Search Results (2,154)

Accurate prediction of sea level change in the Mediterranean Sea is essential for coastal risk management; however, the nonstationary behavior of sea level makes this difficult. This study presents a hybrid framework that integrates variational mode decomposition (VMD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) with long short-term memory (LSTM) and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) to forecast monthly sea level anomaly (SLA). Thirty years of records from sixteen Mediterranean tide gauge stations (1993–2022) were used. The proposed VMD-DMD algorithm decomposed SLA signals into distinct multi-scale temporal components. It improved reconstructed signal accuracy compared to VMD-only decomposition, reducing average RMSE from 24.22 to 7.38 mm. For prediction, we compared our models against multiple baselines: the mean annual cycle with anomaly persistence (MAC_AP) and three-layer MLP. The proposed VMD-DMD-LSTM achieved the best overall performance (mean R² = 0.92, RMSE = 20.37 mm, and MAE = 15.31 mm) with an 18% error reduction compared to three-layer MLP. VMD-DMD-XGBoost achieved RMSE = 24.90 mm and R² = 0.88. Furthermore, in a direct comparison on identical data, our VMD-DMD-LSTM outperformed the benchmark VMD-EEMD-LSTM model, achieving about 12% lower errors. Thus, the proposed framework effectively isolates multi-scale dynamics and reduces residual noise, providing more reliable sea level forecasts for coastal operational planning. Full article

Tidal influence is a well-known phenomenon in the hydrogeology of coastal areas, as it is transmitted through aquifers connected to the sea, generating periodic fluctuations in borehole piezometric levels. The analysis of these fluctuations makes it possible to assess subsurface properties and derive characteristic parameters from the transmission of the pressure wave. Tidal influence results from a complex combination of the gravitational attraction exerted by the Sun and the Moon on the oceanic water mass, the tidal distribution conditioned by ocean morphology, and variable meteorological effects that may be highly localised. The combination of these factors generates oscillations ranging in magnitude from metres to centimetres. Under certain circumstances, such as spring tides coinciding with low atmospheric pressure, these oscillations may cause flooding and other undesirable effects in sensitive areas. The effect of earth tides in inland areas disconnected from the sea, sometimes at high elevations, is also well known and has received increasing scientific attention. Tidal oscillations, which are readily apparent in coastal areas, can also be recorded in certain geological materials, producing fluctuations that can be detected using high-precision sensors. These oscillations are caused by the same gravitational attraction responsible for ocean tides; however, in this case, the gravitational forcing acts on the geological formation itself, giving rise to what is known as an Earth tide or astronomical tide. Recent technological advances have facilitated the detection of these phenomena, which were previously difficult to identify. This study analyses the astronomical influence detected in areas clearly isolated from the sea, focusing on small, low-permeability aquifers where direct gravitational forcing of the groundwater mass cannot account for the observed response. Instead, astronomical forcing acts on the rock mass and indirectly affects piezometric levels. The selected experimental site comprises variable lithologies and different degrees of aquifer confinement and includes numerous research boreholes. It therefore provides an optimal setting for analysing the relationship between lithology and astronomical influence and may serve as a basis for future research in different hydrogeological settings. Full article

Semi-enclosed bays subject to intensive thermal discharges present significant challenges in quantifying cumulative thermal effects and assessing thermal environmental carrying capacity. Taking Daya Bay as the study site, this paper develops a two-dimensional hydrodynamic–thermal coupling model using MIKE 21 FM to simulate the spatially integrated temperature rise field induced by four thermal discharge sources under a worst-case hydro-meteorological scenario—characterized by neap tide conditions and a low wind speed of 1.5 m/s. Model performance is rigorously validated against in situ monitoring data and Landsat-derived sea surface temperature observations. Building upon this validated simulation framework, the thermal environmental carrying capacity is quantified via the contour-constraint method, and the spatial compatibility between the simulated temperature-rise contours and designated marine functional zones is systematically evaluated. Results show the following: (1) Intake recirculation significantly reduces the effective thermal load discharged into the bay, and the 1 °C temperature-rise envelope is reduced by 49.2% after intake flow correction. (2) Under the benchmark parameter, the bay-scale thermal environmental capacity utilization rate is 90.7% with approximately 2000 MW residual capacity, and the comprehensive uncertainty range is ±13% to ±17% considering parameter sensitivity. (3) The 1 °C temperature-rise contour overlaps with the core protected area by about 8.7 km², showing potential spatial conflict with ecological zoning. This study offers technical support for optimizing the spatial layout of thermal discharges and implementing total load control in semi-enclosed bays. Full article

