The efficacy of hazardous fuel treatments: A rapid assessment of the economic and ecologic consequences of alternative hazardous fuel treatments

Several persistent questions related to wildfire economics and fuel treatment effectiveness continue to concern federal budget analysts at the Office of Wildland Fire in the U.S. Department of Interior. In the summer of 2012, the Ecological Restoration Institute was asked to critically examine the role and effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments for addressing the severity of wildland fire and the effects on suppression costs. ERI gathered a team of university-affiliated and independent economists to research and analyze these questions to determine if and when investments in fuel reduction treatments will reduce federal wildland fire suppression costs, decrease fire risk to communities, and prevent resource damage. The results from this rapid assessment are detailed in this special report to the Office of Wildland Fire

Hampton-Seabrook Estuary Restoration Compendium

The Hampton-Seabrook Estuary Habitat Restoration Compendium (HSEHRC) is a compilation of information on the historic and current distributions of salt marsh and sand dune habitats and diadromous fishes within the Hampton-Seabrook Estuary watershed. These habitats and species groups were selected due to the important ecological role they play within the watershed and with effective restoration and conservation efforts, will continue to play. Other ecologically important habitats and species, such as avifauna, shellfish and eelgrass beds, currently are or historically were present within the watershed. Shellfish and seagrass are recognized as important habitats within the Estuary, but were not included in the current report because a different analytical approach may be required for such dynamic and/or short-lived species. A recent report by the New Hampshire (NH) Audubon Society details modern bird use of the Hampton-Seabrook Estuary (McKinley and Hunt 2008). Restoration opportunities have been identified within the watershed by evaluating habitat loss and changes in land use over time. Restoration opportunities are not prioritized in order to allow the goals and objectives of each restoration practitioner to govern project selection. However, in accordance with an ecosystem-based approach to restoration, areas containing multi-habitat restoration opportunities are considered to be of the highest priority. Furthermore, restoration efforts should ensure processes critical for the support of restored components are maintained or reestablished. The goal of this report is to identify restoration opportunities within the watershed derived from data on habitat change. Many other factors exist that are important in the identification and selection of restoration projects, including water quality and non-point source pollution, water withdrawal, harbor maintenance, recreational impacts, human history, and socioeconomic factors, among others. Although information regarding these factors is not explicitly included in this analysis, these factors must be considered and addressed as they may limit the potential for success in specific restoration efforts We present a series of maps detailing changes in the extent of sand dune and salt marsh habitats over time, the current and historic distribution of seven diadromous fish species, and restoration opportunities within the Hampton-Seabrook Estuary and watershed. A narrative describes the methods used, the results of analyses and examples of prominent restoration projects. Each major section concludes with references used in the narrative and maps. The maps are available for viewing as portable document format (.pdf) files. For those with GIS capabilities, the ArcMap 9.2 project files, associated data files and metadata are included on the compact disc as well. The underlying concept and methods for the HSEHRC stem from a previous project conducted within the Great Bay Estuary, the Great Bay Estuary Restoration Compendium (Odell et al. 2006)

Valuing New Hampshire Salt Marshes: An Approach to Measuring Ecosystem Services

David Burdick presented work a method for estimating the ecosystem services benefits of salt marsh restoration. The approach combines ecological valuation, which uses structural and functional indicators to measure the marshes response to restoration, and economic valuation, which uses ecosystem services valuations, to determine the net gain in ecosystem services of marsh restoration

Science-based restoration monitoring of coastal habitats, Volume One: A framework for monitoring plans under the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000 (Public Law 160-457)

