Distributions and abundances of Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) and other pelagic fishes in the California Current Ecosystem during spring 2006, 2008, and 2010, estimated from acoustic–trawl surveys

The abundances and distributions of coastal pelagic fish species in the California Current Ecosystem from San Diego to southern Vancouver Island, were estimated from combined acoustic and trawl surveys conducted in the spring of 2006, 2008, and 2010. Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax), jack mackerel (Trachurus symmetricus), and Pacific mackerel (Scomber japonicus) were the dominant coastal pelagic fish species, in that order. Northern anchovy (Engraulis mordax) and Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) were sampled only sporadically and therefore estimates for these species were unreliable. The estimates of sardine biomass compared well with those of the annual assessments and confirmed a declining trajectory of the “northern stock” since 2006. During the sampling period, the biomass of jack mackerel was stable or increasing, and that of Pacific mackerel was low and variable. The uncertainties in these estimates are mostly the result of spatial patchiness which increased from sardine to mackerels to anchovy and herring. Future surveys of coastal pelagic fish species in the California Current Ecosystem should benefit from adaptive sampling based on modeled habitat; increased echosounder and trawl sampling, particularly for the most patchy and nearshore species; and directed-trawl sampling for improved species identification and estimations of their acoustic target stre

Chapter 8. Lifecycle and sustainability

International audienceThe concept of sustainability was developed in order to improve the present human living standards while maintaining the availability of the natural resources for future generations. According to this definition, technological development is a way to improve the sustainability, because it enables to meet human needs by transforming natural resources into useful products. By 2050, the urban world population is expected to approximately double to an estimated 6.4 billion2 and we are aware that the Earth’s natural resources are already limited. In this context, less impacting and more efficient industrial processes’ design represents a real challenge for engineers. From now on, the impacts of new technologies have to be assessed in detail, all along their life cycle, even before their massive industrial deployment.We should be sure that the generated impacts are actually counterbalanced by the improvement of the living standards on Earth. In this chapter, we will consider new technologies related to the development and treatment of lithium batteries. In the first part, we will demonstrate how existing studiesare already taking into account environmental impacts assessment and we will particularly emphasize the main assumptions realized using life cycle assessment (LCA) approaches. In the second part, we will focus on the end-of-life (EOL) of lithium batteries to demonstrate that the entire value chain has to be considered while arbitrating on the acceptability or not of a design decision from an environmental perspective.Les batteries de type lithium connaissent et vont connaitre un essor considérable compte tenu d'une part de leurs bonnes performances et d'autre part d'une demande sans cesse croissante d'énergie notamment pour les applications transports. Cet accroissement entraîne une consommation accrue de matières premières et exige, dès aujourd'hui, de penser « cycle de vie » et « développement durable » afin de préserver et de pérenniser les ressources naturelles. Ce chapitre décrit dans un premier temps la méthodologie de l'« analyse du cycle de vie » appliquée aux batteries au lithium à partir de l'analyse de travaux publiés dans la littérature. En particulier les points clefs de ces études sont soulignés et des améliorations indispensables dans l'application de la méthode sont proposées. Dans un deuxième temps, le chapitre décrit un rapide état de l'art du recyclage et pointe la nécessité d'intégrer et de modéliser tout le cycle de vie des batteries depuis l'extraction des ressource primaires jusqu'à la fin de vie

Prediction and confirmation of seasonal migration of Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) in the California Current Ecosystem

During the last century, the population of Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) in the California Current Ecosystem has exhibited large fluctuations in abundance and migration behavior. From approximately 1900 to 1940, the abundance of sardine reached 3.6 million metric tons and the “northern stock” migrated from offshore of California in the spring to the coastal areas near Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver Island in the summer. In the 1940s, the sardine stock collapsed and the few remaining sardine schools concentrated in the coastal region off southern California, year-round, for the next 50 years. The stock gradually recovered in the late 1980s and resumed its seasonal migration between regions off southern California and Canada. Recently, a model was developed which predicts the potential habitat for the northern stock of Pacific sardine and its seasonal dynamics. The habitat predictions were successfully validated using data from sardine surveys using the daily egg production method; scientific trawl surveys off the Columbia River mouth; and commercial sardine landings off Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver Island. Here, the predictions of the potential habitat and seasonal migration of the northern stock of sardine are validated using data from “acoustic–trawl” surveys of the entire west coast of the United States during the spring and summer of 2008. The estimates of sardine biomass and lengths from the two surveys are not significantly different between spring and summer, indicating that they are representative of the entire stock. The results also confirm that the model of potential sardine habitat can be used to optimally apply survey effort and thus minimize random and systematic sampling error in the biomass estimates. Furthermore, the acoustic–trawl survey data are useful to estimate concurrently the distributions and abundances of other pelagic fishes

Denudation and geomorphic change in the Anthropocene; a global overview

The effects of human activity on geomorphic processes, particularly those related to denudation/sedimentation, are investigated by reviewing case studies and global assessments covering the past few centuries. Evidence we have assembled from different parts of the world, as well as from the literature, show that certain geomorphic processes are experiencing an acceleration, especially since the mid-twentieth century. This suggests that a global geomorphic change is taking place, largely caused by anthropogenic landscape changes

Considerations for management strategy evaluation for small pelagic fishes

Management strategy evaluation (MSE) is the state-of-the-art approach for testing and comparing management strategies in a way that accounts for multiple sources of uncertainty (e.g. monitoring, estimation, and implementation). Management strategy evaluation can help identify management strategies that are robust to uncertainty about the life history of the target species and its relationship to other species in the food web. Small pelagic fish (e.g. anchovy, herring and sardine) fulfil an important ecological role in marine food webs and present challenges to the use of MSE and other simulation-based evaluation approaches. This is due to considerable stochastic variation in their ecology and life history, which leads to substantial observation and process uncertainty. Here, we summarize the current state of MSE for small pelagic fishes worldwide. We leverage expert input from ecologists and modellers to draw attention to sources of process and observation uncertainty for small pelagic species, providing examples from geographical regions where these species are ecologically, economically and culturally important. Temporal variation in recruitment and other life-history rates, spatial structure and movement, and species interactions are key considerations for small pelagic fishes. We discuss tools for building these into the MSE process, with examples from existing fisheries. We argue that model complexity should be informed by management priorities and whether ecosystem information will be used to generate dynamics or to inform reference points. We recommend that our list of considerations be used in the initial phases of the MSE process for small pelagic fishes or to build complexity on existing single-species models.publishedVersio

The Use of DfE Rules During the Conceptual Design Phase of a Product to Give a Quantitative Environmental Evaluation to Designers

Organised by: Cranfield UniversityIn order to help designers to understand and translate the environmental constraints into effective actions, methods and tools have to be developed to enable the generation of more environmentally benign design alternatives according to Design for Environment rules. This article explains how to use DfE rules earlier during the conceptual design phase, when the designers don’t have simple qualitative tools or methods to evaluate their products. Two main actions have been realised: 1) to identify which kind of rules can be applied when designers only have a functional representation of their product 2). To create the necessary indicators to evaluate these rules depending on designers choices.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Compan