Variation in perception of environmental change in nine Solomon Islands communities: implications for securing fairness in community-based adaptation

Community-based approaches are pursued in recognition of the need for place-based responses to environmental change that integrate local understandings of risk and vulnerability. Yet the potential for fair adaptation is intimately linked to how variations in perceptions of environmental change and risk are treated. There is, however, little empirical evidence of the extent and nature of variations in risk perception in and between multiple community settings. Here, we rely on data from 231 semi-structured interviews conducted in nine communities in Western Province, Solomon Islands, to statistically model different perceptions of risk and change within and between communities. Overall, people were found to be less likely to perceive environmental changes in the marine environment than they were for terrestrial systems. The distance to the nearest market town (which may be a proxy for exposure to commercial logging and degree of involvement with the market economy), and gender had the greatest overall statistical effects on perceptions of risk. Yet, we also find that significant environmental change is underreported in communities, while variations in perception are not always easily related to commonly assumed fault lines of vulnerability. The findings suggest that there is an urgent need for methods that engage with the drivers of perceptions as part of community-based approaches. In particular, it is important to explicitly account for place, complexity and diversity of environmental risk perceptions, and we reinforce calls to engage seriously with underlying questions of power, culture, identity and practice that influence adaptive capacity and risk perception.

     

Deployment of parabolic trough concentrated solar power plants in North Africa – a case study for Libya

The study addresses the potential of using concentrated solar power plants (CSPs) as a sustainable alternative of clean energy generation in the Mediterranean region and, in particular, in its North Africa shore. This location presents attractive conditions for the installation of CSPs, in particular high solar irradiation, good manpower concentration, and proximity and availability of water resources for condenser cooling. Energetic, exergetic, and economic analyses were conducted taking into consideration a particular type of CSPs - the parabolic trough concentrated solar power plant, which incorporates the most proven technology and it is already used in Southern Europe (Spain). In addition, the study considered the impact of project financing and incentives on the cost of energy. The combination of higher values for performance and potentially lower levelized cost of electricity (LCE) for the North Africa Mediterranean Rim than the South of Spain region can yield a very favorable return for the invested capital. Tripoli compared to Almeria presented superior performance and potentially lower LCE values ($0.18/kWh versus $0.22/kWh). This is significant, even when it is taken into consideration the fact that the plant in Tripoli, despite a relatively modest capacity factor of 34%, has a large gross power output of 173,886 MWhe. In addition, the implementation at the Tripoli location of a plant similar to the Anadsol plant has a slight advantage (2–3%) in terms of overall efficiency.     

Ecotoxicity assessment of lipid regulators in water and biologically treated wastewater using three aquatic organisms

Background, aim, and scope  

The high consumption of blood lipid regulators is leading to frequent reports of the occurrence of fibrates in natural streams and wastewater effluents. This paper describes a study undertaken to evaluate the acute toxicity of bezafibrate, clofibric acid, gemfibrozil, and fenofibric acid, a metabolite of fenofibrate whose ecotoxicity has not been previously reported.     

Social Sciences and landscape analysis: opportunities for the improvement of conservation policy design

This article develops a methodology aimed at generating a systematic social diagnosis of social and natural landscapes. The analytical process is divided into six easily replicable and causatively connected steps. The goal is two-fold: first, to present the inextricable connections between physical landscapes and the communities that occupy them. And second, to provide a fundamental tool to public policy designers that should simultaneously improve social acceptability of conservation policies and policy efficiency and effectiveness. Finally, this methodology is consciously heterogeneous from a theoretical perspective. This article puts together, in fruitful dialogue, contributions from varying places on the social theory spectrum: from political economy to poststructural theory.     

Status and changes of water quality in typical near-city zones of three East African Great Lakes in Tanzania

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Tanzania is the only country bordering all three transboundary East African Great Lakes, i.e., Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Nyasa (Lake...     

A DFT study on the carbamates formation through the absorption of CO2 by AMP

DFT calculations in gas and aqueous solution phases have been performed to study the mechanism of carbamate formation by the absorption of CO₂ in 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP). The results reveal the importance of considering the effect of water as solvent for the reaction to proceed. Furthermore water molecules play an important role as a basic reactant leading to stable intermediates formation. These results point at a single-step, third order reaction as the most probable mechanism for the formation of carbamate by the absorption process.     

