Comparative Analysis of Ascaris suum and Macracanthorhynchus hirudinaceus Infections in Free-Ranging and Captive Wild Boars (Sus scrofa) in Hungary.

Ascaris suum and Macracanthorhynchus hirudinaceus cause a large loss of yield in farm animals as well as in free-living and captive wild boar herds, thereby causing economic damage. This study compared A. suum and M. hirudinaceus infections in free-ranging and captive wild boars (Sus scrofa) in Hungary. The authors measured the A. suum and M. hirudinaceus infections of a 248-hectare wild boar garden and an 11,893-hectare free-living wild boar herd in the sample area. In all cases, samples were collected from shot wild boars. In total, 216 wild boars were examined from June 2015 to June 2023 in Hungary. Of the 173 dissected wild boars from the wild, 57 (32.9%) were infected with A. suum, while 30 (69.8%) of the 43 individuals from the captive area were infected. The prevalence of M. hirudinaceus in the free-living area population was 9.25% (16 wild boars), while that of the captive population was 34.89% (15 wild boars). In the case of the examined helminths, the captive herd was 36.9% more infected than the herd living in the open area.

Climate-Water Adaptation for Future US Electricity Infrastructure.

Future climate-water conditions are anticipated to increase electricity demand, reduce transmission capacity, and limit power production. Yet, typical electricity capacity expansion planning does not consider climate-water constraints. We project four alternative U.S. power system configurations using an iterative modeling and data exchange platform that integrates climate-driven hydrological, thermal power plant, and capacity expansion models. Through a comparison with traditional modeling approaches, we show that this novel approach provides greater confidence in electricity capacity projections by incorporating feasibility checks that adjust infrastructure development to reach grid reliability thresholds under climate-water constraints. Initial projections without climate-water impacts on electricity generation show future power systems become less vulnerable, independent of climate-water adaptation, as economic drivers increase renewable and natural gas-based capacity, while water-intensive coal and nuclear plants retire. However, power systems may face reliability challenges without climate-water adaptation, revealing the significance of incorporating climate-water impacts into power system planning. Climate-adjusted (Iterative approach) projections require a 5.3-12.0% increase in national-level capacity, relative to Initial projections, leading to an additional $125-143 billion (5.0-7.0%) in infrastructure costs. Variable renewable and natural gas technologies account for nearly all the additional capacity and, together with regional trade-offs in electricity generation, enhance grid performance to reach reliability thresholds. These adaptation transitions also lower water use and emissions, contributing to climate change mitigation, and highlight the trade-offs and impacts of both near and long-term electricity generation planning decisions.

Modelling and Analysis of the Corrosion Characteristics of Ferritic-Martensitic Steels in Supercritical Water.

The dependencies of weight gain of 9-12 Cr ferritic-martensitic steels in supercritical water on each of seven principal independent variables (temperature, oxygen concentration, flow rate, exposure time, and key chemical composition and surface condition of steels) have been predicted using a supervised artificial neural network (ANN). The relative significance of each independent variable was uncovered by fuzzy curve analysis, which ranks temperature and exposure time as the most important. The optimized ANN, not only satisfactorily represents the experimentally-known non-linear relationships between the corrosion characteristics of F-M steels and the key independent variables (demonstrating the effectiveness of this technique), but also predicts and reveals that the effects of oxygen concentration on the weight gains, to a certain degree, is influenced by the flow rate and temperature. Finally, according to the ANN predicted-results, departure of oxidation kinetics from the parabolic law, and basic cause of chromium content in steel substrate influencing the corrosion rate, and the synergetic effects of dissolved oxygen concentration, flow rate, and temperature, are discussed and analyzed.

Projections of historical and 21st century fluvial sediment delivery to the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mahanadi, and Volta deltas.

