NITROGEN AND ORGANIC MATTER LOSSES IN NO‐TILL CORN CROPPING SYSTEMS1

ABSTRACT: Intensive cropping systems based on mechanical movement of soil have induced land degradation in most agricultural areas due to soil erosion and soil fertility losses. Thus, farmers have been increasing fertilization rates to maintain an economically competitive crop yield. This practice has resulted in water quality degradation and lake eutrophication in many agricultural watersheds. Research was conducted in the Patzcuaro watershed in central Mexico to develop appropriate technology that prevents nonpoint source pollution from fertilizers. Organic matter (OM) and nitrogen (N) losses in runoff and nitrate (NO₃‐N) percolation in Andisols with corn under conventional till (CT) and no‐till (NT) treatments using variable percentages of crop residue as soil cover were investigated for steep‐slope agriculture. USLE type runoff plots were used to collect water runoff, while suction tubes with porous caps at 30, 60, and 90 cm depth were used to sample soil water solutes for NO₃‐N analyses. Results indicated a significant reduction of N and OM losses in runoff as residue cover increased in the NT treatments. Inorganic N in runoff was 25 kg/ha for NT without residue cover (NT‐0) and 6 kg/ha for the NT with 100 percent residue cover (NT‐100). Organic matter losses in runoff were 157 and 24 kg/ha for the NT‐0 and NT‐100 treatments, respectively. Nitrate‐N percolation was evident in CT and NT with 100 percent residue cover (NT‐100). However, NT‐100 had higher NO₃‐N concentration at the root zone, suggesting the possibility of reducing fertilization rates with the use of NT treatments.     

Unreliability of co‐occurrence‐based sediment quality guidelines for contaminated sediment evaluations at Superfund/hazardous chemical sites

Many Superfund/hazardous chemical sites include waterbodies whose sediments contain hazardous chemicals. With the need to assess, rank, and remediate contaminated sediments at such sites, as well as in other waterways, regulators seek a simple, quantitative assessment approach that feeds easily into a decision‐making scheme. Numeric, co‐occurrence‐based “sediment quality guidelines” have emerged with the appearance of administrative simplicity. However, the very foundation of the co‐occurrence approach, based on the total concentrations of a chemical(s) in sediment, is technically invalid; its application relies on additional technically invalid presumptions. Use of technically invalid evaluation approaches renders any assessment of the significance of sediment contamination unreliable. This article reviews the technical roots and assumptions of the co‐occurrence‐based SQGs, the fundamental flaws in the rationale behind their development and application, and their misapplication for sediment quality evaluation. It also reviews concepts and approaches for the more reliable evaluation, ranking, and cleanup assessment of contaminated sediments at Superfund sites and elsewhere. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Disposal of contaminated sediments/soils in MSW landfills: Need to consider the true cost

A disturbing trend among governmental agencies is the remediation of so‐called “nonhazardous” contaminated sediments/soils by deposition in minimum‐design Subtitle D municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills or landfills with equivalent design. This is done despite the fact that, in terms of protection of public health and environmental quality, the designation “nonhazardous” is misleading at best, and the fact that minimum‐design Subtitle D landfills as being allowed will not ensure protection of groundwater quality for as long as the buried wastes remain a threat. Although acknowledged in the regulatory documentation and exposed in the writings of a few in the scientific/engineering community, the environmental and public health issues that will inevitably be faced at minimum‐design Subtitle D landfills are underplayed, and even misrepresented, to the public. Discussion of relevant issues, as well as remarkable omissions, characterized the October 2004 United States Army Corps of Engineers (US ACE)/United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)/Sediment Management Work Group (SMWG) conference,” Addressing Uncertainty and Managing Risk at Contaminated Sediment Sites.” This article addresses many of those neglected issues. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

From Forest Regulation to Participatory Facilitation: Forest Employee Perspectives on Organizational Change and Transformation in India

Despite the critical role of government agencies in decentralizing natural resource governance, little work to date has focused on the organizational aspects of the responsible government bureaucracies. Based on a qualitative investigation of the perspectives of Forest Department employees involved in India's Joint Forest Management (JFM) program, this paper aims to provide an understanding of these internal dynamics. Elaborating on why bureaucracies with a learning orientation are essential if participatory natural resource management is to succeed, the paper underlines the constraints to transforming forest agencies' hierarchical work cultures. Foresters describe JFM as a radical departure from traditional forest governance, but suggest that corresponding transformation within the Forest Department has not occurred. Foresters cite as reasons: (1) a target-based incentive system that leaves little room for establishing the relationships with local people needed for collaborative management; (2) rigid rules and regulations that prevent the flexibility needed for adaptive, site-specific problem-solving; (3) a hierarchical, top-down style of communication that prevents the upper administration from learning what is happening on the ground and stifles initiative by field staff; (4) the need for a committed leadership to reverse this hierarchical culture. They point to the few such team-oriented leaders as the key to transforming the Forest Department and enabling participatory forest management to succeed. The authors also recommend accompanying changes in training and reward systems.     

