Road trauma among young Australians: Implementing policy to reduce road deaths and serious injury

Objective: The objective of this study was to estimate the likely reduction in road trauma associated with the implementation of effective interventions to reduce road trauma among young Australians.

Methods: A desktop evaluation was conducted to model the likely reduction in road trauma (deaths and serious injuries resulting in hospitalization) among young people aged 17–24 years residing in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. Potential interventions were identified using a rapid literature review and assigned a score based on evidence of effectiveness and implementation feasibility with the 3 highest scoring interventions included in the modeling. Likely reduction in road trauma was estimated by applying the average risk reduction effect sizes for each intervention to baseline risk (passenger or driver death or serious injury per 100,000 population) of road trauma for young Australians. Point estimates were calculated for the potential number of deaths and serious injuries averted in each state and per 100,000 population, with a one-way sensitivity analysis conducted using uncertainty ranges identified.

Results: Peer passenger and night driving restrictions as well as improved vehicle safety measures had the greatest potential to reduce road trauma. Peer passenger restrictions could avert 14 (range: 5–24) and 24 (range: 8–41) hospitalizations per year in Queensland and New South Wales, respectively, and night driving restrictions could avert 17 (range: 7–26), 28 (range: 12–45), and 13 (range: 6–21) hospitalizations annually in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. These interventions reduced fatalities by less than 1 death annually in each state. Improved vehicle safety measures could avert 0–3, 0–4, and 0–3 deaths and 3–91, 4–156, and 2–75 hospitalizations in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.

Conclusions: Key elements of graduated licensing (peer passenger and night driving restrictions) along with vehicle safety interventions offer modest but practically significant reductions in road trauma for young Australians. State governments need to revise current legislation to ensure that these reductions in road trauma can be realized.     

Ecological planning for land use and ruraldevelopment of Taojiang County

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The role of learning in sustainable communities of practice

This paper adds to the literature on skills for sustainable communities by examining the role and processes of learning in “communities of practice” that exist within a “grassroots association”. Interviews were conducted with participants in the communities of practice of a student group called Green Action, which engages with environmental issues in practical ways. The findings demonstrate how learning occurred in the communities of practice, how participants gained skills and knowledge for sustainable consumption, and how learning in the communities of practice appeared to help Green Action to sustain itself in the long-term. This paper could serve as a useful demonstration to others as to how to apply the theories and concepts from the literature on communities of practice when researching skills and knowledge for sustainable communities. It also has some value for grassroots associations themselves in understanding their own activities.     

Combination of Biological and Habitat Indices for Assessment of Idaho Streams

States and tribes are encouraged to use multiple biological assemblages in assessment of water bodies. An assessment index for each assemblage provides information on aspects of the aquatic resource that may be unique in terms of stressor sensitivity, stressor type, or ecological scale. However, assessment results relative to impairment thresholds can disagree among indices for an individual water body, leading to uncertain overall water‐body assessments. We explored options for combining stream indices for macroinvertebrates, fish, and habitat in ways that would yield the most consistent and sensitive results relative to established disturbance categories. Methods varied in the scoring or rating scales used to standardize each index value, the thresholds used to define impairment of aquatic life uses, and the ways of synthesizing multiple indices. The index compositing method that scores each index on a continuous scale and averages the scores after standardizing had superior accuracy, sensitivity, and precision. In addition, using the 25th quantile of reference sites instead of the 10th quantile resulted in a more balanced error rate among reference and degraded site categories.     

