Development of an Ecologic Marine Classification in the New Zealand Region

We describe here the development of an ecosystem classification designed to underpin the conservation management of marine environments in the New Zealand region. The classification was defined using multivariate classification using explicit environmental layers chosen for their role in driving spatial variation in biologic patterns: depth, mean annual solar radiation, winter sea surface temperature, annual amplitude of sea surface temperature, spatial gradient of sea surface temperature, summer sea surface temperature anomaly, mean wave-induced orbital velocity at the seabed, tidal current velocity, and seabed slope. All variables were derived as gridded data layers at a resolution of 1 km. Variables were selected by assessing their degree of correlation with biologic distributions using separate data sets for demersal fish, benthic invertebrates, and chlorophyll-a. We developed a tuning procedure based on the Mantel test to refine the classification's discrimination of variation in biologic character. This was achieved by increasing the weighting of variables that play a dominant role and/or by transforming variables where this increased their correlation with biologic differences. We assessed the classification's ability to discriminate biologic variation using analysis of similarity. This indicated that the discrimination of biologic differences generally increased with increasing classification detail and varied for different taxonomic groups. Advantages of using a numeric approach compared with geographic-based (regionalisation) approaches include better representation of spatial patterns of variation and the ability to apply the classification at widely varying levels of detail. We expect this classification to provide a useful framework for a range of management applications, including providing frameworks for environmental monitoring and reporting and identifying representative areas for conservation.     

Potential Impacts of Highway Median Barriers on Wildlife: State of the Practice and Gap Analysis

Median barriers separate lanes of traffic moving in opposite directions on multilane highways. Such traffic safety devices can reduce head-on collisions but also have the potential to reduce landscape permeability by impeding wildlife movements across highways. Median barriers may also increase the risk of wildlife–vehicle collisions if an animal becomes trapped or confused amid barriers searching for a place to cross. A 2002 Transportation Research Board report highlighted the need to better understand the potential impacts of highway median barriers on wildlife. This lack of information can cause significant project delays and increase transportation project costs. This study represents the first attempt in North America to bring together information about highway median and roadside barriers and wildlife and provide preliminary guidelines to balance the needs of motorist safety and wildlife movements.     

ISO14000国际标准与旅游企业的环境管理——以神农架为例

ＳＯ１４０００环境管理标准引起了国际社会广泛的响应,旅游企业申请认证注册的意义重大。本文以神龙架旅游业为例,提出了应重视对环境整体观念的认识,提倡生态旅游,以及对投资项目进行环境影响的评估工作     

Indicators of Biodiversity and Conservational Wildlife Quality on Danish Organic Farms for Use in Farm Management: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Indicator Development and Testing

Organic farming is expected to contribute to conserving national biodiversity on farms, especially remnant, old, and undisturbed small biotopes, forests, and permanent grassland. This objective cannot rely on the legislation of organic farming solely, and to succeed, farmers need to understand the goals behind it. A set of indicators with the purpose of facilitating dialogues between expert and farmer on wildlife quality has been developed and tested on eight organic farms. “Weed cover in cereal fields,” was used as an indicator of floral and faunal biodiversity in the cultivated land, and “uncultivated biotope area” on the farm was used as a general measure of wildlife habitats. Functional grouping of herbaceous plants (discriminating between “high conservation value” plant species and “competitive”/“ruderal” species) and low mobility butterflies were used as indicators of conservation value, especially focusing on the few sites left with considerable remnant conservation value. The dialog processes revealed that the organic farmers’ ideas and goals of conservation of wildlife quality were not necessarily the same as for biologists; the farmers expressed very different opinions on the biological rooted idea, that wildlife quality is related to the absence of agricultural impact. However, farmers also stated that the information given by the indicators and especially the dialogue with the biologist had influenced their perception and awareness of wildlife. We conclude that, combined with a dialogue process, using these indicators when mapping wildlife quality could be an important key component of a farm wildlife management advisory tool at farm level.     

An Analysis of Spatial Clustering and Implications for Wildlife Management: A Burrowing Owl Example

Analysis tools that combine large spatial and temporal scales are necessary for efficient management of wildlife species, such as the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia). We assessed the ability of Ripley’s K-function analysis integrated into a geographic information system (GIS) to determine changes in burrowing owl nest clustering over two years at NASA Ames Research Center. Specifically, we used these tools to detect changes in spatial and temporal nest clustering before, during, and after conducting management by mowing to maintain low vegetation height at nest burrows. We found that the scale and timing of owl nest clustering matched the scale and timing of our conservation management actions over a short time frame. While this study could not determine a causal link between mowing and nest clustering, we did find that Ripley’s K and GIS were effective in detecting owl nest clustering and show promise for future conservation uses.     

