Article
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
Mohammad Aghababaei, Maria Koliou
Summary: In this paper, a comprehensive agent-based model is developed for community resilience planning. The model incorporates agents representing businesses, healthcare systems, and people, along with agents for education systems, utilities, and households, to simulate the Centerville testbed subjected to tornado hazards. The model introduces resilience measures and evaluates various strategies for pre-disaster preparedness. The results demonstrate the capability of the model to capture the complex behaviors and dynamics of interdependent systems within a community, as well as assess the impact of disruptions and mitigation strategies for community planning.
COMPUTER-AIDED CIVIL AND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
M. LopezDeAsiain, J. M. Castro Bonano, M. Borrallo-Jimenez, R. Mora Esteban
Summary: Using a novel approach based on the urban ecosystem services approach, this research explores the relation between socio-economic, architectonic and ecological factors in urban renewal processes. Through analyzing cases in Andalusian neighborhoods, a socio-ecosystemic services model is defined, which integrates the relationships between architectural, socio-economic, and ecological dimensions. The results show that this model addresses the need for urban services and infrastructure and enhances the quality of life in neighborhoods.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Shipeng Dong, Dapeng Liu, Boshan Zhu, Dongxu Zhang, Fang Wang
Summary: This study demonstrates the effectiveness of ecosystem modeling in optimizing and promoting the integrated aquaculture model. The results provide a theoretical basis for sustainable industrial development and discuss the possible applications and contributions of this aquaculture model in China.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2024)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Anna Kowalska, Andrzej Affek, Jacek Wolski, Edyta Regulska, Boguslawa Kruczkowska, Izabela Zawiska, Ewa Kolaczkowska, Jaroslaw Baranowski
Summary: Lowland riparian hardwood forests are valuable habitats protected by the EU, but are extremely rare in most areas across Europe. They are important parts of riparian ecological corridors and biodiversity hotspots, providing valuable ecosystem services to humans.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Mohammadtaghi Avand, Majid Khazaei, Bagher Ghermezcheshmeh
Summary: This study evaluates the resilience of flood-prone sub-watersheds in the Beshar basin in Iran using machine learning models. The results show that the random forest model is the most accurate and the area with very low flood risk is the largest. The resilience has decreased after 2006 compared to before.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTION
(2023)
Article
Forestry
Francois Baguette, Said Harryba, Teesha Baboorun, Pierre-Andre Adam, Bruno Senterre
Summary: This study provides the first description of the Seychelles lowland rainforest, the most widespread, least known, and most threatened ecosystem type on the islands. Results show that undisturbed natural forests have minimal presence of exotic species, while disturbed forests are seeing native species colonizing so-called novel ecosystems.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Civil
Mohammad Aghababaei, Maria Koliou
Summary: This paper introduces an agent-based modeling approach to study education systems resilience in communities. By simulating interactions among autonomous entities and different systems within the community, the study assesses the impact of tornado hazards on the education system and proposes measures to enhance its resilience.
ENGINEERING STRUCTURES
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Pradeep Kumar Badapalli, Raghu Babu Kottala, Rajasekhar Madiga, Veeraswamy Golla
Summary: This study assesses land degradation and desertification over the past 29 years using remote sensing and geographical information system. The results show a slight increase in water bodies, a significant increase in built-up land, and a severe decrease in vegetation. Fallow land, degraded land, and desertified lands have increased at alarming rates.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH
(2022)
Review
Plant Sciences
Li Wang, Chantal Hamel, Peina Lu, Junying Wang, Dandi Sun, Yijia Wang, Soon-Jae Lee, Gary Y. Gan
Summary: Grasslands are important for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. Monitoring soil fertility in grasslands is crucial for optimizing ecosystem productivity and sustainability. Traditional measures for testing soil fertility are often difficult to perform, but soil enzyme activity can serve as a reliable indicator and an efficient alternative.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Duncan A. O'Brien, Smita Deb, Sahil Sidheekh, Narayanan C. Krishnan, Partha Sharathi Dutta, Christopher F. Clements
Summary: Early warning signals (EWSs) are a potentially universal tool for identifying system tipping points, and have been applied in various fields. Recent theoretical advances have expanded EWSs to multivariate datasets, and novel machine learning approaches have also been developed. This R package provides a unified syntax for analyzing both univariate and multivariate time series data, and includes access to a Python machine learning model for predicting tipping points.