Deep groundwater dynamics, influenced by multiple factors, exhibit multi-scale periodicity, nonlinearity, and non-stationarity, posing significant challenges for reliable groundwater level prediction and anomaly detection. To address this issue, this study develops a hybrid deep learning model for simulating and predicting normal groundwater dynamics, which integrates multi-source observations—including barometric pressure, solid tide, and historical groundwater levels—with convolutional neural networks (CNNs), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Attention mechanisms. An Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) control chart is then applied to the prediction residuals for statistical anomaly detection. The results show that CNN kernels capture multi-period local features induced by barometric and tidal effects; LSTM gating mechanisms learn long-term temporal dependencies; and the Attention mechanism dynamically assigns weights to both temporal steps and input features. Compared with single-source inputs or standalone LSTM/CNN models, the hybrid model enhances prediction accuracy (MAE < 0.02, RMSE < 0.03, R² > 0.99), while integration with the EWMA control chart helps to identify the possible anomalies. Collectively, these results provide a reliable means for predicting deep groundwater levels and detecting hydrological anomalies under complex multi-scale periodic forcings, holding significant practical value in groundwater resource management and disaster warning. Full article

Groundwater level responses to solid tides in confined wells provide a means for investigating aquifer parameter variations and earthquake-related effects. Using hourly water-level observations from eight confined wells of the Beijing seismic monitoring well network (January 2017–December 2025), this study applied the Baytap-G program to extract the M2 tidal constituent contribution, amplitude, tidal factor, and phase lag, and analyzed their temporal variations and responses to earthquakes. The eight wells are classified into five groups: Group 1 (BQ, CP), stable during non-interference intervals but with permanent instrument-induced jumps; Group 2 (MF, XJ), stable background references; Group 3 (LX), reflecting genuine hydrological processes; Group 4 (DHC, XXZ), signals too weak for reliable analysis; and Group 5 (WLY), dominated by persistent instrumental disturbances. Using mean ±3σ thresholds derived from seismically quiet periods, nine persistent ≥3σ anomaly segments were identified; none coincides in time with the 14 Ms ≥ 4.0 earthquakes or the 41 coseismic water-level response events, and all can be attributed to documented instrument events. The hypothesis that earthquakes alter M2 parameters before or after their occurrence is not supported, nor is the hypothesis that coseismic water-level responses produce short-term M2 parameter changes; the hypothesis that instrument operational conditions and long-term hydrological changes dominate the observed variations is supported. The absence of earthquake-triggered M2 parameter responses is attributed to basin attenuation, limited strain conversion efficiency, response mechanism decoupling, and observational resolution. These results provide a background reference for applying well water-level tidal parameters to earthquake precursor monitoring in the Beijing area, showing that independent baselines must be established for each well and that instrument operational records are necessary for anomaly identification. Full article

