Making or breaking waste facility siting successes with a siting framework

Waste facility siting successes depend on many linked factors of facility design and impacts, site characteristics, and community beliefs and values. A facility siting framework is constructed to combine important elements and cause–effect linkages that affect the siting outcome. The framework consists of three main components: (1) core elements of facility design, effects, and community beliefs, attitude and response; (2) contributing factors of site and community characteristics, community beliefs and values that affect the interpretation of the facility and its effects; and (3) siting management interventions to manage the process and facility impacts. The framework is applied in an unsuccessful and a successful siting case to determine the key elements that contribute to siting outcome: (1) thorough need justification for the facility from the proponent's and the community's perspective; (2) careful facility design and prediction of the impacts and to select impact management compensation measures; (3) screening and selection of communities where the beliefs and values are compatible with the type of facility and its effects, (4) cooperatively selected impact reduction (i.e., prevention, control, and mitigation) measures followed by compensation and incentives; and (5) intensive process management to balance the community characteristics and values with the proponent's efforts to plan, design, assess and manage impacts, and ultimately, gain approval of the facility. The siting framework provides a comprehensive and robust structure of key factors that contribute to siting outcome and, therefore, provides the tool to identify, evaluate, and design siting interventions to enhance the chances of successful siting outcome.     

Identifying key issues in environmental wetland research using scaling and uncertainty analysis

Quantification of the response of wetlands to environmental change and of climate change to wetland processes, is a pressing, but complex, issue. Findings of widely diverse investigations have to be generalised to identify the key issues and the gaps in knowledge. Two tools for generalisation, scaling and uncertainty analysis, were applied here to two case studies and act as stepping stones for analysis of key issues. The first case study is on methane emissions from wetland rice fields and the second is on the restoration of wet dune slacks. The type of problems encountered depends on the scale at which a process is studied. At the biogeochemical processes scale, knowledge on some key parameters, but especially on interactions between key parameters is limiting. At the vegetation scale, feedbacks between processes become especially important, whereas at even larger scales increasingly stringent approximations of interactions have to be made. Accumulating uncertainties at the landscape scale need careful evaluation. Apart from uncertainties in the approximations and their interactions, those introduced by spatial and temporal variability as well as by different data sources highly influence the accuracy of response estimates, while these last sources of uncertainty are neglected in many studies. Only by explicitly accounting for scaling effects and their resulting uncertainties, the interactions between wetlands and environment can be understood.     

GIS As A Tool For Assessing The Influence Of Countryside Designations and Planning Policies On Landscape Change

The county of Bedfordshire is typical of landscape in lowland England with land cover dominant over land form and agriculture forming the major land use. Landscape change can be influenced by planning policies through their control of land use. A number of designated areas such as Areas of Great Landscape Value, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Green Belt have been defined where particular planning priorities for the conservation of the countryside apply. This paper reports work where an attempt has been made to measure the influence of these designations on landscape change using the tools of aerial photograph interpretation and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Aerial photographs were available for the study area for 1968, 1981 and 1991. These were interpreted to a landscape classification scheme in terms of point, linear and area features such as trees, hedgerows and cultivated land, respectively. Field work was carried out to assess the accuracy of the interpretation. The resulting data were input to a GIS for each date of photography. Digital maps were created for the land cover features and tables were generated of lengths of linear features or counts of point features for each kilometre square in the study area. Spatial analysis tools provided by the GIS were used to describe the landscape character of each of the designated areas and then to measure the change that had taken place within them over the time period defined by the photography. Areas which were not designated for conservation of scenic beauty were shown to be poorer in traditional landscape features.     

