Wednesday, March 30, 2016

What Is El Niño?


El Niño (Spanish word for male child) is a naturally occurring event in the equatorial region which causes temporary changes in the world climate. El Niño refers to a whole complex of Pacific Ocean sea-surface temperature changes and global weather events. The ocean warming off South America is just one of these events. Every three to seven years, an El Niño event may happen during many months to more than one year causing economic and atmospheric worldwide. The worst El Niño occurred in 1997-1998.
In contrast, La Niña (Spanish word for female child) refers to an anomaly of unusually cold sea surface temperatures found in the eastern tropical Pacific. La Niña occurs roughly half as often as El Niño.



Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Integrated Water Resources Management in Cambodia (IWRM)


Integrated Water Resources Management is a step-by-step process of managing water resources in a harmonious and environmentally sustainable way by gradually uniting stakeholders and involving them in planning and decision-making processes, while accounting for evolving social demands due to such changes as population growth, rising demand for environmental conservation, changes in perspectives of the cultural and economic value of water, and climate change (Stakhiv, 2009).

Water is a limited resource that is essential for economic growth and environmental and social well-being. Because it affects everyone, managing this precious resource requires balancing the interests of the many different user groups and individuals. Without that balance many conflicts can occur. Promoting coordinated water resources management in a basin that open to all stakeholders will not only resolve such conflicts but will also bring enormous benefits to society, the basin, and to individual stakeholders.

Integrated Water Resources Management has been identified as one of the basic water resources related policy approaches in several recent important commitments and recommendations (Varis et al., 2006). IWRM aims at developing democratic governance and promote balanced development in poverty reduction, social equity, economic growth and environmental sustainability. IWRM is a theoretical concept with not much sound scientific background from real-life development projects and not much sustainable impact on the environment, society and economy. 

The facets of IWRM (Varis et al., 2006)

The Tonle Sap Lake is one of the world's most productive large lacustrine-wetland eco-system, with an extreme biodiversity. For many of the Mekong fish species, the floodplain of the lake, and particularly the riparian flooded forest and shrublands. The lake also operates as a natural flood water reservoir for the lower Mekong Basin in the wet season and make an important contribution to the dry season flow to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. 

Referemces:



Friday, February 26, 2016

SISF Foundation


SISF Family on Home Coming Program in July 2016, Kazusa Arc 

Alumni SATOM Scholar Cambodian Team

20th Anniversary of Sato International Scholarship Foundation 

SISF magazine, No. 18, June 2015 !!!

SISF magazine, No. 18, June 2015 !!!

May 31, 2014 Overnight trip to Chiba

May 31, 2014 Overnight trip to Chiba



June 01, 2014 Overnight trip at Tokyo Station

May 31, 2014 Overnight trip to Chiba

November 16, 2013 Certificate Ceremony

 December 14, 2013 Rakugo Event

 November 16, 2013 Certificate Ceremony

Water

What Is Water?

Water (H2O: one molecule of water has two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to a single oxygen atom) is a transparent fluid which forms the world’s streams, lakes, oceans and rain. Water is a tasteless, odorless liquid at standard temperature and pressure. The color of water and ice is very slight blue hue, although water appears colorless in small quantities. Water vapor is essentially invisible as a gas.

The volume of water one Earth would be about 332,500,000 cubic miles or 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers. Water also exists in the air as water vapor, lakes, rivers, icecaps, glaciers, soil moisture, atmosphere, aquifer, and even in human’s body. About 71% of the Earth’s surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5% and freshwater has only about 3.5% of all Earth’s water. Over 68% of freshwater is locked up in ice and glaciers, and other 30% is underground water. Fresh surface-water sources, such as rivers and lakes, only constitute about 22,300 cubic miles (936,100 cubic kilometers), which is about 1/150th of one percent of total water. he water is used for domestic, industrial, irrigation, livestock, mining, public supply, thermoelectric power, and aquaculture.



