The influence of acidic mine and spoil drainage on water quality in the mid-Wales area

The many abandoned base metal mines of the mid-Wales ore field are sources of extensive pollution. Some of the mineralised veins contain large amounts of pyrite and marcasite and oxidative weathering of these produces sulphuric acid resulting in very acidic mine drainage waters. In addition, the spoil tips associated with these mines can contain abundant iron sulphides. Drainage waters from these sources have pH values as low as 2.6 and are heavily contaminated with metals such as Al, Zn, Cd and Ni.Two of the main rivers of the area, the Rheidol and Ystwyth, intercept heavily contaminated acidic drainage which has a marked effect on water quality. The Rheidol contains over 100 g L^–1 Zn for 16 km downstream of the acid water influx. This level is over three times the recommended EEC limit for Zn in salmonoid waters of low hardness.     

A course in Environmental Planning and Management

Summary This paper describes a 13-weeks, third-year course in Environmental Planning and Management developed and taught by the authors. Initiated in 1969, the course consists of a mix of lectures, seminars, workshop/laboratory sessions and field-based projects. The objectives of the course are for students: to become aware of the need for, and the complexities of, environmental management; to be able to criticise constructively work done by environmental agencies and consultants, managers and decision makers; and to learn and apply some of the methods and techniques used in environmental management.Topics covered by the current syllabus are: concepts of resource and environment; constitutional aspects; international law and the environment; Australian and Canadian environmental legislation and agencies; human manipulation of ecosystems; energy subsidies; modification of biogeochemical cycles; population dynamics and cropping; fisheries; national parks and reserves—policies in different countries; international heritage areas; environmental assessment (including impact assessment, land evaluation, land capability and land suitability assessment); and regional, integrated land-use and environmental planning and management. Techniques taught include: field surveys and interviewing; laboratory analysis of selected water quality, sediment and soil parameters including nutrient concentrations, heavy metal and pesticide residues; and for some students, applications of geographic information systems (GIS) technology following preceding GIS courses.A major problem is selecting the most appropriate mix between the social and natural sciences—appropriate, first in terms of students' heterogeneous skills and backgrounds, and second, in terms of understanding the causes of environmental problems and issues, and devising practicable solutions.     

Congestion and participation in outdoor recreation: A household production function approach

This paper examines the effects of congestion on recreational behavior within a household production model of consumer behavior. We assume that congestion affects the household's ability to produce constant quality recreational service flows and derive a reduced-form model for participation decisions in remote and developed camping. Empirical estimates of the effects of a congestion measure on the conditional probability of participation as well as on the level of participation are estimated for each activity by the type of trip using information from the 1972 National Recreation Survey. The findings suggest that congestion was most likely to affect the decision to participate and not the level once that decision had been made. While differences in these effects were observed across the activities studied, it is not clear how they should be interpreted since our congestion measure was a proxy variable likely to perform better for remote camping than developed camping.     

Intertemporal and intergenerational Pareto efficiency

Efficiency conditions are derived for both private and public goods which provide benefits over time. In deriving these conditions, the paper extends the notion of efficiency to an intertemporal Pareto-optimal concept requiring the maximization of the ith individual's utility at a point of time subject to the constancy of his utility in all future periods and that of all other individuals during the relevant time span. By permitting births and deaths, a generalization of the basic model recasts the analysis into an intergenerational setting. Additional extensions involve learning by doing and perpetual public goods. The paper concludes that several of the conventional practices in public expenditure analysis do not conform to our definition of intertemporal Pareto efficiency.     

Using long-term data for a reintroduced population to empirically estimate future consequences of inbreeding