Benefits and Costs of the Wildlife Enhancement Scheme: A Case Study of the Pevensey Levels

The paper describes a contingent valuation study of the benefits and costs of the Wildlife Enhancement Scheme (WES) (English Nature) on the Pevensey Levels Site of Special Scientific Interest in East Sussex, England. Using a conventional mean WTP value as the appropriate measure of benefits gave a benefit/cost (B/C) ratio of 0.497 for user value and 1.994 for user plus non-user values (households within 60 km of the site) for expenditure under WES. If a more rigorous and conservative truncated mean value was employed, then B/C ratios fell to 0.117 for user values and 0.758 for user plus non-user values. However, assuming the same level of passive use values are held by a similar proportion of all non-visiting households in the UK as observed in the sample survey, this would produce a B/C ratio for truncated mean user plus non-user benefits of 18.26. Even if the addition of further WES sites across the country led to a steep decline in mean marginal non-user WTP for the scheme in the Levels, the B/C ratio would still greatly exceed 1.0.     

Integrating Landscape Analysis and Planning: A Multi-Scale Approach for Oriented Management of Tourist Recreation

Tourism and landscape are interdependent concepts. Nature- and culture-based tourism are now quite well developed activities and can constitute an excellent way of exploiting the natural resources of certain areas, and should therefore be considered as key objectives in landscape planning and management in a growing number of countries. All of this calls for careful evaluation of the effects of tourism on the territory. This article focuses on an integrated spatial method for landscape analysis aimed at quantifying the relationship between preferences of visitors and landscape features. The spatial expression of the model relating types of leisure and recreational preferences to the potential capacity of the landscape to meet them involves a set of maps showing degrees of potential visitor satisfaction. The method constitutes a useful tool for the design of tourism planning and management strategies, with landscape conservation as a reference.     

Sectoralization of an Integrated Coastal Management Programme: A Case Study in Madagascar

This paper focuses on integrated environmental management and shows why emphasis should be put on implementation issues. The authors take the example of integrated coastal management (ICM) and analyse a case study they recently conducted in Madagascar, where an ambitious ICM programme is being implemented. They explain a strong perverse mechanism called sectoralization, which appears to threaten many integration efforts and is a good example of what is at stake with the implementation of the integration concept. They conclude especially that integrated environmental management should not be considered as the only modern form of environmental action, and that a certain type of case study is now needed to analyse existing environmental management systems before designing integration programmes.     

Measuring Positive,Negative, and Null Impacts of Forest Disturbances: A Case Study Using Dwarf Mistletoe on Douglas Fir

Not all disease activity causes an impact. Not all impacts are negative. The aim of this study was to examine a method that could conceptually specify when impacts occur and that could quantify both negative and positive disease impacts. For this study, dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium douglasi) of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in southwestern Oregon was used as a case study. The method uses six variables for forest growth, mortality, and stand structure, and six categorical disease severity scores. The impact model displays stands as points in multidimensional scaling space, where relative position is determined by values of the six stand variables. Positions in this two-dimensional space change when stand characteristics change. Differences associated with disease severity could be traced as trajectories, and impact was quantified using the length and direction of these trajectories. This multivariate impact assessment method was contrasted to impact assessments based on single variables. Methods based on multiple variables offer a useful way of characterizing impact on multiple objectives. The model indicates that dwarf mistletoe has positive, negative, and neutral impacts and that these could be illustrated and quantified using this method.     

Developing an Environmental Indicator System for Sustainable Development in China: Two Case Studies of Selected Indicators

Environmental indicator systems are a fundamental tool in quantifying the environmental component of sustainable development. They are useful because they quantify the status and trends of key environmental parameters and provide information on the environment that allows authorities and communities to make informed decisions. This article analyzes the basic framework for Chinese environmental indicator systems and presents a “core” set of environmental indicators. In our research, we used a theme approach to develop the environmental indicator systems. We performed two case studies of selected indicators. In the first, we used an urban ambient air pollution composite index and an urban ambient air pollution indicator for three main pollutants to examine trends in urban air pollution in China from 1990 to 2000 at regional and national levels. The results indicate that China has made some progress towards controlling urban air pollution, but must do more in order to reach acceptable pollution levels. We think that an aggregated index and disaggregated indicators have important complementary roles in the policy-making processes. In the second case study, we developed and constructed a grassland degradation index that aggregates information on the extent and severity of grassland degradation. Taking the Xilinhaote region of Inner Mongolia as the study area, we calculated this index by combining remote-sensing data, a geographical information system (GIS), and field investigation. Based on these results, we provide recommendations regarding further development and measurement of environmental indicators in China.     