Editorial: Effects of metal contamination on ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms in a freshwater reservoir

<正>Ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms, including ammoniaoxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA), are important to the global nitrogen cycle. These microbes catalyze the oxidization of ammonia (NH_3) to nitrite (NO_2~-), the ratelimiting step in the biogeochemical cycling of nitrogen (Stahl and de la Torre, 2012). Effects on the activity of the ammoniaoxidizing microbes could ultimately influence the global     

Investigation of Biogeochemical Functional Proxies in Headwater Streams Across a Range of Channel and Catchment Alterations

Historically, headwater streams received limited protection and were subjected to extensive alteration from logging, farming, mining, and development activities. Despite these alterations, headwater streams provide essential ecological functions. This study examines proxy measures of biogeochemical function across a range of catchment alterations by tracking nutrient cycling (i.e., inputs, processing, and stream loading) with leaf litter fall, leaf litter decomposition, and water quality parameters. Nutrient input and processing remained highest in second growth forests (the least altered areas within the region), while recently altered locations transported higher loads of nutrients, sediments, and conductivity. Biogeochemical functional proxies of C and N input and processing significantly, positively correlated with rapid assessment results (Pearson coefficient = 0.67–0.81; P = 0.002–0.016). Additionally, stream loading equations demonstrate that N and P transport, sediment, and specific conductivity negatively correlated with rapid assessment scores (Pearson coefficient = 0.56–0.81; P = 0.002–0.048). The observed increase in stream loading with lower rapid assessment scores indicates that catchment alterations impact stream chemistry and that rapid assessments provide useful proxy measures of function in headwater ecosystems. Significant differences in nutrient processing, stream loading, water quality, and rapid assessment results were also observed between recently altered (e.g., mined) headwater streams and older forested catchments (Mann–Whitney U = 24; P = 0.01–0.024). Findings demonstrate that biogeochemical function is reduced in altered catchments, and rapid assessment scores respond to a combination of alteration type and recovery time. An analysis examining time and economic requirements of proxy measurements highlights the benefits of rapid assessment methods in evaluating biogeochemical functions.     

Sulfur and Carbon Cycling in a Flue Gas Desulfurization Sludge Disposal Site

Abstract

Products of a power plant flue gas desulfurization scrubber are discharged into a pond as sludge consisting of calcite (initial δ¹³C 3.2–3.8‰), gypsum (initial δ³⁴S 7.6–8.6‰), and aqueous solution. Reducing conditions exist below a boundary that appears to move vertically as a function of changes in pond water level. Under reducing conditions, bacteria partially reduce aqueous sulfate to low-δ³⁴S sulfide, consuming organic carbon and generating low-δ¹³C bicarbonate. Under oxidizing conditions, sulfide is converted to sulfate, leading to calcite dissolution, gypsum precipitation, and isotopic re-equilibration of remaining calcite with dissolved bicarbonate near the pond surface. The gypsum has δ³⁴S near 6‰, and calcite has δ¹³C as low as -1.7‰; the changes from initial values correspond to predictions based on isotopic balance and reaction stoichiometry. The pond largely contains the products of bacterial reduction. After the pond is abandoned, these products may adversely affect attempts to revegetate the site. Future bacterial reduction may be best controlled by dewatering and limiting the supply of organic matter in percolating surface water.     

Ocean fertilization for geoengineering: A review of effectiveness,environmental impacts and emerging governance

Dangerous climate change is best avoided by drastically and rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, geoengineering options are receiving attention on the basis that additional approaches may also be necessary. Here we review the state of knowledge on large-scale ocean fertilization by adding iron or other nutrients, either from external sources or via enhanced ocean mixing. On the basis of small-scale field experiments carried out to date and associated modelling, the maximum benefits of ocean fertilization as a negative emissions technique are likely to be modest in relation to anthropogenic climate forcing. Furthermore, it would be extremely challenging to quantify with acceptable accuracy the carbon removed from circulation on a long term basis, and to adequately monitor unintended impacts over large space and time-scales. These and other technical issues are particularly problematic for the region with greatest theoretical potential for the application of ocean fertilization, the Southern Ocean. Arrangements for the international governance of further field-based research on ocean fertilization are currently being developed, primarily under the London Convention/London Protocol.     