Inbreeding depression is an important long-term threat to reintroduced populations. However, the strength of inbreeding depression is difficult to estimate in wild populations because pedigree data are inevitably incomplete and because good data are needed on survival and reproduction. Predicting future population consequences is especially difficult because this also requires projecting future inbreeding levels and their impacts on long-term population dynamics, which are subject to many uncertainties. We illustrate how such projections can be derived through Bayesian state-space modeling methods based on a 26-year data set for North Island Robins (Petroica longipes) reintroduced to Tiritiri Matangi Island in 1992. We used pedigree data to model increases in the average inbreeding level (F ) over time based on kinship of possible breeding pairs and to estimate empirically N_e/N (effective/census population size). We used multiple imputation to model the unknown components of inbreeding coefficients, which allowed us to estimate effects of inbreeding on survival for all 1458 birds in the data set while modeling density dependence and environmental stochasticity. This modeling indicated that inbreeding reduced juvenile survival (1.83 lethal equivalents [SE 0.81]) and may have reduced subsequent adult survival (0.44 lethal equivalents [0.81]) but had no apparent effect on numbers of fledglings produced. Average inbreeding level increased to 0.10 (SE 0.001) as the population grew from 33 (0.3) to 160 (6) individuals over the 25 years, giving a ratio of 0.56 (0.01). Based on a model that also incorporated habitat regeneration, the population was projected to reach a maximum of 331–1144 birds (median 726) in 2130, then to begin a slow decline. Without inbreeding, the population would be expected stabilize at 887–1465 birds (median 1131). Such analysis, therefore, makes it possible to empirically derive the information needed for rational decisions about inbreeding management while accounting for multiple sources of uncertainty.     

Another avenue of action: an examination of climate change countermovement industries’ use of PAC donations and their relationship to Congressional voting over time

The political mobilization of American business elites in the 1970s and 1980s has been well studied by political scientists. Environmental sociologists have explored how industries in this elite countermovement have organized to prevent environmental legislation. The literature often focuses on the efforts of this movement to shape public opinion on climate change. However, political scientists argue business elites are running several parallel strategies simultaneously in order to protect their interests. FEC data are utilized in multilevel logit models to examine how donations from industrial Political Action Committees (PACs) relate to Congressional representative’s environmental voting behavior over a 20-year period. Industries associated with the environmental countermovement have increasingly used PAC donations over time, and every additional $10,000 a representative received from countermovement industries significantly decreased odds of their taking the pro-environmental stance even when controlling for representatives’ demographics, districts, Congressional polarization and time-period.     

Protected Area Safeguard Tree and Shrub Communities from Degradation and Invasion: A Case Study in Eastern Madagascar

Despite their prevalence in both developed and developing countries, there have been surprisingly few field assessments of the ecological effectiveness of protected areas. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a key protected area in eastern Madagascar, Ranomafana National Park (RNP). We established paired 100 × 4-m vegetation transects (400 m²) within RNP and in remnant forests in the park’s peripheral zone. In each 400-m² plot, all woody stems >1.5 cm in diameter at breast height were measured and identified to species. All species were also identified as native or non-native. We identified utilitarian species within all transects and they were sorted into use category. We calculated plot-level taxonomic biodiversity and functional diversity of utilitarian species; the latter was calculated by clustering the multivariate distances between species based on their utilitarian traits, and all metrics were tested using paired t-tests. Our results showed that there was significantly higher biodiversity inside RNP than in remnant forests and this pattern was consistent across all diversity metrics examined. Forests not located within the park’s boundary had significantly higher non-native species than within RNP. There was no statistically significant difference in functional diversity of utilitarian species inside RNP vs. remnant forests; however, the overall trend was toward higher diversity inside park boundaries. These findings suggested that RNP has been effective at maintaining taxonomic diversity relative to surrounding unprotected areas and restricting the spread of non-native plants. The results also suggested that low functional redundancy of forests outside of RNP might be of concern, because residents in surrounding villages may have few other substitutes for the services provided by species that are of critical importance to their livelihoods. This study highlights the challenges of trying to reconcile biodiversity conservation with human use of natural resources in economically poor, remote areas.     

Review of Agri-Environment Indexes and Stewardship Payments

Agri-environment programs aim to secure environmental and social stewardship services through payments to farmers. A critical component of many agri-environment programs is an agri-environment index (AEI) used to quantify benefits and target investments. An AEI will typically comprise multiple indicators, which are weighted and combined using a utility function, to measure the benefit of investment options (e.g., projects, farms, regions). This article presents a review of AEIs with 11 case studies from agri-environment programs in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. We identify a generic procedure used to define AEIs and explore the implications of alternative methodological approaches. We conclude that AEIs have become an extremely important policy instrument and make suggestions for their improvement.