“One thing leads to another”—Commodities,linkages and industrial development

With a particular focus on low income economies in SSA, this paper addresses the nature and determinants of linkages from the commodities sectors and challenges the received view that enclave development is an inherent characteristic of resource extraction, particularly in the hard and energy commodities sectors. It argues that there has been a steady increase in linkage development and that there are significant opportunities for deepening this process. The opportunities may be greater for backward than for forward linkages, particularly in the minerals and energy sectors. In making this case, this Discussion Paper draws on the experience of high income countries which have resource intensive economic structures, the geographical specificity of many resources and the growing interest of large resource extracting firms in outsourcing the production of inputs which are outside of their core competences and in supporting local production of some inputs, it sets out a general model of linkage development which distinguishes between win–win and win–lose outcomes.     

Creating a larger role for environmental psychology: The Reasonable Person Model as an integrative framework

We argue that the environment, broadly construed, has a profound effect on human cognition, action, and well-being. If this is true, then the field of environmental psychology has a far larger potential to aid humanity than is generally realized. We suggest that the field would be more likely to achieve this potential if it viewed environments from the perspective of human informational needs, and focused on environmental/informational patterns that have the potential to make it easier for people to help themselves. Further, achieving such benefits could be greatly enhanced by taking advantage of the many opportunities available for collaborating with researchers in other areas of psychology. The reasonable person model is offered as a perspective that could facilitate moving in these various new directions while taking advantage of the considerable existent knowledge about human–environment interactions that is currently underappreciated.     

Dechlorination comparison of mono-substituted PCBs with Mg/Pd in different solvent systems

It is widely recognized that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a dangerous environmental pollutant. Even though the use and production of PCBs have been restricted, heavy industrial use has made them a wide-spread environmental issue today. Dehalogenation using zero-valent metals has been a promising avenue of research for the remediation of chlorinated compounds and other contaminants that are present in the environment. However, zero-valent metals by themselves have shown little capability of dechlorinating polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Mechanically alloying the metal with a catalyst, such as palladium, creates a bimetallic system capable of dechlorinating PCBs very rapidly to biphenyl. This study primarily aims to evaluate the effects of solvent specificity on the kinetics of mono-substituted PCBs, in an attempt to determine the mechanism of degradation. Rate constants and final byproducts were determined for the contaminant systems in both water and methanol, and significant differences in the relative rates of reaction were observed between the two solvents.     

Recognizing animal personhood in compassionate conservation

Compassionate conservation is based on the ethical position that actions taken to protect biodiversity should be guided by compassion for all sentient beings. Critics argue that there are 3 core reasons harming animals is acceptable in conservation programs: the primary purpose of conservation is biodiversity protection; conservation is already compassionate to animals; and conservation should prioritize compassion to humans. We used argument analysis to clarify the values and logics underlying the debate around compassionate conservation. We found that objections to compassionate conservation are expressions of human exceptionalism, the view that humans are of a categorically separate and higher moral status than all other species. In contrast, compassionate conservationists believe that conservation should expand its moral community by recognizing all sentient beings as persons. Personhood, in an ethical sense, implies the individual is owed respect and should not be treated merely as a means to other ends. On scientific and ethical grounds, there are good reasons to extend personhood to sentient animals, particularly in conservation. The moral exclusion or subordination of members of other species legitimates the ongoing manipulation and exploitation of the living worlds, the very reason conservation was needed in the first place. Embracing compassion can help dismantle human exceptionalism, recognize nonhuman personhood, and navigate a more expansive moral space.     

Considering built environment and spatial correlation in modeling pedestrian injury severity

Objective: This study looks at mitigating and aggravating factors that are associated with the injury severity of pedestrians when they have crashes with another road user and overcomes existing limitations in the literature by focusing attention on the built environment and considering spatial correlation across crashes.

Method: Reports for 6,539 pedestrian crashes occurred in Denmark between 2006 and 2015 were merged with geographic information system resources containing detailed information about the built environment and exposure at the crash locations. A linearized spatial logit model estimated the probability of pedestrians sustaining a severe or fatal injury conditional on the occurrence of a crash with another road user.

