The Effects of Ocean Disposal of Sewage Sludge On the Relative Abundance of Benthic Megafauna

Disposal of sewage sludge in the New York Bight Apex (12-Mile Dump Site) ceased at the end of December 1987. Previous efforts to quantify the effects of sludge were hindered by the inability to obtain true replication. the cessation of dumping afforded the opportunity to apply the technique of replication in time, also known as a Before/After, Control/Impact design. Conditionally, this method allows one to separate treatment effects from the natural differences that confound many environmental impact studies. the Environmental Processes Division of the Northeast Fisheries Center, National Marine Fisheries Service sampled the benthic environment of the New York Bight Apex from June 1986 through September 1989 using a sample design based on the technique of replication in time.

Three dominant species (rock crab, Cancer irroratus; little skate; Raja erinacea; and winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes americanus) and total demersal finfish, collected by otter trawl, showed no statistically significant response to the cessation of disposal. American lobster (Homarus americanus) increased in local abundance, but this result was possibly confounded by a change in fishing effort.     

The Effects of Ocean Disposal of Sewage Sludge On the Relative Abundance of Benthic Megafauna

Disposal of sewage sludge in the New York Bight Apex (12-Mile Dump Site) ceased at the end of December 1987. Previous efforts to quantify the effects of sludge were hindered by the inability to obtain true replication. the cessation of dumping afforded the opportunity to apply the technique of replication in time, also known as a Before/After, Control/Impact design. Conditionally, this method allows one to separate treatment effects from the natural differences that confound many environmental impact studies. the Environmental Processes Division of the Northeast Fisheries Center, National Marine Fisheries Service sampled the benthic environment of the New York Bight Apex from June 1986 through September 1989 using a sample design based on the technique of replication in time.

Three dominant species (rock crab, Cancer irroratus; little skate; Raja erinacea; and winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes americanus) and total demersal finfish, collected by otter trawl, showed no statistically significant response to the cessation of disposal. American lobster (Homarus americanus) increased in local abundance, but this result was possibly confounded by a change in fishing effort.     

Business recovery: an assessment framework

This paper presents a Business Recovery Assessment Framework (BRAF) to help researchers and practitioners design robust, repeatable, and comparable studies of business recovery in various post‐disruption contexts. Studies assessing business recovery without adequately considering the research aims, recovery definitions, and indicators can produce misleading findings. The BRAF is composed of a series of steps that guide the decisions that researchers need to make to ensure: (i) that recovery is indeed being measured; (ii) that the indicators of recovery that are selected align with the objectives of the study and the definition of recovery; and, where necessary, (iii) that appropriate comparative control variables are in place. The paper draws on a large dataset of business surveys collected following the earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, on 4 September 2010 and 22 February 2011 to demonstrate the varied conclusions that different recovery indicators can produce and to justify the need for a systematic approach to business recovery assessments.     

Can the commons be temporary? The role of transitional commoning in post-quake Christchurch

ABSTRACT

In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.     

Comparing earthquake insurance programmes: how would Japan and California have fared after the 2010–11 earthquakes in New Zealand?

Earthquakes are insured in high-risk high-income countries only if the public sector is involved. Prototypical examples are the insurance schemes in California (United States), Japan, and New Zealand, but each is structured differently. This paper examines these variations using a concrete case study: the sequence of earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010–11—the most heavily insured seismic event in history. It assesses what would have been the outcome had the Christchurch insurance system been different, focusing on the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) programme and Japan Earthquake Reinsurance (JER). Overall, the aggregate cost of the earthquake to the New Zealand public insurer (Earthquake Commission) was USD 6.2 billion. If a similar-sized disaster had occurred in Japan and California, homeowners would have received around USD 1.6 billion and USD 0.7 billion, respectively. This paper describes the distributive and spatial patterns of these scenarios and discusses some key policy questions that emerge from this comparison.     

