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Changes in the timing of extreme precipitation have important ramifications for public safety and storm water management, but it has not received much attention in relation to flooding. This study analyzed the changes in the timing of extreme precipitation in the Poyang Lake basin and projected its future changes for the period 2020–2099. The study also quantified the influences of changes in the timing of peak flows on lake floods based on a hydrodynamic model. The results showed that peak rainfall in the Poyang Lake basin had occurred on later dates during the period 1960–2012, and it is this change that caused a delay in peak streamflows from five rivers in the lake basin. Moreover, the effects of these changes are expected to be more prominent during 2020–2099; for example, the rate of delay will be about 2.0 days per 10 years both for peak rainfall and for streamflow in the Poyang Lake basin. The hydrodynamic simulation further showed that a delay of peak streamflows from five rivers would significantly increase the flood level and outflow of the lake and also prolong the duration of floods. These results indicate that the risk of floods in Poyang Lake is likely to increase in the future, therefore making flood control in this region more challenging.

Based on the estimation of standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and standardized runoff index (SRI), this study investigated the variability and correlation of hydrological drought and meteorological drought in a humid climate region - the Poyang Lake catchment in China. Results indicate that the occurrences of hydrological droughts in the catchment are different from those of meteorological drought on both a seasonal and annual basis. However, annual variability of both indices showed the same periodic variation characteristics during the study period. With comparison of the performance of SPEI and SRI time series at different timescales, our observation reveals that the two drought indices show a higher degree of similarity and correlation as timescales increased. In addition, SRI is found to be less variable than SPEI at shorter timescales and it shows an obvious hydrologic delay of about 1-2 months in response to SPEI at timescales > 12 months. Due to hydrologic detention of subsurface soil moisture, shallow groundwater and perhaps reservoir storage, a 2-month timescale of SPEI is found to be more appropriate for river discharge monitoring, especially for those rivers with similar drainage area, climate and geographical conditions as in this study region.

The effect of the symmetries in the terahertz (THz) field distribution and the field-effect channel on THz photoresponse is examined. Resonant excitation of cavity plasmon modes and nonresonant self-mixing of THz waves are demonstrated in a GaN/AlGaN two-dimensional electron gas with symmetrically designed nanogates, antennas, and filters. We found that the self-mixing signal can be effectively suppressed by the symmetric design and the resonant response benefits from the residual asymmetry. The findings suggest that a single detector may provide both high sensitivity from the self-mixing mechanism and spectral resolution from the resonant response by optimizing the degree of geometrical and/or electronic symmetries.

By using linear regression (parametric), Mann–Kendall (nonparametric) and attribution analysis methods, this study systematically analysed the changing properties of reference evapotranspiration (ETr) calculated using the Penman–Monteith method over the Poyang Lake catchment during 1960–2008 and investigated the contribution of major climatic variables to ETr changes and their temporal evolution. Generally, a significant decreasing trend of annual ETr is found in the catchment. The decrease of annual ETr in the Poyang Lake basin is mostly affected by the decline of summer ETr. Over the study period, climatic variables, i.e. sunshine duration (SD), relative humidity (RH), wind speed (WS) and vapour pressure all showed decreasing trends, whereas mean daily temperature (DT) increased significantly. Multivariate regression analysis indicated that SD is the most sensitive climatic variable to the variability of ETr on annual basis, followed by RH, WS and DT, whereas the effect of vapour pressure is obscure. Although recent warming trend and decrease of relative humidity over the catchment could have increased ETr, the combined effect of shortened SD and reduced WS negated the effect and caused significant decrease of ETr. Our investigation reveals that the relative contributions of climatic variables to ETr are temporally unstable and vary considerably with large fluctuation. In consideration of the changes of climatic variables over time, further analysis indicated that changes of mean annual ETr in 1970–2008 were primarily affected by SD followed by WS, RH and DT with reference to 1960s. However, WS became the predominant factor during the period 2000–2008 compared with reference period 1960s, and followed by SD.

Under the background of global climate change and local anthropogenic stresses, many regions of the world have suffered from frequent droughts and floods in recent decades. Assessing the relative effect of climate change and human activities is essential not only for understanding the mechanism of hydrological response in the catchment, but also for local water resources management as well as floods and droughts protection. The Poyang Lake catchment in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River has experienced significant changes in hydro-climatic variables and human activities during the past decades and therefore provides an excellent site for studying the hydrological impact of climate change and human activities. In this study, the characteristics of hydro-climatic changes of the Poyang Lake catchment were analyzed based on the observed data for the period 1960-2007. The relative effect of climate change and human activities was first empirically distinguished by a coupled water and energy budgets analysis, and then the result was further confirmed by a quantitative assessment. A major finding of this study is that the relative effects of climate change and human activities varied among sub-catchments as well as the whole catchment under different decades. For the whole Poyang Lake catchment, the variations of mean annual streamflow in 1970-2007 were primarily affected by climate change with reference to 1960s, while human activities played a complementary role. However, due to the intensified water utilization, the decrease of streamflow in the Fuhe River sub-catchment in 2000s was primarily affected by human activities, rather than climate change. For the catchment average water balance, quantitative assessment revealed that climate change resulted in an increased annual runoff of 75.3-261.7 mm in 1970s-2000s for the Poyang Lake catchment, accounting for 105.0-212.1% of runoff changes relative to 1960s. However, human activities should be responsible for the decr

Chemical solution deposition as a simple method for preparation of oxide films is used to fabricate misfit structured Ca3Co4O9 thermoelectric films using cheap precursors, Ca and Co acetates, which opens up a simple route to fabricate large-area Co-based oxide thermoelectric films. The results show that when the annealing temperature is higher than 800 degrees C crystallized Ca3Co4O9 films can be obtained on single-crystal LaAlO3 substrates, whereas the Ca3Co4O9 films are amorphous for lower annealing temperatures. Experimental evidence shows that the amorphous Ca3Co4O9 films behave like semiconductors with enhanced resistivity and Seebeck coefficient within the measured temperature range. The magnetoresistance is positive indicating the absence of long-range order of the Co-ion spins. For the crystallized Ca3Co4O9 films, it can be seen that the thinner films show the characteristics of spontaneous dewetting induced by the stress, which suggests that it is possible to prepare nanostructured Ca3Co4O9 films through tailoring the film thickness and the lattice mismatch; whereas, for the thicker films the temperature dependence of the resistivity and the Seebeck coefficient shows that it is possible to prepare excellent Ca3Co4O9 thermoelectric films using chemical solution deposition route, which will broaden the range of preparation methods for misfit structured Co-based thermoelectric films.