Climate change and coastal vulnerability assessment: scenarios for integrated assessment

Coastal vulnerability assessments still focus mainly on sea-level rise, with less attention paid to other dimensions of climate change. The influence of non-climatic environmental change or socio-economic change is even less considered, and is often completely ignored. Given that the profound coastal changes of the twentieth century are likely to continue through the twenty-first century, this is a major omission, which may overstate the importance of climate change, and may also miss significant interactions of climate change with other non-climate drivers. To better support climate and coastal management policy development, more integrated assessments of climatic change in coastal areas are required, including the significant non-climatic changes. This paper explores the development of relevant climate and non-climate drivers, with an emphasis on the non-climate drivers. While these issues are applicable within any scenario framework, our ideas are illustrated using the widely used SRES scenarios, with both impacts and adaptation being considered. Importantly, scenario development is a process, and the assumptions that are made about future conditions concerning the coast need to be explicit, transparent and open to scientific debate concerning their realism and likelihood. These issues are generic across other sectors.

Are lower-latitude plants better defended? Palatability of freshwater macrophytes

Increased herbivory at lower latitudes is hypothesized to select for more effective plant defenses. Feeding assays with seaweeds and salt marsh plants support this hypothesis, with low-latitude plants experiencing greater damage in the field and being less palatable than higher-latitude plants. We tested this hypothesis for freshwater macrophytes because they offered an independent plant lineage and habitat type for testing this general hypothesis and because the patchiness of consumer occupancy across isolated water bodies might produce local variance in herbivory that would override geographic variance and produce different results for this habitat type. When we fed eight congeneric pairs of live plants from four sites in Indiana vs. four sites in South Florida (-215 and 0 frost days/yr respectively) to three species of crayfishes and one species of snail, three of the four herbivores significantly preferred high-latitude to low-latitude plants. For two crayfishes that differed in feeding on live plants (one favoring high-latitude plants and one not), we retested feeding using foods composed of freeze-dried and finely ground plants, thus removing structural characteristics while retaining most chemical/nutritional traits. In this assay, both herbivores strongly preferred high-latitude plants, suggesting that lower-latitude plants had been selected for more deterrent chemical traits. When we collected 22 pairs of congeneric plants from 9 sites throughout Indiana vs. 13 sites in Central Florida (-215 and -95 frost days/yr respectively) and tested these in feeding assays with three crayfishes using dried, ground, and reconstituted plant material, we found a significant effect of latitude for only one of three species of herbivore. Overall, our results suggest a preference for high-latitude plants, but the strength of this relationship varied considerably across small scales of latitude that differed considerably in numbers of frost-free days. The difference in results suggests that large changes in frost frequency over small spatial scales may affect selection for plant defenses, that local variance in herbivory overrode differential selection at geographic scales, or that these possibilities interact when durations of cold weather periodically exclude herbivores from shallower habitats, producing heterogeneous selection for defenses at small spatial scales.     

A global security approach towards implementing sustainable development in southern Africa

SUMMARY

An interactive and incremental developmental approach to sustainable development is proposed. It requires broad public participation, is based on the development of a shared value system for civic society and norms which determine the behaviour of states. It is aimed at building commitment rather than directing change. This is achieved by simultaneoulsy harnessing the notions of ‘positive human survival’ adopted from Global Security theory and a co-evolutionary approach to human socio-economic constructs. Modern threats to Nation States can be regarded as ‘threats without enemies’, are not compatible with traditional views of sovereignty, and confronting such threats frequently requires co-operative behaviour and good neigbourliness from states. Principles likely to underpin an evolving shared value system for Nation states and civil society include: democracy, equity and diversity. In order to deal with the uncertainty of evolving socio-economic constructs and the conceptual pluralism inherent in modern societies, public agencies need to develop significant mediation, negotiation and facilitation skills. This view has significant implications for National and Regional policy, and the democratisation of information and the development of early warning capabilities about potential threats to human security are pivotal.     

