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ObjectivesTo investigate the association between occupational noise exposure and stroke incidence in a pooled study of five Scandinavian cohorts (NordSOUND).MethodsWe pooled and harmonised data from five Scandinavian cohorts resulting in 78 389 participants. We obtained job data from national registries or questionnaires and recoded these to match a job-exposure matrix developed in Sweden, which specified the annual average daily noise exposure in five exposure classes (LAeq8h): ResultsExposure to occupational noise at baseline was not associated with overall stroke in the fully adjusted models. For ischaemic stroke, occupational noise was associated with HRs (95% CI) of 1.08 (0.98 to 1.20), 1.09 (0.97 to 1.24) and 1.06 (0.92 to 1.21) in the 75–79, 80–84 and ≥85 dB(A) exposure groups, compared with ConclusionsWe found no association between occupational noise and risk of overall stroke after adjustment for confounders. However, the non-significantly increased risk of ischaemic stroke warrants further investigation.

Hydropeaking in rivers changes the flow regime, increases river clogging, mobilizes fine sediment, and causes major stress to fish, macroinvertebrates, and aquatic plants that suffer from the rapid water level fluctuations. One in four medium- to large-sized rivers in Switzerland is affected by hydropeaking. In this study, we investigated the effect of hydropeaking on fine sediment transport during an experimental flood on the Spöl river, a tributary of the Inn river, in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. The study was a proof-of-concept for new smart turbidity sensors, which were developed in our laboratory, calibrated, and tested in mixing tank experiments in 2021 and again in 2022 with a range of different sediment types. These sensors were deployed at two locations on the Spöl during an experimental flood release by the upstream Ova Spinne hydropower dam. The collected data reveal sudden sediment concentration increases and decreases (pulsing) as the discharge increases steadily throughout the day. The highest concentration of sediment is much larger (4-5 g/L) than would be expected and appeared with the onset of the flood and again with the peak discharge. Our findings also reveal clockwise and counter-clockwise hysteresis loops in the stage-concentration relation, which point to a switch in the sediment supply between supply limited and unlimited conditions during the experimental flood. This study shows that high spatial- and temporal-resolution monitoring of suspended sediment is possible with a low-cost sensor network. The applications of such a network are plentiful: from identifying sediment source activation and transport in small streams, glacier networks and deltas, to environmental monitoring of maximum sediment concentration levels for the survival of fry fish, for prevention of river bed clogging, and for pollutant monitoring (binding to sediments).

In this study, the spatio-temporal changes in Rainwater Productivity (RP) and its sensitivity to the changes in precipitation and temperature predicted by climate models in various climatic zones across the rainfed agricultural areas of Ethiopia were analyzed. First, the future precipitation, air temperature, and shortwave radiation from multiple GCM projections were downscaled to a 0.05°x0.05° grid resolution, considering three shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5) and three future periods: 2020-2049, 2045-2074, and 2070-2099 using the present climate (1981-2010) as a reference. Next, the reference potential evapotranspiration was computed using the FAO Penman-Monteith and the actual evapotranspiration was simulated using a daily soil water balance model. Then, the relative crop yield (i.e., the ratio of the actual and water-limited potential yield) was determined as a function of the evaporative stress index and crop yield response factor (Ky) for the two growing seasons -- the main (meher) growing season (May-Sep) and the shorter (belg) growing season (Feb-May) for the present and future climates. The computed relative yield was used as a proxy for RP, under the assumption that effective rainfall is the limiting factor for crop yield. Finally, the sensitivity of RP to projected changes in precipitation and temperature was analyzed based on the one-at-a-time (OAT) approach for warmer and drier versus warmer and wetter climate scenarios.The results show that under the present climate, the median RP (percent of the potential RP) during the Meher and Belg seasons ranges from about 52% and 34% in semi-arid climates to 93% and 45% in humid climates. The projected Meher RP in the future shows either a slight change or a decrease by up to 10% across the majority of the RFA regions under all SSPs and future periods. Conversely, the Belg season RP is likely to increase by up to 15% across the major Belg-producing regions by the end of the century. The observed changes are the combined effects of the nearly consistent but spatially variable increase in precipitation (for example up to 30% under SSP5-8.5 in the 2080s) and rising temperature (up to 5°C under SSP5-8.5 in the 2080s) over the RFA region. The OAT sensitivity analysis reveals that RP under warmer and drier climates is strongly sensitive to precipitation. However, under warmer and wetter conditions the climate sensitivity of RP is determined by the rainfall regime, i.e, in the areas with unimodal rainfall regimes, changes in RP are dominated by the changes in precipitation while in areas with strongly erratic or bimodal rainfall distribution, temperature, or both precipitation and temperature control the changes in RP. Such analyses are useful for assessing the future climate risks to crop yield due to water stress associated with the expected increases in atmospheric evaporative demand, identifying vulnerable areas across the RFA region as well as possibilities for agricultural expansion.

