(Table 1) Light minerals in sand at DSDP Leg 84 holes

The Middle America active continental margin is the best-sampled active plate margin to date, having been drilled during Legs 84, 67, and 66. With nine sites drilled on the continental slope of Guatemala and an additional site drilled on the Costa Rican slope, a summary of slope sediments and sedimentary processes can be made. Sediments are easily subdivided into a thick apron of Neogene and Quaternary volcanically derived hemipelagic and turbidite mud and mudstone and a thinner, more varied assemblage of mostly Paleogene mudstone, radiolarian mudstone, and limestone. This latter assemblage may contain hiatuses or be completely lacking between slope deposits and basement. Cores from the foot of the continental slope (Core 567A-19) consist of Campanian micrite. The pre-Neogene section is much thicker and of more terrigenous provenance beneath the forearc basin landward of the forearc structural high than on the continental slope. Sedimentary processes of the Neogene and Quaternary slope sediments include reworking of hemipelagic and turbidite deposits. Redeposition by slumping, plastic flow, and turbidity current-documentable through benthic foraminiferal analysis-occurs in intracanyon and canyon settings. Erosion by slumping and by turbidity current and deposition of mud or sand in canyons and in local depressions on the continental slope and different rates of sediment accumulation result in dramatic thickness variations of lithologic units over small distances in localized pockets of sand in small filled canyons on the slope or in sediment ponds, and in high-relief basement topography. The age of sediment overlying igneous basement ranges from Cretaceous to Quaternary. Gas hydrate was visible or inferred present at every site drilled during Leg 84. Nevertheless, except for a small amount in the last core, it was not recovered in sufficient quantities to be visible at Site 568, a site specifically chosen for the study of hydrate and located near Site 496, which was abandoned during Leg 67 because of the dangerous abundance of hydrates. The association of hydrate with porous, coarser sediment results in a distribution as localized and unpredictable as the slope sands off Guatemala, which do not occur in beds coherent enough to produce acoustic reflection. Although the normal lithologic section at Sites 567 and 496 limits the volume of sediment that could be part of an accretionary prism offshore Guatemala and the volume of sediment in the Trench axis is not sufficient to argue for significant accumulation of Cocos Plate sediments, the varied lithology and attenuated thickness of pre-Neogene sediment seaward of the forearc structural high do not exclude earlier accretion from the history of the Guatemalan continental margin.

Petrology and origin of basalts at DSDP Hole 66-487

The volcanism of Central America, according to current theory (Pichler and Weyl, 1973; Stoiber and Carr, 1974; Hey, 1977), is related to the subduction of the Cocos Plate under the North American lithospheric plate and the melting of ocean crust material in the subduction zone (Green and Ringwood, 1968; Dickinson, 1970, Fitton, 1971). Since Cocos Plate subduction occurs at the rate of more than 7 cm/y. (Hey et al., 1977), basalts underlying upper Miocene sediments of the Middle America Trench outer slope, penetrated in Hole 487 (Fig. 1) during Leg 66 (Moore et al., 1979), should have formed far from their present position if current theory is accurate. Present manifestations of basaltic magmatism in adjacent areas of the Pacific derive from the axial part of the East Pacific Rise, the Galapagos spreading center, and transform fracture zones. The question arises: Are there analogs of the Middle America Trench basalts among magmatic cock associated with these modern features, or do the trench basalts have some other origin?

Petrology, geochemistry, and geodynamics at DSDP Hole 66-493

At Site 493, DSDP Leg 66, dioritic basement was reached below lower Miocene (NN1 Zone, 22-24 Ma) terrigenous sediments. Petrographical, mineralogical (including microprobe analyses), and chemical features of the dioritic rocks reveal their magmatic affinity with the calc-alkaline series. Furthermore, their radiometric age (35.3 m.y.) links the basement to the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico and to mid-Tertiary volcanic arcs in Central America. The presence of Oligocene diorite 50 km from the trench axis confirms the truncation of the south Mexico margin, which we explain as the result of a 650 to 800 km left-lateral displacement of Central America relative to North America. Truncation must have occurred in the late Miocene, after the diorite intrusion and prior to the present subduction.

