Fossil bog soils (‘<Emphasis Type="Italic">dwog</Emphasis> horizons’) and their relation to Holocene coastal changes in the Jade Weser region,southern North Sea,Germany

After the deceleration of the postglacial marine transgression, the German North Sea coast was subject to deposition of a complex pattern of subtidal to terrestrial facies. This study aims at reconstructing these facies changes in the ‘Land Wursten’ region (Lower Saxony) by focussing on so-called dwog horizons (incipient soil horizons of the pre-engineered salt marshes). We explore their implications for relative sea-level reconstructions and their indication for early settlement activities. Archive drilling data (1960, provided by the ‘Landesamt für Bergbau, Energie und Geologie’) were analysed to create five high-resolution stratigraphic cross sections. Three new drilling records were subjected to sedimentological and microfaunal investigations and interpreted to verify and calibrate the archive data. Two dwog horizons were found and ¹⁴C-AMS dated. We found basal salt marsh deposits inundated by a high-energy event and covered by tidal flat sediments. The thick tidal flat unit is again overlain by salt marsh deposits indicating the transition from a shallow marine to a terrestrial environment where dwogs were developed and covered by episodic marine incursions. The ages of the dwogs (1128–969 cal BC; cal AD 1426–1467) do not correlate with known layers of adjacent settlement sites and are critically discussed. However, we show that they correlate with phases of stagnant regional relative sea level (RSL) and can be used as RSL indicators. The combined archive and modern data provide valuable information for the RSL reconstruction and palaeoenvironmental changes. However, further research is recommended to accomplish more detailed information about coastal response during the Holocene sea-level changes and implications for settlement dynamics.     

Migration drivers in mountain regions in the context of climate change:A case study in Shangnan County of China

Climate change has become widely accepted as a challenge that humans will face in the not-too-distant future.Mountain ecosystems and their inhabitants are among the most vulnerable to climate change.This paper seeks to explain migration drivers in specific mountain regions in the context of climate change based on Foresight’s conceptual framework.A climate change sensitive field named Shangnan County in southern Shaanxi Province is chosen as the case study area to investigate local migration drivers.A series of qualitative research methods is employed in the case study including participant observation,semi-structured interviews,and focus group discussions.The evidence of survey suggests that migration decisions are not only shaped by macro factors in aspects of environmental,economics,demographic,social,politics and psychological,but also influenced by placed-related barriers and facilitating mechanisms and personal characteristics.     

The development of a prototype behavioral marker system for US Navy officers of the deck

The officer of the deck (OOD) of a US Navy ship is in charge of the safe and proper operation of the ship, and accountable to the commanding officer for every event that occurs during his or her OOD watch. This paper discusses the development of a prototype behavioral marker system to evaluate, and provide feedback on, the nontechnical (cognitive, social, and personal resource) skills of OODs.An initial set of 17 categories of nontechnical skills were identified from a literature review. A focus group with four qualified OODs used the skills identified from the literature review to develop an initial taxonomy of five categories, each with two or three corresponding behavioral elements. This taxonomy was then used to classify 149 statements concerned with the nontechnical skills of OODs collected from 16 critical incident interviews. After three iterations of adaptations to the taxonomy, two independent raters were able to reach acceptable levels of reliability in using the taxonomy to classify the statements. Although further development work is required, it is suggested that the prototype behavioral marker system has implications for improving safety and performance on military and civilian ships.     

混凝沉淀—气浮—生化处理洗毛废水

采用混凝沉淀－气浮－生化处理洗毛废水。混凝沉淀－气浮在进水ＣＯＤ１４５００ｍｇ／Ｌ,处理水量２０００ｍ＾３／ｄ,ＣＯＤ去除率９０％;ＨＲＴ ３２ｈ生化处理时,出水ＣＯＤ为１８７ｍｇ／ｌ,可达到污水综合排放二级标准（洗毛行业）。     

Characterization of on-road vehicle emission factors and microenvironmental air quality in Beijing,China

