Assessing Anchor Damage on Coral Reefs: A Case Study in Selection of Environmental Indicators

Because environmental conservation can remove scarce natural resources from competing uses, it is important to gain support for conservation programs by demonstrating that management actions have been effective in achieving their goals. One way to do this is to show that selected significant environmental variables (indicators) vary between managed and unmanaged areas or change over time following implementation of a management regime. However, identifying indicators that reflect environmental conditions relevant to management practices has proven difficult. This paper focuses on developing a framework for choosing indicators in a coral reef habitat. The framework consisted of three phases: (1) information gathering to identify candidate variables; (2) field-testing candidate variables at sites that differ in intensity of human activity, thus identifying potential indicators; and (3) evaluating potential indicators against a set of feasibility criteria to identify the most useful indicators. To identify indicators suitable to measure the success of a management strategy to reduce anchor damage to a coral reef, 24 candidate variables were identified and evaluated at sites with different intensities of anchoring. In this study, measures that reflected injuries to coral colonies were generally more efficient than traditional measures of coral cover in describing the effects of anchoring. The number of overturned colonies was identified as the single most useful indicator of coral reef condition associated with anchoring intensities. The indicator selection framework developed here has the advantages of being transparent, cost efficient, and readily transferable to other types of human activities and management strategies.     

Conservation or Preservation? A Qualitative Study of the Conceptual Foundations of Natural Resource Management

Few disputes in the annals of US environmentalism enjoy the pedigree of the conservation-preservation debate. Yet, although many scholars have written extensively on the meaning and history of conservation and preservation in American environmental thought and practice, the resonance of these concepts outside the academic literature has not been sufficiently examined. Given the significance of the ideals of conservation and preservation in the justification of environmental policy and management, however, we believe that a more detailed analysis of the real-world use and understanding of these ideas is needed. In this paper, we describe the results of a qualitative, semantic study of the concepts of conservation and preservation undertaken in the context of the Chattahoochee National Forest (CNF), located in northern Georgia (USA). Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted with scientists and north Georgia residents either interested or involved in the future management of the forest. Respondents were asked to define conservation and preservation in their own words and to indicate which approach they felt was more appropriate for the management of the CNF. Qualitative content analysis was used to elicit a set of recurring themes for each foundational concept. Taken together, these themes help to flesh out the meaning of conservation and preservation for citizens and scientists today, and illustrate the evolving nature of two of the more significant and venerable ideas animating US environmental policy and management.     

FEASIBILITY OF INTERBASIN WATER TRANSFER1

ABSTRACT: Interbasin water transfer is one of the most controversial water-resources-planning topics. Local communities, particularly those from which the water is to be taken (donor regions), generate enough opposition to doom many projects to failure. The opposition often arises because planners have traditionally considered excess water a free commodity rather than a marketable resource. To make transfer schemes mutually acceptable to donor and recipient regions, visible benefits must be offered. Agreement must be made on an acceptable purchase price and/or on other benefits such as a substantial amount of low flow augmentation or possibly some degree of flood control on the donor source stream. The hydrologic and economic feasibility of water transfer from the East Susquehanna River basin to the Delaware Reservoir System for supplemental supply to the New York City area was investigated. Nine alternative schemes for diversions up to 400 cfs and compensations in the form of low flow augmentation and/or flood control were considered resulting in unit costs to the recipient region between $90 and $380/mg. If only the minimum state-mandated flow is released to the Susquehanna River, the savings to the water recipients would be sufficient to pay a purchase price of about $21/mg, which would be equivalent to a total amount of $420,000/year for an average export of 100 cfs.     

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENERGY CONSERVATION IN A LOW INCOME DEVELOPING COUNTRY: THE CASE OF HAITI

This article assesses the possibilities of establishing more efficient patterns of energy use in Haiti, a country increasingly dependent on imported petroleum products to fuel its economy. The author examines the various consuming sectors of the economy and the options for the use of indigenous fuels in place of petroleum. She next describes the potential roles national energy planning and foreign assistance can play in solving the more pressing of Haiti's energy problems. Four functions are urgently needed: collection of basic energy data, co-ordination of alternative energy development, establishment of an energy office in the government and an effort to co-ordinate bilateral and multilateral assistance in the energy field. Cet article évalue les possibilités d'établir des modèles d'utilisation d'énergie plus efficaces en Haïti, pays de plus en plus dépendant des importations de produits pétroliers pour son économie. L'auteur examine les divers secteurs de consommation de l'économie et les choix qui existent en ce qui concerne l'utilisation des combustibles domestiques à la place du pétrole. L'auteur décrit ensuite les rôles potentiels que peuvent jouer la planification nationale de l'énergie et l'assistance extérieure dans la résolution des problèmes énergétiques les plus urgents du pays. Quatre lignes d'action sont requises d'urgence: le rassemblement des données énergétiques de base, la coordination du développement de sources d'énergie de remplacement, la création d'une direction de l'énergie à l'échelon gouvernemental et la mise en oeuvre d'une politique coordonnée d'assistance bilatérale et multilatérale dans le domaine de l'énergie. Este articulo evalúa las posibilidades de establecer estructuras de consumo de energía mas eficientes en Haiti, pais que tiene una dependencia creciente en el petróleo importado. El autor examina varios sectores consumidores de energia y las opciones existentes para sustituir el petróleo por fuentes energéticas nacionales. Luego examina el rol potencial de la planificación energética nacional y la asistencia extranjera en resolver los problemas energéticos más agudos en Haiti. Se establece la necesidad urgente de las siguientes funciones: colección de información básica sobre energía, coordinación del desarrollo energético, establecimiento de una institución que se ocupe de energía en el gobierno y coordinación de la asistencia bilateral y multilateral en el campo de la energía.     

