ENVIRONMENTAL AUDITING: An Approach for Characterizing Tropospheric Ozone Risk to Forests

/ The risk tropospheric ozone poses to forests in the United States is dependent on the variation in ozone exposure across the distribution of the forests in question and the various environmental and climate factors predominant in the region. All these factors have a spatial nature, and consequently an approach to characterization of ozone risk is presented that places ozone exposure-response functions for species as seedlings and model-simulated tree and stand responses in a spatial context using a geographical information systems (GIS). The GIS is used to aggregate factors considered important in a risk characterization, including: (1) estimated ozone exposures over forested regions, (2) measures of ozone effects on species' and stand growth, and (3) spatially distributed environmental, genetic, and exposure influences on species' response to ozone. The GIS-based risk characterization provides an estimation of the extent and magnitude of the potential ozone impact on forests. A preliminary risk characterization demonstrating this approach considered only the eastern United States and only the limited empirical data quantifying the effect of ozone exposures on forest tree species as seedlings. The area-weighted response of the annual seedling biomass loss formed the basis for a sensitivity ranking: sensitive-aspen and black cherry (14%-33% biomass loss over 50% of their distribution); moderately sensitive-tulip popular, loblolly pine, eastern white pine, and sugar maple (5%-13% biomass loss); insensitive-Virginia pine and red maple (0%-1% loss). In the future, the GIS-based risk characterization will include process-based model simulations of the three- to 5-year growth response of individual species as large trees with relevant environmental interactions and model simulated response of mixed stands. The interactive nature of GIS provides a tool to explore consequences of the range of climate conditions across a species' distribution, forest management practices, changing ozone precursors, regulatory control strategies, and other factors influencing the spatial distribution of ozone over time as more information becomes available.KEY WORDS: Ecological risk assessment; GIS; Ozone; Risk characterization; Forests; Trees     

Combining sap flow and eddy covariance approaches to derive stomatal and non-stomatal O3 fluxes in a forest stand

Stomatal O₃ fluxes to a mixed beech/spruce stand (Fagus sylvatica/Picea abies) in Central Europe were determined using two different approaches. The sap flow technique yielded the tree-level transpiration, whereas the eddy covariance method provided the stand-level evapotranspiration. Both data were then converted into stomatal ozone fluxes, exemplifying this novel concept for July 2007. Sap flow-based stomatal O₃ flux was 33% of the total O₃ flux, whereas derivation from evapotranspiration rates in combination with the Penman-Monteith algorithm amounted to 47%. In addition to this proportional difference, the sap flow-based assessment yielded lower levels of stomatal O₃ flux and reflected stomatal regulation rather than O₃ exposure, paralleling the daily courses of canopy conductance for water vapor and eddy covariance-based total stand-level O₃ flux. The demonstrated combination of sap flow and eddy covariance approaches supports the development of O₃ risk assessment in forests from O₃ exposure towards flux-based concepts.     

Consequences of nitrate leaching following stem-only harvesting of Swedish forests are dependent on spatial scale

Short-term increases in soil solution nitrate (NO₃⁻) concentration are often observed after forest harvest, even in N-limited systems. We model NO₃⁻ leaching below the rooting zone as a function of site productivity. Using national forest inventories and published estimates of N attenuation in rivers and the riparian zone, we estimate effects of stem-only harvesting on NO₃⁻ leaching to groundwater, surface waters and the marine environment. Stem-only harvesting is a minor contributor to NO₃⁻ pollution of Swedish waters. Effects in surface waters are rapidly diluted downstream, but can be locally important for shallow well-waters as well as for the total amount of N reaching the sea. Harvesting adds approximately 8 Gg NO₃-N to soil waters in Sweden, with local concentrations up to 7 mg NO₃-N l⁻¹. Of that, ∼3.3 Gg reaches the marine environment. This is ∼3% of the overall Swedish N load to the Baltic.     

Forest Protection and Reforestation in Costa Rica: Evaluation of a Clean Development Mechanism Prototype

/ Costa Rica has recently established a program that provides funds for reforestation and forest protection on private lands, partly through the sale of carbon certificates to industrialized countries. Countries purchasing these carbon offsets hope one day to receive credit against their own commitments to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Costa Rica has used the proceeds of the sale of carbon offsets to Norway to help finance this forest incentive program, called the Private Forestry Project, which pays thousands of participants to reforest or protect forest on their lands. The Private Forestry Project is accompanied by a monitoring program conducted by Costa Rican forest engineers that seeks to determine net carbon storage accomplished on these lands each year. The Private Forestry Project, which is officially registered as an Activity Implemented Jointly, is a possible model for bundled projects funded by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) established by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It also serves as an interesting example for the CDM because it was designed by a developing country host-not by an industrialized country investor. Accordingly, it reflects the particular "sustainable development" objectives of the host country or at least the host planners. Early experience in implementing the Private Forestry Project is evaluated in light of the main objectives of the CDM and its precursor-Activities Implemented Jointly. It is concluded that the project appears to meet the criteria of global cost-effectiveness and financing from non-ODA sources. The sustainable development implications of the project are specific to the region and would not necessarily match the ideals of all investing and developing countries. The project may be seen to achieve additional greenhouse gas abatement when compared against some (although not all) baselines.     

