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.     

Analysis of Environmental and Socio-economic Determinants Affecting Population Longevity Level at County Level in China

INTRODUCTIONIn recent thirty years, due to the decreasing fertility andincreasing life expectancy, China's population is aging ata very rapid pace and the elderly population size is keepingon growing. During the dramatic aging progress, the oldestold group in China is catching our eyes. More and moreold people of China are becoming the oldest old. Theextremely old population (aged 80 and above) is increasingat 5.1% annually, while the old population above 65 isincreasing at 2.9%, and the…     

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.     

The Water Poverty Index: An application in the Indian context

For developing countries, the proportion of households covered by improved water resources is conventionally used to assess the water stress situation. However, in a developing country like India with a high population growth rate, water demand and supply are considerably mismatched. An agro-based economy with large variations in socio-economic conditions and changing rainfall patterns across the states imposes greater challenge on water resources. Therefore, there is a need to assess the water situation across the country in a holistic manner. This paper proposes application of the Water Poverty Index as a comprehensive policy tool to assess actual water-stress situation across 20 major states in India. This index covers important socio-economic parameters such as access, capacity, use and environment in addition to water resources of each state. The results and findings are expected to be of use to policymakers and implementing agencies. In view of policy formulation, a state performing well on a Water Poverty Index component can act as a benchmark for another state.     

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.     

Assessing Landscape Condition Relative to Water Resources in the Western United States: A Strategic Approach

The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) is proposing an ambitious agenda to assess the status of streams and estuaries in a 12-State area of the western United States by the end of 2003. Additionally, EMAP is proposing to access landscape conditions as they relate to stream and estuary conditions across the west. The goal of this landscape project is to develop a landscape model that can be used to identify the relative risks of streams and estuaries to potential declines due to watershed-scale, landscape conditions across the west. To do so, requires an understanding of quantitative relationships between landscape composition and pattern metrics and parameters of stream and estuary conditions. This paper describes a strategic approach for evaluating the degree to which landscape composition and pattern influence stream and estuary condition, and the development and implementation of a spatially-distributed, landscape analysis approach.     

Reconnecting nature,farming and society: environmental cooperatives in the Netherlands as institutional arrangements for creating coherence

An important implication of agricultural modernization has been the break-down of interlinkages between farming, ecology and society. Historically, farming systems evolved from the specific responses of farming communities to local ecological conditions. The totality of regionalized farming systems arising out of this co-production moulded the countryside into an ‘archipelago’ of differentiated ruralities. During the period of agricultural modernization, the nature of co-production changed thoroughly. The natural elements in co-production were increasingly artificialized or replaced by industrial artefacts. This paper analyses the emergence of environmental cooperatives in the Netherlands as a movement towards a renewed embedding of farming in its local environment. Environmental cooperatives are local farmers associations that promote activities related to sustainable agriculture and rural development and claim to be actively involved in effectuating rural policies in their locale. Since the foundation of the first cooperative in 1992, numbers have rapidly grown to over 100. This paper examines the genesis and practices of environmental cooperatives and assesses their socio-economic and ecological impact. The importance lies most of all, so the authors contend, in that they represent valuable ‘field laboratories’ for building stimulating and supportive institutional contexts for remodelling Dutch farming along the lines of environmental and economic sustainability. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.