A rate of return analysis for public forestry in Ulster

In this paper a rate of return analysis is carried out on public forestry in Northern Ireland. Analysis is based on the results obtained in two very different locations: a 100-hectare acquisition in the western part of the province where the quality of land is generally poor and a 10-hectare plantation in the east where soil and other conditions are reasonably good. The species in question is Sitka spruce, an evergreen variety which is planted for commercial purposes throughout the UK. Rate of return figures obtained here indicate that even with narrow commercial considerations, forestry in Northern Ireland is a sound venture and should expand rapidly to moderate the timber deficiency which exists in the province as well as in the UK and the EEC.     

Prüfung und Bewertung der Auswirkungen von Pflanzenschutzmitteln auf terrestrische Organismen nach der EG-Richtlinie 91/414/EWG

EU Directive 91/414/EEC describes the authorization procedure for plant protection products. According to annex VI of this directive, the EU member states have to ensure that a plant protection product does not have unacceptable effects on the environment. The data requirements and the function of laboratory and field tests in the assessment procedure are discussed for the terrestrial compartment.     

Optimum cutting age for timber resources with carbon sequestration

Determining the optimum cutting age for timber resources has proved to be a very challenging problem for both economists and silviculturists. Based upon Samuelson's seminal work on this issue, the majority of economists have concluded that the optimum felling age occurs at a time when the net marginal benefits fall below the current rate of interest. Recently, concern about climate change has increased the importance of forestry projects, since trees act as natural biological scrubbers by removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. By incorporating these carbon sequestration benefits, this paper re-determines the optimum cutting age using a multiple rotation model. The results of this reformulation show that, in afforestation projects, trees should remain in the ground longer than the period suggested by a timber-only model in order to absorb more CO₂.     

Newly developed Fe3O4–Cr2O3 magnetic nanocomposite for photocatalytic decomposition of 4-chlorophenol in water

Chlorophenols, typically 4-chlorophenols are highly toxic and non-biodegradable organic contaminants which pose serious threat to the environment, particularly when released into aqueous medium. The removal of these pollutants by efficient method has received worldwide concern in recent past. A new Fe_3O_4–Cr_2O_3 magnetic nanocomposite was synthesized by wet chemical method under ultrasonic irradiation. Microstructure and morphology of the nanocomposite were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction(XRD),Fourier transform infrared(FT-IR), and a transmission electron microscope(TEM). Magnetic and optical properties were studied by a vibrating sample magnetometer(VSM) and an ultraviolet–visible(UV–Vis) spectrophotometer respectively. The magnetic nanocomposite(MNC) was used as photocatalyst for effective decomposition of 4-chlorophenol in water under ultraviolet(UV) irradiation.     

Development of Lymantria dispar affected by manganese in food

We studied the response of gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar (Linnaeus) (Lepidoptera: Lymantriidae)) to the content of manganese in food in the laboratory breeding of caterpillars. The food of the caterpillars {Betula pendula Roth (Fagales: Betulaceae) leaves} was contaminated by dipping in the solution of MnCl₂·4H₂O with manganese concentrations of 0, 0.5, 5 and 10 mg ml^?1, by which differentiated manganese contents (307; 632; 4,087 and 8,124 mg kg^?1) were reached. Parameters recorded during the rearing were as follows: effect of manganese on food consumption, mortality and length of the development of caterpillars, pupation and hatching of imagoes. At the same time, manganese concentrations were determined in the offered and unconsumed food, excrements, and exuviae of the caterpillars, pupal cases and imagoes by using the AAS method. As compared with the control, high manganese contents in the food of gypsy moth caterpillars affected the process of development particularly by increased mortality of the first instar caterpillars (8 % mortality for caterpillars with no Mn contamination (T0) and 62 % mortality for subjects with the highest contamination by manganese (T3)), by prolonged development of the first–third instar (18.7 days (T0) and 27.8 days (T3)) and by increased food consumption of the first–third instar {0.185 g of leaf dry matter (T0) and 0.483 g of leaf dry matter (T3)}. The main defence strategy of the caterpillars to prevent contamination by the increased manganese content in food is the translocation of manganese into frass and exuviae castoff in the process of ecdysis. In the process of development, the content of manganese was reduced by excretion in imagoes to 0.5 % of the intake level even at its maximum inputs in food.     