Sufficient water supply to the roots is needed to sustain transpiration demand. However, detailed measurements of water fluxes into the roots and the gradients in water potential driving these fluxes are rare, particularly in the field, mainly due to the difficulty in accessing roots and performing measurements on them. As a result, field monitoring of tree water use often neglects the root system, and the water fluxes from the soil to the shoot of trees remain a frontier in soil plant water relations. This measurement gap and lack of understanding of water fluxes in roots makes it difficult to properly determine what drives root water uptake and how it might vary depending on rooting depth, soil matric potential and transpiration rate in the field.During dry summer 2022, we equipped beech and spruce trees with sap flow sensors and dendrometers on the stem and on roots accessing different soil depths. This allowed us to monitor water fluxes and potentials in the different plant parts, from the integrated fluxes in the stem to the water uptake of single roots. We conducted the measurements at the “Waldlabor” ecoydrological monitoring forest in Zurich, where we comprehensively monitor the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum of beech and spruce with dendrometers, sap flow sensors and frequently measured stem & leaf water potential as well as stomatal conductance. To uncover the roots with minimal disturbance we removed the soil with a special air pressurizer and vacuum pump that allowed soil removal without damaging the roots, installed sensors at roots accessing different soil depths and afterwards covered the roots with soil again. Soil matric potential was measured at 10, 20, 40 and 80 cm depth in proximity to selected roots. At the canopy level, we measured stomatal conductance and leaf water potential throughout the summer.Here, we demonstrate how the collected data help to understand to which extent trees diversify their water uptake depending on water availability at different soil depths. Because of the scarce precipitation and the limiting soil water availability during the summer, pre-dawn leaf water potential, stomatal conductance as well as sap flow decreased, indicating a reduction in transpiration. Beech trees reduced their stomatal conductance more dramatically than spruce trees, thereby using soil water more quickly. The comparison of sap flow in the roots and the integrated signal measured along the stem reveals differences between roots, with roots accessing deeper soil upholding higher sap flow velocities than roots accessing shallow soil in both species.The results allow to assess the interplay between aboveground tree hydraulics and water status and belowground water uptake for beech and spruce under drying conditions.

Simulation of the catchment rainfall-runoff transformation with physically based watershed models is a traditional way to predict streamflow and other hydrological variables at catchment scales. However, the calibration of such models requires large data inputs and computational power and contains many parameters which are often impossible to constrain or validate. An alternative approach is to use data-driven machine learning for streamflow prediction.In the past few years, LSTM (long short-term memory) models and its variants have been explored in rainfall-runoff modelling. Typical applications use daily climate variables as inputs and model the rainfall-runoff transformation processes with different timescales of memory. This is especially useful as delays in runoff production by snow accumulation and melt, soil water storage, evapotranspiration, etc., can be included. In contrast to feed-forward ANNs (artificial neural networks), LSTMs are capable of maintaining the sequential temporal order of inputs, and compared to RNNs (recurrent neural networks), of learning the long-term dependencies. [1]However, current work on LSTMs mostly focuses on the USA, the UK and Brazil, where CAMELS datasets are available [1, 2, 3]. Catchments at higher altitudes with snow-driven dynamics and sometimes glaciers are present in small number in these datasets (if at all). Systematic applications of LSTMs for streamflow prediction in climates where a significant part of the catchments are snow and ice dominated are missing. In this work, an FS-LSTM (fast slow-LSTM) previously applied in Brazil is adapted for Swiss catchments to fill this gap [3]. The FS-LSTM explored builds on the work of Hoedt et al. (2021) that imposed mass constraints on an LSTM, called MC-LSTM [4]. FS-LSTM adds a fast and slow part for streamflow, containing rainfall and soil moisture respectively. We will discuss benchmark results against an existing semi-distributed conceptual model widely used in Switzerland for streamflow simulation [5]. References:[1]: Kratzert et al., Rainfall-runoff modelling using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, 2018.[2]: Lees et al., Hydrological concept formation inside long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, 2022.[3]: Quinones et al., Fast-Slow Streamflow Model Using Mass-Conserving LSTM, 2021.[4]: Hoedt et al., MC-LSTM: Mass-Conserving LSTM, 2021.[5]: Viviroli et al., An introduction to the hydrological modelling system PREVAH and its pre- and post-processing-tools, 2009.

