The secret life of water systems: least cost planning beyond demand management

The water industry in Australia and international is involved in a period of significant change. The conventional roles of water and wastewater utilities are being redefined with the objectives of resource conservation and sustainable development added to existing responsibilities. Least cost planning (LCP) has emerged as the way forward for water utilities in regions where water conservation has become an objective or where ongoing supply expansion is constrained. It involves techniques for the design and evaluation of demand management programs and aims to compare demand- and supply-side options on an equivalent basis. The approach is based on the key ideas that: demand is for the services water provides rather than the actual volume supplied; and that a drop of water saved is equal to a drop supplied. This paper contends that LCP has much to offer the water sector beyond demand management. It is an approach that has potential for options assessment across the water cycle and can aid planning towards more sustainable outcomes within the sector. The paper concludes that LCP concepts and techniques will have worth in addressing the challenges of sustainable development for both urban water systems and catchment managemen

Building systems-based scenario narratives for novel biodiversity futures in an agricultural landscape

Improving biodiversity futures requires a systems-based appreciation of the dynamic human and bio-physical interactions shaping landscapes. By combining a structured approach to identifying key driversof change on biodiversity with a collaborative approach to scenario planning, biodiversity planners andmanagers can work with stakeholders to identify a range of possible futures and explore their impli-cations. This paper presents an approach to developing scenario narratives constructed against keydrivers of change identified through a social–ecological systems analysis. The approach facilitated theintegration of stakeholder and expert input to inform system dynamics affecting biodiversity outcomes,helping to direct and discipline the collective imagination, and to challenge assumptions and reveal newopportunities and strategies. Examples are provided to show how conventional notions about preser-ving biodiversity remnants “as is” were not a good fit for the diverse range of futures imagined, and thatrestoration ecology would have to expand to incorporate ideas of landscape fluidity and novel ecosys-tems. Aspects of the scenario narratives highlighted the need for new conservation strategies for theendangered native grassland ecological community within the Tasmanian Midlands case study, and are-focusing on new locations across that landscape

Tasmanian Midlands options to improve biodiversity governance arrangements

Conserving landscapes rich in biodiversity requires long-term planning and understanding of how social and ecological systems co-evolve. How such landscapes are governed (that is, the structures and processes that determine who has influence, who decides, and how decision-makers are held accountable) is pivotal to the long-term conservation of this biodiversity. Being able to govern across diverse landscapes, like the Tasmanian Midlands, where there are multiple landholders and multiple values, is a challenging task. Governance can improve biodiversity outcomes indirectly by enabling decision-making and management actions that are more responsive to environmental and social conditions. Better biodiversity outcomes could mean improving the extent and/or condition of biodiversity values or reducing the threat to those values. For example, this could be an increase in extent and improvement in condition of lowland native grasslands. Better outcomes might also include a decline in threats from invasive species or a land use mix that is more favourable to conservation. The process to generate the two governance options presented in this document is pictured on the following page. The research team developed two initial proposals for governance arrangements through an analysis of findings from key informant interviews, complemented by a review of the literature to identify whether best practice case studies elsewhere could offer innovative ways forward. The two proposed options were then discussed at three focus groups: one that prioritised input from Tasmanian Midlands landholders and their representative organisations; one focused on input from the Tasmanian state government staff; and one that focused on input from Australian Government staff

Costing for sustainable outcomes in urban water systems - a guidebook

Research Report 3

The varieties of remembered experience: Moving memory beyond the bounded self

We review the contributions to this Special Issue that highlight the diverse ways in which memory takes place that go beyond the standard personal autobiographical memory and its reliance on internal imagery. We look at how contributors explore a highly individual memory of trauma and re-consider it as a complex, socially contested phenomenon. We next turn to a discussion of shared memory within dyads and then look at a contribution that examines bodily and gestural alignment during shared recollection among group members and/or families. From there, contributors raise considerations of collective memory in prisoner-of-war survivors and among football fans attending a World Cup event. The next contribution illustrates how collective forgetting creates social bonds in a similar manner to collective remembering. Finally, we show how the boundaries of memory are being stretched by digital technology through its influence on how we recall and share memories. Methodological innovations are also discussed

