NEW FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR PRIORITY WATERSHED MANAGEMENT NEEDS1

ABSTRACT: In the past five years, USDA and EPA programs became major players in implementing watershed programs. The 1996 Farm Bill for the first time required that USDA assistance for farmers address priority environmental needs on a site‐specific, or watershed, basis. USDA involves farmers and other players in locally run watershed programs and focuses cost share and incentive payments on nutrient planning, riparian protection, and other practices prioritized to most efficiently achieve watershed goals. As a result, USDA has become a funding source for environmental initiatives targeted to watersheds, as well as a technical resource that attempts to support more efficient use of federal and state environmental expenditures. Analysis identifies institutional and technical barriers to targeting the very limited, new assistance and suggests how those barriers are being addressed by some innovative programs. Since Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) and other state run programs face many of the same challenges of ranking watersheds, setting goals, and finding cost effective remedies, this paper identifies a very close fit between the new federal programs and other watershed programs.     

Experimental design of the Svalbard shoreline field trials

Experimental oil spills on three mixed-sediment beaches in Svalbard, Norway, were designed to evaluate the effectiveness of in situ shoreline cleaning treatments to accelerate natural recovery. These were: sediment relocation (surf washing), mixing (tilling), bioremediation (fertilizer application), and bioremediation combined with mixing. Additionally, natural attenuation was studied as a treatment option. An intermediate fuel oil was applied to the sediment surface in the upper intertidal zone at three experimental sites, each of which had different sediment characteristics and wave-energy exposure. Over a 400-day period, the experiments quantified oil removal, documented changes in the physical character of the beach as well as oil fate and behaviour, assessed toxicity effects associated with treatment, and validated oil-mineral aggregate formation as a result of the selected treatment techniques. The three sites were chosen based on significant differences, and each treatment was quantitatively compared only with other treatments at that site.This paper describes the physical location and the experimental design of the field trials. Some of the key issues that were addressed in the design included: the methodology for application of oil, the application of treatment techniques, the realistic simulation of real-world conditions, and the sampling protocols to overcome sediment and oiling heterogeneity typical of mixed-sediment beaches in order to allow quantitative comparisons of the treatments.     

In-situ Treatment of Oiled Sediment Shorelines

Experimental oil spill studies were conducted to quantify the effectiveness of selected in-situ shoreline treatment options to accelerate natural oil removal processes on mixed-sediment (sand and pebble) shorelines. At each of three distinct shoreline sites, treatment test plots and control plots were established within a 40-, 80- and 143-m continuous stretch of oiled shoreline. A total of 5500 l of oil was deposited along a 3-m wide swath in the upper intertidal zone at each site. Approximately one week after oiling, a different treatment technique was applied to each plot. The treatment techniques were: sediment relocation (surf washing), mixing (tilling), bioremediation (fertilizer application), and bioremediation combined with mixing. One plot at each site was monitored for natural attenuation. The quantity of oil removed from the plots was measured six times up to 60 days post-treatment and then again one year later. Changes in the physical character of the beach, oil penetration, movement of oil to the subtidal environment, toxicity, and biodegradation were monitored over the 400-day period.The results verified quantitatively that relocation of oiled sediments significantly accelerated the rate of oil removal from the shoreline by more than one year. Microscopic observations and image analyses confirmed that the oil-mineral aggregate formation process was active and was increased by sediment relocation. Oil biodegradation occurred in this arctic environment, both in the oiled sediments and on the fine mineral particles removed from the sediment by natural physical processes. The biodegradation of oil in sediment was significantly stimulated by simple bioremediation protocols. Mixing (by tilling) did not clearly stimulate oil loss and natural recovery in the context of this experimental design. None of the treatment techniques elevated toxicity in the nearshore environment to unacceptable levels, nor did they result in consequential alongshore or nearshore oiling.     

Testing the impact of shift schedules on organizational variables

Prior organizational shift work research has focused on studying either nurses or blue collar manufacturing employees, and been somewhat limited by shift size limitations. Using a unique sample of 705 full‐time medical technologists (MTs), across distinct fixed day, evening, night and rotating shifts, this study found that day shift MTs had lower job content routinization (more task enrichment) than evening, night and rotating shift MTs. Contrary to previous research, rotating shift MTs did not have lower work attitudes than fixed shift MTs. Results are further discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development and validation of a questionnaire for measuring perceived political considerations in performance appraisal

A 25-item scoring instrument was developed to measure perceptions of the extent to which performance appraisals are affected by organizational politics. The survey was administered to 157 francophone managers. A factor analysis revealed that the perceptions of the extent to which political considerations affect the appraisal an employee receives can be sensibly interpreted in terms of a single general factor. The internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the instrument was high. Moderate support was found for the instrument's convergent and discriminant validity.     