Terminology

Condensation: is the process by which water vapor in the air is changed into liquid water. Condensation is crucial to the water cycle because it is responsible for the formation of clouds.
Precipitation: is the water released from the clouds in the form of rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow, or hail. It is the primary connection in the water cycle that provides for the delivery of the atmospheric water to the Earth. Most precipitation falls as rain.
Evaporation: is the process by which water changes from liquid to a gas or vapor. Heat is necessary for evaporation to occur by breaking the bonds that hold water molecules together, which is why water easily evaporates at the boiling point (100°C), but evaporate much more slowly at the freezing point.
Open channel flow: is the flow with a free surface, such as flow in a river or in a partially full pipe.
Transpiration: is essentially evaporation of water from plant leaves. Studies have revealed that transpiration accounts for about 10% of the moisture in the atmosphere, with oceans, seas, and other water bodies providing nearly 90%, and a tiny sublimation.
Evapotranspiration: is the water lost to the atmosphere from the ground surface, evaporation from the capillary fringe of the groundwater table, and the transpiration of groundwater by plants whose roots tap the capillary fringe of the groundwater table.
Sublimation:  is the conversion between the solid and the gaseous phases of matter, with no intermediate liquid stage.
Infiltration: is the process by which precipitation or water on ground surface enters the subsurface soils and moves into rocks through cracks and pore spaces.

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Thursday, February 25, 2016

Hydrology

Hydrology

Hydrology is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on the Earth including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability. The domains of hydrology include the fields of hydrometeorology, surface hydrology, hydrogeology, drainage basin management, and water quality. The hydrologist can engage with in various activities such as earth and environmental science, physical geography, geology, civil and environmental engineering, hydraulic modelling, flood mapping, catchment flood management plans, shoreline management plans, estuarine strategies, coastal protection, and flood alleviation.


The Water Cycle (Source: http://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html)

Branches of Hydrology are:

☞ Chemical hydrology is the study of the chemical characteristics of water.
☞ Ecohydrology is the study of interactions between organisms and the hydrologic cycle.
☞ Hydrogeology is the study of the presence and movement of groundwater.
☞ Hydroinformatics is the adaptation of information technology to hydrology and water resources applications.
☞ Hydrometeorology is the study of transfer of water and energy between land and water body surfaces and the lower atmosphere.
☞ Isotope hydrology is the study of the isotopic signatures of water.
☞ Surface hydrology is the study of hydrologic processes that operate at/near Earth’s surface.
☞ Drainage basin management covers water storage, in form of reservoirs and flood protection.
☞ Water quality includes the chemistry of water in rivers and lakes, both pollutants and natural solutes.
☞ Oceanography is the study of water in oceans and estuaries.
☞ Meteorology is the study of atmosphere and weather including precipitation as snow and rainfall.
☞ Limnology is the study of biological, chemical, physical geological of all inland waters.  

Hydrological Models

Hydrological Models are simplified and conceptual representations of a part of the hydrologic or water cycle for hydrologic prediction and understanding hydrologic processes and behavior of hydrologic systems to make better prediction and to solve the major challenges in water resources management. There are two major types of hydrologic models can be distinguished:
☞ Stochastic Models are the black box systems, based on data and using mathematical statistical concepts to link a certain input to the model output. Commonly used techniques are regression, transfer functions, neural networks and system identification.

Surface Water Concept (wikipedia)

☞ Process-Based Models (known as deterministic hydrological models) represent the physical processes observed in the real world including surface runoff, subsurface flow, evapotranspiration, and channel flow. 

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Land Cover VS Land Use


What difference between Land Cover and Land Use?

Land Cover refers to the surface cover on the ground, whether vegetation, urban infrastructure, water, bare soil or other; it does not describe the use of land, and the use of land may be different for lands with the same cover type. For instance, a land cover type of forest may be used for timber production, wildlife management or recreation; it might be private land, a protected watershed or a popular state park. Land cover can be determined by analyzing satellite and aerial imagery. Land use cannot be determined from satellite imagery.

Land Use refers to the purpose the land serves, for example, recreation, wildlife habitat or agriculture; it does not describe the surface cover on the ground. For example, a recreational land use could occur in a forest, shrubland, grasslands or on manicured lawns. Land Use expresses how humans use the biophysical or ecological properties of land. Land use includes the modification and/or management of land for agriculture, settlements, forestry and other uses including those that exclude humans from land, as in the designation of nature reserves for conservation.

It is often impossible to observe land use by examining only land cover by remote sensing as illustrated in the figure. For example, the land cover type of trees might indicate a land use type of plantation or a land use type of conservation.


source: http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/154142/

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