Estimating the impact of Critical Habitat designation on the values of undeveloped and developed parcels

We use differences-in-differences (DID) estimators to measure the impact that Critical Habitat (CH) establishment had on undeveloped and developed parcel prices throughout the US between 2000 and 2019. In a national-level analysis we found that CH “treatment” had a positive impact on developed and undeveloped parcel sale prices relative to sale price trends in nearby but “untreated” control parcels. The finding that CH treatment had a positive impact on undeveloped parcel prices was surprising as we had hypothesized that the impact of CH on undeveloped parcel prices would be negative due to the additional regulatory costs and development uncertainty the CH regulation imposes on land developers. However, when we used relevant subsets of CH areas to measure CH’s effects we often found results that were inconsistent with the national-level trends. Therefore, the impact of CH on land prices cannot be reduced to a simple, consistent narrative

Effizienzkontrolle von Maßnahmen zur Reduzierung landwirtschaftlicher Stoffeinträge in die Grundwasserkörper in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Der Beitrag beschreibt die Erfahrungen mit ausgewählten Methoden zur Effizienskontrolle kooperativer Gewäserschutzmaßnahmen. Zudem wird auf ein Ansatz zur Priorisierung der maßnahmenrelevanten Fläche in NRW im Kontext EG-WRRL eingegangen

Governance, Management, and Conservation Success of Protected Areas in Brazil and Colombia.

Protected areas are the most widespread policy instrument for the conservation of tropical biodiversity. Over the past decade, the effectiveness of their management has come under increased scrutiny, with donors, governments, non-governmental organizations, and other conservation stakeholders evaluating the management of over 9000 protected areas in 140 countries. Designed to inform the planning, implementation and evaluation of conservation interventions, such evaluations of protected area management effectiveness (PAME) tend to collect data on a wide range of management aspects considered important for protected area success. However, many widespread PAME evaluation methods do not directly measure whether protected areas achieve their conservation goals, and why. Moreover, there is a lack of evidence whether such methods can be used to predict conservation outcomes, and thus obviate their direct measurement. Using the example of tropical protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon and Colombia’s Northeast, this dissertation 1) examines whether the two most widespread PAME evaluation scorecards provide good surrogates for the capacity of protected areas to achieve conservation objectives and 2) identifies factors which are closely associated with protected area performance, and may thus be particularly suitable as performance indicators and, potentially, targets of interventions. Combining remote sensing imagery, management indicator datasets and data from my own field research with a new take on quasi-experimental econometric estimation techniques, my analyses challenge the notion that widespread PAME evaluation methods measure the capacity of tropical forest protected areas to achieve conservation objectives: Indicator scores of the two most widespread PAME evaluation methods failed to predict the success of protected areas in reducing forest fires and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Furthermore, my results also suggest that that land use rights – their design, clarification and enforcement – are key to understanding and predicting conservation outcomes in tropical protected areas, but tend to be neglected by the most widespread PAME evaluation methods. I conclude that the gap between PAME evaluations and the improvement of conservation performance needs to be narrowed, and propose five directions for research.PHDNatural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110381/1/chrnolte_1.pd

Die Bedeutung von semiterrestrischen Böden für die Grund- und Oberflächengewässerqualität Nordwestdeutschlands

Die in vielen Grundwasserkörpern Nordwestdeutschland rezent ablaufende Denitrifikation bedingt eine umfassende Minderung der eingetragenen N-Frachten. Zur Identifizierung dieses für die Wasserqualität wichtigen Prozesses stehen einfache und aussagekräftige Methoden zur Verfügung (N2/Ar, Regionalisierungen, hydrochemische Auswertungen). Die semiterrestrischen Bodentypen (Gley, Anmoor) bilden wichtige Senken. Deren Funktion kann insbesondere bei Modifikationen des standörtlichen Wasserhaushaltes verloren gehen. Intakte Auen und Niederungen bedingen vermutlich eine weitere Minderung vor dem Zustrom in die Vorfluter. Der Beitrag schließt mit Empfehlungen, deren Ziel die Schärfung des Prozessverständnisses sowie eine nachhaltige Sicherung der zukünftigen Grund- und Oberflächenwasserqualität ist

Auswirkungen eines veränderten Gebietswasserhaushaltes auf die Qualität von zur Trinkwassergewinnung genutzten Wasserressourcen

Am Beispiel von vier Projektgebieten werden im Zusammenhang mit dem Klimawandel ausgewählte und auf die Rohwasserqualitäten Einfluss nehmende Faktoren erörtert. Dabei wird gezeigt, dass die Beschaffenheiten an einzelne Komponenten des Gebietswasserhaushaltes gekoppelt sind. Auf der Grundlage der für das Land Nordrhein- Westfalen vorliegenden kleinräumigen Klimaprojektionen wurden Art und Ausmaß der veränderten Wasserhaushaltsgrößen benannt. Neben den möglicherweise eher untergeordneten quantitativen Veränderungen ist insbesondere mit (nachteiligen) qualitativen Veränderungen zu rechnen. Betroffen sind alle relevanten Rohwasserarten (Grundwasser, Talsperren, Gewinnung von uferfiltriertem Oberflächenwasser). Durch die Zunahme von Wetterextremen wird der gebietsspezifische Stoffabbau und -rückhalt gemindert. Ob und in welchem Umfang die hierdurch ausgelöste Schwächung des Multi-Barrieren-Prinzips durch technische Maßnahmen kompensiert werden muss, kann nur im Einzelfall abgewogen und entschieden werden

The restructuring of South American soy and beef production and trade under changing environmental regulations

