SIMPLE TROPHIC STATE CLASSIFICATION OF THE CANADIAN NEARSHORE WATERS OF THE GREAT LAKES1

ABSTRACT: Trophic classification of the Canadian nearshore waters of the Great Lakes is attempted using summer, surface water quality data for the early 1970's. A generalized Composite Trophic Index is developed using paired linear relationships for total phosphorus, chlorophyll a, and Secchi depth data for 66 defined nearshore regions. The chlorophyll a and total phosphorus relationship indicates that the nearshore waters contain a low chlorophyll a concentration for a given total phosphorus concentration than observed for the open waters of the Great Lakes or for smaller Canadian lakes. The most eutrophic nearshore regions occur in areas of relatively restricted circulation and/or high nutrient loadings. These include the Bay of Quinte, Toronto and Hamilton harbours, and portions of Lake We's Western Basin. Lakes Huron and Superior are generally oligotrophic, except for some embayments. Although nearshore water quality is highly variable, this apprach represents a reasonable compromise with respect to analytical complexity. The Composite Trophic Index removes biases introduced through the use of a single trophic state indicator and uniquely describes the nearshore water quality in terms generally comparable to other water bodies.     

水电开发对河流生态系统服务的效应评估与时空变化特征分析——以武江干流为例

水电开发对河流生态系统的影响不容忽视,科学评估其影响有助于建立更可持续的水电开发模式。以武江干流为例,利用当量因子法和功能价值评估法,分析了武江干流梯级水电开发对受淹没影响的河岸带陆地生态系统和河流生态系统服务的效益及损失,并就其对河流生态系统服务的综合效应进行了评估。结果显示：武江干流水电开发使受淹没影响的河岸带生态系统和河流生态系统本身的服务价值均出现增加,价值增量主要体现在水文调节、水资源供给等服务方面;武江干流水电开发对河流生态系统服务的正效应大于负效应,正效应主要体现在发电、水文调节、气体调节等方面,负效应主要体现在维持生物多样性、土壤保持等支持服务方面。研究认为不同规模水电站的正负效应侧重点不同,不同流域单位电能的生态损失难以直接横向比较。结合多年来武江鱼类资源跟踪调查数据,分析了鱼类生物损失指数的变化趋势,探讨了水电开发在时间上的累积生态效应及水电服务的空间格局差异。由于生物多样性等服务的影响难以用货币直接衡量,加上水域的单位面积服务价值远高于其他生态用地类型,导致负效应的价值评估偏保守,武江干流水电开发的正负效应之比偏大。     

Prospects for Reconciling the Conflict between Economic Growth and Biodiversity Conservation with Technological Progress

Abstract: The conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation is understood in portions of academia and sometimes acknowledged in political circles. Nevertheless, there is not a unified response. In political and policy circles, the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is posited to solve the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. In academia, however, the EKC has been deemed fallacious in macroeconomic scenarios and largely irrelevant to biodiversity. A more compelling response to the conflict is that it may be resolved with technological progress. Herein I review the conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation in the absence of technological progress, explore the prospects for technological progress to reconcile that conflict, and provide linguistic suggestions for describing the relationships among economic growth, technological progress, and biodiversity conservation. The conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation is based on the first two laws of thermodynamics and principles of ecology such as trophic levels and competitive exclusion. In this biophysical context, the human economy grows at the competitive exclusion of nonhuman species in the aggregate. Reconciling the conflict via technological progress has not occurred and is infeasible because of the tight linkage between technological progress and economic growth at current levels of technology. Surplus production in existing economic sectors is required for conducting the research and development necessary for bringing new technologies to market. Technological regimes also reflect macroeconomic goals, and if the goal is economic growth, reconciliatory technologies are less likely to be developed. As the economy grows, the loss of biodiversity may be partly mitigated with end‐use innovation that increases technical efficiency, but this type of technological progress requires policies that are unlikely if the conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation (and other aspects of environmental protection) is not acknowledged.     

