Financial incentives for large-scale wetland restoration: beyond markets to common asset trusts

Wetlands provide $47.4 trillion/year worth of ecosystem services globally and support immense biodiversity, yet face widespread drainage and pollution, and large-scale wetlands restoration is urgently needed. Payment for ecosystem service (PES) schemes provide a viable avenue for funding large-scale wetland restoration. However, schemes around the globe differ substantially in their goals, structure, challenges, and effectiveness in supporting large-scale wetland restoration. Here, we suggest wetland-based PES schemes use common asset trusts (CATs) to build investment portfolios of wetlands across landscapes that sustain and enhance overall provision of multiple ecosystem services. CATs can meet the needs of multiple investors, permit bundled payments, and provide flexibility to invest in the restoration of numerous services/values, all using a coordinated, highly collaborative, prioritized, and transparent process. CATs would support financial viability, facilitate efficiency to reduce administrative burdens, and enable credibility and social licence building to restore wetland values and services globally

The importance of small artificial water bodies as sources of methane emissions in Queensland, Australia

Emissions from flooded land represent a direct source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Methane emissions from large, artificial water bodies have previously been considered, with numerous studies assessing emission rates and relatively simple procedures available to determine their surface area and generate upscaled emissions estimates. In contrast, the role of small artificial water bodies (ponds) is very poorly quantified, and estimation of emissions is constrained both by a lack of data on their spatial extent and a scarcity of direct flux measurements. In this study, we quantified the total surface area of water bodies <105m2 across Queensland, Australia, and emission rates from a variety of water body types and size classes. We found that the omission of small ponds from current official land use data has led to an underestimate of total flooded land area by 24%, of small artificial water body surface area by 57% and of the total number of artificial water bodies by 1 order of magnitude. All studied ponds were significant hotspots of methane production, dominated by ebullition (bubble) emissions. Two scaling approaches were developed with one based on pond primary use (stock watering, irrigation and urban lakes) and the other using size class. Both approaches indicated that ponds in Queensland alone emit over 1.6 Mt CO2 eq. yr−1, equivalent to 10% of the state's entire land use, land use change and forestry sector emissions. With limited data from other regions suggesting similarly large numbers of ponds, high emissions per unit area and under-reporting of spatial extent, we conclude that small artificial water bodies may be a globally important missing source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions

A Geometric Formulation of Quantum Stress Fields

We present a derivation of the stress field for an interacting quantum system within the framework of local density functional theory. The formulation is geometric in nature and exploits the relationship between the strain tensor field and Riemannian metric tensor field. Within this formulation, we demonstrate that the stress field is unique up to a single ambiguous parameter. The ambiguity is due to the non-unique dependence of the kinetic energy on the metric tensor. To illustrate this formalism, we compute the pressure field for two phases of solid molecular hydrogen. Furthermore, we demonstrate that qualitative results obtained by interpreting the hydrogen pressure field are not influenced by the presence of the kinetic ambiguity.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to Physical Review B. This paper supersedes cond-mat/000627

Charting service quality gaps

Some of the most influential models in the service management literature (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Grönroos, 1990) focus on the concept of service quality gap (SQG). Parasuraman et al. (1985) define a pioneering model with five SQGs, the concepts of which are amplified in Brogowicz et al.’s (1990) model. The latter has five types of encompassing gaps: information and feedback-related gaps; design-related gaps; implementation-related gaps; communication-related gaps; and customers’ perceptions and expectations related gaps. Additionally to this model amplification, other authors (e.g., Brown & Swartz, 1989) have pointed to relevant SQGs that have not been considered previously. This paper integrates current models and a group of SQGs dispersed through the literature in a new comprehensive model. It draws a link between the model and the stages of a strategy process, emphasising the SQGs’ impact on the process and raising relevant research questions.FCT, FEUALG, UALG

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Australian vegetated coastal ecosystems as global hotspots for climate change mitigation

Policies aiming to preserve vegetated coastal ecosystems (VCE; tidal marshes, mangroves and seagrasses) to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions require national assessments of blue carbon resources. Here, we present organic carbon (C) storage in VCE across Australian climate regions and estimate potential annual CO2 emission benefits of VCE conservation and restoration. Australia contributes 5–11% of the C stored in VCE globally (70–185 Tg C in aboveground biomass, and 1,055–1,540 Tg C in the upper 1 m of soils). Potential CO2 emissions from current VCE losses are estimated at 2.1–3.1 Tg CO2-e yr-1, increasing annual CO2 emissions from land use change in Australia by 12–21%. This assessment, the most comprehensive for any nation to-date, demonstrates the potential of conservation and restoration of VCE to underpin national policy development for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Australian vegetated coastal ecosystems as global hotspots for climate change mitigation

© 2019, The Author(s). Policies aiming to preserve vegetated coastal ecosystems (VCE; tidal marshes, mangroves and seagrasses) to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions require national assessments of blue carbon resources. Here, we present organic carbon (C) storage in VCE across Australian climate regions and estimate potential annual CO2 emission benefits of VCE conservation and restoration. Australia contributes 5–11% of the C stored in VCE globally (70–185 Tg C in aboveground biomass, and 1,055–1,540 Tg C in the upper 1 m of soils). Potential CO2 emissions from current VCE losses are estimated at 2.1–3.1 Tg CO2-e yr-1, increasing annual CO2 emissions from land use change in Australia by 12–21%. This assessment, the most comprehensive for any nation to-date, demonstrates the potential of conservation and restoration of VCE to underpin national policy development for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Australian vegetated coastal ecosystems as global hotspots for climate change mitigation

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Policies aiming to preserve vegetated coastal ecosystems (VCE; tidal marshes, mangroves and seagrasses) to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions require national assessments of blue carbon resources. Here, we present organic carbon (C) storage in VCE across Australian climate regions and estimate potential annual CO emission benefits of VCE conservation and restoration. Australia contributes 5-11% of the C stored in VCE globally (70-185 Tg C in aboveground biomass, and 1,055-1,540 Tg C in the upper 1 m of soils). Potential CO emissions from current VCE losses are estimated at 2.1-3.1 Tg CO-e yr, increasing annual CO emissions from land use change in Australia by 12-21%. This assessment, the most comprehensive for any nation to-date, demonstrates the potential of conservation and restoration of VCE to underpin national policy development for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Soft Ionization of Thermally Evaporated Hypergolic Ionic Liquid Aerosols

Isolated ion pairs of a conventional ionic liquid, 1-Ethyl-3-Methyl-Imidazolium Bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([Emim+][Tf2N?]), and a reactive hypergolic ionic liquid, 1-Butyl-3-Methyl-Imidazolium Dicyanamide ([Bmim+][Dca?]), are generated by vaporizing ionic liquid submicron aerosol particles for the first time; the vaporized species are investigated by dissociative ionization with tunable vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light, exhibiting clear intact cations, Emim+ and Bmim+, presumably originating from intact ion pairs. Mass spectra of ion pair vapor from an effusive source of the hypergolic ionic liquid show substantial reactive decomposition due to the internal energy of the molecules emanating from the source. Photoionization efficiency curves in the near threshold ionization region of isolated ion pairs of [Emim+][Tf2N?]ionic liquid vapor are compared for an aerosol source and an effusive source, revealing changes in the appearance energy due to the amount of internal energy in the ion pairs. The aerosol source has a shift to higher threshold energy (~;;0.3 eV), attributed to reduced internal energy of the isolated ion pairs. The method of ionic liquid submicron aerosol particle vaporization, for reactive ionic liquids such as hypergolic species, is a convenient, thermally ?cooler? source of isolated intact ion pairs in the gas phase compared to effusive sources