Wetlands produce key ecosystem services to mitigate the impacts of peak flows caused by pluvial or fluvial floods or storm surges. Sediment floods were characterized by a peak flow flowing over a simulated wetland, populated with two natural species. Floods have been drawn as flows of height H, into waters of height h, where H > h.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFloating photovoltaics (FPV) are an emerging renewable energy technology. Although they have received extensive attention in recent years, understanding of their environmental impacts is limited. To address this knowledge gap, we measured water temperature and meteorological parameters for six months under FPV arrays and in the control open water site and constructed a numerical model reflecting the water energy balance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFloating solar photovoltaic (FPV) deployments are increasing globally as the switch to renewable energy intensifies, representing a considerable water surface transformation. FPV installations can potentially impact aquatic ecosystem function, either positively or negatively. However, these impacts are poorly resolved given the challenges of collecting empirical data for field or modelling experiments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Total Environ
February 2020
Interactions between ecology, hydrodynamics and sediments play central roles in the evolution of coastal and freshwater ecosystems. We set out to characterise interactions of a specific hydrodynamic phenomenon - turbidity currents - with vegetation and sediment dynamics. We measured hydrodynamics and sediment deposition rates when turbidity currents flowed into plant canopies in a lock-exchange flume experiment, using simulated vegetation and three real plant species, and varying the turbidity current's initial sediment concentration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe mixed layer, or epilimnion, is a physical concept referring to an isothermal layer at the surface of a water body. This concept is ubiquitous within limnology, is fundamental to our understanding of chemical and ecological processes, and is an important metric for water body monitoring, assessment and management. Despite its importance as a metric, many different approaches to approximating mixed depth currently exist.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEye disease can be devastating. The most feared impact is sight loss, but in a number of ophthalmic conditions, there can be wide-ranging systemic, psychological, emotional and social effects of both the disease and its treatment. External tests of visual function, such as visual acuity, are inadequate to understand the overall impact of ophthalmic disease on a patient's functional vision or daily life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBirdshot chorioretinopathy (BCR) is a rare form of chronic, bilateral, posterior uveitis with a distinctive clinical phenotype, and a strong association with HLA-A29. It predominantly affects people in middle age. Given its rarity, patients often encounter delays in diagnosis leading to delays in adequate treatment, and thus risking significant visual loss.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The importance of patient and public involvement (PPI) in healthcare decisions and research is increasingly recognised. This paper describes the aims, delivery, evaluation and impact of a 'Birdshot Day' organised for patients with birdshot uveitis, their carers and healthcare professionals.
Methods: Delivery of this event involved the close collaboration of patients with a large number of different healthcare professionals.
Sci Total Environ
December 2010
Several recent studies have emphasised the need for a more integrated process in which researchers, policy makers and practitioners interact to identify research priorities. This paper discusses such a process with respect to the UK water sector, detailing how questions were developed through inter-disciplinary collaboration using online questionnaires and a stakeholder workshop. The paper details the 94 key questions arising, and provides commentary on their scale and scope.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF