The air quality forecast rote: Recent changes and future challenges

Air quality forecasting is a recent development, with most programs initiated only in the last 20 years. During the last decade, forecast preparation procedure—the forecast rote—has changed dramatically. This paper summarizes the unique challenges posed by air quality forecasting, details the current forecast rote, and analyzes prospects for future improvements. Because air quality forecasts must diagnose and predict several pollutants and their precursors in addition to standard meteorological variables, it is, compared with weather forecasts, a higher-uncertainty forecast. Forecasters seek to contain the uncertainty by “anchoring” the forecast, using an a priori field, and then “adjusting” the forecast using additional information. The air quality a priori, or first guess, field is a blend of past, current, and near-term future observations of the pollutants of interest, on both local and regional scales, and is typically coupled with predicted air parcel trajectories. Until recently, statistical methods, based on long-term training data sets, were used to adjust the first guess. However, reductions in precursor emissions in the United States, beginning in the late 1990s and continuing to the present, eroded the stationarity assumption for the training data sets and degraded forecast skill. Beginning in the mid-2000s, output from modified numerical air quality prediction (NAQP) models, originally developed to test pollution control strategies, became available in near real time for forecast support. The current adjustment process begins with the analyses and postprocessing of individual NAQP models and their ad hoc ensembles, often in concert with new statistical techniques. The final adjustment step uses forecaster expertise to assess the impact of mesoscale features not resolved by the NAQP models. It is expected that advances in model resolution, chemical data assimilation, and the formulation of emissions fields will improve mesoscale predictions by NAQP models and drive future changes in the forecast rote.

Implications: Routine air quality forecasts are now issued for nearly all the major U.S. metropolitan areas. Methods of forecast preparation—the forecast rote—have changed significantly in the last decade. Numerical air quality models have matured and are now an indispensable part of the forecasting process. All forecasting methods, particularly statistically based models, must be continually calibrated to account for ongoing local- and regional-scale emission reductions.     

Evaluation of a Soil‐Based System to Dissipate Multiple Pesticides

Pesticide contaminated wastewater resulting from leftover mixes, equipment cleaning, and container disposal are problems related to pesticide use. This study reports on the effectiveness of a soil‐based bioreactor (SBBR) to dissipate pesticides of differing concentrations and mixtures. In order to accomplish this study, soil columns were used to simulate the SBBR. A mixture of five herbicides and two insecticides from seven different chemical families (atrazine, dicamba, fluometuron, metolachlor, sulfentrazone, chlopyrifus, and λ‐cyhalothrin) were added to the SBBR‐simulated system as formulated products in three concentrations each: 0 part per million (control), 10 ppm, and 100 ppm. Additionally a 1,000 ppm treatment was added that included just the five herbicides to investigate how the system would respond to heavy loading. The system was run for 90 days with samples taken at day 4 (just prior to loading the columns), then at 30, 60, and 90 days. At low pesticide concentrations (10 and 100 ppm), there was significant dissipation (p < 0.05) of all pesticides in the columns except sulfentrazone. At 1,000 ppm, fluometuron, in addition to sulfentrazone, did not show significant dissipation. Overall, the system performed as expected and could be considered practical for use on farms or nurseries. ©2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Lessons Learned from an Industry,Government and University Collaboration to Restore Stream Habitats and Mitigate Effects

Environmental Management - Restoration ecologists conduct both basic and applied research using a diversity of funding and collaborative models. Over the last 17 years we have assessed the...     

Managing tricky decentralised competencies: case study of a participatory modelling experiment on land use in the Lake Guiers area in Northern Senegal

We describe an action-research project whose objective was to help stakeholders at different organisational levels achieve sustainable land management by developing mediation models and tools. We chose to test a specific approach called companion modelling in the framework of a multidisciplinary research partnership and a formal local partnership (a ‘users committee’) involving an array of stakeholders at different organisational levels. The study area covers 10,000 km² of agro-pastoral land around Lake Guiers in northern Senegal. We conducted studies to update the knowledge base of the area and organised six field workshops that clearly revealed three important tool functions to support decision-making on land use at different scales, i.e. understanding maps, monitoring and evaluating land tenure, and foreseeing changes in land use. We found that a toolbox approach was the best way to implement the three functions and overcome the constraints faced by the research team and those linked to the timing of the project. Therefore, we produced five simple complementary tools aimed at various users: a farm-level optimisation model (for researchers and technical services), a database for land allocations and a discussion tool to assess the impact of land allocation decisions (for the rural council), a paper atlas (for local players) and a regional land use change simulation model (for regional and national planners). Participants were able to work with paper maps, to interpret computer-generated simulations of land use change and understand the strengths and limitations of each. Self-assessment of the research process emphasised the importance of the context and the critical role played by social capital at both the research and the field level, which, in turn, emphasised the need for major improvements in the design and implementation of a quality process for participatory modelling. It turns out that action-research may be an effective way to undertake sustainability science.     

