Factors influencing survival in case of shipwreck and other maritime disasters in the Danish merchant fleet since 1970

During the last 40 years, merchant ships have become safer and a number of new safety measures have been introduced. The purpose of the first part of this study was to investigate the trend of fatalities due to maritime disasters in the Danish merchant fleet over a 40-year period from 1970 to 2009, during which a total of 146 seafarers lost their lives. The relative risk of fatal accidents in the period 1990–2009 compared with the period 1970–1989 was 0.81 (CI: 0.58–1.14).The second part of the study focuses on seafarers who abandoned a merchant ship in the period from 1990 to 2009. The purpose was to investigate factors influencing survival. During the 20-year period 44 incidents were identified involving a total of 267 seafarers. Among these, 51 did not survive. The fatality risk for seafarers on small and large ships was 3.68 and 0.64 per 1000 years at risk, respectively. Among the 171 seafarers who were rescued dry, one was injured and did not survive (0.6%). Out of 64 seafarers ending up in the water, 18 (28%) did not survive. Among the remaining 32 seafarers, 23 were with great certainty inside the vessel when it sank and another nine may have remained inside the sinking vessel. None of these survived. Suboptimal organisation of the evacuation process was of importance in some cases. Survival suits and automatic emergency transmitters (EPIRB’s) have been shown to work in practice but their introduction has had limited influence on survival statistics.     

The production, use and quality of sewage sludge in Denmark

In Denmark, the production of municipal sewage sludge decreased from approximately 170,000 ton d.m. in 1994 to 140,000 ton d.m. in 2002. The sludge is handled and treated in a number of ways. The quality of Danish sludge has steadily improved since the middle of the 1980s, when the first set of quality criteria for heavy metals was introduced. In 1997, cut-off criteria for the organic pollutants, LAS, DEHP, nonylphenol and PAHs were introduced. Effective control from authorities, voluntary phasing out agreements with industry, improved source identification tools, better handling and after-care methods have in combination with higher waste duties led to a significant reduction in the sludge level of especially cadmium, mercury, chromium, LAS and nonylphenol. The increased quality demand has, nevertheless, also led to a minor reduction in the use of sewage sludge as organic fertiliser on agricultural land.     

A national ozone biomonitoring program--results from field surveys of ozone sensitive plants in northeastern forests (1994-2000)

Ozone biomonitoring is a detection and monitoring techniquethat involves documenting ozone-induced visible injury toknown ozone-sensitive species under conditions of ambientexposure. The USDA Forest Service administers a long-term,nationwide ozone biomonitoring program to address public andscientific concerns about ozone impacts on forest health. Asystematic grid is used as the basis for biomonitoring sitelocations. At each site, trained field crews evaluate amaximum of thirty plants of up to six species and record the amount and severity of leaf-injury on individualplants. Injury from ozone was found more often on biomonitoring sites in the eastern Unites States than in theinterior or west-coast areas. Further results from thenortheast reveal that in any year, there is a higherpercentage of ozone-injured plants with more severe symptomsin areas with relatively high ozone concentrations than inareas with relatively low ozone. In very dry years (e.g.,1999) the percentage of injured plants and injury severityestimates are both sharply reduced even though ambient ozoneexposures are high. These findings demonstrate thatbiomonitoring data provide meaningful evidence of when highozone concentrations during the growing season have biologicalsignificance. Any assessment of ozone stress in the forestenvironment must include both biomonitoring (i.e., plantresponse) and air quality data to be complete.     

Characteristics and drivers of forest cover change in the post-socialist era in Croatia: evidence from a mixed-methods approach

Extensive forests in Croatia represent an important biological and economic resource in Europe. They are characterised by heterogeneity in forest management practices dating back to the socialist planned economy of the pre-1991 era. In this study we investigated the difference in rates of deforestation and reforestation in private- and state-owned forests during the post-socialist period and the causal drivers of change. The selected region of Northern Croatia is characterised by a high percentage of privately owned forests with minimal national monitoring and control. We used a mixed-methods approach which combines remote sensing, statistical modelling and a household-based questionnaire survey to assess the rates of forest cover change and factors influencing those changes. The results show that predominantly privately owned forests in Northern Croatia have recorded a net forest loss of 1.8 % during the 1991–2011 period, while Croatia overall is characterised by a 10 % forest cover increase in predominantly state-owned forests. Main factors influencing forest cover changes in private forests are slope, altitude, education structure, population age and population density. The results also show that the deforestation in private forests is weakening overall, mostly due to the continuation of the de-agrarisation and de-ruralisation processes which began during socialism.     

Archetypical patterns and trajectories of land systems in Europe

Regional Environmental Change - Assessments of land-system change have dominantly focused on conversions among broad land-use categories, whereas intensity changes within these categories have...     

REACh im praxistest

In October 2003, the EU Commission presented the proposal for a new Chemicals Regulation. In late autumn 2005, Parliament and Council were working on finding their position on the Commission’s proposal. From November 2004 to April 2005, a simulation was carried out at EU level aiming to test the workability of registration under REACh. Based on a strategic partnership, the European Chemical Industry Council together with other industry associations, the EU Commission and a number of Member States had launched this project. 53 manufacturers or users of chemicals and competent authorities of 13 EU Member States took part in the simulation: eight registration cases were dealt with in parallel. The participants had to conduct the registration of a substance (including preparatory work) and the dossier evaluation by the authorities. The simulation was performed in a ’free-flow mode’, which means, that the participants worked without any guidance on how to practically implement the duties and tasks as laid down in the draft regulation. In the final phase of the project, the three strategic parners worked towards a common understanding on potential workability problems and suitable options for solutions. This process resulted in a report including a set of agreed recommendations on 12 identified workability issues The recommendations are mostly related to the co-operation between registrants, the sharing of responsibilities and communication between manufactures and down-stream users as well as technical and scientific aspects of dossier compilation., In addition, the recommendations address the need to develop a common understanding across Europe regarding the role of authorities in evaluating the registration dossiers and developing suitable tools for the evaluation. In addition to the set of practical recommendations, SPORT has demonstrated that useful insights in the workability of a new piece of legislation can be gained from simulating the key processes in practise already during the legislative process. Such pilot trials could be seen as a contribution toBetter Regulation, one of the strategic goals of the EU Commission.     

Field responses of Prunus serotina and Asclepias syriaca to ozone around southern Lake Michigan

Higher ozone concentrations east of southern Lake Michigan compared to west of the lake were used to test hypotheses about injury and growth effects on two plant species. We measured approximately 1000 black cherry trees and over 3000 milkweed stems from 1999 to 2001 for this purpose. Black cherry branch elongation and milkweed growth and pod formation were significantly higher west of Lake Michigan while ozone injury was greater east of Lake Michigan. Using classification and regression tree (CART) analyses we determined that departures from normal precipitation, soil nitrogen and ozone exposure/peak hourly concentrations were the most important variables affecting cherry branch elongation, and milkweed stem height and pod formation. The effects of ozone were not consistently comparable with the effects of soil nutrients, weather, insect or disease injury, and depended on species. Ozone SUM06 exposures greater than 13 ppm-h decreased cherry branch elongation 18%; peak 1-h exposures greater than 93 ppb reduced milkweed stem height 13%; and peak 1-h concentrations greater than 98 ppb reduced pod formation 11% in milkweed.     

Sociopolitical drivers and environmental outcomes of protected area downgrading and degazettement in Cambodia

Regional Environmental Change - Climate change has severe impacts on the livelihoods of West-African communities with the floods of the late 2000s and early 2010s serving as factual evidence....