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Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of thermokarst, and accelerating the delivery of terrestrial organic material from previously sequestered sources to aquatic systems, where it is subject to further biochemical alteration. Rapid climate change in the glacially conditioned ice-rich and ice-marginal terrain of the Peel Plateau, western Canada, is accelerating thaw-driven mass wasting in the form of retrogressive thaw slumps, which are rapidly increasing in area, volume and thickness of permafrost thawed. Despite major perturbation of downstream sedimentary and geochemical fluxes, few studies have examined changes in flux and composition of particulate organic carbon (POC) in streams and rivers as a result of permafrost thaw. Here we show that the orders of magnitude increase in total organic carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus mobilized to streams from thaw slumps on the Peel Plateau is almost entirely due to POC and associated particulate nitrogen and phosphorus release. Slump-mobilized POC is compositionally distinct from its dissolved counterpart and appears to contain relatively greater amounts of degraded organic matter, as inferred from base-extracted fluorescence of particulate organic matter. Thus, slump-mobilized POC is potentially more recalcitrant than POC present in non-slump affected stream networks. Furthermore a substantial portion of POC mobilized from thaw slumps will be constrained within primary sediment stores in valley bottoms, where net accumulation is currently exceeding net erosion, resulting in century to millennial scale sequestration of thermokarst-mobilized POC. This study highlights the pressing need for better knowledge of sedimentary cascades, mobilization, and storage reservoirs in slump-affected streams, and baseline assessments of the biodegradability of POC and cycling of particulate nutrients within a sedimentary cascade framework. Explicit incorporation of POC dynamics into our understanding of land-water carbon mobilization in the face of permafrost thaw is critical for understanding implications of thermokarst for regional carbon cycling and fluvial ecosystems.

The island of Bali in Indonesia is home to two active stratovolcanoes, Agung and Batur, but relatively little is known of their underlying magma plumbing systems. Here we define magma storage depths and isotopic evolution of the 1963 and 1974 eruptions using mineral-melt equilibrium thermobarometry and oxygen and helium isotopes in mineral separates. Olivine crystallised from a primitive magma and has average δ 18 O values of 4.8‰. Clinopyroxene records magma storage at the crust-mantle boundary, and displays mantle-like isotope values for Helium (8.62 R A ) and δ 18 O (5.0–5.8‰). Plagioclase reveals crystallisation in upper crustal storage reservoirs and shows δ 18 O values of 5.5–6.4‰. Our new thermobarometry and isotope data thus corroborate earlier seismic and InSAR studies that inferred upper crustal magma storage in the region. This type of multi-level plumbing architecture could drive replenishing magma to rapid volatile saturation, thus increasing the likelihood of explosive eruptions and the consequent hazard potential for the population of Bali.

Our study offers a comparative assessment of the economic, sociopolitical and environmental implications of the world's largest source of renewable electricity, hydropower. Theorists from many disciplines have questioned both the proper role and ostensible benefits from the generation of electricity from large-scale hydroelectric dams. In this study, we use 30 years of World Bank data from 1985 to 2014 and a research design with three mutually exclusive reference classes of countries: major hydropower producers, members of OPEC and all other countries. This is precisely so our analysis moves away from 'dam-centric' or single case study approaches to comparative analysis at the international scale. We examine and test six separate hypotheses related to (a) military conflict, (2) poverty, (3) economic growth, (4) public debt, (5) corruption and (6) greenhouse gas emissions. Our analysis lends statistical support to the idea that there is such a thing as a 'hydroelectric resource curse', although effects were not always significant and varied from small, medium to large. The possible benefits of hydroelectricity-improved energy access, economic development and positive spillover effects-are real, but they are all too frequently constrained. Planners, investors and researchers may therefore need to rethink their underlying assumptions about how they evaluate hydropower's risk.

There are two main factors which prompt to look for an alternative to traditional approaches to the provision of drinking water. They are climate change and population growth.Climate change and its increasing scale are no longer in doubt. It tends to increase the frequency and intensity of droughts. Changes in average water availability in most Central Asian river basins are estimated to be drastically big for the next 30 years. And, groundwater recharge may also be affected with a reduction in the availability of groundwater for drinking water in some regions.Water use has been increasing worldwide by about 1% per year since the 1980s, driven by a combination of population growth, socio-economic development and changing consumption patterns. Global water demand is expected to continue increasing at a similar rate until 2050, accounting for an increase of 20 to 30% above the current level of water use, mainly due to rising demand in the industrial and domestic sectors.These obliging to redefine the strategy for the use of water resources to ensure sustainable drinking water supply forcing the use of all available water resources even those that were not previously taken into account, for example, off stream storage reservoirs.Research, development and innovation play an important role in supporting informed decision-making. Therefore, further scientific and engineering studies are also needed for the development of financially affordable, safe and efficient infrastructure services in the areas of drinking water supply, sanitation and hygiene and its components.The article considers a particular reservoir the bottom of which is composed of saline soils operating in regular filling and emptying and subject to significant wind effects. The research conducted allowed to find a place of water intake location which provides a minimum salt content in the water abstracted.

This study examines the impact of two hydropower dam reservoirs, Amerti and Neshe, on the adjacent rural household food insecurity in the Abay Chome district, northwestern Ethiopia. A cross-sectional method was employed to collect data from 485 households (268 affected and 217 non-affected households) following a probability proportional to the size sampling procedure. Households' food insecurity access scale (HFIAS) and households' dietary diversity score (HDDS) were used to examine households' food insecurity status in the study area. The Endogenous Switching Regression model was employed to identify the impact of the dam construction on household food insecurity. The results revealed that the average HDDS and HFIAS in the study area were 5.1 and 10.29, respectively. The study also demonstrated that the affected household's average HDDS and HFIAS were 4.48 and 10.98, respectively. The study results further revealed that the construction of dams has significantly increased the HFIAS of displaced households by 14.6% while reducing HDDS by 24%. This study found a negative relationship between dam construction and food security, although dam construction is supposed to increase food security by increasing access to water. Thus, we recommend that hydropower reservoirs be effectively designed to reduce the impacts on adjacent communities.

