Prioritizing strain insulators for raptor conservation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
FRANCISCO GUIL ◽  
M. ÁNGELES SORIA ◽  
VÍCTOR ORTEGA ◽  
RUBÉN GARCÍA-SÁNCHEZ ◽  
SILVIA VILLAVERDE-MORCILLO
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Risk Index ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Central Spain ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Conservation Actions ◽  
Complete Survey ◽  
Raptor Conservation ◽  
Management And Conservation

Summary Avian species often take advantage of human-made structures, such as perching on power poles, although this can lead to negative effects for both birds and infrastructure. It has been demonstrated that anchor-type pylons, with strain insulators, are amongst the most dangerous of these structures. Our goal was to develop a methodological approach to evaluate the ways in which raptors perch on the six most commonly used strain insulator configurations in Spain, and to build a risk index that can be used to prioritise them. To study the ways raptors perch, we worked with six wildlife rescue centres in central Spain for almost a year assessing these six strain insulator configurations in 83 perch trials with 176 raptors in ample flying pens. We analysed 475 complete survey days, with an approximate number of 258,960 analysed pictures, including 6,766 perchings on strain insulators. We assessed the influential factors for these 6,766 perchings and developed a novel approach to prioritise strain insulator configurations that can be used anywhere. Our results suggest that longer insulator strains (i.e. PECA-1000 and Caon-C3670) are the safest, according to our prioritization criteria, although these results require further assessment in the field. Managers and conservationists should take into account these results to improve management and conservation actions.

scholarly journals Prioritizing conservation actions in urbanizing landscapes

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. K. Ettinger ◽  
E. R. Buhle ◽  
B. E. Feist ◽  
E. Howe ◽  
J. A. Spromberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Coho Salmon ◽  
Predictive Accuracy ◽  
Critical Threshold ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Conservation Action ◽  
Critical Thresholds ◽  
Species Response ◽  
Response Data ◽  
Conservation Actions ◽  
Preservation And Restoration

AbstractUrbanization-driven landscape changes are harmful to many species. Negative effects can be mitigated through habitat preservation and restoration, but it is often difficult to prioritize these conservation actions. This is due, in part, to the scarcity of species response data, which limit the predictive accuracy of modeling to estimate critical thresholds for biological decline and recovery. To address these challenges, we quantify effort required for restoration, in combination with a clear conservation objective and associated metric (e.g., habitat for focal organisms). We develop and apply this framework to coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), a highly migratory and culturally iconic species in western North America that is particularly sensitive to urbanization. We examine how uncertainty in biological parameters may alter locations prioritized for conservation action and compare this to the effect of shifting to a different conservation metric (e.g., a different focal salmon species). Our approach prioritized suburban areas (those with intermediate urbanization effects) for preservation and restoration action to benefit coho. We found that prioritization was most sensitive to the selected metric, rather than the level of uncertainty or critical threshold values. Our analyses highlight the importance of identifying metrics that are well-aligned with intended outcomes.

Effect of Temperature, Reeling Speed and Pipe Tension on the Performance of Field Joint Coating During Reeling of Offshore Pipelines

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajaram Dhole ◽  
Ismael Ripoll ◽  
Sabesan Rajaratnam ◽  
Celine Jablonski
Keyword(s):  
Influential Factors ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Effect Of Temperature ◽  
Mechanical And Thermal Properties ◽  
Peak Strain ◽  
Element Analysis ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Laboratory Test Results ◽  
Coating Design ◽  
Highly Strained

Abstract Pipelines are coated with insulating material that minimizes heat losses to the environment. Reeled pipe can experience nominal bending strain in the order of 1% to 2%. Thick coating on the pipe is inherently more highly strained, because of concentrations that occur at the interface between parent coating and field joint coating. Occasionally, contractors who specialize in pipe-lay using the reeling method have experienced difficulties relating to unexpected disbondment and cracks in coating at these interfaces. Any disbonded coating is routinely identified and repaired, but it is important to understand the influential factors that could lead to this type of coating disbondment. It is known in the industry that parameters such as temperature, reeling speed and pipe tension are influential but the relative influence of the factors is not well understood. In addition, there is currently no industry code or recommended practice that proposes the strain levels that the coating could safely withstand prior to cracking. This paper addresses thermo-mechanical aspects of coating design and presents a novel approach to quantify which parameters have the largest influence. In the presented assessments, coating strain was assessed using finite element analysis. Material input was selected from a combination of typical values and specific laboratory test results for polypropylene (PP) and injection molded polypropylene (IMPP). An essential aspect was that the mechanical and thermal properties of the PP were related to temperature and strain rate. Strain rates in the coating during reeling operations were obtained from global FE models. Detailed local FE models incorporated all the material and load inputs and temperature conditions that are necessary to determine peak strain values in the coating; the peak strain values would indicate the locations of potential coating disbondment. The study is purely a strain assessment and excludes any potential for defects or delamination in the coating that could result from its manufacturing process. This strain-based study revealed that coating temperature during reeling is the most influential factor on strain level in the coating. Reeling speed and pipe tension are parameters providing secondary influences.