Mangrove ecosystems are increasingly exposed to climate-driven changes, including shifts in tides, freshwater inputs, and coastal flooding, which may affect both native and exotic species. Mangrove ecosystems, including their associated microbiomes, plant traits, and overall ecosystem function, have been widely studied. However, the mechanisms linking tidal dynamics to plant traits and performance remain poorly understood. Here, we propose a perspective in which tidal inundation is linked to hydrological changes that alter sediment conditions, rhizosphere processes, nutrient cycling, and plant functional traits. We discuss how changes in tidal inundation alter sediment physicochemical conditions, particularly salinity and redox potential, which may reshape microbial community composition and regulate key biogeochemical processes, including carbon decomposition, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, iron reduction, and sulfate reduction. These processes influence nutrient availability and plant nutrient acquisition, with their effect likely mediated by root functional traits, phenotypic plasticity, and stress tolerance shaping overall plant performance. We propose that native and exotic mangroves may differ in their functional traits and rhizosphere associations potentially conferring a competitive advantage on exotic species through more efficient resource acquisition and utilization under specific environmental conditions. However, whether tidal and rhizosphere processes consistently favor exotic mangroves remains unresolved. We therefore conceptualize mangrove adaptation as an emergent outcome of interactions among hydrology, sediments–rhizosphere–microbial processes, nutrient dynamics, and plant functional traits, providing an integrative framework for understanding native–exotic interactions and guiding mangrove restoration under global environmental change. Full article

The East Sea (Sea of Japan) is a semi-enclosed marginal sea with an energetic mesoscale eddy field along the Tsushima Warm Current and its subpolar front. Unlike prior point reconstructions of Dokdo sea level, we use 0.125° gridded satellite altimetry (DUACS, 1993–2024) to map the spatial structure of the basin’s rise, its variability, and its extremes. The basin-mean rise is 4.1 ± 0.5 mm yr⁻¹, heterogeneous (1.6–6.6 mm yr⁻¹) yet significant across essentially the entire basin, and fastest along the East Korea Warm Current and in the Ulleung Basin at Dokdo. With the trend removed, the leading mode of variability is basin-coherent, concentrated over the southern eddy-energy maximum, and only weakly related to remote climate modes or local wind stress (R² ≤ 0.08). Extreme high sea-level days, counted against a fixed 1993–2002 95th-percentile threshold, rose roughly sevenfold (4.9 ± 1.0 days yr⁻¹), an increase driven by the rising mean rather than by a broadening of the daily distribution, though the multiplication factor is sensitive to the threshold definition (three- to twenty-eight-fold) and reflects open-water exceedance rather than coastal flooding frequency. The altimetry agrees with open-water tide gauges (mean r = 0.83) and an in situ Dokdo bottom-pressure record (r = 0.88), and a steric/non-steric decomposition shows that Dokdo’s coherence with the basin is dynamic rather than thermal. These results reframe Dokdo sea level as an expression of regional warm-current and eddy dynamics relevant to coastal-hazard exposure. Full article

A growing reliance on (ageing) sea walls to protect people, property and infrastructure is a global coastal management issue. Wave overtopping hazard is increasing in likelihood throughout the year due to sea-level rise and is not only associated with winter storms. Adaptive management requires accurate predictive tools to explore future options and forecast hazard. Predictive tools, based on empirical rules derived mainly from scaled experiments, can be highly uncertain in real-world application due to limited multi-process representation. We analyse a unique 4-month field dataset of coastal wave overtopping at two locations, ~345 m apart, along a sea wall fronted by an emergent beach, in SW England. Nearly one order of magnitude difference in the number of waves overtopping occurs between the two sites, most likely due to the variability in the beach influencing the coastal dynamics. Higher beach levels reduce but do not always eliminate overtopping, even when the beach is emergent above the high tide level. The number of waves overtopping increases with higher water elevations. The likelihood of overtopping will potentially increase with sea-level rise while the emergent beach is sustained. During winter 2021/2022, overtopping was incorrectly predicted for 49% of the tides using an empirical approach that disregards wind influence and the temporal variability in and emergence of the beach levels in front of the sea wall. Predictive tools and approaches for beach-fronted vertical structures must account for non-static and emergent beaches, wind influence and broken waves. Full article

