Inexpensive substrate sampler for macroinvertebrates

Assessment of aquatic macroinvertebrates is a critical component of many watershed monitoring programs and passive samplers are often used to collect long-term site data, especially in environments where active sampling is not possible. However, standard passive samplers can be expensive and lost in extreme conditions. We developed a sampler using plastic soda bottles (PSB) filled with river rock and compared its effectiveness with standard Hester-Dendy samplers in both lotic and lentic environments. Abundance, taxa richness, and macroinvertebrate composition showed no significant differences between sampler types in either habitat type. PSB samplers, which can be constructed for less than one dollar each, collected the same number of organisms and represented the same diversity as Hester-Dendy devices that cost around $38 each. In studies where funds are limited, PSB samplers appear to be suitable for passive monitoring.     

Changes in the Distribution of Broadleaf Tree Species in the Central Part of the Southern Urals since the 1970s

Russian Journal of Ecology - Changes in the distribution of broadleaf tree species—Tilia cordata Mill., Quercus robur L., Acer platanoides L., and Ulmus glabra Huds.—in the central part...     

A comparison analysis of the decoupling carbon emissions from economic growth in three industries of Heilongjiang province in China

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Growing environmental pressure urges China to develop in a sustainable and low carbon way, and thus China strives to achieve a carbon peak by 2030 and...     

A new approach to spatial source apportionment of haze pollution in large scale and its application in China

Long-lasting expansion of haze pollution in China has already presented a stern challenge to regional joint prevention and control. There is an urgent need to enlarge and reconstruct the coverage of joint prevention and control of air pollution in key area. Air quality models can identify and quantify the regional contribution of haze pollution and its key components with the help of numerical simulation, but it is difficult to be applied to larger spatial scale due to the complexity of model parameters. The time series analysis can recognize the existence of spatial interaction of haze pollution between cities, but it has not yet been used to further identify the spatial sources of haze pollution in large scale. Using econometric framework of time series analysis, this paper developed a new approach to perform spatial source apportionment. We applied this approach to calculate the contribution from spatial sources of haze pollution in China, using the monitoring data of particulate matter (PM_2.5) across 161 Chinese cities. This approach overcame the limitation of numerical simulation that the model complexity increases at excess with the expansion of sample range, and could effectively deal with severe large-scale haze episodes.     

Unintentional non-traffic injury and fatal events: Threats to children in and around vehicles

Objective: There have been substantial reductions in motor vehicle crash–related child fatalities due to advances in legislation, public safety campaigns, and engineering. Less is known about non-traffic injuries and fatalities to children in and around motor vehicles. The objective of this study was to describe the frequency of various non-traffic incidents, injuries, and fatalities to children using a unique surveillance system and database.

Methods: Instances of non-traffic injuries and fatalities in the United States to children 0–14 years were tracked from January 1990 to December 2014 using a compilation of sources including media reports, individual accounts from families of affected children, medical examiner reports, police reports, child death review teams, coroner reports, medical professionals, legal professionals, and other various modes of publication.

Results: Over the 25-year period, there were at least 11,759 events resulting in 3,396 deaths. The median age of the affected child was 3.7 years. The incident types included 3,115 children unattended in hot vehicles resulting in 729 deaths, 2,251 backovers resulting in 1,232 deaths, 1,439 frontovers resulting in 692 deaths, 777 vehicles knocked into motion resulting in 227 deaths, 415 underage drivers resulting in 203 deaths, 172 power window incidents resulting in 61 deaths, 134 falls resulting in 54 deaths, 79 fires resulting in 41 deaths, and 3,377 other incidents resulting in 157 deaths.

Conclusions: Non-traffic injuries and fatalities present an important threat to the safety and lives of very young children. Future efforts should consider complementary surveillance mechanisms to systematically and comprehensively capture all non-traffic incidents. Continued education, engineering modifications, advocacy, and legislation can help continue to prevent these incidents and must be incorporated in overall child vehicle safety initiatives.     

Estimating Potential Climate Change Effects on the Upper Neuse Watershed Water Balance Using the SWAT Model

Climate change poses water resource challenges for many already water stressed watersheds throughout the world. One such watershed is the Upper Neuse Watershed in North Carolina, which serves as a water source for the large and growing Research Triangle Park region. The aim of this study was to quantify possible changes in the watershed’s water balance due to climate change. To do this, we used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model forced with different climate scenarios for baseline, mid‐century, and end‐century time periods using five different downscaled General Circulation Models. Before running these scenarios, the SWAT model was calibrated and validated using daily streamflow records within the watershed. The study results suggest that, even under a mitigation scenario, precipitation will increase by 7.7% from the baseline to mid‐century time period and by 9.8% between the baseline and end‐century time period. Over the same periods, evapotranspiration (ET) would decrease by 5.5 and 7.6%, water yield would increase by 25.1% and 33.2%, and soil water would increase by 1.4% and 1.9%. Perhaps most importantly, the model results show, under a high emission scenario, large seasonal differences with ET estimated to decrease by up to 42% and water yield to increase by up to 157% in late summer and fall. Planning for the wetter predicted future and corresponding seasonal changes will be critical for mitigating the impacts of climate change on water resources.     

The place of nature in conservation conflicts

Conservation conflicts are gaining importance in contemporary conservation scholarship such that conservation may have entered a conflict hype. We attempted to uncover and deconstruct the normative assumptions behind such studies by raising several questions: what are conservation conflicts, what justifies the attention they receive, do conservation-conflict studies limit wildlife conservation, is scientific knowledge stacked against wildlife in conservation conflicts, do conservation-conflict studies adopt a specific view of democracy, can laws be used to force conservation outcomes, why is flexibility needed in managing conservation conflicts, can conservation conflicts be managed by promoting tolerance, and who needs to compromise in conservation conflicts? We suggest that many of the intellectual premises in the field may defang conservation and prevent it from truly addressing the current conservation crisis as it accelerates. By framing conservation conflicts as conflicts between people about wildlife or nature, the field insidiously transfers guilt, whereby human activities are no longer blamed for causing species decline and extinctions but conservation is instead blamed for causing social conflicts. When the focus is on mitigating social conflicts without limiting in any powerful way human activities damaging to nature, conservation-conflict studies risk keeping conservation within the limits of human activities, instead of keeping human activities within the limits of nature. For conservation to successfully stop the biodiversity crisis, we suggest the alternative goal of recognizing nature's right to existence to maintenance of ecological functions and evolutionary processes. Nature being a rights bearer or legal person would imply its needs must be explicitly taken into account in conflict adjudication. If, even in conservation, nature's interests come second to human interests, it may be no surprise that conservation cannot succeed.     

Correction to: Keeping pace with forestry: Multi-scale conservation in a changing production forest matrix

Ambio - In the original published article, the sentence “Nevertheless, semi-natural forest remnants continue to be harvested and fragmented (Svensson et al. 2018; Jonsson et al. 2019), and...     

Effect of cooking on arsenic concentration in rice

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study assessed the effect of rinsing and boiling on total content of As (tAs) and of its inorganic and organic forms in different types of rice...     

内窥镜检查在电站锅炉内部检验中的应用

工业内窥镜是电站锅炉内部检验中不可或缺的设备,主要用来对集箱、减温器、受热面管等内部人眼无法观察到的地方进行检验,从而确定承压部件内部是否存在严重影响锅炉安全运行的缺陷.本文通过对锅炉内窥实例进行分析和总结,阐述内窥镜检查在锅炉内检中的重要性并给相关工作人员提供借鉴与参考.