Quantifying population declines based on presence‐only records for red‐list assessments

Accurate trend estimates are necessary for understanding which species are declining and which are most in need of conservation action. Imperfect species detection may result in unreliable trend estimates because this may lead to the overestimation of declines. Because many management decisions are based on population trend estimates, such biases could have severe consequences for conservation policy. We used an occupancy‐modeling framework to estimate detectability and calculate nationwide population trends for 14 Swiss amphibian species both accounting for and ignoring imperfect detection. Through the application of International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List criteria to the different trend estimates, we assessed whether ignoring imperfect detection could affect conservation policy. Imperfect detection occurred for all species and detection varied substantially among species, which led to the overestimation of population declines when detectability was ignored. Consequently, accounting for imperfect detection lowered the red‐list risk category for 5 of the 14 species assessed. We demonstrate that failing to consider species detectability can have serious consequences for species management and that occupancy modeling provides a flexible framework to account for observation bias and improve assessments of conservation status. A problem inherent to most historical records is that they contain presence‐only data from which only relative declines can be estimated. A move toward the routine recording of nonobservation and absence data is essential if conservation practitioners are to move beyond this toward accurate population trend estimation.     

The role of digital data entry in participatory environmental monitoring

Many argue that monitoring conducted exclusively by scientists is insufficient to address ongoing environmental challenges. One solution entails the use of mobile digital devices in participatory monitoring (PM) programs. But how digital data entry affects programs with varying levels of stakeholder participation, from nonscientists collecting field data to nonscientists administering every step of a monitoring program, remains unclear. We reviewed the successes, in terms of management interventions and sustainability, of 107 monitoring programs described in the literature (hereafter programs) and compared these with case studies from our PM experiences in Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greenland, and Vietnam (hereafter cases). Our literature review showed that participatory programs were less likely to use digital devices, and 2 of our 3 more participatory cases were also slow to adopt digital data entry. Programs that were participatory and used digital devices were more likely to report management actions, which was consistent with cases in Ethiopia, Greenland, and Australia. Programs engaging volunteers were more frequently reported as ongoing, but those involving digital data entry were less often sustained when data collectors were volunteers. For the Vietnamese and Canadian cases, sustainability was undermined by a mismatch in stakeholder objectives. In the Ghanaian case, complex field protocols diminished monitoring sustainability. Innovative technologies attract interest, but the foundation of effective participatory adaptive monitoring depends more on collaboratively defined questions, objectives, conceptual models, and monitoring approaches. When this foundation is built through effective partnerships, digital data entry can enable the collection of more data of higher quality. Without this foundation, or when implemented ineffectively or unnecessarily, digital data entry can be an additional expense that distracts from core monitoring objectives and undermines project sustainability. The appropriate role of digital data entry in PM likely depends more on the context in which it is used and less on the technology itself.     

Review of LCA studies of solid waste management systems – Part II: Methodological guidance for a better practice

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is increasingly used in waste management to identify strategies that prevent or minimise negative impacts on ecosystems, human health or natural resources. However, the quality of the provided support to decision- and policy-makers is strongly dependent on a proper conduct of the LCA. How has LCA been applied until now? Are there any inconsistencies in the past practice? To answer these questions, we draw on a critical review of 222 published LCA studies of solid waste management systems. We analyse the past practice against the ISO standard requirements and the ILCD Handbook guidelines for each major step within the goal definition, scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation phases of the methodology. Results show that malpractices exist in several aspects of the LCA with large differences across studies. Examples are a frequent neglect of the goal definition, a frequent lack of transparency and precision in the definition of the scope of the study, e.g. an unclear delimitation of the system boundaries, a truncated impact coverage, difficulties in capturing influential local specificities such as representative waste compositions into the inventory, and a frequent lack of essential sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. Many of these aspects are important for the reliability of the results. For each of them, we therefore provide detailed recommendations to practitioners of waste management LCAs.     

