Fuzzy control algorithms are used to give structure to the spatial categorisation of plant species by integrating digital elevation model data at increased resolution with data of selected climatic variables (mean precipitation, temperature, ground frost frequency and elevation). In previous studies, the climatic variables are obtained by minimising them to those essential for expression of the...

In the present research, we exploited a continuous hydrological simulation to investigate on key variables responsible of flood peak formation. With this purpose, a distributed hydrological model (DREAM) is used in cascade with a rainfall generator (IRP-Iterated Random Pulse) to simulate a large number of extreme events providing insight into the main controls of flood generation mechanisms. In...

Vesicular stomatitis (VS) outbreaks occurred in the southwestern United States of America in 1995, 1997 and 1998. The epidemiology of VS is not understood completely and some of the epidemiologic aspects of this disease are currently under investigation. In this study, daily maximum temperature, daily minimum temperature, daily mean temperature, daily mean relative humidity and daily total prec...

Climate change in the coming centuries will be characterized by interannual, decadal, and multidecadal fluctuations superimposed on anthropogenic trends. Predicting ecological and biogeographic responses to these changes constitutes an immense challenge for ecologists. Perspectives from climatic and ecological history indicate that responses will be laden with contingencies, resulting from epis...

The aim of our study was to reveal biogeographical patterns in the native vascular flora of Iceland and to define ecological factors responsible for these patterns. We analysed dataset of more than 500,000 records containing information on the occurrence of vascular plants. Analysis of ecological factors included climatic (derived from WORLDCLIM data), topographic (calculated from digital eleva...

We examine the relationship of air pollution and climatic variables to asthma admission rates of children in Galway city over a 21 year period. Paediatric asthma admissions were recorded from 1985-2005, and admission rates per thousand calculated for pre-school (1-4 years), school aged (5-14 years) and all children (1-14 years) on a monthly and annual basis. These data were compared to average ...

evapotranspiration is one of the most important components of the hydrological cycle which is directly influenced by atmospheric conditions. this study investigated annual and seasonal trends in reference evapotranspiration (et0) and its key influencing climatic variables during 1966-2005 at 10 stations in southern iran (with centrality of fars province). first, multivariate regression analysis...

shift changes and heterogeneity analyses of hydro-climatic variables is very important in water resources planning and management. in order to shift changes and heterogeneity analyses of tmin and tmax, precipitation and discharge, 2, 7 and 7 stations was used over the 40 years (1972-2011), respectively. the results of annual tmin and tmax series showed that both of two stations had the signific...