Bicycle helmet effectiveness is not overstated

Objective: The objective of this study was to discuss the challenges in estimating bicycle helmet effectiveness from case–control studies of injured cyclists and to estimate helmet effectiveness from cases and available exposure data.

Methods: Data were extracted from studies of cyclists in Seattle; Victoria and New South Wales, Australia; and The Netherlands. Estimates of helmet use were used as exposure to compute relative risks for Seattle and Victorian data. Cycling distance data are routinely collected in The Netherlands; however, these data cannot be disaggregated by helmet use, which makes it unsuitable for estimating helmet effectiveness. Alternative controls were identified from larger cohorts for the Seattle and New South Wales cases.

Results: Estimates of helmet effectiveness were similar from odds ratios (ORs) using hospital controls or from relative risks (RRs) using helmet use estimates (Seattle: OR = 0.339, RR = 0.444; Victoria: OR = 0.500, RR = 0.353). Additionally, the odds ratios using hospital controls were similar when controls were taken from a larger cohort for head injury of any severity (Seattle: OR = 0.250, alt OR = 0.257; NSW: OR = 0.446, alt OR = 0.411) and for serious head injury (Seattle: OR = 0.135, alt OR = 0.139; NSW: OR = 0.335, alt OR = 0.308). Although relevant exposure data were unavailable for The Netherlands, the odds ratio for helmet effectiveness of those using racing, mountain, or hybrid bikes was similar to other estimates (OR = 0.371).

Conclusions: Despite potential weaknesses with case–control study designs, the best available evidence suggests that helmet use is an effective measure of reducing cycling head injury.     

全球合作应对气候变化——哥本哈根会议及之后的前景展望

2009年12月,来自中国、美国以及世界各国的代表将在丹麦哥本哈根聚首,争取达成一项应对气候变化的国际协议,为2012年<京都议定书>第一承诺期结束后的发展指明方向.今年虽然是全球在气候变化领域取得巨大进展的一年,但仍有许多观察人士开始担心各国将无法在哥本哈根会议上充分弥合分歧.     

Landscape Planning for Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Reduction III: Assessing Phosphorus and Sediment Reduction Potential

Riparian buffers have the potential to improve stream water quality in agricultural landscapes. This potential may vary in response to landscape characteristics such as soils, topography, land use, and human activities, including legacies of historical land management. We built a predictive model to estimate the sediment and phosphorus load reduction that should be achievable following the implementation of riparian buffers; then we estimated load reduction potential for a set of 1598 watersheds (average 54 km²) in Wisconsin. Our results indicate that land cover is generally the most important driver of constituent loads in Wisconsin streams, but its influence varies among pollutants and according to the scale at which it is measured. Physiographic (drainage density) variation also influenced sediment and phosphorus loads. The effect of historical land use on present-day channel erosion and variation in soil texture are the most important sources of phosphorus and sediment that riparian buffers cannot attenuate. However, in most watersheds, a large proportion (approximately 70%) of these pollutants can be eliminated from streams with buffers. Cumulative frequency distributions of load reduction potential indicate that targeting pollution reduction in the highest 10% of Wisconsin watersheds would reduce total phosphorus and sediment loads in the entire state by approximately 20%. These results support our approach of geographically targeting nonpoint source pollution reduction at multiple scales, including the watershed scale.     

Landscape Planning for Agricultural Non–Point Source Pollution Reduction. II. Balancing Watershed Size,Number of Watersheds,and Implementation Effort

Agricultural non–point source (NPS) pollution poses a severe threat to water quality and aquatic ecosystems. In response, tremendous efforts have been directed toward reducing these pollution inputs by implementing agricultural conservation practices. Although conservation practices reduce pollution inputs from individual fields, scaling pollution control benefits up to the watershed level (i.e., improvements in stream water quality) has been a difficult challenge. This difficulty highlights the need for NPS reduction programs that focus efforts within target watersheds and at specific locations within target watersheds, with the ultimate goal of improving stream water quality. Fundamental program design features for NPS control programs—i.e., number of watersheds in the program, total watershed area, and level of effort expended within watersheds—have not been considered in any sort of formal analysis. Here, we present an optimization model that explores the programmatic and environmental trade-offs between these design choices. Across a series of annual program budgets ranging from $2 to $200 million, the optimal number of watersheds ranged from 3 to 27; optimal watershed area ranged from 29 to 214 km²; and optimal expenditure ranged from $21,000 to $35,000/km². The optimal program configuration was highly dependent on total program budget. Based on our general findings, we delineated hydrologically complete and spatially independent watersheds ranging in area from 20 to 100 km². These watersheds are designed to serve as implementation units for a targeted NPS pollution control program currently being developed in Wisconsin.     