Sustainable Farming Practices: Ghanaian Farmers' Perception of Erosion and Their Use of Conservation Measures

/ Major responsibility for conserving forest biodiversity is often assigned to natural resource agencies. Often unknown is the appropriate administrative context for doing so, especially the organizational location for biodiversity programs in state government, suitable levels of financial and professional investment in biodiversity programs, processes useful for coordinating programs located in different administrative settings, and the effectiveness of biodiversity programs, especially conditions associated with programs judged to be very effective. Focusing on forests, a nationwide survey of 156 forestry agency and biodiversity program administrators in all 50 states was undertaken. Effective forest biodiversity programs were those with a long-range plan, administered as a single organizational unit, located in close organizational proximity to a state's forestry agency, actively providing management practice advice to landowners, administrators, and the public, and firm actions taken to ensure coordination with other natural resource programs.     

Particle fluxes above forests: observations, methodological considerations and method comparisons

This paper reports a study designed to test, evaluate and compare micro-meteorological methods for determining the particle number flux above forest canopies. Half-hour average particle number fluxes above a representative broad-leaved forest in Denmark derived using eddy covariance range from -7x10(7) m(-2) s(-1) (1st percentile) to 5x10(7) m(-2) s(-1) (99th percentile), and have a median value of -1.6x10(6) m(-2) s(-1). The statistical uncertainties associated with the particle number flux estimates are larger than those for momentum fluxes and imply that in this data set approximately half of the particle number fluxes are not statistically different to zero. Particle number fluxes from relaxed eddy accumulation (REA) and eddy covariance are highly correlated and of almost identical magnitude. Flux estimates from the co-spectral and dissipation methods are also correlated with those from eddy covariance but exhibit higher absolute magnitude of fluxes.     

山水林田湖草生命共同体的科学认知、路径及制度体系保障

山水林田湖草生命共同体是对人与自然和谐统一关系的新认知,是生态文明理论的重要组成部分。以建立一个山水林田湖草生命共同体的研究范式为目的,系统剖析了山水林田湖草生命共同体理论与应用在基础探索、快速发展和多元繁荣三个阶段的研究重点与特征;再次审视了山水林田湖草生命共同体的内涵、阐明了概念新认知、基本特征、人与生命共同体关系;最后提出面向山水林田湖草生命共同体的“问题—目标—时空策略—目的”的实施路径,及构建以自然资源监测监管体系、自然资源资产产权体系、国土空间规划体系、国土空间用途管制体系、国土空间生态修复体系、法律法规体系等为主的制度体系,进而提升其科学性和实用性,为构建国土空间治理体系及治理能力现代化提供决策支撑。     

Displaced in Nature: The Cultural Production of (Non-)Place in Place-Based Forest Conservation Pedagogy

This study examines spatial practices in a forest conservation education program that incorporates place as a tool to teach environmental and forestry issues to schoolchildren and connect them with nature. By analyzing educational forests, “talking-tree trails,” classes taught to children, and how visitors move throughout the sites, this paper argues that people and practices within the forests employ a rhetoric of spatial and temporal transience that can enable a displaced experience. Human-nature dualistic tendencies that foster environmental alienation are produced culturally and spatially and are experienced in ways that can promote disconnectedness. Instead of re-placing students with nature, as place-based environmental education promotes, forestry and pedagogical systems can practice nature as non-placed.     

Combining mapped and statistical data in forest ecological inventory and monitoring – supplementing an existing system

A forest ecological inventory and monitoring system combining information derived from maps and samples is proposed based on ecosystem regions (Bailey, 1994). The system extends the design of the USDA Forest Service Region 6 Inventory and Monitoring System (R6IMS) in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The key uses of the information are briefly discussed and expected results are illustrated with examples. The system is flexible, allowing regions based on ecological considerations to be modified. Sampling intensities that are affordable are likely to be insufficient to provide meaningful estimates for key parameters relating to rare and endangered species, watersheds, and other ecological units. Methods are proposed for collecting additional information in follow-up surveys and combining it with relevant information obtained in R6IMS. Near-continuous information on weather and possible pollution variables recorded by instruments at sampling sites is needed to develop meaningful models to understand what is happening in the ecoregions. R6IMS and the proposed additions constitute a dynamic system which will be modified further as data are analyzed.     

基于随机森林评价的兰州市主城区校园地表灰尘重金属污染

将2018年1~12月兰州市主城区校园地表灰尘重金属元素含量计算得到的综合污染指数（P_N）和潜在生态风险指数（RI）作为训练集,使用11个影响地表灰尘重金属污染和积累的特征参数,利用随机森林算法对信息采样点的P_N、RI进行估算,分析了地表灰尘重金属污染的时空变化特征,并对传统算法插值结果和随机森林插值结果进行了比较.结果表明,研究区地表灰尘重金属各元素浓度均高于本地背景值;研究区P_N排序为城关区 > 西固区 > 安宁区 > 七里河区,RI排序为城关区 > 西固区 > 七里河区 > 安宁区,P_N和RI在空间分布特征上很相似,都位于交通枢纽或市中心;P_N在冬季和夏季出现高值,RI高值则出现在冬季,冬季高值主要源于采暖燃煤源的增加;空间插值结果对比表明随机森林插值结果优于传统算法插值结果.