Application of Decision Analysis to Forest Road Deactivation in Unstable Terrain

Resource managers require objective methodologies to optimize decisions related to forest road deactivation and other aspects of road management, especially in steep terrain, where road-related slope failures inflict extensive environmental damage. Decision analysis represents a systematic framework that clearly identifies real options and critical decision points. This framework links current decisions with expected future outcomes and provides advantages such as a common currency to systematically explore the liability consequences of limited budget expenditures to road deactivation and other road-related activities. Furthermore, the decision framework prevents the analysis from becoming hopelessly entangled by the vast number of possibilities generated by the alternative occurrences, magnitudes, and consequences of landslide/debris flow events and provides the information required for the first step of an adaptive management process. Here, a structured analysis of potential environmental risks for a road deactivation project in coastal British Columbia, Canada is presented. The application of decision analysis generates a ranking of the expected benefits of proposed deactivation activities on various road sections. The ranking distinguishes between road sections that offer high expected benefit from those that offer moderate to low expected benefit. Seventeen of 171, 100–m road segments accounted for 18% of the cumulative cost and 98% of the cumulative expected net benefits from road deactivation. Furthermore, the cost of deactivating a section of road is related to the expected benefit from such deactivation, thus providing the basis for more effective resource allocation and budgeting decisions.     

Prioritizing Wetland Restoration for Sediment Yield Reduction: A Conceptual Model

In a climate of limited resources, it is often necessary to prioritize restoration efforts geographically. The synoptic approach is an ecologically based tool for geographic prioritization of wetland protection and restoration efforts. The approach was specifically designed to incorporate best professional judgment in cases where information and resources are otherwise limited. Synoptic assessments calculate indices for functional criteria in subunits (watersheds, counties, etc.) of a region and then rank the subunits. Ranks can be visualized in region-scale maps which enable managers to identify areas where efforts optimize functional performance on a regional scale. In this paper, we develop a conceptual model for prioritizing watersheds whose wetlands can be restored to reduce total sediment yield at the watershed outlet. The conceptual model is designed to rank watersheds but not individual wetlands within a watershed. The synoptic approach is valid for applying the sediment yield reduction model because there is high demand for prioritizing disturbed wetlands for restoration, but there is limited, quantitative, accurate information available with which to make decisions. Furthermore, the cost of creating a comprehensive database is prohibitively high. Finally, because the model will be used for planning purposes, and, specifically, for prioritizing based on multiple decisions rather than optimizing a single decision, the consequence of prioritization errors is low. Model results cannot be treated as scientific findings. The conclusions of an assessment are based on judgement, but this judgement is guided by scientific principles and a general understanding of relevant ecological processes. The conceptual model was developed as the first step towards prioritizing of wetland restoration for sediment yield reduction in US EPA Region 4.     

Human impacts on the stream-groundwater exchange zone

Active exchanges of water and dissolved material between the stream and groundwater in many porous sand- and gravel-bed rivers create a dynamic ecotone called the hyporheic zone. Because it lies between two heavily exploited freshwater resources—rivers and groundwater—the hyporheic zone is vulnerable to impacts coming to it through both of these habitats. This review focuses on the direct and indirect effects of human activity on ecosystem functions of the hyporheic zone. River regulation, mining, agriculture, urban, and industrial activities all have the potential to impair interstitial bacterial and invertebrate biota and disrupt the hydrological connections between the hyporheic zone and stream, groundwater, riparian, and floodplain ecosystems. Until recently, our scientific ignorance of hyporheic processes has perhaps excused the inclusion of this ecotone in river management policy. However, this no longer is the case as we become increasingly aware of the central role that the hyporheic zone plays in the maintenance of water quality and as a habitat and refuge for fauna. To fully understand the impacts of human activity on the hyporheic zone, river managers need to work with scientists to conduct long-term studies over large stretches of river. River rehabilitation and protection strategies need to prevent the degradation of linkages between the hyporheic zone and surrounding habitats while ensuring that it remains isolated from toxicants. Strategies that prevent anthropogenic restriction of exchanges may include the periodic release of environmental flows to flush silt and reoxygenate sediments, maintenance of riparian buffers, effective land use practices, and suitable groundwater and surface water extraction policies.     

