A participatory approach to the establishment of a baseline scenario for a reforestation Clean Development Mechanism project

This paper is part of a two-year study to investigate the feasibility of initiating a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in an indigenous community of Eastern Panamá, Ipetí-Emberá. We use participatory mapping and matrices as well as household surveys to develop a land-use/land-cover baseline scenario and examine the role of local participation in assessing land-use change. In Ipetí, land-use change has not occurred in a linear way over the last decades, and our data unveils socio-economic factors as potential key drivers of change. The concordance that we observed between geographic information and individual and collective perceptions of land-use change substantiates the possibility of using local knowledge in the establishment of baseline data for CDM projects. Our calculations suggest that the total carbon (C) stocks in the Tierra Colectiva (TC) of Ipetí-Emberá in 2004 represents a 47% reduction from the estimated C stock at the onset of settlement in the early 1970’s. Results from the participatory assessments predict that, in 2024 and in absence of a CDM project, the C stocks will decline from 301,859 t C in 2004 to 155,730 t C, which constitutes a reduction of 52%. The scenario with CDM estimates C stocks of 305,853 t C for 2024, a value slightly superior to the 2004 value. In the TC there is ground to believe that cattle ranching is likely to become an ever more important activity as the population is young and growing and cannot easily move elsewhere. Forests tend to be cleared for cultivation while pastures are established on short fallows. Our baseline scenario underlines the potential for a CDM project to make a significant difference in the future C stocks of this landscape.     

Differential timing and latitudinal variation in sex ratio of Aquatic Warblers during the autumn migration

Differential migration has been extensively reported in spring, but less so in autumn, particularly in relation to sex in monomorphic bird species. Here, we analysed the autumn passage of a monomorphic, globally threatened passerine, the Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola throughout Western Europe, with regard to age and sex. We showed that, overall, adults migrated earlier than first-year birds, and males migrated earlier than females during the autumn migration. This may be caused by an overall social dominance of adults over immatures, and differentiated migration strategy of males and females. In addition, we found male-skewed sex proportions, with a tendency to an equalised ratio in more southern stopover sites. This may indicate a male bias in the global population or different migration strategies of the sexes. Differential migration may cause the age and sex classes to be exposed differently to various threats affecting demographic structure of the species.     

Media Storms and Policy Expertise: How Environmental Beat Journalists Gained Influence During a Shale Gas Controversy

This article examines the conditions under which environmental beat journalists can gain credibility as expert informants. It shows that media storms foster a particular dynamic that can add to this credibility. Comparing a media storm over shale gas development in Quebec with regular coverage of the same issue in British Columbia, this article shows that the coverage space given to environmental beat journalists during a media storm can render their alliance with protest groups mutually beneficial. Beat journalists can benefit from the willingness of these groups to participate in their stories, while the groups benefit from increased visibility. Beat journalists also benefit by being perceived as expert informants in policy networks, a role that they use to encourage policy-makers to take the concerns of protest groups seriously. This dynamic also increases the negativity of the news coverage. The article makes a contribution to knowledge on the role of environmental journalists in policy-making processes.     

Development and implementation of eco-genomic tools for aquatic ecosystem biomonitoring: the SYNAQUA French-Swiss program

The effectiveness of environmental protection measures is based on the early identification and diagnosis of anthropogenic pressures. Similarly, restoration actions require precise monitoring of changes in the ecological quality of ecosystems, in order to highlight their effectiveness. Monitoring the ecological quality relies on bioindicators, which are organisms revealing the pressures exerted on the environment through the composition of their communities. Their implementation, based on the morphological identification of species, is expensive because it requires time and experts in taxonomy. Recent genomic tools should provide access to reliable and high-throughput environmental monitoring by directly inferring the composition of bioindicators’ communities from their DNA (metabarcoding). The French-Swiss program SYNAQUA (INTERREG France-Switzerland 2017–2019) proposes to use and validate the tools of environmental genomic for biomonitoring and aims ultimately at their implementation in the regulatory bio-surveillance. SYNAQUA will test the metabarcoding approach focusing on two bioindicators, diatoms, and aquatic oligochaetes, which are used in freshwater biomonitoring in France and Switzerland. To go towards the renewal of current biomonitoring practices, SYNAQUA will (1) bring together different actors: scientists, environmental managers, consulting firms, and biotechnological companies, (2) apply this approach on a large scale to demonstrate its relevance, (3) propose robust and reliable tools, and (4) raise public awareness and train the various actors likely to use these new tools. Biomonitoring approaches based on such environmental genomic tools should address the European need for reliable, higher-throughput monitoring to improve the protection of aquatic environments under multiple pressures, guide their restoration, and follow their evolution.     

Aerosol formation yields from the reaction of catechol with ozone

The formation of secondary organic aerosol from the gas-phase reaction of catechol (1,2-dihydroxybenzene) with ozone has been studied in two smog chambers. Aerosol production was monitored using a scanning mobility particle sizer and loss of the precursor was determined by gas chromatography and infrared spectroscopy, whilst ozone concentrations were measured using a UV photometric analyzer. The overall organic aerosol yield (Y) was determined as the ratio of the suspended aerosol mass corrected for wall losses (M_o) to the total reacted catechol concentrations, assuming a particle density of 1.4 g cm^?3. Analysis of the data clearly shows that Y is a strong function of M_o and that secondary organic aerosol formation can be expressed by a one-product gas–particle partitioning absorption model. The aerosol formation is affected by the initial catechol concentration, which leads to aerosol yields ranging from 17% to 86%. The results of this work are compared to similar studies reported in the literature.     

