Cost shifting and other perverse incentives in biodiversity offsetting in India

Biodiversity offsetting aims to compensate for development‐induced biodiversity loss through commensurate conservation gains and is gaining traction among governments and businesses. However, cost shifting (i.e., diversion of offset funds to other conservation programs) and other perverse incentives can undermine the effectiveness of biodiversity offsetting. Additionality—the requirement that biodiversity offsets result in conservation outcomes that would not have been achieved otherwise—is fundamental to biodiversity offsetting. Cost shifting and violation of additionality can go hand in hand. India's national offsetting program is a case in point. Recent legislation allows the diversion of offset funds to meet the country's preexisting commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). With such diversions, no additional conservation takes place and development impacts remain uncompensated. Temporary additionality cannot be conceded in light of paucity of funds for preexisting commitments unless there is open acknowledgement that fulfillment of such commitments is contingent on offset funds. Two other examples of perverse incentives related to offsetting in India are the touting of inherently neutral offsetting outcomes as conservation gains, a tactic that breeds false complacency and results in reduced incentive for additional conservation efforts, and the clearing of native vegetation for commercial plantations in the name of compensatory afforestation, a practice that leads to biodiversity decline. The risks accompanying cost shifting and other perverse incentives, if not preempted and addressed, will result in net loss of forest cover in India. We recommend accurate baselines, transparent accounting, and open reporting of offset outcomes to ensure biodiversity offsetting achieves adequate and additional compensation for impacts of development.     

The environmental effects of trade within and across sectors

This paper presents a model that combines within and across sector channels through which trade affects our environment by embedding heterogeneous firms and fixed costs into a two-sector framework with an endogenous response to environmental policy. In contrast to existing literature that tends to examine these channels separately, the combined framework developed here shows how cross-sector comparative advantage and within-sector responses to trade and environmental policy or factor endowments interact to affect our environment through three channels: changes in output, cross-sector market share, and emissions intensity. In contrast to a single-sector model with neutral productivity, consideration of two sectors allows for trade liberalization to affect the allocation of inputs in each sector and thereby affect total pollution output. The additional consideration of heterogeneous firm responses to falling trade costs will generate endogenous increases in productivity that increase output, reduce aggregate emissions intensity, and moderate the cross-sector resource adjustment, relative to a representative-firm model. Simulation results show how the combined framework can replicate existing empirical outcomes, and provide concise ceteris paribus insights regarding the potential role of trade and environmental policy changes and factor expansion in driving observed outcomes and their contribution to each of the three channels.     

Urban afforestation and infant health: Evidence from MillionTreesNYC

This paper examines the impact of urban afforestation on infant health outcomes by exploiting a quasi-experimental setting where one million new trees were planted in New York City (NYC), but not in counties surrounding NYC over the same time period. Using a near-universal birth record of NYC and surrounding counties over 2004–2015 and employing both the synthetic control method and a difference-in-differences model, we find that an approximately 20% increase in urban forest cover decreased prematurity and low birth weight among mothers in NYC by 2.1 and 0.24 percentage points, respectively, relative to similar mothers outside of NYC. The low birth weight finding is equivalent to getting a mother smoking two cigarettes a day during pregnancy to quit. An internal validity test suggests that changes in the composition of NYC mothers cannot explain the observed effects. Additionally, we find evidence that declines in PM_2.5 concentrations and increases in outdoor walks are potential causal mechanisms. Results suggest that urban afforestation may be able to complement existing policies aimed at improving infant health.     

Land‐use trade‐offs between tree biodiversity and crop production in the Atlantic Forest

Trade‐offs in ecosystem services (ES) have received increasing attention because provisioning services often come at the expense of biodiversity loss. When land‐use patterns are not maximally efficient relative to productivity, provisioning services, such as crop production, can often be increased without losing biodiversity. The Atlantic Forest (AF) encompasses dense, mixed, and seasonal forests and has high levels of endemism and anthropogenic threat. We examined trade‐offs between biodiversity and crop production in the AF to provide insights into land‐use management decisions. We developed a biodiversity metric that combines information on tree species richness, evolutionary distinctiveness, and rarity at the local level. We examined the extent to which the nature of ES trade‐offs differ among the 3 forest types. We assessed how annual deforestation rates and land management practices affect biodiversity and agricultural revenues. Finally, we tested whether it is possible to achieve the same total regional revenue without reducing biodiversity by improving local management practices. The 3 forest types had similar patterns in ES trade‐offs, although within mixed forest patterns differed. Biodiversity appeared to be more sensitive to land‐use change than crop revenues. Certain crops yielded up to 10 times higher values in some sites. Enhanced crop productivity may increase revenues without reducing biodiversity. Our results showed that to enhance human well‐being without further conversion of AF, maximizing crop productivity is needed . Increasing efficiency of management outcomes by maintaining higher biodiversity and increasing provisioning services depends on knowledge of forest type, the comparative advantage of planting crops in the best places, and preserving species in a balanced manner across forests.     

