Combining RUSLE model and the vegetation health index to unravel the relationship between soil erosion and droughts in southeastern Tunisia

Droughts and soil erosion are among the most prominent climatic driven hazards in drylands,leading to detrimental environmental impacts,such as degraded lands,deteriorated ecosystem services and biodiversity,and increased greenhouse gas emissions.In response to the current lack of studies combining drought conditions and soil erosion processes,in this study,we developed a comprehensive Geographic Information System(GIS)-based approach to assess soil erosion and droughts,thereby revealing the relationship between soil erosion and droughts under an arid climate.The vegetation condition index(VCI)and temperature condition index(TCI)derived respectively from the enhanced vegetation index(EVI)MOD13A2 and land surface temperature(LST)MOD11A2 products were combined to generate the vegetation health index(VHI).The VHI has been conceived as an efficient tool to monitor droughts in the Negueb watershed,southeastern Tunisia.The revised universal soil loss equation(RUSLE)model was applied to quantitatively estimate soil erosion.The relationship between soil erosion and droughts was investigated through Pearson correlation.Results exhibited that the Negueb watershed experienced recurrent mild to extreme drought during 2000–2016.The average soil erosion rate was determined to be 1.8 t/(hm2•a).The mountainous western part of the watershed was the most vulnerable not only to soil erosion but also to droughts.The slope length and steepness factor was shown to be the most significant controlling parameter driving soil erosion.The relationship between droughts and soil erosion had a positive correlation(r=0.3);however,the correlation was highly varied spatially across the watershed.Drought was linked to soil erosion in the Negueb watershed.The current study provides insight for natural disaster risk assessment,land managers,and stake-holders to apply appropriate management measures to promote sustainable development goals in fragile environments.

Characteristics of canopy interception and its simulation with a revised Gash model for a larch plantation in the Liupan Mountains, China

Canopy interception is a significant proportion of incident rainfall and evapotranspiration of forest ecosystems. Hence, identifying its magnitude is vital for studies of eco-hydrological processes and hydrological impact evaluation. In this study, throughfall, stemflow and interception were measured in a pure Larix principis-rupprechtii Mayr.（larch） plantation in the Liupan Mountains of northwestern China during the growing season（May–October） of 2015, and simulated using a revised Gash model. During the study period, the total precipitation was 499.0 mm; corresponding total throughfall, stemflow and canopy interception were 410.3, 2.0 and 86.7 mm,accounting for 82.2, 0.4 and 17.4% of the total precipitation, respectively. With increasing rainfall, the canopy interception ratio of individual rainfall events decreased initially and then tended to stabilize. Within the study period, the simulated total canopy interception, throughfall and stemflow were 2.2 mm lower, 2.5 mm higher and 0.3 mm lower than their measured values, with a relative error of 2.5, 0.6 and 15.0%, respectively. As quantified by the model, canopy interception loss（79%） mainly consisted of interception caused by canopy adsorption, while the proportions of additional interception and trunk interception were small. The revised Gash model was highly sensitive to the parameter of canopy storage capacity,followed by the parameters of canopy density and mean rainfall intensity, but less sensitive to the parameters of mean evaporation rate, trunk storage capacity, and stemflow ratio. The revised Gash model satisfactorily simulated the total canopy interception of the larch plantation within the growing season but was less accurate for some individual rainfall events, indicating that some flaws exist in the model structure. Further measures to improve the model’s ability in simulating the interception of individual rainfall events were suggested.

REVISED k-ε TURBULENCE MODEL IN ELECTROMAGNETIC CONTINUOUS CASTING OF MELT

The research is motivated by the ongoing the electromagnetic continuous casting of molten metal. The revised k-ε model considering the effect of magnetic field application was derived. The specific model equations for the electromagnetic braking were used to calculate the velocity distribution in the continuous casting mold of steel. The results show that the revised k-ε model considering the effect of magnetic field application tends to suppress the production of turbulence and difference between the conventional and revised k-e model is small.

Adaptive Handover Decision Inspired By Biological Mechanism in Vehicle Ad-hoc Networks

In vehicle ad-hoc networks(VANETs),the proliferation of wireless communication will give rise to the heterogeneous access environment where network selection becomes significant.Motivated by the self-adaptive paradigm of cellular attractors,this paper regards an individual communication as a cell,so that we can apply the revised attractor selection model to induce each connected vehicle.Aiming at improving the Quality of Service(QoS),we presented the bio-inspired handover decision-making mechanism.In addition,we employ the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution(TOPSIS)for any vehicle to choose an access network.This paper proposes a novel framework where the bio-inspired mechanism is combined with TOPSIS.In a dynamic and random mobility environment,our method achieves the coordination of performance of heterogeneous networks by guaranteeing the efficient utilization and fair distribution of network resources in a global sense.The experimental results confirm that the proposed method performs better when compared with conventional schemes.

China’s Cross-Border E-Commerce: Evolution Pattern and Influencing Factors

In recent years,while the traditional trade sectors have been shrinking,China’s cross-border e-commerce has undergone rapid development and has become a new driver of its international trade.Based on analysis of the evolution pattern of China’s cross-border e-commerce,this paper uses a revised gravity model to test empirically the driving factors and the resistance factors in the development of the country’s cross-border e-commerce.The results show that the total GDP,per capita disposable income of urban residents,total imports and exports,and the scale of the online shopping market have a positive relationship with cross-border e-commerce transactions,which are conducive to the development of cross-border e-commerce,while logistics costs inhibit the development of cross-border e-commerce.Accordingly,the paper puts forward several policy recommendations.

Spatio-temporal variation in China's climatic seasons from 1951 to 2017

In this paper,meteorological industry standard,daily mean temperature,and an improved multiple regression model are used to calculate China's climatic seasons,not only to help understand their spatio-temporal distribution,but also to provide a reference for China's climatic regionalization and crop production.It is found that the improved multiple regression model can accurately show the spatial distribution of climatic seasons.The main results are as follows.There are four climatic seasonal regions in China,namely,the perennial-winter,no-winter,no-summer and discernible regions,and their ranges basically remained stable from 1951 to 2017.The cumulative anomaly curve of the four climatic seasonal regions clarifies that the trend of China's climatic seasonal regions turned in 1994,after which the area of the perennial-winter and no-summer regions narrowed and the no-winter and discernible regions expanded.The number of sites with significantly reduced winter duration is the largest,followed by the number of sites with increased summer duration,and the number of sites with large changes in spring and autumn is the least.Spring advances and autumn is postponed due to the shortened winter and lengthened summer durations.Sites with significant change in seasonal duration are mainly distributed in Northwest China,the Sichuan Basin,the Huanghe-Huaihe-Haihe(Huang-Huai-Hai) Plain,the Northeast China Plain,and the Southeast Coast.

Pseudorapidity distributions of the produced charged particles in nucleus-nucleus collisions at low energies at the BNL relativistic heavy ion collider

The revised Landau hydrodynamic model is used to discuss the pseudorapidity distributions of the produced charged particles in Au＋Au and Cu＋Cu collisions at energies of s √SNN=19.6 and 22.4 GeV respectively at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. It is found that the revised Landau hydrodynamic model alone can give a good description of the experimental measurements. This is different from the result with the same collisions but at the maximum energy of√SNN=200 GeV, where in addition to the revised Landau hydrodynamic model, the effects of leading particles have to be taken into account in order to explain the experimental observations. This can be attributed to the different degrees of transparency of participants at the different incident energies.