FLOODPLAINS AND HOUSING VALUES: IMPLICATIONS FOR FLOOD MITIGATION PROJECTS1

ABSTRACT: The hedonic valuation method was used to quantify the impact of floodplain location on housing values in Fargo‐Moor‐head. Being located in the 100‐year floodplain lowered the home values by $8,990, and such homes were worth $10,241 less than similar homes located outside the floodplain before the major flood event of 1997. Required flood insurance premiums for these homes were determined to account for approximately 81 percent of this price depreciation. In contrast, homes in the 500‐year floodplain were worth $3,100 more than similar homes not in the floodplain. It was concluded that more disclosure is needed regarding the location of the 500‐year floodplain, and that the hedonic valuation method can be used to calculate the economic gains and losses associated with flood mitigation projects or floodplain remapping efforts that result in the reclassification of the legal floodplain status of individual homes.     

Limited gene flow in the brooding coral Favia fragum (Esper, 1797)

Understanding population connectivity in corals is particularly important as these organisms are increasingly threatened by abiotic and biotic factors. This study examined the population genetic structure of the brooding coral Favia fragum across four locations in the Caribbean and Western Atlantic using mitochondrial and nuclear markers. Morphological features were also compared to test whether genetic diversity corresponds with skeletal morphology. When comparing across distantly related Caribbean and Bermudian locations, F _ST values were high and significant, indicating strong genetic structure. At a local scale, significant genetic structure was found among reefs in Panama, while no genetic structure was found among reefs within Barbados, Bermuda or Jamaica. Surprisingly, a single haplotype for each of the three markers examined was found in Bermuda, where samples varied significantly from all other locations in three out of four morphological features analyzed. These data indicate that gene flow of F. fragum may occur locally among reefs but is highly restricted at distant locations. Furthermore, isolated populations, such as that of Bermuda, must be self-seeding to maintain the observed genetic uniformity.     

Wheat leaf epicuticular characteristics as rust inhibitors

Abstract

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) trichomes influence wheat leaf rust (Puccinia recondita Rob. ex Desm.) germling elongation as a function of the external element (i.e. ‐ Ca, Si, P, CI) concentration. Basal cells of multicellular trichomes have a high Ca content; and, Ca²⁺ has been shown to inhibit elongation of primary roots. Evaluation of epicuticular wax composition in the intracellular areas of epidermal cells might explain the disorganized growth in those locations.     

Pollutant Transport During a Regional O3 Episode in the Mid-Atlantic States

ABSTRACT

Ozone (O₃) concentrations in the Baltimore-Washington (B-W) metropolitan area frequently exceed the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) in the summer months. The most extreme O₃ events occur in multi-day high O₃ episodes.¹ These events can be regional in scale, with O₃ concentrations exceeding the NAAQS at numerous locations along the eastern U.S. seaboard, and are typically associated with slow-moving or stagnant high pressure systems.^2-5 In the B-W region, the most extreme events typically occur with surface high pressure overhead or just west of the region and an upper air high-pressure area (ridge) to the west or northwest.¹ Besides providing conditions conducive to local O₃ production (subsidence and strong low-level inversions, weak horizontal winds, little cloud cover), this weather pattern may also result in transport of O₃ and its precursors from heavily industrialized areas west and north of the B-W region. In this paper, observations and back trajectories made during the severe regional O₃ event of July 12-15, 1995, are used to confirm the hypothesis that significant regional-scale transport of O₃ and its precursors occur during extreme O₃ events of the standard type in the B-W area.     

Seasonal changes in the diet and feeding behaviour of a top predator indicate a flexible response to deteriorating oceanographic conditions

Shifts in the diet of top predators can be linked to changes in environmental conditions. In this study, we tested relationships between environmental variation and seasonal changes in diet of a top predator, the grey-headed albatross Thalassarche chrysostoma, breeding at Bird Island, South Georgia in an austral summer of 1999/2000. Oceanographic conditions in that year around South Georgia were abnormal (i.e. anomalously high sea surface temperature to a relative 19-year long-term mean). The diet of grey-headed albatrosses showed high seasonal variation, shifting from cephalopods (42.9 % by mass) in late February to Antarctic krill Euphausia superba (58.3 %) in late April, and grey-headed albatrosses breeding performance was low (16.8 %). This study shows these albatrosses did not manage to find sufficient alternative prey and highlight the risk to top predators if there is an increase in the frequency or severity of food shortages in Antarctic waters.     

