A measure of sustainability of Brazilian agribusiness using directional distance functions and data envelopment analysis

The social and environmental impacts caused by the modernization of Brazilian agribusiness have evoked a growing interest in the search of balance between social-economics development and the adequate use of natural resources, driving the country to sustainable development. Therefore, the main aim of this article is to estimate a set of indicators of relative efficiency in the Brazilian agricultural sector, which satisfy the concept of Pareto optimality, potentiates simultaneously both economic, ecological dimensions and social functions. To reach this purpose, the method of directional distance functions and data envelopment analysis was applied. These indicators confirm, in different ways, the hypothesis that it is possible to perform consistent productive strategies with the maximization of social welfare, despite the apparent antagonism among these three dimensions. In addition, it is shown that efficient Brazilian states tend to combine the three dimensions in different ways. Hence, it can be concluded that several equilibrium taken sustainable can be achieved through different actions on poverty and environmental impact reduction without necessarily generating productive inefficiencies. This result can be considered of prominent importance for sustainable development in Brazil and can also serve as a reference in the definition of goals of the plan ‘Brazil without Misery’ and international commitments to reduce Greenhouse Gas – GHG – in Brazil, especially for the 17 inefficient Brazilian states.     

北京大气PM2.5中微量元素的浓度变化特征与来源

为了解北京大气细粒子中微量元素的污染水平和来源,在车公庄和清华园进行了连续1年、每周1次的PM_2.5采样和全样品分析.微量元素浓度的周变化大,尤以冬季为甚,相邻2周最大相差达1.6倍;但除冬季的平均浓度较高之外,其季节变化并不显著.微量元素的富集因子在春季最低,反映了频繁发生的沙尘天气的影响.Se、Br和Pb的浓度比来自于北京A层土壤中的含量要高出约1000～8000倍,表明它们主要来自于人为污染.其中Se的富集度最高,反映了北京细粒子来自于燃煤污染的特征.Pb的年均浓度(0.31μg·m^-3)虽然未超过WHO的年均标准,但与洛杉矶和布里斯班相比处于较高的水平;与Br、Se的比较分析表明,燃煤可能是Pb除机动车排放之外的另一个重要来源.     

Is love of nature in the US becoming love of electronic media? 16-year downtrend in national park visits explained by watching movies,playing video games,internet use,and oil prices

After 50 years of steady increase, per capita visits to US national parks have declined since 1988. This decline, coincident with the rise in electronic entertainment media, may represent a shift in recreation choices with broader implications for the value placed on biodiversity conservation and environmentally responsible behavior. We compared the decline in per capita visits with a set of indicators representing alternate recreation choices and constraints. The Spearman correlation analyses found this decline in NPV to be significantly negatively correlated with several electronic entertainment indicators: hours of television, (rs=-0.743, P<0.001), video games (rs=-0.773, P<0.001), home movies (rs=-0.788, P<0.001), theatre attendance (rs=-0.587, P<0.025) and internet use (rs=-0.783, P<0.001). There were also significant negative correlations with oil prices (rs=-0.547, P<0.025), foreign travel (rs=-0.452, P<0.05), and Appalachian Trail hikers (rs=-0.785, P<0.001). Income was significantly positively correlated with foreign travel (rs=0.621, P<0.005) but negatively correlated with national park visits (rs=-0.697, P<0.005). There was no significant correlation of mean number of vacation days, indicating available vacation time is probably not a factor. Federal funding actually increased during this period, and so was rejected as a probable factor. Park capacity was rejected as limiting since both total overnight stays and visits at the seven most popular parks rose well into the mid-1990s. Aging of baby boomers was also rejected as they are only now reaching retirement age, and thus during the period of visitation decline were still of prime family vacation age. Multiple linear regression of four of the entertainment media variables as well as oil prices explains 97.5% of this recent decline (r=0.975, multiple r2=0.950, adjusted multiple r2=0.925, SE=0.015, F=37.800, P<0.0001). We may be seeing evidence of a fundamental shift away from people's appreciation of nature (biophilia, Wilson 1984) to 'videophilia,' which we here define as "the new human tendency to focus on sedentary activities involving electronic media." Such a shift would not bode well for the future of biodiversity conservation.     