The perpetual state of emergency that sacrifices protected areas in a changing climate

A modern challenge for conservation biology is to assess the consequences of policies that adhere to assumptions of stationarity (e.g., historic norms) in an era of global environmental change. Such policies may result in unexpected and surprising levels of mitigation given future climate‐change trajectories, especially as agriculture looks to protected areas to buffer against production losses during periods of environmental extremes. We assessed the potential impact of climate‐change scenarios on the rates at which grasslands enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) are authorized for emergency harvesting (i.e., biomass removal) for agricultural use, which can occur when precipitation for the previous 4 months is below 40% of the normal or historical mean precipitation for that 4‐month period. We developed and analyzed scenarios under the condition that policy will continue to operate under assumptions of stationarity, thereby authorizing emergency biomass harvesting solely as a function of precipitation departure from historic norms. Model projections showed the historical likelihood of authorizing emergency biomass harvesting in any given year in the northern Great Plains was 33.28% based on long‐term weather records. Emergency biomass harvesting became the norm (>50% of years) in the scenario that reflected continued increases in emissions and a decrease in growing‐season precipitation, and areas in the Great Plains with higher historical mean annual rainfall were disproportionately affected and were subject to a greater increase in emergency biomass removal. Emergency biomass harvesting decreased only in the scenario with rapid reductions in emissions. Our scenario‐impact analysis indicated that biomass from lands enrolled in the CRP would be used primarily as a buffer for agriculture in an era of climatic change unless policy guidelines are adapted or climate‐change projections significantly depart from the current consensus.     

泥磷中温蒸馏提取黄磷设备材料腐蚀特性研究

蒸磷法是国内从泥磷中提取黄磷的最常用方法,但该方法常存在蒸磷釜局部氧化严重、设备腐蚀较快等问题。模拟泥磷中温蒸馏提取黄磷的腐蚀试验,分析了Q235钢、45钢和304不锈钢3种材料在泥磷水分蒸发(100℃)和黄磷提取(290℃)2个阶段中质量与时间、材料腐蚀速率与时间的关系。采用扫描电镜(SEM)对腐蚀较严重的45钢材料进行了微观形貌分析,并分别用能谱分析仪(EDS)和X射线衍射仪(XRD)对腐蚀产物成分及其相组成进行分析。结果表明:在100℃和290℃时,45钢的腐蚀速率最大,Q235钢次之,304不锈钢最小;45钢和Q235不锈钢100℃时腐蚀速率大于290℃时,而304不锈钢100℃时腐蚀速率小于290℃时。研究表明,304不锈钢的抗腐蚀能力最强,其次是Q235钢,而45钢抗腐蚀能力最弱。     

干旱区盐湖沿岸不同植物群落土壤CO2排放特征

为探究盐湖区不同植物群落土壤CO₂排放速率及影响因素,以新疆达坂城盐湖沿岸小獐毛、鸢尾、芨芨草、黑果枸杞群落和撂荒地土壤为研究对象,在2016年4~12月采用Li-8100A监测了不同植物群落土壤CO₂排放特征,分析了CO₂排放与5（ST5）,10（ST10）,15cm（ST15）土壤温度、含水量、电导率的关系.结果如下：4~12月小獐毛群落土壤CO₂日排放呈单峰曲线,7月土壤CO₂排放速率最高,峰值出现在14：00左右;7月鸢尾、芨芨草、黑果枸杞和撂荒地土壤CO₂排放呈双峰曲线,峰值出现在10：00和14：00~16：00左右,其余月份均呈单峰曲线,峰值出现在12：00~14：00;不同植物群落类型、同一植物类型不同月份土壤CO₂排放存在显著差异（P<0.001）.4~12月芨芨草群落土壤CO₂累积排放量最高（2508.01g/m²）,大于撂荒地（2235.01g/m²）、鸢尾（1903.03g/m²）、黑果枸杞（1690.27g/m²）和小獐毛（550.34g/m²）植物群落处理.小獐毛群落土壤CO₂排放与ST15显著相关（R²=0.739,P<0.05）,且对ST15变化最敏感;鸢尾、芨芨草、黑果枸杞群落和撂荒地处理土壤CO₂排放与ST5相关性较高（R²=0.708~0.821）,对ST10变化响应敏感.小獐毛群落土壤温度敏感系数（Q₁₀）最大值出现在6月（7.97）,鸢尾（21.74）、芨芨草（13.21）、黑果枸杞（18.23）和撂荒地（7.65）处理则出现在11,12月.不同植物群落土壤CO₂排放与含水量相关性较低;一元线性方程（log_eC_f=-0.149EC+0.943）能较好的模拟土壤电导率（EC）与CO₂排放（C_f）的关系.除土壤温度外,盐分也是影响盐湖沿岸土壤碳排放的重要因素.因此,在考虑陆地生态系统碳收支时不能忽略盐湖生态系统,以及盐分对土壤碳过程的影响.     

