Firewood consumption in a Nepali village

People's dependence on firewood as a primary source of energy is causing serious deforestation problems in many developing countries. Reliable information on firewood consumption rates is needed to develop afforestation plans and to control deforestation. This study compares three methods used to determine firewood consumption in a Nepali village. Cultural and environmental factors that affect firewood consumption in the village are also examined.Theweight survey proved to be the most accurate method used. The less precisedaily recall andannual recall surveys overestimated actual firewood consumption by factors of 1.76 and 1.95, respectively. Overestimates are attributed to both physical and social factors. In view of the good agreement between daily and annual recall surveys, and the much greater ease of conducting the latter, annual recall surveys are recommended as the most practical method of monitoring firewood consumption rates. Validating the survey with occasional weighed measurements is suggested as a means of improving accuracy.     

Modeling the long-term effects of fuelwood harvests on Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands

In the Southwestern United States, increasing demand for firewood has quickly promoted pinyon-juniper woodlands to commercial status. Slow recovery rates for pinyon and juniper and inadequate mensuration data present significant obstacles to predictive management efforts. Many National Forest districts have witnessed continued fuel use for at least the past 100 years. To explore the need for long-term analysis at the district level, we have developed FORMAN I, a computer simulation written in FORTRAN IV that models prolonged fuel harvesting and its impact on pinyon-juniper woodlands. The technique is well-suited for historical analyses and we comply with an initial application that involves the suggested impact of prehistoric peoples on a marginal woodland in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. To accentuate the significance of the simulation, we have deliberately overestimated woodland parameters while maintaining conservative annual rates for firewood procurement. A low-density woodland (less than 14.8 cords/ha) is completely depleted within 200 years when subjected to tenth-through-twelfth century estimates of human demography for the canyon. Interesting conclusions are drawn from the lack of pinyon-juniper recovery at Chaco over the past millennium. Traditional assumptions, such as the pristine state of Southwestern vegetation prior to historic settlement and subsequent invasion of marginal grasslands by pinyon and juniper, are questioned.     

Recreation and river type: Social-environmental relationships

Recreation use was studied on a diverse state river system to test the hypothesis that recreation use patterns vary systematically by river type. River segments were classified into representative river types through application of a two-fold classification system. The first classification factor, generalized geomorphology, defines and groups the dominant resource bases of which rivers are comprised. The second classification factor, cultural setting, defines the land use and settlement patterns in which each river type is found. Significant differences were found among resulting river types with respect to the nature and intensity of recreation activity, desired use density, and user perceived problems and conflicts. Management recommendations were developed, based on study findings, for each river type. It is concluded that when both environmental attributes and cultural setting are taken into account, regularities appear with respect to the way in which river resources are used and perceived by recreationists. Further exploration and expansion of such recreation-resource relationships to other activities and environments may hold substantial implications for the allocation and management of outdoor recreation resources.     

Firewood-gathering impacts in backcountry campsites in Great Smoky Mountains national park

The effects of human trampling and firewood gathering on eight backcountry campsites in the Great Smoky Mountains were surveyed. Sample plots were classified as sitecenter, transition, firewood-gathering area, and control. The canopy in the center of the sites tended to be more open than that of control plots, with the greatest openings occurring at shelter sites in spruce-fir forest. Intensive human trampling in the center of the sites inhibited reproduction of tree species, whereas firewood gathering alone did not. In some cases where canopy opening had occurred, there was an increase in shrub and tree reproduction around the edge of the site. Reduction in the basal area of standing deadwood varied with the type of site; older growth stands were less depleted. Injuries to trees increased tenfold from control areas to the center of the campsites. Smaller fuels were more strongly impacted by trampling and little impacted by firewood gathering. Woody fuels in the 2.5- to 7.6-cm size class were preferred for firewood. A previously constructed carbon cycling model was modified to incorporate removal of firewood and litter on campsites. The model suggested that after extended removal of leaf litter, soil carbon takes 12 to 50 years to recover, but this hypothesis remains to be tested in the field.     

