Assessing land-use/water-quality relationships across contrasting geologic areas in New Jersey

In all, 13 stream water-quality parameters, including specific conductance (SC), pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), three nutrients, and six major ions were compared between the northern bedrock and southern coastal plain regions of New Jersey, USA and related to watershed-disturbance gradients characterized by the percentage of urban land, impervious surface (IS), agriculture, and altered land (sum of urban land and agriculture) in the watersheds. SC, DO, calcium, magnesium, sodium, and chloride concentrations were greater in the north. DOC was higher and pH was lower in the south. Nutrient, potassium, and sulfate concentrations did not differ between regions. Regional water-quality differences are attributed to geologic setting and land use. Except for DO in southern streams, all water-quality parameters were related to urban land, agriculture, or both. Significant correlations between urban land and IS and water-quality variables were similar in both regions with differences in unitless correlation coefficients ranging from 0.00 to 0.06. Compared to urban land and agriculture, relationships between most water-quality variables and altered land were stronger in the south. The extent of urban and agricultural lands in the watersheds did not differ by region. Altered land was correlated with urban land in both regions and with agriculture only in the south. Although focused on New Jersey, this study has broader implications for watershed planning.     

Archival tagging of subadult and adult common thresher sharks (Alopias vulpinus) off the coast of southern California

The common thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus) is a secondary target species of the California drift gillnet fishery (CA-DGN) and supports a growing recreational fishery in California waters. This study used archival tags to examine the movement patterns and habitat preferences of common threshers of the size range captured in the CA-DGN (>120 cm fork length). Depth and temperature-logging archival tags were deployed on 57 subadult and adult common threshers in the Southern California Bight. Tags from five individuals (8.8%) were recovered, and 154 days of data were successfully obtained from four of these. By night, shark movements were primarily limited to waters above the thermocline, which ranged in depth from 15 to 20 m. Sharks were significantly deeper by day, and daytime vertical distribution consisted of two distinct modes: a ‘shallow mode’ (wherein sharks occupied only the upper 20 m of the water column) and a ‘deep mode’ (characterized by frequent vertical excursions below the thermocline). This modal switch is interpreted as relating to regional differences in abundance of surface-oriented prey and prey in deeper water. Maximum dive depth was 320 m, greatest dive duration was 712 min, minimum temperature experienced during a dive was 9.1°C, and dive descent rate was significantly greater than ascent rate. Sharks inhabited waters corresponding to a sea surface temperature range of 16 to 21°C. The nocturnal depth distribution of common threshers has implications for management of drift gillnet deployment depths in the CA-DGN.     

Recovering metallic fractions from waste electrical and electronic equipment by a novel vibration system

The need to recover and recycle valuable resources from Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is of growing importance as increasing amounts are generated due to shorter product life cycles, market expansions, new product developments and, higher consumption and production rates. The European Commission (EC) directive, 2002/96/EC, on WEEE became law in UK in January 2007 setting targets to recover up to 80% of all WEEE generated.Printed Wire Board (PWB) and/or Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is an important component of WEEE with an ever increasing tonnage being generated. However, the lack of an accurate estimate for PCB production, future supply and uncertain demands of its recycled materials in international markets has provided the motivation to explore different approaches to recycle PCBs.The work contained in this paper focuses on a novel, dry separation methodology in which vertical vibration is used to separate the metallic and non-metallic fractions of PCBs. When PCBs were comminuted to less than 1 mm in size, metallic grades as high as 95% (measured by heavy liquid analysis) could be achieved in the recovered products.     

Changing contaminant mobility in a dredged canal sediment during a three-year phytoremediation trial

Metal mobility and degradation of organic pollutants were investigated in a contaminated canal sediment in NW England. Sediment was dredged and exposed above the water surface, planted with multiple taxa of Salix, Populus and Alnus and monitored over 32 months. Short-term metal fractionation and phytotoxicity during sediment oxidation were also evaluated in separate laboratory studies. Zinc and Pb redistributed into more mobile fractions, which increased toxicity of the sediment to plants in the laboratory. In contrast, at the canal site, mobility of most elements decreased and total concentrations of Zn, Pb, Cu and Cd fell. Petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations decreased, but the tree-planted treatments appeared less effective at reducing PAH concentrations than treatments colonised by invasive plants. Tree survivorship decreased over time, suggesting increasing phytotoxicity of the exposed sediment in the longer term. Trees provided little benefit in terms of sediment remediation. Options for future management of the sediment are evaluated.     

Determinants of Spatial and Temporal Patterns in Compensatory Wetland Mitigation

Development projects that impact wetlands commonly require compensatory mitigation, usually through creation or restoration of wetlands on or off the project site. Over the last decade, federal support has increased for third-party off-site mitigation methods. At the same time, regulators have lowered the minimum impact size that triggers the requirement for compensatory mitigation. Few studies have examined the aggregate impact of individual wetland mitigation projects. No previous study has compared the choice of mitigation method by regulatory agency or development size. We analyze 1058 locally and federally permitted wetland mitigation transactions in the Chicago region between 1993 and 2004. We show that decreasing mitigation thresholds have had striking effects on the methods and spatial distribution of wetland mitigation. In particular, the observed increase in mitigation bank use is driven largely by the needs of the smallest impacts. Conversely, throughout the time period studied, large developments have rarely used mitigation banking, and have been relatively unaffected by changing regulatory focus and banking industry growth. We surmise that small developments lack the scale economies necessary for feasible permittee responsible mitigation. Finally, we compare the rates at which compensation required by both county and federal regulators is performed across major watershed boundaries. We show that local regulations prohibiting cross-county mitigation lead to higher levels of cross- watershed mitigation than federal regulations without cross-county prohibitions. Our data suggest that local control over wetland mitigation may prioritize administrative boundaries over hydrologic function in the matter of selecting compensation sites.     

Predicting the Vulnerability of Tropical Reef Fishes to Exploitation with Phylogenies and Life Histories

Abstract: Fishing has led to local extirpations of reef fishes. For conservation and management purposes, it is important to identify all those species that are vulnerable to fishing, but this cannot be done using a priori assessments or by describing trends in abundance because the necessary scientific resources are not available. Thus the predictions of vulnerability that provide the basis for conservation action will have to be made with existing data or data that can be acquired rapidly before further extirpations occur. The life histories of species may determine their responses to exploitation, and we describe how an easily measured parameter, maximum observed size, is related to population trends of exploited fishes on coral reefs. Using a phylogenetic comparative approach, we demonstrated that species of grouper (Epinephelinae), snapper (Lutjanidae), and parrotfish (Scaridae) that decreased in abundance more than their nearest phylogenetic relative had greater maximum size. Our results suggest that one can predict the vulnerability of reef fishes to exploitation based on responses of their relatives. The quality of the prediction was good for the intensively fished groupers and snappers but poor for the lightly fished parrotfishes. Our approach may help proactive conservationists and fishery managers identify and conserve vulnerable species in new, developing, or lightly exploited fisheries, thereby reducing their reliance on reactive management methods.