Debris flows are surging mixtures of water and sediments and can threaten humans and infrastructure. In alpine catchments, debris flows are often triggered by runoff events as a response to intense rainfall, snowmelt, or a combination thereof. Therefore, debris-flow triggering is expected to be sensitive to future changes in temperature and precipitation. Quantifying these changes is, however, challenging. While changes in temperature are relatively certain, future precipitation characteristics have lower signal-to-noise ratios (e.g., Hirschberg et al., 2021). Furthermore, how such changes influence the seasonal snowpack is not trivial. For example, snowmelt is predicted to start earlier in the year, but at lower rates (Musselman et al., 2017). Quantifying climate change impacts on debris-flow triggering runoff events in high-alpine catchments, therefore, requires studying the complex interactions of changes in precipitation, temperature and the snowpack.Our study focuses on the Grabengufer rock glacier and the gully below, which is located above the municipality of Randa in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. The rock glacier front regularly delivers mobile sediments to the gully (1900 m a.s.l.), where debris flows are frequently triggered after rain and/or snowmelt. We use ALPINE3D, which is a spatially distributed version of the multi-layer snowmodel SNOWPACK (Lehning et al., 2002), to simulate the snowpack evolution and runoff in the Grabengufer basin. Due to the small size and the steepness of the basin, the discharge can be simplified as the snowmelt and liquid precipitation in each pixel and in each timestep. A debris-flow record consisting of 34 events between 1985 and 2016 allowed for calibrating a debris-flow triggering discharge threshold. Ultimately, we plan to use the AWE-GEN stochastic weather generator (Fatichi et al., 2011) and the CH2018 climate scenarios to study changes in debris-flow triggering discharge at hourly resolution. Preliminary results show clear relations between snowmelt, rainfall and debris-flow triggering for the calibration period and provide a proof of concept. Although we cannot address the full complexity of such geomorphic systems leading to debris-flow triggering (e.g., rock-glacier dynamics), we study changes in extreme discharge, which is a key variable for future debris-flow hazards. Furthermore, the studied basin is representative of high-alpine debris-flow torrents and the outcome will be useful for researchers and authorities interested in climate change impacts on alpine mass movements.REFERENCESCH2018 Project Team 2018: CH2018 - Climate Scenarios for Switzerland. National Centre for Climate Services.Fatichi, S., Ivanov, V. Y., & Caporali, E. 2011: Simulation of future climate scenarios with a weather generator. Advances in Water Resources, 34(4), 448-467.Hirschberg, J., Fatichi, S., Bennett, G.L., McArdell, B.W., Peleg, N., Lane, S.N., Schlunegger, F., Molnar, P. 2021: Climate Change Impacts on Sediment Yield and Debris-Flow Activity in an Alpine Catchment. J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf. 126.Lehning, M., Bartelt, P., Brown, B., and Fierz, C. 2002: A physical SNOWPACK model for the Swiss avalanche warning: Part III: meteorological forcing, thin layer formation and evaluation, Cold Reg. Sci. Technol., 35, 169–184.Musselman, K. N., Clark, M. P., Liu, C., Ikeda, K., & Rasmussen, R. 2017: Slower snowmelt in a warmer world. Nature Climate Change, 7(3), 214-219.

Successful application of hydrological models requires data to assess the validity, as well as the inherent uncertainty, of the outputs, most importantly streamflow. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), such data is often lacking. Therefore, it is frequently challenging to find the necessary resources for setting up a robust hydrological model and hydrological monitoring platforms. In data-scarce regions within SSA, ground data required to model and make water resources decisions are not always available and therefore, some form of alternative data sources and simplified modelling approaches are required. In recent years, satellite and climate reanalysis data have been intensely explored for watershed modelling in poorly gauged regions with variables such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, runoff etc. Very good potential is provided by the ERA5-Land dataset which is considered one of the best freely available global products for hydrology given its 0.1° x 0.1° spatial resolution and an hourly to monthly temporal resolution spanning from 1950 till present. Here, ERA-5 Land input on a monthly resolution was assessed in the Berg River Basin, South Africa using the Modified PITMAN model. Total precipitation, runoff, and potential evapotranspiration for each of the basin’s 12 quaternary catchments were retrieved using the Google Earth Engine platform for a study period of 40 years (1981-2021). A validation period of 20 years (1985-2005) was used corresponding to the freely available streamflow data. The assimilation of ERA5-Land precipitation data showed satisfactory results across the basin with the best results in the upstream catchment (G10A) with a 0.634 coefficient of efficiency and 0.404 KGE during the initial run. However, runoff for the downstream catchments (G10K) gave positive biases in high-flow months. This paper gives a detailed analysis of the performance of remotely sensed datasets (ERA5-Land) on catchments with varying climatic, land use and cover, water use, and geomorphological characteristics, therefore, offering a valuable reference for its applications in understanding hydrological processes in different river basins across SSA.