Using scenario planning to assess governance reforms for enhancing biodiversity outcomes

Governance arrangements frame and direct how land managers respond to the multiple demands and challenges of conserving biodiversity. Biodiversity conservation requires attention to how social-ecological systems (SES) change and can be influenced over time. It is important that governance settings within these systems can support achievement of biodiversity outcomes. Two questions then arise. Will current arrangements lead to desirable biodiversity outcomes, and if not, are there other arrangements that plausibly might do better? However, methods for answering these questions in collaboration with critical stakeholders such as policy makers and land managers are not evident in the literature. The aim of this paper is to explore the use of a participatory scenario planning process to test the efficacy of proposed governance reforms for enhancing biodiversity outcomes in two contrasting landscapes in Australia. A workshop process was used to consider the effect of the reform options on key drivers of change, and thus how these affected drivers would in turn modify future scenarios, and the biodiversity outcomes of these scenarios. In both landscapes, there was a preference for reforms that retained governmental influence or control, in contrast to academic calls for adaptive governance that emphasises the importance of self-organisation and devolution of authority. The workshop process, although complex and cognitively challenging, was regarded by participants as suitable for testing the utility of alternative governance options for biodiversity conservation. Challenges for the future include designing and considering reforms based on what is possible rather than probable or preferable, and engaging participants over time to build knowledge, engagement and trust. The paper concludes with suggestions for addressing these challenges

Macromolecular structure phasing by neutron anomalous diffraction.

In this report we show for the first time that neutron anomalous dispersion can be used in a practical manner to determine experimental phases of a protein crystal structure, providing a new tool for structural biologists. The approach is demonstrated through the use of a state-of-the-art monochromatic neutron diffractometer at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in combination with crystals of perdeuterated protein that minimise the level of hydrogen incoherent scattering and enhance the visibility of the anomalous signal. The protein used was rubredoxin in which cadmium replaced the iron at the iron-sulphur site. While this study was carried out using a steady-state neutron beam source, the results will be of major interest for capabilities at existing and emerging spallation neutron sources where time-of-flight instruments provide inherent energy discrimination. In particular this capability may be expected to offer unique opportunities to a rapidly developing structural biology community where there is increasing interest in the identification of protonation states, protein/water interactions and protein-ligand interactions - all of which are of central importance to a wide range of fundamental and applied areas in the biosciences

On the Ability of Förster Resonance Energy Transfer to Enhance Luminescent Solar Concentrator Efficiency

Developing means to reduce the cost of solar energy is vital to curb our carbon footprint over the upcoming decades. A luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) is a potential solution as it provides light concentration without any tracking device and can be readily integrated into the built environment. In this study we report on an advanced LSC design that employs quantum dots as absorption fluorophores and organic dye molecules as emission fluorophores. By linking the two types of fluorophores to each other, energy is transferred efficiently via Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) from the quantum dot to the dye molecule. This novel method makes use of the quantum dot's spectrally wide absorption profile and the higher quantum yield of the dye. We show that our design can overcome the losses normally incurred due to a low quantum yield emitter by transferring the absorbed energy to a linked fluorophore with a higher quantum yield. Our experimental measurements show FRET can enhance the optical efficiency of a LSC by at least 24.7%. The maximum theoretical efficiency has been investigated by ray-tracing and has been found to be 75.1%; this represents a relative improvement of even 215.5% compared to a LSC doped with quantum dots only (23.8%), showing the great potential of our concept. Our design will initiate interest in fluorophores which have not been considered for LSC applications thus far because of their low quantum yield or small Stokes shift

Bott periodicity and stable quantum classes

We use Bott periodicity to relate previously defined quantum classes to certain "exotic Chern classes" on $BU$. This provides an interesting computational and theoretical framework for some Gromov-Witten invariants connected with cohomological field theories. This framework has applications to study of higher dimensional, Hamiltonian rigidity aspects of Hofer geometry of $\mathbb{CP} ^{n}$, one of which we discuss here.Comment: prepublication versio