scholarly journals Environmental governance: A practical framework to guide design, evaluation, and analysis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Bennett ◽  
Terre Satterfield
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Design Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Design ◽  
Relative Paucity ◽  
Conservation Actions ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Modes Of Governance ◽  
Management And Conservation ◽  
Rich History

Governance is one of the most important factors for ensuring effective environmental management and conservation actions. Yet, there is still a relative paucity of comprehensive and practicable guidance that can be used to frame the evaluation, design, and analysis of systems of environmental governance. This conceptual review and synthesis article seeks to addresses this problem through resituating the broad body of governance literature into a practical framework for environmental governance. Our framework builds on a rich history of governance scholarship to propose that environmental governance has four general aims or objectives – to be effective, to be equitable, to be responsive, and to be robust. Each of these four objectives need to be considered simultaneously across the institutional, structural, and procedural elements of environmental governance. Through a review of the literature, we developed a set of attributes for each of these objectives and relate these to the overall capacity, functioning, and performance of environmental governance. Our aim is to provide a practical and adaptable framework that can be applied to the design, evaluation, and analysis of environmental governance in different social and political contexts, to diverse environmental problems and modes of governance, and at a range of scales.

scholarly journals The Evaluation of Green Investments in Urban Areas: A Proposal of an eco-social-green Model of the City

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa Sturiale ◽  
Alessandro Scuderi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Evaluation Model ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Scientific Debate ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Green Model ◽  
Green Investments

The new and more conscious sensibility towards the environmental sphere supports the idea of “green city”, promotes initiatives of structural integration of the green with the built environment and involves a considerable number of disciplines in a cultural and social debate. The literature reports different experiences of collaborative governance, between administrations and citizens, which tend to enhance the interaction between the different social actors involved in the investments of Green Infrastructures, to share objectives and management methods and to assess the extent of ecosystem services. The objective of this article is to propose a methodological approach to assessing green investments in the urban area, which is able to internalize the social perception of citizens regarding this important component for the urban landscape, with a view to guiding the city’s government towards a new urban eco-social-green planning and evaluation model. It presents a concise framework of the scientific debate on climate change and on the effects of urban planning issues; some relevant experiences of Green Infrastructures; and the proposed methodology, applied to the reality of the “urban green system” of Catania, based on an integrated approach between participatory planning and the method NAIADE (Novel Approach to Imprecise Assessment and Decision Environments).

Development of a GIS-based Expert System for on-site Storm-water Management

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Jin ◽  
F. Sieker ◽  
S. Bandermann ◽  
H. Sieker
Keyword(s):  
Expert System ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Local Area ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Water Infiltration ◽  
Storm Water ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
The City

Urbanization is accelerating worldwide. One of the negative effects of urbanization is the overloading of the city sewer system. To solve this problem, on-site storm water infiltration proves very promising due to its near natural characteristics and multiple effects on the drainage of stormwater runoff in urban areas. However, the judgment of whether a local area is appropriate to be drained in this way and which infiltration measures are optimal is rather complex and involves analysing a set of influential factors. This judgment depends on not only relevant theoretical considerations, but also a large amount of practical experience and the availability of relevant data, as well. Such a judgment is an unstructured problem and relates to changeable knowledge. To fulfill this task, the so-called expert system, or knowledge-based system, is introduced. One of the advantages of an expert system is that it provides automation of expert-level judgment. This is extremely helpful when an expert-level judgment is needed repeatedly for a large amount of cases, like in the planning of on-site stormwater infiltration systems for an entire city catchment. This paper describes a self-developed expert system tool for developing rule-based expert systems, as well as a case study: using an expert system for the selection of on-site storm water infiltration measures for the city of Chemnitz, Germany.

