Why beaver-like dams can protect communities from flooding - new research

Low cost, human-made river barriers, similar to those built by beavers, can protect communities at risk of flooding. Our new research has found that such natural barriers intentionally increase water levels upstream to slow down river flow. These flood barriers are made of materials like logs, branches, mud and leaves. They reduce downstream water levels by deliberately blocking the river and storing the water. They then slow down the river flow during a storm. Using natural processes to temporarily store water above and below ground is called natural flood management. It essentially involves using nature as a sponge to soak up rainwater. Not only does this protect communities further down the river from flooding, but it has other benefits too. It helps to enhance habitat diversity for river insects and animals, trap pollutants, and enhance the supply of sediment to the floodplain

Working for the environment: farmer attitudes towards sustainable farming actions in rural Wales, UK

Recognition of land management impacts on water quality and flooding, and climate change-induced increases in storm intensity and flood risk, have led to interest in farmer provision of ecosystem services alongside food production. However, pathways for practical design and funding of agroecological interventions are less well understood. Effective design and implementation of sustainable farming initiatives have been linked to human-centred aspects including stakeholder engagement and provision of social and economic co-benefits. To obtain information on Welsh farmer perspectives on sustainable farming actions and aid development of agroecological policy and design guidance, Welsh farmer perspectives on sustainable farming were obtained through discussion, online polls, and questionnaires. Participant-identified barriers to action included incorporation of return on initial time and cost investment in long-term farm budgets, occurrence of extreme weather events, and tenanted land. Decision-making processes were rooted in community discussion to balance perceived needs of the land and farm business, with communication preferences expressed for bilingual farm advice provision and support of farmer-to-farmer knowledge transfer pathways. In addition to responding to research questions, participants identified interdependent components of economic, social, cultural, and environmental sustainability necessary to achieve positive environmental outcomes, and expressed environmentally oriented farming identities linked to environmental guardianship and caretaking. Design of tree-planting schemes was discussed as an example of this interlinkage, with positive attitudes expressed for land sharing at small spatial scales, but not at the whole-farm scale

Field-based monitoring of instream leaky barrier backwater and storage during storm events

Engineered leaky barriers are increasingly used as natural flood management methods providing ecosystem and water quality benefits in addition to flood attenuation, complementing hard engineering flood defences. Field-based monitoring of a natural flood management site, Wilde Brook in the Corvedale catchment, England (UK) studied the rainfall-runoff relationship for a 5.36 km reach with 105 leaky barriers over two years. Paired pressure transducers were placed upstream and downstream of three channel spanning leaky barriers, allowing evaluation of upstream backwater rise relative to rainfall intensity, storm magnitude, and frequency. By increasing backwater rise, the leaky barriers caused overbank flows, resulting in a reduction in the cross-sectional area velocity after the event. The incidence of overbank flow depended on the local stream cross-sectional profile, barrier properties, location in the reach, and storm magnitude. Barrier operational flow conditions were classified into five modes according to relative bank inundation and barrier submergence extent. The backwater rise magnitude depended on barrier physical properties and evolution over time through cycles of accretion and build-up of brash and leafy material in the barrier, in addition to local bedload sediment transport dynamics, where instances of scour around the barriers were observed. Backwater rise and net volume hydrographs showed rapid filling up behind the barriers on the rising limb and slower water release on the falling limb. For a ∼4 yr return period storm event, results indicated that one leaky barrier increased storage volume by up to 102 m3, which translates to an overall net volume increase of ∼10,700 m3 for the full reach. These new findings provide quantitative evidence of leaky barrier backwater and storage performance, and leaky barrier design recommendations for storms up to a 4 yr return period. This evidence can be used to develop and validate flood modelling generalised approaches for smaller, more frequent storms, and work towards the development of an approach for modelling leaky barriers for larger storm magnitudes

Diurnal and photoperiodic changes in Thyrotrophin stimulating hormone β (TSHβ) expression, and associated regulation of deiodinase enzymes (DIO2, DIO3) in the female juvenile chicken hypothalamus

Increased TSHβ expression in the pars tuberalis is thought to be an early step in the neuroendocrine mechanism transducing photoperiodic information. This study aimed to determine the relationship between long-photoperiods (LP) and diurnal TSHβ gene expression in the juvenile chicken by comparing LP-photostimulated birds with groups kept on short photoperiods (SP) for 1 or 12 days. TSHβ expression increased 3 and 23-fold after 1 and 12 days LP-photostimulation both during the day and at night. In both SP and LP conditions, TSHβ expression was between 3 and 14-fold higher at night than in the day, suggesting that TSHβ expression cycles in a diurnal pattern irrespective of photoperiod. The ratio of DIO2/3 was decreased on LPs, consequent upon changes in DIO3 expression, but there was no evidence of any diurnal effect on DIO2 or DIO3 expression. Plasma prolactin concentrations revealed both an effect of LPs and time-of-day. Thus, TSHβ expression changes in a dynamic fashion, both diurnally and in response to photoperiod. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

A review of African horse sickness and its implications for Ireland

African horse sickness is an economically highly important non-contagious but infectious Orbivirus disease that is transmitted by various species of Culicoides midges. The equids most severely affected by the virus are horses, ponies, and European donkeys; mules are somewhat less susceptible, and African donkeys and zebra are refractory to the devastating consequences of infection. In recent years, Bluetongue virus, an Orbivirus similar to African horse sickness, which also utilises Culicoides spp. as its vector, has drastically increased its range into previously unaffected regions in northern Europe, utilising indigenous vector species, and causing widespread economic damage to the agricultural sector. Considering these events, the current review outlines the history of African horse sickness, including information concerning virus structure, transmission, viraemia, overwintering ability, and the potential implications that an outbreak would have for Ireland. While the current risk for the introduction of African horse sickness to Ireland is considered at worst ‘very low’, it is important to note that prior to the 2006 outbreak of Bluetongue in northern Europe, both diseases were considered to be of equal risk to the United Kingdom (‘medium-risk’). It is therefore likely that any outbreak of this disease would have serious socio-economic consequences for Ireland due to the high density of vulnerable equids and the prevalence of Culicoides species, potentially capable of vectoring the virus

The Idea of Social Life

This paper reclaims the idea that human society is a form of life, an idea once vibrant in the work of Toennies, Durkheim, Simmel, Le Bon, Kroeber, Freud, Bion, and Follett but moribund today. Despite current disparagements, this idea remains the only and best answer to our primary experience of society as vital feeling. The main obstacle to conceiving society as a life is linguistic; the logical form of life is incommensurate with the logical form of language. However, it is possible to extend our conceptual reach by appealing to alternative symbolisms more congenial to living form such as, and especially, art.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68336/2/10.1177_004839319502500201.pd