Substrate size mediates thermal stress in the rocky intertidal

Variation in physical factors, such as slope, orientation, and wind exposure, shapes thermal conditions. Variation in substrate size is common in many habitats, but its thermal consequences for organisms are not well characterized. Larger substrates should remain more thermally stable and act as thermal refuges for associated organisms during short, thermally stressful periods such as midday temperature peaks or tidal exposure. In observations and a transplant and thermal integration experiment, we found that larger rock substrates stayed cooler and facilitated greater survival of the barnacle Semibalanus balanoides in the high intertidal relative to small substrates during the hot summer months in southern New England, USA. However, in thermally benign northern New England, rock substrate size had no effect on barnacle distributions, indicating that the thermal effects of substrate size are mediated by regional climate.     

Consumption Advisories and Compliance: The Fishing Public and the Deamplification of Risk

Managers and regulators have recognized that the fishing public often ignores fish consumption advisories, and the reasons for non-compliance are explored in this paper. Risk assessors acknowledge that there is a social amplification (intensification) of risk where the public perceive a risk as much more severe than do the 'experts' or scientists, and this social amplification is a function of the interaction of hazards with social, psychological and cultural processes. I propose that non-compliance of consumption advisories occurs because of the deamplification of risk in hazards that are familiar and enjoyed, such as fishing and fish consumption. Although the public are generally aware of consumption advisories, they continue to believe the fish are safe to eat, and a high percentage eat the fish they catch. Unlike the amplification of risk, the deamplification of risk from fishing in the face of consumption advisories is partly legitimized by the actions of some governmental agencies, as well as by society at large. It is suggested that a variety of economic benefits and social institutions lead to a discounting of consumption advisories, and the delayed nature of adverse health effects allows for additional disregard. Further, it is suggested that co-management of the risk from contaminated fish would increase public involvement, and therefore compliance.     

A Comparison of On-site Hunters,Sportsmen and the General Public about Recreational Rates and Future Land Use Preferences for the Savannah River Site

Management of ecosystems has been improved both by our understanding of how ecosystems function, as well as by what people consider to be suitable future land uses. This is particularly true with contaminated lands where decisions must be made about clean-up and future land use. In this paper I synthesize several surveys of public recreational rates and preferences for future land use of the Savannah River Site (SRS), a Department of Energy (DoE) facility located in South Carolina. Four groups of people were interviewed: on-site hunters; sportsmen; local residents attending an event near Aiken, South Carolina; and the general public attending a festival in Columbia, South Carolina. The general public that engaged in recreational activities averaged 20 days/ year or more for hunting and fishing, while sportsmen averaged over 50 days/year. All four groups rated maintaining SRS as a National Environmental Research Park (NERP) and using it for recreation as the highest preferred land uses. The general public rated hiking and camping higher than hunting and fishing, while sportsmen rated hunting higher than hiking and camping. All groups rated using SRS for homes as the lowest, or second lowest, preferred land use. There was disagreement on the ratings for industrial development, with people living closer to the site rating it higher than the general South Carolina population. These data can be used by local planners and managers in decision making regarding clean-up levels and future land use. The relative unanimity of views for cleaning up DoE sites, continued use of the site as a NERP and increased recreational use suggests that different groups of people share similar preferences for future use of SRS, and provides a useful paradigm for considering future land use decisions at other DoE sites nationwide. The relatively low ranking for housing and factories suggests that clean-up levels could be geared to future land use, such as recreation, which are less stringent than residential levels.     

Road Developments in the UK: An Analysis of Ecological Assessment in Environmental Impact Statements Produced between 1993 and 1997

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been required for certain proposed road developmentsin the UK since EC Directive (85/337) was implemented in 1988. The extent to which the requirements of the EIA Directive are met with respect to ecological issues has been explored in earlier reviews of road statements (Treweek et al., 1993) and of UK environmental impact statements (EISs) in general (Thompson et al., 1997). This paper describes the results of a further review of 40 EISs produced between 1993 and 1997 and also examines recent changes in the political context for EIA of proposed road developments,including developments in UK transport policy and the UK biodiversity process. The results of the review suggest that the ecological assessment of proposed road developments has improved in some respects, but also highlights the persistence of many shortcomings identified in earlier reviews. The reasons for ongoing failure to address these issues are explored. Key findings include a marked improvement in the extent of reference to consultation with statutory consultees and an increase in the proportion of EISs reporting the results of new ecological surveys. However, while potential ecological impacts were discussed in all the EISs reviewed, many still failed to predict the full range of potential ecological impacts.     