scholarly journals Epidemiological characterization and risk evaluation associated with the presence of Phthiraptera in poultry farms from Minas Gerais, Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. e47474
Author(s):  
Tiago Mendonça de Oliveira ◽  
Cristina Mara Teixeira ◽  
Mariana Olímpia Köhler Marra Pinto ◽  
Thiago Luiz Mendes Arcebispo ◽  
Amanda Soriano-Araújo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Risk Index ◽  
Productivity Loss ◽  
Minas Gerais ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Poultry Farms ◽  
Biting Lice ◽  
Weight Decrease ◽  
Epidemiological Characterization

Phthiraptera are lice highly adapted to living as permanent and obligatory ectoparasites of birds and mammals. High infestations by biting lice contribute to the low productivity, loss quality of the eggs, besides weight decrease of chickens. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate and to characterize the risks involved with the presence of biting lice in laying chicken from Minas Gerais, Brazil, throught a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA). A secondary database with information regarding 402 chicken houses from 42 properties of laying hens from the same region was used and adapted for this study. The variables that composed the correspondence model were selected through Chi-square tests (p ≤ 0.05). A risk index was designed to relate the presence of biting lice out of variables such as risk factors related to the presence of these ectoparasites. The MCA graphic designed to conduct the epidemiological characterization of the presence of biting lice presented a Chi-square accumulated value of 53.59%. There was an association between the risk index and the synanthropic birds, subsistence hens, presence of lice and other ectoparasites in shelters and ectoparasites control. These results provide knowledge about the Phthiraptera epidemiology. Besides that, this information may contribute to the decision-making process in order to reduce the risk of possible infestations in poultry farms and the negative effects of the infestations.

Remanent Flux Negative Effects on Transformer Diagnostic Test Results and a Novel Approach for Its Elimination

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 2938-2945 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasin Zabihinia Gerdroodbari ◽  
Mahdi Davarpanah ◽  
Shahrokh Farhangi
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Test ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Novel Approach

Evaluation of flood risk drivers as a tool to define municipal risk profiles

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Pinto Santos ◽  
Susana Pereira ◽  
José Luís Zêzere ◽  
Alexandre Oliveira Tavares ◽  
Eusébio Reis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Social Vulnerability ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Risk Index ◽  
Slope Angle ◽  
Road Density ◽  
High Exposure ◽  
Hazard Exposure ◽  
Flood Susceptibility

<p>This work aims to compute a flood risk index (FRI) for the 278 Portuguese municipalities, designed to rank and characterize the drivers of fluvial flooding-related disasters (Santos et al., 2020). FRI is the product of hazard, exposure and vulnerability scores, where each factor is raised to 1/3, a solution also applied by the INFORM risk index to increase the dispersion of index values.</p><p>Hazard considers two variables: flood susceptibility (SUSCF), and the weather and climate events index (WCE) translating the frequency of the rainfall events that may generate peak flows. SUSCF is the product of stream flood susceptibility (SFS) (Santos et al., 2019) and the main flood-prone areas (MFPA). SFS considers flow accumulation, slope angle and relative permeability, accounting for the cumulative effect of these factors along the entire basins’ area. MPFA results from overlaying areas with slope angle ≤ 2º and areas with Height Above Nearest Drainage ≤ 2, only when they were topologically connected to streams with SFS > 5.</p><p>Exposure considers three variables: population density (PD), road density (RD) and the average degree of imperviousness (ADI). PD (inhab./km<sup>2</sup>) is based on the 2011 Census. RD (km/km<sup>2</sup>) is calculated from the OpenStreetMap<sup>©</sup> data. ADI is the municipal average value of the layer “IMD - Imperviousness Degree 2012 – 20 m resolution”, from the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service.</p><p>Vulnerability (V) is the product of criticality and support capability, where the latter acts by attenuating criticality, according to the methodology presented by Tavares et al. (2018) to assess social vulnerability.</p><p>The six core variables were scaled to the range [0, 1] following the max-min method. The respective weights were tested and selected according to the scientific literature, correlation and reliability tests.</p><p>Ward’s clustering classification was used to define seven clusters of municipalities, differing in the scores of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. While it is suggested that municipalities in some clusters would require interventions to reduce hazard, others should invest on medium to long-term measures that address high exposure and vulnerability. The results obtained with this methodological approach contribute to the diversification of flood risk management strategies.</p><p> </p><p>Acknowledgements:</p><p>This work was financed by national funds through FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., under the framework of the project BeSafeSlide‑Landslide Early Warning soft technology prototype to improve community resilience and adaptation to environmental change (PTDC/GES-AMB/30052/2017) and by the Research Unit UIDB/00295/2020. Pedro Pinto Santos is funded by FCT through the project with the reference CEEIND/00268/2017.</p><p> </p><p>References:</p><p>Santos, P.P., Pereira, S., Zêzere, J.L., Tavares, A.O., Reis, E., Garcia, R.A.C., Oliveira, S.C., 2019. A comprehensive approach to understanding flood risk drivers at the municipal level. J. Environ. Manage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110127</p><p>Santos, P.P., Reis, E., Pereira, S., Santos, M., 2019. A flood susceptibility model at the national scale based on multicriteria analysis. Sci. Total Environ. 667, 325–337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.328</p><p>Tavares, A.O., Barros, J.L., Mendes, J.M., Santos, P.P., Pereira, S., 2018. Decennial comparison of changes in social vulnerability: A municipal analysis in support of risk management. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 31, 679–690. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJDRR.2018.07.009</p>