Geochemsitry of minerals and glass shards at DSDP Leg 67 Holes

During Leg 67, the Middle-America Trench transect off Guatemala was drilled across the convergent margin of southern Mexico and Central America south of the Tehuantepec Ridge. The data of Leg 66, north of the Tehuantepec Ridge, and that of Leg 67 provided the opportunity to establish a continuous chronology of airborne volcanic ashes intercalated within the sediments (Aubouin et al., 1979; von Huene et al., 1980). Sites of both expeditions are favorably located for obtaining a good record of the explosive volcanicity of these areas, given the proximity of the volcanic sources and the position of the sites under the prevailing winds.

Study of the evolution of the seismic cycle of stress and strain associated to the El Salvador Fault Zone

• Central America: – Regional studies in Central America (Seismic Hazard). – El Salvador Fault Zone (ESFZ). – Aguacaliente‐Navarro Fault Zone (ANFZ), Central Valley of Costa Rica. – Haiti (seismic hazard) • Spain: – Regional‐Nacional studies of seismic hazards (applications to building codes, eurocode, emergency plans, etc.) – Betic range zone, south of Spain. – Ibero‐Maghrebi region (collision zone)

Land cover dynamics and climate change implications on water resources in South Pacific Costa Rica

Water is fundamental to human life and the availability of freshwater is often a constraint on human welfare and economic development. Consequently, the potential effects of global changes on hydrology and water resources are considered among the most severe and vital ones. Water scarcity is one of the main problems in the rural communities of Central America, as a result of an important degradation of catchment areas and the over-exploitation of aquifers. The present Thesis is focused on two critical aspects of global changes over water resources: (1) the potential effects of climate change on water quantity and (2) the impacts of land cover and land use changes on the hydrological processes and water cycle. Costa Rica is among the few developing countries that have recently achieved a land use transition with a net increase in forest cover. Osa Region in South Pacific Costa Rica is an appealing study site to assess water supply management plans and to measure the effects of deforestation, forest transitions and climate change projections reported in the region. Rural Community Water Supply systems (ASADAS) in Osa are dealing with an increasing demand of freshwater due to the growing population and the change in the way of life in the rural livelihoods. Land cover mosaics which have resulted from the above mentioned processes are characterized by the abandonment of marginal farmland with the spread over these former grasslands of high return crops and the expansion of secondary forests due to reforestation initiatives. These land use changes have a significant impact on runoff generation in priority water-supply catchments in the humid tropics, as evidenced by the analysis of the Tinoco Experimental Catchment in the Southern Pacific area of Costa Rica. The monitoring system assesses the effects of the different land uses on the runoff responses and on the general water cycle of the basin. Runoff responses at plot scale are analyzed for secondary forests, oil palm plantations, forest plantations and grasslands. The Oil palm plantation plot presented the highest runoff coefficient (mean RC=32.6%), twice that measured under grasslands (mean RC=15.3%) and 20-fold greater than in secondary forest (mean RC=1.7%). A Thornthwaite-type water balance is proposed to assess the impact of land cover and climate change scenarios over water availability for rural communities in Osa Region. Climate change projections were obtained by the downscaling of BCM2, CNCM3 and ECHAM5 models. Precipitation and temperature were averaged and conveyed by the A1B, A2 and B1 IPCC climate scenario for 2030, 2060 and 2080. Precipitation simulations exhibit a positive increase during the dry season for the three scenarios and a decrease during the rainy season, with the highest magnitude (up to 25%) by the end of the 21st century under scenario B1. Monthly mean temperature simulations increase for the three scenarios throughout the year with a maximum increase during the dry season of 5% under A1B and A2 scenarios and 4% under B1 scenario. The Thornthwaite-type Water Balance model indicates important decreases of water surplus for the three climate scenarios during the rainy season, with a maximum decrease on May, which under A1B scenario drop up to 20%, under A2 up to 40% and under B1 scenario drop up to almost 60%. Land cover scenarios were created taking into account current land cover dynamics of the region. Land cover scenario 1 projects a deforestation situation, with forests decreasing up to 15% due to urbanization of the upper catchment areas; land cover scenario 2 projects a forest recovery situation where forested areas increase due to grassland abandonment on areas with more than 30% of slope. Deforestation scenario projects an annual water surplus decrease of 15% while the reforestation scenario projects a water surplus increase of almost 25%. This water balance analysis indicates that climate scenarios are equal contributors as land cover scenarios to future water resource estimations.

