Evaluating Conservation Effectiveness and Adaptation in Dynamic Landscapes

Rissman talks about evaluating conservation easement effectiveness requires interdisciplinary research that reaches beyond legal analysis to examine how easements influence human behaviors, which subsequently influence environmental conditions. Conservation easement effectiveness is not a fixed target, but is influenced over time by social and ecological landscape change. The promise of perpetuity is central to the appeal of conservation easements within the conservation movement

Dynamic Resource Allocation in Conservation Planning

Consider the problem of protecting endangered species by selecting patches of land to be used for conservation purposes. Typically, the availability of patches changes over time, and recommendations must be made dynamically. This is a challenging prototypical example of a sequential optimization problem under uncertainty in computational sustainability. Existing techniques do not scale to problems of realistic size. In this paper, we develop an efficient algorithm for adaptively making recommendations for dynamic conservation planning, and prove that it obtains near-optimal performance. We further evaluate our approach on a detailed reserve design case study of conservation planning for three rare species in the Pacific Northwest of the United States

An Evaluation of the Teaching and Learning of Reflective Practice at the Centre for Textile Conservation, University of Glasgow

The value of reflective practice in both professional education and lifelong learning is well established. In conservation the concept is fundamental to our ability to make informed decisions: to develop the cognitive and affective skills necessary to implement appropriate conservation strategies confidently, competently and ethically in wide ranging and dynamic contexts. Beyond the broad understanding of reflective practice as a process of learning through and from experience in order to gain new insights, it can have a considerable diversity of meanings. Its complexity can make it intimidating and, for conservation students, it has been found to be a challenging task. Through an evaluation of the learning, teaching and assessment of reflective practice at the Centre for Textile Conservation and Technical Art History (CTCTAH), University of Glasgow (UoG), this paper aims to peel back the layers of complexity to consider why it is challenging for students and how learning can be developed and assessed effectively

Normal scaling in globally conserved interface-controlled coarsening of fractal clusters

Globally conserved interface-controlled coarsening of fractal clusters exhibits dynamic scale invariance and normal scaling. This is demonstrated by a numerical solution of the Ginzburg-Landau equation with a global conservation law. The sharp-interface limit of this equation is volume preserving motion by mean curvature. The scaled form of the correlation function has a power-law tail accommodating the fractal initial condition. The coarsening length exhibits normal scaling with time. Finally, shrinking of the fractal clusters with time is observed. The difference between global and local conservation is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figure

A Bioeconomic Analysis of the Duration of Conservation Contracts

Conservation and restoration of native vegetation is often a gradual process which may require many years to transform an ecosystem from one vegetative state to a target ecosystem. This process is stochastic, with some changes potentially irreversible. In contrast, contracts with landholders to undertake conservation measures on their property are typically for less than ten years and often make no contingencies for re-contracting at the end of the contract period. The risk to land holders and conservation agencies of contracts not being renewed and the consequent potential loss of previous investment means including covenants in conservation contracts may be attractive to both parties. A model is developed to empirically examine the optimal dynamic conservation contract and the possible role of covenants in the costs and benefits of contracts.POMDP, biodiversity, contracts, monitoring, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Critical phenomena of nonequilibrium dynamical systems with two absorbing states

We study nonequilibrium dynamical models with two absorbing states: interacting monomer-dimer models, probabilistic cellular automata models, nonequilibrium kinetic Ising models. These models exhibit a continuous phase transition from an active phase into an absorbing phase which belongs to the universality class of the models with the parity conservation. However, when we break the symmetry between the absorbing states by introducing a symmetry-breaking field, Monte Carlo simulations show that the system goes back to the conventional directed percolation universality class. In terms of domain wall language, the parity conservation is not affected by the presence of the symmetry-breaking field. So the symmetry between the absorbing states rather than the conservation laws plays an essential role in determining the universality class. We also perform Monte Carlo simulations for the various interface dynamics between different absorbing states, which yield new universal dynamic exponents. With the symmetry-breaking field, the interface moves, in average, with a constant velocity in the direction of the unpreferred absorbing state and the dynamic scaling exponents apparently assume trivial values. However, we find that the hyperscaling relation for the directed percolation universality class is restored if one focuses on the dynamics of the interface on the side of the preferred absorbing state only.Comment: 11 pages, 21 figures, Revtex, submitted to Phy. Rev.