Article
Environmental Studies
Farzana Nijhum, Cherie Westbrook, Bram Noble, Ken Belcher, Patrick Lloyd-Smith
Summary: This paper demonstrates a practical, strategic environmental assessment approach to incorporate the valuation of ecosystem services in a futures-based assessment to support land use planning decisions for urban ecological areas. Lessons are discussed for improved integration of ecosystem services valuation in strategic land use planning.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Amjad Ur Rahman, Shujaul Mulk Khan, Zeeshan Ahmad, Saad Alamri, Mohamed Hashem, Muhammad Ilyas, Ahmet Aksoy, Canan Dulgeroglu, Gulzar Khan, Shahab Ali
Summary: The study assessed plant diversity, abundance and their relationships with multiple factors in the Humid Forest Ecosystem of the Western Himalayas. The integrative modeling approach showed that species abundance is significantly influenced by soil nutrients, topography, and disturbance factors. Edaphic factors were found to cause variations in the abundance of certain plant species over others.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Lizaan de Necker, Luc Brendonck, Ruan Gerber, Pieter Lemmens, David X. Soto, Yoshinori Ikenaka, Mayumi Ishizuka, Victor Wepener, Nico J. Smit
Summary: Climate change and droughts threaten the ecology and resilience of saline lakes globally. However, research on their ecological response to climatic events in the Global South is lacking. This study investigated the effect of a severe drought in South Africa on the trophic structure of fish communities in a saline shallow lake. The results showed that drought altered the availability of basal resources and affected the food web, but did not significantly alter the fish community itself.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Review
Environmental Studies
Lars Y. Pomara, Danny C. Lee
Summary: Regional ecological assessments in the Appalachian region of the United States focus on quantifying the connections between forest-based ecosystem services, forest ecosystem processes, and their linkages. Assessments typically target ecosystem-level properties or specific ecosystem services/stressors, but often fail to quantify the relationships between these properties and ecosystem services. This highlights the need for integrated system-level assessments and ecosystem service evaluations to improve ecosystem management practices.
Review
Oceanography
Xiao Liu, Naomi M. Levine
Summary: Research shows that fine-scale frontal disturbances impact phytoplankton assemblages and carbon cycling, with shorter-duration and higher-intensity disturbances favoring the growth of large phytoplankton and enhancing carbon export efficiency, while longer-duration and higher-intensity disturbances lead to reduced new production due to a decoupling between physical changes and biological responses.
PROGRESS IN OCEANOGRAPHY
(2021)
Article
Forestry
Roberto Blanco, Juan A. Blanco
Summary: Hybrid poplar plantations in northwestern Spain are increasingly important for farmers' income due to rural depopulation. Simple equations based on diameter were developed to estimate tree volume, allowing forest owners to accurately estimate their timber existences with a regular measuring tape.
Article
Forestry
Antonio Yeste, Juan A. Blanco, J. Bosco Imbert, Helena Zozaya-Vela, Martin Elizalde-Arbilla
Summary: Tree species, such as Scots pine and European beech, have different effects on soil properties, with beech showing a competitive advantage in terms of soil dominance and higher fine root biomass in mixed areas, leading to higher decomposition rates and microbial biomass.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2021)
Editorial Material
Forestry
Juan A. Blanco, Ester Gonzalez de Andres, Yueh-Hsin Lo
Book Review
Ecology
Juan A. Blanco
Article
Forestry
Rafael M. Navarro-Cerrillo, Francisco J. Ruiz-Gomez, Jesus J. Camarero, Victor Castillo, Gonzalo G. Barbera, Guillermo Palacios-Rodriguez, Francisco B. Navarro, Juan A. Blanco, Juan B. Imbert, Antonio M. Cachinero-Vivar, Antonio J. Molina, Antonio D. del Campo
Summary: This study demonstrates that proactive silviculture treatments can increase carbon sequestration in Mediterranean pine forests, with heavy thinning treatments having a positive impact on soil organic carbon content for P. halepensis and P. sylvestris.
