Use of Descriptors of Ecosystem Functioning for Monitoring a National Park Network: A Remote Sensing Approach

Baseline assessments and monitoring of protected areas are essential for making management decisions, evaluating the effectiveness of management practices, and tracking the effects of global changes. For these purposes, the analysis of functional attributes of ecosystems (i.e., different aspects of the exchange of matter and energy) has advantages over the traditional use of structural attributes, like a quicker response to disturbances and the fact that they are easily monitored through remote sensing. In this study, we described the spatiotemporal patterns of different aspects of the ecosystem functioning of the Spanish national parks and their response to environmental changes between 1982 and 2006. To do so, we used the NOAA/AVHRR-GIMMS dataset of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a linear estimator of the fraction of photosynthetic active radiation intercepted by vegetation, which is the main control of carbon gains. Nearly all parks have significantly changed during the last 25 years: The radiation interception has increased, the contrast between the growing and nongrowing seasons has diminished, and the dates of maximum and minimum interception have advanced. Some parks concentrated more changes than others and the degree of change varied depending on their different environmental conditions, management, and conservation histories. Our approach identified reference conditions and temporal changes for different aspects of ecosystem functioning, which can be used for management purposes of protected areas in response to global changes.     

Sustainability Assessment for Agriculture Scenarios in Europe’s Mountain Areas: Lessons from Six Study Areas

Sustainability assessment (SA) is a holistic and long-range strategic instrument capable of assisting policy-making in electing, and deciding upon, future development priorities. The outcomes of an SA process become more relevant and strengthened when conducted with multi-stakeholder engagement, which provides for multiple dialogues and perspectives. This was the object of research of the SA team in the context of BioScene (Scenarios for Reconciling Biodiversity Conservation with Declining Agriculture Use in Mountain Areas in Europe), a three-year project (2002–2005) funded by the European Union 5th Framework Program, which aimed to investigate the implications of agricultural restructuring and decline for biodiversity conservation in the mountain areas of Europe, using three distinct methodological streams: the ecological, the socio-economic, and the SA approaches. The SA approach drew on the previous two to assess the importance for biodiversity management of different scenarios of agri-environmental change and rural policy in six countries (France, Greece, Norway, Slovakia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), develop causal chains, include stakeholder views, and identify potential contributions for, or conflicts with, sustainability. This article tells how SA was used, what sustainability meant in each study area through different objectives of sustainability considered, discusses the methods used in SA, and the benefits arising. The SA was conducted by a team independent of any study area, who developed and oversaw the application of the SA methodology, assisting national teams, and developing a cross-country understanding of the sustainability of proposed scenarios in the different geographical and social contexts, and their implications for policy-making. Finally, it reflects on the persistent challenges of interdisciplinary research, compounded by multi-cultural teams, and concludes on the BioScene’s lessons for the further development and application of SA.

Review of Agri-Environment Indexes and Stewardship Payments

Agri-environment programs aim to secure environmental and social stewardship services through payments to farmers. A critical component of many agri-environment programs is an agri-environment index (AEI) used to quantify benefits and target investments. An AEI will typically comprise multiple indicators, which are weighted and combined using a utility function, to measure the benefit of investment options (e.g., projects, farms, regions). This article presents a review of AEIs with 11 case studies from agri-environment programs in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. We identify a generic procedure used to define AEIs and explore the implications of alternative methodological approaches. We conclude that AEIs have become an extremely important policy instrument and make suggestions for their improvement.     

Exploring the Crowding–Satisfaction Relationship in Recreational Boating

Along with the growing boating population and the number of boats in use on limited inland waterways, boater expectations of setting density, safety perceptions, and the associated impacts on their experience (e.g., satisfaction) are becoming increasingly important. The primary purpose of this article was to explore a recreational boating crowding–satisfaction model derived from previous work using safety and enjoyment as mediating variables. We also tested our crowding–satisfaction model among day and overnight users. Our analysis revealed no significant difference between day and overnight users for any of the relationships tested in our model. Our final model indicated as respondents’ expectations for seeing people increased along with their feelings of being crowded, they were more inclined to consider the conditions on the lake as being unsafe. They were also more inclined to indicate that the number of people they had seen on the lake detracted from their boating experience. Respondents’ satisfaction was tied to their perceptions of crowding. Mediating variables illustrated that the relationship was conditioned by perceptions of safety and enjoyment. Analysis of the indirect effect observed in our study illustrate that when the number of people seen on the lake exceed respondents’ expectations, their perceptions of safety and enjoyment both decline, resulting in lower satisfaction. These findings have implications for managing recreational boating use on inland lake systems. Given the role played by expectations in our model, efforts to communicate with boaters about conditions on these waterways is important for helping them plan their boating experience and avoid situations they consider unsafe or unsatisfactory.     

Integrating Landscape Analysis and Planning: A Multi-Scale Approach for Oriented Management of Tourist Recreation

Tourism and landscape are interdependent concepts. Nature- and culture-based tourism are now quite well developed activities and can constitute an excellent way of exploiting the natural resources of certain areas, and should therefore be considered as key objectives in landscape planning and management in a growing number of countries. All of this calls for careful evaluation of the effects of tourism on the territory. This article focuses on an integrated spatial method for landscape analysis aimed at quantifying the relationship between preferences of visitors and landscape features. The spatial expression of the model relating types of leisure and recreational preferences to the potential capacity of the landscape to meet them involves a set of maps showing degrees of potential visitor satisfaction. The method constitutes a useful tool for the design of tourism planning and management strategies, with landscape conservation as a reference.     