Fitting a Gamma Distribution Over a Synthetic Unit Hydrograph1

ABSTRACT: Several methods for synthetic unit hydrographs are available in the literature. Most of these methods involve the hand fitting of a curve over a set of a few hydrograph points, which can sometimes be a subjective task. Besides, the user often finds it difficult or simply neglects to adjust the generated unit graph to a runoff volume of one unit (inch, cm, or mm). It is the purpose of this paper to present to the design hydrologist a simple method to fit a smooth gamma distribution over a single point specified by the unit hydrograph peak and the time to peak with a guaranteed unit depth of runoff.     

Non-invasive fetal genotyping for maternal alleles with droplet digital PCR: A comparative study of analytical approaches

Objectives

To develop a flexible droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) workflow to perform non-invasive prenatal diagnosis via relative mutation dosage (RMD) for maternal pathogenic variants with a range of inheritance patterns, and to compare the accuracy of multiple analytical approaches.

Methods

Cell free DNA (cfDNA) was tested from 124 archived maternal plasma samples: 88 cases for sickle cell disease and 36 for rare Mendelian conditions. Three analytical methods were compared: sequential probability ratio testing (SPRT), Bayesian and z-score analyses.

Results

The SPRT, Bayesian and z-score analyses performed similarly well with correct prediction rates of 96%, 97% and 98%, respectively. However, there were high rates of inconclusive results for each cohort, particularly for z-score analysis which was 31% overall. Two samples were incorrectly classified by all three analytical methods; a false negative result predicted for a fetus affected with sickle cell disease and a false positive result predicting the presence of an X-linked IDS variant in an unaffected fetus.

Conclusions

ddPCR can be applied to RMD for diverse conditions and inheritance patterns, but all methods carry a small risk of erroneous results. Further evaluation is required both to reduce the rate of inconclusive results and explore discordant results in more detail.     

The Role of Headwater Streams in Downstream Water Quality1

Abstract: Knowledge of headwater influences on the water‐quality and flow conditions of downstream waters is essential to water‐resource management at all governmental levels; this includes recent court decisions on the jurisdiction of the Federal Clean Water Act (CWA) over upland areas that contribute to larger downstream water bodies. We review current watershed research and use a water‐quality model to investigate headwater influences on downstream receiving waters. Our evaluations demonstrate the intrinsic connections of headwaters to landscape processes and downstream waters through their influence on the supply, transport, and fate of water and solutes in watersheds. Hydrological processes in headwater catchments control the recharge of subsurface water stores, flow paths, and residence times of water throughout landscapes. The dynamic coupling of hydrological and biogeochemical processes in upland streams further controls the chemical form, timing, and longitudinal distances of solute transport to downstream waters. We apply the spatially explicit, mass‐balance watershed model SPARROW to consider transport and transformations of water and nutrients throughout stream networks in the northeastern United States. We simulate fluxes of nitrogen, a primary nutrient that is a water‐quality concern for acidification of streams and lakes and eutrophication of coastal waters, and refine the model structure to include literature observations of nitrogen removal in streams and lakes. We quantify nitrogen transport from headwaters to downstream navigable waters, where headwaters are defined within the model as first‐order, perennial streams that include flow and nitrogen contributions from smaller, intermittent and ephemeral streams. We find that first‐order headwaters contribute approximately 70% of the mean‐annual water volume and 65% of the nitrogen flux in second‐order streams. Their contributions to mean water volume and nitrogen flux decline only marginally to about 55% and 40% in fourth‐ and higher‐order rivers that include navigable waters and their tributaries. These results underscore the profound influence that headwater areas have on shaping downstream water quantity and water quality. The results have relevance to water‐resource management and regulatory decisions and potentially broaden understanding of the spatial extent of Federal CWA jurisdiction in U.S. waters.