Ligustrum lucidum Ait. f. tricolor (Rehd.) Rehd. in relation to atmospheric pollutants in Córdoba city, Argentina. The study area receives
regional pollutants and was categorized taking into account traffic level, industrial density, type of industry, location
of the sample point in relation to the street corner, treeless condition, and topographic level. Dried weight/fresh weight
ratio (DW/FW) and specific leaf area (SLA) were calculated, and concentrations of chlorophylls, carotenoids, total sulfur,
soluble proteins, malondialdehyde (MDA), and hydroperoxy conjugated dienes (HPCD) were determined in leaf samples. Sulfur
content correlates positively with traffic density and SLA correlates negatively with some combinations of the categorical
variables; MDA correlates positively with topographic level and total protein concentration correlates negatively with treeless
condition. On the basis of our results, traffic, location of trees, type of industry, situation of a tree with respect to
others, and topographic level are the environmental variables to bear in mind when selecting analogous sampling points in
a passive monitoring program. An approximation to predict tree injury may be obtained by measuring DW/FW ratio, proteins,
pigments, HPCD, and MDA as they are responsible for the major variability of data. 相似文献
Whereas past research has treated co-management of common pool resources as if villagers and project implementing authorities
were the only relevant actors, numerous external factors beyond the control of these two partners create barriers to successful
co-management. This paper draws on discussions with Forest Department officials to examine the influence of these forces on
the outcomes of Joint Forest Management (JFM) in Tamil Nadu, India. An empirical inquiry into the operational aspects of JFM
indicates the important roles of political parties, powerful people, and other state institutions and functionaries as well
as the flow of foreign funding. Further, the strong demand by local people for socio-economic development interventions as
opposed to improvement of degraded forests belittles the role of the Forest Department relative to other departments. Numerous
other conditioning factors and relationships are explored. The authors call for reforms in public governance to allow better
participation of all the actors involved for this participatory management approach to succeed and sustain. 相似文献
Although stewardship has been widely defined and used in environmental management and planning, there is a dearth of studies
that describe how the lay public perceives this concept. A national sample of residents in 14 states who live near DOE nuclear
facilities were interviewed to delineate public understanding and awareness of the stewardship program of the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE). This study discusses the findings of the survey and discusses how institutional trust influences public participation
and resident’s choices of potential stewards. Almost 40% of the respondents could not define stewardship; those who did, believed
that ‘responsibility,’ ‘management,’ and ‘accountability’ are key elements of stewardship. In addition, about a third of the
respondents identified Federal groups and the DOE as potential stewards.
Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue 相似文献
Environmental factors have long been shown to influence species distributions, with range limits often resulting from environmental
stressors exceeding organism tolerances. However, these abiotic factors may differentially affect species with multiple life-history
stages. Between September 2004 and January 2006, the roles of temperature and nutrient availability in explaining the southern
distributions of two understory kelps, Pterygophora californica and Eisenia arborea (Phaeophyceae, Laminariales), were investigated along the coast of California, USA and the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico,
by limiting either: (a) tissue nitrogen uptake and storage by adult sporophytes during periods of elevated temperature, and/or
(b) production of embryonic sporophytes by microscopic gametophytes. Results suggest that while adult sporophytes of both
species are tolerant of high temperatures and low nutrients, reproduction by their microscopic stages is not. Specifically,
while E. arborea produced embryonic sporophytes at both 12 and 18°C, temperatures commonly observed throughout the southern portion of its
range, P. californica produced sporophytes at 12 but not at 18°C. As a result, it appears that the southern distribution of P. californica, which ends in northern Baja California, Mexico, may be limited by temperature acting on its microscopic stages. In contrast,
the ability of E. arborea’s microscopic and adult stages to tolerate elevated temperatures allows it to persist in the warmer southern waters of Baja
California, as well as to the north along the California coast where both species co-occur. 相似文献
Tone River supplies most of the water requirements of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (TMA). Lowering of Tone flow and yearly
fluctuation, however, is causing water shortage along TMA nowadays. This study investigated the future water availability
scenarios under climatic changes. A state-of-the-art approach to utilize the output of several GCM has been demonstrated to
investigate the future water availability scenarios for TMA from the Tone River. An integrated modeling approach for water
balance considering several hydrological risk indices was adopted to quantify the future changes in this case. It is observed
that the future summer precipitation along the Tone basin is going to be increased considerably, while an almost constant
or decreasing trend is observed for winter season. Natural flow availability for winter or spring seasons thus can be crucial
under future scenarios. After reservoir routing, the hydrological risk indices estimated, however, were not found to be changed
significantly due to the presence of a robust reservoir system at the upstream. 相似文献
The implementation of sustainable development may seem a simple concept when written on paper. However to carry-out long term
actions put forward by the Agenda 21 (AG21) at the local level represents one of the main challenges as municipal governments
in general do not have the capacity to effectively implement the process.
Regional environmental assessment (REA) has shown to be effective in supporting decision-making not only to correct environmental
problems due to past unsustainable social-economic developments but also help local governments to implement sustainable actions.
However this requires long-term investments of AG21 plans and projects. The allocation of regular and consistent financial
resources is one of the main ingredients for the sustainable development process. But traditional plans and projects financed
by national and/or international funds may not be sustainable in the long-term because they become dependent on external funding.
Research demonstrate that innovative economic instruments such as ecotaxes represent a feasible alternative to sponsor local
sustainability because taxes are collected permanently by the government and could be invested in continuous actions. Ecotaxes
experiences have provided important reference to structure a municipal incentive model (MIM) to sponsor AG21’s environmental
plans and projects on a long-term (permanent) basis.