In response to the extensive loss of forests caused by soy and cattle expansion in South America, several countries have increased their legal restrictions on deforestation, and stepped up their enforcement. In addition, in the Brazilian Amazon, new private agreements were initiated in 2006 and 2009 to limit the purchase of soy and cattle linked with deforestation. One concern is that such policies, because they are spatially heterogeneous or focus on a subset of relevant actors, might generate negative spillovers in the form of leakage of agricultural activities and deforestation to less-regulated areas, and/or a redistribution of non-compliant product sales to non-participants. In this study, we use panel data on soy and beef production and trade in agricultural frontiers of South America to examine how changes in deforestation regulations in South America have altered soy and cattle expansion and exports in this region, and to understand how these changes, if they have occurred, influence the overall effectiveness of deforestation regulations. We find no evidence of a change in soy or pasture area expansion patterns due to changes in regulations, except within the Amazon biome where pasture expansion slowed in response to more stringent regulations and coincided with pasture intensification. We do find, however, a decrease in beef imports from biomes with more stringent deforestation regulations. While this decrease may indicate the existence of leakage to countries outside the study area, it is likely offset by pasture intensification, continued opportunities for deforestation, and increasing domestic consumption from these biomes. These results point to the potential role of substitution effects between local and international consumer markets, and between different actors, in diminishing the overall effectiveness of deforestation regulations

Cardiovascular MRI Compared to Echocardiography to Identify Cardioaortic Sources of Ischemic Stroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: To compare the diagnostic yield of echocardiography and cardiovascular MRI (CMR) to detect structural sources of embolism, in patients with ischemic stroke with a secondary analysis of non-stroke populations. Methods and Results: We searched MEDLINE/Embase (from 01.01.2000 to 24.04.2021) for studies including CMR to assess prespecified sources of embolism. Comparison included transthoracic and/or transesophageal echocardiography. Two authors independently screened studies, extracted data and assessed bias using the QUADAS-2 tool. Estimates of diagnostic yield were reported and pooled. Twenty-seven studies with 2,525 patients were included in a study-level analysis. Most studies had moderate to high risk of bias. Persistent foramen ovale, complex aortic plaques, left ventricular and left atrial thrombus were the most common pathologies. There was no difference in the yield of left ventricular thrombus detection between both modalities for stroke populations (4 studies), but an increased yield of CMR in non-stroke populations (28.1 vs. 16.0%, P < 0.001, 10 studies). The diagnostic yield in stroke patients for detection of persistent foramen ovale was lower in CMR compared to transoesophageal echocardiography (29.3 vs. 53.7%, P < 0.001, 5 studies). For both echocardiography and CMR the clinical impact of the management consequences derived from many of the diagnostic findings remained undetermined in the identified studies. Conclusions: Echocardiography and CMR seem to have similar diagnostic yield for most cardioaortic sources of embolism except persistent foramen ovale and left ventricular thrombus. Randomized controlled diagnostic trials are necessary to understand the impact on the management and potential clinical benefits of the assessment of structural cardioaortic stroke sources. Registration: PROSPERO: CRD42020158787

Assessment of proximal outcomes of self-management programs : translation and psychometric evaluation of a German version of the Health Education Impact Questionnaire (heiQtm)

Purpose This paper describes the translation, cultural adaption, and psychometric evaluation of a German version of the Health Education Impact Questionnaire (heiQ&trade;), a widely used generic instrument assessing a wide range of proximal outcomes of self-management programs.Methods The translation was carried out according to international standards and included forward and backward translations. Comprehensibility and content validity were tested using cognitive interviews with 10 rehabilitation inpatients. Psychometric properties were examined in rehabilitation inpatients (n = 1,202) with a range of chronic conditions. Factorial validity was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis; concurrent validity was explored by correlations with comparator scales.Results The items of the German heiQ&trade; were well understood by rehabilitation inpatients. The structure of the eight heiQ&trade; scales was replicated after minor adjustment. heiQ&trade; scales had higher correlations with comparator scales with similar constructs, particularly mental health concepts than with physical health. Moreover, all heiQ&trade; scales differentiated between individuals across different levels of depression.Conclusion The German heiQ&trade; is comprehensible for German-speaking patients suffering from different types of chronic conditions; it assesses relevant outcomes of self-management programs in a reliable and valid manner. Further studies involving its practical application are warranted.<br /

Assessing prioritization measures for a private land conservation program in the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region

Private land conservation has become an important tool for protecting biodiversity and habitat, but methods for prioritizing and scheduling conservation on private land are still being developed. While return on investment methods have been suggested as a potential path forward, the different processes linking private landscapes to the socioeconomic systems in which they are embedded create unique challenges for scheduling conservation with this approach. We investigated a range of scheduling approaches within a return on investment framework for breeding waterfowl and broods in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. Current conservation targeting for waterfowl in the region focuses mostly on the distribution and abundance of breeding waterfowl. We tested whether MaxGain approaches for waterfowl conservation differed from MinLoss approaches in terms of return on investment and which approach performed best in avoiding loss of waterfowl and broods separately. We also examined variation in results based upon the temporal scale of the abundance layers used for input and compared the region's current scheduling approach with results from our simulations. Our results suggested that MinLoss was the most efficient scheduling approach for both breeding waterfowl and broods and that using just breeding waterfowl to target areas for conservation programs might cause organizations to overlook important areas for broods, particularly over shorter timespans. The higher efficiency of MinLoss approaches in our simulations also indicated that incorporating probability of wetland drainage into decision-making improved the overall return on investment. We recommend that future conservation scheduling for easements in the region and for private land conservation in general include some form of return on investment or cost-effective analysis to make conservation more transparent