Mesoporous hexagonal and cubic aluminosilica adsorbents for toxic nitroanilines from water

In the present study, ordered mesocage hexagonal P6mm and cubic Pm3n aluminosilica nanoadsorbents with monolith-like morphology and micro-, meso-, and macro-pores were fabricated using a simple, reproducible, direct synthesis. Our results suggest that the aluminosilica nanoadsorbents attained the ordering and uniform hexagonal and cubic pores even at the high Si/Al ratio of 4. The acidity of nanoadsorbents significantly based on the amount of aluminum species in the walls of the silica pore framework. Aluminosilica nanoadsorbents were used as a removal of environmentally toxic aromatic amines, namely p-nitroaniline (p-NA), from wastewater. The loading amount of Bronsted acid sites, mesostructural geometries, and multi-directional pores (3D) of the aluminosilica adsorbents played a key factor in the enhancement of the coverage adsorbent surfaces and intraparticle diffusion of adsorbate molecules onto the network surfaces and into the pore architectures of monoliths. Significantly, we developed theoretical models to explain the 3D microscopic geometry and the pore orientation of aluminosilica monoliths. A key component of the nanoadsorbents is the ability to create revisable p-NA adsorption systems with multiple reuse cycles. However, simple treatment using an acidic aqueous solution was found to remove effectively the p-NA and to form “p-NA-free” pore surfaces without any mesostructural damage.     

Wave mixing rise inferred from Lyapunov exponents

We study the horizontal surface mixing and the transport induced by waves in a coastal environment. A comparative study is addressed by computing the Lagrangian coherent structures, via Finite Size Lyapunov Exponents, that arise in two different numerical settings: with and without wave coupled to currents. In general, we observe that mixing is increased in the area due to waves. Besides, the methodology presented here is tested by deploying a set of eight Lagrangian drifters at different locations. This dynamical approach is shown as a valuable tool to extract information about transport, mixing and residence embedded in the Eulerian time dependent velocity fields obtained from numerical models.     

Combined phytoremediation of metal-working fluids with maize plants inoculated with different microorganisms and toxicity assessment of the phytoremediated waste

The aim of this study was to validate the effectiveness of a phytoremediation procedure for metal-working fluids (MWFs) with maize plants growing in hydroponic culture in which the roots grow on esparto fibre and further improve bioremediation potential of the system with root beneficial bacteria, seeking a synergistic effect of the plant–microorganism combination. Chemical oxygen demand (COD), pH, total and type of hydrocarbons measured after phytoremediation indicated that the process with maize plants was successful, as demonstrated by the significant decrease in the parameters measured. This effect was mainly due to the plant although inoculated microorganisms had a relevant effect on the type of remaining hydrocarbons. The success of the phytoremediation process was further confirmed by two toxicity tests, one of them based on chlorophyll fluorescence measurements on maize plants and another one based on cyanobacteria, using a bioluminescent toxicity bioassay; both tests demonstrated that the phytoremediated waste was significantly less toxic than the initial non-phytoremediated MWFs.     

The importance of white on black: unmelanized plumage proportion predicts display complexity in birds

Animal ritualized displays have been classically viewed as behavioral characters that decrease signal ambiguity or that facilitate the evaluation of costly exhibitions. It has been shown that their prevalence and level of complexity across species can reflect phylogenetic relationships between them, but the adaptive function of these behavioral traits is poorly known. Here, I hypothesize that, given that the efficacy of visual displays basically depends on conspicuousness and level of performance, species with low levels of conspicuousness may be forced to perform more complex varieties of a given display to get the same signal efficiency than other more conspicuous species. Thus, the evolution of display complexity, considered as the level of exaggeration of ritualized movements, may be explained as an adaptive trait and not only by phylogenetic inertia. I illustrate and test this hypothesis with the case of black-and-white plumage patches of pelecaniform birds. As predicted, there was a negative correlation between level of complexity and species conspicuousness (proportion of unmelanized plumage) for two different social displays. This indicates that classical ideas on the adaptiveness of ritualized displays should be considered to understand the present variation in signal form across species, which sheds light on the evolution of multiple signals.