Downstream and Coastal Impacts of Damming and Water Abstraction in Africa

Anthropogenic factors associated with damming and water abstraction, and the resultant environmental pressures, are reviewed in six African river catchments using records and forecasts of climatic, demographic, and land-use change. Changes in the states of the flow regime through catchment drainage systems to the coastal sea are considered in conjunction with climate change and other human-induced pressures. The impacts of these changes on downstream and coastal environments and their communities are described in past, present, and future perspectives. Linkages between the issues and the pressures of damming and water abstraction are appraised and scientific, policy, and management responses proposed aimed at remedying existing and perceived future negative impacts. The study proposes that there is a need to integrate catchment and coastal management to account for the whole water flow regime together with its human dimensions. Management priorities relating to the operation of existing damming and abstraction schemes and planning of future schemes include the following: consideration of ways in which water discharges could be adjusted to provide improvements in downstream and coastal environmental and socioeconomic conditions; addressing the problem of sediment trapping impacting on the sustainability of dam reservoirs; and assessment of downstream and coastal impacts of future schemes in the light of climate change forecasts.     

Impact of the FTSE4Good Index on firm price: an event study

This paper examines whether corporate financial performance is affected by public endorsement of environmental and social performance. Event study methodology, which relies on the notion of market efficiency, is used to examine the relationship between positive and negative announcements and changes in share prices or daily returns. Inclusion in and deletion from the FTSE4Good UK Index is used as a proxy measure for good (poor) corporate social responsibility. The abnormal or unexpected daily returns associated with an event are calculated and their significance tested. The results show a trend towards positive and negative announcements having the expected effects on daily returns. But these movements are not significant and the data do not suggest that a firm's presence on the index brings it any significant financial return for signalling its corporate social responsibility.     

Characteristics of wastes from electric and electronic equipment in Greece: results of a field survey.

The lifespan of electric and electronic equipment is becoming shorter and the amount of related waste is increasing. This study aimed to contribute to the knowledge about qualitative and quantitative characteristics of such wastes in Greece. Specifically, results are presented from a field survey, which took place in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece, during the year 2002. The survey was conducted with suitable questionnaires in department stores and in households of various municipalities. Household appliances were grouped as follows: (A) large (refrigerator, freezer, washing machine, clothes dryer, electric cooker, microwave oven, electric heater), (B) small (vacuum cleaner, electric iron, hair dryer), (C) information technology and telecommunication equipment (PC, laptop, printer, phone) and (D) consumer equipment (radio, TV, video, DVD, console). The analysis indicated that the lifespan of all new goods is gradually reducing (apart from refrigerators, for which the lifespan was surprisingly found to be increasing) and provided linearized functions for predicting the lifespan, according to the year of manufacture, for certain large appliances.     

Gaudeamus lavocati sp. nov. (Rodentia, Hystricognathi) from the early Oligocene of Zallah, Libya: first African caviomorph?

A new African species of hystricognathous rodent, Gaudeamus lavocati sp. nov., is described herein from the early Oligocene deposits of Zallah locality (Sirt basin, Central Libya). The dental morphology of this species is very close to that of some earliest South American caviomorphs. It allows a reinterpretation of molar crest homologies among earliest caviomorphs, pentalophodonty being confirmed as the plesiomorphic molar condition in Caviomorpha. This morphological resemblance argues for close affinities between Gaudeamus and earliest South American hystricognaths. Cladistic analysis supports Gaudeamus lavocati sp. nov. as the first known African representative of Caviomorpha, implying that its ancestors were part of the African phiomyid group that crossed the South Atlantic by a direct immigration route. Alternatively, the series of derived dental features of Gaudeamus could also be interpreted as evolutionary synchronous convergences of an African hystricognath lineage towards the specialized pattern of some caviomorphs. However, the high level of similarities concerning teeth morphology and enamel microstructure and the similar age of fossiliferous strata on both continents make this interpretation less probable. The phylogenetic position of this taxon is of considerable importance because it represents an enigmatic component of the phiomorph–caviomorph radiation in Africa and appears as a new clue toward the understanding of caviomorph origins.