Results: This study confirms previous findings about older pedestrians and intoxicated pedestrians being the most vulnerable road users and crashes with heavy vehicles and in roads with higher speed limits being related to the most severe outcomes. This study provides novel perspectives by showing positive spatial correlations of crashes with the same severity outcomes and emphasizing the role of the built environment in the proximity of the crash.

Conclusions: This study emphasizes the need for thinking about traffic calming measures, illumination solutions, road maintenance programs, and speed limit reductions. Moreover, this study emphasizes the role of the built environment, because shopping areas, residential areas, and walking traffic density are positively related to a reduction in pedestrian injury severity. Often, these areas have in common a larger pedestrian mass that is more likely to make other road users more aware and attentive, whereas the same does not seem to apply to areas with lower pedestrian density.     

Adaptive social impact management for conservation and environmental management

Concerns about the social consequences of conservation have spurred increased attention the monitoring and evaluation of the social impacts of conservation projects. This has resulted in a growing body of research that demonstrates how conservation can produce both positive and negative social, economic, cultural, health, and governance consequences for local communities. Yet, the results of social monitoring efforts are seldom applied to adaptively manage conservation projects. Greater attention is needed to incorporating the results of social impact assessments in long‐term conservation management to minimize negative social consequences and maximize social benefits. We bring together insights from social impact assessment, adaptive management, social learning, knowledge coproduction, cross‐scale governance, and environmental planning to propose a definition and framework for adaptive social impact management (ASIM). We define ASIM as the cyclical process of monitoring and adaptively managing social impacts over the life‐span of an initiative through the 4 stages of profiling, learning, planning, and implementing. We outline 14 steps associated with the 4 stages of the ASIM cycle and provide guidance and potential methods for social‐indicator development, predictive assessments of social impacts, monitoring and evaluation, communication of results, and identification and prioritization of management responses. Successful ASIM will be aided by engaging with best practices – including local engagement and collaboration in the process, transparent communication of results to stakeholders, collective deliberation on and choice of interventions, documentation of shared learning at the site level, and the scaling up of insights to inform higher‐level conservation policies‐to increase accountability, trust, and perceived legitimacy among stakeholders. The ASIM process is broadly applicable to conservation, environmental management, and development initiatives at various scales and in different contexts.     

Recent Ogallala Aquifer Region Drought Conditions as Observed by Terrestrial Water Storage Anomalies from GRACE

Recent severe drought events have occurred over the Ogallala Aquifer region (OAR) during the period 2011–2015, creating significant impacts on water resources and their use in regional environmental and economic systems. The changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS), as indicated by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), reveals a detailed picture of the temporal and spatial evolution of drought events. The observations by GRACE indicate the worst drought conditions occurred in September 2012, with an average TWS deficit of ~8 cm in the northern OAR and ~11 cm in the southern OAR, consistent with precipitation data from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project. Comparing changes in TWS with precipitation shows the TWS changes can be predominantly attributable to variations in precipitation. Power spectrum and squared wavelet coherence analysis indicate a significant correlation between TWS change and the El Nino‐Southern Oscillation, and the influence of equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures on TWS change is much stronger in the southern OAR than the northern OAR. The results of this study illustrate the value of GRACE in not just the diagnosis of significant drought events, but also in possibly improving the predictive power of remote signals that are impacted by nonregional climatic events (El Nino), ultimately leading to improved water resource management applications on a regional scale. Editor’s note : This paper is part of the featured series on Optimizing Ogallala Aquifer Water Use to Sustain Food Systems. See the February 2019 issue for the introduction and background to the series.     