Nutrient cycling characteristics of Quercus acutissima and Pinus massoniana mixed forest in the Three-Gorge Reservoir area, China

The cycling characteristics of nitrogen(N), phosphorus(P) and potassium(K) of the Quercus acutissima and Pinus massoniana mixed forest, which is the most common forest type in the Three Gorge Reservoir areas in China, were systematically analyzed. The results showed that N, P and K accumulated in the plant pool and in the litter pool, while total N, P, and K were deficient in the soil pool and in the forest systems. Contents of N in the soil of depth 20-40 cm were the key factor limiting growth of trees. The biological outside cycling coefficients were 8.78, 72.5 and 11.7 times of inside cycling coefficients of N, P and K, respectively. 33.92, 10.26 and 15.88 kg of N, P and K return to the litter pool from branches, leaves and throughfall per year, but, 14.31, 1.32 and 10.48 kg of N, P and K return to the soil from litter pool per year respectively. It is clear that 58% of N, 87% of P, and 34% of K are lost by surface runoff per year. 5.49%, 1.30%, and 8.34% of N, P and K withdraw from leaves to branches, 4.99%, 1.99% and 7.30% of N, P and K withdraw from branches to trunks per year,respectively.     

Nutrient cycling characteristics of Quercus acutissima and Pinus massoniana mixed forest in the Three Gorge Reservoir area, China

The cycling characteristics of nitrogen(N), phosphorus(P) and potassium(K) of the Quercus acutissima and Pinus massonianamixed forest which is the most common forest type in the Three Gorge Reservoir areas in China, were systematically analyzed. The results showed that N, P and K accumulated in the plant pool and in the litter pool, while total N, P, and K were deficient in the soil pool and in the forest systems. Contents of N in the soil of depth 20—40 cm were the key factor limiting growth of trees. The biological outside cycling coefficients were 8.78, 72.5 and 11.7 times of inside cycling coefficients of N, P and K, respectively. 33.92, 10.26 and 15.88 kg of N, P and K return to the litter pool from branches, leaves and throughfall per year, but, 14.31, 1.32 and 10.48 kg of N, P and K return to the soil from litter pool per year respectively. It is clear that 58% of N, 87% of P, and 34% of K are lost by surface runoff per year. 5.49%, 1.30%, and 8.34% of N, P and K withdraw from leaves to branches, 4.99%, 1.99% and 7.30% of N, P and K withdraw from branches to trunks per year, respectively.     

我国南方一些土壤的钾素Q/I特性

钾素Q/I特性是表征土壤钾素状况的一个重要指标,它能同时度量土壤钾素的强度和容量。本文研究了我国南方一些土壤的钾素Q/I特性、结果表明:(1)不同土壤具有不同的Q/I曲线,它们表征不同的土壤钾素有效性和钾素状况;(2)土壤钾位缓冲容量(PBC~K)与阳离子交换量呈极显著正相关(r=0.9288),石灰土和紫色土的PBC~K值高于砖红壤、赤红壤和红壤,而ARe~K值则相反;(3)—△K°与土壤交换性钾呈极显著正相关(r=0.7870),但是具有一定含量的2:1型粘粒矿物的石灰土和紫色土,其—△K°明显低于交换性钾量,因此,lmol L~(-1)中性NH_4OAc可能会过高地估计土壤的交换性钾。