River systems as providers of goods and services: a basis for comparing desired and undesired effects of large dam projects

In developing countries, large dam projects continue to be launched, primarily to secure a time-stable freshwater supply and to generate hydropower. Meanwhile, calls for environmentally sustainable development put pressure on the dam-building industry to integrate ecological concerns in project planning and decision-making. Such integration requires environmental impact statements (EISs) that can communicate the societal implications of the ecological effects in terms that are understandable and useful to planners and decision-makers. The purpose of this study is to develop a basic framework for assessing the societal implications of the river ecological effects expected of a proposed large dam project. The aim is to facilitate a comparison of desired and potential undesired effects on-site and downstream. The study involves two main tasks: to identify key river goods and services that a river system may provide, and to analyze how the implementation of a large dam project may alter the on-site capacity and downstream potentials to derive river goods and services from the river system. Three river goods and six river services are identified. River goods are defined as extractable partly man-made products and river services as naturally sustained processes. By four main types of flow manipulations, a large dam project improves the on-site capacity to derive desired river goods, but simultaneously threatens the provision of desirable river goods and services downstream. However, by adjusting the site, design, and operational schedule of the proposed dam project, undesirable effects on river goods and services can be minimized.     

Fuzzy multiple-criteria decision-making approach for industrial green engineering

This paper describes a fuzzy hierarchical analytic approach to determine the weighting of subjective judgments. In addition, it presents a nonadditive fuzzy integral technique to evaluate a green engineering industry case as a fuzzy multicriteria decision-making (FMCDM) problem. When the investment strategies are evaluated from various aspects, such as economic effectiveness, technical feasibility, and environmental regulation, it can be regarded as an FMCDM problem. Since stakeholders cannot clearly estimate each considered criterion in terms of numerical values for the anticipated alternatives/strategies, fuzziness is considered to be applicable. Consequently, this paper uses triangular fuzzy numbers to establish weights and anticipated achievement values. By ranking fuzzy weights and fuzzy synthetic utility values, we can determine the relative importance of criteria and decide the best strategies. This paper applies what is called a λ fuzzy measure and nonadditive fuzzy integral technique to evaluate the synthetic performance of green engineering strategies for aquatic products processors in Taiwan. In addition, we demonstrate that the nonadditive fuzzy integral is an effective evaluation and appears to be appropriate, especially when the criteria are not independent.     

Visual Aesthetic Quality of Northern Ontario's Forested Shorelines

Only a few empirical studies on forest aesthetics have adopted a water-based perspective for observers and have investigated the perceived visual quality of forested shorelines. In forested environments with many lakes, such as the boreal forest in the Canadian Shield, individuals have greater exposure to forests from water-based rather than in-stand vantage points. This study employed the psychophysical research direction to explore the relationships between scenic beauty and biophysical characteristics of the forested shorelines in the boreal forests. Two model forms were tested. One model related the variation of shoreline forest aesthetic evaluations of near-vista views (140 m offshore) to a set of forest mensuration data. Tree size, tree mortality, conifer shrubs, tree density, amount of hardwood, and slope explained 60.2% of the variance in scenic beauty between the study sites. A second model was calibrated to test the relationship between an already existing ecosystem vegetation classification system and the aesthetic evaluations of the same forested shorelines. When the ecosystem classification was simplified to eight groups, the model explained 48.5% of variance. These models suggest that the psychophysical approach to studying aesthetics can be applied successfully to near-vista evaluations of scenic beauty. The finding that a forest ecosystem classification system is highly related to scenic beauty suggests that, at least in the boreal forest, managers can reasonably estimate the scenic beauty of forested shoreline environments from an ecosystem classification, with little need for intensive data on these sites.     

Detecting Changes in Natural Resources Using Land Condition Trend Analysis Data

The Land Condition Trend Analysis (LCTA) program is the US Army's standard for land inventory and monitoring, employing standardized methods of natural resources data collection, analyses, and reporting designed to meet multiple goals and objectives. Critical to using LCTA data in natural resources management decisions is the ability of the LCTA protocols to detect changes in natural resources. To quantify the ability of LCTA protocols to detect resource changes, power analysis techniques were used to estimate minimum detectable effect sizes (MDES) for selected primary and secondary management variables for three Army installations. MDES for a subset of primary variables were estimated using data from 27 installation LCTA programs. MDES for primary and secondary variables varied widely. However, LCTA programs implemented at larger installations with lower sampling intensities detected changes in installation resources as well as programs implemented at smaller more intensively sampled installations. As a national monitoring program that is implemented at individual installations, LCTA protocols provide relatively consistent monitoring data to detect changes in resources despite diverse resource characteristics and implementation constraints.     

