Managing Watershed Externalities in India: Theory and Practice

Watershed development is the focus of poverty alleviation programs in rural India. Watershed projects aim to solve problems of externalities, but they also create their own externalities, which cause uneven distribution of costs and benefits that undermine project objectives and harm the poor. Numerous approaches exist to internalize externalities, including awareness creation, moral suasion, investment subsidies, regulatory limits and fines, indirect benefits, mergers, and recent innovations like payment for environmental services and cap and trade. These can be judged on several criteria; the best approach would solve the problem cost effectively and help or at least not hurt poor people. Watershed projects in India were examined to identify the approaches taken to internalize watershed externalities. Investment subsidies and indirect employment benefits are the least effective approaches theoretically, but they are the most commonly applied, most likely because they are easy to administer and bring popular short term gains. Some theoretically favorable approaches that have been used elsewhere, such as payment for environmental services, may not work as well in India due to high transaction costs. However, one key innovation that easily could be applied in India is to make investment subsidies contingent on performance. Legal support and property rights reform would be needed for other favorable approaches.     

Individual changes in human EEG caused by 450 MHz microwave modulated at 40 and 70 Hz

This study was aimed to investigate the changes in the human electroencephalographic (EEG) signal caused by modulated low-level microwaves. The 450 MHz microwave exposure modulated at 40 Hz and 70 Hz frequencies was applied to a group of 15 volunteers. The field power density at the scalp was 0.16 mW/cm². Ten cycles of the exposure (1 min on and 1 min off) at both modulation frequencies were applied. Analysis of the EEG signal was performed using three different methods: nonlinear method of scaling analysis for length distribution of low variability periods (LDLVP), relative changes in EEG energy (S-parameter) and beta ratio (H-parameter). The analysis revealed significant changes caused by microwave for the whole group (H-parameter method). The exposure caused increase of the EEG beta power (S-parameter method). Statistically significant changes in EEG were detected for four subjects (26.7%) at 40 Hz modulation frequency (LDLVP method).     

Disability among adults injured in motor-vehicle crashes in the United States

INTRODUCTION: Little population-based information exists about the long-term effects of motor-vehicle crash-related injuries. METHOD: We analyzed data from the 1995 National Health Interview Survey Disability (NHIS-D) Supplement to estimate the prevalence of crash-related disability among noninstitutionalized U.S. adults aged 18 years and older. RESULTS: More than 1.2 million adults were living in their homes with the disabling effects of motor-vehicle crash-related injuries in 1995. The prevalence of crash-related disability was highest for persons in their mid-life years, ages 35-64. Half of the respondents had sustained the injuries more than 5 years before the interview. Forty-one percent of working-aged individuals reported being unable to work because of their disability. CONCLUSIONS: Because crash-related disability is most prevalent during the mid-life years, quality of life and productivity may be affected for decades. These findings highlight the personal and societal burden associated with motor-vehicle crash-related disability in the United States.     

A research agenda for increasing safety belt use in the United States

On November 13-14, 2003, a symposium on high-visibility safety belt use enforcement in Raleigh, NC: (a) celebrated the 10th anniversary of North Carolina's Click It or Ticket program; (b) documented current knowledge regarding safety belt use; (c) proposed strategies to increase use further; and (d) discussed research to support these strategies.     

Direct and interactive effects of enemies and mutualists on plant performance: a meta-analysis

Plants engage in multiple, simultaneous interactions with other species; some (enemies) reduce and others (mutualists) enhance plant performance. Moreover, effects of different species may not be independent of one another; for example, enemies may compete, reducing their negative impact on a plant. The magnitudes of positive and negative effects, as well as the frequency of interactive effects and whether they tend to enhance or depress plant performance, have never been comprehensively assessed across the many published studies on plant-enemy and plant-mutualist interactions. We performed a meta-analysis of experiments in which two enemies, two mutualists, or an enemy and a mutualist were manipulated factorially. Specifically, we performed a factorial meta-analysis using the log response ratio. We found that the magnitude of (negative) enemy effects was greater than that of (positive) mutualist effects in isolation, but in the presence of other species, the two effects were of comparable magnitude. Hence studies evaluating single-species effects of mutualists may underestimate the true effects found in natural settings, where multiple interactions are the norm and indirect effects are possible. Enemies did not on average influence the effects on plant performance of other enemies, nor did mutualists influence the effects of mutualists. However, these averages mask significant and large, but positive or negative, interactions in individual studies. In contrast, mutualists ameliorated the negative effects of enemies in a manner that benefited plants; this overall effect was driven by interactions between pathogens and belowground mutualists (bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi). The high frequency of significant interactive effects suggests a widespread potential for diffuse rather than pairwise coevolutionary interactions between plants and their enemies and mutualists. Pollinators and mycorrhizal fungi enhanced plant performance more than did bacterial mutualists. In the greenhouse (but not the field), pathogens reduced plant performance more than did herbivores, pathogens were more damaging to herbaceous than to woody plants, and herbivores were more damaging to crop than to non-crop plants (suggesting evolutionary change in plants or herbivores following crop domestication). We discuss how observed differences in effect size might be confounded with methodological differences among studies.     

Stakeholder participation in building resilience to disasters in a changing climate

The resilience perspective has emerged as a plausible approach to confront the increasingly devastating impacts of disasters; and the challenges and uncertainty climate change poses through an expected rise in frequency and magnitude of hazards. Stakeholder participation is posited as pivotal for building resilience, and resilience is not passive; rather, stakeholders are actively involved in the process of building resilience. Who is involved and how they are involved are crucial aspects for developing resilience in practice. Nevertheless, there are few empirical studies available to inform theory or show how these issues are addressed. This study focuses on revealing how practitioners frame the issue of participation in relation to resilience, its relevance to a changing climate and how, in consequence, they construct practices. Using Hajer's [(1995). The politics of environmental discourse: Ecological modernization and the policy process. New York] ‘Social-interactive discourse theory’, in this interdisciplinary research, we study the frames and subsequent practices developed around a disaster management policy initiative in Australia: the Natural Disaster Resilience Program in Queensland. What emerges from the research findings as critical and requiring urgent attention is stakeholder and especially local government and community participation, and for this to become socially relevant, challenges such as meaningful communication and power structures need to be addressed. What is also critical is to move from experiential learning to social learning. Additionally, the results presented here offer empirical evidence on how broadening the pool of actors can be implemented, and the opportunities that this opens up for building resilience.     

A review of environmental occurrence,analysis, bioaccumulation,and toxicity of organophosphate esters

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The ban and restriction of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and major brominated flame retardants (BFRs), including hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) and...