Earth stewardship: Shaping a sustainable future through interacting policy and norm shifts

Transformation toward a sustainable future requires an earth stewardship approach to shift society from its current goal of increasing material wealth to a vision of sustaining built, natural, human, and social capital—equitably distributed across society, within and among nations. Widespread concern about earth’s current trajectory and support for actions that would foster more sustainable pathways suggests potential social tipping points in public demand for an earth stewardship vision. Here, we draw on empirical studies and theory to show that movement toward a stewardship vision can be facilitated by changes in either policy incentives or social norms. Our novel contribution is to point out that both norms and incentives must change and can do so interactively. This can be facilitated through leverage points and complementarities across policy areas, based on values, system design, and agency. Potential catalysts include novel democratic institutions and engagement of non-governmental actors, such as businesses, civic leaders, and social movements as agents for redistribution of power. Because no single intervention will transform the world, a key challenge is to align actions to be synergistic, persistent, and scalable.     

Clearing the smog? Public responses to air-quality information

Recent perspectives on public responses to environmental and risk communication have emphasised the interpretation, judgement and 'sense-making' that takes place when lay audiences receive information and advice. In this paper we consider the public reception given to air-quality information in the UK as one example of a government information and communication initiative. Drawing on elements of a wider research project undertaken in the city of Birmingham in the UK, involving a survey and in-depth interviews with members of the public, it examines the extent of awareness and use of information services, attitudes towards information and the role of information in behaviour change. The objective of the paper is to assess in practical terms the impact of air-quality information available through the media and other sources, as well as to provide empirical evidence with which to reflect on debates over the practice of environmental communication and the stimulation of pro-environmental behaviour. Conclusions are drawn which point to both problems with air quality information provision and the possibilities of more effective and appropriate interventions through local-level initiatives.     

Modelling treated waste disposal in Port Phillip Bay and Bass Strait biogeochemical and physical removal.

Large cities, such as Melbourne, generate substantial quantities of sewage, which, after treatment, must be disposed. Melbourne's sewage is disposed via two routes, that treated at the Western Treatment Plant (WTP) is discharged in enclosed Port Phillip Bay, while the Boags Rock outfall empties into the exposed Bass Strait. In Port Phillip Bay biogeochemical processes control the fate of waste, while in the Bass Strait physical mixing rapidly disperses the waste. These different processes require very different ecosystem models. Port Phillip Bay requires detailed modelling of water-column and in-sediment processes, in particular detailed models of recycling processes, and also modelling of benthos-water-column interactions. Interaction of these components gives the model a nonlinear response to change in load. The Bass Strait ecosystem model is simple with no modelling of the sediment and limited modelling of water-column recycling. This model's behaviour is largely controlled by the physical environment.     

Explaining the fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazonian forest

Although vast literature exists on the drivers of tropical deforestation and its ecological consequences, less is known about how patterns of forest fragmentation emerge in the first place. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue for the Brazilian portion of the Amazon basin by analyzing the social processes generative of five specific patterns, including rectangular, fishbone, radial, dendritic, and what we refer to as ‘the stem of the rose.’ We argue that forest fragmentation patterns in the Brazilian Amazon are largely determined by the types and arrival times of the agents who engage in land clearing. We also argue that the patterns manifest in the landscape by virtue of road construction and agricultural property formation, which often occur in tandem. We conclude by placing our discussion within legal and institutional contexts, and observe that fragmentation stemming from formal colonization projects is more consistent with biodiversity conservation than that associated with a laissez-faire occupation. However, erosive impacts may be greater in topographically sensitive areas.     

A pioneer validation of a state-space model of vessel trajectories (VMS) with observers’ data

In the context of the expansion of animal tracking and bio-logging, state-space models have been developed with the objective to characterise animals’ trajectories and to understand the factors controlling their behaviour. In the fisheries community, the electronic tagging of vessels commonly designated by Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) is developing and provides a new insight for the understanding, the analysis and the modelling of the trajectories of vessels and their prospecting behaviour. VMS data are thus a clue for the proper definition of fishing effort which remains a fundamental parameter of tuna stock assessments. In this context, we used the VMS (recording of hourly positions) of the French tropical tuna purse-seiners operating in the Indian Ocean to characterise three types of movement (states) on the VMS trajectories (stillness, tracking, and cruising). Based on empirical evidences, and on the regular frequency of VMS acquisition, this was achieved by the development of a Bayesian Hidden Markov model for the speeds and turning angles derived from the hourly steps of the trajectories. In a second phase, states were related to activities disentangling stillness into fishing or stop at sea. Finally the quality of the model performances was rigorously quantified thanks to observers’ data. Confronting model prediction and true activities allowed estimating that 10% of the hourly steps were misclassified. The assumptions and model’ choices are discussed, highlighting the fact that VMS data and observers’ data having different time resolutions, the effective use of validating data was troublesome. However, without validation, these analyses remain speculative. The validation part of this work represents an important step for the operational use of state-space models in ecology in the broad sense (predators’ tracking data, e.g. birds or mammals trajectories).     