Comparative Influence of Forest Management and Habitat Structural Factors on the Abundances of Hollow-Nesting Bird Species in Subtropical Australian Eucalypt Forest

We examined the impact of single-tree selective logging and fuel reduction burns on the abundance of hollow-nesting bird species at a regional scale in southeastern Queensland, Australia. Data were collected on species abundance and habitat structure of dry sclerophyll production forest at 36 sites with known logging and fire histories. Sixteen bird species were recorded with most being resident, territorial, obligate hollow nesters that used hollows that were either small (<10 cm diameter) or very large (>18 cm diameter). Species densities were typically low, but combinations of two forest management and three habitat structural variables influenced the abundances of eight bird species in different and sometimes conflicting ways. The results suggest that habitat tree management for biodiversity in production forests cannot depend upon habitat structural characteristics alone. Management histories appear to have independent influence (on some bird species) that are distinguishable from their impacts on habitat structure per se. Rather than managing to maximize species abundances to maintain biodiversity, we may be better off managing to avoid extinctions of populations by identifying thresholds of acceptable fluctuations in populations of not only hollow-nesting birds but other forest dependent wildlife relative to scientifically valid forest management and habitat structural surrogates.     

A GIS/Simulation Framework for Assessing Change in Water Yield over Large Spatial Scales

Recent legislation to initiate vegetation management in the Central Sierra hydrologic region of California includes a focus on corresponding changes in water yield. This served as the impetus for developing a combined geographic information system (GIS) and simulation assessment framework. Using the existing vegetation density condition, together with proposed rules for thinning to reduce fire risk, a set of simulation model inputs were generated for examining the impact of the thinning scenario on water yield. The approach allows results to be expressed as the mean and standard deviation of change in water yield for each 1-km² map cell that is thinned. Values for groups of cells are aggregated for typical watershed units using area-weighted averaging. Wet, dry, and average precipitation years were simulated over a large region. Where snow plays an important role in hydrologic processes, the simulated change in water yield was less than 0.5% of expected annual runoff for a typical watershed. Such small changes would be undetectable in the field using conventional stream flow analysis. These results suggest that use of water yield increases to help justify forest-thinning activities or offset their cost will be difficult.     

Scientist and policy-maker response types and times in suburban watersheds

Differences between scientist and policy-maker response types and times, or the “how” and “when” of action, constrain effective water resource management in suburbanizing watersheds. Policy-makers are often rushed to find a single policy that can be applied across an entire, homogeneous, geopolitical region, whereas scientists undertake multiyear research projects to appreciate the complex interactions occurring within heterogeneous catchments. As a result, watershed management is often practiced with science and policy out of synch. Meanwhile, development pressures in suburban watersheds create changes in the social and physical fabric and pose a moving target for science and policy. Recent and anticipated advances in the scientific understanding of urbanized catchment hydrology and pollutant transport suggest that management should become increasingly sensitive to spatial heterogeneities in watershed features, such as soil types, terrain slopes, and seasonal watertable profiles. Toward this end, policy-makers should encourage funding scientific research that characterizes the impacts of these watershed heterogeneities within a geopolitical zoning and development framework.     

Public involvement in environmental assessment: the case of the nonparticipant

Public involvement is recognized by legislators, practitioners, academics, nongovernment organizations and, most importantly, affected communities, as a fundamental component of environmental assessment (EA) processes. Experience with public involvement in EA has proven, however, that despite good intentions, there are formidable barriers to participation. This paper examines this issue, largely through a case study of a new Can$120 million hog processing facility in Brandon, Canada. Primary data were collected in three phases, using multiple methodological techniques, including document review, qualitative interviews, and a mail questionnaire. Results included a diverse list of barriers to involvement, grouped into two primary categories: structural and individual. A significant structural barrier was a belief that becoming involved would not make a difference as the ultimate decision in the case was a foregone conclusion. An important individual barrier was that people did not know about the EA. Finally, the results indicated that lack of interest was not an important reason for nonparticipation.     

Impact of selective herbicide right-of-way vegetation treatment on birds

Power line rights-of-way provide a major portion of the shrub habitat in New York. Since this habitat type is on the decline, many of the birds dependent on shrub habitat are also declining. The methods used to control right-of-way vegetation could therefore have serious impacts on several birds of conservation concern. Since New York is increasingly using selective herbicide treatments in vegetation management, we sought to investigate the potential impacts of these treatments on nesting birds. The study looked at plots in two adjacent rights-of-way before and after a selective herbicide treatment in one of the rights-of-way. We investigated three bird species: alder flycatcher (Empidonax alnorum), chestnut-sided warbler (Dendroica pensylvanica), and gray catbird (Dumetella carolinensis). All three species exhibited a preference for shrub vegetation around nest sites. The selective herbicide treatment did not significantly decrease that shrub vegetation, and neither the density nor the nesting success of the three species declined following the treatment. We conclude that selective herbicide vegetation management encourages the development of shrub habitat without negatively impacting the birds nesting in the habitat.     

Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development

The prominent place of the chapter on poverty in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPI) is totally in keeping with the priority given to poverty reduction in the development thinking of the international community of today. The Johannesburg process did not lead to any new insights or new commitments in the fight against poverty. Section one sets out a factual comparison of the poverty chapters in Rio's Agenda 21 (AG21) and in the JPI. Section two reviews the conceptual links between poverty reduction and sustainable development, since poverty is used both as a dependent and as an independent variable. This analysis shows a shift in the function of growth as related to environmental protection. Section three explores the naturalization of development thinking in its economic and social dimensions and shows how this affects the policy options for social protection. I also explain how social and environmental sustainability have become elements of risk management and how are both aimed at conflict prevention and enhanced growth. Finally, in section four three lines of action are suggested to enhance the emergence of a socially meaningful sustainable development agenda that, ideally, would make poverty reduction strategies redundant.