The Antiquities Act,national monuments,and the regional economy

Large, landscape-scale national monuments have long been controversial. It has been claimed that large monuments harm local economies by restricting growth of the grazing, timber, mining, and energy industries. Others have asserted that large monuments aid economic growth by reducing reliance on volatile commodity markets and fostering tourism growth. In this study, we use a synthetic control approach to measure the average causal effect of nine national monument designations on county-level per capita income. We find no evidence that monument designation affected per capita income in any of 20 counties hosting nine large (>50,000 acres) national monuments established under the Antiquities Act (six monuments) or by legislative action (three monuments). The broad economic claims of both advocates and critics of large national monuments have little empirical support. The absence of a designation effect for large national monuments is likely due to the attributes of federal land and the legal constraints under which it is managed.     

Workplace response of companies exposed to the 9/11 World Trade Center attack: a focus‐group study

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 (9/11) left workplaces in pressing need of a mental health response capability. Unaddressed emotional sequelae may be devastating to the productivity and economic stability of a company's workforce. In the second year after the attacks, 85 employees of five highly affected agencies participated in 12 focus groups to discuss workplace mental health issues. Managers felt ill prepared to manage the magnitude and the intensity of employees' emotional responses. Rapid return to work, provision of workplace mental health services, and peer support were viewed as contributory to emotional recovery. Formal mental health services provided were perceived as insufficient. Drawing on their post‐9/11 workplace experience, members of these groups identified practical measures that they found helpful in promoting healing outside of professional mental health services. These measures, consistent with many principles of psychological first aid, may be applied by workplace leaders who are not mental health professionals.     

Quantifying current and potential contributions of Australian indigenous peoples to threatened species management

Formal engagement of indigenous peoples in conservation is increasing globally and leads to multiple benefits to communities while contributing to national and international biodiversity goals and obligations. This and ongoing declines in biodiversity have led to calls to increase opportunities for indigenous people to engage in managing their estates. However, there is no overarching understanding of indigenous peoples’ involvement in conservation, which limits the identification of new opportunities. We amalgamated information across governments and large nongovernmental organizations in the megadiverse country of Australia to quantify the involvement of indigenous people in management of threatened species. We identified 153 Australian‐based projects undertaken by different indigenous groups around the nation in 2015 and 2016 that included explicit funds for management of threatened species or threatened ecosystems. Most were in remote parts of western and northern Australia. Almost one‐quarter of all threatened animals and 2% of threatened plants were the subject of some formal conservation action by indigenous people. Occurrence records for 1574 threatened species showed that 823 (89.2%) of 923 species recorded on indigenous peoples’ lands were not listed in management projects. This gap may represent new opportunities for conservation initiatives. Because at least 59.5% of Australia's threatened species occur on indigenous peoples’ lands, efforts to build appropriate and effective indigenous conservation alliances are vital. However, it is also important to recognize that threatened species are part of complex social, ecological, economic and cultural systems, and to achieve successful outcomes requires consideration of indigenous peoples’ priorities, rights, and obligations and relationships with their traditionally owned land and sea.     

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.     

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.     

基于MIKE11模型提高污染河流水质改善效果的方法

为寻求提高污染河流水质改善效果的方法,本研究选择中国多坝闸重污染河流颍河为研究对象,针对引江济淮工程颍河段的水质改善要求,以颍河主要的污染物高锰酸盐指数、氨氮为指标,提出了应用MIKE11建立试验河流一维河网水动力和水质模型,采用数值模拟的方法,试验研究河流水质改善的最优技术方法,模拟试验主要进行了补水流量、补水水质、补水位置和补水方式等措施对改善颍河水质效果的影响.模拟结果表明:用MIKE11模型中水动力模块(HD)和对流扩散模块(AD)并结合降雨径流模块(NAM)来进行污染河流水质改善是可行的,即补水流量为河流本底流量的10%,分别对补水点1采用Ⅲ类水,补水点2和补水点3采用Ⅳ类水进行补给,补给效果最佳,高锰酸盐指数和氨氮的去除率分别为72.3%和55.7%,使研究区颍河85%以上的河段达到Ⅳ类水水质标准,为河流污染控制提供了一种新方法.     

有机污染物多介质环境的稳态非平衡模型

在稳态平衡模型的基础上，研究了有机污染物在多介质环境的稳态非平衡模型，并针对ＤＤＴ、１，２，４，－ＴＣＢ、ＨＣＢ、ＰＣＢ和ＤＭＰ５种化合物进行了计算。结果表明，该模型只须通过污染物在水中的浓度以及该化合物的各种物理化学性质和环境参数就可计算环境各相中污染物的浓度、逸度和质量分布，从而预测污染物在多介质环境中的归趋。     

Biological elimination of H2S and NH3 from wastegases by biofilter packed with immobilized heterotrophic bacteria

Biotreatment of various ratios of H₂S and NH₃ gas mixtures was studied using the biofilters, packed with co-immobilized cells (Arthrobacter oxydans CH8 for NH₃ and Pseudomonas putida CH11 for H₂S). Extensive tests to determine removal characteristics, removal efficiency, removal kinetics, and pressure drops of the biofilters were performed. To estimate the largest allowable inlet concentration, a prediction model was also employed. Greater than 95% and 90% removal efficiencies were observed for NH₃ and H₂S, respectively, irrespective of the ratios of H₂S and NH₃ gas mixtures. The results showed that H₂S removal of the biofilter was significantly affected by high inlet concentrations of H₂S and NH₃. As high H₂S concentration was an inhibitory substrate for the growth of heterotrophic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria, the activity of H₂S oxidation was thus inhibited. In the case of high NH₃ concentration, the poor H₂S removal efficiency might be attributed to the acidification of the biofilter. The phenomenon was caused by acidic metabolite accumulation of NH₃. Through kinetic analysis, the presence of NH₃ did not hinder the NH₃ removal, but a high H₂S concentration would result in low removal efficiency. Conversely, H₂S of adequate concentrations would favor the removal of incoming NH₃. The results also indicated that maximum inlet concentrations (model-estimated) agreed well with the experimental values for space velocities of 50–150 h⁻¹. Hence, the results would be used as the guideline for the design and operation of biofilters.     

Multiscale Plume Transport from the Collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

The collapse of the world trade center (WTC) produced enhanced levels of airborne contaminants in New York City and nearby areas on September 11, 2001 through December, 2001. This catastrophic event revealed the vulnerability of the urban environment, and the inability of many existing air monitoring systems to operate efficiently in a crisis. The contaminants released circulated within the street canyons, but were also lifted above the urban canopy and transported over large distances, reflecting the fact that pollutant transport affects multiple scales, from single buildings through city blocks to mesoscales. In this study, ground-and space-based observations were combined with numerical weather forecast fields to initialize fine-scale numerical simulations. The effort is aimed at reconstructing pollutant dispersion from the WTC in New York City to surrounding areas, to provide means for eventually evaluating its effect on population and environment. Atmospheric dynamics were calculated with the multi-grid Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS), covering scales from 250 m to 300 km and contaminant transport was studied using the Hybrid Particle and Concentration Transport (HYPACT) model that accepts RAMS meteorological output. The RAMS/HYPACT results were tested against PM2.5 observations from the roofs of public schools in New York City (NYC), Landsat images, and Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) retrievals. Calculations accurately reproduced locations and timing of PM2.5 peak aerosol concentrations, as well as plume directionality. By comparing calculated and observed concentrations, the effective magnitude of the aerosol source was estimated. The simulated pollutant distributions are being used to characterize levels of human exposure and associated environmental health impacts.