A methodological proposal for the evaluation of farmer’s adaptation to climate variability, mainly due to drought in watersheds in Central America

The current study shows the process and the results of a methodology proposed to contribute with the issue of how to evaluate the adaptation to climate variability and future climate change. The proposed methodology consists of a standard to evaluate farmer’s adaptation to climate variability, mainly due to drought in watersheds in Central America; and was created with contributions from experts and professionals around this region. The phases for this process were: (1) literature review about the topic, (2) development of a preliminary standard, (3) expert interviews for the evaluation of this preliminary standard, (4) construction of a standard to evaluate the issue of adaptation to climate variability emphasizing drought through contributions from experts and their preliminary evaluations, (5) applicability test of this standard for the evaluation of climate variability under real conditions and (6) application of this standard through a case study in the Aguas Calientes river sub-watershed in Nicaragua, which permanently undergoes drought problems and climate variability. This standard has five main principles that go from the general, considering regional and national policies and institutionalism, to the specifics at the level of watersheds. In addition to those principles, the standard contains ten criteria, 26 indicators and 51 verifiers distributed among the main five principles. In the process for testing this standard in the Aguas Calientes river watershed in Nicaragua, the score for the general applicability to this standard was middle-level (score of 3 in a scale of 1 to 5), although, for the main principles of this standard, the score was four (high).     

Pre-instrumental perspectives on Arkansas River cross-watershed flow variability

We present four reconstruction estimates of Arkansas River baseflow and streamflow using a total of 78 tree-ring chronologies for three streamflow gages, geographically spanning the headwaters in Colorado to near the confluence of the Arkansas-Mississippi rivers. The estimates represent different seasonal windows, which are dictated by the shared limiting forcing of precipitation on seasonal tree growth and soil moisture—and subsequently on the variability of Arkansas River discharge. Flow extremes that were higher and lower than what has been observed in the instrumental era are recorded in each of the four reconstructions. Years of concurrent, cross-basin (all sites) low flow appear more frequently during the 20th and 21st Centuries compared to any period since 1600 A.D., however, no significant trend in cross-basin low flow is observed. As the most downstream major tributary of the Mississippi River, the Arkansas River directly influences flood risk in the Lower Mississippi River Valley. Estimates of extreme high flow in downstream reconstructions coincide with specific years of historic flooding documented in New Orleans, Louisiana, just upstream of the Mississippi River Delta. By deduction, Mississippi River flooding in years of low Arkansas River flow imply exceptional flooding contributions from the Upper Mississippi River catchments.     

Community wildfire protection planning in the American West: homogeneity within diversity?

As large wildfires have become common across the American West, federal policies such as the Healthy Forests Restoration Act have empowered local communities to plan for their own wildfire protection. Here, we present an analysis of 113 community wildfire protection plans from 10 western states where large fires have recently occurred. These plans contain wide diversity in terms of specific plan elements and dimensions, yet less diversity in the paradigms underlying their fire protection approaches. These patterns held true across both plans constructed solely by local actors as well as those constructed with the help of outside consultant expertise.     

Acoustic ranging in poison frogs—it is not about signal amplitude alone

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology - Colony size is an important predictor of annual survival and reproduction in social insects. By tracking monthly forager turn over, we measured the...     

Fishing for Prawn Larvae in Bangladesh: An Important Coastal Livelihood Causing Negative Effects on the Environment

Freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) farming in Bangladesh has, to a large extent, been dependent on the supply of wild larvae. Although there are 81 freshwater prawn hatcheries in the country, a lack of technical knowledge, inadequate skilled manpower, and an insufficient supply of wild broods have limited hatchery production. Many thousands of coastal poor people, including women, are engaged in fishing for wild prawn larvae along the coastline during a few months each year. On average, 40% of the total yearly income for these people comes from prawn larvae fishing activity. However, indiscriminate fishing of wild larvae, with high levels of bycatch of juvenile fish and crustaceans, may impact negatively on production and biodiversity in coastal ecosystems. This concern has provoked the imposition of restrictions on larvae collection. The ban has, however, not been firmly enforced because of the limited availability of hatchery-raised larvae, the lack of an alternative livelihood for people involved in larvae fishing, and weak enforcement power. This article discusses the environmental and social consequences of prawn larvae fishing and concludes that, by increasing awareness among fry fishers, improving fishing techniques (reducing bycatch mortality), and improving the survival of fry in the market chain, a temporal ban may be a prudent measure when considering the potential negative impacts of bycatch. However, it also suggests that more research is needed to find out about the impact of larvae fishing on nontarget organisms and on the populations of targeted species.     

