User:Bhardy7/sandbox

**Editing 1982-83 Paraguay Floods Stub Article

Searched the following for plagiarism:

"The flooding was caused by El Niño and also affected parts of Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia." No plagiarism was found.

"The floods caused a great deal of damage to housing, prompting a structural redesign in building in Paraguay in the aftermath." No plagiarism was found.

-In searching for plagiarism I found that none of the citations were existent. Citation 1 proved to be an unavailable website that has since been deleted. Citation 2 was found to be unavailable as well.

"Although only 170 were killed as a direct result of the floods, 600,000 people were evacuated from their homes and in the end the damage rose to around $3 billion." This information was found on another website and was correctly recited. "Although only 170 were killed as a direct result of the floods, 600,000 people were evacuated from their homes and in the end the damage rose to around $3 billion."

Added to the article was the following:

Affecting an estimate of 85,000 people solely in Paraguay, the flood waters had risen from an average of 2.6 meters to above 9 meters. This resulted in several national and international voluntary agencies donating over $70,000.

**Editing 2004 Alaska fire season Stub Article (1)**

Searched the following for plagiarism:

- "The 2004 Alaska fire season was the worst on record in terms of area burned by wildfires in the U.S. state ofAlaska."

No plagiarism was found, but in searching for the plagiarism, I found the citation link to be broken. I replaced citation 1.

- "The largest of these fires was the Taylor_Complex_Fire, which encompassed 1,700,000 acres (6,900 km²) and was the largest fire in the United States from 1997 to 2007."

Plagiarism was found, so I reworded and separated the two independent clauses from each other. I also corrected the issue by giving a new citation for where this information can be found by replacing citation 3 because the link was broken. The rephrased statement is below

"The largest of these fires was the Taylor Complex Fire. This fire consumed over 1,700,000 acres (6,900 km²) and was the deemed to be the largest fire in the United States from 1997 to 2007."

**The issue with citation 2 was that it was hyperlinked incorrectly. I used my source to correct the issue because the same information was contained in my article. Citations 2 & 3 have swapped places because of one part of the article coming before another.

-Another addition was simple but it was to the last sentence of the original description. The sentence was choppy and not an independent clause. Now it is stated:

"Out of all 701 fires, 426 fires were started by humans and 215 by lightning."

**I added to the article the section referring to impacts on climate change & landscape, air quality, and (2) external links, as quoted below. Source 5 is my scientific article.**

Impacts on Climate Change & Landscape

Alaska has a climate that of the boreal zone, more commonly known as the Taiga. The boreal zone, across the globe, makes up more than 25% of global forests, and when wildfires occur it is a top leader in carbon emissions. Approximately 12% of the world's carbon is stored in top layer soil and this part is the first to burn in any wildfire. These emissions have some of the greatest impacts on natural carbon balance, and Alaska gives its fair contribution. Typically Alaskan forest fires make up 41% of the United States total carbon emissions, but more recently with warming conditions and more wildfire occurrences these figures have gone all the way to 89%. Landscape is also changing with regards to wildfires as less canopy is provided after an occurrence, hence soil temperatures may rise and be inhabitable by certain species. When soil temperatures rise permafrost is revealed and begins to melt away. This then leads to Landslides and Erosion.

Air Quality

The 2004 fire season of Alaska had large impacts on the air quality and safety of citizens. These impacts were relevant to those specifically living in Fairbanks, Alaska. Deemed by the EPA as a hazardous and unhealthy zone for over 15 days, the city of Fairbanks had about 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter of smoke particulate. To put it into perspective, an area deemed to be unhealthy typically has 65 micrograms of smoke particulate per cubic meter, while an area deemed to be hazardous has anymore than 250 micrograms per cubic meter. Normal levels in Fairbanks, Alaska were around 10 micrograms per cubic meter. The main issue with smoke particulate is not the smoke itself but the matter that is mixed in. Wildfire Smoke is usually made up of acids, chemicals, metals, soil/dust, and pollen/mold spores.

**The bulk of this information came from the DEC of Alaska**

 External Links

[1] The U.S. Wildlife and Fisheries outlines potential dangers of the new wildfire fuels that are populating Alaska.

[2] The University of Alaska Fairbanks shows graphical data pertaining to the amount of land burned and past wildfires in Alaska.

**Editing Taylor Complex Fire Stub Article (3)**

Searched the follow for plagiarism:

- "The Taylor Complex Fire was a 2004 Wildfire in Alaska that consumed approximately of land"

I found this piece plagiarized from this website: [3]. I restated it as: (this combines the first and second original sentences)

"The Taylor Complex fire was part of the 2004 Alaska fire season and was one of the largest of that year. This fire consumed about 1,305,592 acres (5,284 km²) of land.

I also corrected a citation issue with this topic. In addition to that I changed the section Background to "Impacts on the Climate"

**I added to the article the following:

Impacts to the Climate

By comparing the pre-land-coverage to the after-land-coverage, scientists have been able see that the Taylor Complex Fire was a major component in climate change. After studying the area for five years, researchers realized a 2 degree change (measured in degrees Celsius) in the average temperature range. The ways these changes were recorded was by using satellite observatories, a common annalist for climate change records.

External Links

[4] FEMA Records

[5] Records on America's most disastrous fires

**Editing 2012 Sahel drought Stub Article (2) **

Searched the following for plagiarism:

- "In May 2012, United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos warned that more than 18 million people were facing hunger across eight countries in West Africa including the Sahel region"

I found that the sentence was too similarly worded to the citation it came from so I rearranged the idea a bit below:

"Valerie Amos, UN Humanitarian Chief during 2012, released a statement during the year stating that over 18 million people were malnourished in West Africa and the Sahel region."

- "A combination of failed crops, insect plague, high food prices, conflict and drought collectively cause the ensuing famine."

I found that this sentences was repeated over several different pieces of work on google and that the citation is a broken link. I added a new citation and changed it to:

"The main contributor to the famine was the drought of Sahel, ensued from a combination of failing crops and El Niño. "

I fixed a few grammatical issues were tenses were not correlating throughout.

Citation 3 is inaccessible to me so I will leave it be incase LSU libraries just does not have a contract with them.

**I moved what was originally general information into a new sub-category that refers to the Societal Impacts, more specifically mass famine. To this I added simply:

"In places like Burkina Faso over 2.8 million were suffering from famine and in Senegal over 800,000 did not have enough to eat."

**I created a new general information that includes the following that I added:

"Referring to the semiarid region of Africa that lies between the Sahara and the savannas, the Sahel region is a stretch across Africa, spanning from the Atlantic all the way to the Indian Ocean. Countries included in this region are Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea. Droughts occur quite often and tend to reduce the already measly water supply and destroy economies of developing countries."

**My next added information will be the increase of drought due to global warming and this is citation of source 5 my scientific article**

"The droughts are becoming increasingly worse and more threatening due to an aridity trend. A possible explanation to the aridity trend is the supplements of an oceanography phenomenon called El Niño. An idea is that evaporation is occurring at higher rate due to the change in Sea surface temperature, this then impacts the amount of rain the Sahel region receives Another factor to keep into consideration is the response of our atmosphere to stimulants like greenhouse gases and carbon emissions."

External Links

**Many were already given so I simply checked the links for reliable sources and deleted repeated sources that were simply citations and references. I also removed one broken link.