Purpose This paper aims to explore the intricate and controversial sale of six hydroelectric dams in the Douro hydrographic basin by Energias de Portugal (EDP), a prominent Portuguese energy company, to a French Consortium – ENGIE. The transaction, completed at the end of 2020, has sparked significant debate and scrutiny within the Portuguese legal and fiscal spheres due to its corporate and budgetary manoeuvres. The crux of the controversy lies in the complex corporate restructuring strategies used by EDP and the acquiring consortium to execute this transaction. These strategies, aimed at achieving tax neutrality, effectively circumvented the traditional tax liabilities typically associated with large-scale asset transfers. The paper delves into the legal intricacies of this operation, scrutinising the application of taxes such as stamp duty, corporate income tax, value added tax and property transfer tax, which were, in theory, applicable to the transaction. Furthermore, this study examines the broader implications of the deal, particularly concerning the principle of tax neutrality in corporate restructurings, the enforcement of anti-abuse clauses and the economic substance over legal form doctrine. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on secondary data supported by publicly reported evidence. Findings This case study highlights the challenges in taxing corporate transactions in the modern financial landscape and reflects these corporate manoeuvres' societal and ethical considerations. Originality/value Through an analysis of legal frameworks, corporate strategies and tax policies, this paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the transaction and its implications, offering insights valuable to legal professionals, policymakers and scholars in corporate law, taxation and business ethics.

This article analyses the effects of resettlement on farming households in two villages within the area inundated by the Three Gorges Dam, China. The article also proposes a political-economic framework within which to understand the resettlement program and its implications for households. The households brought a variety of resources into the resettlement—land, savings, their labor, social ties, and communal resources—resources that became less during the resettlement process. Apart from extensive borrowing, largely to fund a major investment in new housing, the households’ responses tended to reflect constraints imposed on them by the resettlement rather than their ability to exploit new opportunities. As a consequence, farm incomes fell after resettlement, particularly in the village where more land was lost. The loss of farm income was not made up by increased off-farm income through paid work or self-employment. The households in the two villages have thus become more vulnerable to further external shocks than they were before the resettlement.

Hydropolitical conflicts between the Eastern Nile countries over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) are systematically analyzed at three points in time: just before the announcement of construction by Ethiopia on April 11, 2011, before the negotiations in early January 2014, and late August 2014. Hypergame theory, as developed within the framework of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution for handling misperceptions, is used to gain strategic insights into these conflicts and to ascertain the possible resolutions of the disputes. In all of three conflicts, the key decision makers are Egypt and Sudan, the downstream countries, and Ethiopia, the upstream nation. The findings from the analyses demonstrate the significant utilization of strategic surprise, a decisive act in which a decision maker intentionally exercises a course of action in the dispute that is hidden to its opponents in order to attempt to reach a more desirable outcome for itself. In particular, both Egypt and Sudan were caught by surprise when Ethiopia publicly announced on April 11, 2011 that it was going to build GERD, since no prior notification was given. Because Ethiopia was aware of Egypt and Sudan’s misperception this dispute is modeled as a second level hypergame. The conflict investigations also show that the geopolitical and economic changes in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia allowed Ethiopia to construct the dam without any harsh confrontation with Egypt and Sudan.

In order to investigate the Nansi Lake chlorophyll-a concentration spatial distribution, to better cope with the lake eutrophication of lake water and water quality threat, and to ensure the function of the water transport channel and the storage reservoir in the east line project of the south to North Water Transfer in the lake area. By using the correlation analysis and regression analysis in statistical analysis, the best band of chlorophyll-a retrieval is the combined band of blue band, green band and red band, based on the relationship between measured chlorophyll-a concentration and Landsat 8 the reflection values of each band. On the basis of this, the regression fitting equation is constructed. Through the accuracy analysis, the inversion error is smaller and the fitting degree is 0.7, which has good applicability. In 2015, the results show that the chlorophyll-a concentration in Nansi Lake in January was as high as 10mg/m 3 . The concentration of chlorophyll-a in the lake coast is much higher than the central of the lake area. And the concentration of the Weishan Lake in the lower Lake area is higher than that of the other lake areas.

We estimate the effect of large dams on malaria incidence in India between 1975 and 1995. We combine instrumental variables approach with a panel model with unobserved common factors allowing us to fully capture the endogeneity of dam location and unobserved time-varying heterogeneity. Dams result in increased malaria incidence in districts where dams are located and in downstream areas. We find that the construction of a large dam increases a district's annual malaria incidence by about 0.9 to 1.4 percent, and by about 1 to 1.5 percent in downstream districts. We also find that this malaria-increasing effect of dams persists over time. Our results imply that the construction of dams in malaria-sensitive areas should be coupled with direct interventions, such as the wide deployment of insecticide-treated nets or the roll-out of future vaccines. Furthermore, we examine the contribution of agricultural development to this malaria-increasing effect of dams. We find that dam construction benefits agriculture in the vicinity of dams, as well as in downstream areas. These positive effects are driven by increased irrigation and cultivation in the vicinity of dams, while they are driven by changes in cropping patterns in downstream areas, where the cultivation of high-yielding variety crops increases. Finally, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the agricultural production gains from dam construction dominate the economic losses resulting from increased malaria.