Obesity has been widely recognized as a global epidemic since the late 1990s and the economic costs of obesity and its related comorbidities (i.e., direct medical costs and indirect productivity costs) have been a societal concern across high-, middle-, and low-income countries. In response to the rise in physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle, particularly since the turn of the 21st century, various strategies have been considered to integrate physical activity into people’s lifestyles. Despite the health benefits of physical activity demonstrated by a large body of epidemiological studies, adhering to recommended guidelines has only resulted in modest changes to body weight and composition. In other words, a longer duration of physical activity would be needed to achieve a noticeable reduction in overweight and obesity. Rather than doubling or tripling the duration of physical activity, following a healthy diet has been deemed crucial for long-term weight management and obesity management. Other than ultra-processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, however, a growing body of epidemiological, experimental, and preclinical studies suggests that synthetic ingredients and additives added during cooking, industrial processing, and beverage manufacturing contribute to overweight, obesity, and an array of health issues (e.g., hormone disruption, gut inflammation, and an increased risk of chronic diseases). For these reasons, collective efforts to reform existing food and beverage systems through local, regional, and national governance would be needed to turn the tide of obesity. Full article

Sea-level rise is a key indicator of climate change, increasing the vulnerability of the Mediterranean’s densely populated, socio-economically important coastlines. This study investigates Mediterranean sea-level variability and its physical components over 2005–2025. Multi-mission altimetry products, which retain inter-mission differences despite standard geodetic corrections, were cross-calibrated into a homogeneous time series and analyzed with harmonic Ordinary, Weighted, and Generalized Least Squares models, accounting for observational uncertainty and temporal correlation. Adopting the uncapped, maximum-likelihood-consistent correlated-noise variance as the primary convention, the final GLS altimetric trend is +3.277 mm/yr. The signal was decomposed into steric (thermosteric, halosteric) and manometric components, using GLORYS, ARMOR3D and Argo data for the steric terms and GRACE/GRACE-FO for the manometric term. GLS steric trends range from +1.445 to +2.149 mm/yr; the JPL manometric estimate, corrected for atmospheric loading on a common JPL/AVISO/LEGOS mask and estimated by GLS, is +1.318 mm/yr. Combining each steric and manometric estimate gives six budget-closure residuals from −0.623 to +0.514 mm/yr; correctly propagating their non-independence gives a grand-mean residual of −0.049 ± 1.616 mm/yr, statistically indistinguishable from zero (p = 0.98)—the budget closes within uncertainty. The altimetric trend and bias solution are independently validated against 47 GNSS-corrected Mediterranean tide gauges, giving a mean geocentric trend of +2.365 ± 0.263 mm/yr, consistent with the altimetric estimate (p = 0.49). Full article

