NETWORK AND SUBWATERSHED PARAMETERS EXTRACTED FROM DIGITAL ELEVATION MODELS: THE BILLS CREEK EXPERIENCE1

ABSTRACT: An automated extraction of channel network and sub-watershed characteristics from digital elevation models (DEM) is performed by model DEDNM. This model can process DEM data of limited vertical resolution representing low relief terrain. Such representations often include ill-defined drainage boundaries and indeterminate flow paths. The application watershed is an 84 km² low relief watershed in southwestern Oklahoma. The standard for validation is the network and subwatershed parameters defined by the blue line method on USGS 7.5–minute topographic maps. Evaluation of the generated and validation networks by visual comparisons shows a high degree of correlation. Comparison of selected network parameters (channel length, slope, drainage density, etc.) and of drainage network composition (bifurcation, length, slope, and area ratios) shows that, on the average, the generated parameters are within 5 percent of those derived from the validation network. The largest discrepancies were found for the channel slope values. The results of this application demonstrate that DEDNM effectively addresses network definition problems often encountered in low relief terrain and that it can generate accurate network and subwatershed parameters under those conditions.     

Pollution,place, and premature death: evidence from a mid-sized city

ABSTRACT

Neighborhood life expectancy varies by as much as 10 years across the City of Louisville. In 2013, the Greater Louisville Project funded by local government, businesses, and foundations, argued these differences had little to do with environmental factors. The Greater Louisville Project (2013) study argued that these neighborhood differences could be attributed 40% to socio-economic factors (with a major emphasis on education), 10% to physical environment, 30% to health behaviors, and 20% to access to medical care. To test these claims, we construct our own model of neighborhood variation in years of potential life lost (YPLL) by adding two variables testing environmental degradation. We operationalise two separate measures of environmental contamination: proximity to EPA designated brownfield sites and proximity to chemical factories in an industrial park in the neighborhood known as “Rubbertown”. We conduct several regression analyses, which show a relationship between proximity to environmental contaminants and an increase in neighborhood YPLL. Our beta weights challenge the claims made by the Greater Louisville Project, which minimize the impact nearness to environmental contaminants has on reductions in life expectancy in Louisville neighborhoods.     

Anheuser-busch's a pledge and a promise: Total employee involvement

Anheuser-Busch is a large, diversified corporation, both in its products and in its environmental efforts. It is well-known that Anheuser-Busch is the world'S largest brewer, with twelve operating breweries and a thirteenth under construction. It also operates the largest aluminum can recycling network in the world, Anheuser-Busch Recycling (A-BR). A-BR recycled more than 600 million pounds of aluminum in 1991, or more than 17 billion cans. This article describes how Anheuser-Busch has put TQEM ideas into practice involving all of its employees.     

Ten common mistakes in designing biodiversity indicators for forest policy

This paper identifies 10 common 'mistakes' in developing and using forest biodiversity indicators from the standpoint of making better forest management choices. The mistakes relate to a failure to clarify the values-basis for indicator selection and a failure to integrate science and values to design indicators that are concise, relevant and meaningful to decision makers. The combined effects of these ten mistakes include inconsistent and indefensible on-ground management strategies and hidden trade-offs at a policy level. They result in frustrated professionals, a confused public, an inability to assess performance with respect to key forest policy objectives and, almost certainly, types and amounts of biodiversity conservation that fail to achieve either scientifically or socially preferred levels. Correcting the mistakes will help to address these problems and, more generally, recognizes the need to better understand the interface between science, public values, and decision making.     

Distractions and the risk of car crash injury: the effect of drivers' age

PROBLEM: Motor-vehicle accidents are one of the major causes of injury in most motorized countries. Driver distractions have been suggested as a contributor to traffic accidents. Moreover, age of the driver seems to have a role in the relationship between distractions and car crashes. But very few studies have investigated the effect of driver's age on this relationship. This exploratory study investigated the association between distractions, both inside and outside the vehicle, and the increased risk of car crash injury among drivers across different ages. METHOD: This study used a case series design to analyze data routinely collected by the NSW police in Australia. A special focus of this study was on how drivers' age affects the risk of car crash injury, which was determined by using a well-documented risk estimation methodology. RESULTS: The results obtained indicated that drivers of all ages, on the whole, are more susceptible to distractions inside the vehicle than distractions coming from outside. Age was shown to affect the relationship between in-vehicle distraction and the risk of car crash injury. A separate analysis was also conducted on hand-held phone usage while driving with results supplementing previous findings reported in the literature. IMPACT TO INDUSTRY: Safety strategies to countermeasure in-vehicle distractions have been suggested and discussed.     