Mio-Pliocene crustaceans from the Canary Islands, Spain

There are few previous references to fossil crustaceans for the Neogene marine layers of the Canary Islands (Spain). The Mio-Pliocene marine sedimentary layers in the eastern islands (Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote) were previously characterised by the presence of numerous fossil fauna, mainly anthozoans and molluscs, which correspond to an equatorial-typepalaeoclimate, warmer than the present climate. This Mio-Pliocene transition dated between 9.3 and 4.1 Ma. In this paper, 12 fossil crustacean taxa are identified and classified, including decapods and barnacles: Balanus concavus Bronn, 1831, Balanus spongicola Brown, 1827, Balanus perforatus Bruguière, 1789, Chenolobia testudinaria Linnè, 1767, Tetraclita cf. rubescens Darwin, 1854, Callianassa matsoni Rathbun, 1935, Callianassa sp., Upogebia sp, Eriphia aff. verrucosa (Forskal, 1775) , Maja sp., Scylla michelini Milne-Edwards, 1861 and Ocypode sp. Some of these taxa mean new references for the Atlantic islands and the North African Atlantic and definitely enlarge the palaeographic distribution of Neogene crustaceans beyond the Mediterranean region, extending it to the North Atlantic. Particularly significant are the presence of Tetraclita cf. rubescens ,this being the first reported fossil occurrence of this barnacle outside the North America Pacific coasts, and Chenolobia testudinaria , indicating for the first time the existence of marine turtles in these islands during the Neogene. These results are coherent with previous research hypothesising the existence of a flow of surface water between the Pacific and Atlantic in the Mio-Pliocene transition (Central American Seaway, CAS) which explains the arrival of organisms, in larval stage, from Central America to the Canary Islands

Modelización de las fallas activas para la estimación de la Peligrosidad Sísmica. Aplicación Metodológica en Haití

The development of this Master's Thesis is aimed at modeling active for estimating seismic hazard in Haití failures. It has been used zoned probabilistic method, both classical and hybrid, considering the incorporation of active faults as independent units in the calculation of seismic hazard. In this case, the rate of seismic moment is divided between the failures and the area seismogenetic same region. Failures included in this study are the Septentrional, Matheux and Enriquillo fault. We compared the results obtained by both methods to determine the importance of considering the faults in the calculation. In the first instance, updating the seismic catalog, homogenization, completeness analysis and purification was necessary to obtain a catalog ready to proceed to the estimation of the hazard. With the seismogenic zoning defined in previous studies and the updated seismic catalog, they are obtained relations Gutenberg-Richter recurrence of seismicity, superficial and deep in each area. Selected attenuation models were those used in (Benito et al., 2011), as the tectonic area of study is very similar to that of Central America. Its implementation has been through the development of a logical in which each branch is multiplied by an index based on the relevance of each combination of models. Results are presented as seismic hazard maps for return periods of 475, 975 and 2475 years, and spectral acceleration (SA) in structural periods: 0.1 - 0.2 - 0.5 - 1.0 and 2.0 seconds, and the difference accelerations between maps obtained by the classical method and the hybrid method. Maps realize the importance of including faults as separate items in the calculation of the hazard. The morphology of the zoned maps presented higher values in the area where the superficial and deep zone overlap. In the results it can determine that the minimum values in the zoned approach they outweigh the hybrid method, especially in areas where there are no faults. Higher values correspond to those obtained in fault zones by the hybrid method understanding that the contribution of the faults in this method is very important with high values. The maximum value of PGA obtained is close to Septentrional in 963gal, near to 460 gal in Matheux, and the Enriquillo fault line value reaches 760gal PGA in the Eastern segment and Western 730gal in the segment. This compares with that obtained in the zoned approach in this area where the value of PGA obtained was 240gal. These values are compared with those obtained by Frankel et al., (2011) with those have much similarity in values and morphology, in contrast to those presented by Benito et al., (2012) and the Standard Seismic Dominican Republic

