Humans and livestock are known contributors of faecal waste to surface water. However, little is known about natural fluctuations of faecal bacteria, especially where wildlife may contribute substantial amounts of waste. I tested the hypotheses that ecological factors, including seasonal animal impacts, rainfall and physiochemical water quality, influence the abundance of total coliform (TC) an...

Analysis of the relationship between evapotranspiration (ET) and its natural and anthropogenic drivers is critical in water-limited basins such as the Nile. The spatiotemporal relationships of ET with rainfall and vegetation dynamics in the Nile Basin during 2002–2011 were analyzed using satellite-derived data. Non-parametric statistics were used to quantify ET-rainfall interactions and trends ...

[1] During July 2010, a series of monsoonal deluges over northern Pakistan resulted in catastrophic flooding, loss of life and property and an agricultural crisis that may last for years. Was the rainfall abnormal compared to previous years? Furthermore, could a high probability of flooding have been predicted? To address these questions, regional precipitation is analyzed using three dataset s...

Previous work by Miguel, Satyanath, and Sergenti (2004), henceforth MSS, addressed the question of whether poor economic performance has a causal effect on civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. Using year-to-year rainfall variation as an instrumental variable for economic growth, MSS (2004) find that economic growth is strongly, negatively related to civil conflict: a negative growth shock of 5...

Irene was the most destructive tropical cyclone (TC) of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season due to flooding from rainfall. This study used a Geographic Information System to identify TCs with similar tracks and examine the spatial attributes of their rainfall patterns. Storm-total rainfall was calculated from the Unified Precipitation Dataset for 11 post-1948 storms and statistics corresponding ...

It is not known whether rainfall increases the risk of sporadic cases of Legionella pneumonia. We sought to test this hypothesis in a prospective observational cohort study of non-immunosuppressed adults hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia (1995-2011). Cases with Legionella pneumonia were compared with those with non-Legionella pneumonia. Using daily rainfall data obtained from the re...

Vegetation productivity is an essential variable in ecosystem functioning. Vegetation dynamics of dryland ecosystems are most strongly determined by water availability and consequently by rainfall and there is a need to better understand how water limited ecosystems respond to altered rainfall amounts and variability. This response is partly determined by the vegetation functional response to r...

This paper investigates rainfall-induced landslides on partially saturated soil slopes using the 2011 Umyeonsan landslides at the center of Seoul, Korea. An integrated analysis of rainfall-induced landslide was carried out through laboratory tests, field tests, and numerical analysis. The results of comprehensive investigations in the Umyeonsan region demonstrate that landslide activity is clos...