Forests modulate precipitation and evapotranspiration fluxes. One important – yet often overlooked - component in the forest water cycle is the forest-floor litter layer. Leaves and deadwood retain significant amounts of annual precipitation and enhance subcanopy humidity. At the “Waldlabor Zurich” ecohydrology field site we conducted numerous experiments to quantify the water fluxes from and to the forest-floor litter layer. We estimated the total retention capacities of needle, broadleaf and deadwood litter, assessed the litter water content before and after precipitation events, and measured soil moisture in litter-covered and litter-free plots. We used micro lysimeters to estimate evaporation from the litter layer and measured subcanopy humidity and temperature at different heights above the forest floor to assess the effect of evaporation on subcanopy microclimate.Storage capacities of needle litter and broadleaf litter averaged 3.1 and 1.9 mm, respectively, with evaporation timescales exceeding 2 days, whereas deadwood stored ~0.7 mm of precipitation, and retained water for >7 days. Deadwood water retention increased with more advanced decomposition. Together the forest floor litter layer reduced soil water recharge, reduced soil evaporation rates, and insulated against ground heat fluxes thus impacting snowmelt patterns. Timeseries of deadwood water content revealed a diel cycle of stored water, water content increased during nighttime due to condensation of dew and fog and decreased during the day when vapor pressure deficit and evaporation were high. The water evaporating from the forest‐floor litter layer increased humidity, decreased temperature, and reduced vapor pressure deficit in the subcanopy atmosphere. Although, the absolute amounts of water storage in the forest-floor litter layer are relatively small, these storages were frequently filled and emptied with every precipitation event, thus effecting the overall soil water recharge. Overall, 18% of annual precipitation, or 1/3 of annual evapotranspiration, were retained in the forest-floor litter layer suggesting that overlooking litter interception may lead to substantial overestimates of recharge and transpiration in many forest ecosystems.

Debris flows can significantly grow along their flow path by entraining sediments stored in the channel bed and banks. This entrainment process is influenced by various factors such as flow properties (e.g., flow momentum, basal shear stress) and environmental conditions (e.g., soil water saturation, sediment availability). In recent years, different attempts to include the entrainment process in runout models have improved modelled flow properties and runout behavior by empirically linking entrainment volumes to individual modelled flow properties. Linking entrainment to environmental factors, however, has remained challenging.Here, we aim at implementing and testing the influence of flow path water-saturated conditions in debris-flow runout modelling in a Swiss debris-flow basin (Illgraben). To this end, the modified RAMMS runout model, which includes an empirical algorithm to describe entrainment as a function of basal shear stress (Frank et al., 2015), is coupled with a simple hydrological model to predict soil water saturation. In a first step, the RAMMS model was calibrated for the Illgraben site for seven events with detailed data on erosion/deposition along the fan as well as flow properties at the outflow of the simulation domain (de Haas et al., 2022). In the calibration procedure, the focus was placed on the erosion proportionality factor dz/dtau [m/kPa] (which links the maximum potential erosion depth to the basal shear stress) as it is assumed to be the driving saturation-induced increase of entrained volume. Preliminary results show that in most cases, including the entrainment process improves the reproduction of the flow properties, especially the ‘hydrograph’ front, and that the erosion proportionality factor dz/dt shows a significant degree of variation for different events. In a second step, the relationship between soil moisture conditions and maximum erosion depth expected along the flow path was investigated. The hydrologic conditions are simulated with a conceptual model solving the water balance for the basin’s headwaters. The headwater discharge serves as the water input for the channel on the fan, where an infiltration model is applied, and entrainment is investigated. The presented framework, which could be incorporated into other runout models, is expected to be useful for debris-flow entrainment modelling, as well as for assessing climate change impacts on debris-flow runout.Referencesde Haas, T., McArdell, B.W., Nijland, W., Åberg, A.S., Hirschberg, J., Huguenin, P., 2022. Flow and Bed Conditions Jointly Control Debris‐Flow Erosion and Bulking. Geophysical Research Letters 49. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL097611Frank, F., McArdell, B.W., Huggel, C., Vieli, A., 2015. The importance of entrainment and bulking on debris flow runout modeling: examples from the Swiss Alps. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 15, 2569–2583. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-15-2569-2015

