Development of a risk measure as a sustainable project selection criterion

SUMMARY

Sustainable decision-making requires consideration of technology, ecology, and the social and political infrastructure of society. While it may never be possible to identify with certainty what is sustainable and what is not, an attempt has been made in this paper to formulate a measure that permits one to compare the performances of project alternatives with respect to risk. An algorithm is presented for the evaluation of a risk criterion that can be used with other criteria in the process of selecting project alternatives. The intent of the risk criterion is to involve project stakeholders in the process of quantifying the risks associated with different project alternatives.     

Use of pharmaceuticals and pesticides to constrain nutrient sources in coastal groundwater of northwestern Long Island, New York, USA

In developed, non-agricultural, unsewered areas, septic systems and fertilizer application to lawns and gardens represent two major sources of nitrogen to coastal groundwater, in addition to atmospheric input. This study was designed to distinguish between these two possible nitrogen sources by analyzing groundwater samples for pharmaceutical residuals, because fertilizers do not contain any of these pharmaceuticals, but domestic wastewater commonly does. In addition, several herbicides and insecticides used in lawn treatment were analyzed as indicators of nitrogen delivery to groundwater from fertilizers. Groundwater samples were taken through piezometres at shoreline sites in unsewered areas surrounding Northport Harbor and in sewered areas adjacent to Manhasset Bay (hereafter referred to as "Northport" and "Manhasset", respectively), both in northwestern Long Island, USA. Excessive nitrogen loading has led to reduced dissolved oxygen concentrations in Long Island Sound, and the groundwater contribution to the nitrogen budget is poorly constrained. The frequent detection of the anticonvulsant compound carbamazepine in groundwater samples of the Northport Harbor area (unsewered), together with the fact that few pesticides associated with lawn applications were detected, suggests that wastewater input and atmospheric input are the likely sources of nitrogen in the Northport groundwater. High concentrations of nitrogen were also detected in the Manhasset (sewered) groundwater. The low detection frequency and concentration of carbamazepine, however, suggest that the sewer system effectively intercepts nitrogen from wastewater there. The likely sources of nitrogen in the Manhasset groundwater are atmospheric deposition and lawn fertilizers, as this area is densely populated.     

Further Development of a Specific Conductivity Approach to Measure Groundwater Discharge Area within Lakes

Groundwater exchanges with most lakes are rarely quantified because there are many technical challenges to quantification. We investigated a lakebed mapping approach to infer the relative areas of groundwater exchange in 12 prairie shallow lakes and five Laurentian mixed forest shallow lakes in Minnesota, USA in 2011. We used a relatively common approach (seepage meters) to provide baseline information on the magnitude and direction of flow at four locations in each lake. To expand from point measurements to the whole‐lake scale, we explored use of specific conductivity as a cheaper and more time efficient proxy for groundwater discharge to lakes. We validated the approach at near shore stations in each lake where seepage meter measurements and specific conductivity surveys overlapped. Specific conductivity surveys provided a similar assessment of groundwater discharge compared to seepage meters for 50% of the lake‐sampling period combinations. The lakebed mapping approach, when validated for a lake with a limited number of seepage meter (or alternative methods) measurements, offers the advantages of being more time and labor efficient over the use of a similar number of seepage meter monitoring locations; seepage meters (or piezometers, for example) are costlier in terms of equipment and labor, even for single‐lake studies. We show the combined approach could provide useful baselines for understanding and mapping groundwater exchange in shallow lakes.     

Assessment of a delta15N isotopic method to indicate anthropogenic eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems

Increased anthropogenic delivery of nutrients to water bodies, both freshwater and estuarine, has caused detrimental changes in habitat, food web structure, and nutrient cycling. Nitrogen-stable isotopes may be suitable indicators of such increased nutrient delivery. In this study, we looked at the differences in response of macrophyte delta15N values to anthropogenic N across different taxonomic groups and geographic regions to test a stable isotopic method for detecting anthropogenic impacts. Macrophyte delta15N values increased with wastewater input and water-column dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) concentration. When macrophytes were divided into macroalgae and plants, they responded similarly to increases in wastewater N, although macroalgae was a more reliable indicator of both wastewater inputs and water-column DIN concentrations. Smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora Loisel.) Delta15N increased uniformly with wastewater inputs across a geographic range. We used the relationship derived between S. alterniflora and relative wastewater load to predict wastewater loads in locations lacking quantitative land use data. The predictions matched well with known qualitative information, proving the use of a stable isotopic method for predicting wastewater input.     

Urban forests and pollution mitigation: analyzing ecosystem services and disservices

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the concepts of ecosystem services and disservices when assessing the efficacy of using urban forests for mitigating pollution. A brief review of the literature identifies some pollution mitigation ecosystem services provided by urban forests. Existing ecosystem services definitions and typologies from the economics and ecological literature are adapted and applied to urban forest management and the concepts of ecosystem disservices from natural and semi-natural systems are discussed. Examples of the urban forest ecosystem services of air quality and carbon dioxide sequestration are used to illustrate issues associated with assessing their efficacy in mitigating urban pollution. Development of urban forest management alternatives that mitigate pollution should consider scale, contexts, heterogeneity, management intensities and other social and economic co-benefits, tradeoffs, and costs affecting stakeholders and urban sustainability goals.     

Genotype-specific responses of fluctuating asymmetry and of preadult survival to the effects of lead and temperature stress in Drosophila melanogaster

Although fluctuating asymmetry (FA) increases with exposure to certain types of environmental stressors such as temperature extremes, relatively little is known about the effects of interaction (e.g., synergism) between known sources of environmental stress on FA. Knowledge of such interaction effects, and of the magnitude of genotype-by-environment interaction, are of fundamental importance toward predicting the usefulness of FA as a bioindicator of environmental pollution. We tested for synergistic effects on FA between elevated temperature and exposure to lead, and examined FA responses simultaneously in four genetic strains of Drosophila melanogaster known to differ in their degree of developmental instability, and presumably in their buffering capacity. In the absence of heavy metal, bristle FA increased with temperature, but in the presence of lead, FA at high temperature (30 (degrees)C) was reduced to levels similar, or below, that at lower temperature (25 (degrees)C). This temperature by lead interaction was statistically significant, but paradoxical in that the disruptive effects of temperature appeared to be attenuated in the presence of the heavy metal. In no case was there a significant effect of lead on bristle FAs, despite documented assimilation of heavy metal by flies, and in no case was the genotype by environment interaction significant. Whereas lead treatment did not influence survival, survival was reduced at the high temperature, but significantly so only in one genetic strain (Oregon-R). There was no relationship between survival and FA across stress treatments within lines. Thus, any disproportionate stress-induced mortality in developmentally unstable classes (developmental selection) was unlikely to bias the FA results. Our results underscore the need for independent replication of significant findings before FA-based biomonitoring can be responsibly and effectively implemented. The results call for caution in using FA as a biomarker of stress, because stress factors may interact in complex and unpredictable ways, which could result in erroneous conclusions about real levels of stress present in field populations, under the unduly simplistic assumption that stress factors will act additively to increase FA.