The interplay between particle-specific hydrodynamics (settlement velocity, shape-specific drag, resuspension thresholds) and landscape-scale forcing (population-specific density, tidal asymmetry, sedimentological trapping, longshore drift) determines the fate of microplastics (MPs). The central challenge in the present study is the recognition that the existing literature suffers from a conceptual disconnect between the landscape-scale patterns of MPs and their physical dynamics at the particle scale: the former ignore the processes of vertical partitioning and coastal export, while the latter fail to acknowledge the heterogeneity of spatial clusters and source areas. First, we utilize published data on the abundance and composition of MPs in the Sebou Estuary and Atlantic Coast of Morocco to establish a novel conceptual–hydrodynamic–spatial model that simultaneously accounts for these processes. Published data include 18 stations with 10–298 (~300) particles kg⁻¹ in sediments and 10–168 particles m⁻³ in waters sampled on 16 December 2020. Second, we explore the relative roles of size and polymer-specific density, shape-specific drag, and tidal asymmetry in the observed patterns using a modified Stokes–Ganser settling solution, tidal pumping with Shields criterion, Getis–Ord Gi clustering analysis, ecological topology, non-metric multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering, and 2D predictive risk mapping. Fibers (PET/nylon, ρ ≈ 1380 kg/m³) settled 3.2–4.0× faster than fragments of the same size (PE/PP, ρ ≈ 920 kg/m³) according to the settling model, explaining the finding that fibers were abundant in Sebou sediments but rarely detected in water. Granules (industrial pellets, 1–5 mm) were not found in water as they rapidly settled to the bottom (at >38 mm/s) and accumulated on the 2 m deep bed within 10–52 s. Bed shear stresses (τ_b) in neap tides (τ_b ≈ 0.18 Pa) were lower than critical resuspension stresses (τ_c) of all sinking MPs, meaning that the bed retained them, while spring currents (τ_b ≈ 2.16 Pa) were sufficiently turbulent to erode particles > 0.1 mm and re-suspend them in the water column. Consequently, their export followed a fortnightly cycle determined by the critical shear-stress analysis with the Shields criterion. According to Getis–Ord Gi analysis, Kenitra Harbor (E5: Z = 11.85, p < 0.01; E6: Z = 8.94) and Mehdia Harbor (E1: Z = 6.42; E2: Z = 5.18) were associated with four statistically significant spatial clusters of MPs that showed a similar pattern of contamination, rather than being isolated anomalies. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (stress = 0.029) confirmed the presence of three distinct contamination regimes, namely background (reference), coastal transport corridor (B7–B10), and urban-sewage (E1, E2, E5, E6), as did hierarchical clustering. The correlation network analysis identified a diagnostic film–granule anti-correlation (r = −0.72) that could be used to distinguish domestic plastics from industrial pellets without spectral analysis. Consistent with the overall pattern, 1D advection–diffusion–decay modeling of the longshore current indicated that MPs would accumulate at Oulad Berjal Beach (B10) with a northward drift of ~0.3 km/day. According to the Monte Carlo simulation of n = 10,000 iterations, a 22% variation in settling velocity would account for a 35% variation in the transport distance. The Sebou Estuary is a local microplastic hotspot with a self-sustaining contamination cycle, while the most promising options for remediation target the identified clusters of anthropogenic input. Full article

Frequent green tides of Ulva prolifera in China’s Yellow Sea generate massive algal biomass that pollutes coastal environments and disrupts aquaculture. Valorizing this waste into biofertilizers offers a sustainable strategy for marine ecological remediation and agricultural production. This study compared the effects of U. prolifera extracts prepared via enzymatic hydrolysis (UE) and enzyme-coupled microbial fermentation (UEF) on cherry radish growth, nutritional quality, and soil fertility across six concentrations (5–30%). Both extracts exhibited a typical biphasic “low-promotion, high-inhibition” dose–response pattern. UEF at 5–10% significantly promoted root development, with maximum root weight (5.1 g/plant) at 10% and diameter (1.7 cm) at 5%. UE at 15–20% achieved root weight comparable to the Hoagland solution (HO), but with lower peak values than UEF. At equivalent concentrations, UEF generally outperformed UE in enhancing nutritional quality—maximizing anthocyanins (4.8 mg/g FW), vitamin C (5.2 mg/g FW), soluble proteins (13.5 mg BSA/g DW), and soluble sugars (17.0 mg glucose/g DW)—as well as soil fertility (N/P/K contents). Both extracts lowered soil pH by 0.5–0.6 units (converging to ~7.1 after 40 days), suggesting their potential for saline–alkali soil improvement. These findings suggest that U. prolifera extracts, particularly those prepared via enzyme-coupled fermentation, may serve as promising dual-function biostimulants and soil conditioners. The optimal concentrations (5–10% for UEF; 15–20% for UE) provide practical guidance for field application, offering a “waste-to-value” solution that simultaneously mitigates green tide hazards and supplies sustainable agricultural inputs, thereby contributing to both marine ecological restoration and sustainable crop production. Full article

