Environmental impact assessment of the pangasius sector in the Mekong Delta

In the past seven years the export of white pangasius fillets grew fast. The culture method shifted to intensive production of striped catfish (Ca Tra) in deep ponds because this is more efficient than the pen and cage culture of Ca Basa. Today, striped catfish comprises more than 90 % of the culture. The increased production was achieved by producers investing in large ponds. The market chain is gearing towards vertical integration. Most farms keep fish at relatively high densities of 15 to 25 fish/m3 in ponds having a depth of up to 4m, and are advised to exchange daily 20 to 40% of the water. The sustainability of the sector is threatened due to the increased environmental pressure, and hampered by the growing cost of inputs and reduced farm-gate prices of the fish. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) intends to identify measures for preventing or mitigating the environmental impacts of catfish culture in the Mekong Delta. The EIA was a seven-step process during which we interacted twice with part of the main stakeholders. To build trust among the stakeholders from the sector, we conducted the scoping and goal setting with them

Lifetime measurements in the transitional nucleus 138Gd

Lifetime measurements have been made in the ground-state band of the transitional nucleus 138Gd from coincidence recoil-distance Doppler-shift data. 138Gd nuclei were produced using the 106Cd (36Ar, 2p2n) reaction with a beam energy of 190 MeV. Reduced transition probabilities have been extracted from the lifetime data collected with the Köln plunger placed at the target position of the JUROGAM-II array. The B(E2) values have been compared with predictions from X(5) critical-point calculations, which describe the phase transition between vibrational and axially symmetric nuclear shapes, as well as with IBM-1 calculations at the critical point. While the excitation energies in 138Gd are consistent with X(5) predictions, the large uncertainties associated with the measured B(E2) values cannot preclude vibrational and rotational contributions to the low-lying structure of 138Gd. Although experimental knowledge for the low-lying γ and β-vibrational bands in 138Gd is limited, potential-energy surface calculations suggest an increase in γ softness in the ground-state band. In order to more fully account for the effects of γ softness, the X(5) and IBM-1 calculations need to be extended to include the γ degree of freedom for 138Gd