scholarly journals Mapping the conflict of raptor conservation and recreational shooting in the Batumi Bottleneck, Republic of Georgia

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 11850
Author(s):  
Anna Sándor ◽  
Brandon P. Anthony
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Republic Of Georgia ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Conflict Escalation ◽  
Conservation Actions ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Raptor Conservation ◽  
Migrating Birds

Illegal use of natural resources threatens biodiversity and often leads to conservation conflicts between affected parties.  Such a conflict is emerging in the Batumi Bottleneck in the Republic of Georgia, where every autumn more than one million migrating birds of prey funnel above a handful of villages, and where thousands of these birds fall victim to illegal shooting.  As a first step towards resolving this conflict, utilizing semi-structured interviews, we map the goals and opinions of relevant stakeholders associated with raptor migration in the bottleneck.  Our results show that most stakeholders, except some local hunters, are on common ground considering the shooting unacceptable, but articulate different preferences concerning a solution, which hinged on institutional and enforcement issues.  The hunters expressed a wide spectrum of responses concerning their involvement and motivation in raptor shooting, the role and importance of hunting in their lives, and preferred mitigation actions.  The most urgent issues to be addressed via conservation actions are the wide-scale lack of awareness of the conflict, the potential loss of species, and the risk of conflict escalation. 

scholarly journals Antimicrobial resistance among GLASS pathogens in conflict and non-conflict affected settings in the Middle East: A systematic review

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Truppa ◽  
Mahmoud N. Abo-Shehada
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Methicillin Resistance ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Carbapenem Resistance ◽  
Risk Of Bias ◽  
World Health ◽  
Free Text ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
E Coli ◽  
Acinetobacter Spp

Abstract Background: In spite of the evident general negative effects of armed conflict on countries’ health systems and populations’ health outcomes, little is known about similar impacts of conflicts on the spread of antimicrobial resistances (AMR). This review was to address this evidence gap and describe:1. Patterns of AMR in the Middle East (ME) and resistance profiles of pathogens included in the Global AMR Surveillance System (GLASS) supported by the World Health Organization;2. Differences in proportions of AMR isolates between conflict and non-conflict countries. Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines and searching five electronic databases. Subject heading and free text were searched for “antimicrobial resistances” and “Middle East”, to identify observational studies on AMR published from January 2011 to June 2018. Data were extracted from included articles on a predefined set of variables. Percentages of AMR were analysed as median and interquartile ranges. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Results: A total of 132 articles met the inclusion criteria. Included studies showed heterogeneity in study design, laboratory methods and standards for interpretation of results, and an overall high risk of bias. Main findings were the following:1. High proportions of carbapenem resistance in Acinetobacter spp. (median 74.2%: range), and both carbapenem resistance (median 8.1% and 15.4% for E. coli and K. pneumoniae respectively) and ESBL-production (median 32.3% and 27.9% for E. coli and K. pneumoniae respectively) amongst Enterobacteriaceae. S. aureus isolates showed a median methicillin resistance percentage of 45.1%, while vancomycin resistance was almost absent. A median of 50% of the strains of S. pneumoniae showed non-susceptibility to penicillin. 2. Similar trends were observed in conflict and non-conflict affected countries.Conclusions: There is a lack of standardization in the methodological approach to AMR research in the Middle East. The proportion of antibiotic resistances among specific GLASS pathogens is high, particularly among Acinetobacter spp.

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