城市化对水源系统的影响--以南京市为例

随着城市化进程的推进,人类对自然的干扰日益加剧,城市水源系统也因此受到影响,带来了诸如地表水质恶化、地面蒸散发减少、径流系数增大、地下水质变差和地面沉降等一系列问题.城市化发展通过影响水量平衡中的一个或多个因子,进而影响到整个水源系统.通过对南京市域多年水质、降水量等数据的分析可见,南京自城市化发展以来,地表水质下降明显、降水量和暴雨频率有增大的趋势、地下水也受到较大程度污染.为尽可能减轻城市化带来的负面影响,保护、恢复和重建城市水源系统是南京城市可持续发展的一个重要课题,应建立健全城市湿地有效保护机制,建立市区雨污分流和有效的雨水收集机制,尽可能地实现中水回用.在秦淮河的治理中,应在减少源头污染的同时,利用水体的自然净化能力,生态治污.     

Evolution of a Mediterranean Coastal Zone: Human Impacts on the Marine Environment of Cape Creus

This study presents an integrated analysis of the evolution of the marine environment and the human uses in Cape Creus, a Mediterranean coastal area where intense commercial fisheries and recreational uses have coexisted over the last fifty years. The investigation synthesizes the documented impacts of human activities on the marine environment of Cap de Creus and integrates them with new data. In particular, the evolution of vulnerable, exploited species is used to evaluate the fishing impacts. The effects of area protection through the establishment of a marine reserve in the late 1990s and the potential climate change impacts are also considered. The evolution of the human uses is marked by the increasing socioeconomic importance of recreational activities (which affect species and habitats) in detriment to artisanal and red coral fisheries (which principally affect at a species level). Overall, populations of sedentary, vulnerable exploited species, hard sessile benthic invertebrates, and ecologically fragile habitats, such as seagrass meadows, the coralligenous and infralittoral algal assemblages have been the most negatively impacted by anthropogenic activities. Albeit human uses currently constitute the largest negative impact on the marine environment of Cap de Creus, climate change is emerging as a key factor that could have considerable implications for the marine environment and tourism activities. The establishment of the marine reserve appears to have had little socioeconomic impact, but there is some evidence that it had some positive biological effects on sedentary, littoral fishes. Results demonstrate that the declaration of a marine reserve alone does not guarantee the sustainability of marine resources and habitats but should be accompanied with an integrated coastal management plan.     

Stakeholder Analysis of a Collaborative Watershed Management Process: A Florida Case Study1

Borisova, Tatiana, Laila Racevskis, and Jennison Kipp, 2012. Stakeholder Analysis of a Collaborative Watershed Management Process: A Florida Case Study. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(2): 277‐296. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2011.00615.x Abstract: This study focuses on a Florida watershed where development of a total maximum daily load (TMDL) and its implementation plan resulted in conflicts among stakeholders. The overall goal is to build a better understanding of stakeholder perceptions of water quality problems, water policy processes and decisions, and water management plan development in a region where these issues have become contentious. Findings are based on a stakeholder analysis using qualitative data collected through focus groups with agricultural producers, local governments, and environmental groups, and supplemented with additional qualitative data on the watershed management process. Stakeholder conflicts in this case study are associated with perceived flaws in the structural and procedural characteristics of the stakeholder involvement process: (1) suboptimal watershed stakeholder representation on the TMDL executive committee, (2) an inappropriate voting procedure for making TMDL decisions, (3) limitations in information sharing between regulatory agencies and watershed stakeholders, and (4) stakeholders’ doubts about whether tradeoffs associated with achieving the water quality targets were assessed adequately throughout the TMDL planning and implementation process. This study contributes to the literature on collaborative watershed management by analyzing stakeholder involvement given Florida’s unique institutional settings, where implementation of TMDL pollution abatement is mandatory.     

Analysis of Phytoplankton Community Structure Using Similarity Indices: A New Methodology for Discriminating Among Eutrophication Levels in Coastal Marine Ecosystems

Nine similarity indices based on phytoplankton community structure were examined for their sensitivity to assess different levels of eutrophication. Two phytoplankton data sets, one from an open coastal system and one from a semi-enclosed gulf, associated with different nutrient dynamics and circulation patterns were used for evaluating the indices. The results have shown that similarity indices, measuring interspecific association and resemblance of phytoplankton communities between enriched areas and control sites, were effective for detecting spatial and temporal dissimilarities in coastal marine ecosystems. The structure of the oligotrophic habitat as a potential source of ambiguity for the results was discussed, whereas the validity ranges and the potential applicability of this method were deemed to be dependent on the size of the fraction of the common species among the samples, and the similarity of the classification patterns resulted from this subcategory and those extracted from the overall community data. Furthermore, the study provides a new technique based on the use of the “Box and Whisker Plot” designed to distinguish opportunistic and rare phytoplanktonic species. The similarity indices, applied solely to the dominant species abundance, were more sensitive to resolve eutrophic, mesotrophic and oligotrophic conditions. This procedure can be proposed as an effective methodology for water characterization and can also be used as a qualitative tracer for detecting renewal processes of coastal marine ecosystems.