We assess whether a Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programme met its objectives of reducing soil erosion and yielding water in an environmental protected area, the Guariroba River Basin, ...Midwestern Brazil. We measured rainfall and water discharge throughout 2012 and 2016. During the same period, soil and water conservation practices were performed in the basin, such as: building level terraces and riparian vegetation recovery. We separated streamflow into baseflow and direct runoff, then we evaluted the baseflow index that indicated that groundwater significantly contributes to total flow. Therefore, to investigate the effects on streamflow, we performed a trend analysis in the baseflow time series using the Mann-Kendall test. In addition, we analysed the efficiency of soil erosion regulation practices over time, considering the total payment and the trends found in the baseflow. Whereas precipitation records present a decreasing trend (1 mm month−1), baseflow tends to increase by 0.018 m3 s−1 in the same period. Our findings show that soil conservation practices performed in the basin increase baseflow and also provide a better resilience to endure extreme events such as drought based on an increase in forest areas and soil conservation practices such as level terrace.
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•We assessed the effects of Payment for Ecosystem Services on water provisioning and sediment transport using observed data.•Baseflow tends to increase by 0.018 m3 s−1 in five years;•Soil conservation practices reduced soil erosion by a quarter.
Similar to most countries, the Brazilian water resources management considers topographically delineated catchment as a territorial unit for policy implementation. Yet, previous studies have shown ...that catchments are not hydrologically isolated, and topographic limits often neglect the groundwater boundaries. Thus, studies on effective catchment areas are promising for shedding light on inter‐catchment groundwater flow. Here, we investigated the deviation between the topographic and effective areas across Brazil. We applied the effective catchment area index (ECI) to 733 Brazilian catchments and identified the most influencing attributes on the ECI by using principal component and random forest analyses (PCA and RFA, respectively). Further analysis was carried out by contrasting the ECI values against the expected range of the Budyko curve, considering both topographic and effective catchment areas (classic and adjusted framework, respectively). We noted that nearly 32% of the Brazilian catchments presented more than 30% of difference between the effective area and its topographic boundaries. In general, the more arid biomes in Brazil—the Cerrado and Caatinga—are prone to have smaller effective areas while larger effective areas were mostly found in the Atlantic Forest biome, a humid tropical region with a higher mean elevation. Our findings indicate that the aridity index was the main driving factor and negatively correlated with ECI followed by mean slope, precipitation seasonality, and mean elevation. We highlight the potential of adopting a pooling of catchments based on their interconnectivity to minimize management costs while maximizing synergies and lessening trade‐offs between ecosystem functioning and water transfer processes. Our results contribute to a better country‐wide understanding of hydrological connectivity among catchments and highlight the need to consider the effective catchment area to overcome water‐food‐energy security challenges on multiple scales.
Our results contribute to a better tropical country‐scale understanding of hydrological connectivity among catchments and highlighted the need to consider the effective catchment area to overcome water‐food‐energy security challenges on multiple scales. In general, the more arid biomes in Brazil, the Cerrado and Caatinga, showed a smaller effective area concentration while larger effective areas were mostly found in the Atlantic Forest biome, a humid tropical region with higher mean elevation.
A better understanding of climate change impacts on water security beyond climate variability is of critical importance to tackle water vulnerabilities exacerbated by increasing extreme weather ...events. Thus, studies on water security in a changing climate help decision-makers to overcome existing political and socioeconomic challenges worldwide. In this study, future water security of two basins was assessed under climate change and demand scenarios by contrasting water demand with probabilistic levels of water availability to identify possible drivers of insecurity. The Guariroba and Jaguari basins are the main sources for supplying water to Campo Grande city and the São Paulo Metropolitan Region, respectively. The physically-based SWAT+ model was calibrated to simulate the basins’ hydrological response to three climate change scenarios from a CMIP6 multimodel ensemble: SSP2-4.5 (medium forcing), SSP3-7.0 (high forcing), and SSP5-8.5 (high forcing). The Guariroba basin already presented scarcity indices close to the security threshold in the baseline period. The imbalance between availability and demand was the main driver of water insecurity in this basin. Despite showing a low scarcity risk in the Jaguari basin in the baseline, this risk considerably increased in the future periods due to a decrease in precipitation. A reduction in water demand of 20% by 2070 was not sufficient to improve water security in both basins. These findings indicate that a lack of policies for adapting demand to a changing availability exacerbates hydrological droughts. More stringent measures to balance water availability and demand are critical for improving water security in an uncertain future.
The NEMO-3 results for the double-
β
decay of
150
Nd to the 0
1
+
and 2
1
+
excited states of
150
Sm are reported. The data recorded during 5.25 year with 36.6 g of the isotope
150
Nd are used in the ...analysis. The signal of the
2
ν
β
β
transition to the 0
1
+
excited state is detected with a statistical significance exceeding 5
σ
. The half-life is measured to be
T
1
/
2
2
ν
β
β
(
0
1
+
)
=
1
.
11
-
0.14
+
0.19
stat
-
0.15
+
0.17
syst
×
10
20
year, which is the most precise value that has been measured to date. 90% confidence-level limits are set for the other decay modes. For the
2
ν
β
β
decay to the 2
1
+
level the limit is
T
1
/
2
2
ν
β
β
(
2
1
+
)
>
2.42
×
10
20
year
. The limits on the
0
ν
β
β
decay to the 0
1
+
and 2
1
+
levels of
150
Sm are significantly improved to
T
1
/
2
0
ν
β
β
(
0
1
+
)
>
1.36
×
10
22
year
and
T
1
/
2
0
ν
β
β
(
2
1
+
)
>
1.26
×
10
22
year
.
ABSTRACT This study analyses the concepts of social imaginaries and representations by studying journalistic texts regarding the Chilean student movements of the year 2011, from the newspapers El ...Mercurio and El Sur, with the aim of building a media profile of the conglomerate El Mercurio S.A.P. The methodology is qualitative-interpretive. The results highlight the importance of the concepts of representations and social imaginaries in the construction of a media profile for El Mercurio S.A.P. group. Keywords: social imaginaries, social representations, student movements, discourse analysis and media. Aquello que fue al comienzo un modelo económico experimental impuesto de forma violenta en los años 80 por los denominados Chicago boys, pasó pronto a consolidarse a nivel mundial, a fines del siglo XX, como la "única alternativa viable" (Borón, 1999).
Using data from the NEMO-3 experiment, we have measured the two-neutrino double beta decay ( Formula omitted) half-life of Formula omittedSe as Formula omitted y under the single-state dominance ...hypothesis for this nuclear transition. The corresponding nuclear matrix element is Formula omitted. In addition, a search for neutrinoless double beta decay ( Formula omitted) using 0.93 kg of Formula omittedSe observed for a total of 5.25 y has been conducted and no evidence for a signal has been found. The resulting half-life limit of Formula omitted for the light neutrino exchange mechanism leads to a constraint on the effective Majorana neutrino mass of Formula omitted, where the range reflects Formula omitted nuclear matrix element values from different calculations. Furthermore, constraints on lepton number violating parameters for other Formula omitted mechanisms, such as right-handed currents, majoron emission and R-parity violating supersymmetry modes have been set.
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