A reevaluation of carbon monoxide: past trends,future concentrations,and implications for conformity "hot-spot" policies

Control of CO is one of the great air-quality management success stories of the past 20 years. This paper evaluates whether past progress will continue into the future and whether changes in microscale CO concentrations are comparable to reductions observed at the regional scale. Neighborhood and microscale CO concentrations were evaluated at six northern and southern California monitoring sites. The study also included a review of CO emission, concentration, and exposure trends and on-road motor vehicle-based CO emission control programs for California and the United States. Consistent with California and national trends, CO concentrations declined at each of the six study locations from 1988 through 1998. Microscale concentrations declined at the same rate as did neighborhood-scale concentrations. Rollback analyses demonstrated that microscale concentrations will continue to decline through at least 2010-2020. Within a few years, microscale violations of the CO National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) will be unlikely in California except under extraordinary circumstances.     

Evaluating inspection and maintenance programs: a policy-making framework

This article presents a new analysis approach to design and evaluate motor vehicle inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs. The new approach, called I/M-Design, uses real-world data to provide two resources not previously available: (1) a transparent framework to quantitatively illustrate the range of emission reductions available from I/M, and (2) a sensitivity analysis tool to evaluate how key variables affect I/M performance. In addition, the approach satisfies a policy-making information need--how to convey, in a logical and straightforward manner, the expected benefits from I/M without relying on modeling tools inaccessible to those outside the air quality field. The material presented in this article illustrates the new approach by estimating hydrocarbon (HC) emission reduction benefits available from enhanced I/M in southern California's South Coast Air Basin. I/M-Design estimates that enhanced I/M results in a 14-28% reduction in light-duty motor vehicle HC exhaust emissions; this estimate compares well to other California I/M program evaluations. Even more importantly, I/M-Design sensitivity analyses illustrate how I/M programs that implement stringent failure thresholds, motivate pre-test repair work, and improve repair effectiveness can provide emission reductions that substantially exceed the performance of existing programs.     

Icy heritage: ecological evolution of the postglacial Baltic Sea reflected in the allozymes of a living fossil,the priapulid Halicryptus spinulosus

Genetic variation of 16 allozyme loci in 397 Halicryptus spinulosus (Priapulida) revealed overall polymorphism of P=0.438 and Hardy-Weinberg expectations for heterozygosity of H _e=0.060 for Baltic Sea stocks, H _e=0.143 for the White Sea and H _e=0.121 for Iceland. Maximal unbiased standard distances of D=0.0693 separated Baltic and White Sea populations. Nordic and Baltic populations could be distinguished by allozymes, but Baltic subsamples proved cohesive. Gene flow amounted to effective exchange values per generation of N _m=2.94 over 650 km of continuous habitat, N _m=10.65 over 175 km, and N _m=13.85 over 20 km. Gene flow started to decrease with geographic distance beyond a dispersal threshold of 20 km, but hierarchical G _ST-statistics indicated light isolation by distance beyond a minimum of 8 km. Gene flow is high for a benthic worm assumed to lack dispersal by pelagic larva, a paradox which cannot be resolved now. Baltic populations are characterized by lower heterozygosity than Nordic stocks. In the Baltic Basin, temporally continuous brackish-water conditions have only existed for the past 7000 years. The two possible colonization routes of H. spinulosus to the geologically young Baltic Sea imply genetic drift, whether by founder effect (sweepstake colonization from Iceland) or by refugial bottlenecking during the Ancylus phase of the Baltic Basin after a direct connection to the White Sea had been sequestered. Continued genetic drift is emphasized by lower heterozygosity in the ecologically unstable Belt Sea compared to the central Baltic. Allozymes falsify the reduced-mutability hypothesis to explain bradytelic evolution of Priapulida. Regional genetic homogeneity, ample polymorphism, and preference for anoxic black mud qualify H. spinulosus populations as indicators of microevolutionary responses to water circulation regimes or pollution in the Baltic Sea.     

Are savannas patch-dynamic systems? A landscape model

Savannas are ecosystems characterized by the coexistence of woody species (trees and bushes) and grasses. Given that savanna characteristics are mainly formed from competition, herbivory, fire, woodcutting, and patchy soil and precipitation characteristics, we propose a spatially explicit model to examine the effects of the above-mentioned parameters on savanna vegetation dynamics in space and time. Furthermore, we investigate the effects of the above-mentioned parameters on tree–bush–grass ratios, as well as the degrees of aggregation of tree–bush–grass biomass. We parameterized our model for an arid savanna with shallow soil depth as well as a mesic one with generally deeper and more variable soil depths. Our model was able to reproduce savanna vegetation characteristics for periods of time over 2000 years with daily updated time steps. According to our results, tree biomass was higher than bush biomass in the arid savanna but bush biomass exceeded tree and grass biomass in the simulated mesic savanna. Woody biomass increased in our simulations when the soil's porosity values were increased (mesic savanna), in combination with higher precipitation. Savanna vegetation varied from open savanna to woodland and back to open savanna again. Vegetation cycles varied over ∼300-year cycles in the arid and ∼220-year cycles in the mesic-simulated savanna. Autocorrelation values indicated that there are both temporal and spatial vegetation cycles. Our model indicated cycling savanna vegetation at the landscape scale, cycles in cells, and patchiness, i.e. patch dynamics.     

Solving the United States National Park overflight controversy

By mid-1990 the National Park Service (NPS) must present to Congress recommendations for managing overflights of at least ten national parks. The authors examine the potential role of formal negotiation in setting overflight policy in these parks by reviewing the overflight controversy at Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP). Regulations controlling overflights of the GCNP are only now being implemented after a 17-year conflict that culminated in a congressionally mandated solution. The authors review this controversy and find that, contrary to common perception, the number of park visitors bothered by overflights is not small but roughly equals the number of airborne visitors (up to 450,000 per year). On the basis of this investigation, the authors determine that formal negotiation would have been an appropriate policy-making process because of the clearly defined and limited number of parties and issues involved. Considering the number of park visitors that will continue to be affected by this issue, the authors conclude that formal negotiations should be considered for overflight problems involving other parks. Such negotiations should be park-specific. Differences in park size, extent of the problem, and parties involved would prohibit park-wide negotiations.This article has been adapted from Tourist Flights over the Grand Canyon: The Potential for Negotiated Solutions to Similar Problems, Analysis and Management, October 30, 1987. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors; they are not meant to represent the views of the organizations with which the authors are associated.