岷江上游水电开发特点及其空间格局分析

研究流域的水电开发类型与空间格局,可为水库群的累积环境影响评价、流域水电优化布局等提供科学参考。在流域分割的基础上,对岷江上游水电站的基本类型、水电站的空间分布格局进行了全面分析,并构建水电开发率、水电开发密度和水电开发强度3个指标对流域水电开发程度作出综合评价。结果表明岷江上游流域水电站类型以高水头低闸坝的引水式小水电为主,高坝大库相对较少。梯级水电开发已拓展至岷江三级支流,汶川—都江堰河段是干流水电开发程度最高的河段,杂谷脑河是水电开发程度最高的一级支流流域。岷江上游流域的水电开发率远高于全国平均水平,梯级水电开发密度大于国内主要河流。农村小水电占水电站总数的82%,梯级农村小水电对生态环境的累积影响是将来值得深入探讨的问题。     

乌江流域梯级水库入出库河流中总汞和甲基汞的时空分布

2006年1~12月，每月采集乌江流域梯级水库入出库河流水样，用两次金汞齐-冷原子荧光光谱法和蒸馏-乙基化结合GC CVAFS法测定了水中总汞和甲基汞的浓度。结果表明：（1）入出库河流中总汞年均加权浓度分别为317和 2.34 ng/L，甲基汞为014和 0.18 ng/L。（2）不同水库入出库河流中总汞和甲基汞的时空分布特征不同，位于上游第一级的普定和洪家渡水库入库河流中总汞有明显的季节变化趋势，且显著低于出库河流；而甲基汞的季节变化在出库河流中较为明显，而且库龄大的普定、东风、乌江渡水库出库河流中甲基汞浓度显著高于入库河流。（3）相关分析发现水库入库河流中总汞、甲基汞浓度主要受悬浮颗粒物的影响，而与水量间的相关性因水库所处位置的不同而有差异，上游的普定和洪家渡水库中呈显著正相关，其它水库中呈负相关。     

Managing a forgotten greenhouse gas under existing U.S. law: An interdisciplinary analysis

The United States’ legal strategy for addressing climate change in recent years has relied on authority from existing legislation. This has led to measures on a number of different greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons. However, one greenhouse gas has been largely forgotten: nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is the third most abundantly emitted greenhouse gas in the U.S. and worldwide, as well as the largest remaining threat to the stratospheric ozone layer. In addition, the nitrogen atoms in nitrous oxide are part of the highly fluid nitrogen cycle where nitrogen atoms transform readily among different chemical forms, each with a unique environmental and human health impact – a process known as the nitrogen cascade. While the science of the nitrogen cascade has been explored for over a decade, there has been little work on the legal implications of this phenomenon. And yet the nitrogen cascade expands the legal options available for controlling nitrous oxide. This paper studies these options in a U.S. context and explores the environmental and economic impacts of enacting them. We determine that the Clean Air Act, and in particular its broad authority for controlling ozone depleting substances, is the most promising legal pathway for regulating nitrous oxide across all major sources. Invoking such authority could generate significant climate and stratospheric ozone benefits over 2015–2030, equivalent to taking 12 million cars permanently off the road, and 100 million chlorofluorocarbon-laden refrigerators out of service. The economic benefits could sum to over $700 billion over 2015–2030, with every $1.00 spent on abating emissions leading to $4.10 in societal benefits. The bulk of these benefits would come from reductions in other forms of nitrogen pollution such as ammonia and nitrate, highlighting the important and multiple co-benefits that could be achieved by abating nitrous oxide emissions. With the Paris Climate Agreement calling for limiting global temperature increases to “well below” two degrees Celsius, all mitigation opportunities across all sectors need to be considered. This paper suggests that nitrous oxide warrants more attention from policy-makers in the U.S. and around the world.     