We use a new set of data available to compute 21st century climate impacts on the hydrology of 221 catchments in high-mountain Central Asia. For each of these subcatchments, a parsimonious steady state stochastic soil moisture water balance model was set up and the partitioning of available water from precipitation into runoff and evaporation computed for different climate futures using the Budyko framework. Climate change sensitivity coefficients are analytically derived for the first time using the total differential method. Relative changes in discharge for three future periods 2011–2040, 2041–2070, and 2071–2100 were computed in relation to the baseline period from 1979–2011. For the baseline observation period, climate data from a global high-resolution climatology data set (CHELSA V21) were used to extract mean daily subcatchment-specific temperature and precipitation values. Data from the coupled model intercomparison project phase 6 (CMIP6) were used to compute catchment mean future climate data using 4 GCM models with 4 scenario runs each. CMIP6 data were bias corrected with CHELSA V21 observation data. For the spatial distribution of soil parameters, different global products were utilized. The robustness of the soil water balance model results was assessed using a comprehensive sensitivity analysis in relation to variations of these soil parameters over typically observed ranges for each subcatchment. The analysis of climate change suggests increasing precipitation over the three periods (+4.44 %, +5.89 %, and +8.51 % relative increases in median total precipitation averaged over subcatchment and scenarios). Median values of temperatures changes between periods relative to the baseline are +1.33 °C, +2.44 °C, and +3.55 °C. Results of the hydrological soil water balance model runs suggest a median increase of discharge of +4.71 %, +7.44 % and +10.87 % for the corresponding periods. This is a strong indication of a wetter and hotter future in Central Asia, relative to today’s hydroclimate. Modelling results suggest that decreasing contributions from glacier melt over the course of the 21st century will be offset by increases in discharge consistently throughout the region, despite increasing potential evapotranspiration. Increases in relative discharge will be most pronounced in the Afghan Murghab-Harirud basin and in the Amu Darya. Changes in precipitation characteristics in terms of frequency and event depth also indicate possible impacts on hydrological extremes which remains a heavily under researched topic in Central Asia.

Among quantities of interest in paleoclimate, the mean annual air temperature, Ta, directly over the surface looms prominently. Most geologic estimates of past temperatures from continental regions, however, quantify temperatures of the soil or other material below the surface, Ts, and in general Ta < Ts. Both theory and data from the FLUXNET2015 data set of surface energy balance indicate systematic dependences of temperature differences ΔT = Ts − Ta and also of Bowen ratios—ratios of sensible to latent heat fluxes from surface to the atmosphere—on the nature of the land-surface cover. In cold regions, with mean annual temperatures ≲5 °C, latent heat flux tends to be small, and values of ΔT can be large, 3–5 °C or larger. Over wet surfaces, latent heat fluxes dominate sensible heat fluxes, and values of both ΔT and Bowen ratios commonly are small. By contrast, over arid surfaces that provide only limited moisture to the overlying atmosphere, the opposite holds. Both theory and observation suggest the following, albeit approximate, mean annual values of ΔT: for wetlands, 1 °C; forests, 1 ± 1 °C; shrublands, 3–4 °C; savannas, 3.5 °C < ΔT < 5.5 °C; grasslands, 1 °C where wet to 3 °C where arid; and deserts, 4–6 °C. As geological tools for inferring past land-surface conditions improve, these approximate values of ΔT will allow geologic estimates of past mean annual surface temperatures, Ts, to be translated into estimates of past mean annual air temperatures, Ta.

Atmospheric vortex streets are a widely studied dynamical effect of isolated mountainous islands. Observational evidence comes from case studies and satellite imagery, but the climatology and annual cycle of vortex shedding are often poorly understood. Using the non-hydrostatic limited-area COSMO model driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis, we conducted a 10-year-long simulation over a mesoscale domain covering the Madeira and Canary archipelagos at high spatial (grid spacing of 1 km) and temporal resolutions. Basic properties of vortex streets were analysed and validated through a 6 d long case study in the lee of Madeira Island. The simulation compares well with satellite and aerial observations and with existing literature on idealised simulations. Our results show a strong dependency of vortex shedding on local and synoptic-flow conditions, which are to a large extent governed by the location, shape and strength of the Azores high. As part of the case study, we developed a vortex identification algorithm. The algorithm is based on a set of criteria and enabled us to develop a climatology of vortex shedding from Madeira Island for the 10-year simulation period. The analysis shows a pronounced annual cycle with an increasing vortex-shedding rate from April to August and a sudden decrease in September. This cycle is consistent with mesoscale wind conditions and local inversion height patterns., Weather and Climate Dynamics, 4 (1), ISSN:2698-4016, ISSN:2698-4008

