As the world warms: rising seas, coastal archaeology, and the erosion of maritime history

The human history of coastal regions around the world has been under assault for decades, from forces that include dam building, coastal modifications, the destruction of wetlands, marine erosion, population growth and rampant development, looting, and other processes. Global warming will exacerbate the destruction of cultural resources in coastal zones through accelerated sea level rise, intensified storm cycles, and related coastal erosion. Although average global sea levels have been rising for ∼20,000 years, they slowed dramatically about 7,000 years ago. Rates of sea level rise now appear to be increasing rapidly due to growing anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Global warming and rising seas, especially when combined with population growth and the implementation of measures designed to protect endangered coastal properties, threaten the deep maritime history of human migrations, settlement, and adaptations in coastal areas around the world. Ranging in age from the mid-Pleistocene to recent historic times, coastal archaeological sites contain invaluable data on ancient coastal societies, fisheries, and ecosystems. Archaeologists, historians, and other cultural resource managers must do more to anticipate, evaluate, and mitigate the effects of global warming, sea level rise, and coastal erosion on the long history of human maritime cultures.     

Testing the presence of marine protected areas against their ability to reduce pressures on biodiversity

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are the preferred tool for preventing marine biodiversity loss, as reflected in international protected area targets. Although the area covered by MPAs is expanding, there is a concern that opposition from resource users is driving them into already low-use locations, whereas high-pressure areas remain unprotected, which has serious implications for biodiversity conservation. We tested the spatial relationships between different human-induced pressures on marine biodiversity and global MPAs. We used global, modeled pressure data and the World Database on Protected Areas to calculate the levels of 15 different human-induced pressures inside and outside the world's MPAs. We fitted binomial generalized linear models to the data to determine whether each pressure had a positive or negative effect on the likelihood of an area being protected and whether this effect changed with different categories of protection. Pelagic and artisanal fishing, shipping, and introductions of invasive species by ships had a negative relationship with protection, and this relationship persisted under even the least restrictive categories of protection (e.g., protected areas classified as category VI under the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a category that permits sustainable use). In contrast, pressures from dispersed, diffusive sources (e.g., pollution and ocean acidification) had positive relationships with protection. Our results showed that MPAs are systematically established in areas where there is low political opposition, limiting the capacity of existing MPAs to manage key drivers of biodiversity loss. We suggest that conservation efforts focus on biodiversity outcomes and effective reduction of pressures rather than prescribing area-based targets, and that alternative approaches to conservation are needed in areas where protection is not feasible.     

Net impact of remediation

Following years of progress in designing and executing cleanups of contaminants at waste sites, the U.S. Air Force, state regulatory groups, and others are crafting methods to evaluate broader considerations of risk in remedial decisions. Integrating worker and climate risks into remediation efforts may confer significant benefits, but challenges exist to identifying, assessing, and accounting for them in the remedial process. For sites where future risk posed by contamination far exceeds the risk posed to workers who may be exposed to the contaminants during the remedial process, limiting the range of decision inputs to those presented by the site conditions made sense and provided a net benefit to human health and the environment. There are other sites, however, where future risk posed by the in situ contamination are at levels comparable to the real risks posed to workers, ecology, and even emerging concerns about climate change. For these sites, a net risk reduction cannot be assumed to be a result of remedial action, challenging the remedial community to develop new approaches to ensure positive results. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Yellow River in transition

Like many parts of the world, the Yellow River basin has problems associated with water scarcity, pollution, and flood risk. Analyses that focus only on the physical characteristics of these problems miss some of their most important social drivers. In this paper we identify some interlocking changes that have occurred as a consequence of economic reforms begun in China in 1978, and the implications of these changes for the Yellow River. The reforms have caused changes in the organisation of household production, increasing urbanisation and urban affluence, rapid industrialisation, and large scale spatial shifts in agricultural production. Rather than specific decisions it is these gradual changes that have affected the current status of the Yellow River and its basin. Our analysis suggests that at least some solutions to water problems in the Yellow River lie outside the basin, and beyond the realm of science or technology.     

Lidar Observations of the Diurnal Behavior of the Cumberland Power Plant Plume

Mobile lidar observations were made downwind of TVA’s Cumberland (Tennessee) power plant as part of the STATE (Sulfur Transport and Transformation in the Environment) program. Vertical profiles of aerosol backscatter have been processed and displayed to show plume structure as an intensity-modulated TV presentation. Available meteorological data, especially the pilot balloon and radiosonde measurements collected during the STATE experiment, have been used to aid in the interpretation of the lidar display. The data show: ? Well defined nighttime plumes, which often tilt or display a layered structure in the shape of a “>”.

? Late morning convective breakup of the plume.

? Well mixed convective plumes during the day.

? Reformation of the layered nighttime plume during the late afternoon.

It appears that the nighttime plume behavior can be related qualitatively to the strong directional shear of the wind with height that often accompanies the stable nighttime atmosphere. The nighttime plume shapes frequently differ markedly from the oval shape one expects of a gaussian plume. Daytime plumes are in better conformance to the expected shape except when constricted by the surface or the top of the mixing layer     

Methane production potential from anaerobic digestion of plant biomass residues and food waste as substrates

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - This research aimed to evaluate the production of biogas from anaerobic digestion (AD) using swine manure inoculum associated with different...     

The transition of a line plume to round plume

Environmental Fluid Mechanics - Buoyant turbulent plumes are often categorized by their geometry and described as either round plumes, issuing from a point source, or line/planar plumes, issuing...     

Selecting the best home range model: an information-theoretic approach

Choosing an appropriate home range model is important for describing space use by animals and understanding the ecological processes affecting animal movement. Traditional approaches for choosing among home range models have not resulted in general, consistent, and unambiguous criteria that can be applied to individual data sets. We present a new application of information-theoretic model selection that overcomes many of the limitations of traditional approaches, as follows. (1) It alleviates the need to know the true home range to assess home range models, thus allowing performance to be evaluated with data on individual animals. (2) The best model can be chosen from a set of candidate models with the proper balance between fit and complexity. (3) If candidate home range models are based on underlying ecological processes, researchers can use the selected model not only to describe the home range, but also to infer the importance of various ecological processes affecting animal movements within the home range.     

Analysis of PM10 Trends in the United States from 1988 through 1995

ABSTRACT

Because the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has changed the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ambient particulate matter (PM), there is a great deal of interest in determining recent PM trends. This paper examines trends in PM₁₀ (i.e., particulate matter less than 10 micrometers in diameter) for areas of the United States based on their attainment status—for PM₁₀ and ozone nonattainment and attainment areas. The analysis also focuses on urban, suburban, and rural areas, and eastern and western areas. The time period of evaluation is from 1988 through 1995. To shed further light on the ambient PM₁₀ trends, trends in ambient SO₂, NO₂, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are also analyzed. Finally, trends in emission inventories of SO₂, NO_x, VOCs, and PM₁₀ are evaluated. Results of the analysis show that widespread and similar reductions in PM₁₀ levels have occurred over the last seven years. Annual reductions range from 3.0% to 3.8%, with the greatest reductions coming in PM₁₀ nonattainment areas, but with very significant reductions also in PM₁₀ attainment areas, ozone attainment areas, and rural areas. The widespread reductions appear to be due to a set of controls or common factors that are having a fairly uniform effect in all of the areas. The consistency of the reductions in different areas suggests that the reductions may also be primarily in the fine particles (i.e., those less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or PM_2.5), which are more readily transported than coarse particles.