Key Features and Context‐Dependence of Fishery‐Induced Trophic Cascades

Abstract: Trophic cascades triggered by fishing have profound implications for marine ecosystems and the socioeconomic systems that depend on them. With the number of reported cases quickly growing, key features and commonalities have emerged. Fishery‐induced trophic cascades often display differential response times and nonlinear trajectories among trophic levels and can be accompanied by shifts in alternative states. Furthermore, their magnitude appears to be context dependent, varying as a function of species diversity, regional oceanography, local physical disturbance, habitat complexity, and the nature of the fishery itself. To conserve and manage exploited marine ecosystems, there is a pressing need for an improved understanding of the conditions that promote or inhibit the cascading consequences of fishing. Future research should investigate how the trophic effects of fishing interact with other human disturbances, identify strongly interacting species and ecosystem features that confer resilience to exploitation, determine ranges of predator depletion that elicit trophic cascades, pinpoint antecedents that signal ecosystem state shifts, and quantify variation in trophic rates across oceanographic conditions. This information will advance predictive models designed to forecast the trophic effects of fishing and will allow managers to better anticipate and avoid fishery‐induced trophic cascades.     

乌江干流中上游水电梯级开发水温累积效应

以乌江流域洪家渡库尾至乌江渡坝下的水电工程干扰典型段为研究区域，利用建坝前后的水温实测资料，采用建坝前天然水温和建坝后下泄水温比较法，对乌江干流梯级水库水温时空分布特征进行分析。研究结果表明：对天然水温改变最大的电站为洪家渡和乌江渡，前者是受水库水温结构自身影响，后者是梯级联合运行的结果；梯级联合运行使库区水温分层有所减弱，随着时间的推移或上游梯级电站的建成，电站下泄水温年变化过程趋于均化，与天然水温的延迟也越加明显；不同的水库水温结构对水温累积效应的影响也各不相同，稳定分层型水库对水温累积具有正效应，混合型水库具有负效应，过渡型水库处于两者之间，体现了梯级电站的水温累积影响，为研究减缓下泄低温水的对策措施提供依据和参考。     

乌江梯级筑坝对河流碳酸氢根的影响机制

梯级筑坝显著改变了河流碳的生物地球化学循环。为了了解梯级筑坝对河流HCO_3~-的影响,本文对乌江中上游梯级水库的HCO_3~-浓度、溶解无机碳同位素(δ~(13)CDIC)及相关的环境参数进行了长时间跨度的分析。乌江中上游梯级水库-河流体系HCO_3~-浓度为1 42154～3 38752μmol/L,平均值为2 36321μmol/L;δ~(13)CDIC为-1066‰～-452‰,平均值为-854‰;梯级筑坝导致河流具有下游HCO_3~-浓度升高的变化趋势。河流筑坝发电,易形成峡谷型深水水库。碳同位素证据和相关性分析表明,上层的光合作用和下层的呼吸作用成为控制发电水库碳循环的主要因素。这导致HCO_3~-浓度在水库剖面上呈现出由上层至下层逐渐增高的变化规律,再加上水库底层泄水的发电方式,最终导致梯级筑坝河流下游HCO_3~-浓度逐渐升高。本研究将加深梯级筑坝对河流碳循环影响机理的理解。     

Marine Ecological Research in New Zealand: Developing Predictive Models through the Study of No-Take Marine Reserves

Abstract:  New Zealand established its first no-take marine reserve more than 25 years ago. Twenty no-take marine reserves have now been created, although few of these are considered comparable. We considered whether existing conceptual models of population and community structure based only on data from exploited systems lack the baseline information of natural states necessary to make accurate predictions for new reserves. Three of the oldest and best-studied reserves are situated on the northeastern coast of New Zealand. These reserves are considered broadly comparable replicates, and research has shown the recovery of previously exploited predator populations and the reestablishment of trophic controls over community structure and productivity. None of the major changes was predicted when the reserves were created. All the observations from and experimental tests of hypotheses in these three ecologically comparable reserves have provided predictive models for future reserves. Recent surveys in newly created reserves, however, suggest that these models are bioregion and habitat specific. In these new reserves the recovery of previously exploited predators was predicted but did not always occur. Where trends were correctly predicted, the speed and amplitude of the changes were not accurately predicted. Research in New Zealand suggests that it is not yet possible to predict explicit outcomes for newly created reserves and less possible to predict detailed results for systems of reserves. Results from a representative system of reserves, including all major habitats within all bioregions and broadly comparable reserves, are needed. Such a system will enable the range and variety of natural ecosystem dynamics to be investigated and provide the controls necessary to measure the effects of exploitation.