the impacts of land cover change on the hydrologic cycle from local to regional scales are not fully understood with regard to humid tropical river basins of kerala, india. this study provides an approach to identify the effects of land cover changes on streamflow of a river basin in the humid tropical zone of kerala, india using the soil and water assessment tool (swat). the swat model was cal...

A recently completed research program (TREES) employing the global imaging capabilities of Earth-observing satellites provides updated information on the status of the world's humid tropical forest cover. Between 1990 and 1997, 5.8 +/- 1.4 million hectares of humid tropical forest were lost each year, with a further 2.3 +/- 0.7 million hectares of forest visibly degraded. These figures indicate...

Climatic and geological changes across time are presumed to have shaped the rich biodiversity of tropical regions. However, the impact climatic drying and subsequent tropical rainforest contraction had on speciation has been controversial because of inconsistent palaeoecological and genetic data. Despite the strong interest in examining the role of climatic change on speciation in the Neotropic...

Day and night comfort votes were recorded from Caucasian residents at Weipa, a mission station in the hot humid tropics of North Queensland, Australia. The limit of day comfort for more than 50% of the men was 81 5°F. (27-5°C.) "normal" corrected effective temperature; the night limit was 78'00F. (25 5°C.). Day comfort limits correlated well with air conditions at which sweat was apparent: nigh...

A low-input cropping system has been developed at Yurimiaguas, Peru, to serve as a transition technology between shifting and continuous cultivation for acid soiln of the humid tropics. Principal features are slash-andburn clearing, rotation of acid-tolerant upland rice and cowpea cultivars, maximum residue return, no tillage, and no lime or fertilizer apoiications. When yields decline as a res...

Topic 4.1 reviews the current status of the understanding on variability of tropical cyclone (TC) activity/intensity on intraseasonal to interannual time scales around the globe. Annually, approximately 80−90 TCs occur over the tropical oceans (Neumann 1993). The TC activities depend on thermodynamic parameters (e.g., sea surface temperature (SST), atmospheric stability, and mid-tropospheric mo...

For several years the hydrological importance of the fogand cloudwater deposition to ecosystems in the tropics has been of great interest. In earlier studies carried out in the humid tropics the amount of deposited cloudwater was estimated by indirect methods based on the physical characteristics of the utilized cloudwater collector (1, 2) or on the comparison of the amounts of net and gross pr...

South America has a large population of small ruminants. Currents estimates are approximately 100 million sheep and 23 million goats. A large percentage of these flocks are raised in the humid tropics/sub-tropics. Nematode parasitism is singly the most important disease of these animals and typically farmers resort to frequent anthelmintic treatment in attempts to control this problem. Because ...