Specific Yield Functions for Estimating Evapotranspiration from Diurnal Surface Water Cycles

The White method has been routinely used to estimate evapotranspiration using diurnal variations in groundwater levels. Applications to surface water systems (e.g., wetlands) are less common. For applications to surface water systems, a stage‐dependent specific yield function must be defined. This is especially important for small wetlands formed in topographic depressions with bowl shaped bathymetries. Existing formulations of the specific yield function include weighting factors that impact the relative importance of the soil and open water specific yields on the composite value. Three formulations of the specific yield function from the literature were compared and found to produce varied results. Based on a comparison with empirical estimates of specific yield based on observed ratios of net precipitation to water level rise, one of the existing formulations is generalized and recommended for general use. The recommended function is dependent on wetland bathymetry, magnitude of the diurnal fluctuation, spatial extent of the equilibration area, and soil‐specific yield. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the relative importance of these variables. The specific yield function is independent of wetland size and is strongly dependent on the basin profile coefficient (p), an indication of wetland shape. For most natural wetlands, bathymetry strongly influences specific yield.     

Effects of life‐history requirements on the distribution of a threatened reptile

Survival and reproduction are the two primary life‐history traits essential for species’ persistence; however, the environmental conditions that support each of these traits may not be the same. Despite this, reproductive requirements are seldom considered when estimating species’ potential distributions. We sought to examine potentially limiting environmental factors influencing the distribution of an oviparous reptile of conservation concern with respect to the species’ survival and reproduction and to assess the implications of the species’ predicted climatic constraints on current conservation practices. We used ecological niche modeling to predict the probability of environmental suitability for the alligator snapping turtle (Macrochelys temminckii). We built an annual climate model to examine survival and a nesting climate model to examine reproduction. We combined incubation temperature requirements, products of modeled soil temperature data, and our estimated distributions to determine whether embryonic development constrained the northern distribution of the species. Low annual precipitation constrained the western distribution of alligator snapping turtles, whereas the northern distribution was constrained by thermal requirements during embryonic development. Only a portion of the geographic range predicted to have a high probability of suitability for alligator snapping turtle survival was estimated to be capable of supporting successful embryonic development. Historic occurrence records suggest adult alligator snapping turtles can survive in regions with colder climes than those associated with consistent and successful production of offspring. Estimated egg‐incubation requirements indicated that current reintroductions at the northern edge of the species’ range are within reproductively viable environmental conditions. Our results highlight the importance of considering survival and reproduction when estimating species’ ecological niches, implicating conservation plans, and benefits of incorporating physiological data when evaluating species’ distributions.     

Correspondence of biological condition models of California streams at statewide and regional scales

We used boosted regression trees (BRT) to model stream biological condition as measured by benthic macroinvertebrate taxonomic completeness, the ratio of observed to expected (O/E) taxa. Models were developed with and without exclusion of rare taxa at a site. BRT models are robust, requiring few assumptions compared with traditional modeling techniques such as multiple linear regression. The BRT models were constructed to provide baseline support to stressor delineation by identifying natural physiographic and human land use gradients affecting stream biological condition statewide and for eight ecological regions within the state, as part of the development of numerical biological objectives for California’s wadeable streams. Regions were defined on the basis of ecological, hydrologic, and jurisdictional factors and roughly corresponded with ecoregions. Physiographic and land use variables were derived from geographic information system coverages. The model for the entire state (n?=?1,386) identified a composite measure of anthropogenic disturbance (the sum of urban, agricultural, and unmanaged roadside vegetation land cover) within the local watershed as the most important variable, explaining 56 % of the variance in O/E values. Models for individual regions explained between 51 and 84 % of the variance in O/E values. Measures of human disturbance were important in the three coastal regions. In the South Coast and Coastal Chaparral, local watershed measures of urbanization were the most important variables related to biological condition, while in the North Coast the composite measure of human disturbance at the watershed scale was most important. In the two mountain regions, natural gradients were most important, including slope, precipitation, and temperature. The remaining three regions had relatively small sample sizes (n?≤?75 sites) and had models that gave mixed results. Understanding the spatial scale at which land use and land cover affect taxonomic completeness is imperative for sound management. Our results suggest that invertebrate taxonomic completeness is affected by human disturbance at the statewide and regional levels, with some differences among regions in the importance of natural gradients and types of human disturbance. The construction and application of models similar to the ones presented here could be useful in the planning and prioritization of actions for protection and conservation of biodiversity in California streams.     