The shadow price of substitutable sulfur in the US electric power plant: a distance function approach

Given restrictions on sulfur dioxide emissions, a feasible long-run response could involve either an investment in improving boiler fuel-efficiency or a shift to a production process that is effective in removing sulfur dioxide. To allow for the possibility of substitution between sulfur and productive capital, we measure the shadow price of sulfur dioxide as the opportunity cost of lowering sulfur emissions in terms of forgone capital. The input distance function is estimated with data from 51 coal-fired US power units operating between 1977 and 1986. The indirect Morishima elasticities of substitution indicate that the substitutability of capital for sulfur is relatively high. The overall weighted average estimate of the shadow price of sulfur is -0.076 dollars per pound in constant 1976 dollars.     

GEOMORPHOLOGY OF STEEPLAND HEADWATERS: THE TRANSITION FROM HILLSLOPES TO CHANNELS1

Headwater streams comprise 60 to 80 percent of the cumulative length of river networks. In hilly to mountainous terrain, they reflect a mix of hillslope and channel processes because of their close proximity to sediment source areas. Their morphology is an assemblage of residual soils, landslide deposits, wood, boulders, thin patches of poorly sorted alluvium, and stretches of bedrock. Longitudinal profiles of these channels are strongly influenced by steps created by sediment deposits, large wood, and boulders. Due to the combination of small drainage area, stepped shallow gradient, large roughness elements, and cohesive sediments, headwater streams typically transport little sediment or coarse wood debris by fluvial processes. Consequently, headwaters act as sediment reservoirs for periods spanning decades to centuries. The accumulated sediment and wood may be episodically evacuated by debris flows, debris floods, or gully erosion and transported to larger channels. In mountain environments, these processes deliver significant amounts of materials that form riverine habitats in larger channels. In managed steepland forests, accelerated rates of landslides and debris flows resulting from the harvest of headwater forests have the potential to seriously impact the morphology of headwater streams and downstream resources.     

An interdisciplinary review of current and future approaches to improving human–predator relations

In a world of shrinking habitats and increasing competition for natural resources, potentially dangerous predators bring the challenges of coexisting with wildlife sharply into focus. Through interdisciplinary collaboration among authors trained in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, we reviewed current approaches to mitigating adverse human–predator encounters and devised a vision for future approaches to understanding and mitigating such encounters. Limitations to current approaches to mitigation include too much focus on negative impacts; oversimplified equating of levels of damage with levels of conflict; and unsuccessful technical fixes resulting from failure to engage locals, address hidden costs, or understand cultural (nonscientific) explanations of the causality of attacks. An emerging interdisciplinary literature suggests that to better frame and successfully mitigate negative human–predator relations conservation professionals need to consider dispensing with conflict as the dominant framework for thinking about human–predator encounters; work out what conflicts are really about (they may be human–human conflicts); unravel the historical contexts of particular conflicts; and explore different cultural ways of thinking about animals. The idea of cosmopolitan natures may help conservation professionals think more clearly about human–predator relations in both local and global context. These new perspectives for future research practice include a recommendation for focused interdisciplinary research and the use of new approaches, including human‐animal geography, multispecies ethnography, and approaches from the environmental humanities notably environmental history. Managers should think carefully about how they engage with local cultural beliefs about wildlife, work with all parties to agree on what constitutes good evidence, develop processes and methods to mitigate conflicts, and decide how to monitor and evaluate these. Demand for immediate solutions that benefit both conservation and development favors dispute resolution and technical fixes, which obscures important underlying drivers of conflicts. If these drivers are not considered, well‐intentioned efforts focused on human–wildlife conflicts will fail.     

Vocal Activity as a Low Cost and Scalable Index of Seabird Colony Size

Although wildlife conservation actions have increased globally in number and complexity, the lack of scalable, cost‐effective monitoring methods limits adaptive management and the evaluation of conservation efficacy. Automated sensors and computer‐aided analyses provide a scalable and increasingly cost‐effective tool for conservation monitoring. A key assumption of automated acoustic monitoring of birds is that measures of acoustic activity at colony sites are correlated with the relative abundance of nesting birds. We tested this assumption for nesting Forster's terns (Sterna forsteri) in San Francisco Bay for 2 breeding seasons. Sensors recorded ambient sound at 7 colonies that had 15–111 nests in 2009 and 2010. Colonies were spaced at least 250 m apart and ranged from 36 to 2,571 m². We used spectrogram cross‐correlation to automate the detection of tern calls from recordings. We calculated mean seasonal call rate and compared it with mean active nest count at each colony. Acoustic activity explained 71% of the variation in nest abundance between breeding sites and 88% of the change in colony size between years. These results validate a primary assumption of acoustic indices; that is, for terns, acoustic activity is correlated to relative abundance, a fundamental step toward designing rigorous and scalable acoustic monitoring programs to measure the effectiveness of conservation actions for colonial birds and other acoustically active wildlife. La Actividad Vocal como un Índice Escalable y de Bajo Costo del Tamaño de Colonia de las Aves Marinas