ASSESSING THE INFLUENCE OF HEMLOCK MORTALITY ON STREAMS DUE TO HEMLOCK WOOLLY ADELGID INFESTATION

For the past 30 years eastern hemlock forests in the US have been declining rapidly due to damage caused by a destructive exotic insect pest, the hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae Annand (Homoptera: Adelgidae), a native of the Far East. The impact of the loss of hemlocks, which occur naturally in cool hillside and ravine environments along streams, is poorly understood. The loss of these trees has the potential to cause significant environmental disturbance by changing energy inputs into streams, stream microclimates, and aquatic macroinvertebrate communities. In May 2009, after hemlock mortality due to A. tsugae was already severe, I surveyed Crane and King Creeks in the Sumter National Forest (Oconee, Co., SC) to assess the impact of hemlock mortality on the aquatic insect orders Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT). English and Pike (2006 a, b, unpublished data) had surveyed these two streams prior to noticeable hemlock mortality in 2006, and their data was used as a baseline to investigate the impact of hemlock mortality on the EPT component of the aquatic macroinvertebrate community. Samples were collected along a 100m reach at each of 13 sites, 6 on Crane Creek and 7 on King Creek, using a D-net for 30 man-minutes at each site. Samples were returned to the Stream Laboratory in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Clemson University where they were sorted and identified. Habitat assessments of sampling sites were performed both in 2006 (English and Pike 2006 a, b, unpublished data) and 2009 using the EPA Standard Habitat Assessments Protocol for High Gradient Streams. The EPT data between 2006 (cycle 1) and 2009 (cycle 2) indicated that apart from Ephemeroptera number of individuals which had a significant increase, Plecoptera, Trichoptera and combined EPT number of inviduals all had significant reductions. Ephemeroptera and combined EPT taxa richness all increased significantly, whereas Trichoptera taxa richness decreased significantly. Plecoptera taxa richness was the only grouping that was not statistically significant. Neither elevation nor habitat assessment scores showed significant differences between creeks. However, hemlock abundance was significantly higher on King Creek. Both R2 and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) values were used in a stepwise forward multiple regression analysis to determine the significance of hemlock abundance, habitat assessment and elevation on the EPT data. Based on the models developed, hemlock abundance was only significantly associated with Ephemeroptera numbers. Elevation was a good predictor of taxa richness for Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and combined EPT. Habitat assessment was significantly association with the number of Plecoptera, Trichoptera, and combined EPT numbers of individuals and Trichoptera taxa richness. My findings suggest the need for a more extended study in riparian areas with higher hemlock densities in order to establish clear patterns between EPT assemblages and hemlock mortality

Assessment of Natural Resources Use for Sustainable Development - DPSIR Framework for Case Studies in Portsmouth and Thames Gateway, U.K.

This chapter reports on the uses of the DPSIR framework to assess the sustainability of the intertidal environments within the two UK case study areas, Portsmouth and Thames Gateway. It focuses on statutory conservation areas dominated by intertidal habitats. Two are located in Portsmouth (Portsmouth and Langstone Harbours) and four in the Thames Gateway (Benfleet Marshes, South Thames Estuary, Medway Estuary and the Swale in the Thames Gateway). Based on the reduction of a number of pressures and impacts observed in recent decades and the improvement of overall environmental quality, all six SSSIs are considered to be sustainable in the short and medium term. In the future, it is possible that the impacts of climate change, especially sea-level rise, might result in further reduction in the area and/or quality of intertidal habitats. Further integration between conservation and planning objectives (both for urban development and management of flood risk) at local level is needed to support the long-term sustainability of intertidal habitats

Towards a method for the economic evaluation of environmental indicators in UK Integrated Arable Farming Systems

Integrated Arable Farming Systems (IAFS), which involve a reduction in the use of off-farm inputs, are attracting considerable research interest in the UK. The objectives of these systems experiments are to compare their financial performance with that from conventional or current farming practices. To date, this comparison has taken little account of any environmental benefits (or disbenefits) of the two systems. The objective of this paper is to review the assessment methodologies available for the analysis of environmental impacts. To illustrate the results of this exercise, the methodology and environmental indicators chosen are then applied to data from one of the LINK - Integrated Farming Systems experimental sites. Data from the Pathhead site in Southern Scotland are used to evaluate the use of invertebrates and nitrate loss as environmental indicators within IAFS. The results suggest that between 1992 and 1995 the biomass of earthworms fell by 28 kg per hectare on the integrated rotation and rose by 31 kg per hectare on the conventional system. This led to environmental costs ranging between £2.24 and £13.44 per hectare for the integrated system and gains of between £2.48 and £14.88 for the conventional system. In terms of nitrate, the integrated system had an estimated loss of £72.21 per hectare in comparison to £149.40 per hectare on the conventional system. Conclusions are drawn about the advantages and disadvantages of this type of analytical framework. Keywords: Farming systems; IAFS; Environmental valuation; Economics; Earthworms; Nitrates; Soil faun

