Personal Wilderness Relationships: Building on a Transactional Approach

Wilderness managers are charged with the challenging goal of balancing resource protection and experience quality across a broad, value-laden landscape. While research has provided insight into visitors’ motivations and their meanings for wilderness, a struggle exists to implement experiential concepts within current management frameworks. This research posits the human experience of wilderness to be an evolving, enduring relationship, and that research needs can be addressed by conceptualizing and investigating an individuals’ personal wilderness relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore wilderness relationships of visitors to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A predictive model was proposed to investigate the internal dimensions of a visitor’s wilderness relationship. A mail-back questionnaire was distributed during the summer of 2007, resulting in a sample of 564 respondents. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results from testing several relationship models provided support for a multidimensional structure consisting of five factors with a single overarching relationship factor. The preferred relationship model indicated the importance of identities and attachment in place relationships. Trust and commitment toward management were also important considerations. This research provided the preliminary evidence for a multidimensional wilderness relationship model and complements a perspective of wilderness experiences as wilderness. Findings may help to reframe decision-making and public-input processes that guide management actions to increased wilderness character protection and facilitate quality wilderness experiences.     

Salinity management using an anionic polymer in a pecan field with calcareous-sodic soil

Soil salinity and sodicity have long been recognized as the major concerns for irrigated agriculture in the Trans-Pecos Basin, where fields are being flood irrigated with Rio Grande River water that has elevated salinity. Reclamation of these salt-affected lands is difficult due to fine-texture, high shrink-swell soils with low permeability. Conventional practice of subsoiling to improve soil permeability is expensive and has had limited success on the irrigated soils that have appreciable amounts of readily weatherable Ca minerals. If these native Ca sources can be effectively used to counter sodicity, it can improve soil permeability and reduce amelioration costs. This study evaluated the effects of 3 yr of polyacrylamide (PAM) application at 10 mg L concentration during the first irrigation of the season to evaluate soil permeability, in situ Ca mineral dissolution, and leaching of salts from the effective root zone in a pecan field of El Paso County, TX. Results indicated that PAM application improved water movement throughout the effective root zone that resulted in Na leaching. Polymer application significantly decreased CaCO (estimated based on inorganic C analysis) concentrations in the top 45 cm compared with baseline levels, indicating solubilization and redistribution of calcite. The PAM application also reduced soil electrical conductivity (EC) in the top 60 cm (4.64-2.76 dS m) and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) from 13.1 to 5.7 mmol L in the top 75-cm depths. As evidence of improved soil conditions, pecan nut yields increased by 34% in PAM-treated fields over the control. Results suggested that PAM application helped in effective use of native Ca sources present in soils of the study site and reduced Na by improving soil permeability.     

A note on the effectiveness of the house-arrest alternative for motivating DWI offenders to install ignition interlocks

Introduction

The effectiveness of ignition interlocks at reducing drunk driving has been limited by the ability of driving-while-intoxicated (DWI) offenders to avoid court orders to install the devices.

Methods

In a pilot program in New Mexico, four Santa Fe County judges imposed home confinement (via electronic monitoring bracelets) on offenders who claimed to have no car or no intention to drive. Interlock installation rates for Santa Fe County were compared with all other counties in New Mexico over a 2-year program and 2-year post-program period.

Results

During the two program years, 70% of the drivers convicted of DWI in Santa Fe County installed interlocks, compared to only 17% in the other counties, but when the program was terminated, the Santa Fe installation rate fell by 18.8 percentage points.

Summary

Mandating the alternative sanction of house arrest led to the highest reported interlock installation rate for DWI offenders.

Impact on Industry

Impaired driving is a substantial expense to employers, particularly when it bars driving that interferes with employment. Interlocks provide a method of protecting the public while permitting the offender to drive sober. This study was directed at increasing interlock use by DWI offenders.     

Gender differences and demographic influences in perceived concern for driver safety and support for impaired driving countermeasures

IntroductionDriving safety, impaired driving, and legislation to address these concerns remain important issues. It is imperative countermeasures be targeted toward the most appropriate groups. This paper explores the potential relationship between gender and driving attitudes toward safety issues and impaired-driving countermeasures.MethodThe data are from the 2007 Impaired Driving Survey commissioned by Transport Canada and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Canada. The survey is a, stratified by region, telephone survey of 1,514 Canadian drivers 18 years of age and older with a valid driver's license who had driven within the past 30 days.ResultsThe findings illustrate a consistent impact of gender on these issues. Other variables were also identified as relevant factors although less consistently. Current findings suggest that strategies for building support for interventions, or for changing risk perception/concern for risky driving behaviors should be tailored by gender to maximize the potential for behavior change.ImpactThis information may assist program and policy developers through the identification of more or less receptive target groups. Future research directions are also presented.     

Comparing Vapor Intrusion Mitigation System Performance for VOCs and Radon

This article summarizes a long‐term study of vapor intrusion mitigation system performance in a historic, unoccupied residential duplex with an extensive set of temporal variability observations. The experimental design included multiple cycles of subslab depressurization (SSD) system operation and shut‐off during a seven‐month period, followed by a year‐long period of continuous operation. Results showed that the system provided rapid pressure field extension and radon control as much as 100 days of operation before optimum volatile organic compound (VOC) mitigation was achieved. Greater variability in VOC concentrations than in radon concentrations was observed during the initial mitigation system cycling. Subslab VOC concentrations at numerous locations increased during this initial period of SSD operation, and indoor air VOC concentrations were more variable than radon. However, indoor air concentrations were considerably less variable (and lower) during the first year of continuous mitigation system operation. ©2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Legal and technical defensibility of data and the Triad approach

The Triad approach was developed primarily to limit decision uncertainty during cleanups at hazardous waste sites. The fundamental principles of the Triad approach include development of a site characterization model and use of emerging technologies, which can provide data at a higher density than could be affordably collected using traditional data collection methodologies, to refine the model in essentially real time. New data formats are used collaboratively with data in traditional formats to iteratively pin down the relative concentration, nature, and extent of contaminants, thus minimizing decision uncertainties. This article examines the potential admissibility as evidence in legal proceedings of data collected by technologies designed to improve the density of information that are commonly used during the course of Triad‐type projects. The article explains that such criteria may vary depending on the purpose for which the evidence is to be used (e.g., as direct evidence to prove site conditions or as support for the testimony of an expert witness) and the court in which the legal proceeding would take place (e.g., federal court or state court). Admissibility in federal courts of data both as direct evidence and as support for expert witness testimony is covered. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.