Quantifying the impact of vegetation-based metrics on species persistence when choosing offsets for habitat destruction

Developers are often required by law to offset environmental impacts through targeted conservation actions. Most offset policies specify metrics for calculating offset requirements, usually by assessing vegetation condition. Despite widespread use, there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of vegetation-based metrics for ensuring biodiversity persistence. We compared long-term impacts of biodiversity offsetting based on area only; vegetation condition only; area × habitat suitability; and condition × habitat suitability in development and restoration simulations for the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. We simulated development and subsequent offsetting through restoration within a virtual landscape, linking simulations to population viability models for 3 species. Habitat gains did not ensure species persistence. No net loss was achieved when performance of offsetting was assessed in terms of amount of habitat restored, but not when outcomes were assessed in terms of persistence. Maintenance of persistence occurred more often when impacts were avoided, giving further support to better enforce the avoidance stage of the mitigation hierarchy. When development affected areas of high habitat quality for species, persistence could not be guaranteed. Therefore, species must be more explicitly accounted for in offsets, rather than just vegetation or habitat alone. Declines due to a failure to account directly for species population dynamics and connectivity overshadowed the benefits delivered by producing large areas of high-quality habitat. Our modeling framework showed that the benefits delivered by offsets are species specific and that simple vegetation-based metrics can give misguided impressions on how well biodiversity offsets achieve no net loss.     

滦河秋季大型底栖动物群落结构空间格局与关键环境影响因子识别

掌握水生生物的空间分布特征及其关键影响因子是科学制定生物多样性保护策略的基础.于2016年秋季对滦河53个样点开展了大型底栖动物和环境因子的现场调查,分析了大型底栖动物群落结构与空间分布特征,并识别出影响大型底栖动物物种空间分布的关键环境因子.结果表明:①滦河（河北省）共采集并鉴定出大型底栖动物206种,隶属于8纲22目70科144属,以纹石蚕（Hydropsyche sp.）和东方蜉蝣（Ephemera orientalis）为优势种.②根据滦河大型底栖动物群落结构相似性,53个样点在空间上被分为3组.第1组分布在滦河干流的中下游及支流下游,无指示物种;第2组分布在支流上游,指示种为纹石蚕、朝大蚊（Antocha sp.）和中华小长臂虾（Palaemonetes sinensis）;第3组分布在滦河干流中上游,指示种为东方蜉蝣和中华齿米虾（Neocaridina denticulate sinensis）.③第3组的分类单元数显著高于第1组和第2组;第1组的多样性指数显著高于第2组;第1组的均匀度指数显著高于其他2组.单因素方差分析（one-way ANOVA）发现,pH、TN、底质、河道变化、水质状况和河岸土地利用类型等环境因子在第2组与第3组之间差异显著,第2组明显高于第3组.典范对应分析（CCA）表明,栖境复杂性、河水水量状况和河岸土地利用类型是影响滦河大型底栖动物空间分布的关键环境因子.研究显示,降低河岸带干扰强度、恢复河道生境多样性是未来滦河大型底栖动物多样性保护恢复的重要管理措施.      

Selecting Socio-Economic Metrics for Watershed Management

The selection of social and economic metrics to document baseline conditions and analyze the dynamic relationships between ecosystems and human communities are important decisions for scientists, managers, and watershed citizens. A large variety of social and economic data is available but these have limited use without theoretical frameworks. In this paper, several frameworks for reviewing social-ecosystem relations are offered, namely social sanctions, sense of place, civic structure, and cultural differences. Underlying all of these frameworks are attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms that affect which questions are asked and which indicators are chosen. Much work and significant challenges remain in developing a standard set of spatially based socio-economic metrics for watershed management.     

