Review of receptor modeling methods for source apportionment

Efforts have been made to relate measured concentrations of airborne constituents to their origins for more than 50 years. During this time interval, there have been developments in the measurement technology to gather highly time-resolved, detailed chemical compositional data. Similarly, the improvements in computers have permitted a parallel development of data analysis tools that permit the extraction of information from these data. There is now a substantial capability to provide useful insights into the sources of pollutants and their atmospheric processing that can help inform air quality management options. Efforts have been made to combine receptor and chemical transport models to provide improved apportionments. Tools are available to utilize limited numbers of known profiles with the ambient data to obtain more accurate apportionments for targeted sources. In addition, tools are in place to allow more advanced models to be fitted to the data based on conceptual models of the nature of the sources and the sampling/analytical approach. Each of the approaches has its strengths and weaknesses. However, the field as a whole suffers from a lack of measurements of source emission compositions. There has not been an active effort to develop source profiles for stationary sources for a long time, and with many significant sources built in developing countries, the lack of local profiles is a serious problem in effective source apportionment. The field is now relatively mature in terms of its methods and its ability to adapt to new measurement technologies, so that we can be assured of a high likelihood of extracting the maximal information from the collected data.

Implications: Efforts have been made over the past 50 years to use air quality data to estimate the influence of air pollution sources. These methods are now relatively mature and many are readily accessible through publically available software. This review examines the development of receptor models and the current state of the art in extracting source identification and apportionments from ambient air quality data.     

Household preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for freshwater quality improvement in Pakistan’s Swat River Valley

This two-part study investigates household preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for water quality improvement of the Swat River in Pakistan. First, a four-point Likert scale was used to rank preferences for water quality benefits without using any financial metric. Results show that households have comparatively strong preferences for non-use benefits. Second, a contingent valuation question was designed to determine WTP for adopting a management plan developed exclusively for water quality improvement in the Swat River. The estimated annual mean WTP per household for water quality improvement is $2.40 when donating to an NGO. Generalizing this value to households living in Swat Valley would generate up to $544,000 per year. The present value aggregate benefit for 15 years would be sufficient to cover the present value of aggregate costs to adopt the management plan. A mandatory program that would require paying for the management plan generates half the WTP compared to the voluntary plan, but is still sufficient to cover costs and may be more feasible than a voluntary program because payment is assured.     

Climate change,multiple stressors and human vulnerability: a systematic review

We systematically reviewed current climate change literature in order to examine how multiple processes that affect human vulnerability have been studied. Of the 125 reviewed articles, 79 % were published after 2009. There are numerous concepts that point out to stressors other than climate change that were used in reviewed studies. These different concepts were used interchangeably, and they illustrate processes that act on different scales. Most widely used concepts included non-climatic (40 % of the articles), multiple stressors (38 %) and other factors (37 %). About 75 % of the studies either acknowledged or carefully analyzed the social and environmental context in which vulnerability is experienced. One-third of the studies recognized climate change-related stressors as the most important, one-third argued that stressors other than climate are more important, and the rest of the studies did not analyze the relative importance of the different processes. Interactions between different stressors were mentioned in 76 % and analyzed explicitly in 28 % of the articles. Our review shows that there are studies that analyze the social context of vulnerability within climate change-related literature and this literature is rapidly expanding. Reviewed studies point out that there are multiple interacting stressors, whose interlinkages need to be carefully analyzed and targeted by policies, which integrate adaptation to climate change and other stressors. In conclusion, we suggest that future studies should include analytical frameworks that reflect dissimilarities between different types of stressors, methodological triangulation to identify key stressors and analysis of interactions between multiple stressors across different scales.     

Climate change adaptation strategies for transportation infrastructure in Prince George,Canada

Transport infrastructure is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts as it is designed for long operational lives, and both episodic and seasonal conditions contribute to deterioration, disruption and unsafe incidents. There are some examples of adaptation in transportation design, but many communities do not have the capacity to incorporate climate change considerations into infrastructure planning and management. Researchers worked closely with the City of Prince George, in Central British Columbia, Canada, to build on existing work and explore how the City could plan, design, and maintain roads and other structures to account for climate change. A local steering committee was formed, and created and evaluated 23 potential research topics. Two focus areas were selected for further investigation and explored during a workshop with practitioners, researchers, consultants and other representatives. The workshop precipitated an investigation of projected impacts of climate change on road maintenance and road safety, and plans to explore alternative paving techniques. Outcomes of the case study provide insights regarding climate change and local transportation infrastructure, including: how researchers can engage with local experts to explore adaptation; issues local governments perceive as important; and barriers communities face as they attempt to address vulnerabilities.     

US exposure to multiple landscape stressors and climate change

Regional Environmental Change - We examined landscape exposure to wildfire potential, insects and disease risk, and urban and exurban development for the conterminous US (CONUS). Our analysis...     

Decline of traditional rice farming constrains the recovery of the endangered Asian crested ibis (Nipponia nippon)

Traditional agriculture benefits a rich diversity of plants and animals. The winter-flooded rice fields in the Qinling Mountains, China, are the last refuge for the endangered Asian crested ibis (Nipponia nippon), and intensive efforts have been made to protect this anthropogenic habitat. Analyses of multi-temporal satellite data indicate that winter-flooded rice fields have been continuously reduced across the current range of crested ibis during the past two decades. The rate of loss of these fields in the core-protected areas has unexpectedly increased to a higher level than that in non-protected areas in the past decade. The best fit (R² = 0.87) numerical response model of the crested ibis population shows that a reduction of winter-flooded rice fields decreases population growth and predicts that the population growth will be constrained by the decline of traditional winter-flooded rice fields in the coming decades. Our findings suggest that the decline of traditional rice farming is likely to continue to pose a threat to the long-term survival and recovery of the crested ibis population in China.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0649-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Twentieth century droughts and agriculture: Examples from impacts on soybean production in Kentucky,USA

Drought is a significant natural hazard that slowly evolves over time. Because of its character, drought is difficult to monitor and impacts are often poorly documented. Agriculture is one of the most sensitive sectors that are prone to drought. The objective of this research is to assess the impacts of drought on soybean production and revenue in Kentucky. Soybeans are one of Kentucky’s most important commodities. In this study, impacts of 1930–1931, 1940–1942, 1952–1955, 1987–1988, 1999–2000, and 2007 droughts were considered. It was found that over the recent years, up to 56 % of the revenue from soybeans was lost due to drought. During the first half of the twentieth century, revenue loss reached up to 77 %. This research is valuable to the general public as well as planners and policy makers. Proper documentation of impacts of past droughts will help identify drought vulnerabilities and results in better risk management and mitigation.     

Comprehensive investigation of various re-refining technologies of used lubricating oil: a review

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - Waste lubricating oil is considered to be a hazardous waste and has tremendous impact on human health and environment. The present review...