Sociodemographic effects on place bonding

Patterns of amenity migration and recreational home development in much of the USA since the 1990s are changing the local sociodemographic make-up and the relationships formed among people and place. We use the psychological constructs of place attachment, place identity, and place dependence to assess differences in these relationships among new and long-time residents and absentee and local residents in three rural counties in the Inland Northwest. We measured place bonding using data from a mail survey of local (n = 531) and absentee (n = 239) property owners. We compared structural models suggested in the literature on the psychology of place, and found that a two-dimensional model representing place attachment and place identity was appropriate for both local and absentee property owners. Local owners exhibited stronger place attachment and place identity than absentee owners. Place bonding constructs were also substantially less impacted by the total number of years a property owner had resided on his or her property than by the number of months per year they lived on the property. The findings indicate that sociodemographic changes such as those manifested in second-home development may lead to a population that is less emotionally, behaviorally, and cognitively connected to the places in question, while sociodemographic changes from permanent in-migration may have a substantially smaller effect on place bonding.     

Derivation of a GIS-based watershed-scale conceptual model for the St. Jones River Delaware from habitat-scale conceptual models

Conceptual modeling is a useful tool for identifying pathways between drivers, stressors, Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs), and services that are central to understanding how an ecosystem operates. The St. Jones River watershed, DE is a complex ecosystem, and because management decisions must include ecological, social, political, and economic considerations, a conceptual model is a good tool for accommodating the full range of inputs. In 2002, a Four-Component, Level 1 conceptual model was formed for the key habitats of the St. Jones River watershed, but since the habitat level of resolution is too fine for some important watershed-scale issues we developed a functional watershed-scale model using the existing narrowed habitat-scale models. The narrowed habitat-scale conceptual models and associated matrices developed by Reiter et al. (2006) were combined with data from the 2002 land use/land cover (LULC) GIS-based maps of Kent County in Delaware to assemble a diagrammatic and numerical watershed-scale conceptual model incorporating the calculated weight of each habitat within the watershed. The numerical component of the assembled watershed model was subsequently subjected to the same Monte Carlo narrowing methodology used for the habitat versions to refine the diagrammatic component of the watershed-scale model. The narrowed numerical representation of the model was used to generate forecasts for changes in the parameters “Agriculture” and “Forest”, showing that land use changes in these habitats propagated through the results of the model by the weighting factor. Also, the narrowed watershed-scale conceptual model identified some key parameters upon which to focus research attention and management decisions at the watershed scale. The forecast and simulation results seemed to indicate that the watershed-scale conceptual model does lead to different conclusions than the habitat-scale conceptual models for some issues at the larger watershed scale.     

Adaptive management of the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon world heritage areas

Conventional perceptions of the interactions between people and their environment are rapidly transforming. Old paradigms that view humans as separate from nature, natural resources as inexhaustible or endlessly substitutable, and the world as stable, predictable, and in balance are no longer tenable. New conceptual frameworks are rapidly emerging based on an adaptive approach that focuses on learning and flexible management in a dynamic social-ecological landscape. Using two iconic World Heritage Areas as case studies (the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon) we outline how an improved integration of the scientific and social aspects of natural resource management can guide the evolution of multiscale systems of governance that confront and cope with uncertainty, risk, and change in an increasingly human-dominated world.     

Seafood from a changing Arctic

We review current knowledge about climate change impacts on Arctic seafood production. Large-scale changes in the Arctic marine food web can be expected for the next 40–100 years. Possible future trajectories under climate change for Arctic capture fisheries anticipate the movement of aquatic species into new waters and changed the dynamics of existing species. Negative consequences are expected for some fish stocks but others like the Barents Sea cod (Gadus morhua) may instead increase. Arctic aquaculture that constitutes about 2% of global farming is mainly made up of Norwegian salmon (Salmo salar) farming. The sector will face many challenges in a warmer future and some of these are already a reality impacting negatively on salmon growth. Other more indirect effects from climate change are more uncertain with respect to impacts on the economic conditions of Arctic aquaculture.