In this paper, we report the results and analysis of a recent field campaign in August 2007 investigating the impacts of emissions from transportation on air quality and community concentrations in Beijing, China. We conducted measurements in three different environments, on-road, roadside and ambient. The carbon monoxide, black carbon and ultrafine particle number emission factors for on-road light-duty vehicles are derived to be 95 g kg^?1-fuel, 0.3 g kg^?1-fuel and 1.8 × 10¹⁵ particles kg^?1-fuel, respectively. The emission factors for on-road heavy-duty vehicles are 50 g kg^?1-fuel, 1.3 g kg^?1-fuel and 1.1 × 10¹⁶ particles kg^?1-fuel, respectively. The carbon monoxide emission factors from this study agree with those derived from remote sensing and on-board vehicle emission testing systems in China. The on-road black carbon and particle number emission factors for Chinese vehicles are reported for the first time in the literature. Strong traffic impacts can be observed from the concentrations measured in these different environments. Most clear is a reflection of diesel truck traffic activity in black carbon concentrations. The comparison of the particle size distributions measured at the three environments suggests that the traffic is a major source of ultrafine particles. A four-day traffic control experiment conducted by the Beijing Government as a pilot to test the effectiveness of proposed controls was found to be effective in reducing extreme concentrations that occurred at both on-road and ambient environments.     

Institutional challenges of adopting ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change

In view of past environmental degradation and anticipated climate change impacts, we assessed the potential for ecosystem-based adaptation in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. In a workshop with staff from three Catchment Management Authorities (CMAs) who had jurisdiction over three sub-basins, as well as technical experts, nine adaptation options were identified that ranged from environmental flows, restoring river channel habitat, reoperating infrastructure and controlling invasive species. A Catchment Adaptation Framework was developed and used to assess and compare these adaptation options with each of the CMAs, drawing on interviews with their key stakeholders, to identify the risks, benefits and costs. We found that ecosystem-based adaptation can augment catchment management programs and requires investment in a suite of different but complementary measures to lower risk. Our research found institutional challenges in implementing this approach, including the complexities of multi-agency management, constricting legal requirements, narrow funding arrangements, under-developed institutional capacity, difficulties of implementing catchment-scale programs on private property and the need to adhere to community expectations. These institutional issues are ubiquitous internationally and point to the wider issues of providing sufficient management capacity to support adaptation. The Catchment Adaptation Framework presented here enables river basin managers to systematically assess the adaptation options to better inform their decision-making.     

Adaptive evolution in urban ecosystems

Urban ecologists have demonstrated that cities are functioning ecosystems. It follows then that species living in these contexts should participate in and experience the same suite of biological processes, including evolution, that have occupied scientists for centuries in more “natural” contexts. In fact, urban ecosystems with myriad novel contexts, pressures, and species rosters provide unprecedentedly potent evolutionary stimuli. Here, we present the case for studying adaptive evolution in urban settings. We then review and synthesize techniques into a coherent approach for studying adaptive evolution in urban settings that combines observations of phenotypic divergence, measurements of fitness benefits of novel genetically based phenotypes, and experimental manipulations of potential drivers of adaptation. We believe that studying evolution in urban contexts can provide insights into fundamental evolutionary biology questions on rate, direction, and repeatability of evolution, and may inform species and ecosystem service conservation efforts.     

A methodology to identify representative configurations of sensors for monitoring soil moisture

Soil moisture is the key link among hydroecological compartments, responding dynamically to sequences of atmospheric processes and management conditions and modulating physical, chemical, and biological processes in the soil. Currently, there are a variety of monitoring techniques to measure, directly or indirectly, the soil moisture. However, some practical issues remain open like the definition a priori of the number, location and depth of the monitoring points, and the impact of failing or poor performance soil moisture sensors. Here, we present a set of techniques, namely Δθ time series, wavelet filtering, and time stability, to identify representative points and monitoring depths through an analysis of hourly soil moisture time series for different configuration of the monitoring network. We used real data from a monitoring network consisting of seven monitoring points, each one with four EC-5 probes (Decagon Devices Inc., Pullman, WA) at 20, 40, 60, and 100?cm. The use of simple time series of Δθ allowed us to assess the spatiotemporal influence of the monitoring points, while the wavelet periodograms allowed us to get insight about the response of the monitoring points at different time scales. Both methods are easy to implement or adapt to specific conditions, being coherent to the results derived from time stability analysis. For our case study, we concluded that we could reallocate 16 sensors (out of 28) without a significant loss of information. However, the final decision strongly relies on a deep knowledge of the site features and the objectives of the monitoring network.