Attitudes and Perceptions about Ecological Resources and Hazards of People Living Aroung the Savannah River Site

Although considerable attention is devoted to environmental monitoring and assessment with respect to both pollutants and the status of particular plant or animal populations, less attention is devoted to assessing people's attitudes about the relative importance of ecological resources. In this paper we examine the attitudes and perceptions about ecological resources of people living around the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS), in South Carolina. Our overall hypothesis is that people who are directly affected by the possible outcomes and consequences of a particular hazard (i.e., those people employed at SRS) will undervalue the risks and overvalue the potential benefits from future land uses that favor continued site activity, compared to people who live near but are not employed at SRS. We interviewed 286 people attending the Aiken Trials horse show on 14 March 1997. There were few gender differences, although men hunted and fished more than women, women ranked three environmental concerns as more severe than did men, and women were more concerned about the effect of SRS on property values. Maintenance of SRS as a National Environmental Research Park ranked first as a future land use; nuclear production ranked second, followed by hunting and hiking. Only residential development ranked very low as a future land use. There were many differences as a function of employment history at SRS: 1) people who work at SRS think that the federal government should spend funds to clean up all nuclear facilities, and they think less money should be spent on other environmental problems than did non-employees, 2) people who work at SRS ranked continued current uses of SRS higher than did people who never worked at SRS, and 3) people who work at SRS are less concerned about the storage of nuclear material or accidents at the site than are people who never worked at the site.     

Perceptual Indicators of Environmental Health, Future Land Use, and Stewardship

There are important linkages between the health of humans and theenvironment, restoration of degraded lands, and long-term stewardship of public lands, yet most environmental indicators deal only with assessing the physical and biological aspects ofecosystems. In this article, we examine the ratings of perceptionsof several environmental problems for their utility as indicatorsof environmental quality, and examine perceptions of future land use by people interviewed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, near the Department of Energy's (DOE) Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Overall, people with lower incomes rated environmental problems as more severe than others, were more willing to spend federal funds to solve them, and were consistent in their ratingsof severity of environmental problems and their willingness to spend federal funds. Cleaning up LANL and other Department of Energy sites, received the highest rating for expenditure of federal funds. The highest rated future uses for DOE sites were for recreation and for National Environmental Research Parks. People with less education generally gave higher ratings to mostfuture land uses for DOE than did those with more education. However, those with higher education gave higher ratings to nuclear reprocessing, and nuclear material storage. Where there were differences, the people interviewed at Santa Fe rated all environmental problems (except pesticides) as more severe than did those previously interviewed in Albuquerque (located fartherfrom the LANL site), and they were more willing to spend federalfunds on these problems. Ratings for all future land uses did notdiffer between the Santa Fe and Albuquerque respondents. These perception-based indicators show general agreement among peopleliving close and farther away from LANL with respect to cleaningup LANL and the future land uses for the site. These indicators should be considered by regulators, site personnel, and policy makers in future management and land use decisions.     

Urban Air Pollution Patterns, Land Use, and Thermal Landscape: An Examination of the Linkage Using GIS

This article investigates the relationship of local air pollution pattern with urban land use and with urban thermal landscape using a GIS approach. Ambient air quality measurements for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, total suspended particles, and dust level were obtained for Guangzhou City in South China between 1981 and 2000. Landsat TM images and aerial photo derived maps were used to examine city's land use and land cover at different times and changes. Landsat thermal infrared data were employed to compute land surface temperatures and to assess urban thermal patterns. Relationships among the spatial patterns of air pollution, land use, and thermal landscape were sought through GIS and correlation analyses. Results show that the spatial patterns of air pollutants probed were positively correlated with urban built-up density, and with satellite derived land surface temperature values, particularly with measurements taken during the summer. It is suggested that further studies investigate the mechanisms of this linkage, and that remote sensing of air pollution delves into how the energy interacts with the atmosphere and the environment and how sensors see pollutants. Thermal infrared imagery could play a unique role in monitoring and modeling atmospheric pollution.     

Relations of Habitat-Specific Algal Assemblages to Land Use and Water Chemistry in the Willamette Basin, Oregon

Benthic algal assemblages, water chemistry, and habitat were characterized at 25 stream sites in the Willamette Basin, Oregon, during low flow in 1994. Seventy-three algal samples yielded 420 taxa — mostly diatoms, blue-green algae, and green algae. Algal assemblages from depositional samples were strongly dominated by diatoms (76% mean relative abundance), whereas erosional samples were dominated by blue-green algae (68% mean relative abundance).Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) of semiquantitative and qualitative (presence/absence) data sets identified four environmental variables (maximum specific conductance, % open canopy, pH, and drainage area) that were significant in describing patterns of algal taxa among sites. Based on CCA, four groups of sites were identified: streams in forested basins that supported oligotrophic taxa, such as Diatoma mesodon;small streams in agricultural and urban basins that contained a variety of eutrophic and nitrogen-heterotrophic algal taxa; larger rivers draining areas of mixed land use that supported planktonic, eutrophic, and nitrogen-heterotrophic algal taxa; and streams with severely degraded or absent riparian vegetation (> 75% open canopy) that were dominated by other planktonic, eutrophic, and nitrogen-heterotrophic algal taxa. Patterns in water chemistry were consistent with the algal autecological interpretations and clearly demonstrated relationships between land use, water quality, and algal distribution patterns.     

Responses of Physical, Chemical, and Biological Indicators of Water Quality to a Gradient of Agricultural Land Use in the Yakima River Basin, Washington

The condition of 25 stream sites in the Yakima River Basin, Washington, were assessed by the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment Program. Multimetric condition indices were developed and used to rank sites on the basis of physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. These indices showed that sites in the Cascades and Eastern Cascades ecoregions were largely unimpaired. In contrast, all but two sites in the Columbia Basin ecoregion were impaired, some severely. Agriculture (nutrients and pesticides) was the primary factor associated with impairment and all impaired sites were characterized by multiple indicators of impairment. All indices of biological condition (fish, invertebrates, and algae) declined as agricultural intensity increased. The response exhibited by invertebrates and algae suggested a threshold response with conditions declining precipitously at relatively low levels of agricultural intensity and little response at moderate to high levels of agricultural intensity. This pattern of response suggests that the success of mitigation will vary depending upon where on the response curve the mitigation is undertaken. Because the form of the community condition response is critical to effective water-quality management, the National Water-Quality Assessment Program is conducting studies to examine the response of biota to gradients of land-use intensity and the relevance of these responses to water-quality management. These land-use gradient pilot studies will be conducted in several urban areas starting in 1999.