Modelado experimental de un sistema de e-Salud aplicado en cooperación al desarrollo

Los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio comprometieron a los países con una nueva alianza mundial de alcanzar gradualmente una cobertura universal de los niveles mínimos de bienestar en los países en desarrollo (reducir la pobreza y el hambre y dar respuesta a problemas como la mala salud, las desigualdades de género, la falta de educación, el acceso a agua salubre y la degradación ambiental). Para dar continuidad a esta iniciativa, recientemente en septiembre de 2015, la ONU promulgó la declaración de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Los ODM sitúan la salud en el corazón del desarrollo y establecen un novedoso pacto mundial que vincula a los países desarrollados y los países en desarrollo por medio de obligaciones claras y recíprocas. En este sentido, diversos organismos de cooperación a través de sus programas de cooperación internacional, tratan de mejorar el acceso a la asistencia sanitaria, especialmente a la población vulnerable que vive en zonas rurales de países en desarrollo. Con el fin de ayudar a cumplir los ODM que apoyan los temas de salud en dicha población, estos organismos desarrollan proyectos que despliegan sistemas de e-salud. Las intervenciones se enfrentan a múltiples retos: condicionantes de los países en desarrollo, las necesidades y demandas de los sistemas sanitarios y la complejidad de implantar las TIC en entornos complejos y altamente dinámicos como son los países en desarrollo. Estos condicionantes ocasionan la mayoría de proyectos fallidos que terminan convirtiéndose en soluciones aisladas, que anteponen la tecnología a las necesidades de la población y no generan el impacto esperado en su desarrollo. En este contexto tuvo origen esta tesis doctoral, que persigue como objetivo analizar, planificar, diseñar, verificar y validar un marco arquitectónico de implantación de sistemas de e-salud en áreas rurales de países en desarrollo, que promueva el mejoramiento de la calidad de vida de la población vulnerable de estas regiones y la efectividad de las intervenciones de e-salud en el marco de proyectos de cooperación al desarrollo. Para lograrlo, tomé como punto de partida, diversas estrategias, modelos, metodologías de implantación de e-salud, modelos de gestión de proyectos propuestos por distintos organismos internacionales y propuse una instanciación de estos modelos a proyectos de implantación de sistemas de e-salud en países en desarrollo. Apliqué la metodología action research y los enfoques twin track, middle out y design thinking que me permitieron el refinamiento iterativo del modelo propuesto en la tesis doctoral mediante el trabajo de campo realizado en dos zonas rurales de países de Centroamérica: Jocotán (Guatemala) y San José de Cusmapa (Nicaragua). Como resultado obtuve un modelo experimental basado en cuatro componentes: un modelo de referencia tipo, un modelo conceptual de e-salud, los procesos de gestión y de implantación de sistemas de e-salud en países en desarrollo y una arquitectura de referencia. El modelo experimental resultante aporta herramientas importantes para el despliegue de sistemas de e-salud en países en desarrollo. Se ha propuesto un modelo de referencia que proporciona una visión holística del contexto del país en desarrollo donde se desarrollarán las intervenciones. Un modelo conceptual de e-salud que representa los principales conceptos involucrados en un sistema de e-salud. Los procesos ii- de gestión del proyecto y de implantación del sistema que proporcionan a los grupos de cooperación, herramientas para el análisis, diseño, desarrollo y despliegue de los sistemas de e-salud en áreas rurales de países en desarrollo. Y finalmente la arquitectura de referencia que sienta las bases para la aplicación de estos procesos a un contexto en particular. Las líneas futuras de trabajo sugieren extender el modelo a más casos de estudio que permitan su refinamiento y evaluar los futuros