A non-policing honey bee colony (Apis mellifera capensis)

In the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis, workers lay female eggs without mating by thelytokous parthenogenesis. As a result, workers are as related to worker-laid eggs as they are to queen-laid eggs and therefore worker policing is expected to be lower, or even absent. This was tested by transferring worker- and queen-laid eggs into three queenright A. m. capensis discriminator colonies and monitoring their removal. Our results show that worker policing is variable in A. m. capensis and that in one colony worker-laid eggs were not removed. This is the first report of a non-policing queenright honey bee colony. DNA microsatellite and morphometric analysis suggests that the racial composition of the three discriminator colonies was different. The variation in policing rates could be explained by differences in degrees of hybridisation between A. m. capensis and A. m. scutellata, although a larger survey is needed to confirm this.     

Relating net nitrogen input in the Mississippi River basin to nitrate flux in the lower Mississippi River: a comparison of approaches

A quantitative understanding of the relationship between terrestrial N inputs and riverine N flux can help guide conservation, policy, and adaptive management efforts aimed at preserving or restoring water quality. The objective of this study was to compare recently published approaches for relating terrestrial N inputs to the Mississippi River basin (MRB) with measured nitrate flux in the lower Mississippi River. Nitrogen inputs to and outputs from the MRB (1951 to 1996) were estimated from state-level annual agricultural production statistics and NOy (inorganic oxides of N) deposition estimates for 20 states that comprise 90% of the MRB. A model with water yield and gross N inputs accounted for 85% of the variation in observed annual nitrate flux in the lower Mississippi River, from 1960 to 1998, but tended to underestimate high nitrate flux and overestimate low nitrate flux. A model that used water yield and net anthropogenic nitrogen inputs (NANI) accounted for 95% of the variation in riverine N flux. The NANI approach accounted for N harvested in crops and assumed that crop harvest in excess of the nutritional needs of the humans and livestock in the basin would be exported from the basin. The U.S. White House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment (CENR) developed a more comprehensive N budget that included estimates of ammonia volatilization, denitrification, and exchanges with soil organic matter. The residual N in the CENR budget was weakly and negatively correlated with observed riverine nitrate flux. The CENR estimates of soil N mineralization and immobilization suggested that there were large (2000 kg N ha-1) net losses of soil organic N between 1951 and 1996. When the CENR N budget was modified by assuming that soil organic N levels have been relatively constant after 1950, and ammonia volatilization losses are redeposited within the basin, the trend of residual N closely matched temporal variation in NANI and was positively correlated with riverine nitrate flux in the lower Mississippi River. Based on results from applying these three modeling approaches, we conclude that although the NANI approach does not address several processes that influence the N cycle, it appears to focus on the terms that can be estimated with reasonable certainty and that are correlated with riverine N flux.     

Radiocesium in North San Francisco Bay and Baja California coastal surface waters

Radiocesium, 137Cs, and rare earth elements (REEs) were determined in suspended material and dissolved fractions of waters across the salinity gradient in North San Francisco Bay (estuary). We describe the variation of this conservative isotope tracer with salinity and sediment load. REE data are used to differentiate marine and terrigenous source terrains for suspended material and dissolved fractions. We estimate that about 1-4 x 10(10) Bq of 137Cs migrates annually on suspended material through the North Bay. In addition, 137Cs concentrations were measured in surface waters off Baja California. Combined in situ water density (sigma(t)) and 137Cs data distinguish between California Current and Gulf of California water, and delineate areas of upwelling, where nutrient-rich, deep Pacific Intermediate water, with little or no 137Cs, is brought to the surface off promontories along Baja California.