Cost-Benefit Analysis at the Supreme Court: Cooling Water v. Fish

This is the story of a recent U.S. Supreme Court case on the use of cost-benefit analysis at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a regulation issued under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The case is Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, Inc., et al. The case was not about the quality of the cost-benefit analysis, nor the fact that EPA conducted one, but whether EPA had CWA authority to base regulatory decisions on cost-benefit. I close with thoughts about an alternative Chevron legal test that acknowledges the state of ecosystem valuation.regulatory analysis, ecological benefits, Chevron test, Environmental Economics and Policy, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

TIME SERIES ANALYSIS OF SATELLITE DATA: DEFORESTATION IN SOUTHERN MEXICO

Tropical deforestation is significant to a range of themes that have relevance for the study of environmental change and economic development, including global warming, land degradation, species extinction, and sustainability issues. Recognition that both the location and pattern of forest clearance are often as important as its magnitude has motivated an increasing number of econometric studies that link satellite data and government census data with the aim of modeling the spatial dimensions of deforestation processes. Initial research focused on time series analysis, while recent work has started developing models that make use of time series data on land use. In this paper, we use satellite data from three dates over an approximate 15-year period to estimate the probability of a satellite pixel being in a forested or human-disturbed state. Our study focuses on land-use change in an agricultural frontier spanning the southern Mexican states of Campeche and Quintana Roo. This region contains one of the largest and oldest expanses of tropical forests in the Americas outside of Amazonia and has been identified as a "hot spot" of forest and biotic diversity loss. Over the past 30 years, these forests have been under sustained pressure following the construction of a highway in 1972 that opened the frontier to settlement. The road was part of a larger development effort to promote agricultural colonization and has contributed to a prolonged period of land transformation that has been captured by Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite imagery. We capture these landscape dynamics by assembling a spatial database that links the pixels from three TM images spanning the years 1986-1997 and other spatial environmental and GIS-location derived data with government census socio-economic data of data. We develop a simple utility-maximizing model of the forest clearance decision. Based on previous research, the theoretical model suggests many possible determinants of forest clearance in an economic environment characterized by missing or thin markets, as typifies frontier regions in the nascent stages of economic development. We subsequently test the significance of these determinants using discrete choice analysis These modeling questions have particular relevance for informing carbon sequestration and global warming policy initiatives. Other on-going research conducted by the ecologists associated with the project focus on the species composition, abundance, structure, and re-growth of the different forests types in the region. In addition, litter and biomass studies have been completed which included carbon estimates for the different forest types, including forest re-growth on agricultural land, as function of fallow cycle dynamics. Fallow cycle dynamics are extremely important as the region is dominated by semi-subsistence agriculture with very little chemical inputs, so farmers depend on the fallow cycle to restore soil productivity. It will be these detailed data that will be used to calculate baseline carbon sequestration amounts.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Teaching Population Health: Innovations in the integration of the healthcare and public health systems

Population health is a critical concept in healthcare delivery today. Many healthcare administrators are struggling to adapt their organization from fee-for-service to value delivery. Payers and patients expect healthcare leaders to understand how to deliver care under this new model. Health administration programs play a critical role in training future leaders of healthcare organizations to be adaptable and effective in this dynamic environment. The purpose of this research was to: (a) engage current educators of health administration students in a dialogue about the best practices of integrating the healthcare and public health systems; (b) identify the content and pedagogy for population health in the undergraduate and graduate curricula; and (c) discuss exemplar population health curriculum models, available course materials, and curriculum integration options. Authors conducted focus groups of participants attending this educational session at the 2017 annual AUPHA meeting. Qualitative analysis of the focus group discussions was performed and themes identified by a consensus process. Study findings provide validated recommendations for population health in the health administration curriculum. The identification of key content areas and pedagogical approaches serves to inform health educators as they prepare future health administrators to practice in this new era of population health

Pedagogy: How to best teach population health to future healthcare leaders

Our healthcare system is moving from a fee-for-service reimbursement model to one that provides payment for improvements in three areas related to care: quality, coordination, and cost. Healthcare organizations must use a population health approach when delivering care under this new paradigm. Health administration programs play a critical role in training future leaders of healthcare organizations to be adaptable and effective in this dynamic environment. The purpose of this research was to: (1) engage health administration educators in a dialogue about population health and its relevance to healthcare administration education; (2) describe pedagogical methods appropriate for teaching population health skills and abilities needed for successful careers in our healthcare environment; and (3) identify current student learning outcomes that participants can tailor to utilize in their undergraduate and graduate health management courses. Authors conducted focus groups of participants attending this educational session at the 2018 annual AUPHA meeting. Qualitative analysis of the focus group discussions identified themes by a consensus process. Study findings provide validated recommendations for population health in the health administration curriculum. The identification of pedagogical approaches serves to inform educators as they prepare future health administrators to practice in this new era of healthcare delivery

Effect of nutrient enrichment and turbidity on interactions between Microphytobenthos and a key bivalve: implications for higher trophic levels