普兰店市土地利用景观格局及其生态环境效应研究

基于研究区2010年的土地利用图形数据,选用生态意义较明确的景观特征指数,定量分析了普兰店市景观空间格局及其生态环境效应.结果表明：（1）普兰店市旱地景观面积最大、分布最广,其面积比例为47.1％,林地景观的面积比例也较大,草地和沼泽地的面积比例较小.平均斑块面积0.82 km2/个,景观多样性指数为1.35,优势度指数为0.73,均匀度指数为0.62;（2）大部分旱地景观分布在普兰店市南部,林地景观大多分布在北方.城乡用地、水田则相对集中分布在南部沿海地区;（3）普兰店市的生态环境指数为0.40,生态环境质量总体一般.     

Identification of aggressive driving from naturalistic data in car-following situations

Introduction: Aggressive driving has been associated as one of the causes for crashes, sometimes with very serious consequences. The objective of this study is to investigate the possibility of identifying aggressive driving in car-following situations on motorways by simple jerk metrics derived from naturalistic data. Method: We investigate two jerk metrics, one for large positive jerk and the other for large negative jerk, when drivers are operating the gas and brake pedal, respectively. Results: The results obtained from naturalistic data from five countries in Europe show that the drivers from different countries have a significantly different number of large positive and large negative jerks. Male drivers operate the vehicle with significantly larger number of negative jerks compared to female drivers. The validation of the jerk metrics in identifying aggressive driving is performed by tailgating (following a leading vehicle in a close proximity) and by a violator/non-violator categorization derived from self-reported questionnaires. Our study shows that the identification of aggressive driving could be reinforced by the number of large negative jerks, given that the drivers are tailgating, or by the number of large positive jerks, given that the drivers are categorized as violators. Practical applications: The possibility of understanding, classifying, and quantifying aggressive driving behavior and driving styles with higher risk for accidents can be used for the development of driver support and coaching programs that promote driver safety and are enabled by the vast collection of driving data from modern in-vehicle monitoring and smartphone technology.     

Risk assessment and risk reduction of an acrylonitrile production plant

Reducing accident occurrence in petrochemical plants is crucial, thus appropriately allocating management resources to safety investment is a vital issue for corporate management as international competition intensifies. Understanding the priority of safety investment in a rational way helps achieve this objective.In this study, we targeted an acrylonitrile plant. First, Dow Chemical's Fire and Explosion Index (F&EI) identified the reaction process as having the greatest physical risk. We evaluated the severity of accidents in the reaction process using the Process Safety Metrics advocated by the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS); however, this index does not express damages a company actually experience. To solve this problem, we proposed a new metric that adds indirect cost to CCPS metrics. We adopted fault tree analysis (FTA) as a risk assessment method. In identifying top events and basic events, we attempted to improve the completeness of risk identification by considering accidents from the past, actual plant operation and equipment characteristics, natural disasters, and cyber-attacks and terrorist attacks. Consequently, we identified the top events with high priority in handling because of serious accidents as fire/explosion outside the reactor, fire/explosion inside the reactor, and reactor destruction. The new CCPS evaluation index proposed in this study found that fire and explosion outside the reactor has the highest severity. We considered the creation of the fault tree (FT) diagram of the top event, estimating the occurrence probability, and identifying the risk reduction part and capital investment aimed at risk reduction. As an economically feasible selection method for risk reduction investment, using the difference in loss amounts before and after safety investments indicated investment priority.     

Biomonitoring in the Boulder River Watershed, Montana, USA: Metal Concentrations in Biofilm and Macroinvertebrates, and Relations with Macroinvertebrate Assemblage

Portions of the Boulder River watershed contain elevated concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc in water, sediment, and biota. We measured concentrations of As, Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn in biofilm and macroinvertebrates, and assessed macroinvertebrate assemblage and aquatic habitat with the objective of monitoring planned remediation efforts. Concentrations of metals were generally higher in downstream sites compared with upstream or reference sites, and two sites contained metal concentrations in macroinvertebrates greater than values reported to reduce health and survival of resident trout. Macroinvertebrate assemblage was correlated with metal concentrations in biofilm and macroinvertebrates. However, macroinvertebrate metrics were significantly correlated with a greater number of biofilm metals (8) than metals in invertebrates (4). Lead concentrations in biofilm appeared to have the most significant impact on macroinvertebrate assemblage. Metal concentrations in macroinvertebrates were directly proportional to concentrations in biofilm, indicating biofilm as a potential surrogate for monitoring metal impacts in aquatic systems.     