Air pollution is a major contributor to the global burden of disease and has been linked to several diseases and conditions, including cardiovascular disease. The biological mechanisms are related to inflammation and increased coagulability, factors that play an important role in the pathogenesis of venous thromboembolism (VTE, i.e., deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism). This study investigates if long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with increased VTE incidence. The study followed 29 408 participants from the Malmö Diet and Cancer (MDC) cohort, which consists of adults aged 44–74 recruited in Malmö, Sweden between 1991 and 1996. For each participant, annual mean residential exposures to particulate matter

BACKGROUND: Transportation noise may induce cardiovascular disease, but the public health implications are unclear.OBJECTIVES: The study aimed to assess exposure-response relationships for different transportation noise sources and ischemic heart disease (IHD), including subtypes.METHODS: Pooled analyses were performed of nine cohorts from Denmark and Sweden, together including 132,801 subjects. Time-weighted long-term exposure to road, railway, and aircraft noise, as well as air pollution, was estimated based on residential histories. Hazard ratios (HRs) were calculated using Cox proportional hazards models following adjustment for lifestyle and socioeconomic risk factors.RESULTS: A total of 22,459 incident cases of IHD were identified during follow-up from national patient and mortality registers, including 7,682 cases of myocardial infarction. The adjusted HR for IHD was 1.03 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.00, 1.05] per 10 dB L den for both road and railway noise exposure during 5 y prior to the event. Higher risks were indicated for IHD excluding angina pectoris cases, with HRs of 1.06 (95% CI: 1.03, 1.08) and 1.05 (95% CI: 1.01, 1.08) per 10 dB L den for road and railway noise, respectively. Corresponding HRs for myocardial infarction were 1.02 (95% CI: 0.99, 1.05) and 1.04 (95% CI: 0.99, 1.08). Increased risks were observed for aircraft noise but without clear exposure-response relations. A threshold at around 55 dB L den was suggested in the exposure-response relation for road traffic noise and IHD. DISCUSSION: Exposure to road, railway, and aircraft noise in the prior 5 y was associated with an increased risk of IHD, particularly after exclusion of angina pectoris cases, which are less well identified in the registries. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP10745.

Debris flows threaten communities in mountain regions worldwide. Combining modern photogrammetric processing with autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights at sub-weekly intervals allows mapping of sediment dynamics in a debris flow catchment. This provides important information for sediment disposition that pre-conditions the catchment for debris flow occurrence. At the Illgraben debris-flow catchment in Switzerland, our autonomous UAV launched nearly 50 times in the snow-free periods in 2019–2021 with typical flight intervals of 2–4 days, producing 350–400 images every flight. The observed terrain-changes resulting from debris flows exhibit preferred locations of erosion and deposition, including memory effects as previously deposited material is preferentially removed during subsequent debris flows. Such data are critical for the validation of geomorphological process models. Given the remote terrain, the mapped short-term erosion and deposition structures are difficult to obtain with conventional measurements. The proposed method thus fills an observational gap, which ground-based monitoring and satellite based remote sensing cannot fill as a result of limited access, reaction time, spatial resolution, or involved costs.

Ice cliff distribution plays a major role in determining the melt of debris-covered glaciers but its controls are largely unknown. We assembled a dataset of 37537 ice cliffs and determined their characteristics across 86 debris-covered glaciers within High Mountain Asia (HMA). We complemented this dataset with the analysis of 202 cliff formation events from multi-temporal UAV observations for a subset of glaciers. We find that 38.9% of the cliffs are stream-influenced, 19.5% pond-influenced and 19.7% are crevasses. Surface velocity is the main predictor of cliff distribution at both local and glacier scale, indicating its dependence on the dynamic state and hence evolution stage of debris-covered glacier tongues. Supraglacial ponds contribute to maintaining cliffs in areas of thicker debris, but this is only possible if water accumulates at the surface. Overall, total cliff density decreases exponentially with debris thickness as soon as debris gets thicker than 10 cm.

