Assessing inundation damage and timing of adaptation: sea level rise and the complexities of land use in coastal communities

Climate change exacerbates the public policy challenges already present in managing contested landscapes. Coastal managers deal with multiple stressors and multiple stakeholders and have a difficult challenge in managing competing land use as sea level rise (SLR) reduces the amount of prized coastal land. The information needed to inform on the type and timing of adaptation strategies reflects a major gap in the planning and implementation of adaptation options. We present here an inundation risk assessment framework (IRAF) for estimating the impacts of increasing SLR inundation extent probabilities and the cost of inundation damage through time for public and private infrastructure assets. The framework integrates the cost of damage across asset classes in order to help decision-makers judge the economic utility of various adaptation options and the timing of implementation. We provide an example of this methodology using a case study from Southeast Australia in a low lying estuarine region with an increasingly urbanized population. The methodology shows a clear pathway in which to integrate multiple asset classes into a temporally based damage cost analysis. Such methodology will help address the timing of adaptation and allow for the development of trigger points to guide adaptation planning. Thus, the framework developed in this paper can be easily transferred to other regions and countries facing the same types of SLR risks. As SLR and inundation encroachment continue to occur, decisions regarding protection, repair, and retreat will be made depending on the resources available to local governments. The challenge is to balance decision making with both the timing of implementation as well as costs (both of action and inaction). By understanding the areas of land lost to inundation and the cost of inaction through time, local governments can assess the rationality of adaptation at points in the present and future.     

Quantifying ‘geographic proximity’: Experiences from the United Kingdom's National Industrial Symbiosis Programme

Geographic proximity is said to be a key characteristic of the resource reuse and recycling practice known as industrial symbiosis. To date, however, proximity of symbiont companies has remained an abstract characteristic. By conducting a statistical analysis of synergies facilitated by the United Kingdom's National Industrial Symbiosis Programme during their first five years of operation, this article attempts to quantify geographic proximity and in the process provide practitioners with an insight into the movement trends of different waste streams. Among other it was found that the median distance materials travelled within a symbiotic relationship is 20.4 miles. It is argued that quantitative information of this form is of practical value for the effective deployment of industrial symbiosis practitioners and wider resource efficiency planning. The results and discussion presented within this article are specific to industrial symbiosis opportunities facilitated within the United Kingdom; the methodology and assessment of resource movement influences are, however, expected to be relevant to all countries in which industrial activity is similarly mature and diversified.     

The impact of storm events on a riverbed system and its hydraulic conductivity at a site of induced infiltration

The spatial and temporal variability of riverbed vertical hydraulic conductivity (K(v)) was investigated at a site of induced infiltration, associated with a municipal well field, to assess the impact of high-stage events on scour and subsequently the riverbed K(v). Such impacts are important when considering the potential loss of riverbank filtration capacity due to storm events. The study site, in and along the Great Miami River in southwest Ohio, overlaid a highly productive glacial-outwash aquifer. A three-layer model for this system was conceptualized: a top layer of transient sediment, a second layer comprising large sediment resistant to scour, but clogged with finer sediment (the armor/colmation layer), and a third layer that was transitional to the underlying higher-K(v) aquifer. One location was studied in detail to confirm and quantify the conceptual model. Methods included seepage meters, heat-flow modeling, grain-size analyses, laboratory permeameter tests, slug tests and the use of scour chains and pressure-load cells to directly measure the amount of sediment scour and re-deposition. Seepage meter measured riverbed K(v) ranged from 0.017 to 1.7 m/d with a geometric mean of 0.19 m/d. Heat-transport model-calibrated estimates were even lower, ranging from 0.0061 to 0.046 m/d with a mean of 0.017 m/d. The relatively low K(v) was indicative of the clogged armor layer. In contrast, slug tests in the underlying riverbed sediment yielded K(v) values an order of magnitude greater. There was a linear relationship between scour chain measured scour and event intensity with a maximum scour of only 0.098 m. Load-cell pressure sensor data over a 7-month period indicated a total sediment-height fluctuation of 0.42 m and a maximum storm-event scour of 0.28 m. Scour data indicated that the assumed armor/colmation layer almost always remained intact. Based on measured layer conductivities and thicknesses, the overall K(v) of this conceptualized system was 1.6 m/d. Sensitivity analyses indicated that even complete scour of the armor/colmation layer would likely increase the overall K(v) only by a factor of 1.5. Most scour events observed removed only the transient sediment, having very little effect on the entire system indicating low risk of losing filtration capacity during storms. The research, however, focused on the point bar, depositional side of the river. More research of the entire river profile is necessary.     