Characterisation of airborne particles collected within and proximal to an opencast coalmine: South Wales,U.K

Airborne particulate matter has been collected from within,and proximal to, an opencast coal mine in south Wales. Thiswork forms the first part of a three year project to collectand characterise, then determine the possible toxicology ofairborne particles in the south Wales region. High-resolutionField Emission SEM has shown that the coal mine dusts consistlargely of an assemblage of mineral grains and vehicle exhaustparticles. SEM-EDX has shown that the mineralogical make-up ofthe PM10 is complex, heterogeneous, and constantly changing.These findings are supported by analytical TEM-EPXMA.However, patterns can be determined relating the mineralogicalcomposition of the airborne particles to collection locationsand mining activities within the opencast. At our studyopencast, Park Slip West, quartz, which has known healtheffects, never exceeded 30% of the total collection mass, andaverage levels were much less. Vehicle exhaust emissions wasthe largest source in terms of particle numbers. The mass ofairborne particulate matter within the pit averagedapproximately twice that of outside the pit: importantlyhowever, this higher mass was due to relatively large, andnon-respirable, mineral grains. This study demonstrates that the physicochemical andmineralogical characterisation of airborne particles frommining and quarrying is essential to quantify the respirablefraction, and to identify potentially hazardous componentswithin the PM10.     

The national incinerator testing and evaluation program two-stage incinerator combustion tests

In this paper the summary results of tests conducted at the P.E.I. energy-from-waste facility, a two-stage incinerator, are presented. Extensive data on refuse feed, ash, emissions and operating conditions will provide the most significant body of information yet available for energy from waste facilities.     

Evaluation of modified clay coagulant for sewage treatment

The use of modified clays as coagulants for sewage treatment was investigated in this study. The raw clays were montmorillonites K10 and KSF, and were modified by polymeric Al or Fe and/or Al/Fe mixing polymeric species. The comparative performance of modified clays and aluminium sulphate and ferric sulphate were evaluated in terms of the removal of turbidity, suspended solids, UV(254)-abs, colour, and total and soluble CODs. The results demonstrated that after being modified with mixing polymeric Al/Fe species, two montmorillonite clays possess greater properties to remove the particles (as suspended solids) and organic pollutants (as COD and UV(254)-abs) from the sewage and to enhance the particle settling rate significantly.     

Criteria and air-toxic emissions from in-use automobiles in the National Low-Emission Vehicle program

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implemented a program to identify tailpipe emissions of criteria and air-toxic contaminants from in-use, light-duty low-emission vehicles (LEVs). EPA recruited 25 LEVs in 2002 and measured emissions on a chassis dynamometer using the cold-start urban dynamometer driving schedule of the Federal Test Procedure. The emissions measured included regulated pollutants, particulate matter, speciated hydrocarbon compounds, and carbonyl compounds. The results provided a comparison of emissions from real-world LEVs with emission standards for criteria and air-toxic compounds. Emission measurements indicated that a portion of the in-use fleet tested exceeded standards for the criteria gases. Real-time regulated and speciated hydrocarbon measurements demonstrated that the majority of emissions occurred during the initial phases of the cold-start portion of the urban dynamometer driving schedule. Overall, the study provided updated emission factor data for real-world, in-use operation of LEVs for improved emissions modeling and mobile source inventory development.     

Small enterprise owners’ accident causation attribution and prevention

Small enterprises have difficulty in the systematic prevention of accidents. This study explores how owners of small enterprises attribute accident causation and what they learn about accident prevention after an accident. Interviews were carried out with owners of 22 small (1–19 employees) construction and metal industry enterprises that recently had reported an accident with an expected injury absence of over two weeks. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results reveal that after a relatively serious accident the owners predominantly attribute the incident to unforeseeable circumstances, and secondarily to worker faults. A possible explanation is both self- and group-defensive attributions in order to avoid responsibility and blame. The reciprocal and close social relations between owners and workers make it difficult for the owners to be solely responsible for the accident. The study presents a paradox: learning from the accidents seems to be negative as the owners need to abstain from accident prevention in order to maintain that accidents are unforeseeable, and the injured worker returns to work under the same unsafe conditions as before the accident. The study indicates that efforts to improve accident prevention in small enterprises need to find ways to avoid defensive attribution in order to attain successful outcomes.