An experimental test of alternative population augmentation scenarios

Human land use is fragmenting habitats worldwide and inhibiting dispersal among previously connected populations of organisms, often leading to inbreeding depression and reduced evolutionary potential in the face of rapid environmental change. To combat this augmentation of isolated populations with immigrants is sometimes used to facilitate demographic and genetic rescue. Augmentation with immigrants that are genetically and adaptively similar to the target population effectively increases population fitness, but if immigrants are very genetically or adaptively divergent, augmentation can lead to outbreeding depression. Despite well‐cited guidelines for the best practice selection of immigrant sources, often only highly divergent populations remain, and experimental tests of these riskier augmentation scenarios are essentially nonexistent. We conducted a mesocosm experiment with Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to test the multigenerational demographic and genetic effects of augmenting 2 target populations with 3 types of divergent immigrants. We found no evidence of demographic rescue, but we did observe genetic rescue in one population. Divergent immigrant treatments tended to maintain greater genetic diversity, abundance, and hybrid fitness than controls that received immigrants from the source used to seed the mesocosms. In the second population, divergent immigrants had a slightly negative effect in one treatment, and the benefits of augmentation were less apparent overall, likely because this population started with higher genetic diversity and a lower reproductive rate that limited genetic admixture. Our results add to a growing consensus that gene flow can increase population fitness even when immigrants are more highly divergent and may help reduce uncertainty about the use of augmentation in conservation.     

Comparison of conservation metrics in a case study of lemurs

Conservation planning is important to protect species from going extinct now that natural habitats are decreasing owing to human activity and climate change. However, there is considerable controversy in choosing appropriate metrics to weigh the value of species and geographic regions. For example, the added value of phylogenetic conservation‐selection criteria remains disputed because high correlations between them and the nonphylogenetic criteria of species richness have been reported. We evaluated the commonly used conservation metrics species richness, endemism, phylogenetic diversity (PD), and phylogenetic endemism (PE) in a case study on lemurs of Madagascar. This enabled us to identify the conservation target of each metric and consider how they may be used in future conservation planning. We also devised a novel metric that uses a phylogeny scaled according to the rate of phenotypic evolution as a proxy for a species’ ability to adapt to change. High rates of evolution may indicate generalization or specialization. Both specialization and low rates of evolution may result in an inability to adapt to changing environments. We examined conservation priorities by using the inverse of the rate of body mass evolution to account for species with low rates of evolution. In line with previous work, we found high correlations among species richness and PD (r = 0.96), and endemism and PE (r = 0.82) in Malagasy lemurs. Phylogenetic endemism in combination with rates of evolution and their inverse prioritized grid cells containing highly endemic and specialized lemurs at risk of extinction, such as Avahi occidentalis and Lepilemur edwardsi, 2 endangered lemurs with high rates of phenotypic evolution and low‐quality diets, and Hapalemur aureus, a critically endangered species with a low rate of body mass evolution and a diet consisting of very high doses of cyanide.     

Simulating property exchange in estuarine ecosystem models at ecologically appropriate scales

A computational scheme has been developed and tested to simulate property exchange by advection and dispersion in estuaries at time and space scales that are well suited to ecological and management simulations, but are coarse relative to the demands of physical hydrodynamic models. An implementation of the Regional Ocean Model System (ROMS) for the Providence River and Narragansett Bay (RI, USA) was used to determine property exchanges between the spatial elements of an ecological box model. The basis for the method is the statistical tabulation of numerical dye experiments done with the full ROMS physical model. The ROMS model domain was subdivided into fifteen coarse boxes, each with two vertical layers, defining 30 elements that were used for the box model simulations. Dye concentrations were set to arbitrary initial concentrations for all ROMS grids in the large elements, and the ROMS model was run for 24 h. The final distribution of the dye among the elements was used as a tracer for property exchange over that day and was used to develop an exchange matrix. Box model predictions of salinity over 77 days in each element compared favorably with ROMS simulated salinity averaged over the same spatial elements, although the disparity was greater in areas where large river inflows caused strong gradients in ROMS within elements assumed to be homogeneous in the box model. The 77-day simulation included periods of high and low river flow. Despite the large size of the spatial elements, dispersion artifacts were small, much less than the modeled daily exchanges. While others have taken a similar approach, we found a number of theoretical and practical considerations deserved careful attention for this approach to perform satisfactorily. Whereas the full ROMS model takes 9 days on a powerful computing cluster to compute the physics simulation for 77 days, the box model simulates physics and biology for the same interval in 5 s on a personal computer, and a full year in under 1 min. The exchange matrix mixing model is a fast, cost effective, and convenient way to simulate daily variation of complex estuarine physics in ecological modeling at appropriate scales of space and time.