Regular sediment inputs are required for deltas to maintain their surface elevation relative to sea level, which is important for avoiding salinization, erosion, and flooding. However, fluvial sediment inputs to deltas are being threatened by changes in upstream catchments due to climate and land use change and, particularly, reservoir construction. In this research, the global hydrogeomorphic model WBMsed is used to project and contrast 'pristine' (no anthropogenic impacts) and 'recent' historical fluvial sediment delivery to the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mahanadi, and Volta deltas. Additionally, 12 potential future scenarios of environmental change comprising combinations of four climate and three socioeconomic pathways, combined with a single construction timeline for future reservoirs, were simulated and analysed. The simulations of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta showed a large decrease in sediment flux over time, regardless of future scenario, from 669 Mt/a in a 'pristine' world, through 566 Mt/a in the 'recent' past, to 79-92 Mt/a by the end of the 21st century across the scenarios (total average decline of 88%). In contrast, for the Mahanadi delta the simulated sediment delivery increased between the 'pristine' and 'recent' past from 23 Mt/a to 40 Mt/a (+77%), and then decreased to 7-25 Mt/a by the end of the 21st century. The Volta delta shows a large decrease in sediment delivery historically, from 8 to 0.3 Mt/a (96%) between the 'pristine' and 'recent' past, however over the 21st century the sediment flux changes little and is predicted to vary between 0.2 and 0.4 Mt/a dependent on scenario. For the Volta delta, catchment management short of removing or re-engineering the Volta dam would have little effect, however without careful management of the upstream catchments these deltas may be unable to maintain their current elevation relative to sea level, suggesting increasing salinization, erosion, flood hazards, and adaptation demands.

Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation.

Human pressures on the environment are changing spatially and temporally, with profound implications for the planet's biodiversity and human economies. Here we use recently available data on infrastructure, land cover and human access into natural areas to construct a globally standardized measure of the cumulative human footprint on the terrestrial environment at 1 km(2) resolution from 1993 to 2009. We note that while the human population has increased by 23% and the world economy has grown 153%, the human footprint has increased by just 9%. Still, 75% the planet's land surface is experiencing measurable human pressures. Moreover, pressures are perversely intense, widespread and rapidly intensifying in places with high biodiversity. Encouragingly, we discover decreases in environmental pressures in the wealthiest countries and those with strong control of corruption. Clearly the human footprint on Earth is changing, yet there are still opportunities for conservation gains.

Global terrestrial Human Footprint maps for 1993 and 2009.

Remotely-sensed and bottom-up survey information were compiled on eight variables measuring the direct and indirect human pressures on the environment globally in 1993 and 2009. This represents not only the most current information of its type, but also the first temporally-consistent set of Human Footprint maps. Data on human pressures were acquired or developed for: 1) built environments, 2) population density, 3) electric infrastructure, 4) crop lands, 5) pasture lands, 6) roads, 7) railways, and 8) navigable waterways. Pressures were then overlaid to create the standardized Human Footprint maps for all non-Antarctic land areas. A validation analysis using scored pressures from 3114×1 km(2) random sample plots revealed strong agreement with the Human Footprint maps. We anticipate that the Human Footprint maps will find a range of uses as proxies for human disturbance of natural systems. The updated maps should provide an increased understanding of the human pressures that drive macro-ecological patterns, as well as for tracking environmental change and informing conservation science and application.

Suppression of spatially periodic patterns by dc voltage.

The effect of superposed dc and ac applied voltages on two types of spatially periodic instabilities in nematic liquid crystals, flexoelectric domains (FD), and electroconvection (EC) was studied. The onset characteristics, threshold voltages, and critical wave vectors were determined. We found that in general the superposition of driving with different time symmetries inhibits the pattern forming mechanisms for FD and EC as well. As a consequence, the onset extends to much higher voltages than the individual dc or ac thresholds. A dc-bias-induced reduction of the crossover frequency from the conductive to the dielectric EC regimes and a peculiar transition between two types of flexodomains with different wavelengths were detected. Direct measurements of the change of the electrical conductivity and its anisotropy, induced by the applied dc voltage component, showed that the dc bias substantially affects both parameters. Taking into account the experimentally detected variations of the conductivity in the linear stability analysis of the underlying nematohydrodynamic equations, a qualitative agreement with the experimental findings on the onset behavior of spatially periodic instabilities was obtained.