Landscape Planning for Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Reduction I: A Geographical Allocation Framework

Agricultural nonpoint source pollution remains a persistent environmental problem, despite the large amount of money that has been spent on its abatement. At local scales, agricultural best management practices (BMPs) have been shown to be effective at reducing nutrient and sediment inputs to surface waters. However, these effects have rarely been found to act in concert to produce measurable, broad-scale improvements in water quality. We investigated potential causes for this failure through an effort to develop recommendations for the use of riparian buffers in addressing nonpoint source pollution in Wisconsin. We used frequency distributions of phosphorus pollution at two spatial scales (watershed and field), along with typical stream phosphorus (P) concentration variability, to simulate benefit/cost curves for four approaches to geographically allocating conservation effort. The approaches differ in two ways: (1) whether effort is aggregated within certain watersheds or distributed without regard to watershed boundaries (dispersed), and (2) whether effort is targeted toward the most highly P-polluting fields or is distributed randomly with regard to field-scale P pollution levels. In realistic implementation scenarios, the aggregated and targeted approach most efficiently improves water quality. For example, with effort on only 10% of a model landscape, 26% of the total P load is retained and 25% of watersheds significantly improve. Our results indicate that agricultural conservation can be more efficient if it accounts for the uneven spatial distribution of potential pollution sources and the cumulative aspects of environmental benefits.     

On the relative contributions of wind vs. animals to seed dispersal of four Sierra Nevada pines

Selective pressures that influence the form of seed dispersal syndromes are poorly understood. Morphology of plant propagules is often used to infer the means of dispersal, but morphology can be misleading. Several species of pines, for example, have winged seeds adapted for wind dispersal but owe much of their establishment to scatter-hoarding animals. Here the relative importance of wind vs. animal dispersal is assessed for four species of pines of the eastern Sierra Nevada that have winged seeds but differed in seed size: lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta murrayana, 8 mg); ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa ponderosa, 56 mg); Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi, 160 mg); and sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana, 231 mg). Pre-dispersal seed mortality eliminated much of the ponderosa pine seed crop (66%), but had much less effect on Jeffrey pine (32% of seeds destroyed), lodgepole pine (29%), and sugar pine (7%). When cones opened most filled seeds were dispersed by wind. Animals removed > 99% of wind-dispersed Jeffrey and sugar pine seeds from the ground within 60 days, but animals gathered only 93% of lodgepole pine seeds and 38% of ponderosa pine seeds during the same period. Animals gathered and scatter hoarded radioactively labeled ponderosa, Jeffrey, and sugar pine seeds, making a total of 2103 caches over three years of study. Only three lodgepole pine caches were found. Caches typically contained 1-4 seeds buried 5-20 mm deep, depths suitable for seedling emergence. Although Jeffrey and sugar pine seeds are initially wind dispersed, nearly all seedlings arise from animal caches. Lodgepole pine is almost exclusively wind dispersed, with animals acting as seed predators. Animals treated ponderosa pine in an intermediate fashion. Two-phased dispersal of large, winged pine seeds appears adaptive; initial wind dispersal helps to minimize pre-dispersal seed mortality whereas scatter hoarding by animals places seeds in sites with a higher probability of seedling establishment.     

Glacier Variability (1967‐2006) in the Teton Range,Wyoming, United States1

Edmunds, Jake, Glenn Tootle, Greg Kerr, Ramesh Sivanpillai, and Larry Pochop, 2011. Glacier Variability (1967‐2006) in the Teton Range, Wyoming, United States. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(1): 187‐196. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2011.00607.x Abstract: Glacier area and volume changes were quantified through the use of historical aerial photographs in Wyoming’s Teton Range. Glacier area changes in the Teton Range were estimated for three glaciers using unrectified aerial photography from 1967 to 2006. The total surface area of the three glaciers was 0.53 km² in 1967 and 0.40 km² in 2006, a decrease of 25% during the 39‐year period. The smallest glacier, Teepe, experienced the greatest area loss (60 ± 3%), whereas the largest glacier, Teton Glacier, lost 17 ± 3% of the 1967 area. For the current research, aerial photography from 1967 to 2002 was used to estimate glacier volume loss using stereoscopy techniques. The aerial photographs provide a finer resolution when compared with other datasets including satellite imagery (e.g., Landsat). Volume loss for the three glaciers was estimated to be 3.20 ± 0.46 million cubic meters over the period of 1967 to 2002. In assessing the primary climatic driver of the glacier ice loss, observed summer (June, July, and August) temperature data showed a statistically significant increase in temperatures when comparing the period of study (1968 to 2006) with historical temperatures from 1911 to 1967. When comparing spring (April 1st Snow Water Equivalent) snowpack for the period of study with historical records beginning in 1931, a significant difference in snowpack was not observed.     

预测哥本哈根——全球合作应对气候变化——哥本哈根会议及之后的前景展望

12月7日,为期两周的联合国气候变化框架公约第15次缔约方会议（COP15）即将在丹麦首都哥本哈根拉开帷幕。这次会议在气候变化领域和全球政治进程中都是一个极为重要的“节点”,其被关注程度丝毫不亚于当下的金融危机。