Impacts of interannual climate variability on past and future forest composition

Numerous analyses of the possible impacts of future climatic changes on tree species composition have been published for both lowland and high-elevation forests. Most of these studies were based on the application of forest "gap" models, and the vast majority of them considered only changes in the average of climatic parameters over time. In this study, we use a unique data set on reconstructed past climatic variations to analyse forest dynamics simulated by the forest gap model ForClim. This analysis forms the basis for a systematic exploration of the ecological effects of changing means vs. changing variability of climate on central European forests. A reconstruction of historical climate covering the last 470 years in the Swiss lowlands (ClimIndex) is extrapolated to a transect across the alpine (cold) treeline and used to simulate the influence of climate variations on the time scale of decades on forest biomass and tree species composition at both sites. While the simulation at the low-elevation site shows little sensitivity to climate variations, the results from upper subalpine forests suggest that two major dieback events would have occurred at elevations above the current but below the climatic tree line, induced by clusters of exceptionally cold summers. The results are in agreement with available dendrochronological data and with documentary evidence on massive negative impacts on flora and fauna at high elevations during these periods. We conclude that ForClim is capable of capturing the effects on tree population dynamics of climate variability at these sites as reconstructed from the ClimIndex record. A factorial design is used to address the sensitivity of ForClim to changes of the long-term averages vs. changes of the variability of monthly temperature and precipitation data. To this end, the simulated tree species composition of near-natural forests is examined along a climate gradient in Europe. The results indicate that there are three types of forest response: (1) little sensitivity to both kinds of change, (2) strong sensitivity to changes in the means, but little sensitivity to changing variability, and (3) strong sensitivity to changing variability at least in parts of the examined climate space. Half of the cases investigated fall under the third category, suggesting that emphasis should be placed on also assessing the sensitivity of ecosystems to future changes in climate variability rather than on changes of average values alone. Electronic Publication     

存在截渗墙情况下地下咸水恢复的优化方案

本文首先分析了咸水分布区的自然地理和水文地质条件，然后对研究区的水文地质条件进行了概化，建立了相应的地下水水量和水质的数值模型，最后通过地下水模拟软件Visual—MODFLOW3.1对存在截渗墙情况下的不同咸水恢复方案进行了数值分析。研究结果表明。单纯的抽水方案对于高浓度咸水的去除非常有效，但是低浓度咸水残留量较大；抽水——注水方案对高低浓度的去除效果都比较好；而抽水优化方案对高浓度和低浓度的咸水的去除更加经济、快速和彻底。     

恢复生态学研究的一些基本问题探讨

对恢复生态学的研究概况、基本概念、内涵与研究内容以及生态恢复的目标、原则、程序与技术进行了分析与探讨，指出恢复生态学应加强基础理论研究和应用技术研究。生态恢复与重建是指根据生态学原理，通过一定的生物、生态和工程技术，人为地切断生态系统退化的主导因子和过程，调整和优化系统内部及其与外界的物质、能量和信息的流动过程及其时空秩序，使生态系统的结构、功能和生态学潜力尽快成功地恢复到原有的乃至更高水平。     

丛枝菌根在矿区生态重建中的应用及其前景分析

目前国内外矿山复垦研究的新热点是应用现代微生物工艺技术加速新覆盖土的改性与熟化。在总结分析国内外微生物复垦技术研究现状的基础上,对丛枝菌根应用于矿区复垦的前景进行了展望。加快这项技术的应用研究,对拓宽我国科学复垦技术研究领域、提高土地复垦率具有重要意义。     

城市海岸带环境管理模式优化研究——以青岛市胶州湾为例

我国的海洋污染日益严重,政府加大海洋环境保护力度势在必行。科学、有效的海洋环境管理对保护环境、提高资源利用效率起着非常重要的作用。但海洋环境并不是一维线性的系统,涉及系统的多维耦合,而海岸带又是与人类活动息息相关的重要部分。本文尝试以青岛市胶州湾海岸带环境管理模式为例,构建包含有"经济-人口-资源-环境-安全-行政(EPRESA)"六个子系统的多维耦合系统模型,并绘制出总流图,然后以此为管理模式的优化提供前提性分析,提出海岸带综合管理模式优化的对策建议。本研究认为,要改善现有的海岸带环境管理体系,应该制定综合性管理政策,建立可持续的融资机制,推进海岸带灾害与风险管理以及引导利益相关者参与管理。     

CONTROL OF LAKE PHOSPHORUS WITH ALUMINUM SULFATE: DOSE DETERMINATION AND APPLICATION TECHNIQUES1

ABSTRACT: Nutrient diversion does not always bring about prompt and sufficient reduction in lake phosphorus concentration due to recycling from nutrient rich sediments. Certain lakes and reservoirs may continue to experience nuisance algal blooms and require additional restorative steps. The phosphorus precipitation/inactivation technique is a procedure to remove phosphorus from the water column and to control its release from sediments in order to achieve P-limiting conditions to algal growth. Aluminum salts have been used in advanced waste water treatment to remove phosphorus and this technology was extended to lake rehabilitation. Guidelines for dose calculation and application are generally lacking, and are provided in this report. The dose determination suggested here allows maximum application of aluminum to bottom sediments and thus emphasizes long term control of phosphorus recycling. Dose can be calculated directly from the alkalinity of the water to be treated. Titration of lake water samples of Varying alkalinity allows the establishment of the relationship between residual dissolved aluminum, alkalinity, and dose which can then be employed for lake scale applications of alum to lakes and reservoirs. Application equipment and procedures are described. These depend on site characteristics and treatment objectives and include lakeside stores, a distribution pipe, and an application barge and manifold. Alum may also be used to meet other restoration objectives including the treatment of problem flows and the reduction of particulate concentrations.