Patterns driven by combined ac and dc electric fields in nematic liquid crystals.

The effect of superimposed ac and dc electric fields on the formation of electroconvection and flexoelectric patterns in nematic liquid crystals was studied. For selected ac frequencies, an extended standard model of the electrohydrodynamic instabilities was used to characterize the onset of pattern formation in the two-dimensional parameter space of the magnitudes of the ac and dc electric field components. Numerical as well as approximate analytical calculations demonstrate that depending on the type of patterns and on the ac frequency, the combined action of ac and dc fields may either enhance or suppress the formation of patterns. The theoretical predictions are qualitatively confirmed by experiments in most cases. Some discrepancies, however, seem to indicate the need to extend the theoretical description.

Inhibited pattern formation by asymmetrical high-voltage excitation in nematic fluids.

In contrast to the predictions of the standard theory of electroconvection (EC), our experiments showed that the action of superposed ac and dc voltages rather inhibits pattern formation than favors the emergence of instabilities; the patternless region may extend to much higher voltages than the individual ac or dc thresholds. The pattern formation induced by such asymmetrical voltage was explored in a nematic liquid crystal in a wide frequency range. The findings could be qualitatively explained for the conductive EC, but represent a challenging problem for the dielectric EC.

Hydrological droughts in the 21st century, hotspots and uncertainties from a global multimodel ensemble experiment.

Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are expected to modify the global water cycle with significant consequences for terrestrial hydrology. We assess the impact of climate change on hydrological droughts in a multimodel experiment including seven global impact models (GIMs) driven by bias-corrected climate from five global climate models under four representative concentration pathways (RCPs). Drought severity is defined as the fraction of land under drought conditions. Results show a likely increase in the global severity of hydrological drought at the end of the 21st century, with systematically greater increases for RCPs describing stronger radiative forcings. Under RCP8.5, droughts exceeding 40% of analyzed land area are projected by nearly half of the simulations. This increase in drought severity has a strong signal-to-noise ratio at the global scale, and Southern Europe, the Middle East, the Southeast United States, Chile, and South West Australia are identified as possible hotspots for future water security issues. The uncertainty due to GIMs is greater than that from global climate models, particularly if including a GIM that accounts for the dynamic response of plants to CO2 and climate, as this model simulates little or no increase in drought frequency. Our study demonstrates that different representations of terrestrial water-cycle processes in GIMs are responsible for a much larger uncertainty in the response of hydrological drought to climate change than previously thought. When assessing the impact of climate change on hydrology, it is therefore critical to consider a diverse range of GIMs to better capture the uncertainty.

Constraints and potentials of future irrigation water availability on agricultural production under climate change.

We compare ensembles of water supply and demand projections from 10 global hydrological models and six global gridded crop models. These are produced as part of the Inter-Sectoral Impacts Model Intercomparison Project, with coordination from the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project, and driven by outputs of general circulation models run under representative concentration pathway 8.5 as part of the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Models project that direct climate impacts to maize, soybean, wheat, and rice involve losses of 400-1,400 Pcal (8-24% of present-day total) when CO2 fertilization effects are accounted for or 1,400-2,600 Pcal (24-43%) otherwise. Freshwater limitations in some irrigated regions (western United States; China; and West, South, and Central Asia) could necessitate the reversion of 20-60 Mha of cropland from irrigated to rainfed management by end-of-century, and a further loss of 600-2,900 Pcal of food production. In other regions (northern/eastern United States, parts of South America, much of Europe, and South East Asia) surplus water supply could in principle support a net increase in irrigation, although substantial investments in irrigation infrastructure would be required.

First look at changes in flood hazard in the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project ensemble.