The forest-floor litter layer can retain substantial volumes of water, thus affecting evaporation and soil-moisture dynamics. However, litter layer wetting/drying dynamics are often overlooked when estimating forest water budgets. Here, we present field and laboratory experiments characterizing water cycling in the forest-floor litter layer and outline its implications for subcanopy microclimatic conditions and for estimates of transpiration and recharge. Storage capacities of spruce needle litter and beech broadleaf litter averaged 3.1 and 1.9 mm, respectively, with drainage/evaporation timescales exceeding 2 days. Litter-removal experiments showed that litter reduced soil water recharge, reduced soil evaporation rates, and insulated against ground heat fluxes that impacted snowmelt. Deadwood stored similar to 0.7 mm of water, increasing with more advanced states of decomposition, and retained water for >7 days. Observed daily cycles in deadwood weight revealed decreasing water storage during daytime as evaporation progressed and increasing storage at night from condensation or absorption. Water evaporating from the forest-floor litter layer modulates the subcanopy microclimate by increasing humidity, decreasing temperature, and reducing VPD. Despite the relatively small litter storage capacity (

Flood prediction in ungauged catchments is usually conducted by hydrological models that are parameterized based on nearby and similar gauged catchments. As an alternative to this process-based modelling, deep learning (DL) models have demonstrated their ability for prediction in ungauged catchments (PUB) with high efficiency. Catchment characteristics, the number of gauged catchments, and their level of hydroclimatic heterogeneity in the training dataset used for model regionalization can directly affect the model's performance. Here, we study the generalization ability of a DL model to these factors by applying an Encoder-Decoder Long Short-Term Memory neural network for a 6-hour lead-time runoff prediction in 35 mountainous catchments in China. By varying the available number of catchments and model settings with different training datasets, namely local, regional, and PUB models, we evaluated the generalization ability of our model. We found that both quantity (i.e. number of gauged catchments available) and heterogeneity of the training dataset used for the DL model are important for improving model performance in the PUB context, due to a data synergy effect. The assessment of the sensitivity to catchment characteristics showed that the model performance is mainly correlated to the local hydro-climatic conditions; the more arid the region, the more likely it is to have a poor model performance for prediction in ungauged catchments. The results suggest that the regional ED-LSTM model is a promising method to predict streamflow from rainfall inputs in PUB, and outline the need for preparing a representative training dataset., Journal of Hydrology, 614, ISSN:0022-1694, ISSN:1879-2707

A major challenge in assessing the impacts of climate change on hydrological processes lies in dealing with large degrees of uncertainty in the future climate projections. Part of the uncertainty is owed to the intrinsic randomness of climate phenomena, which is considered irreducible. Additionally, modelling the response of hydrological processes to the changing climate requires the use of a chain of numerical models, each of which contributes some degree of uncertainty to the final outputs. As a result, hydrological projections, despite the progressive increase in the accuracy of the models along the chain, still display high levels of uncertainty, especially at small temporal and spatial scales. In this work, we present a framework to quantify and partition the uncertainty of hydrological processes emerging from climate models and internal variability, across a broad range of scales. Using the example of two mountainous catchments in Switzerland, we produced high-resolution ensembles of climate and hydrological data using a two-dimensional weather generator (AWE-GEN- 2d) and a distributed hydrological model (TOPKAPI-ETH). We quantified the uncertainty in hydrological projections towards the end of the century through the estimation of the values of signal-to-noise ratios (STNR). We found small STNR absolute values (, Hydrological Processes, 36 (10), ISSN:0885-6087, ISSN:1099-1085

