Dynamic effects of fiscal and monetary policy instruments on environmental pollution in ASEAN

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study aims to re-examine the impacts of monetary and fiscal policy on environmental quality in ASEAN countries from 1990 to 2019. We utilized the...     

Lithium extraction from salt lake brines with high magnesium/lithium ratio: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - The demand for lithium is growing rapidly with the increase in electric vehicles, batteries and electronic equipments. Lithium can be extracted from brines, yet...     

How does eliminating mercury from artisanal and small-scale gold mining lead to achieving sustainable development goals?

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is the principal anthropogenic activity that globally contributes to overloading our environment with mercury. Although the Minamata Convention, led by the United Nations, is a crucial instrument to eliminate its use progressively, novel approaches to accelerate this difficult transition are welcome. This article proposes a framework for policy-making or improvement, fostering the enforcement of mercury elimination through the lens of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), focusing on the excluded artisanal and small-scale gold miners and their dependents. We move forward with a literature review of the Artisanal and Small Mining topic, taking each SDG as a unit of analysis. Understanding the problem as a puzzle of four sets of pieces, namely: (1) social, (2) environmental, (3) economic, and (4) institutional, the paper offers potential opportunities for the decision-makers and practitioners to accelerate the substitution of this heavy metal and develop sustainable futures for the ASGM communities. We conclude by proposing a pragmatic framework that synthesizes the means, actions, and ends to accelerate a sustainable transition.     

2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) photodegradation on WO3-TiO2-SBA-15 nanostructured composite

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - A current environmental problem is the uncontrolled use of various pesticides that are harmful to the environment and public health. The herbicide...     

Characteristics of animal-related motor vehicle crashes in select National Park Service units—United States, 1990–2013

Objectives: Nationally, animal–motor vehicle crashes (AVCs) account for 4.4% of all types of motor vehicle crashes (MVCs). AVCs are a safety risk for drivers and animals and many National Park Service (NPS) units (e.g., national park, national monument, or national parkway) have known AVC risk factors, including rural locations and substantial animal densities. We sought to describe conditions and circumstances involving AVCs to guide traffic and wildlife management for prevention of AVCs in select NPS units.

Methods: We conducted an analysis using NPS law enforcement MVC data. An MVC is a collision involving an in-transit motor vehicle that occurred or began on a public roadway. An AVC is characterized as a collision between a motor vehicle and an animal. A non-AVC is a crash between a motor vehicle and any object other than an animal or noncollision event (e.g., rollover crash). The final data for analysis included 54,068 records from 51 NPS units during 1990–2013. Counts and proportions were calculated for categorical variables and medians and ranges were calculated for continuous variables. We used Pearson’s chi-square to compare circumstances of AVCs and non-AVCs. Data were compiled at the park regional level; NPS parks are assigned to 1 of 7 regions based on the park’s location.

Results: AVCs accounted for 10.4% (5,643 of 54,068) of all MVCs from 51 NPS units. The Northeast (2,021 of 5,643; 35.8%) and Intermountain (1,180 of 5,643; 20.9%) regions had the largest percentage of the total AVC burden. November was the peak month for AVCs across all regions (881 of 5,643; 15.6%); however, seasonality varied by park geographic regions. The highest counts of AVCs were reported during fall for the National Capital, Northeast/Southeast, and Northeast regions; winter for the Southeast region; and summer for Intermountain and Pacific West regions.

Conclusions: AVCs represent a public health and wildlife safety concern for NPS units. AVCs in select NPS units were approximately 2-fold higher than the national percentage for AVCs. The peak season for AVCs varied by NPS region. Knowledge of region-specific seasonality patterns for AVCs can help NPS staff develop mitigation strategies for use primarily during peak AVC months. Improving AVC data collection might provide NPS with a more complete understanding of risk factors and seasonal trends for specific NPS units. By collecting information concerning the animal species hit, park managers can better understand the impacts of AVC to wildlife population health.     

A framework for allocating conservation resources among multiple threats and actions

Land managers decide how to allocate resources among multiple threats that can be addressed through multiple possible actions. Additionally, these actions vary in feasibility, effectiveness, and cost. We sought to provide a way to optimize resource allocation to address multiple threats when multiple management options are available, including mutually exclusive options. Formulating the decision as a combinatorial optimization problem, our framework takes as inputs the expected impact and cost of each threat for each action (including do nothing) and for each overall budget identifies the optimal action to take for each threat. We compared the optimal solution to an easy to calculate greedy algorithm approximation and a variety of plausible ranking schemes. We applied the framework to management of multiple introduced plant species in Australian alpine areas. We developed a model of invasion to predict the expected impact in 50 years for each species-action combination that accounted for each species’ current invasion state (absent, localized, widespread); arrival probability; spread rate; impact, if present, of each species; and management effectiveness of each species-action combination. We found that the recommended action for a threat changed with budget; there was no single optimal management action for each species; and considering more than one candidate action can substantially increase the management plan's overall efficiency. The approximate solution (solution ranked by marginal cost-effectiveness) performed well when the budget matched the cost of the prioritized actions, indicating that this approach would be effective if the budget was set as part of the prioritization process. The ranking schemes varied in performance, and achieving a close to optimal solution was not guaranteed. Global sensitivity analysis revealed a threat's expected impact and, to a lesser extent, management effectiveness were the most influential parameters, emphasizing the need to focus research and monitoring efforts on their quantification.     