usos que pueden surgir de los sistemas de e-salud resultantes. ABSTRACT Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) committing the countries with a new global partnership to achieve universal coverage of minimum levels of well-being in Developing Countries (for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate housing, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability). From September 2015, these goals are replaces with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The MDG place health at the heart of development and establish a novel global compact, linking developed and developing countries through clear, reciprocal obligations. Many public and private institutions promote international cooperation programs to support in achieving the MDGs. Some of these cooperation programs deal improving access to healthcare to poor people living in isolated areas from developing countries. In order to accomplish this goal organizations perform projects (interventions or cooperation projects) that deploy e-health systems in these zones. Nevertheless, this kind of projects face multiple challenges that dismiss the effectiveness of the projects results. In particular, cooperation teams face issues such as constraints in developing countries, lack of electrical and ICT infrastructure, scarce transport, extreme climate conditions, lack ICT capacity, lack of access to healthcare and inefficient delivery methods, etc. Hence, these issues increase the complexity of implementing e-health in developing countries and then causes the most projects fail. In other words, the solutions do not meet population needs and do not generate the expected impact on development. This context is the starting point of this doctoral thesis, which deals with analysing, planning, designing, testing and validating an architectural framework in order to implement e-health systems in rural areas from developing countries, promote development of the population in these regions, and thus improve the impact of interventions of development cooperation projects. To achieve this goal, I took as a starting point the strategies, models, e-health implementation methodologies and projects management models proposed by various international agencies. Then I proposed an instantiation of these models to manage the intervention and implement e-health systems in developing countries. I applied the action research methodology and the approaches twin track, middle out and design thinking which allowed me the iterative refinement of the model proposed in this doctoral thesis. The proposed framework was validated by running two cases studies in rural areas of Central America: Jocotán (Guatemala) and San José de Cusmapa (Nicaragua). As a result, I obtained an experimental model based on four components: a Type reference model, an e-health conceptual model, both process management and implementation e-health systems in developing countries and a reference architecture. The resulting experimental model provides important tools for the deployment of e-health systems in developing countries. The model become as reference model that provides a holistic view of the developing countries context where the interventions will be running. The conceptual model of e-health represents the main concepts involved into an e-health system. The project management and implementation processes of the iv- system provide to the cooperation teams with tools for analysing, designing, developing and deploying e-health systems in rural areas from developing countries. Finally, the reference architecture provides the basis for the implementation of these processes into a particular context. The future research suggest the extension the model to other cases studies in order to refine and evaluate the viability the model.

Desarrollo de un método estadístico para la generación de escenarios climáticos de alta resolución a partir de simulaciones de baja resolución de Modelos de Circulación General: aplicación a España