Climate change due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of precipitation events, which is likely to affect the probability of flooding into the future. In this paper we use river flow simulations from nine global hydrology and land surface models to explore uncertainties in the potential impacts of climate change on flood hazard at global scale. As an indicator of flood hazard we looked at changes in the 30-y return level of 5-d average peak flows under representative concentration pathway RCP8.5 at the end of this century. Not everywhere does climate change result in an increase in flood hazard: decreases in the magnitude and frequency of the 30-y return level of river flow occur at roughly one-third (20-45%) of the global land grid points, particularly in areas where the hydrograph is dominated by the snowmelt flood peak in spring. In most model experiments, however, an increase in flooding frequency was found in more than half of the grid points. The current 30-y flood peak is projected to occur in more than 1 in 5 y across 5-30% of land grid points. The large-scale patterns of change are remarkably consistent among impact models and even the driving climate models, but at local scale and in individual river basins there can be disagreement even on the sign of change, indicating large modeling uncertainty which needs to be taken into account in local adaptation studies.

Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change.

Water scarcity severely impairs food security and economic prosperity in many countries today. Expected future population changes will, in many countries as well as globally, increase the pressure on available water resources. On the supply side, renewable water resources will be affected by projected changes in precipitation patterns, temperature, and other climate variables. Here we use a large ensemble of global hydrological models (GHMs) forced by five global climate models and the latest greenhouse-gas concentration scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways) to synthesize the current knowledge about climate change impacts on water resources. We show that climate change is likely to exacerbate regional and global water scarcity considerably. In particular, the ensemble average projects that a global warming of 2 °C above present (approximately 2.7 °C above preindustrial) will confront an additional approximate 15% of the global population with a severe decrease in water resources and will increase the number of people living under absolute water scarcity (<500 m(3) per capita per year) by another 40% (according to some models, more than 100%) compared with the effect of population growth alone. For some indicators of moderate impacts, the steepest increase is seen between the present day and 2 °C, whereas indicators of very severe impacts increase unabated beyond 2 °C. At the same time, the study highlights large uncertainties associated with these estimates, with both global climate models and GHMs contributing to the spread. GHM uncertainty is particularly dominant in many regions affected by declining water resources, suggesting a high potential for improved water resource projections through hydrological model development.

Global urban growth and the geography of water availability, quality, and delivery.

Globally, urban growth will add 1.5 billion people to cities by 2030, making the difficult task of urban water provisions even more challenging. In this article, we develop a conceptual framework of urban water provision as composed of three axes: water availability, water quality, and water delivery. For each axis, we calculate quantitative proxy measures for all cities with more than 50,000 residents, and then briefly discuss the strategies cities are using in response if they are deficient on one of the axes. We show that 523 million people are in cities where water availability may be an issue, 890 million people are in cities where water quality may be an issue, and 1.3 billion people are in cities where water delivery may be an issue. Tapping into groundwater is a widespread response, regardless of the management challenge, with many cities unsustainably using this resource. The strategies used by cities deficient on the water delivery axis are different than for cities deficient on the water quantity or water quality axis, as lack of financial resources pushes cities toward a different and potentially less effective set of strategies.

Urban growth, climate change, and freshwater availability.

Nearly 3 billion additional urban dwellers are forecasted by 2050, an unprecedented wave of urban growth. While cities struggle to provide water to these new residents, they will also face equally unprecedented hydrologic changes due to global climate change. Here we use a detailed hydrologic model, demographic projections, and climate change scenarios to estimate per-capita water availability for major cities in the developing world, where urban growth is the fastest. We estimate the amount of water physically available near cities and do not account for problems with adequate water delivery or quality. Modeled results show that currently 150 million people live in cities with perennial water shortage, defined as having less than 100 L per person per day of sustainable surface and groundwater flow within their urban extent. By 2050, demographic growth will increase this figure to almost 1 billion people. Climate change will cause water shortage for an additional 100 million urbanites. Freshwater ecosystems in river basins with large populations of urbanites with insufficient water will likely experience flows insufficient to maintain ecological process. Freshwater fish populations will likely be impacted, an issue of special importance in regions such as India's Western Ghats, where there is both rapid urbanization and high levels of fish endemism. Cities in certain regions will struggle to find enough water for the needs of their residents and will need significant investment if they are to secure adequate water supplies and safeguard functioning freshwater ecosystems for future generations.