Influence of Prey and Nutritional Status on the Rate of Nitrogen Uptake by Prymnesium parvum (haptophyte)1

Lindehoff, Elin, Edna Granéli, and Patricia M. Glibert, 2010. Influence of Prey and Nutritional Status on the Rate of Nitrogen Uptake by Prymnesium parvum (Haptophyte). Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(1):121-132. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2009.00396.x Abstract: We studied how the specific nitrogen (N) uptake rates of nitrate (NO₃⁻), urea, and the amino acids, glutamic acid and glycine, by Prymnesium parvum were affected by (1) the change from N-deficient status to N-sufficient status of the P. parvum cells, (2) presence of prey from a natural Baltic Sea plankton community, and (3) the composition of prey as affected by additions of terrestrial originated dissolved organic matter (DOM) or inorganic nutrients. Nitrogen-deficient P. parvum (16 μM NO₃⁻ and 4 μM PO₄⁻, molar N:P ratio of 4:1) were mixed with a natural Baltic plankton community and given PO₄³⁻ and (1) NO₃⁻ (control) or (2) high molecular weight DOM, >1 kDa concentrated from sewage effluent (+DOM), in a molar N:P ratio of 9-10:1. With additions of ¹⁵N-enriched substrates, rates of N uptake from NO₃⁻, urea, and the amino acids glycine and glutamic acid were measured every 24 h for 72 h. Initial N-deficient P. parvum were highly toxic (3.7 ± 0.9 × 10⁻⁴ mg Sap equiv/cell) and toxic allelochemicals were released into the medium causing the natural plankton community to lyse. Rates of N uptake differed between the “control” and the “+DOM” treatments over time; total (sum of the N substrates measured) absolute uptake rates (ρ_cell, fmol N/cell/h) at ambient culture conditions were significantly higher (ANOVA, p < 0.05) in the more toxic “control” treatments compared with the “+DOM” treatments after 48 h. In the “control” treatment, the total ρ_cell increased significantly (ANOVA, p < 0.01) from time 0 to 48 h, while in the “+DOM” treatment there was no significant increase. Released organic nutrients from the lysed plankton cells may have increased uptake rates of amino acids and urea by P. parvum. All uptake rates declined in all treatments by 72 h. Total dissolved N uptake rates at ambient culture conditions were estimated to make up about 10% of the N P. parvum are potentially capable of ingesting from particulate prey.     

Esterase inhibition in tadpoles of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Scinax fuscovarius</Emphasis> (Anura,Hylidae) as a biomarker for exposure to organophosphate pesticides

Purpose  

Organophosphate pesticides (OPs) are among the most used insecticides in agriculture, causing the inhibition of esterases like acetylcholinesterase (AChE), butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) and carboxylesterase (CbE). Pesticides can reach the aquatic environment, posing risks to non-target organisms, including tadpoles.     

Forest income and dependency in lowland Bolivia

Forests contribute to livelihoods of rural people throughout the tropics. This paper adds to the emerging body of quantitative knowledge on absolute and relative economic importance, through both cash and subsistence income, of moist forests to households. Qualitative contextual information was collected in six villages in lowland Bolivia, followed by a structured survey of randomly selected households (n = 118) that included four quarterly income surveys. We employed a novel data collection approach that allows detailed estimation of total household accounts, including sources of forest income. We estimated the average forest income share of total annual household income (forest dependency) at 20%, ranging from 18 to 24%. Adding environmental income increased the average to 26%, being fairly constant across income quartiles at 24–28%. Absolute levels of forest income increased with total household income, while forest dependency was the highest in the best-off income quartile—the primary harvesters of forest products are better-off households. The pattern of high forest dependency among better-off households has also been reported from other countries, indicating that this pattern may be more common than advocated by conventional wisdom. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions, we found significant determinants of absolute forest income to be household size, sex of household head and area of cultivated land; the significant determinants for forest dependency were level of education, whether household head was born in village and whether household was food self-sufficient. Better-off households were able to realise cash income from forests, while poorer households—in particular if headed by women—were more reliant on subsistence forest income. We argue that the differential patterns of forest income across income quartiles should be considered in future development interventions and that findings indicate a potential for forests to contribute to moving households out of poverty.     

Development of environmental thresholds for nitrogen and phosphorus in streams

Inputs of nutrients (P and N) to freshwaters can cause excessive aquatic plant growth, depletion of oxygen, and deleterious changes in diversity of aquatic fauna. As part of a "National Agri-Environmental Standards Initiative," the Government of Canada committed to developing environmental thresholds for nutrients to protect ecological condition of agricultural streams. Analysis of data from >200 long-term monitoring stations across Canada and detailed ecological study at ~70 sites showed that agricultural land cover was associated with increased nutrient concentrations in streams and this, in turn, was associated with increased sestonic and benthic algal abundance, loss of sensitive benthic macroinvertebrate taxa, and an increase in benthic diatom taxa indicative of eutrophication. Chemical thresholds for N and P were defined by applying five approaches, employing either a predetermined percentile to a water chemistry data set or a relationship between water chemistry and land cover, to identify boundaries between minimally disturbed and impaired conditions. Comparison of these chemical thresholds with biological thresholds (derived from stressor-response relationships) produced an approach for rationalizing these two types of thresholds and deriving nutrient criteria. The resulting criteria were 0.01 to 0.03 mg L(-1) total P and 0.87-1.2 mg L(-1) total N for the Atlantic Maritime, 0.02 mg L(-1) total P and 0.21 mg L(-1) total N for the Montane Cordillera, ~0.03 mg L(-1) total P and ~1.1 mg L(-1) total N for the Mixedwood Plains, and ~0.10 mg L(-1) total P and 0.39-0.98 mg L(-1) total N for the interior prairies of Canada. Adoption of these criteria should result in greater likelihood of good ecological condition with respect to benthic algal abundance, diatom composition, and macroinvertebrate composition.     

