Institutional isomorphism,environmental management accounting and environmental accountability: a review

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Environmental sustainability has received much attention in recent times by world leaders. This is largely due to the rate at which the natural...     

Dynamic modelling for cork boiling wastewater treatment at pilot plant scale

Solar photo-Fenton process has been extensively reported to be highly efficient in the remediation of complex industrial wastewater containing several families of pollutants such as pharmaceuticals, dyes, pesticides, derivatives of wine, etc. Moreover, solar photo-Fenton mathematical modelling regarded as a powerful tool for scaling-up and process control purposes is hindered by the complexity and variability of its reaction mechanism which depends on the particular wastewater under study. In this work, non-biodegradable cork boiling wastewater has been selected as a case study for solar photo-Fenton dynamic modelling by using MATLAB® software. First of all physic-chemical pretreatment was applied attaining chemical oxygen demand (COD) reductions between 43 and 70 % and total suspended solid (TSS) reductions between 23 % and 59 %. After solar photo-Fenton treatment, COD decreased between 45 and 90 % after consumptions of H₂O₂ varying around 1.9 and 2.4 g/L. Individual calibration of the semi-empirical model by using experimental results made it possible to perfectly predict hydrogen peroxide variations throughout the treatment. It must be highlighted that slight deviations between predictions and experimental data must be attributed to important changes in wastewater characteristics.     

Spatial and Temporal Assessment of Cumulative Disturbance Impacts Due to Military Training,Burning, Haying,and Their Interactions on Land Condition of Fort Riley

The effects of military training activities on the land condition of Army installations vary spatially and temporally. Training activities observably degrade land condition while also increasing biodiversity and stabilizing ecosystems. Moreover, other anthropogenic activities regularly occur on military lands such as prescribed burns and agricultural haying—adding to the dynamics of land condition. Thus, spatially and temporally assessing the impacts of military training, prescribed burning, agricultural haying, and their interactions is critical to the management of military lands. In this study, the spatial distributions and patterns of military training-induced disturbance frequency were derived using plot observation and point observation-based method, at Fort Riley, Kansas from 1989 to 2001. Moreover, spatial and variance analysis of cumulative impacts due to military training, burning, haying, and their interactions on the land condition of Fort Riley were conducted. The results showed that: (1) low disturbance intensity dominated the majority of the study area with exception of concentrated training within centralized areas; (2) high and low values of disturbance frequency were spatially clustered and had spatial patterns that differed significantly from a random distribution; and (3) interactions between prescribed burning and agricultural haying were not significant in terms of either soil erosion or disturbance intensity although their means and variances differed significantly between the burned and non-burned areas and between the hayed and non-hayed areas.     

Quantifying the Impact of Renewable Energy Futures on Cooling Water Use

This article presents an empirically based model, WiCTS ( Wi thdrawal and C onsumption for T hermoelectric S ystems), to estimate regional water withdrawals and consumption implied by any electricity generation portfolio. WiTCS uses water use rates, developed at the substate level, to predict water use by scaling the rates with predicted energy generation. The capability of WiCTS is demonstrated by assessing the impact of renewable electricity generation scenarios on water use in the United States (U.S.) through 2050. The energy generation scenarios are taken from the Renewable Energy Futures Study performed by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. Results indicate reductions in water use are achieved under these renewable energy scenarios. The analysis further explores the impact of two modifications to the modeling framework. The first modification presumes geothermal and concentrated solar power generation technologies employ water‐intensive cooling systems vs. cooling technology that requires no water. The second modification presumes all water‐intensive cooling technologies use closed cycle cooling (as opposed to once‐through cooling) technologies by 2050. Results based on one of the renewable generation scenarios indicate water use increases by over 20% under the first modification, and water consumption increases by approximately 40% while water withdrawals decrease by over 85% under the second modification.     