Evaluating the Quality of Citizen‐Scientist Data on Pollinator Communities

Abstract: Concerns about pollinator declines have grown in recent years, yet the ability to detect changes in abundance, taxonomic richness, and composition of pollinator communities is hampered severely by the lack of data over space and time. Citizen scientists may be able to extend the spatial and temporal extent of pollinator monitoring programs. We developed a citizen‐science monitoring protocol in which we trained 13 citizen scientists to observe and classify floral visitors at the resolution of orders or super families (e.g., bee, wasp, fly) and at finer resolution within bees (superfamily Apoidea) only. We evaluated the protocol by comparing data collected simultaneously at 17 sites by citizen scientists (observational data set) and by professionals (specimen‐based data set). The sites differed with respect to the presence and age of hedgerows planted to improve habitat quality for pollinators. We found significant, positive correlations among the two data sets for higher level taxonomic composition, honey bee (Apis mellifera) abundance, non‐Apis bee abundance, bee richness, and bee community similarity. Results for both data sets also showed similar trends (or lack thereof) in these metrics among sites differing in the presence and age of hedgerows. Nevertheless, citizen scientists did not observe approximately half of the bee groups collected by professional scientists at the same sites. Thus, the utility of citizen‐science observational data may be restricted to detection of community‐level changes in abundance, richness, or similarity over space and time, and citizen‐science observations may not reliably reflect the abundance or frequency of occurrence of specific pollinator species or groups.     

Environmental damage: distinguishing human from geophysical causes

Abstract

During the past two decades it has become increasingly common to attribute “naturala” disasters and other damaging environmental events to proximate or underlying causes that are socially produced. Through an examination of three cases, two of them historical, this paper demonstrates that underlying causes within the geophysical domain are also important. Few types of environmental damage or disaster stem from unalloyed human causes or geophysical ones; complex intermixtures are the rule.     

广州市环境监测管理信息化建设中若干问题探讨

以广州市环境监测中心站推进信息化的实践为例，重点对环境监测管理信息化规划、开发和应用3个环节所涉及的信息化进程路线、应用系统开发的需求分析和推广应用等问题进行了一些探讨，提出切合自身的解决思路或办法。     

某货车侧翻水污染事件的环境损害评估方法探索

随着我国进入突发水污染事件高发期,面临的水环境形势日益严峻.为了震慑环境污染行为,保证受损的环境资源得到恢复和补偿,量化突发性水污染事件造成的经济损失显得至关重要.本文以重庆市某货车侧翻污染事件为例,构建了一套突发水污染事件环境损害的量化评估方法,并用该方法从财产损害、生态环境资源损害、应急处置行政事务投入费用和调查评估费用这4个方面量化了该事件造成的环境污染损害.     

No evidence of systematic pre-emptive loggings after notifying landowners of their lands’ conservation potential

Landowners can intentionally impair biodiversity values occurring on their land to pre-empt biodiversity protection. This often leads to significant negative effects on biodiversity. We studied whether landowners in Finland engaged in pre-emptive loggings after they were notified that their wooded mires are candidate sites for a mire protection program. After the notification, harvesting rates of the candidate wooded mires were significantly lower compared to harvesting rates of similar but non-candidate wooded mires. Annual and monthly harvesting rates indicated that notifying landowners of the conservation potential did not launch systematic pre-emptive logging behavior. Nevertheless, part of the candidate wooded mires were logged, so some landowners place more weight on other values than the biodiversity ones. Pre-emptive behavior has been observed in other studies suggesting that many country- or system-specific factors such as cultural background or level of compensation can affect landowners’ behavior.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01354-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Ambio’s legacy on monitoring,impact, and management of acid rain: This article belongs to Ambio’s 50th Anniversary Collection. Theme: Acidification

Early studies published in Ambio showed large-scale acidification of lakes in southern Sweden and Norway from acid rain. These studies were important for delimiting various scientific issues and thus for eventually contributing to legislation, which reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides and helped to mitigate this major environmental problem. Long-term studies and monitoring in Sweden and Norway and at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire helped guide this legislation in Europe and in the USA.     

Planning nature-based solutions: Principles,steps, and insights

Nature-based solutions (NBS) find increasing attention as actions to address societal challenges through harnessing ecological processes, yet knowledge gaps exist regarding approaches to landscape planning with NBS. This paper aims to provide suggestions of how planning NBS can be conceptualized and applied in practice. We develop a framework for planning NBS by merging insights from literature and a case study in the Lahn river landscape, Germany. Our framework relates to three key criteria that define NBS, and consists of six steps of planning: Co-define setting, Understand challenges, Create visions and scenarios, Assess potential impacts, Develop solution strategies, and Realize and monitor. Its implementation is guided by five principles, namely Place-specificity, Evidence base, Integration, Equity, and Transdisciplinarity. Drawing on the empirical insights from the case study, we suggest suitable methods and a checklist of supportive procedures for applying the framework in practice. Taken together, our framework can facilitate planning NBS and provides further steps towards mainstreaming.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01365-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.