High Time for Conservation: Adding the Environment to the Debate on Marijuana Liberalization

The liberalization of marijuana policies, including the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana, is sweeping the United States and other countries. Marijuana cultivation can have significant negative collateral effects on the environment that are often unknown or overlooked. Focusing on the state of California, where by some estimates 60% -- 70% of the marijuana consumed in the United States is grown, we argue that (a) the environmental harm caused by marijuana cultivation merits a direct policy response, (b) current approaches to governing the environmental effects are inadequate, and (c) neglecting discussion of the environmental impacts of cultivation when shaping future marijuana use and possession policies represents a missed opportunity to reduce, regulate, and mitigate environmental harm

Inclusion of bedrock vadose zone in dynamic global vegetation models is key for simulating vegetation structure and function

Across many upland environments, soils are thin and plant roots extend into fractured and weathered bedrock where moisture and nutrients can be obtained. Root water extraction from unsaturated weathered bedrock is widespread and, in many environments, can explain gradients in vegetation community composition, transpiration, and plant sensitivity to climate. Despite increasing recognition of its importance, the “rock moisture” reservoir is rarely incorporated into vegetation and Earth system models. Here, we address this weakness in a widely used dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM; LPJ-GUESS). First, we use a water flux-tracking deficit approach to more accurately parameterize plant-accessible water storage capacity across the contiguous United States, which critically includes the water in bedrock below depths typically prescribed by soil databases. Secondly, we exploit field-based knowledge of contrasting plant-available water storage capacity in weathered bedrock across two bedrock types in the Northern California Coast Ranges as a detailed case study. For the case study in Northern California, climate and soil water storage capacity are similar at the two study areas, but the site with thick weathered bedrock and ample rock moisture supports a temperate mixed broadleaf–needleleaf evergreen forest, whereas the site with thin weathered bedrock and limited rock moisture supports an oak savanna. The distinct biomes, seasonality and magnitude of transpiration and primary productivity, and baseflow magnitudes only emerge from the DGVM when a new and simple subsurface storage structure and hydrology scheme is parameterized with storage capacities extending beyond the soil into the bedrock. Across the contiguous United States, the updated hydrology and subsurface storage improve annual evapotranspiration estimates as compared to satellite-derived products, particularly in seasonally dry regions. Specifically, the updated hydrology and subsurface storage allow for enhanced evapotranspiration through the dry season that better matches actual evapotranspiration patterns. While we made changes to both the subsurface water storage capacity and the hydrology, the most important impacts on model performance derive from changes to the subsurface water storage capacity. Our findings highlight the importance of rock moisture in explaining and predicting vegetation structure and function, particularly in seasonally dry climates. These findings motivate efforts to better incorporate the rock moisture reservoir into vegetation, climate, and landscape evolution models.</p

High time for conservation: adding the environment to the debate on marijuana liberalization

The liberalization of marijuana policies, including the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana, is sweeping the United States and other countries. Marijuana cultivation can have significant negative collateral effects on the environment that are often unknown or overlooked. Focusing on the state of California, where by some estimates 60%–70% of the marijuana consumed in the United States is grown, we argue that (a) the environmental harm caused by marijuana cultivation merits a direct policy response, (b) current approaches to governing the environmental effects are inadequate, and (c) neglecting discussion of the environmental impacts of cultivation when shaping future marijuana use and possession policies represents a missed opportunity to reduce, regulate, and mitigate environmental harm.Published versio

A, b careful: The challenge of scale invariance for comparative analyses in power law models of the streamflow recession

The falling limb of the hydrograph - the streamflow recession - is frequently well approximated by power law functions, in the form dq/dt = -aq , so that recessions are often characterized in terms of their power law parameters (a, b). The empirical determination and interpretation of the parameter a is typically biased by the presence of a ubiquitous mathematical artifact resulting from the scale-free properties of the power law function. This reduces the information available from recession parameter analysis and creates several heretofore unaddressed methodological "pitfalls." This letter outlines the artifact, demonstrates its genesis, and presents an empirical rescaling method to remove artifact effects from fitted recession parameters. The rescaling process reveals underlying climatic patterns obscured in the original data and, we suggest, could maximize the information content of fitted power laws.

a, b careful: The challenge of scale invariance for comparative analyses in power law models of the streamflow recession

The falling limb of the hydrograph - the streamflow recession - is frequently well approximated by power law functions, in the form dq/dt = -aqb, so that recessions are often characterized in terms of their power law parameters (a, b). The empirical determination and interpretation of the parameter a is typically biased by the presence of a ubiquitous mathematical artifact resulting from the scale-free properties of the power law function. This reduces the information available from recession parameter analysis and creates several heretofore unaddressed methodological "pitfalls." This letter outlines the artifact, demonstrates its genesis, and presents an empirical rescaling method to remove artifact effects from fitted recession parameters. The rescaling process reveals underlying climatic patterns obscured in the original data and, we suggest, could maximize the information content of fitted power laws