However sustainable development cannot be solely through economic investments. A comprehensive municipal environmental management
scheme (MEMS) has been established to support the incentive model. The scheme seeks not only to improve local institutional
framework but also incentive continuous participation of local stakeholders at all levels of society. Participatory events
and the provision of incentives (educational and financial) are key to motivate society to protect the environment and support
actively the sustainable development process as emphasised in the RIO-92 Conference. 相似文献
This article aims to evaluate municipal solid waste (MSW) management schemes in order to promote sustainability and eco-efficiency, core elements in global mitigation strategies in both public and private policies. A discrete event simulation (DES) approach was used to integrate the economic, environmental, and social aspects related to aseptic carton packages (ACP) in Itajuba, Brazil. The simulated scenarios consider three alternatives for disposing ACP: landfills, recycling, and incineration with energy recovery. According to our findings, incineration alternatives are preferred from an eco-efficiency perspective, given the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions and due to the possibility of energy recover, which reinforces the contribution of this technology to promote sustainability as largely found in the international literature. Given the context of MSW management in Brazil, this represents a significant opportunity to increase the effectiveness of mitigation strategies adopted in the country. Taking into account that this is by far the least applied technology, the authors strongly advocate that global strategies for mitigation consider different approaches to integrate carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reductions related to the entire MSW management system and its alternatives, thus advancing from a waste disposal-oriented system to a life cycle–oriented system.
Recently, the New Morris Method has been presented as an effective sensitivity analysis tool for mathematical models. The
New Morris Method estimates the sensitivity of an output parameter to a given set of input parameters (first-order effects)
and the extent these parameters interact with each other (second-order effects). This method requires the specification of
two parameters (runs and resolution) that control the sampling of the output parameter to determine its sensitivity to various
inputs. The criteria for these parameters have been set on the analysis of a well-behaved analytical function (see Cropp and
Braddock, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf. 78:77–83, 2002), which may not be applicable to other physical models that describe complex
processes. This paper will investigate the appropriateness of the criteria from (Cropp and Braddock, 2002) and hence the effectiveness
of the New Morris Method to determine the sensitivity behaviour of two hydrologic models: the Soil Erosion and Deposition
System and Griffith University Representation of Urban Hydrology. In the first case, this paper will separately analyse the
sensitivity of an output parameter on a set of input parameters (first- and second-order effects) for each model and discuss
the physical meaning of these sensitivities. This will be followed by an investigation into the sampling criteria by exploring
the convergence of the sensitivity behaviour for each model as the sampling of the parameter space is increased. By comparing
these trends to the convergence behaviour from Cropp and Braddock (2002), we will determine how well the New Morris Method
estimates the sensitivity for each model and whether the sampling criteria are appropriate for these models. It will be shown
that the New Morris Method can provide additional insight into the functioning of these models, and that, under a different
metric, the sensitivity behaviour of these models does converge confirming the sampling criteria set by Cropp and Braddock. 相似文献
The analysis for arsenic in hair is commonly used in epidemiological studies to assess exposure to this toxic element. However, poor correlation between total arsenic concentration in hair and water sources have been found in previous studies. Exclusive determination of endogenous arsenic in the hair, excluding external contamination has become an analytical challenge. Arsenic speciation in hair appears as a new possibility for analytical assessing in As-exposure studies. This study applied a relative simple method for arsenic speciation in human hair based on water extraction and HPLC-HG-ICP-MS. The concentration of arsenic species in human hair was assessed in chronically As(V)-exposed populations from two villages (Esqui?a and Illapata) of the Atacama Desert, Chile. The arsenic concentrations in drinking water are 0.075 and 1.25 mg L(-1), respectively, where As(V) represented between 92 and 99.5% of the total arsenic of the consumed waters. On average, the total arsenic concentrations in hair from individuals of Esqui?a and Illapata were 0.7 and 6.1 microg g(-1), respectively. Four arsenic species, As(III), DMA(V), MMA(V) and As(V), were detected and quantified in the hair extracts. Assuming the found species in extracts represent the species in hair, more than 98% of the total arsenic in hair corresponded to inorganic As. On average, As(III) concentrations in hair were 0.25 and 3.75 microg g(-1) in Esqui?a and Illapata, respectively; while, the As(V) average concentrations were 0.15 and 0.45 microg g(-1) in Esqui?a and Illapata, respectively. Methylated species represent less than 2% of the extracted As (DMA(V)+ MMA(V)) in both populations. As(III) in hair shows the best correlation with chronic exposure to As(V) in comparison to other species and total arsenic. In fact, concentrations of As(total), As(III) and As(V) in hair samples are correlated with the age of the exposed individuals from Illapata (R= 0.65, 0.69, 0.57, respectively) and with the time of residence in this village (R= 0.54, 0.71 and 0.58, respectively). 相似文献
The effect of altitude and water temperature on biomonitoring of freshwater quality was examined along an unpolluted area (36 km in length) of the upper Río Tajo (central Spain). The macrobenthic and fish communities were studied, and the Biological Monitoring Water Quality (BMWQ) method was applied. As expected, values of altitude and temperature respectively decreased and increased with increasing distance from the river source; these two physical parameters exhibited a negative and significant (P<0.05) correlation coefficient between them. However, despite evident changes in the functional structure of both aquatic communities along the study area, BMWQ scores were similar at all sampling sites. Pearson correlation coefficients between physical and biological parameters were not significant (P>0.05). The BMWQ index only exhibited significant (positive) correlation coefficients with macrobenthic and fish biomasses, indicating that freshwater quality could affect the biological production of fluvial ecosystems. It is concluded that biomonitoring of freshwater quality may be independent of the influence of altitude and water temperature at local spatial scales. Nonetheless, further investigations would be needed to clearly differentiate between the effects of anthropogenic and natural causes on biological monitoring at larger spatial scales. 相似文献