Adaptive response criteria in road hazard detection among older drivers

Objectives: The majority of existing investigations on attention, aging, and driving have focused on the negative impacts of age-related declines in attention on hazard detection and driver performance. However, driving skills and behavioral compensation may accommodate for the negative effects that age-related attentional decline places on driving performance. In this study, we examined an important question that had been largely neglected in the literature linking attention, aging, and driving: can top-down factors such as behavioral compensation, specifically adaptive response criteria, accommodate the negative impacts from age-related attention declines on hazard detection during driving?

Methods: In the experiment, we used the Drive Aware Task, a task combining the driving context with well-controlled laboratory procedures measuring attention. We compared younger (n = 16, age 21–30) and older (n = 21, age 65–79) drivers on their attentional processing of hazards in driving scenes, indexed by percentage of correct responses and reaction time of hazard detection, as well as sensitivity and response criteria using signal detection analysis.

Results: Older drivers, in general, were less accurate and slower on the task than younger drivers. However, results from this experiment revealed that older, but not younger, drivers adapted their response criteria when the traffic condition changed in the driving scenes. When there was more traffic in the driving scene, older drivers became more liberal in their responses, meaning that they were more likely to report that a driving hazard was detected.

Conclusions: Older drivers adopt compensatory strategies for hazard detection during driving. Our findings showed that, in the driving context, even at an older age our attentional functions are still adaptive according to environmental conditions. This leads to considerations on potential training methods to promote adaptive strategies that may help older drivers maintain performance in road hazard detection.     

Development of a New Approach to Cumulative Effects Assessment: A Northern River Ecosystem Example

If sustainable development of Canadian waters is to be achieved, a realistic and manageable framework is required for assessing cumulative effects. The objective of this paper is to describe an approach for aquatic cumulative effects assessment that was developed under the Northern Rivers Ecosystem Initiative. The approach is based on a review of existing monitoring practices in Canada and the presence of existing thresholds for aquatic ecosystem health assessments. It suggests that a sustainable framework is possible for cumulative effects assessment of Canadian waters that would result in integration of national indicators of aquatic health, integration of national initiatives (e.g., water quality index, environmental effects monitoring), and provide an avenue where long-term monitoring programs could be integrated with baseline and follow-up monitoring conducted under the environmental assessment process.     

Use of Maryland Biological Stream Survey Data to Determine Effects of Agricultural Riparian Buffers on Measures of Biological Stream Health

This study was undertaken to determine the importance of riparian buffers to stream ecology in agricultural areas. The original Maryland Biological Stream Survey (MBSS) data set was partitioned to represent agricultural sites in Maryland's Coastal Plain and Piedmont regions. ANOVA, multiple linear regression (MLR), and CART regression tree models were developed using riparian and site catchment landscape characteristics. MBSS data were both stratified by physiographic region and analyzed as a combined data set. All models indicated that land management at the site was not the controlling factor for fish IBIs (FIBI) at that site and, hence, using FIBI to evaluate site-scale factors would not be a prudent procedure. Measures of instream habitat and location in the stream network were the dominant explanatory factors for FIBI models. Both CART and MLR models indicated that forest buffers were influential on benthic IBIs (BIBI). Explanatory variables reflected instream conditions, adjacent landscape influence, and chemistry in the Coastal Plains sites, all of which are relatively site specific. However, for Piedmont sites, hydrologic factors were important, in addition to adjacent landscape influence, and chemistry. Both Coastal Plain and Piedmont CART models identified several hydrologic factors, emphasizing the dominant control of hydrology on the physical habitat index (PHI). Riparian buffers were a secondary influence on PHI in the Coastal Plain, but not in the Piedmont. Between 40% and 70% of the variation in FIBI, BIBI, and PHI was explained by the “easily obtainable” variables available from the MBSS data set. While these are empirical results specific to Maryland, the general findings are of use to other locations where the establishment of forest buffers is considered as an aquatic ecosystem restoration measure.     

On the aggregation of individual withdrawal behaviors into larger multi-item constructs

This paper reviews the empirical work of Hanisch and Hulin (1990, 1991) and Roznowski and Hanisch, 1990) which collectively propose two specific multi-behavior constructs: work withdrawal and job withdrawal. Subsequent research suggests that the aggregation specified by Hanisch and Hulin (1990, 1991) and Roznowski and Hanisch (1990) may be premature. However, the basic idea of combining multi-item behaviors into a larger construct to enhance work attitude–work behavior relationships (Fisher, 1980) is appealing. This paper attempts to constructively build upon the useful empirical work of Hanisch and Hulin (1990, 1991) and Roznowski and Hanisch (1990) by offering suggestions for further development and testing of multi-item work and job withdrawal behavior constructs. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.