A comprehensive set of resource use indicators from the micro to the macro level

Many of today's most urgent environmental problems arise from increasing volumes of worldwide production and consumption and the associated use of natural resources, including renewable and non-renewable raw materials, energy, water and land. Solid indicators to measure different dimensions of anthropogenic resource use are essential for designing appropriate policy measures for a sustainable management of these resources. Based on a brief review of the current state of the art of resource use indicators, this paper suggests a new set of complementary resource use indicators, combining existing measures for resource use. The suggested indicator set covers the core resource input categories of materials, water and land area and includes the output category of greenhouse gas emissions. This set can be applied consistently from the micro level of products and companies up to the macro level of countries and world regions. All suggested indicators take a life-cycle wide perspective on production and consumption activities. This set of indicators deals with the issue of the overall scale of the human production and consumption system. It can be regarded as the general indicator framework, based on which more specific indicators, for example, on different environmental impacts related to natural resource use, can be calculated.     

Water Footprint of 65 Mid‐ to Large‐Sized U.S. Cities and Their Metropolitan Areas

Conventional indicators of water use for urban areas account primarily for direct water use. In contrast, our objective here is to employ the water footprint (WF) concept and methodology to include the virtual or indirect water use to assess the production‐side and consumption‐side WF of 65 United States (U.S.) cities. The 65 cities include the largest metropolitan areas and some of the major mid‐sized cities in the U.S. We use metropolitan areas to define our city boundaries as this is the native spatial resolution of the main datasets used. To estimate the urban WFs, we integrated large and disparate datasets, including commodity flow (agricultural, livestock, and industrial commodities), water use, and socioeconomic data. By analyzing the estimated WF values, we found indirect water use accounts on average for 66% of the WF of consumption. We found some cities are net virtual water exporters (11 of 65) because they rely heavily on direct water uses or are heavy producers of industrial commodities. Also, WF patterns vary widely across the U.S. but regional patterns seem to emerge. For example, the dense cities of the U.S. northeast megaregion have a significantly low per capita WF relative to the other cities, while cities in the Gulf Coast megaregion have a significantly higher industrial WF of production and consumption. Furthermore, there is inequality in the WF of consumption where a few cities account for a disproportionate share of the total U.S. urban water uses.     

Biomass Based Sorption Cooling Systems for Cold Storage Applications

Controlled atmospheric storage is a widely popular technique for storage of fruits and vegetables. In this paper, the experimental studies on biomass powered absorption systems for cold storage applications using ammonia water as a working fluid pair is presented. The heat input to the absorption system is supplied by a producer gas obtained from a downdraft gasifier, using firewood as fuel. The system is designed and fabricated to store about 15 MT of fruits and vegetables, having a cooling capacity of 3 TR. The effect of sink temperature, solution flow rate, cooling water flow rate and biomass consumption on the performance of the system has been analyzed. It is found that the real co-efficient of performance of the system is around 0.35 - 0.2, considering the source-site factor for auxiliary power consumption. The operating Cost/h for the biomass based cold storage system is lower than the presently available conventional compression based units.     

HOW MUCH UNDERGROUND WATER STORAGE CAPACITY DOES TEXAS HAVE?1

Water imported into Texas under the Texas Water Plan must be stored in surface or underground reservoirs. Ground-water levels are being drawn down heavily in many parts of Texas. This is causing a shift of much water from a surface- to a groundwater environment. The lowering water tables have resulted in a great reduction in wastage of water through evapotranspiration and spring and well flow. The methods used in estimating the quantities of underground storage capacity available in Texas are discussed. Some problems will be encountered in the use of dewatered underground storage capacity by artificial recharge. In spite of these problems, probably 60 to 70 percent of the dewatered storage capacity of Texas aquifers can be reused for groundwater storage. Most of this capacity is located where it can be used in conjunction with the Texas Water Plan.     

