projected by two regional climate models, REMO and HadRM3, based on SRES A1B emission scenarios for the period 2011–2040. Results for current climate demonstrate a significant gap between actual and potential yield for upper, middle and lower IGB stations. The analysis based on RCM projections shows that during 2011–2040, the largest reduction in rice and wheat yields will occur in the upper IGB (reduction of potential rice and wheat yield respectively by 43.2% and 20.9% by REMO, and 24.8% and 17.2% by HadRM3). In the lower IGB, however, contrasting results are obtained, with HadRM3 based projections showing an increase in the potential rice and wheat yields, whereas, REMO based projections show decreased potential yields. We discuss the influence of agro-climatic factors; variation in temperature, length of maturity period and leaf area index which are responsible for modeled spatial variability in crop yield response within the IGB.
•Climate change impacts on crops in the Indian Ganga Basin have been analyzed.•SRES A1B emissions scenario simulations of REMO and HadRM3 GCMs for the period 2011–2040 have been used.•Projected climate showed more decrease of potential yields at higher latitudes.
A
bstract
Remarkable simplification arises from considering vortex equations in the large winding limit. This was recently used 1 to display all sorts of vortex zeromodes, the orientational, ...translational, fermionic as well as semi-local, and to relate them to the apparently distinct phenomena of the Nielsen-Olesen-Ambjorn magnetic instabilities. Here we extend these analyses to more general types of BPS nonAbelian vortices, taking as a prototype a system with gauged U
0
(1) × SU
ℓ
(
N
) × SU
r
(
N
) symmetry where the VEV of charged scalar fields in the bifundamental representation breaks the symmetry to SU(
N
)
ℓ+
r
. The presence of the massless SU(
N
)
ℓ+
r
gauge fields in 4
D
bulk introduces all sorts of non-local, topological phenomena such as the nonAbelian Aharonov-Bohm effects, which in the theory with global SU
r
(
N
) group (
g
r
= 0) are washed away by the strongly fluctuating orientational zeromodes in the worldsheet. Physics changes qualitatively at the moment the right gauge coupling constant
g
r
is turned on.
The aim of the study was to implicate induction of oxidative stress and antioxidative responses with the effects of cobalt excess on sugarcane plants. Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarium L.) cv. 'CoS ...99225' grown in refined sand at excess cobalt i.e. 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 μM. The effect of excess cobalt (>300 μM) was observed on sugarcane as interveinal chlorosis and necrotic spots in middle leaves. Later, affected leaves turned necrotic, dry, and withered. The toxicity of cobalt was also discernible on root weight, cane yield, reduced concentration of sucrose in cane juice, carotenoides, Hill reaction activity, chlorophylls, iron (Fe), relative water content, decreased activity of catalase in leaves, and increase in concentration of lipid peroxidation, phenols, sugars, starch, proline and higher activity of peroxidase, ascorbate peroxidase and superoxide didmutase and accumulation of cobalt in sugarcane leaves.
After pioneering gaseous detectors of single photon for RICH applications using CsI solid state photocathodes in MWPCs within the RD26 collaboration and by the constructions for the RICH detector of ...the COMPASS experiment at CERN SPS, in 2016 we have upgraded COMPASS RICH by novel gaseous photon detectors based on MPGD technology. Four novel photon detectors, covering a total active area of 1.5m2 have been installed in order to cope with the challenging efficiency and stability requirements of the COMPASS physics programme. They are the first application in an experiment of MPGD-based single photon detectors. All aspects of the upgrade are presented, including engineering, mass production, quality assessment and performance.
Perspectives for further developments in the field of gaseous single photon detectors are also presented.
The COMPASS RICH-1 detector has undergone a major upgrade in 2016 with the installation of four novel MPGD-based photon detectors. They consist of large-size hybrid MPGDs with multi-layer ...architecture composed of two layers of Thick-GEMs and bulk resistive MicroMegas. A dedicated high voltage power supply system, based on CAEN HV modules, has been built and put in operation: it controls more than 100 HV channels. The system is required to protect the detectors against errors by the operator, monitor voltages and currents at a 1 Hz rate and automatically react to detector misbehavior. It includes also a HV compensation system against environmental pressure and temperature variation to grant the detector stability. The operation of a MPGD based single photon detector poses challenging requirements to the high voltage power supply systems employed in terms of high-resolution diagnostic features and dynamic voltage control. Systems satisfying all the needed features are not commercially available; for this reason a novel single channel high voltage system matching the MPGD needs has been designed and realized. In this article the COMPASS RICH-1 MPGD HV system implementation is described as well as its performance in terms of stability of the novel MPGD-based photon detectors during the physics data taking at COMPASS. The design, implementation and performance of a novel HV power supply system based on DC to DC converters and controlled by a FPGA device is presented. The capabilities of the first prototype of the new single HV channel power supply are illustrated when operated with a MPGD based single photon detector during a test beam exercise. The preliminary result of the multi channel system are briefly discussed.
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