Justice in sustainability indicators and indexes

At least since the Brundtland Report, technical assessments of what can be sustained and values about what is desirable to sustain, for whom, and for how long have been intertwined. This intersection is particularly evident in the assumption that justice among people living today and between present and future generations is a key part of sustainability. In official international policy documents and academic studies of sustainability, this justice may include the equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, distributive justice, or the ability of people to meaningfully contribute to decisions that affect their lives, participatory justice. Yet, the process of developing indicators and indexes to track movement toward or away from sustainability has been dominated by technical, economic, and environmental assessments. This raises questions about whether or not indexes align with and thus will monitor and encourage progress toward sustainability in a technically possible and desirable way. To begin to answer this question, this paper identifies definitions of justice used in sustainability discourse and evaluates the degree to which sustainability indicators and indexes align with these concepts. The 2010 Environmental Performance Index, Eurostat's Sustainable Development Indicators, and a group of local indicators and indexes are examined. It is found that the indicators embody various aspects of justice, though they are still significantly limited by the available data, especially as they generally cannot monitor inequities between subpopulations and have a limited capacity to monitor progress toward participatory justice.     

Oxygen as a limiting factor in phototaxis and in intraclonal spacing of the sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima

Phototaxis in Anthopleura elegantissima, a sea anemone symbiotic with zooxanthellae, was investigated with special reference to oxygen as a possible controlling factor. Under high oxygen concentrations in seawater, movement towards light was not observed for symbiotic anamones as it was under normal oxygen concentrations. Both aposymbiotic and symbiotic anemones demonstrated movement towards high oxygen concentrations in seawater. Oxygen is, therefore, implicated as a controlling factor in phototaxis. Under laboratory conditions, increased intraclonal spacing occurred with low oxygen concentrations in seawater. In the field, individuals in symbiotic clones were spaced significantly closer than in aposymbiotic clones. Since intraclonal spacing is controlled by oxygen in the laboratory, spacing may also be affected in the field by oxygen; symbiotic clones may be spaced closer because they have better oxygen availability than do aposymbiotic clones.     

Phytoremediation of dissolved phase organic compounds: Optimal site considerations relative to field case studies

The United States Environmental Protection Agency/Environmental Response Team (EPA/ERT) has been supporting and implementing the use of phytoremediation to remediate dissolved phase organic compounds at Superfund sites since March 1996. Since then, ERT has applied phytoremediation field plots, both pilot and full scale, to a variety of field conditions. These active sites vary considerably as to depth to groundwater, groundwater transmissivity, contaminant concentrations, contaminant hydrophobicity, climate, planting design, plant selection, planting technique, and type of monitoring. Here we compare the literature and discuss lessons learned at five Superfund sites. Current maintenance and monitoring techniques at these sites are also discussed with recommendations for the maintenance and monitoring of similar sites in the future. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.