In‐well sediment incubators to evaluate microbial community stability and dynamics following bioimmobilization of uranium

An in‐well sediment incubator (ISI) was developed to investigate the stability and dynamics of sediment‐associated microbial communities to prevailing subsurface oxidizing or reducing conditions. Herein we describe the use of these devices at the Old Rifle Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) site. During a seven‐month period in which oxidized Rifle Aquifer background sediment (RABS) were deployed in previously biostimulated wells under iron‐reducing conditions, cell densities of known iron‐reducing bacteria, including Geobacteraceae, increased significantly, showing the microbial community response to local subsurface conditions. Phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) profiles of RABS following in situ deployment were strikingly similar to those of adjacent sediment cores, suggesting ISI results could be extrapolated to the native material of the test plots. Results for ISI deployment with laboratory‐reduced sediments showed only slight changes in community composition and pointed toward the ability of the ISI to monitor microbial community stability and response to subsurface conditions. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Adapting cities to climate change – exploring the flood risk management role of green infrastructure landscapes

There is now an emerging sense of the scope and nature of response that can be implemented at building and neighbourhood scales to help adapt cities and urban areas to the changing climate. In comparison, the role of larger natural and semi-natural landscapes that surround and permeate cities is less well understood. Addressing this knowledge gap, this paper outlines two case studies that describe and map the flood risk management functions offered by green infrastructure landscapes situated within the Urban Mersey Basin in North West England. The case studies establish that areas potentially exposed to flooding can be located at some distance, and within different jurisdictions, from upstream areas where the flood hazard may be generated and could be moderated via functions provided by green infrastructure landscapes. This raises planning and governance challenges connected to supporting and enhancing flood risk management functions provided by green infrastructure landscapes.     

Evaluation Criteria for Implementation of a Sustainable Sanitation and Wastewater Treatment System at Jiuzhaigou National Park, Sichuan Province, China

The administration of Jiuzhaigou National Park in Sichuan Province, China, is in the process of considering a range of upgrades to their sanitation and wastewater treatment systems. Their case history involves an ongoing series of engineering design flaws and management failures. The administration of the Park identified sustainability, environmental protection, and education goals for their sanitation and wastewater treatment system. To meet the goal of sustainability, environmental and economic concerns of the Park’s administration had to be balanced with socio-cultural needs. An advanced reconnaissance method was developed that identified reasons for previous failures, conducted stakeholder analysis and interviews, determined evaluation criteria, and introduced innovative alternatives with records of successful global implementations. This evaluation also helped the Park to better define their goals. To prevent future failures, the administration of the Park must commit to a balanced and thorough evaluation process for selection of a final alternative and institute effective long-term management and monitoring of systems. In addition, to meet goals and achieve energy efficient, cost-effective use of resources, the Park must shift their thinking from one of waste disposal to resource recovery. The method and criteria developed for this case study provides a framework to aid in the successful implementation of sanitation projects in both underdeveloped and developed areas of the world, incorporating socio-cultural values and resource recovery for a complex group of stakeholders.     

Uptake of Cd,Pb, U,and Zn by plants in floodplain pollution hotspots contributes to secondary contamination

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Willows, woody plants of genus Salix common in floodplains of temperate regions, act as plant pumps and translocate the Cd and Zn in the soil profiles...     

Special Issue on “Metallophytes for soil remediation” - Preface

Environmental Geochemistry and Health -     

Factors influencing incidental representation of previously unknown conservation features in marine protected areas

Spatially explicit information on species distributions for conservation planning is invariably incomplete; therefore, the use of surrogates is required to represent broad‐scale patterns of biodiversity. Despite significant interest in the effectiveness of surrogates for predicting spatial distributions of biodiversity, few researchers have explored questions involving the ability of surrogates to incidentally represent unknown features of conservation interest. We used the Great Barrier Reef marine reserve network to examine factors affecting incidental representation of conservation features that were unknown at the time the reserve network was established. We used spatially explicit information on the distribution of 39 seabed habitats and biological assemblages and the conservation planning software Marxan to examine how incidental representation was affected by the spatial characteristics of the features; the conservation objectives (the minimum proportion of each feature included in no‐take areas); the spatial configuration of no‐take areas; and the opportunity cost of conservation. Cost was closely and inversely correlated to incidental representation. However, incidental representation was achieved, even in a region with only coarse‐scale environmental data, by adopting a precautionary approach that explicitly considered the potential for unknown features. Our results indicate that incidental representation is enhanced by partitioning selection units along biophysical gradients to account for unknown within‐feature variability and ensuring that no‐take areas are well distributed throughout the region; by setting high conservation objectives that (in this case >33%) maximize the chances of capturing unknown features incidentally; and by carefully considering the designation of cost to planning units when using decision‐support tools for reserve design. The lessons learned from incidental representation in the Great Barrier Reef have implications for conservation planning in other regions, particularly those that lack detailed environmental and ecological data.     