Inventory of ocean monitoring in the Southern California Bight

Monitoring of the ocean environment in southern California, USA, has been conducted by a diverse array of public and private organizations with different motivations, working on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. To create a basis from which to integrate information from these diverse programs, we conducted an inventory of ocean monitoring activities in the Southern California Bight to address the following questions: (1) How much money is being expended annually on marine monitoring programs? (2) Which organizations are conducting the most monitoring? (3) How are resources allocated among the different types of monitoring programs? This inventory focused on programs existing, or those expected to be in existence, for at least 10 years and that were active at any time between 1994 and 1997. For each program identified for inclusion in this study, information was collected on the number of sites, sampling intensity, parameters measured, and methods used. Levels of effort were translated into cost estimates based upon a market survey of local consulting firms. One hundred fourteen marine monitoring programs, conducted by 65 organizations and costing US $31 million annually, were identified. Most of the effort (81 programs, 65% of samples, 70% of costs) was expended by ocean dischargers as part of their compliance with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit requirements. Federal programs (11 programs, 25% of samples, 10% of total expenditures) expended more than state or local government programs. More than one quarter of monitoring expenditures were conducted to measure concentrations and mass of effluent inputs to the ocean. The largest effort expended on receiving water monitoring was for measuring bacteria, followed by sediments, fish/shellfish, water quality, and intertidal habitats. The large level of expenditures by individual agencies has presented opportunities for integrating small, site-specific ocean monitoring programs into regional- and national-scale monitoring and assessment programs.     

The role of schools in helping communities copes with earthquake disasters: the case of the 2010–2011 New Zealand earthquakes

ABSTRACT

This article draws from the author’s four-year study of five school communities hit by the 2010–2011 earthquake sequence in the Canterbury region of New Zealand to highlight the roles that schools played in supporting their communities in the aftermath of the disaster. The article begins by synthesising the relevant literature on disasters, schools in earthquake disasters, and the importance of schools to their communities, pre- and post-disaster. The following themes from the data are discussed: (a) the role of schools in their communities prior to the earthquakes; (b) the role of schools in immediate rescue and response; (c) the role of schools in short-term relief; and (d) the role of schools in long-term recovery. The author then argues that as more evidence shows that schools play such crucial roles in post-disaster response and recovery, we need to better prepare and support them to undertake these functions. Further, we need to recognise the wider roles schools play supporting local communities to build and sustain resilience as part of on-going community cohesion and connectedness, so that society is better prepared when major disasters occur.     

On the consequences of aggregation and balancing of networks on system properties derived from ecological network analysis

In the ecological network analysis (ENA) of complex flow food webs the assumption is often made that the models characterizing the flows and stocks of ecosystems occur in a steady state where inflows equals outflows. An assessment of the system indices derived from ENA of six balanced and unbalanced system models, respectively, indicate to differences between indices. The aggregation of highly articulated flow models into models with fewer compartments also has drastic effects on the system metrics, particularly on the information indices.     

Earthquake-strengthening policy for commercial buildings in small-town New Zealand

New Zealand introduced a seismic retrofitting policy in the wake of the catastrophic Canterbury earthquakes of 2010–11. The aim was to enforce seismic strengthening of earthquake-prone commercial buildings throughout the country. This study focuses on regional urban centres and the economic obstacles to strengthening their aging building stock. In investigating one town, Whanganui, we describe conditions, analyse cases, and identify incentives that apply equally to many other towns in New Zealand. We argue that incentives that suit high-growth, high-value major urban centres are a poor fit for the periphery. Around the world, many places need to upgrade their privately-owned building stock to protect it from disasters, while governments face similar challenges as they struggle to initiate the strengthening of commercial buildings. We analyse the current incentive schemes that aim to support the achievement of policy goals and suggest alternative incentive schemes that can be implemented to improve strengthening outcomes.     

A GIS Approach to Model Sediment Reduction Susceptibility of Mixed Sand and Gravel Beaches

The morphological form of mixed sand and gravel beaches is distinct, and the process/response system and complex dynamics of these beaches are not well understood. Process response models developed for pure sand or gravel beaches cannot be directly applied to these beaches. The Canterbury Bight coastline is apparently abundantly supplied with sediments from large rivers and coastal alluvial cliffs, but a large part of this coastline is experiencing long-term erosion. Sediment budget models provide little evidence to suggest sediments are stored within this system. Current sediment budget models inadequately quantify and account for the processes responsible for the patterns of erosion and accretion of this coastline. We outline a new method to extrapolate from laboratory experiments to the field using a geographical information system approach to model sediment reduction susceptibility for the Canterbury Bight. Sediment samples from ten representative sites were tumbled in a concrete mixer for an equivalent distance of 40 km. From the textural mixture and weight loss over 40 km tumbling, we applied regression techniques to generate a predictive equation for Sediment Reduction Susceptibility (SRS). We used Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) to extrapolate the results from fifty-five sites with data on textural sediment composition to field locations with no data along the Canterbury Bight, creating a continuous sediment reductions susceptibility surface. Isolines of regular SRS intervals were then derived from the continuous surface to create a contour map of sediment reductions susceptibility for the Canterbury Bight. Results highlighted the variability in SRS along this coastline.