Assessment of Reclaimed Municipal Wastewater Application on Rice Cultivation

Field research was carried out to assess the effects of the application of reclaimed municipal wastewater on rice cultivation in Thessaloniki, Greece during a 2-year period (1999–2000). Effects on production cost, soil composition, and health risk were examined. A randomized complete block design was used for the paddy field with three treatments and four replicates. The treatments were (1) river irrigation water with N–P fertilization, (2) reclaimed wastewater irrigation with surface N fertilization, and (3) reclaimed wastewater irrigation without fertilization. The results showed that the total production cost decreased 8.8% and 11.9% by applying the second and third treatments, respectively, compared to the first treatment, without significant differences in the agronomic and rice quality traits. Soil composition showed discrepancies between the 2 years and the three treatments, whereas the pathogens of the reclaimed wastewater and rice tissues posed a low human risk when taking the needed precautions.     

Walking in the Irish countryside: landowner preferences and attitudes to improved public access provision

This paper explores the attitudes of landowners across Ireland to the wider provision of public access for recreational walking using a multinomial logit model. The study also investigates the level of compensation required to improve the supply of this public good. Results indicate that 51% of landowners are not willing to provide access (non-providers), 21% are willing to provide access free of charge (free providers) and 28% seek compensation (willing providers). The findings indicate that participation by landowners in a proposed public access scheme is influenced by landowners' experience with walkers, farm type, farm insurance costs, household demographics, regional variations, opportunity cost of land and participation in other agri-environment schemes. Mean willingness-to-accept for landowners willing to facilitate improved public access for walking was found to be €0.27 per metre of walkway.     

Modeling of Cs migration in soils using an 80-year soil archive: role of fertilizers and agricultural amendments

An 80-year soil archive, the 42-plot experimental design at the INRA in Versailles (France), is used here to study long-term contamination by ¹³⁷Cs atmospheric deposition and the fate of this radioisotope when associated with various agricultural practices: fallow land, KCl, NH₄(NO₃), superphosphate fertilizers, horse manure and lime amendments. The pertinence of a simple box model, where radiocaesium is supposed to move downward by convectional mechanisms, is checked using samples from control plots which had been neither amended, nor cultivated since 1928. This simple model presents the advantage of depending on only two parameters: α, a proportional factor allowing the historical atmospheric ¹³⁷Cs fluxes to be reconstructed locally, and k, an annual loss coefficient from the plow horizon. Another pseudo-unknown is however necessary to run the model: the shape of historical ¹³⁷Cs deposition, but this function can be easily computed by merging several curves previously established by other surveys. A loss of ∼1.5% per year from the plow horizon, combined with appropriate fluxes, provides good concordance between simulated and measured values. In the 0–25 cm horizon, the residence half time is found to be ∼18 yr (including both migration and radioactive decay). Migration rate constants are also calculated for some plots receiving continuous long-term agricultural treatments. Comparison with the control plots reveals significant influence of amendments on ¹³⁷Cs mobility in these soils developed from a unique genoform.     

Acceleration of the Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction rate in BioDeNO(x) reactors by dosing electron mediating compounds

BioDeNO(x), a novel technique to remove NO(x) from industrial flue gases, is based on absorption of gaseous nitric oxide into an aqueous Fe(II)EDTA(2-) solution, followed by the biological reduction of Fe(II)EDTA(2-) complexed NO to N(2). Besides NO reduction, high rate biological Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction is a crucial factor for a succesful application of the BioDeNO(x) technology, as it determines the Fe(II)EDTA(2-) concentration in the scrubber liquor and thus the efficiency of NO removal from the gas phase. This paper investigates the mechanism and kinetics of biological Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction by unadapted anaerobic methanogenic sludge and BioDeNO(x) reactor mixed liquor. The influence of different electron donors, electron mediating compounds and CaSO(3) on the Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction rate was determined in batch experiments (21mM Fe(III)EDTA(-), 55 degrees C, pH 7.2+/-0.2). The Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction rate depended on the type of electron donor, the highest rate (13.9mMh(-1)) was observed with glucose, followed by ethanol, acetate and hydrogen. Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction occurred at a relatively slow (4.1mMh(-1)) rate with methanol as the electron donor. Small amounts (0.5mM) of sulfide, cysteine or elemental sulfur accelerated the Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction. The amount of iron reduced significantly exceeded the amount that can be formed by the chemical reaction of sulfide with Fe(III)EDTA(-), suggesting that the Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction was accelerated via an auto-catalytic process with an unidentified electron mediating compound, presumably polysulfides, formed out of the sulfur additives. Using ethanol as electron donor, the specific Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction rate was linearly related to the amount of sulfide supplied. CaSO(3) (0.5-100mM) inhibited Fe(III)EDTA(-) reduction, probably because SO(3)(2-) scavenged the electron mediating compound.     

The contemporary cement cycle of the United States

A country-level stock and flow model for cement, an important construction material, was developed based on a material flow analysis framework. Using this model, the contemporary cement cycle of the United States was constructed by analyzing production, import, and export data for different stages of the cement cycle. The United States currently supplies approximately 80% of its cement consumption through domestic production and the rest is imported. The average annual net addition of in-use new cement stock over the period 2000–2004 was approximately 83 million metric tons and amounts to 2.3 tons per capita of concrete. Nonfuel carbon dioxide emissions (42 million metric tons per year) from the calcination phase of cement manufacture account for 62% of the total 68 million tons per year of cement production residues. The end-of-life cement discards are estimated to be 33 million metric tons per year, of which between 30% and 80% is recycled. A significant portion of the infrastructure in the United States is reaching the end of its useful life and will need to be replaced or rehabilitated; this could require far more cement than might be expected from economic forecasts of demand for cement.