ESTIMATING THE Q100 IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: A PRACTICAL PROBLEM IN FOREST HYDROLOGY1

ABSTRACT. Estimates of peak flows, with specified return periods, are needed in practice for the design of works that affect streams in forested areas. In the province of British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, the new Forest Practices Code specifies the 100-year instantaneous peak flow (Q100) for the design of bridges and culverts for stream crossings under forest roads; and many practitioners are engaged in making such estimates. The state of the art is still quite primitive, very similar to the state of urban hydrology 30 years ago, when popular estimating techniques were used with little consideration given to their applicability. Urban hydrology then evolved on a much more scientific basis, such that within about a 10-year period, standard approaches to design were developed. Forest hydrology should follow the same pattern, at least as far as estimating design flows is concerned. Popular present day design procedures include the rational method and other empirical approaches based on rainfall data, as use of the standard flood frequency approach is limited by the paucity of relevant flow data. Estimating procedures based on peak streamflow measurements and statistics are likely to evolve, and these will include distinctions for rain, snowmelt, and rain on snow floods. Guidelines will also be developed for selecting and applying appropriate procedures for particular areas.     

China: Energy and environment

Some of China's most prominent environmental problems are related to energy The air pollution of the cities and industrial centers is caused by the inefficient combustion of coal. Deforestation is due to a certain extent to the procurement of firewood. Further problems are caused by the ash and slag from coal combustion and the oil pollution of the sea. While most of China's air is still clean, pollution levels in the cities surpass by far those of German industrial towns, and the health effects are becoming apparent The problem of deforestation must be considered still more serious because it affects whole regions. Short-term effective solutions to the problems presented are not available     

WOOD ENERGY AND RURAL COMMUNITIES

Woodfuels (firewood and charcoal) comprise the predominant source of energy for rural populations in developing countries, and are likely to continue to do so. Increasing depletion of locally available wood supplies can lead to reductions in energy available for cooking and heating, increasing diversion of agricultural residues to fuel use, and deterioration of physical environments dependent on tree cover. This paper examines different ways of dealing with the problem and argues that attention must be paid to means of alleviating demand for woodfuels in the short term by using existing supplies more efficiently, as well as to increasing their supply over the longer term.     

Policy Frameworks Influencing Outdoor Water‐use Restrictions

Water‐use efficiency in the United States (U.S.) has improved in recent years. Yet continued population growth coupled with increasingly conservation‐oriented regulatory frameworks suggest that residential water suppliers will have to realize additional efficiency gains in coming decades. Outdoor water‐use restrictions (OWRs) appear to be an increasingly prevalent demand‐side management policy tool. To date little research has investigated the policy mechanisms that govern OWR adoption and influence the prevalence of OWRs. This article fills this gap with an assessment of state‐level policies influencing local‐level restrictions on residential outdoor water use in each of the 48 contiguous U.S. states, and with a detailed illustration of the cross‐scalar dynamic of one state's policy framework in practice. An examination of the implementation of OWRs in 24 neighboring towns in Massachusetts across the 2003‐2012 period indicates the interplay between state‐level and local‐level policies leads to OWRs implementation over extended time‐periods, even when drought conditions are not present. This finding suggests OWRs are being used as a tool for general‐purpose water conservation rather than as a stopgap measure justified by temporary water shortage conditions. Future research should investigate how local‐level water savings vary with differing state‐level approaches.     

The Importance of the Chosen Technique to Estimate Diffuse Solar Radiation by Means of Regression

The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) is one of the widely used methods which is used for estimating the diffuse solar radiation. However, in order to use the OLS method in the estimation, the dataset must provide certain assumptions. In this study, alternative robust methods have been described and they were compared with the OLS method, which is used for estimating diffuse radiation frequently in an application. At the end of the analysis, the R² value obtained by the OLS method is less than the values obtained by M regression models. In other words, the explanation of the dependent value is weak when the OLS method is used. Finally, it can be said that the most appropriate method is Andrews for estimating the diffuse solar radiation.     

CAN STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ASSUME MORE OF THE COSTS OF WATER DEVELOPMENT?1

ABSTRACT As availability of funds in the federal budget for water development has decreased recently, pressure has increased for state and local governments to pay a larger share of the costs. In this situation a difficult question immediately arises-what is the capability of state and local governments to pay a larger share? Of course, there is no easy answer. Expenditures of public funds are policy outcomes of a government's political process in which political, economic, legal and other factors are involved in complex relationships. The traditional sources of capital funds for state and local governments include bond proceeds, tax revenues, and federal financial aid (state aid is also a major source of local government funds). The issuing of bonds is hampered by a variety of legal debt limitations, but there are means for circumventing the limitations. State and local governments vary widely in amounts of taxable resources available and in the extent to which these resources have been tapped. More effective use of revenue resources could be made in some cases. New sources of capital funds for water development ought to be considered-a fee on the use of water per se, for example. Costs associated with water use currently are imposed to cover development costs, but a state might impose additional use fees earmarked for a state water development fund.     