Executive Summary: The Estuary Restoration Act of 2000 (ERA), Title I of the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000, was created to promote the restoration of habitats along the coast of the United States (including the US protectorates and the Great Lakes). The NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science was charged with the development of a guidance manual for monitoring plans under this Act. This guidance manual, titled Science-Based Restoration Monitoring of Coastal Habitats, is written in two volumes. It provides technical assistance, outlines necessary steps, and provides useful tools for the development and implementation of sound scientific monitoring of coastal restoration efforts. In addition, this manual offers a means to detect early warnings that the restoration is on track or not, to gauge how well a restoration site is functioning, to coordinate projects and efforts for consistent and successful restoration, and to evaluate the ecological health of specific coastal habitats both before and after project completion (Galatowitsch et al. 1998). The following habitats have been selected for discussion in this manual: water column, rock bottom, coral reefs, oyster reefs, soft bottom, kelp and other macroalgae, rocky shoreline, soft shoreline, submerged aquatic vegetation, marshes, mangrove swamps, deepwater swamps, and riverine forests. The classification of habitats used in this document is generally based on that of Cowardin et al. (1979) in their Classification of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitats of the United States, as called for in the ERA Estuary Habitat Restoration Strategy. This manual is not intended to be a restoration monitoring “cookbook” that provides templates of monitoring plans for specific habitats. The interdependence of a large number of site-specific factors causes habitat types to vary in physical and biological structure within and between regions and geographic locations (Kusler and Kentula 1990). Monitoring approaches used should be tailored to these differences. However, even with the diversity of habitats that may need to be restored and the extreme geographic range across which these habitats occur, there are consistent principles and approaches that form a common basis for effective monitoring. Volume One, titled A Framework for Monitoring Plans under the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000, begins with definitions and background information. Topics such as restoration, restoration monitoring, estuaries, and the role of socioeconomics in restoration are discussed. In addition, the habitats selected for discussion in this manual are briefly described. (PDF contains 116 pages

Spare capacity modelling and its applications in survivable iP-over-optical networks

As the interest in IP-over-optical networks are becoming the preferred core network architecture, survivability has emerged as a major concern for network service providers; a result of the potentially huge traffic volumes that will be supported by optical infrastructure. Therefore, implementing recovery strategies is critical. In addition to the traditional recovery schemes based around protection and restoration mechanisms, pre-allocated restoration represents a potential candidate to effect and maintain network resilience under failure conditions. Preallocated restoration technique is particularly interesting because it provides a trade-off in terms of recovery performance and resources between protection and restoration schemes. In this paper, the pre-allocated restoration performance is investigated under single and dual-link failures considering a distributed GMPLSbased IP/WDM mesh network. Two load-based spare capacity optimisation methods are proposed in this paper; Local Spare Capacity Optimisation (LSCO) and Global Spare Capacity Optimisation (GSCO)

Abandoned project restoration model (APRM) for residential construction projects

Incompletion of construction projects is a common phenomenon in Malaysia. Project abandonment has given an adverse consequences to the economy, society and environment. In the best interest of the end users and other parties involved in the contract, the best resolution for this abandoned projects is to successfully revive them, which has its’ stages and barriers along the way as well. The main aim of this research is to develop an effective model as a guide towards project restoration which could be used to mitigate the issue of abandoned residential construction projects in Malaysia. Identifying the factors contributing towards the restoration of the abandoned projects are important to have a successful completed project. This research was conducted in the purpose of identifying those significant factors in order to obtain the restoration process for abandoned projects where lastly the Abandoned Project Restoration Model (APRM) was developed. The research focuses on residential construction projects. This research comprises of both quantitative and qualitative approaches and process, where a pilot survey and full survey, and as well as interview analysis were conducted. Factor model was developed using AMOS and lastly the developed model was validated and tested by related officials. The outcome of this research showed that the most significant factor for abandoned project restoration is Management Aspects. A complete restoration process based on the significant factors identified were also obtained. This model is seen as useful in contributing and as well as assisting the restoration of the abandoned projects in Malaysia and could be used as a guideline for that purpose

Application of the quantum spin glass theory to image restoration

Quantum fluctuation is introduced into the Markov random fields (MRF's) model for image restoration in the context of Bayesian approach. We investigate the dependence of the quantum fluctuation on the quality of BW image restoration by making use of statistical mechanics. We find that the maximum posterior marginal (MPM) estimate based on the quantum fluctuation gives a fine restoration in comparison with the maximum a posterior (MAP) estimate or the thermal fluctuation based MPM estimate.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, RevTe