Frequency analysis of hazardous material transportation incidents as a function of distance from origin to incident location

According to the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), more than 3.1 billion tons of hazardous materials (HazMat) are shipped within the United States annually. This averages to about 800,000 individual shipments of HazMat per day, of which 300,000 are shipments of petroleum/flammable–combustible liquids. This paper presents a temporal trend study (1995–2004) of 2145 HazMat incidents occurring through the transportation of flammable/combustible liquids. The study also correlates between HazMat incidents and distances between shipment origin and incident location. These distances attained through great circle calculations since the data compilation did not allow for the identification of specific routes taken in commodity transport. Findings of this study illustrate a bimodal distribution of frequency as a function of the logarithm of the Distance with first mode (less than 105 miles) mean of 24 [km] and second mode mean of 1061 [km]. Additionally, transport phase introduced no significance to the distribution of frequencies.     

Effects of Gender and Athletic Participation on Driving Capability

This study sought to determine if spatiotemporal skills, represented by success in high level sport, transfer to driving and, if so, whether such transfer is mediated by the gender of the driver. Using an emergency-braking test, we compared the driving ability of male and female athletes and non-athletes and showed that athletes achieved significantly longer and therefore superior durations for time-to-contact. The advantage of athletic participation thus did not appear in movement time but rather in the ability to produce desirable performance in context. We found that males and females did not differ significantly with respect to driving, however, involvement in sport apparently transfers to aspects of driving and so provides benefits beyond the intrinsic reward of the sports activities themselves.     

Effect of Soils on Water Quantity and Quality in Piedmont Forested Headwater Watersheds of North Carolina1

Boggs, Johnny, Ge Sun, David Jones, and Steven G. McNulty, 2012. Effect of Soils on Water Quantity and Quality in Piedmont Forested Headwater Watersheds of North Carolina. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 1‐19. DOI: 10.1111/jawr.12001 Abstract: Water quantity and quality data were compared from six headwater watersheds on two distinct soil formations, Carolina Slate Belt (CSB) and Triassic Basins (TB). CSB soils are generally thicker, less erodible, and contain less clay content than soils found in TB. TB generated significantly more discharge/precipitation ratio than CSB (0.33 vs. 0.24) in the 2009 dormant season. In the 2009 growing season, TB generated significantly less discharge/precipitation ratio than CSB (0.02 vs. 0.07). Over the entire monitoring period, differences in discharge/precipitation ratios between CSB and TB were not significantly different (0.17 vs. 0.20, respectively). Storm‐flow rates were significantly higher in TB than CSB in both dormant and growing season. Benthic macroinvertebrate biotic index scores were excellent for all streams. Nutrient concentrations and exports in CSB and TB were within background levels for forests. Low‐stream nitrate and ammonium concentrations and exports suggested that both CSB and TB were nitrogen limited. Soils appear to have had a significant influence on seasonal and storm‐flow generation, but not on long‐term total water yield and water quality under forested conditions. This study indicated that watersheds on TB soils might be more prone to storm‐flow generation than on CSB soils when converted from forest to urban. Future urban growth in the area should consider differences in baseline hydrology and effects of landuse change on water quantity and quality.     

Closing the knowledge-action gap in conservation with open science

The knowledge-action gap in conservation science and practice occurs when research outputs do not result in actions to protect or restore biodiversity. Among the diverse and complex reasons for this gap, three barriers are fundamental: knowledge is often unavailable to practitioners and challenging to interpret or difficult to use or both. Problems of availability, interpretability, and useability are solvable with open science practices. We considered the benefits and challenges of three open science practices for use by conservation scientists and practitioners. First, open access publishing makes the scientific literature available to all. Second, open materials (detailed methods, data, code, and software) increase the transparency and use of research findings. Third, open education resources allow conservation scientists and practitioners to acquire the skills needed to use research outputs. The long-term adoption of open science practices would help researchers and practitioners achieve conservation goals more quickly and efficiently and reduce inequities in information sharing. However, short-term costs for individual researchers (insufficient institutional incentives to engage in open science and knowledge mobilization) remain a challenge. We caution against a passive approach to sharing that simply involves making information available. We advocate a proactive stance toward transparency, communication, collaboration, and capacity building that involves seeking out and engaging with potential users to maximize the environmental and societal impact of conservation science.