Those outsiders: How downstream externalities affect public good provision

Some policy problems pit one group?s interests against another?s. One group may determine provision of a project (such as a dam) that benefits group members but hurts others. We introduce a model of such projects. In-group members may contribute to a common fund that benefits them as a public good. Benefits from the project may vary within the group. Provision has negative downstream externalities: contributions hurt agents outside the in-group (“Outsiders”), rendering them anti-social. Many models of social preferences predict that such externalities should reduce provision, although conditional cooperation or a preference for in-group members may counteract this. We test this model with a lab experiment using Outsiders with whom the in-group members have more and less contact. With homogeneous in-group benefits, the presence of negative downstream externalities reduces contributions by half when they have closer contact with Outsiders but not at all when they have had no contact. We introduce a rotating high-return position that allows subjects to trade favors. In this setting, contributions of non-privileged members diminish slightly when faced with the negative externality given closer contact with Outsiders, and not at all with less contact. Reciprocal giving occurs whether or not Outsiders are present.     

Enhancing the benefits of outdoor walking with cognitive engagement strategies

Being physically active in natural environments has been associated with improvements to physical health and mental well-being. Unfortunately, gaining access to outdoor settings that are supportive of both psychological well-being and year-round physical activity poses major challenges. Might altering how one engages in and interacts with the outdoor environment encouraging greater physical activity and enhance well-being? In order to investigate this approach, 117 adults were randomly assigned to one of two treatments - Standard Care (schedule setting, commitment) or Engagement (awareness plans) - and asked to take at least three, 30 minutes outdoor walks each week for two weeks. Participants in both treatment conditions reported significant increases in total time spent walking (p ≤ .05). Only those in the Engagement condition, however, experienced significant improvements in multiple dimensions of psychological well-being, including attentional functioning and feelings of frustration. In addition, participants in the engagement-based condition who walked at low to moderate levels were more likely to obtain psychological benefits. The results of this study suggest that promoting cognitive engagement with the environment may make it easier for individuals to achieve the psychological benefits typically associated with outdoor physical activity, even in settings that are less than ideal.     

Impacts of Land‐Cover Change on Suspended Sediment Transport in Two Agricultural Watersheds1

Schilling, Keith E., Thomas M. Isenhart, Jason A. Palmer, Calvin F. Wolter, and Jean Spooner, 2011. Impacts of Land‐Cover Change on Suspended Sediment Transport in Two Agricultural Watersheds. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 47(4):672‐686. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2011.00533.x Abstract: Suspended sediment is a major water quality problem, yet few monitoring studies have been of sufficient scale and duration to assess the effectiveness of land‐use change or conservation practice implementation at a watershed scale. Daily discharge and suspended sediment export from two 5,000‐ha watersheds in central Iowa were monitored over a 10‐year period (water years 1996‐2005). In Walnut Creek watershed, a large portion of land was converted from row crop to native prairie, whereas in Squaw Creek land use remained predominantly row crop agriculture. Suspended sediment loads were similar in both watersheds, exhibiting flashy behavior typical of incised channels. Modeling suggested that expected total soil erosion in Walnut Creek should have been reduced 46% relative to Squaw Creek due to changes in land use, yet measured suspended sediment loads showed no significant differences. Stream mapping indicated that Walnut Creek had three times more eroding streambank lengths than did Squaw Creek suggesting that streambank erosion dominated sediment sources in Walnut Creek and sheet and rill sources dominated sediment sources in Squaw Creek. Our results demonstrate that an accounting of all sources of sediment erosion and delivery is needed to characterize sediment reductions in watershed projects combined with long‐term, intensive monitoring and modeling to account for possible lag times in the manifestation of the benefits of conservation practices on water quality.