Guidelines for the scoping and environmental assessment of water resources projects. The environment and water resources projects - Volume 2

In its role as protector of the water environment, the Environment Agency requires significant water resources abstraction applications and schemes such as drought orders, drought permits, time limited licences, and river transfers to be environmentally assessed leading to the production of an environmental report or statement. This may not take the form of a formal Environmental Assessment, but is required to provide environmental information to support applications. (See Volume 1 - Guidance for Scoping and Environmental Assessment for Water Resources Projects in North East Region). This second volume concentrates on the environmental monitoring component of environmental assessments

Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture

The authors are grateful for the inputs from Caterina Batello, Jan Breithaupt, Carlo Cafiero, Marianna Campeanu, Reto Cumani, Rich Conant, Piero Conforti, Marie-Aude Even, Karen Franken, Andreas Gattinger, Pierre Gerber, Frank Hayer, Jippe Hoogeven, Stefan Hörtenhuber, Mathilde Iweins, John Lantham, Robert Mayo, Eric Meili, Soren Moller, Jamie Morrison, Alexander Müller, Noemi Nemes, Monica Petri, Tim Robinson, Nicolas Sagoff, Henning Steinfeld, Francesco Tubiello, Helga Willer, and thank Robert Home for checking the language. KHE gratefully acknowledges funding from ERC-2010-Stg-263522 (LUISE). The input of PS contributes to the DEVIL project (NE/M021327/1), funded under the Belmont Forum / FACCE-JPI. This paper contributes to the Global Land Project (www.globallandproject.org). The authors acknowledge funding for open access publication by the Institute of Environmental Decisions, Federal Institutes of Technology, Zurich.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Towards integration of environmental and health impact assessments for wild capture fishing and farmed fish with particular reference to public health and occupational health dimensions

The paper offers a review and commentary, with particular reference to the production of fish from wild capture fisheries and aquaculture, on neglected aspects of health impact assessments which are viewed by a range of international and national health bodies and development agencies as valuable and necessary project tools. Assessments sometimes include environmental health impact assessments but rarely include specific occupational health and safety impact assessments especially integrated into a wider public health assessment. This is in contrast to the extensive application of environmental impact assessments to fishing and the comparatively large body of research now generated on the public health effects of eating fish. The value of expanding and applying the broader assessments would be considerable because in 2004 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports there were 41,408,000 people in the total ‘fishing’ sector including 11,289,000 in aquaculture. The paper explores some of the complex interactions that occur with regard to fishing activities and proposes the wider adoption of health impact assessment tools in these neglected sectors through an integrated public health impact assessment tool

Logic-Based Decision Support for Strategic Environmental Assessment

Strategic Environmental Assessment is a procedure aimed at introducing systematic assessment of the environmental effects of plans and programs. This procedure is based on the so-called coaxial matrices that define dependencies between plan activities (infrastructures, plants, resource extractions, buildings, etc.) and positive and negative environmental impacts, and dependencies between these impacts and environmental receptors. Up to now, this procedure is manually implemented by environmental experts for checking the environmental effects of a given plan or program, but it is never applied during the plan/program construction. A decision support system, based on a clear logic semantics, would be an invaluable tool not only in assessing a single, already defined plan, but also during the planning process in order to produce an optimized, environmentally assessed plan and to study possible alternative scenarios. We propose two logic-based approaches to the problem, one based on Constraint Logic Programming and one on Probabilistic Logic Programming that could be, in the future, conveniently merged to exploit the advantages of both. We test the proposed approaches on a real energy plan and we discuss their limitations and advantages.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, 26th Int'l. Conference on Logic Programming (ICLP'10

An application of hybrid life cycle assessment as a decision support framework for green supply chains

In an effort to achieve sustainable operations, green supply chain management has become an important area for firms to concentrate on due to its inherent involvement with all the processes that provide foundations to successful business. Modelling methodologies of product supply chain environmental assessment are usually guided by the principles of life cycle assessment (LCA). However, a review of the extant literature suggests that LCA techniques suffer from a wide range of limitations that prevent a wider application in real-world contexts; hence, they need to be incorporated within decision support frameworks to aid environmental sustainability strategies. Thus, this paper contributes in understanding and overcoming the dichotomy between LCA model development and the emerging practical implementation to inform carbon emissions mitigation strategies within supply chains. Therefore, the paper provides both theoretical insights and a practical application to inform the process of adopting a decision support framework based on a LCA methodology in a real-world scenario. The supply chain of a product from the steel industry is considered to evaluate its environmental impact and carbon ‘hotspots’. The study helps understanding how operational strategies geared towards environmental sustainability can be informed using knowledge and information generated from supply chain environmental assessments, and for highlighting inherent challenges in this process