Esta tesis doctoral presenta el desarrollo, verificación y aplicación de un método original de regionalización estadística para generar escenarios locales de clima futuro de temperatura y precipitación diarias, que combina dos pasos. El primer paso es un método de análogos: los "n" días cuya configuración atmosférica de baja resolución es más parecida a la del día problema, se seleccionan de un banco de datos de referencia del pasado. En el segundo paso, se realiza un análisis de regresión múltiple sobre los "n" días más análogos para la temperatura, mientras que para la precipitación se utiliza la distribución de probabilidad de esos "n" días análogos para obtener la estima de precipitación. La verificación de este método se ha llevado a cabo para la España peninsular y las Islas Baleares. Los resultados muestran unas buenas prestaciones para temperatura (BIAS cerca de 0.1ºC y media de errores absolutos alrededor de 1.9ºC); y unas prestaciones aceptables para la precipitación (BIAS razonablemente bajo con una media de -18%; error medio absoluto menor que para una simulación de referencia (la persistencia); y una distribución de probabilidad simulada similar a la observada según dos test no-paramétricos de similitud). Para mostrar la aplicabilidad de la metodología desarrollada, se ha aplicado en detalle en un caso de estudio. El método se aplicó a cuatro modelos climáticos bajo diferentes escenarios futuros de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, para la región de Aragón, produciendo así proyecciones futuras de precipitación y temperaturas máximas y mínimas diarias. La fiabilidad de la técnica de regionalización fue evaluada de nuevo para el caso de estudio mediante un proceso de verificación. Para determinar la capacidad de los modelos climáticos para simular el clima real, sus simulaciones del pasado (la denominada salida 20C3M) se regionalizaron y luego se compararon con el clima observado (los resultados son bastante robustos para la temperatura y menos concluyentes para la precipitación). Las proyecciones futuras a escala local presentan un aumento significativo durante todo el siglo XXI de las temperaturas máximas y mínimas para todos los futuros escenarios de emisiones considerados. Las simulaciones de precipitación presentan mayores incertidumbres. Además, la aplicabilidad práctica del método se demostró también mediante su utilización para producir escenarios climáticos futuros para otros casos de estudio en los distintos sectores y regiones del mundo. Se ha prestado especial atención a una aplicación en Centroamérica, una región que ya está sufriendo importantes impactos del cambio climático y que tiene un clima muy diferente. ABSTRACT This doctoral thesis presents the development, verification and application of an original downscaling method for daily temperature and precipitation, which combines two statistical approaches. The first step is an analogue approach: the “n” days most similar to the day to be downscaled are selected. In the second step, a multiple regression analysis using the “n” most analogous days is performed for temperature, whereas for precipitation the probability distribution of the “n” analogous days is used to obtain the amount of precipitation. Verification of this method has been carried out for the Spanish Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. Results show good performance for temperature (BIAS close to 0.1ºC and Mean Absolute Errors around 1.9ºC); and an acceptable skill for precipitation (reasonably low BIAS with a mean of - 18%, Mean Absolute Error lower than for a reference simulation, i.e. persistence, and a well-simulated probability distribution according to two non-parametric tests of similarity). To show the applicability of the method, a study case has been analyzed. The method was applied to four climate models under different future emission scenarios for the region of Aragón, thus producing future projections of daily precipitation and maximum and minimum temperatures. The reliability of the downscaling technique was re-assessed for the study case by a verification process. To determine the ability of the climate models to simulate the real climate, their simulations of the past (the 20C3M output) were downscaled and then compared with the observed climate – the results are quite robust for temperature and less conclusive for the precipitation. The downscaled future projections exhibit a significant increase during the entire 21st century of the maximum and minimum temperatures for all the considered future emission scenarios. Precipitation simulations exhibit greater uncertainties. Furthermore, the practical applicability of the method was demonstrated also by using it to produce future climate scenarios for some other study cases in different sectors and regions of the world. Special attention was paid to an application of the method in Central America, a region that is already suffering from significant climate change impacts and that has a very different climate from others where the method was previously applied.

Assessing climate impacts

Assessing climate impacts involves identifying sources and characteristics of climate variability, and mitigating potential negative impacts of that variability. Associated research focuses on climate driving mechanisms, biosphere–hydrosphere responses and mediation, and human responses. Examples of climate impacts come from 1998 flooding in the Yangtze River Basin and hurricanes in the Caribbean and Central America. Although we have limited understanding of the fundamental driving-response interactions associated with climate variability, increasingly powerful measurement and modeling techniques make assessing climate impacts a rapidly developing frontier of science.