Összefoglaló. Bevezetés: A hiperaktív húgyhólyag szindróma népbetegség mértékű probléma, mely jelentősen rontja az érintettek életminőségét. A konzervatív, gyógyszeres kezelés eredménytelensége esetén másodvonalbeli terápiaként a minimálisan invazív botulinumtoxin intradetrusor injekció javasolható. Célkitűzés: A nem neurogén eredetű hiperaktív (túlműködő) hólyag szindróma miatt végzett botulinumtoxin intradetrusor injekciós kezelés hatékonyságának, biztonságosságának felmérése saját beteganyagunkon, és annak vizsgálata, hogy az eredményességet befolyásolják-e a vizsgált preoperatív paraméterek. Módszer: Egy retrospektív vizsgálat során összegyűjtöttük 33, intradetrusor BOTOX® injekción átesett betegünk perioperatív adatait (életkor, testtömegindex, kísérő betegségek, anatómiai eltérések, korábbi műtétek, panaszok, urodinámiás leletek). Az eredményesség és a posztoperatív komplikációk felmérése a betegdokumentáció, telefoninterjúk, kérdőívek segítségével történt. A statisztikai analízis során kapott eredményeket pEredmények: Műtét után jelentős szövődményt nem tapasztaltunk (p>0,05), 6 betegnél észleltünk hólyagkatéterezést nem igénylő residuumot (p = 0,024). Az urgencia, ’urge’ incontinentia, pollakisuria, nycturia előfordulása és mértéke, a vizeletincontinentia miatti betéthasználat szignifikánsan csökkent (p0,05). Megbeszélés: A tüneti javulás eredményei megegyeznek az irodalmi adatokkal, a nemzetközi publikációkban közölt eredményekhez képest is jobb mellékhatásprofil pedig az óvatosabb betegszelekcióval és részletesebb kivizsgálással magyarázható. Következtetés: A botulinumtoxin-A-terápia hatékony, biztonságos, minimálisan invazív kezelése a terápiarefrakter hiperaktív hólyag szindrómának. Nem sikerült olyan preoperatív faktort azonosítanunk, mely szignifikáns hatással bírna a kezelés eredményességének előrejelzésére. Orv Hetil. 2021; 162(36): 1459–1465. Summary. Introduction: Overactive bladder syndrome is an endemic phenomenon, which has a significant impact on the quality of life. In cases where conservative treatment fails, intradetrusor onabotulinumtoxinA injection can be used as second-line therapy. Objective: To assess the safety and efficacy of onabotulinumtoxinA treatment in the management of non-neurogenic detrusor overactivity among our patients. Also, to examine the influence of perioperative factors on the effects of the efficacy. Method: We have retrospectively collected the perioperative data of 33 patients treated with intradetrusor BOTOX®. The assessment of the efficacy and complications was done by the examination of patient files and questionnaires. The results obtained during the statistical analysis were considered significant for pResults: We have not experienced notable complications after the procedures. Only 6 patients had residual urine (p = 0.024), none of them needed to be catheterized. We have observed significant decrease in the incidence of frequency, nocturia, urgency and incontinence, just as in the number of pads needed daily (pDiscussion: Our results considering the relief of symptoms are well in line with international data. The fact that our rate of complications is – in international comparison – outstanding can be explained by a more careful patient selection and thorough preoperative assessment. Conclusion: OnabotulinumtoxinA therapy is a safe and effective solution of therapy-refractory overactive bladder. We could not identify any perioperative factor to predict postoperative efficacy of therapy. Orv Hetil. 2021; 162(36): 1459–1465.

Eastward transport and clockwise rotation of crust around the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau dominates active deformation east of the Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis. Current crustal movement inferred from GPS measurements indicates ongoing distortion of the traces of the active Red River fault and the Mesozoic Yalong-Yulong-Longmen Shan thrust belt. By extrapolating current rates back in time, we infer that this pattern of deformation developed since 10.1 ± 1.5 Ma. This date of initiation is approximately synchronous with a suite of tectonic phenomena, both near and far, within the wide Eurasia/Indian collision zone, including the initiation of slip on the Ganzi-Yushu-Xianshuihe fault and crustal thinning and E-W extension by normal faulting on N-S–trending rifts in the plateau interior. Accordingly, the eastward movement of eastern Tibet and the clockwise rotation of that material seem to be local manifestations of a larger geodynamic event at ca. 10–15 Ma that changed the kinematic style and reorganized deformation not only on the plateau-wide scale, but across the entire region affected by the India/Eurasia collision. Convective removal of some or all of Tibet's mantle lithosphere seems to offer the simplest mechanism for these approximately simultaneous changes.

Atmospheric vortex streets are a widely studied dynamical effect of isolated mountainous islands. Observational evidence comes from case studies and satellite imagery, but the climatology and annual cycle of vortex shedding are often poorly understood. Using the non-hydrostatic limited-area COSMO model driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis, we conducted a ten-year-long simulation over a mesoscale domain covering Madeira and Canary Archipelagos at high spatial (grid spacing 1 km) and temporal resolutions. Basic properties of vortex streets were analyzed and validated through a 6-day-long case study in the lee of Madeira Island. The simulation compares well with satellite and aerial observations and with existing literature on idealized simulations. Our results show a strong dependency of vortex shedding on local and synoptic flow conditions, which are to a large extent governed by the location, shape, and strength of the Azores high. As part of the case study, we developed a vortex identification algorithm. The algorithm is based on a set of objective criteria and enabled us to develop a climatology of vortex shedding from Madeira Island for the 10-year simulation period. The analysis shows a pronounced annual cycle with an increasing vortex shedding rate from April to August and a sudden decrease in September. This cycle is consistent with mesoscale wind conditions and local inversion height patterns.