DISCUSSION: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INDICATORS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT FROM AN ECONOMIC VIEWPOINT

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

The National Fire and Fire Surrogate Study: Effects of Fuel Reduction Methods on Forest Vegetation Structure and Fuels

Changes in vegetation and fuels were evaluated from measurements taken before and after fuel reduction treatments (prescribed. re, mechanical treatments, and the combination of the two) at 12 Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) sites located in forests with a surface. re regime across the conterminous United States. To test the relative effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments and their effect on ecological parameters we used an information-theoretic approach on a suite of 12 variables representing the overstory (basal area and live tree, sapling, and snag density), the understory (seedling density, shrub cover, and native and alien herbaceous species richness), and the most relevant fuel parameters for wild. re damage (height to live crown, total fuel bed mass, forest floor mass, and woody fuel mass). In the short term (one year after treatment), mechanical treatments were more effective at reducing overstory tree density and basal area and at increasing quadratic mean tree diameter. Prescribed. re treatments were more effective at creating snags, killing seedlings, elevating height to live crown, and reducing surface woody fuels. Overall, the response to fuel reduction treatments of the ecological variables presented in this paper was generally maximized by the combined mechanical plus burning treatment. If the management goal is to quickly produce stands with fewer and larger diameter trees, less surface fuel mass, and greater herbaceous species richness, the combined treatment gave the most desirable results. However, because mechanical plus burning treatments also favored alien species invasion at some sites, monitoring and control need to be part of the prescription when using this treatment

1940: Abilene Christian College Bible Lectures - Full Text

Delivered in the Auditorium of Abilene Christian College, February, 1940, Abilene, Texas. Published April, 1940 PRICE, $1.00 FIRM FOUNDATION PUBLISHING HOUSE Austin, Texas

Frontiers, Opportunities, and Challenges in Biochemical and Chemical Catalysis of CO_2 Fixation

Two major energy-related problems confront the world in the next 50 years. First, increased worldwide competition for gradually depleting fossil fuel reserves (derived from past photosynthesis) will lead to higher costs, both monetarily and politically. Second, atmospheric CO_2 levels are at their highest recorded level since records began. Further increases are predicted to produce large and uncontrollable impacts on the world climate. These projected impacts extend beyond climate to ocean acidification, because the ocean is a major sink for atmospheric CO2.1 Providing a future energy supply that is secure and CO_2-neutral will require switching to nonfossil energy sources such as wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal energy and developing methods for transforming the energy produced by these new sources into forms that can be stored, transported, and used upon demand

High biolability of ancient permafrost carbon upon thaw

Ongoing climate warming in the Arctic will thaw permafrost and remobilize substantial terrestrial organic carbon (OC) pools. Around a quarter of northern permafrost OC resides in Siberian Yedoma deposits, the oldest form of permafrost carbon. However, our understanding of the degradation and fate of this ancient OC in coastal and fluvial environments still remains rudimentary. Here, we show that ancient dissolved OC (DOC, &gt;21,000 (14)Cyears), the oldest DOC ever reported, is mobilized in stream waters draining Yedoma outcrops. Furthermore, this DOC is highly biolabile: 34 +/- 0.8% was lost during a 14 day incubation under dark, oxygenated conditions at ambient river temperatures. Mixtures of Yedoma stream DOC with mainstem river and ocean waters, mimicking in situ mixing processes, also showed high DOC losses (14 days; 17 +/- 0.8% to 33 +/- 1.0%). This suggests that this exceptionally old DOC is among the most biolabile DOC in any previously reported contemporary river or stream in the Arctic.</p

Variation in carbon and nitrogen concentrations among peatland categories at the global scale

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.Peatlands account for 15 to 30% of the world's soil carbon (C) stock and are important controls over global nitrogen (N) cycles. However, C and N concentrations are known to vary among peatlands contributing to the uncertainty of global C inventories, but there are few global studies that relate peatland classification to peat chemistry. We analyzed 436 peat cores sampled in 24 countries across six continents and measured C, N, and organic matter (OM) content at three depths down to 70 cm. Sites were distinguished between northern (387) and tropical (49) peatlands and assigned to one of six distinct broadly recognized peatland categories that vary primarily along a pH gradient. Peat C and N concentrations, OM content, and C:N ratios differed significantly among peatland categories, but few differences in chemistry with depth were found within each category. Across all peatlands C and N concentrations in the 10-20 cm layer, were 440 ± 85.1 g kg-1 and 13.9 ± 7.4 g kg-1, with an average C:N ratio of 30.1 ± 20.8. Among peatland categories, median C concentrations were highest in bogs, poor fens and tropical swamps (446-532 g kg-1) and lowest in intermediate and extremely rich fens (375-414 g kg-1). The C:OM ratio in peat was similar across most peatland categories, except in deeper samples from ombrotrophic tropical peat swamps that were higher than other peatlands categories. Peat N concentrations and C:N ratios varied approximately two-fold among peatland categories and N concentrations tended to be higher (and C:N lower) in intermediate fens compared with other peatland types. This study reports on a unique data set and demonstrates that differences in peat C and OM concentrations among broadly classified peatland categories are predictable, which can aid future studies that use land cover assessments to refine global peatland C and N stocks.Peer reviewe

Ecological effects of alternative fuel-reduction treatments: highlights of the National Fire and Fire Surrogate study (FFS)

The 12-site National Fire and Fire Surrogate study (FFS) was a multivariate experiment that evaluated ecological consequences of alternative fuel-reduction treatments in seasonally dry forests of the US. Each site was a replicated experiment with a common design that compared an un-manipulated control, prescribed fire, mechanical and mechanical + fire treatments. Variables within the vegetation, fuelbed, forest floor and soil, bark beetles, tree diseases and wildlife were measured in 10-ha stands, and ecological response was compared among treatments at the site level, and across sites, to better understand the influence of differential site conditions. For most sites, treated stands were predicted to be more resilient to wildfire if it occurred shortly after treatment, but for most ecological variables, short-term response to treatments was subtle and transient. Strong site-specificity was observed in the response of most ecosystem variables, suggesting that practitioners employ adaptive management at the local scale. Because ecosystem components were tightly linked, adaptive management would need to include monitoring of a carefully chosen set of key variables. Mechanical treatments did not serve as surrogates for fire for most variables, suggesting that fire be maintained whenever possible. Restoration to pre-settlement conditions will require repeated treatments over time, with eastern forests requiring more frequent applications.Keywords: Oak, Prescribed fire, Frequent fire regimes, Pine, Mechanical treatment, Forest thinning, Dry forest management, Seasonally dry forest