Editorial Material
Ecology
Alvaro Alonso, Juan A. Blanco, Carolina Puerta-Pinero
Article
Forestry
Antonio D. del Campo, Kyoichi Otsuki, Yusuf Serengil, Juan A. Blanco, Rasoul Yousefpour
Summary: Forest thinning has significant effects on hydrological processes, but these effects vary depending on forest types, climate, thinning intensity, and hydrological variables. Thinning increases net precipitation, soil moisture, and tree-level water use, but decreases stemflow and transpiration. Thinning intensity of around 50% of stand density is the threshold for significant impact on hydrological processes.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Editorial Material
Ecology
J. Bosco Imbert, Juan A. Blanco
Review
Forestry
Zhiqiang Zhang, Lu Zhang, Hang Xu, Irena F. Creed, Juan A. Blanco, Xiaohua Wei, Ge Sun, Heidi Asbjornsen, Kevin Bishop
Summary: This paper reviews the literature on the impact of biophysical variables and management practices on forest water-use efficiency. It was found that water-use efficiency varies greatly with forest type, species, age, environmental conditions, and forest management practices. Climatic stresses often have negative effects on forest instantaneous water-use efficiency, and forest thinning can effectively improve water-use efficiency. These findings have important implications for managing the tradeoffs between carbon sequestration and water yield of forests.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2023)
Article
Forestry
Juan A. Blanco, Yueh-Hsin Lo
Summary: This review summarizes the main topics, trends, and challenges in current forest modeling based on recent literature. The major topics include data acquisition, productivity estimation, ecological pattern predictions, and forest management related to ecosystem services. These topics are converging towards integrated modeling approaches under the pressure of climate change, leading to mechanistic, cross-scale simulations of forest functioning and structure.
CURRENT FORESTRY REPORTS
(2023)
Editorial Material
Ecology
Carolina Puerta-Pinero, Juan A. Blanco, Leyre Jimenez-Eguizabal, Antonio Perez Luque, Mercedes Molina Morales, Gissell Lacerot, Francisco Rodriguez-Sanchez, Alvaro Alonso, Susana Rodriguez-Echeverria, Yosune Miquelajauregui, Ignasi Bartomeus, Ivania Ceron-Souza
Article
Agronomy
Yang Liu, Ralph Trancoso, Qin Ma, Philippe Ciais, Lidiane P. Gouve, Chaofang Yue, Jorge Assis, Juan A. Blanco
Summary: In order to accurately estimate the size of forest carbon pools and identify the factors affecting them, national forest inventory data and additional field plots were used to estimate carbon storage and density in the Greater Khingan Mountains. From 1999 to 2018, there was an increase in vegetation carbon storage and density, with trees having the highest carbon stocks. The total carbon density in forest ecosystems was influenced by mean annual temperature, with positive effects observed below a certain temperature and negative effects observed above it. Natural and anthropogenic disturbances had weaker effects on carbon density compared to temperature and precipitation.
AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Ximena Herrera-Alvarez, Juan A. Blanco, Oliver L. Phillips, Vicente Guadalupe, Leonardo D. Ortega-Lopez, Hans ter Steege, Gonzalo Rivas-Torres
Summary: The study compiled and presented a database of timber species in the Amazon region, based on official information from nine South American countries and scientific references. They verified taxonomic names from each source and considered tree species with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥10 cm. Population estimates were obtained from tree inventory plots and the Amazon Tree Diversity Network. The database includes information on conservation, trade status, and population of each species.