A MATRIX AND ACCOMPANYING CLASSIFICATIONS FOR IDENTIFYING WATER RESEARCH PROBLEMS AND NEEDS1

ABSTRACT: A matrix was developed of problems with the functional use of water resources (rows) and functions served by water resources research (columns). A classification of water problems and a classification of research fields also were developed to accompany the matrix. The matrix and classification schemes were used when preparing the five-year research and development plan of the Water Resources Center of The Ohio State University. They were used: (1) to classify each research project that had been supported by the Water Resources Center from 1965 through 1980, (2) to guide interviews with personnel of federal and state agencies and university faculty who assisted in defining Ohio's water research needs, (3) to organize responses received during these interviews, and (4) to arrive at a selected list of ten problems with the functional use of Ohio's water resources that were prioritized based upon opinions received from water-related officials throughout the state. Other matrices and classification schemes are reviewed that were revised and expanded upon when formulating the ones used in Ohio. Suggestions are given regarding further development of the functional matrix and accompanying classifications as well as their use in administration of the cooperative federal-state water resources research program and other federal water resources research programs.     

Emergy accounting of the Province of Siena: towards a thermodynamic geography for regional studies

This research is part of the SPIn-Eco project for the Province of Siena, Italy, and applies an environmental accounting method to a region with reference to its population, human activities, natural cycles, infrastructures and other settings. This study asserts that the consumption of resources due to the human economy is a source of great concern because of the load it places on the biosphere. Environmental resources locally used, whether directly or indirectly, from both renewable energy fluxes and storage of materials and energies, are investigated. In this paper emergy analysis is presented and applied to the Province of Siena and to each of its municipalities, in order to evaluate the main flows of energy and materials that supply the territorial system, including human subsystems, with reference to their actual environmental cost. Therefore, the behaviour of the whole system and the interactions between natural and human agents were studied; in other words, the attitudes of the territorial systems toward resource use as revealed by their patterns of emergy consumption were observed. Once expressed in units of the same form of energy through the emergy evaluation, categories of resource consumption and systems of varying scales and organization are compared. Furthermore, indexes of environmental performance based on emergy are calculated. Flows of energy and materials are assessed, and their intensities, which vary throughout the area of the Province, are then visualized on maps.     

A proposed methodology for measuring incremental environmental benefits from using constructed wetlands to control agricultural non-point-source pollution

A binary response estimation procedure using contingent valuation data is proposed for estimating the incremental environmental benefits associated with the use of constructed wetlands to control agricultural waste-water runoff. The model uses two binary responses per individual while circumventing the non-independence problems associated with follow-up valuation questions. Case study results suggest that the methodology provides a potentially effective means for measuring the non-market benefits of constructed wetlands in addition to water-quality maintenance.1998 Academic Press     

农村居民点用地问题研究--以安徽宣城市为例

引入距离指数、分散度等定量指标,采用定性与定量相结合的方法,从用地数量、布局等方面对宣城市农村居民点用地现状进行了阐述,在此基础上对农村居民点用地存在的主要问题进行了深入分析与探讨,并针对存在的问题提出相应的对策及建议.其研究结果不但为农村居民点用地整理的开展、农村社区生态环境的改善等提供了理论参考,而且对土地利用总体规划的修编提供了重要参考价值.     

FACTORS FOR PREDICTING COMMERCIAL WATER USE1

ABSTRACT: Growth in the commercial sector of the economy and the increased importance of total waste water volumes in design have created a need for methods of estimating commercial water demand. The results of a multiple correlation analysis and a principal components analysis suggest that commercial water demand is a function of the following three primary constructs: an employee water use factor, a customer layout factor, and a customer water facility factor. Three easily measured variables were used to represent these primary constructs: gross store area, length of display windows, and the number of drinking fountains, respectively. Prediction equations relating water use and the three variables were derived and can be used by planners in estimating commercial water use.