Abstract:The ongoing and proposed construction of large-scale hydropower dams in the Mekong river basin is a subject of intense debate and growing international concern due to the unprecedented and potentially irreversible impacts these dams are likely to have on the hydrological, agricultural, and ecological systems across the basin. Studies have shown that some of the dams built in the tributaries and the main stem of the upper Mekong have already caused basin-wide impacts by altering the magnitude and seasonality of flows, blocking sediment transport, affecting fisheries and livelihoods of downstream inhabitants, and changing the flood pulse to the Tonle Sap Lake. There are hundreds of additional dams planned for the near future that would result in further changes, potentially causing permanent damage to the highly productive agricultural systems and fisheries, as well as the riverine and floodplain ecosystems. Several studies have examined the potential impacts of existing and planned dams but the integrated effects of the dams when combined with the adverse hydrologic consequences of climate change remain largely unknown. Here, we provide a detailed review of the existing literature on the changes in climate, land use, and dam construction and the resulting impacts on hydrological, agricultural, and ecological systems across the Mekong. The review provides a basis to better understand the effects of climate change and accelerating human water management activities on the coupled hydrological-agricultural-ecological systems, and identifies existing challenges to study the region's Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) nexus with emphasis on the influence of future dams and projected climate change. In the last section, we synthesize the results and highlight the urgent need to develop integrated models to holistically study the coupled natural-human systems across the basin that account for the impacts of climate change and water infrastructure development. This review provides a framework for future research in the Mekong, including studies that integrate hydrological, agricultural, and ecological modeling systems.

Nutrient management is an essential part of watershed planning worldwide to protect water resources from both widespread landscape inputs of nutrients (N and P) and point source emissions. To provide information to regional watershed planners and better understand nutrient sources, we developed the Spatially Explicit Nutrient Source Estimate Map (SENSEmap) to quantify individual sources of N and P at their entry points in the landscape. We modeled seven sources of N and six sources of P across the U.S. Great Lakes Basin at 30‐m resolution: atmospheric deposition, septic systems, chemical nonagricultural fertilizer, chemical agricultural fertilizer, manure, nitrogen fixation, and point sources. By modeling these sources, we provide a more detailed view of nutrient inputs to the landscape beyond what would be possible from land use alone. We found that 71% and 88% of N and P, respectively, came from agricultural sources. The nature of agricultural nutrient inputs varied significantly across the basin, as relative contributions of chemical agricultural fertilizers, manure, and N fixation changed according to diverse land use practices regionally. We then applied k‐means cluster analysis and identified nine Nutrient Input Landscapes (NILs) with N and P source characteristics, grouped into intensive agricultural, urban, and rural landscapes. These NILs can offer insights into landscape variability that land use data alone cannot; within agricultural NILs, application of chemical fertilizer and manure varied greatly, but land uses were similar. These NILs can provide a framework for broadly categorizing watersheds that may prove useful to both ecological and management practices.

Academic libraries not only need to focus on instructing students about library resources but also need to actively reach out to them. One way to accomplish this is to integrate gaming into library programming and instruction. The staff of the Lawrence University Seeley G. Mudd Library has been successfully incorporating games into library outreach programming. This article explores the various ways academic libraries have been integrating games into instruction and programming and provides advice and anecdotal evidence from programming experiences at the Seeley G. Mudd Library.