Health cost of a nuclear waste repository,WIPP

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the United States of America's first nuclear waste dumping site, has over the years generated a great deal of concern and controversy. The most sensitive aspect of this project is that it may impose serious health risks on future generations. The first leg of this project is about to be completed and at the time of writing the Department of Energy is planning to perform experiments with a small quantity of waste for operational demonstrations. If everything goes well, then towards the end of this decade large quantities of wastes will be transported to the site for disposal. This article reconsiders the health cost of this project from an economic perspective in light of recent developments in the field of social discounting. As in earlier studies, two cases of health risks are considered: total cancer and genetic deformity over a one million year cutoff period. The analysis shows that whereas ordinary discounting method wipes out the future health detriments, expressed in monetary terms, the modified discounting criterion retains a substantial proportion of such costs in economic analysis.     

Evaluation of soil ecotoxicity tests with functional endpoints for the risk assessment of plant protection products

This paper outlines the state-of-the-art in discussing tests with functional endpoints for the soil compartment for regulatory purposes. In spite of the fact that organic matter decomposition is one of the most important functions in the soil ecosystem, this process has not been the subject of a test requirement for risk assessment of plant protection products until very recently. Since EU Directive 91/414/EEC concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market requires in its Annex III, point 10.6.2 (entitled “Effects on other soil, non-target macro-organisms”), the evaluation of effects on organic matter breakdown, there is an urgent need to fulfil this requirement. The use of functional endpoints in terrestrial model ecosystems is also under discussion in the framework of the notification process for chemicals. Four potential methods (bait-lamina-test, litterbag test, minicontainer test, cotton-strip assay) taken from ecological literature are briefly reviewed and evaluated in this paper using several defined criteria regarding their usefulness for registration purposes. In this context, areas for further research are identified. The insecticide Dimilin (a.i. diflubenzuron) is used as an example to show how such a test improves risk assessment. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that a guidance paper describing the main principles of at least one test method on organic matter decomposition should be written in order to realise the EU requirement.     

Multi-objective optimization of a novel crude lipase-catalyzed fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) production using low-order polynomial and Kriging models

In this paper, conventional response surface methodology (RSM) based on low-order polynomials and an alternative Kriging-based method are used for the model-based single and multi-objective optimization of fatty-acid methyl ester (FAME) production catalyzed by a novel crude lipase from the yeast Cryptococcus diffluens (D44). The coefficient of determination for the two modeling approaches was calculated as 0.97 for the Kriging method, and 0.86 for RSM; showing a more reliable representation of experimental data by Kriging. Both models were used to perform single (maximizing FAME titer and temporal productivity separately) and multi-objective (maximizing FAME titer and temporal productivity simultaneously) optimizations of four important operating conditions (reaction time and temperature; amount of crude enzyme; and volume of methanol used). In all cases, the highest temperature considered (60°C) gave the best results. A reduction of reaction time in half was seen to be necessary to achieve optimum productivity compared to titer, when the two objectives were considered separately. The observed trade-off between the two objectives was quantified via multi-objective optimization using Pareto-front analysis.     

Bewertung der Auswirkungen von Pflanzenschutzmitteln auf Regenwürmer

The fundamental data requirements for the authorization of plant protection products and the inclusion of active ingredients in Annex I of Council Directive 91/414/EEC are described in Annexes II and III of the Directive. The uniform principles for the registration of plant protection products in the Member States described in Annex VI of the Directive were primarily developed to assess the effects on the soil functions with regard to agriculture. A tiered approach was developed to assess the effects of plant protection products on earthworms based on the data requirements of Annex II and III of Directive 91/414/EEC. The risk is assessed using the effect-concentration evaluated in ecotoxicological tests and the predicted or calculated environmental concentration. To protect the whole range of naturally occurring species in terrestrial biocenosis assessment factors need to be considered.