Understanding the fate and transport of petroleum hydrocarbons from coal tar within gasholders

Coal tars have been identified as posing a threat to human health due to their toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic characteristics. Workers involved in former gasholders decommissioning are potentially exposed to relevant concentrations of volatile and semi-volatile hydrocarbons upon opening up derelict tanks and during tar excavation/removal. While information on contaminated sites air-quality and its implications on medium-long term exposure is available, acute exposure issues associated with the execution of critical tasks are less understood. Calculations indicated that the concentration of a given contaminant in the gasholder vapour phase only depends on the coal tar composition, being only barely affected by the presence of water in the gasholder and the tar volume/void space ratio. Fugacity modelling suggested that risk-critical compounds such as benzene, naphthalene and other monocyclic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons may gather in the gasholder air phase at significant concentrations. Gasholder emissions were measured on-site and compared with the workplace exposure limits (WELs) currently in use in UK. While levels for most of the toxic compounds were far lower than WELs, benzene air-concentrations where found to be above the accepted threshold. In addition due to the long exposure periods involved in gasholder decommissioning and the significant contribution given by naphthalene to the total coal tar vapour concentration, the adoption of a WEL for naphthalene may need to be considered to support operators in preventing human health risk at the workplace. The Level I fugacity approach used in this study demonstrated its suitability for applications to sealed environments such as gasholders and its further refining could provide a useful tool for land remediation risk assessors.     

Experimental assessment of characteristic turbulent scales in two-phase flow of hydraulic jump: from bottom to free surface

A hydraulic jump is a turbulent shear flow with a free-surface roller. The turbulent flow pattern is characterised by the development of instantaneous three-dimensional turbulent structures throughout the air–water column up to the free surface. The length and time scales of the turbulent structures are key information to describe the turbulent processes, which is of significant importance for the improvement of numerical models and physical measurement techniques. However, few physical data are available so far due to the complexity of the measurement. This paper presents an investigation of a series of characteristic turbulent scales for hydraulic jumps, covering the length and time scales of turbulent flow structures in bubbly flow, on free surface and at the impingement point. The bubbly-flow turbulent scales are obtained for Fr = 7.5 with 3.4 × 10⁴ < Re < 1.4 × 10⁵ in both longitudinal and transverse directions, and are compared with the free-surface scales. The results highlight three-dimensional flow patterns with anisotropic turbulence field. The turbulent structures are observed with different length and time scales respectively in the shear flow region and free-surface recirculation region. The bubbly structures next to the roller surface and the free-surface fluctuation structures show comparable length and time scales, both larger than the scales of vortical structures in the shear flow and smaller than the scales of impingement perimeter at the jump toe. A decomposition of physical signals indicates that the large turbulent scales are related to the unsteady motion of the flow in the upper part of the roller, while the high-frequency velocity turbulence dominates in the lower part of the roller. Scale effects cannot be ignored for Reynolds number smaller than 4 × 10⁴, mainly linked to the formation of large eddies in the shear layer. The present study provides a comprehensive assessment of turbulent scales in hydraulic jump, including the analyses of first data set of longitudinal bubbly-flow integral scales and transverse jump toe perimeter integral scales.     

Physicochemical characteristics,mutagenicity and genotoxicity of airborne particles under industrial and rural influences in Northern Lebanon

In this work, the main objectives were to assess the mutagenic and genotoxic effects of fine particulate matter collected in an industrial influenced site in comparison with a non-industrial influenced one (rural site) and to relate the particulate matter (PM) composition to the observed genotoxic effects. At the industrial influenced site, higher concentrations of phosphates, trace metals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in particles could be related to the contributions of quarries, fertilizer producer, cement plants, and tires burning. Gasoline and diesel combustion contributions were evidenced in particles collected at both sites. Particles collected under industrial influence showed a higher mutagenic potential on three tested strains of Salmonella typhimurium (TA98, YG1041, and TA102), and especially on the YG1041, compared to particles from the rural site. Furthermore, only particles collected in the vicinity of the industrial site showed a tendency to activate the SOS responses in Escherichia coli PQ37, which is indicative of DNA damage as a result of exposure of the bacteria cells to the action of mutagenic samples. The mutagenicity and genotoxicity of the industrial PM_2.5–0.3 particulates may be attributed to its composition especially in organic compounds. This study showed that proximity of industries can affect local PM composition as well as PM genotoxic and mutagenic potential.     

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: bees, honey and pollen as sentinels for environmental chemical contaminants

Three beehive matrices, sampled in six different apiaries from West France, were analyzed for the presence of four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH4: benzo[a]pyrene, benzo[a]anthracene, benzo[b]fluoranthene and chrysene). Samples were collected during four different periods in both 2008 and 2009. Honey samples showed the lowest levels of PAH4 contamination (min = 0.03 μg kg⁻¹; max = 5.80 μg kg⁻¹; mean = 0.82 μg kg⁻¹; Sd = 1.17). Bee samples exhibited higher levels of PAH4 contamination (min = 0.32 μg kg⁻¹; max = 73.83 μg kg⁻¹; mean = 7.03 μg kg⁻¹; Sd = 17.83) with a great dispersion of the concentrations due to four main events of high concentrations. Pollen samples showed only one major episode with the highest PAH4 concentration found (min = 0.33 μg kg⁻¹; max = 129.41 μg kg⁻¹; mean = 7.10 μg kg⁻¹; Sd = 22.28). The PAH4 concentrations found were significantly influenced by the landscape context for all beehive samples.