Using integrated food‐web and population‐based models for environmental monitoring,remediation decisions,and long‐term planning

While ecologists have used food‐web models to understand how ecosystems function, the potential role of integrated food‐web and population‐based models in environmental monitoring and decision making has been ignored. Sound ecological principles should be integrated with state‐of‐the‐art monitoring and management practices. This article presents the ways in which population‐based models can answer basic ecological questions necessary for decision making about remediation and restoration, and for monitoring to ensure long‐term stewardship. Discussed are the uses of food‐web and population‐based models for understanding the movement of chemicals through different trophic levels. Three examples, including global warming, tributyltin, and monomethylmercury scenarios, are presented to illustrate how such models are useful. The responses of the component parts varies, depending on parameters such as birth, death, and respiration, as well as feeding rates, predator‐prey rates, and uptake and elimination rates. There are several different models available for decision making, with different levels of complexity, based on the specific hypothesis or question being asked and the amount of current information available. Therefore, it is recommended to use deterministic‐based, population‐based food‐web models for ecological risk assessment. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Influence of academic education on the perception of wood in watercourses

Human perception of in-channel wood can influence decision-making about wood reintroduction in watercourses for restoration purposes. A questionnaire survey was conducted among first-year and advanced Polish students and professionals involved in the management and protection of watercourses in Poland. The purpose was to assess their perception of river scenes with and without wood in terms of naturalness, aesthetics, danger and need for improvement. Generally, students perceived riverscapes with wood to be less aesthetic, more dangerous and needing more improvement than riverscapes without wood. However, many aspects of the riverscape perception are subject to changes as the student progresses in studying. The culturally conditioned, negative perception of in-channel wood is reduced during the education of geography and biology students but enhanced in the course of water engineering studies. The improved perception of watercourses containing wood was most pronounced for the advanced geography students from a university in which some tutors conducted research on in-channel wood and could have transferred knowledge about and positive attitudes toward wood to their students. A comparison of the riverscape evaluation by biology students and national park managers indicates that education in the discipline facilitates understanding of the environmental significance of in-channel wood although its effects are highly insufficient to form the positive attitude toward wood-containing watercourses typical of the managers. In turn, the education of water engineering students about in-channel wood apparently dominantly emphasizes threats caused by its presence in watercourses, so that the students' highly negative attitude toward wood needs to be significantly moderated when the graduates begin working as water authority managers.     

Approaches for assessing hazards and risks to workers and the public from contaminated land

Many public agencies and private entities are faced with assessing the risks to humans from contamination on their lands. The United States Department of Energy (US DOE) and Department of Defense are responsible for large holdings of contaminated land and face a long‐term and costly challenge to assure sustainable protectiveness. With increasing interest in the conversion of brownfields to productive uses, many former industrial properties must also be assessed to determine compatible future land uses. In the United States, many cleanup plans or actions are based on the Comprehensive Environmental Responsibility, Compensation, and Liability Act, which provides important but incomplete coverage of these issues, although many applications have tried to involve stakeholders at multiple steps. Where there is the potential for exposure to workers, the public, and the environment from either cleanup or leaving residual contamination in place, there is a need for a more comprehensive approach to evaluate and balance the present and future risk(s) from existing contamination, from remediation actions, as well as from postremediation residual contamination. This article focuses on the US DOE, the agency with the largest hazardous waste remediation task in the world. Presented is a framework extending from preliminary assessment, risk assessment and balancing, epidemiology, monitoring, communication, and stakeholder involvement useful for assessing risk to workers and site neighbors. Provided are examples of those who eat fish, meat, or fruit from contaminated habitats. The US DOE's contaminated sites are unique in a number of ways: (1) huge physical footprint size, (2) types of waste (mixed radiation/chemical), and (3) quantities of waste. Proposed future land uses provide goals for remediation, but since some contamination is of a type or magnitude that cannot be cleaned up with existing technology, this in turn constrains future land use options, requiring an iterative approach. The risk approaches must fit a range of future land uses and end‐states from leave‐in‐place to complete cleanup. This will include not only traditional risk methodologies, but also the assessment and surveillance necessary for stewards for long‐term monitoring of risk from historic and future exposure to maintain sustainable protectiveness. Because of the distinctiveness of DOE sites, application of the methodologies developed here to other waste site situations requires site‐specific evaluation © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Perceptions of goods,services and eco‐cultural attributes of Native Americans and Caucasians in Idaho

Understanding perceptions of how people value environmental resources is critical to conservation and management of ecosystems. We used interviews to examine perceptions and valuations of goods, services, and eco‐cultural attributes of Native Americans and Caucasians attending an American Indian festival. The Native Americans interviewed were younger, achieved lower levels of education, and had lower mean incomes than did the Caucasians. There were no significant differences in the percentage of Native Americans and Caucasians engaged in consumptive and nonconsumptive activities, although a significantly greater percentage of Native Americans engaged in religious/cultural activities than did Caucasians. Although the relative ratings differed, the most important characteristics for all three types of activities were clean air, unpolluted water, no visible smog in air, and appears unspoiled, which represent both goods and services (the former two) and eco‐cultural attributes (the latter two). For nearly all characteristics, Native Americans rated them higher than did Caucasians. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Changes in the peripheral blood flow in legs in response to the cold: own studies using plethysmography

The thermal environment in the workplace is an important factor which affects workers’ health. During 2011 in Poland, 14,781 workers were exposed to a cold working environment, i.e., 3.8% of persons employed in hazardous work conditions. The aim of this study was to determine the cardiovascular response to continuous (4 °C for 60 min) and intermittent (10 min at 4 °C and 10 min at room temperature alternately) exposure to the cold in 30 healthy men aged 20–27 years. Peripheral blood flow was assessed with impedance plethysmography. Heart rate and arterial blood pressure were monitored with the Holter system. Having assessed the results, it is difficult to say which kind of exposure has a more severe impact on the cardiovascular system. Longer observation and a more detailed analysis would be necessary (e.g., Doppler echocardiography).