Background: Identification of immunogenic neoantigens remains one of the major computational bottlenecks limiting the development of effective personalized cancer vaccines. Although various computational methods have been proposed for neoantigen discovery, there is little independent evidence regarding which approaches most effectively prioritize vaccine candidates using experimentally validated datasets. We focused on an independent multi-cohort benchmark of widely used neoantigen discovery pipelines and neoantigen scoring tools using publicly available datasets with experimentally validated immunogenic peptide–Major Histocompatibility complexes (MHC). Methods: In order to evaluate computational strategies used for selection of candidate vaccine peptides, five end-to-end neoantigen prediction pipelines and seven neoantigen scoring and prioritization tools were independently benchmarked using experimentally validated neoantigen datasets. End-to-end pipelines were evaluated on the TESLA cohort using raw WES and RNA-seq data from five patients, while individual prediction tools were additionally assessed on the TESLA, NCI, and HiTIDE validation cohorts comprising experimentally verified immunogenic and non-immunogenic peptide–MHC complexes. Results: NeoHunter achieved the highest overall recovery of experimentally validated neoantigens among the evaluated pipelines, while the scoring and prioritization tools NetMHCpan, MixMHCpred, and MHCFlurry generally showed the strongest ranking performance, although their relative performance varied substantially between datasets and patients. Precision–recall, average precision, and top K analyses demonstrated that no single predictor consistently dominated across cohorts and revealed a clear trade-off between candidate list size, precision, and recovery of validated neoantigens. Analysis of clinically relevant candidate selection thresholds demonstrated that restricting vaccine design to only the highest-ranked peptides substantially reduces sensitivity, whereas broader candidate selection improves recovery at the expense of increased experimental burden. Conclusions: These findings provide practical recommendations for computational selection of vaccine targets and highlight current limitations that must be addressed to improve the success of personalized neoantigen-based vaccines. Full article

Ancient tidal deposits provide important records of coastal hydrodynamics and basin evolution, yet their recognition remains challenging because tidal processes commonly interact with fluvial and wave processes in transitional environments. This study integrates petrography, grain-size characteristics, sedimentary structures, and regional paleogeography to decipher the Late Permian tidal depositional system of the Longtan Formation in the Lower Yangtze region, South China. The sandstones are mainly fine- to medium-grained and display multiple grain-size transport populations, indicating variable hydrodynamic conditions. An assemblage of bidirectional cross-bedding, double mud drapes, rhythmic sand–mud laminae, heterolithic bedding, and thick–thin sandstone bundles provides evidence of current reversals, slack-water deposition, and fluctuating hydrodynamic conditions. The facies-dependent distribution of these structures indicates spatial variations in the expression of tidal processes. Paleogeographic reconstruction suggests that the NE-opening, semi-enclosed basin configuration may have favored tidal circulation and the development and preservation of tidal deposits. Porosity and permeability measurements show differences among tidal sandstone types. Muddy matrix content is negatively correlated with both porosity and permeability, with the matrix–porosity relationship yielding R² = 0.791, indicating that muddy matrix is an important factor associated with reservoir heterogeneity. These findings demonstrate the value of integrating sedimentological evidence with paleogeographic constraints for interpreting ancient tidal depositional systems and provide a basis for evaluating reservoir heterogeneity in comparable tide-influenced successions. Full article

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) can cause rapid, extensive mortality in exposed marine fish, often before fish-level diagnostic sampling can guide an emergency response. This review compares the toxin-specific evidence for intestinal injury caused by paralytic shellfish toxins, okadaic acid and Dinophysistoxins, brevetoxins, and fish-killing blooms, while distinguishing direct evidence in marine fish from evidence in other models. Intestinal barrier disruption, inflammation, and microbiome changes are valuable for explaining sublethal exposure, survivor recovery, and post-event attribution. They are not proposed as operational triggers during an acute fish kill. Practical management instead depends chiefly on site-specific environmental surveillance before exposure, predefined emergency actions when a bloom approaches, and longer-term reduction in avoidable nutrient and waste inputs where these contribute to local bloom risk. A four-stage framework links environmental hazard, fish exposure, biological effects, and production or food-safety outcomes with quantitative indicators and explicit uncertainty at each transition. This revised scope places mechanistic intestinal toxicology within the ecological time scale and operational limits of marine aquaculture. Full article