FOCUS: A pilot study for national-scale critical loads development in the United States

The development and use of critical loads of air pollutant deposition in the U.S. is gaining momentum, and recent research efforts in the U.S. have produced valuable data for calculating critical loads. Critical loads are used to quantify the levels of air pollutants that are expected to impact forest health, soil fertility, aquatic biota condition, and other ecosystem responses. In addition, model refinements for improving critical loads estimates, and maps for illustrating critical loads for acidification and nitrogen saturation and eutrophication resulting from excess nutrient nitrogen, have been developed at various scales. However, prior to the effort described here, no cohesive process existed to provide a national-scale critical loads database and maps as a unified product representing all U.S. ecosystems. The FOCUS (Focal Center Utility Study) Project was initiated to coordinate the development and implementation of a clear, consistent, repeatable process for calculating and mapping critical loads within the U.S. In the FOCUS Phase I Pilot Study, empirical and calculated critical loads data for the U.S. were synthesized from dozens of regional and national-scale monitoring networks, research projects and publically available databases following an approach similar to that used in Europe. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), through its International Cooperative Programme on Modelling and Mapping of Critical Levels & Loads and Air Pollution Effects, Risks and Trends (ICP-M&M) collects, analyzes and maps critical loads data. Countries participating in the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) use a Critical Loads “Focal Center” in each country to serve as the point of contact for submitting regional and national-scale critical loads data to the ICP-M&M. One of the purposes of this study was to develop a foundation for interacting with other Focal Centers by assembling critical loads data, creating a database, establishing modeling protocols, and developing infrastructure within the U.S to report and update critical loads on a national scale. Because the U.S. does not currently have an officially designated Focal Center, critical loads data were provided as an informal, unofficial submission to the Coordination Center for Effects (CCE) of the ICP-M&M in March 2011, in the interest of international cooperation and exchange of information on the effects of atmospheric deposition of pollutants on ecosystems. We envision that these data will enable U.S. scientists, land managers, and environmental policymakers to enter into a productive and meaningful dialogue within the US, and also with the international scientific community on methods for estimating, calculating, mapping, interpreting, and refining critical loads for the effects of acidification and excess nutrient nitrogen on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. This paper describes the process used to develop national-scale critical loads in the U.S., summarizes the FOCUS Phase I approach and database development effort, and presents some initial national-scale critical loads mapping products.     

城市富营养化河道复合酶-原位生物修复技术研究

研究了复合酶类生物激活物质对河道中微生物的作用机理,通过测定河道中微生物的生化呼吸线、细菌数、脱氢酶、纤维素酶、脲酶和磷酸酶的酶活性来表征生物激活物质对河道自净过程的促进作用。研究结果表明,复合酶污水净化剂对微生物活性具有激活作用,累积耗氧量明显增加,酶激活率达到14％～136％,有效增强了水体的自净能力。复合酶原位生物修复技术在上海、北京和福州等多条受严重污染的富营养化河道的工程应用表明,复合酶污水净化剂在不同的地域条件下均可发挥良好的作用,具有安全、高效和适用性广等特点。     

建立和发展生态工业的策略

党的十五大把环境保护问题作为基本国策,并强调:“正确处理经济发展同人口、资源、环境的关系”。这表明生态问题已经引起高度重视,建立和发展生态工业已成为当前一项重要任务。本文在介绍生态工业定义的基础上,说明了建立和发展生态工业的必要性及其如何建立和发展生态工业。     

经济对农村社区生态环境保护的作用

经济是农村生态环境保护的基石，它可以打破生态环境保护中的“囚徒困境”。当前，由于城市化进程的加快以及市场、政府力量等向社区的渗透，我国农村社区中经济正面临流失的危险，这是农村生态环境恶化的重要原因。经济流失只是一种暂时现象，它可以在现代农村社区中得以重构与再生，这种重构与再生，沿袭的是一种价值理性与工具理性相结合的路径。     

Ecological network determination of sectoral linkages, utility relations and structural characteristics on urban ecological economic system