Application of multiple-population viability analysis to evaluate species recovery alternatives

Population viability analysis (PVA) is a powerful conservation tool, but it remains impractical for many species, particularly species with multiple, broadly distributed populations for which collecting suitable data can be challenging. A recently developed method of multiple-population viability analysis (MPVA), however, addresses many limitations of traditional PVA. We built on previous development of MPVA for Lahontan cutthroat trout (LCT) (Oncorhynchus clarkii henshawi), a species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, that is distributed broadly across habitat fragments in the Great Basin (U.S.A.). We simulated potential management scenarios and assessed their effects on population sizes and extinction risks in 211 streams, where LCT exist or may be reintroduced. Conservation populations (those managed for recovery) tended to have lower extinction risks than nonconservation populations (mean = 19.8% vs. 52.7%), but not always. Active management or reprioritization may be warranted in some cases. Eliminating non-native trout had a strong positive effect on overall carrying capacities for LCT populations but often did not translate into lower extinction risks unless simulations also reduced associated stochasticity (to the mean for populations without non-native trout). Sixty fish or 5–10 fish/km was the minimum reintroduction number and density, respectively, that provided near-maximum reintroduction success. This modeling framework provided crucial insights and empirical justification for conservation planning and specific adaptive management actions for this threatened species. More broadly, MPVA is applicable to a wide range of species exhibiting geographic rarity and limited availability of abundance data and greatly extends the potential use of empirical PVA for conservation assessment and planning.     

Organizational networks in road safety: Case studies of U.S. Vision Zero cities

Objective: Each year, more than 30,000 deaths occur on U.S. roads. Recognizing the magnitude and persistence of this public health problem, a number of U.S. cities have adopted a relatively new approach to prevention, termed Vision Zero (VZ). VZ has been adopted by more than 30?U.S. cities and calls for creating a transportation system that ensures that no road traffic crash results in death or serious injury. A core component of VZ is strong multidisciplinary and multisector stakeholder engagement, and cities adopting VZ often establish a VZ coalition to foster stakeholder collaboration. However, there is little information on the structure, development, and functioning of coalitions working to achieve VZ and on tools available to study and evaluate such coalition functioning. We sought to describe the characteristics of prominent U.S. VZ city coalitions and context surrounding VZ uptake and advancement in these cities. Moreover, we demonstrate use of network analysis as one tool for exploring the structure of interorganizational relationships in coalitions.

Methods: We conducted case studies of 4 prominent U.S. VZ city coalitions in 2017–2018. We summarized coalition members’ characteristics and responses to questions about their cities’ VZ adoption, planning, and implementation. We asked each coalition member to provide information on their contact frequency, perceived productivity, and resource sharing with every other coalition member in their city and used network analysis techniques in 2 cities to understand the structures and relationships in coalitions.

Results: Findings indicated that government agencies generally constituted the majority of coalition members and often played central roles in terms of coalition network contact, productivity, and resource flow. Other emerging similarities regarding coalition establishment and VZ implementation included the need for political support, the importance of formal plan development, and increased collaboration and cooperation among partners.

Conclusions: Organizational network analyses, enriched with coalition member interviews, can elucidate key aspects of coalition creation, attributes, and relationship structure. The case studies of leading VZ coalition networks presented here highlight the use of these tools. Ultimately, understanding associations between VZ network structures and attributes and road safety outcomes could help inform effective coalition adoption, implementation, and maintenance to optimize safety outcomes.     

The Sustainability of Subsistence Hunting in the Neotropics

Hunting is an important component of native subsistence strategies in Amazonia. It is also a serious threat to biodiversity in some areas. We present data on the faunal harvests of two native Neotropical subsistence hunting peoples, Machiguenga bow-hunters and Piro shotgun hunters of Peru. The rate of annual harvest per square kilometer of catchment is estimated and compared to rates of sustainable harvest calculated by Robinson and Redford (1991). We used indicators of prey abundance to test for the depletion of species that hunters killed in numbers greater than what the model predicts to be sustainable. As predicted, we found the strongest evidence for local depletion of the large primates at the Piro site. The woolly monkey ( Lagothrix lagothricha) harvest at the Machiguenga village and the deer ( Mazama americana) and collared peccary (Tayassu tajacu) harvests at both sites were not predicted to be unsustainable and we found no evidence for depletion. Machiguenga bow hunters killed spider monkeys (Ateles paniscus) in quantities that were slightly above what the model predicted to be sustainable, yet we found no evidence for depletion. Differential species vulnerability, catchment size, and consumer population size could be important factors in determining sustainability.