A free lunch in the commons

We derive conditions under which raising costs through a regulatory constraint or a fully expropriated tax can increase the profits arising from a common-pool resource. The basic model assumes a fixed number of identical agents with linear costs selling in a single period at an exogenous price. A necessary and sufficient condition for a cost increase to be profitable is that aggregate output from the resource be locally convex in aggregate effort. We also show that cost increases can be profitable even if price is endogenous, agents are heterogeneous, entry is costless, or agents are playing a Markov-perfect equilibrium of a dynamic game. We also discuss more general welfare implications of the result along with its relation to existing results for a Cournot oligopoly.     

Green clubs

This paper treats programs in which firms voluntarily agree to meet environmental standards as “green clubs”: clubs, because they provide non-rival but excludable reputation benefits to participating firms; green, because they also generate environmental public goods. The model illuminates a central tension between the congestion externality familiar from conventional club theory and the free-riding externality familiar from the theory on private provision of public goods. We compare three common program sponsors—governments, industry, and environmental groups. We find that if monitoring of the club standard is perfect, a government constrained from regulating club size may prefer to leave sponsorship to industry if public-good benefits are sufficiently low, or to environmentalists if public-good benefits are sufficiently high. If monitoring is imperfect, an important question is whether consumers can infer that a club is too large for its standard to be credible. If they can then the government may deliberately choose an imperfect monitoring mechanism as a way of regulating club size indirectly. If they cannot then this reinforces the government's preference for delegating sponsorship.     

Modeling fecundity in birds: Conceptual overview, current models, and considerations for future developments

Fecundity is fundamental to the fitness, population dynamics, conservation, and management of birds. For all the efforts made to measure fecundity or its surrogates over the past century of avian research, it is still mismeasured, misrepresented, and misunderstood. Fundamentally, these problems arise because of partial observability of underlying processes such as renesting, multiple brooding, and temporary emigration. Over the last several decades, various analytical approaches have been developed to estimate fecundity from incomplete and biased data. These, include scalar arithmetic formulae, partial differential equations, individual-based simulations, and Markov chain methodology. In this paper, we: (1) identify component processes of avian reproduction; (2) review existing methods for modeling fecundity; (3) place these diverse models under a common conceptual framework; (4) describe the parameterization, validation, and limitations of such models; and (5) point out future considerations and challenges in the application of fecundity models. We hope this synthesis of existing literature will help direct researchers toward the most appropriate methods to assess avian reproductive success for answering questions in evolutionary ecology, natural history, population dynamics, reproductive toxicology, and management.     

VELOCITY DISTRIBUTIONS IN STREAMBED SIMULATION CULVERTS USED FOR FISH PASSAGE1

ABSTRACT: Stream crossings designed to simulate a natural streambed inside a culvert are commonly used to meet criteria where fish passage is required. Currently, there has been little research that quantitatively examines the flow patterns within these streambed simulation culverts. A model is presented that estimates the percent of a cross section that is within the swimming ability of juvenile fish developed from velocity measurements on first‐generation stream simulation culverts — those culverts with a continuous gravel bed. The model, developed with regression techniques, uses physical and hydraulic parameters including discharge, total cross sectional area, Froude number, and relative roughness, and was tested directly against velocity distributions computed from field measurements and in a culvert design mode. Results were favorable, although larger percentage errors exist, particularly at small flow depths. The model appears to underestimate the percent of channel cross section at or below a limiting velocity, hence it is generally conservative in design mode.     

Micrometeorological measurements of N2O and CH4 emissions from a municipal solid waste landfill.

Micrometeorological measurements of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions were made at the decommissioned Park Road Landfill in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada between June and August 2002. The influence of precipitation, air temperature, wind speed and barometric pressure on the temporal variability of landfill biogas emissions was assessed. Gas flux measurements were obtained using a micrometeorological mass balance measurement technique [integrated horizontal flux (IHF)] in conjunction with two tunable diode laser trace gas analyser (TDLTGA) systems. This method allows for continuous, non-intrusive measurements of gas flux at high temporal resolution. Mean fluxes of N2O were negligible over the duration of the study (-0.23 to 0.02 microg m(-2) s(-1)). In contrast, mean emissions of CH4 were much greater (80.4 to 450.8 microg m(-2) s(-1)) and varied both spatially and temporally. Spatial variations in CH4 fluxes were observed between grass kill areas (biogas 'hot spots') and the densely grass-covered areas of the landfill. Temporal variations in CH4 fluxes were also observed, due at least in part to barometric pressure, wind speed and precipitation effects.