The socio-technical organisation of community pharmacies as a factor in the Electronic Prescription Service Release Two implementation: a qualitative study

Background The introduction of a new method of transmitting prescriptions from general practices to community pharmacies in England (Electronic Prescription Service Release 2 (EPS2)) has generated debate on how it will change work practice. As EPS2 will be a key technical element in dispensing, we reviewed the literature to find that there were no studies on how social and technical elements come together to form work practice in community pharmacies. This means the debate has little point of reference. Our aim therefore was to study the ways social and technical elements of a community pharmacy are used to achieve dispensing through the development of a conceptual model on pharmacy work practice, and to consider how a core technical element such the EPS2 could change work practice. Method We used ethnographic methods inclusive of case-study observations and interviews to collect qualitative data from 15 community pharmacies that were in the process of adopting or were soon to adopt EPS2. We analysed the case studies thematically and used rigorous multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary interpretive validation techniques to cross analyse findings. Results In practice, dispensing procedures were not designed to take into account variations in human and technical integration, and assumed that repetitive and collective use of socio-technical elements were at a constant. Variables such as availability of social and technical resources, and technical know-how of staff were not taken into account in formalised procedures. Yet community pharmacies were found to adapt their dispensing in relation to the balance of social and technical elements available, and how much of the social and technical elements they were willing to integrate into dispensing. While some integrated as few technical elements as possible, some depended entirely on technical artefacts. This pattern also applied to the social elements of dispensing. Through the conceptual model development process, we identified three approaches community pharmacies used to appropriate procedures in practice. These were ‘technically oriented’, ‘improvising’ or ‘socially oriented’. Conclusion We offer a model of different work approaches community pharmacies use to dispense, which suggests that when adopting a core technical element such as the EPS2 system of dispensing there could be variations in its successful adoption. Technically oriented pharmacies might find it easiest to integrate a similar artefact into work practice although needs EPS2 to synchronise effectively with existing technologies. Pharmacies adopting an improvising-approach have the potential to improve how they organise dispensing through EPS2 although they will need to improve how they apply their operating procedures. Socially oriented pharmacies will need to dramatically adapt their approach to dispensing since they usually rely on few technical tools

Internet of Things for Sustainable Forestry

Forests and grasslands play an important role in water and air purification, prevention of the soil erosion, and in provision of habitat to wildlife. Internet of Things has a tremendous potential to play a vital role in the forest ecosystem management and stability. The conservation of species and habitats, timber production, prevention of forest soil degradation, forest fire prediction, mitigation, and control can be attained through forest management using Internet of Things. The use and adoption of IoT in forest ecosystem management is challenging due to many factors. Vast geographical areas and limited resources in terms of budget and equipment are some of the limiting factors. In digital forestry, IoT deployment offers effective operations, control, and forecasts for soil erosion, fires, and undesirable depositions. In this chapter, IoT sensing and communication applications are presented for digital forestry systems. Different IoT systems for digital forest monitoring applications are also discussed

Scenarios to Evaluate Long-Term Wildfire Risk in California: New Methods for Considering Links Between Changing Demography, Land Use, and Climate

This paper describes the development and analysis of over 21,000 scenarios for future residential wildfire risk in California on a 1/8‐degree latitude/longitude grid at a monthly time step, using statistical models of wildfire activity and parameterizations of uncertainties related to residential property losses from wildfire. This research explored interactions between medium‐high and low emissions scenarios, three global climate models, six spatially explicit population growth scenarios derived from two growth models, and a range of values for multiple parameters that define vulnerability of properties at risk of loss due to wildfire. These are evaluated over two future time periods relative to a historic baseline. The study also explored the effects of the spatial resolution used for calculating household exposure to wildfire on changes in estimated future property losses. The goal was not to produce one single set of authoritative future risk scenarios, but rather to understand what parameters are important for robustly characterizing effects of climate and growth trajectories on future residential property risks in California. Overall, by end of century, results showed that variation across development scenarios accounts for far more variability in statewide residential wildfire risks than does variation across climate scenarios. However, the most extreme increases in residential fire risks result from the combination of high‐growth/high‐sprawl scenarios with the most extreme climate scenarios considered here. Furthermore, this study shows that the sign of overall statewide risk in the highest growth cases depends on key parameters describing how expected losses vary with increasing housing value at the local level. The paper features case studies for the Bay Area and the Sierra foothills to demonstrate that, while land use decisions can have a profound effect on future residential wildfire risks, the effects of diverse growth and land use strategies vary greatly around the state

Large‐scale restoration increases carbon stability under projected climate and wildfire regimes

Changing climate and increasing area burned pose a challenge to forest carbon (C) storage, which is compounded by an elevated risk of high‐severity wildfire due to long‐term fire suppression in the western US. Restoration treatments that reduce tree density and reintroduce surface fire are effective at moderating fire effects and may help build adaptive capacity to changing environmental conditions. However, treatment implementation has been slow and spatially limited relative to the extent of the area affected by fire suppression. Using model simulations, we quantified how large‐scale restoration treatments in frequent‐fire forest types would influence C outcomes in the Sierra Nevada mountain range under projected climate–wildfire interactions. Our results indicate that large‐scale restoration treatments are an effective means of reducing fire hazard and increasing C storage and stability under future climate and wildfire conditions. The effects of implementation timing suggest that accelerated implementation of large‐scale restoration treatments may confer greater C‐storage benefits, supporting California's efforts to combat climate change

Large‐scale restoration increases carbon stability under projected climate and wildfire regimes