Benthic diatoms are a high-quality food resource providing essential fatty acids to benthic grazers. Different stressors may alter the proportion of diatoms and other microalgae and thus can affect the quality as well as quantity of food available to benthic consumers. Microphytobenthos (MPB) lipid biomarkers were assessed in a field experiment to elucidate changes to the biosynthesis of fatty acids (FA) under nitrogen (N) enrichment (three levels) at eight intertidal sites that spanned a turbidity gradient. Influences on the flow of carbon and energy were determined using FA biomarkers of a functionally important deposit-feeding tellinid bivalve (Macomona liliana). Site-specific effects of N enrichment were detected in MPB quantity and quality measurements. Enrichment generally increased MPB biomass (chl a) across all sites, while the proportion of diatom associated fatty acid biomarkers was more variable at some sites. Analysis of sediment FA biomarkers and environmental variables suggested that changes to the microbial community composition and quality were related to water clarity and mud content of the bed. The ability of the MPB to utilize the increased nitrogen, as indicated by the resource use efficiency index, was also important. Despite the increase in MPB biomass, lipid reserves in the tissue of M. liliana, a primary consumer of MPB, were reduced (by up to 6 orders of magnitude) in medium and high N addition plots compared to control plots. Further, the nutritional quality of the bivalves to higher trophic levels [indicated by a lower ratio of essential FAs (ω3:ω6)] was reduced in high treatment plots compared to control plots suggesting the bivalves were adversely affected by nutrient enrichment but not due to a reduction in food availability. This study suggests anthropogenic nutrient enrichment and turbidity may indirectly alter the structure and function of the benthic food web, in terms of carbon flow and ecosystem productivity. This may indirectly change the interactions between MPB and key bivalves as suspended sediment concentrations and nutrient enrichment continue to increase globally. This has implications for various ecosystem functions that are mediated by these interactions, such as nutrient cycling as well as primary and secondary production

RNA-Seq identifies SPGs as a ventral skeletal patterning cue in sea urchins

The sea urchin larval skeleton offers a simple model for formation of developmental patterns. The calcium carbonate skeleton is secreted by primary mesenchyme cells (PMCs) in response to largely unknown patterning cues expressed by the ectoderm. To discover novel ectodermal cues, we performed an unbiased RNA-Seq-based screen and functionally tested candidates; we thereby identified several novel skeletal patterning cues. Among these, we show that SLC26a2/7 is a ventrally expressed sulfate transporter that promotes a ventral accumulation of sulfated proteoglycans, which is required for ventral PMC positioning and skeletal patterning. We show that the effects of SLC perturbation are mimicked by manipulation of either external sulfate levels or proteoglycan sulfation. These results identify novel skeletal patterning genes and demonstrate that ventral proteoglycan sulfation serves as a positional cue for sea urchin skeletal patterning

Molecular tools for bathing water assessment in Europe:Balancing social science research with a rapidly developing environmental science evidence-base

The use of molecular tools, principally qPCR, versus traditional culture-based methods for quantifying microbial parameters (e.g., Fecal Indicator Organisms) in bathing waters generates considerable ongoing debate at the science-policy interface. Advances in science have allowed the development and application of molecular biological methods for rapid (~2 h) quantification of microbial pollution in bathing and recreational waters. In contrast, culture-based methods can take between 18 and 96 h for sample processing. Thus, molecular tools offer an opportunity to provide a more meaningful statement of microbial risk to water-users by providing near-real-time information enabling potentially more informed decision-making with regard to water-based activities. However, complementary studies concerning the potential costs and benefits of adopting rapid methods as a regulatory tool are in short supply. We report on findings from an international Working Group that examined the breadth of social impacts, challenges, and research opportunities associated with the application of molecular tools to bathing water regulations

Consistent phenological shifts in the making of a biodiversity hotspot: the Cape flora

Background The best documented survival responses of organisms to past climate change on short (glacial-interglacial) timescales are distributional shifts. Despite ample evidence on such timescales for local adaptations of populations at specific sites, the long-term impacts of such changes on evolutionary significant units in response to past climatic change have been little documented. Here we use phylogenies to reconstruct changes in distribution and flowering ecology of the Cape flora - South Africa's biodiversity hotspot - through a period of past (Neogene and Quaternary) changes in the seasonality of rainfall over a timescale of several million years. Results Forty-three distributional and phenological shifts consistent with past climatic change occur across the flora, and a comparable number of clades underwent adaptive changes in their flowering phenology (9 clades; half of the clades investigated) as underwent distributional shifts (12 clades; two thirds of the clades investigated). Of extant Cape angiosperm species, 14-41% have been contributed by lineages that show distributional shifts consistent with past climate change, yet a similar proportion (14-55%) arose from lineages that shifted flowering phenology. Conclusions Adaptive changes in ecology at the scale we uncover in the Cape and consistent with past climatic change have not been documented for other floras. Shifts in climate tolerance appear to have been more important in this flora than is currently appreciated, and lineages that underwent such shifts went on to contribute a high proportion of the flora's extant species diversity. That shifts in phenology, on an evolutionary timescale and on such a scale, have not yet been detected for other floras is likely a result of the method used; shifts in flowering phenology cannot be detected in the fossil record