The role of agent-based models in wildlife ecology and management

Conservation planning of critical habitats for wildlife species at risk is a priority topic that requires the knowledge of how animals select and use their habitat, and how they respond to future developmental changes in their environment. This paper explores the role of a habitat-modeling methodological approach, agent-based modeling, which we advocate as a promising approach for ecological research. Agent-based models (ABMs) are capable of simultaneously distinguishing animal densities from habitat quality, can explicitly represent the environment and its dynamism, can accommodate spatial patterns of inter- and intra-species mechanisms, and can explore feedbacks and adaptations inherent in these systems. ABMs comprise autonomous, individual entities; each with dynamic, adaptive behaviors and heterogeneous characteristics that interact with each other and with their environment. These interactions result in emergent outcomes that can be used to quantitatively examine critical habitats from the individual- to population-level. ABMs can also explore how wildlife will respond to potential changes in environmental conditions, since they can readily incorporate adaptive animal-movement ecology in a changing landscape. This paper describes the necessary elements of an ABM developed specifically for understanding wildlife habitat selection, reviews the current empirical literature on ABMs in wildlife ecology and management, and evaluates the current and future roles these ABMs can play, specifically with regards to scenario planning of designated critical habitats.     

Unequal resource allocation among colonies produced by fission in the ant Cataglyphis cursor

How organisms allocate limited resources to reproduction is critical to their fitness. The size and number of offspring produced have been the focus of many studies. Offspring size affects survival and growth and determines offspring number in the many species where there is a trade-off between size and number. Many social insects reproduce by colony fission, whereby young queens and accompanying workers split off from a colony to form new colonies. The size of a new colony (number of workers) is set at the time of the split, and this may allow fine tuning size to local conditions. Despite the prevalence of colony fission and the ecological importance of social insects, little is known of colony fission except in honey bees. We studied colony fission in the ant Cataglyphis cursor. For clarity, "colony" and "nest" refer to colonies before and after colony fission, respectively (i.e., each colony fissions into several nests). The reproductive effort of colonies was highly variable: Colonies that fissioned varied markedly in size, and many colonies that did not fission were as large as some of the fissioning colonies. The mother queen was replaced in half of the fissioning colonies, which produced 4.0 +/- 1.3 (mean +/- SD) nests of markedly varied size. Larger fissioning colonies produced larger nests but did not produce more nests, and resource allocation among nests was highly biased. When a colony produced several nests and the mother queen was not replaced, the nest containing the mother queen was larger than nests with a young queen. These results show that the pattern of resource allocation differs between C. cursor and honey bees. They also suggest that C. cursor may follow a bet-hedging strategy with regard to both the colony size at which fission occurs and the partitioning of resources among nests. In addition, colony fission may be influenced by the age and/or condition of the mother queen, and the fact that workers allocating resources among nests have incomplete knowledge of the size and number of nests produced. These results show that the process of colony fission is more diverse than currently acknowledged and that studies of additional species are needed.     

Association of body mass with price of bushmeat in Nigeria and Cameroon

Spatially extensive patterns of bushmeat extraction (and the processes underlying these patterns) have not been explored. We used data from a large sample (n= 87) of bushmeat trading points in urban and rural localities in Nigeria and Cameroon to explore extraction patterns at a regional level. In 7,594 sample days, we observed 61,267 transactions involving whole carcasses. Rural and urban trading points differed in species for sale and in meat condition (fresh or smoked). Carcass price was principally associated with body mass, with little evidence that taxonomic group (primate, rodent, ungulate, or mammalian carnivore) affected price. Moreover, meat condition was not consistently associated with price. However, some individual species were more expensive throughout the region than would be expected for their size. Prices were weakly positively correlated with human settlement size and were highest in urban areas. Supply did not increase proportionally as human settlement size increased, such that per capita supply was significantly lower in urban centers than in rural areas. Policy options, including banning hunting of more vulnerable species (those that have low reproductive rates), may help to conserve some species consumed as bushmeat because carcass prices indicate that faster breeding, and therefore the more sustainable species, may be substituted and readily accepted by consumers.