Changing climate and increasing area burned pose a challenge to forest carbon (C) storage, which is compounded by an elevated risk of high‐severity wildfire due to long‐term fire suppression in the western US. Restoration treatments that reduce tree density and reintroduce surface fire are effective at moderating fire effects and may help build adaptive capacity to changing environmental conditions. However, treatment implementation has been slow and spatially limited relative to the extent of the area affected by fire suppression. Using model simulations, we quantified how large‐scale restoration treatments in frequent‐fire forest types would influence C outcomes in the Sierra Nevada mountain range under projected climate–wildfire interactions. Our results indicate that large‐scale restoration treatments are an effective means of reducing fire hazard and increasing C storage and stability under future climate and wildfire conditions. The effects of implementation timing suggest that accelerated implementation of large‐scale restoration treatments may confer greater C‐storage benefits, supporting California's efforts to combat climate change

Climate, Fire and Carbon: Tipping Points and Landscape Vulnerability in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

More frequent fires under climate warming are likely to alter terrestrial carbon (C) stocks by reducing the amount of C stored in biomass and soil. However, the thresholds of fire frequency that could shift landscapes from C sinks to C sources under future climates and whether these are likely to be exceeded during the coming century are not known. We used the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) as a case study to explore the conditions under which future climate and fire regimes would result in tipping points of C source/sink dynamics. We asked: (1) How great a change in climate and fire regime would be required to shift each of the dominant vegetation communities in the GYE from a net C sink to a net C source? (2) Do current projections indicate that changes of this magnitude are likely to occur in the next century, and if so, where in the GYE do they occur? and (3) What are the integrated effects of changing climate, vegetation, and fire on spatial patterns of C flux across the GYE landscape as a whole? To answer these questions, we developed downscaled climate projections for the GYE for three general circulation models and used these projections in dynamic and statistical modeling approaches. Using the CENTURY ecosystem model, we simulated C storage for individual forest stands under three fire-event pathways (fires at 90, 60 or every 30 years) to year 2100 compared to a reference simulation (no fire, representing the historical fire interval) under both future and current climate scenarios. Our results show that fire intervals would need to be less than 90 years for lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) forest stands to shift from a net C sink to a net C source because the time between fires would be less than the time required to recover 85% of the C lost to fire (Question 1). We also developed new statistical models to relate monthly climate data to the occurrence of large fires (\u3e 200 ha) and area burned, evaluated these for the 1972-1999 time period, and then used these relationships to predict fire occurrence and area burned in the GYE through 2100 given the downscaled climate projections. Results showed that anticipated climate changes are likely to increase fire frequency and annual area burned over the next century compared to the observational record. However, the timing of these changes and the probability of future largescale 1988-type fires depended on the type of climate-fire model that was used, the accuracy of the simulated future climates, and to a small degree, the specific climate simulation. The climatefire frequency and climate-fire size models are extremely sensitive to temperature differences between the projected future climate and the 1961-1990 base period because the two large fire years that occurred in the 1972-1999 climate-fire model calibration period had relatively small temperature anomalies (0.5 to 1 °C) and the small sample size of the large fire years in the time series makes model building a challenge. Between now and 2050, where we have the most confidence in the model, all climate scenarios and both fire-climate model formulations projected at least two 1988 sized fires (range 2-6, fires projected to be \u3e 300,000 ha). After 2050, climatic conditions are sufficiently outside the historic range of variability used to estimate statistical fire models that those models cannot be used to characterize the magnitude of extreme fire years. However, extreme fire years from 2050-2100 will almost certainly become more common then projected for 2010-2050, because temperature is projected to continue to increase while precipitation is projected to remain at historical levels. We note, however, that projected changes in temperature by the climate scenarios only reach the historical differences in temperature between a subalpine forest (with an historical fire return interval of \u3e 100 years) and a montane forest (with an historical fire return interval of \u3c 30 years) by the end of this century (5-6 °C). In the northern Rocky Mountains, large fire years have been driven historically by extreme climate conditions. Our results imply that fuel availability would become increasingly important for fire as weather conditions conducive to large fires become common. The capacity for fast post-fire regeneration of lodgepole pine from an aerial seedbank (serotinous cones) and the projected increase in lodgepole pine productivity under warmer climate conditions are unlikely to counter the anticipated reductions in fire-return interval. In all future climate scenarios, decreases in fire-return interval are likely to reduce the potential of the GYE landscape to store C (Question 3). The magnitude of this shift will depend on the future distribution of forest and nonforest ecosystems across the landscape, other constraints on fire patterns not considered here (fuels, ignition factors, and landscape management), and the accuracy of the fire-climate model as future climate diverges increasingly from the past. If past climate-fire relationships can predict the future, soon after 2050 climate conditions projected by all three general circulation models would likely result in more fire than the current conifer forest ecosystem in the GYE could sustain. Forest managers should be considering the potential for qualitative shifts in forest distribution and regional C storage to occur before 2100

Exploring use of climate information for optimal design of water resources infrastructure

We conducted surveys of fire and fuels managers at local, regional, and national levels to gain insights into decision processes and information flows in wildfire management. Survey results in the form of fire managers’ decision calendars show how climate information needs vary seasonally, over space, and through the organizational network, and help determine optimal points for introducing climate information and forecasts into decision processes. We identified opportunities to use climate information in fire management, including seasonal to interannual climate forecasts at all organizational levels, to improve the targeting of fuels treatments and prescribed burns, the positioning and movement of initial attack resources, and staffing and budgeting decisions. Longer-term (5–10 years) outlooks also could be useful at the national level in setting budget and research priorities. We discuss these opportunities and examine the kinds of organizational changes that could facilitate effective use of existing climate information and climate forecast capabilities