A systematic review of animal personality in conservation science

Although animal personality research may have applied uses, this suggestion has yet to be evaluated by assessing empirical studies examining animal personality and conservation. To address this knowledge gap, we performed a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature relating to conservation science and animal personality. Criteria for inclusion in our review included access to full text, primary research articles, and relevant animal conservation or personality focus (i.e., not human personality studies). Ninety-two articles met these criteria. We summarized the conservation contexts, testing procedures (including species and sample size), analytical approach, claimed personality traits (activity, aggression, boldness, exploration, and sociability), and each report's key findings and conservation-focused suggestions. Although providing evidence for repeatability in behavior is crucial for personality studies, repeatability quantification was implemented in only half of the reports. Nonetheless, each of the 5 personality traits were investigated to some extent in a range of conservations contexts. The most robust studies in the field showed variance in how personality relates to other ecologically important variables across species and contexts. Moreover, many studies were first attempts at using personality for conservation purposes in a given study system. Overall, it appears personality is not yet a fully realized tool for conservation. To apply personality research to conservation problems, we suggest researchers think about where individual differences in behavior may affect conservation outcomes in their system, assess where there are opportunities for repeated measures, and follow the most current methodological guides on quantifying personality.     

Systematic review of conservation interventions to promote voluntary behavior change

Understanding human behavior is vital to developing interventions that effectively lead to proenvironmental behavior change, whether the focus is at the individual or societal level. However, interventions in many fields have historically lacked robust forms of evaluation, which makes it hard to be confident that these conservation interventions have successfully helped protect the environment. We conducted a systematic review to assess how effective nonpecuniary and nonregulatory interventions have been in changing environmental behavior. We applied the Office of Health Assessment and Translation systematic review methodology. We started with more than 300,000 papers and reports returned by our search terms and after critical appraisal of quality identified 128 individual studies that merited inclusion in the review. We classified interventions by thematic area, type of intervention, the number of times audiences were exposed to interventions, and the length of time interventions ran. Most studies reported a positive effect (n = 96). The next most common outcome was no effect (n = 28). Few studies reported negative (n = 1) or mixed (n = 3) effects. Education, prompts, and feedback interventions resulted in positive behavior change. Combining multiple interventions was the most effective. Neither exposure duration nor frequency affected the likelihood of desired behavioral change. Comparatively few studies tested the effects of voluntary interventions on non-Western populations (n = 17) or measured actual ecological outcome behavior (n = 1). Similarly, few studies examined conservation devices (e.g., energy-efficient stoves) (n = 9) and demonstrations (e.g., modeling the desired behavior) (n = 5). There is a clear need to both improve the quality of the impact evaluation conducted and the reporting standards for intervention results.     

Feasibility of coupling a thermal/optical carbon analyzer to a quadrupole mass spectrometer for enhanced PM2.5 speciation

A thermal/optical carbon analyzer (TOA), normally used for quantification of organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) in PM_2.5 (fine particulate matter) speciation networks, was adapted to direct thermally evolved gases to an electron impact quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS), creating a TOA-QMS. This approach produces spectra similar to those obtained by the Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS), but the ratios of the mass to charge (m/z) signals differ and must be remeasured using laboratory-generated standards. Linear relationships are found between TOA-QMS signals and ammonium (NH₄⁺), nitrate (NO₃^?), and sulfate (SO₄^2-) standards. For ambient samples, however, positive deviations are found for SO₄^2-, compensated by negative deviations for NO₃^?, at higher concentrations. This indicates the utility of mixed-compound standards for calibration or separate calibration curves for low and high ion concentrations. The sum of the QMS signals across all m/z after removal of the NH₄⁺, NO₃^?, and SO₄^2- signals was highly correlated with the carbon content of oxalic acid (C?H?O?) standards. For ambient samples, the OC derived from the TOA-QMS method was the same as the OC derived from the standard IMPROVE_A TOA method. This method has the potential to reduce complexity and costs for speciation networks, especially for highly polluted urban areas such as those in Asia and Africa.

Implications: Ammonium, nitrate, and sulfate can be quantified by the same thermal evolution analysis applied to organic and elemental carbon. This holds the potential to replace multiple parallel filter samples and separate laboratory analyses with a single filter and a single analysis to account for a large portion of the PM_2.5 mass concentration.     

Are older drivers’ driving patterns during an on-road driving task representative of their real-world driving patterns?

Abstract

Objective: The current study investigated whether older drivers’ driving patterns during a customized on-road driving task were representative of their real-world driving patterns.

Methods: Two hundred and eight participants (male: 68.80%; mean age?=?81.52 years, SD?=?3.37 years, range?=?76.00–96.00 years) completed a customized on-road driving task that commenced from their home and was conducted in their own vehicle. Participants’ real-world driving patterns for the preceding 4-month period were also collected via an in-car recording device (ICRD) that was installed in each participant’s vehicle.

Results: During the 4-month period prior to completing the on-road driving task, participants’ median real-world driving trip distance was 2.66?km (interquartile range [IQR]?=?1.14–5.79?km) and their median on-road driving task trip distance was 4.41?km (IQR?=?2.83–6.35?km). Most participants’ on-road driving task trip distances were classified as representative of their real-world driving trip distances (95.2%, n?=?198).

Conclusions: These findings suggest that most older drivers were able to devise a driving route that was representative of their real-world driving trip distance. Future research will examine whether additional aspects of the on-road driving task (e.g., average speed, proportion of trips in different speed zones) are representative of participants’ real-world driving patterns.