Reducing discards of fish at sea: a review of European pilot projects

This paper is about improving the viability of discard-reduction pilot projects. One way to address the problem of wasteful discarding of fish at sea is to initiate pilot projects to trial potential solutions, such as selective gear, area closures, discard bans and data enhancement, which could subsequently be adopted by the fishing industry, either voluntarily or through regulation. However, such pilot projects are often difficult both to set up and to sustain through to completion and implementation. This study reviewed 15 discard-related pilot projects to find out what were the most important determinants of their success or lack of it, and to recommend ways in which the prospects of future pilots could be improved. The review identifies the seven most important factors associated with the viability of the pilot projects - fisheries crises; incentivization; funding; expertise; leadership; and enforcement - and shows how fisheries regulators could take steps to reinforce these factors – by faster responses to crises; more incentives and funding; greater use of fishers' knowledge and leadership; and better enforcement mechanisms.     

Extended prediction models for crashes at roundabouts

This paper builds upon the results of previously developed crash prediction models for roundabouts. The originally investigated sample was extended from 90 to 148 roundabouts. Poisson and gamma modelling techniques were used, the latter ones since underdispersion in the crash data was observed. Separate models were fit for crashes with six different types of road users: bicyclists, motorcyclists, passenger and heavy four-wheel vehicles, moped riders and pedestrians. A further distinction was made between single-vehicle and multiple-vehicle crashes.The results show that the overall number of crashes is more or less proportional to the number of motorized vehicles. The mean number of single-vehicle crashes per passing vehicle is lower on busier roundabouts. Confirmation is found for the existence of a ‘safety-in-numbers’ effect for different types of road users. Three-leg roundabouts tend to perform worse than roundabouts with four or more legs. More crashes seem to occur at roundabouts with bypasses for traffic in some direction. Larger central islands correlate with more single-vehicle crashes. Moped riders and motorcyclists are strongly overrepresented in both single-vehicle and multiple-vehicle crashes whereas bicyclists are clearly overrepresented in multiple-vehicle crashes. Roundabouts with cycle paths perform better than roundabouts with other types of cycle facilities, particularly in comparison with roundabouts with cycle lanes close to the roadway.     

Integrated Measures of Anthropogenic Stress in the U.S. Great Lakes Basin

Integrated, quantitative expressions of anthropogenic stress over large geographic regions can be valuable tools in environmental research and management. Despite the fundamental appeal of a regional approach, development of regional stress measures remains one of the most important current challenges in environmental science. Using publicly available, pre-existing spatial datasets, we developed a geographic information system database of 86 variables related to five classes of anthropogenic stress in the U.S. Great Lakes basin: agriculture, atmospheric deposition, human population, land cover, and point source pollution. The original variables were quantified by a variety of data types over a broad range of spatial and classification resolutions. We summarized the original data for 762 watershed-based units that comprise the U.S. portion of the basin and then used principal components analysis to develop overall stress measures within each stress category. We developed a cumulative stress index by combining the first principal component from each of the five stress categories. Maps of the stress measures illustrate strong spatial patterns across the basin, with the greatest amount of stress occurring on the western shore of Lake Michigan, southwest Lake Erie, and southeastern Lake Ontario. We found strong relationships between the stress measures and characteristics of bird communities, fish communities, and water chemistry measurements from the coastal region. The stress measures are taken to represent the major threats to coastal ecosystems in the U.S. Great Lakes. Such regional-scale efforts are critical for understanding relationships between human disturbance and ecosystem response, and can be used to guide environmental decision-making at both regional and local scales.     

A link between eumelanism and calcium physiology in the barn owl

In many animals, melanin-based coloration is strongly heritable and is largely insensitive to the environment and body condition. According to the handicap principle, such a trait may not reveal individual quality because the production of different melanin-based colorations often entails similar costs. However, a recent study showed that the production of eumelanin pigments requires relatively large amounts of calcium, potentially implying that melanin-based coloration is associated with physiological processes requiring calcium. If this is the case, eumelanism may be traded-off against other metabolic processes that require the same elements. We used a correlative approach to examine, for the first time, this proposition in the barn owl, a species in which individuals vary in the amount, size, and blackness of eumelanic spots. For this purpose, we measured calcium concentration in the left humerus of 85 dead owls. Results showed that the humeri of heavily spotted individuals had a higher concentration of calcium. This suggests either that plumage spottiness signals the ability to absorb calcium from the diet for both eumelanin production and storage in bones, or that lightly spotted individuals use more calcium for metabolic processes at the expense of calcium storage in bones. Our study supports the idea that eumelanin-based coloration is associated with a number of physiological processes requiring calcium.