Analyzing the structure and functioning of the urban system revealed ways to optimize its structure by adjusting the relationships among compartments, thereby demonstrating how ecological network analysis can be used in urban system research. Based on the account of the extended exergy utilization in the sector of urban socio-economic system, which is considered as the composition of extraction (Ex), conversion (Co), agriculture (Ag), industry (In), transportation (Tr), tertiary (Te) and households (Do) sectors, an urban ecological network model is constructed to gain insights into the economic processes oriented to sustainable urban development. Taking Beijing city as the case, the network accounting and related ecological evaluation of a practical urban economy are carried out in this study in the light of flux, efficiency, utility and structure analysis. The results showed that a large quantity of energy and resources have to be consumed to maintain the structure and function of a city. The thermodynamic efficiencies of individual sector in Beijing remain at a low level. The social system in Beijing is a highly competitive network, and there are 8 competitive relations and only two mutualistic ones. The Domestic and Agricultural sector are the major controlling factors of the system. Moreover, the assessment results of Beijing are compared with the other three socio-economic systems, Norway, UK and Italy, and the ecological network function and structure comparisons are correspondingly illuminated and discussed. The conclusions indicate that the exergy-based network analysis can be refined to become an integrative tool for evaluation, policy-making and regulation for urban socio-economic system management concerning structure and efficiency at urban levels.     

Offspring genetic diversity increases fitness of female Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

Inbreeding has negative effects on individual and population performances. Therefore, enhancement of offspring genetic diversity is believed to play a major role in shaping mating systems. However, no study has clearly separated the direct effect of having multiple partners from the indirect effect of having more outbred offspring on the resulting reproductive success of individuals in the wild. In this study, we report significant associations between both multiple mating and within-individual genetic diversity of offspring, and an increased reproductive success of wild female Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar. Specifically, we found that females with a higher number of mates also have more outbred offspring (within-individuals), and that both of these characteristics increased their reproductive success expressed in terms of offspring surviving when combining all freshwater juvenile stages. Our findings also indicate that determinants of fitness are different among sexes as within-individual offspring genetic diversity was not a strong predictor of male reproductive success, while the number of mates was important. We also show that females mated with more outbred males than on average, which potentially increased their chances of producing outbred offspring. These results therefore suggest that there could be more important indirect genetic benefits of multiple mating for females than for males.Communicated by M. Abrahams     

Farmer models of socio-ecologic systems: Application of causal mapping across multiple locations

Modelling ecological or environmental problems has potential to provide understanding of the causes of such problems and to indicate how to better manage them. Özesmi and Özesmi (2004) showed that cognitive or causal mapping can be used to develop maps of socio-ecological systems but these maps were based on stakeholders concerned with one ecosystem. This article shows how maps from a number of different dairy farmers in different locations, but each considering his or her own farm, can be used in meta analysis to make maps that represent how farmers think their farm ecosystem works. It also shows that the combination of causal mapping with the additional technique of Q method provides a useful solution to the practical problem of selecting from a sufficiently broad range of factors with potential to use in a map. Causal mapping in single or multiple locations contributes to the goal of using peoples’ knowledge of ecosystems to improve our understanding of socio-ecological systems.     

Planning waste cooking oil collection systems

This research has been motivated by a real-life problem of a waste cooking oil collection system characterized by the existence of multiple depots with an outsourced vehicle fleet, where the collection routes have to be plan. The routing problem addressed allows open routes between depots, i.e., all routes start at one depot but can end at the same or at a different one, depending on what minimizes the objective function considered. Such problem is referred as a Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Mixed Closed and Open Inter-Depot Routes and is, in this paper, modeled through a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation where capacity and duration constraints are taken into account. The model developed is applied to the real case study providing, as final results, the vehicle routes planning where a decrease of 13% on mileage and 11% on fleet hiring cost are achieved, when comparing with the current company solution.     

Ecological risk as a tool for evaluating the effects of offshore wind farm construction in the North Sea

Offshore wind power generation represents a chance to supply energy in a more sustainable way; however, the ecological risks associated with the construction and operation of offshore wind farms are still largely unknown. This paper uses the concept of ecological risk for analysing ecological changes during construction of offshore wind farms. “Ecological risk” is defined as the potentially reduced ability of providing ecosystem services. The ERSEM ecosystem model allows assessing ecological risk based on a number of selected variables (integrity indicators) and under the assumption that increased suspended matter concentration during construction of wind farms affects ecosystem functioning. We conclude that ecological risk is adequate to describe the effects of wind farm constructions, although the computation procedure still needs to be refined and the choice of indicators further optimised. In this context, the choice of indicators available in modelling as well as in monitoring time-series may offer the way forward.     

超声相控阵检测焊缝三维可视化

介绍超声相控阵扇形（s型）扫查法对焊缝实施全体积检测的优势：信号（色码幅度）实时显示,自动存储,特别是检测数据可三维（5D）显示,又可多视角观测,缺陷四定（定位、定性、定量、定级）更方便,符合国际权威法规ASME最新版（2011a）的有关要求。期盼UT人员能在日常焊缝检测中熟练运用相控阵三维可视化技术。