A Decision Support Framework for Science-Based, Multi-Stakeholder Deliberation: A Coral Reef Example

We present a decision support framework for science-based assessment and multi-stakeholder deliberation. The framework consists of two parts: a DPSIR (Drivers–Pressures–States–Impacts–Responses) analysis to identify the important causal relationships among anthropogenic environmental stressors, processes, and outcomes; and a Decision Landscape analysis to depict the legal, social, and institutional dimensions of environmental decisions. The Decision Landscape incorporates interactions among government agencies, regulated businesses, non-government organizations, and other stakeholders. It also identifies where scientific information regarding environmental processes is collected and transmitted to improve knowledge about elements of the DPSIR and to improve the scientific basis for decisions. Our application of the decision support framework to coral reef protection and restoration in the Florida Keys focusing on anthropogenic stressors, such as wastewater, proved to be successful and offered several insights. Using information from a management plan, it was possible to capture the current state of the science with a DPSIR analysis as well as important decision options, decision makers and applicable laws with a the Decision Landscape analysis. A structured elicitation of values and beliefs conducted at a coral reef management workshop held in Key West, Florida provided a diversity of opinion and also indicated a prioritization of several environmental stressors affecting coral reef health. The integrated DPSIR/Decision landscape framework for the Florida Keys developed based on the elicited opinion and the DPSIR analysis can be used to inform management decisions, to reveal the role that further scientific information and research might play to populate the framework, and to facilitate better-informed agreement among participants.     

Planetary Stewardship in an Urbanizing World: Beyond City Limits

Cities are rapidly increasing in importance as a major factor shaping the Earth system, and therefore, must take corresponding responsibility. With currently over half the world’s population, cities are supported by resources originating from primarily rural regions often located around the world far distant from the urban loci of use. The sustainability of a city can no longer be considered in isolation from the sustainability of human and natural resources it uses from proximal or distant regions, or the combined resource use and impacts of cities globally. The world’s multiple and complex environmental and social challenges require interconnected solutions and coordinated governance approaches to planetary stewardship. We suggest that a key component of planetary stewardship is a global system of cities that develop sustainable processes and policies in concert with its non-urban areas. The potential for cities to cooperate as a system and with rural connectivity could increase their capacity to effect change and foster stewardship at the planetary scale and also increase their resource security.     

Sources,distribution, and acidity of sulfate–ammonium aerosol in the Arctic in winter–spring

We use GEOS-Chem chemical transport model simulations of sulfate–ammonium aerosol data from the NASA ARCTAS and NOAA ARCPAC aircraft campaigns in the North American Arctic in April 2008, together with longer-term data from surface sites, to better understand aerosol sources in the Arctic in winter–spring and the implications for aerosol acidity. Arctic pollution is dominated by transport from mid-latitudes, and we test the relevant ammonia and sulfur dioxide emission inventories in the model by comparison with wet deposition flux data over the source continents. We find that a complicated mix of natural and anthropogenic sources with different vertical signatures is responsible for sulfate concentrations in the Arctic. East Asian pollution influence is weak in winter but becomes important in spring through transport in the free troposphere. European influence is important at all altitudes but never dominant. West Asia (non-Arctic Russia and Kazakhstan) is the largest contributor to Arctic sulfate in surface air in winter, reflecting a southward extension of the Arctic front over that region. Ammonium in Arctic spring mostly originates from anthropogenic sources in East Asia and Europe, with added contribution from boreal fires, resulting in a more neutralized aerosol in the free troposphere than at the surface. The ARCTAS and ARCPAC data indicate a median aerosol neutralization fraction [NH₄⁺]/(2[SO₄^2?] + [NO₃^?]) of 0.5 mol mol^?1 below 2 km and 0.7 mol mol^?1 above. We find that East Asian and European aerosol transported to the Arctic is mostly neutralized, whereas West Asian and North American aerosol is highly acidic. Growth of sulfur emissions in West Asia may be responsible for the observed increase in aerosol acidity at Barrow over the past decade. As global sulfur emissions decline over the next decades, increasing aerosol neutralization in the Arctic is expected, potentially accelerating Arctic warming through indirect radiative forcing and feedbacks.