Residences with anomalous soil concentrations of dioxin-like compounds in two communities in Michigan, USA: a case study

Most contamination of residential property soil with dioxin-like compounds occurs as a result of proximity to industrial activity that produces such compounds and, outside the industrially impacted zone, the soil concentrations are at background levels. However, as part of the University of Michigan Dioxin Exposure Study, residential properties in the lower peninsula of Michigan, USA, were identified that were located far enough from known sources of these compounds that the soil concentrations should have been at background levels and yet the toxic equivalent (TEQ) of some properties' soil was greater than 2.5 standard deviations above the mean background level. In the three cases presented here from Midland/Saginaw Counties, the anomalously high-TEQ values were primarily due to the presence of polychlorinated dibenzofurans. Based on interviews with the residents and a comparison of soil congener profiles, it was deduced that these values resulted from anthropogenic soil movement from historically contaminated areas. In the cases from Jackson/Calhoun Counties, the unusually high-TEQ values were primarily due to polychlorinated biphenyls. In the case profiled here, it appears that the soil became contaminated through sandblasting to remove paint from the swimming pool. This study identified two mechanisms for soil contamination outside zones of industrial impact; thus, an assumption of background levels of soil contamination outside industrial zones may not be valid.     

A survey of storm-water management water quality regulations in four Mid-Atlantic States

This paper examines and compares the management practices and regulatory approaches used by the Mid-Atlantic States of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania for improving the quality of storm-water runoff. Such practices range from simple extended detention criteria in Pennsylvania through the BMP credit system used by Maryland, to the latest "green technology" methods promoted in Delaware and the recharge, quality and peak reduction approaches of New Jersey. All practices are designed to meet EPA requirements for total suspended solids (TSS) removal, but verification of performance is not required. More sophisticated methods of evaluating TSS removal that can be used for engineering design purposes are needed.     

Compensating aboriginal cultural losses: An alternative approach to assessing environmental damages

We first identify six primary problems with conventional practice: lack of context, inadequate participation from aboriginal communities, exclusion of important losses, reliance on market-based measures, neglect of uncertainty, and inadequate treatment of time. We then propose a different approach to compensation, based on insights from the decision sciences and structured decision making. Using case-study examples, we discuss how the proposed approach might address common sources of cultural loss and, in a concluding section, summarize some of the implications for compensation agreements and for environmental management practices.     

Lingual and biting responses to prey chemicals by ingestively naive scincid lizards: discrimination from control chemicals,time course,and effect of method of stimulus presentation

Summary. We tested responses to prey chemicals by lizard hatchlings of an oviparous species and neonates of a viviparous species, neither of which had never eaten. Both species responded more strongly to prey chemicals than to odorous and odorless control stimuli presented on cotton swabs. Although only a few species have been examined, all that have been tested have an innate capacity for prey chemical discrimination, suggesting that this innate response to prey chemicals is widespread among lizards that use the lingual-vomeronasal system to locate and identify prey. Innate prey chemical discrimination has the great advantage of permitting lizards lacking prior experience with food to respond appropriately to chemical cues associated with food. Both species discriminated prey chemicals from control substances at age three days, earlier than previously known. Our data hint that Mabuya macularia may be capable of discrimination on its day of birth, but further study is needed to determine the exact onset. A stronger tendency to attack swabs bearing prey chemicals by Scincella lateralis than by M. macularia may be explained by differences in defensiveness near an experimenter or by differences in the importance of visual prey cues for confirmation of chemical cues in the natural habitats of these species. In M. macularia responses to the control stimuli declined over days of testing, suggesting habituation, but responses to prey chemicals did not habituate by the third day of testing, which is interpreted as a possible adaptive response to permit location of food. In the standard method of stimulus presentation, a cotton swab bearing a chemical stimulus is placed anterior to a lizard's snout. We tested a new method in which the swab was placed in continuous contact with the lizard's anterior labial scales. The new method elicited significantly stronger responses from M. macularia. We discuss reasons for this finding and applications for the new method. Received 2 September 1999; accepted 15 December 1999     

Song-type sharing in song sparrows: implications for repertoire function and song learning

One hypothesis for the function of song repertoires is that males learn multiple song types so that they may share songs with neighbors, allowing them to match during territorial interactions. In at least one song sparrow population, in Washington, territorial males share a high proportion of song types with their neighbors and use these shared songs in matching. We recorded song sparrows in Pennsylvania and quantified sharing of whole songs and song segments. We found that song sharing is an order of magnitude less common in the Pennsylvania population. We found sharing of song segments to be significantly more common than the sharing of whole songs in three of the five fields we examined, while we found no significant differences between whole and partial song sharing in the remaining two fields. Finally, we found no evidence that sharing is greater between birds in the same field compared to birds in different fields. Taken with the data from Washington song sparrows, these results provide evidence for intraspecific geographic variation in the organization of song repertoires, and suggest that song sharing has not been a strong selective force in the evolution of song repertoires in song sparrows as a species. Furthermore, Washington and Pennsylvania song sparrows differ in how they learn song, in that Washington birds copy whole songs, while Pennsylvania birds appear to copy and recombine song segments, as has been found in laboratory studies of song learning. Thus both song learning and the function of song repertoires differ between populations of song sparrows. Such intraspecific geographic variation offers a unique opportunity to explore the ecological and historical factors which have influenced the evolution of song. Received: 30 June 1997 / Accepted after revision: 8 March 1998