A general framework for a collaborative water quality knowledge and information network

Increasing knowledge about the environment has brought about a better understanding of the complexity of the issues, and more information publicly available has resulted into a steady shift from centralized decision making to increasing levels of participatory processes. The management of that information, in turn, is becoming more complex. One of the ways to deal with the complexity is the development of tools that would allow all players, including managers, researchers, educators, stakeholders and the civil society, to be able to contribute to the information system, in any level they are inclined to do so. In this project, a search for the available technology for collaboration, methods of community filtering, and community-based review was performed and the possible implementation of these tools to create a general framework for a collaborative ??Water Quality Knowledge and Information Network?? was evaluated. The main goals of the network are to advance water quality education and knowledge; encourage distribution and access to data; provide networking opportunities; allow public perceptions and concerns to be collected; promote exchange of ideas; and, give general, open, and free access to information. A reference implementation was made available online and received positive feedback from the community, which also suggested some possible improvements.     

The urban growth machine goes South: Conditions and capacities for more sustainable place-building

Abstract

The prospects for global sustainable development are thoroughly tied to the future of cities. Our goal is to better understand how cities actually get built and with what substantive consequences. Beyond designing and implementing public policy tools, this requires a better understanding of the underlying political economy of urban place-building. Beginning with the ideal type of the urban growth machine, we outline frameworks for analysing both the ‘conditions for urban place-building’ and the ‘capacities for sustainable urban place-building’. We apply these in the Chilean context by examining general features of the urban political economy and then specific development exemplars from the urban region of Valparaíso. We outline frameworks for further comparative work.     

Greater flamingos <Emphasis Type="Italic">Phoenicopterus roseus</Emphasis> use uropygial secretions as make-up

It was long thought that the colour of bird feathers does not change after plumage moult. However, there is increasing evidence that the colour of feathers may change due to abrasion, photochemical change and staining, either accidental or deliberate. The coloration of plumage due to deliberate staining, i.e. with cosmetic purposes, may help individuals to communicate their quality to conspecifics. The presence of carotenoids in preen oils has been previously only suggested, and here we confirm for the first time its presence in such oils. Moreover, the carotenoids in the uropygial secretions were the same specific pigments found in feathers. We show not only that the colour of feathers of greater flamingos Phoenicopterus roseus became more colourful due to the application of carotenoids from uropygial secretions over the plumage but also that the feathers became more colourful with the quantity of pigments applied over them, thus providing evidence of cosmetic coloration. Flamingos used uropygial secretions as cosmetic much more frequently during periods when they were displaying in groups than during the rest of the year, suggesting that the primary function of cosmetic coloration is mate choice. Individuals with more colourful plumage initiated nesting earlier. There was a correlation between plumage coloration before and after removal of uropygial secretions from feathers’ surfaces, suggesting that the use of these pigmented secretions may function as a signal amplifier by increasing the perceptibility of plumage colour, and hence of individual quality. As the cosmetic coloration strengthens signal intensity by reinforcing base-plumage colour, its use may help to the understanding of selection for signal efficacy by making interindividual differences more apparent.     

Implementation of a marine reserve has a rapid but short-lived effect on recreational angler use

Changes in human behavior are a precursor to measurable impacts of no-take marine reserves. We investigated changes in recreational fishing site selection in response to the 2005 announcement of enforcement in a marine reserve in the Gulf of California, Mexico. We used a novel data set of daily self-reported boating destinations from emergency rescue logbooks for a recreational angling community from 2000 to 2008. Because the reserve system has no experimental control, we modeled the data two ways to test for robustness to model specification. We tested for changes in human fishing behavior with regression and fit a fleet-level discrete choice model to project a. counterfactual scenario. The counterfactual is the statistically constructed ex post expectation of the human behavior we would have observed if the reserve never existed. We included month and year fixed effects in our models to account for seasonal and interannual fluctuations in fishing behavior and catch rates. We detected a decrease in reserve use compared to the counterfactual, indicating that the reserve rapidly experienced a decrease in visitation. However, the reserve's effect to reduce trips diminished with time. These results indicate that the reserve is unlikely to meet its ecological goals without institutional changes that enhance compliance. This illustrates the value of human use data to understanding the processes underlying marine reserve function. We suggest that managers should consider human use with the same frequency, rigor, and tools as they do fishery stocks. Marine reserves directly affect people, and understanding human behavioral responses to marine reserves is an important step in marine reserve management.     

Participation in the convention on migratory species: A biogeographic assessment

The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) is a Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) focused on species that regularly travel across international borders. Despite covering an important group of species, CMS is under-utilized compared to other conservation-focused MEAs. CMS suffers from a lack of participation across North America and most of Asia. Our goal is to illustrate differences in species richness and average range-size across signatory and nonsignatory nation-states using range–diversity plots. We also show differences in the cost of CMS membership relative to species patterns to highlight which countries may be discouraged from becoming CMS signatories. Despite containing many CMS species, large economies such as the United States, Russia, and China are not members of the convention. To facilitate migratory species conservation into the future, CMS should seek to fill gaps in participation, potentially directing recruitment efforts toward nonsignatory states that would receive the largest benefit at the lowest relative cost.     

Use of different organic wastes in reducing the potential leaching of propanil,isoxaben, cadusafos and pencycuron through the soil

In this study, we examined the effect of four different organic wastes (OW)—composted sheep manure (CSM), spent coffee grounds (SCG), composted pine bark (CPB) and coir (CR)—on the potential groundwater pollution of propanil and isoxaben (herbicides), cadusafos (insecticide) and pencycuron (fungicide) under laboratory conditions. For this purpose, leaching studies were conducted using disturbed soil columns filled with a clay loam soil (Hipercalcic calcisol). The addition of organic matter (OM) drastically reduced the movement of the studied pesticides. The results obtained point to the interest in the use of agro-industrial and composted OW in reducing the groundwater pollution by pesticide drainage.