Using a consistent, 20 year series of high- (30 m) resolution, satellite-based maps of forest cover, we estimate forest area and its changes from 1990 to 2010 in 34 tropical countries that account for the majority of the global area of humid tropical forests. Our estimates indicate a 62% acceleration in net deforestation in the humid tropics from the 1990s to the 2000s, contradicting a 25% redu...

Drought events in the Mediterranean are likely to increase in frequency, duration and intensity due to climate change, thereby affecting crop production. Information about drought is valuable for river basin authorities and the farmers affected by their decisions. The economic value of this information and the resulting decisions are of interest to these two stakeholder groups and to the inform...

A prerequisite for integrated land and water resources management (ILWRM) is a holistic river basin assessment. The latter requires information and data from different scientific disciplines but also appropriate data management systems to store and manage historical and real time data, set up protocols that facilitate data and information access and sharing among different stakeholders, and tri...

As “kidneys of the earth”, wetlands play an important role in ameliorating weather conditions, flood storage, and the control and reduction of environmental pollution. With the development of local economies, the wetlands in both the Amazon and Yangtze River Basins have been affected and threatened by human activities, such as urban expansion, reclamation of land from lakes, land degradation, a...

An analysis of the Amazon basin hydrologic cycle has been carried out using the NASA/GEOS1 atmospheric reanalysis, observed rainfall of Xie and Arkin, and historical Amazon river discharge. Over a seasonal cycle, the precipitation is found to vary by 5 mm day 1, the runo by 2 mm day 1 while the evaporation largely remains constant. On interannual time scales, the hydrologic variability both in ...

In this study, six fish species of five families are reported for the first time from Yunnan Province, China. The nemacheilid Schistura amplizona Kottelat, 2000 is reported from the Luosuojiang River and Nanlahe River subbasins, Mekong basin; the prochilodontid Prochilodus lineatus (Valenciennes, 1837), the balitorid Vanmanenia serrilineata Kottelat, 2000, and the tetraodontid Monotrete turgidu...

This paper presents de use of the Spin model checker as the core engine to build Decision Support Systems (DSSs) to control complex river basins during flood situations. Current DSSs in this domain are mostly based on simulators to predict the rainfall and the water flow along the river basin. In this paper, we propose a scheme that integrates simulators in the water domain with additional logi...

This paper aims to examine the nature of width, depth and configuration distribution along Kuya River and their temporal directionality of changes. It also pays attention to prepare some simplified indices regarding basin asymmetry, channel asymmetry and river bank stability and to explain the nature of basin and channel asymmetry and river bank stability using those constructed indices. Irregu...

Palynological investigation of the Denwa Formation exposed along Denwa river succession at Saptadara picnic point near village Jhirpa, Satpura Basin, Madhya Pradesh, has revealed the presence of spore-pollen, fungal remains and Oribatid mites. Here, the mites are on record for the first time. Presence of fungal remains strongly depicts the prevalence of a very humid climate with high temperatur...

Large-scale changes in land use are occurring in many tropical regions, with significant impacts on nitrogen and phosphorus biogeochemistry. In this study we examine the relationships between land use, anthropogenic nutrient inputs, and riverine nutrient exports in a major agricultural watershed of the Pacific coast of South America, the Guayas River basin of Ecuador. We present comprehensive n...