Assessing Impacts of Typhoons and the Chi-Chi Earthquake on Chenyulan Watershed Landscape Pattern in Central Taiwan Using Landscape Metrics

The Chi-Chi earthquake (M_L = 7.3) occurred in the central part of Taiwan on September 21, 1999. After the earthquake, typhoons Xangsane and Toraji produced heavy rainfall that fell across the eastern and central parts of Taiwan on November 2000 and July 2001. This study uses remote sensing data, landscape metrics, multivariate statistical analysis, and spatial autocorrelation to assess how earthquake and typhoons affect landscape patterns. It addresses variations of the Chenyulan watershed in Nantou County, near the earthquake’s epicenter and crossed by Typhoon Toraji. The subsequent disturbances have gradually changed landscape of the Chenyulan watershed. Disturbances of various types, sizes, and intensities, following various tracks, have various effects on the landscape patterns and variations of the Chenyulan watershed. The landscape metrics that are obtained by multivariate statistical analyses showed that the disturbances produced variously fragmented patches, interspersed with other patches and isolated from patches of the same type across the entire Chenyulan watershed. The disturbances also affected the isolation, size, and shape-complexity of patches at the landscape and class levels. The disturbances at the class level more strongly affected spatial variations in the landscape as well as patterns of grasslands and bare land, than variations in the watershed farmland and forest. Moreover, the earthquake with high magnitude was a starter to create these landscape variations in space in the Chenyulan watershed. The cumulative impacts of the disturbances on the watershed landscape pattern had existed, especially landslides and grassland in the study area, but were not always evident in space and time in landscape and other class levels.     

应用底栖动物为指示生物的松花江干流水生态预警研究

指示生物监测及水生态预警是利用水环境中指示物种的数量、群落结构指标和个体生理指标等描述水生态系统的健康状态,其相比于常规理化监测和预警更直接地反映水体的生态质量。本研究在松花江干流2012—2015年大型底栖无脊椎动物监测结果的基础上,结合各监测点生态质量管理目标,通过分析物种的种类、出现的频次、物种污染敏感性(耐污值),尝试提出了松花江干流监控断面以底栖动物为指示生物的水生态预警模式,研究思路和结果对流域水环境风险管理指标的拓展有积极作用。     

CLUE-S模型对村镇土地利用变化的模拟与精度评价

利用航片、IKONOS和Quickbird影像得到研究区3期（1991、2001和2009年）土地利用历史数据,运用CLUE S模型,基于1991、2001年的土地利用数据对2009年土地利用格局进行模拟预测,并将模拟结果与2009年真实土地利用数据进行比较。类型水平上,选择ROC曲线统计和偏离度指数分别对各地类的Logistic回归拟合精度和CLUE S模型模拟精度进行评价;景观水平上,采用景观指数和Kappa指数系列方法,从综合预测能力、景观格局、数量和空间位置等方面对CLUE S模型的模拟精度进行全面评估。结果表明:①CLUE S模型对各土地利用类型的模拟精度均较高,各地类的Logistic回归的拟合精度随着模拟分辨率的提高而逐渐增加;②随着模拟时间的缩短,CLUE S模型对整体景观格局的模拟精度提高;③该模型对土地利用数量的模拟精度明显优于其对空间位置的模拟精度。总体而言,CLUE S模型在村镇尺度的模拟效果良好,预测精度较高,但在空间位置和景观格局精度方面还有待提高