Issues for small businesses with waste management

Participation by small and medium enterprise (SME) in corporate social responsibility issues has been found to be lacking. This is a critical issue, as individually SMEs may have little impact on the environment but their collective footprint is significant. The management style and ethical stance of the owner-manager affects business decision making and therefore has a direct impact on the environmental actions of the business. Although adoption of environmental practices to create competitive advantage has been advocated, many businesses see implementation as a cost which cannot be transferred to their customers. After a brief review of pertinent literature this paper reports on an exploratory investigation into the issue. Results show that whereas owner-managers of small enterprises express concern regarding the environment, this does not then translate into better waste management practices.     

Drain-blocking techniques on blanket peat: A framework for best practice

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in artificial drain-blocking in world peatlands. The UK blanket peatlands have been severely drained over the past few decades but now drains are being blocked in an attempt to improve peatland environments. The drain-blocking has been a disparate process with limited knowledge transfer between organisations and within organisations operating in different geographic areas. Consequently, there has been no compilation of techniques used and their effectiveness. During this study thirty-two drain-blocked sites were surveyed and all the key stakeholders interviewed. Drain-blocking using peat turf was preferred by practitioners and was also the most cost-effective method. Peat turves were successful except on steep slopes, in areas of severe erosion, in very wet or very dry locations, or if the mineral substrate was exposed. A drain-blocking best practice guide is offered by this paper, providing information on the most suitable methods for blocking peatland drains under different circumstances. Additional considerations are provided for practitioners to ensure peatland drain-blocking is as successful as possible.     

EVALUATION OF SELECTED PESTICIDES IN NORTH CAROLINA SURFACE WATER SUPPLIES: INTAKE STUDY1

ABSTRACT: Studies were conducted to analyze the presence of 11 selected pesticides in 12 surface water supply intakes in the Piedmont and coastal plain regions of North Carolina. Samples were assayed using enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). Samples with pesticide detection of 1 μg/L or greater were extracted and confirmed using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Detection limits of the immunosorbent assays for pesticide residues were generally an order of magnitude higher than GC/MS. Atrazine was detected in approximately 45 percent of the samples, and on two occasions was at or above the lifetime Maximum Contaminant Level of 3.0 μg/L set by the Environmental Protection Agency for an annual average in finished drinking water. Metolachlor was detected in 58 percent of the samples. Of the remaining nine pesticides, including carbaryl, aldicarb, 2,4‐D, chiorpyrifos, acetochlor, methomyl, carbofuran, alachlor, and chlorothalonil, only aldicarb, 2,4‐D, and chlorpyrifos were detected in less than 9 percent of the samples for each pesticide.     

Colloid transport in unsaturated porous media: the role of water content and ionic strength on particle straining

Packed column and mathematical modeling studies were conducted to explore the influence of water saturation, pore-water ionic strength, and grain size on the transport of latex microspheres (1.1 microm) in porous media. Experiments were carried out under chemically unfavorable conditions for colloid attachment to both solid-water interfaces (SWI) and air-water interfaces (AWI) using negatively charged and hydrophilic colloids and modifying the solution chemistry with a bicarbonate buffer to pH 10. Interaction energy calculations and complementary batch experiments were conducted and demonstrated that partitioning of colloids to the SWI and AWI was insignificant across the range of the ionic strengths considered. The breakthrough curve and final deposition profile were measured in each experiment indicating colloid retention was highly dependent on the suspension ionic strength, water content, and sand grain size. In contrast to conventional filtration theory, most colloids were found deposited close to the column inlet, and hyper-exponential deposition profiles were observed. A mathematical model, accounting for time- and depth-dependent straining, produced a reasonably good fit for both the breakthrough curves and final deposition profiles. Experimental and modeling results suggest that straining--the retention of colloids in low velocity regions of porous media such as grain junctions--was the primary mechanism of colloid retention under both saturated and unsaturated conditions. The extent of stagnant regions of flow within the pore structure is enhanced with decreasing water content, leading to a greater amount of retention. Ionic strength also contributes to straining, because the number of colloids that are held in the secondary energy minimum increases with ionic strength. These weakly associated colloids are prone to be translated to stagnation regions formed at grain-grain junctions, the solid-water-air triple point, and dead-end pores and then becoming trapped.