scholarly journals Future large hydropower dams impact global freshwater megafauna

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Zarfl ◽  
Jürgen Berlekamp ◽  
Fengzhi He ◽  
Sonja C. Jähnig ◽  
William Darwall ◽  
...  

AbstractDam construction comes with severe social, economic and ecological impacts. From an ecological point of view, habitat types are altered and biodiversity is lost. Thus, to identify areas that deserve major attention for conservation, existing and planned locations for (hydropower) dams were overlapped, at global extent, with the contemporary distribution of freshwater megafauna species with consideration of their respective threat status. Hydropower development will disproportionately impact areas of high freshwater megafauna richness in South America, South and East Asia, and the Balkan region. Sub-catchments with a high share of threatened species are considered to be most vulnerable; these are located in Central America, Southeast Asia and in the regions of the Black and Caspian Sea. Based on this approach, planned dam locations are classified according to their potential impact on freshwater megafauna species at different spatial scales, attention to potential conflicts between climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation are highlighted, and priorities for freshwater management are recommended.

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1606) ◽  
pp. 3062-3075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando T. Maestre ◽  
Roberto Salguero-Gómez ◽  
José L. Quero

Drylands occupy large portions of the Earth, and are a key terrestrial biome from the socio-ecological point of view. In spite of their extent and importance, the impacts of global environmental change on them remain poorly understood. In this introduction, we review some of the main expected impacts of global change in drylands, quantify research efforts on the topic, and highlight how the articles included in this theme issue contribute to fill current gaps in our knowledge. Our literature analyses identify key under-studied areas that need more research (e.g. countries such as Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Somalia, and deserts such as the Thar, Kavir and Taklamakan), and indicate that most global change research carried out to date in drylands has been done on a unidisciplinary basis. The contributions included here use a wide array of organisms (from micro-organisms to humans), spatial scales (from local to global) and topics (from plant demography to poverty alleviation) to examine key issues to the socio-ecological impacts of global change in drylands. These papers highlight the complexities and difficulties associated with the prediction of such impacts. They also identify the increased use of long-term experiments and multidisciplinary approaches as priority areas for future dryland research. Major advances in our ability to predict and understand global change impacts on drylands can be achieved by explicitly considering how the responses of individuals, populations and communities will in turn affect ecosystem services. Future research should explore linkages between these responses and their effects on water and climate, as well as the provisioning of services for human development and well-being.


Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahereh Kaykhosravi ◽  
Usman Khan ◽  
Amaneh Jadidi

This review compares and evaluates eleven Low Impact Development (LID) models on the basis of: (i) general model features including the model application, the temporal resolution, the spatial data visualization, the method of placing LID within catchments; (ii) hydrological modelling aspects including: the type of inbuilt LIDs, water balance model, runoff generation and infiltration; and (iii) hydraulic modelling methods with a focus on the flow routing method. Results show that despite the recent updates of existing LID models, several important features are still missing and need improvement. These features include the ability to model: multi-layer subsurface media, tree canopy and processes associated with vegetation, different spatial scales, snowmelt and runoff calculations. This review provides in-depth insight into existing LID models from a hydrological and hydraulic point of view, which will facilitate in selecting the best-suited model. Recommendations on further studies and LID model development are also presented.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin K. Sullender ◽  
Kelly Kapsar ◽  
Aaron Poe ◽  
Martin Robards

The Aleutian Archipelago and surrounding waters have enormous ecological, cultural, and commercial significance. As one of the shortest routes between North American and Asian ports, the North Pacific Great Circle Route, which crosses through the Aleutian Archipelago, is traveled by thousands of large cargo ships and tanker vessels every year. To reduce maritime risks and enhance navigational safety, the International Maritime Organization built upon earlier offshore routing efforts by designating five Areas To Be Avoided (ATBAs) in the Aleutian Islands in 2016. The ATBAs are designed to keep large vessels at least 50 nautical miles (93 km) from shore unless calling at a local port or transiting an authorized pass between islands. However, very few studies have examined the effectiveness of ATBAs as a mechanism for changing vessel behavior and thereby reducing the ecological impacts of maritime commerce. In this study, we use 4 years of satellite-based vessel tracking data to assess the effectiveness of the Aleutian ATBAs since their implementation in 2016. We determined whether vessels transiting the North Pacific Great Circle Route changed behavior after ATBA implementation, both in terms of overall route selection and in terms of compliance with each ATBA boundary. We found a total of 2,252 unique tankers and cargo vessels >400 gross tons transited the study region, completing a total of 8,794 voyages. To quantify routing changes of individual vessels, we analyzed the 767 vessels that transited the study region both before and after implementation. The percentage of voyages transiting through the boundaries of what would become ATBAs decreased from 76.3% in 2014–2015 (prior to ATBA designation) to 11.8% in 2016–2017 (after implementation). All five Aleutian ATBAs had significant increases in compliance, with the West ATBA showing the most dramatic increase, from 32.1% to 95.0%. We discuss the framework for ATBA enforcement and highlight the value of local institutional capacity for real-time monitoring. Overall, our results indicate that ATBAs represent a viable strategy for risk mitigation in sensitive ecological areas and that through monitoring, spatial protections influence vessel route decisions on multiple spatial scales.


2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
pp. 1099-1110 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Giné Garriga ◽  
A. Pérez Foguet

The Water Poverty Index (WPI) has been recognized as a useful tool in policy analysis. The index integrates various physical, social and environmental aspects to enable more holistic assessment of water resources. However, soundness of this tool relies on two complementary aspects: (i) inadequate techniques employed in index construction would produce unreliable results, and (ii) poor dissemination of final outcome would reduce applicability of the index to influence policy-making. From a methodological point of view, a revised alternative to calculate the index was developed in a previous study. This paper is therefore concerned not with the method employed in index construction, but with how the composite can be applied to support decision-making processes. In particular, the paper examines different approaches to exploit the index as a policy tool. A number of alternatives to disseminate achieved results are presented. The implications of applying the composite at different spatial scales are highlighted. Turkana District, in Kenya has been selected as initial case study to test the applicability and validity of the index. The paper concludes that the WPI approach provides a relevant tool for guiding appropriate action and policy-making towards more equitable allocation of water resources.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Romaniello ◽  
Shanee Stopnitzky ◽  
Tom Green ◽  
Francesc Montserrat ◽  
Eric Matzner ◽  
...  

<p>Slow progress towards achieving global greenhouse gas emissions targets significantly increases the likelihood that future climate efforts may require not only emissions cuts but also direct climate mitigation via negative emissions technologies (IPCC AR5). Currently, such technologies exist at only a nascent stage of development, with significant uncertainties regarding their feasibility, cost, and potential unintended consequences and/or co-benefits.</p><p>Coastal enhanced weathering of olivine (CEWO) has been suggested as one potential pathway for achieving net negative CO<sub>2</sub> emissions at scale. CEWO involves the mining of olivine-rich ultramafic rocks (such as dunite) for incorporation during beach augmentation and restoration work. While grinding this rock into increasingly fine particle sizes is essential for increasing its surface area and reactivity, this step is also costly and energetically expensive. CEWO attempts to minimize this cost and energy penalty by relying on wave and tidal action to provide ongoing physical weathering of olivine grains once distributed on beaches. Laboratory experiments and carbon emissions assessments of CEWO suggest that these approaches may be technically feasible and carbon negative, but significant uncertainties remain regarding the real-world kinetics of coastal olivine dissolution. Furthermore, concerns about the fate and ecological impact of nickel (Ni) and chromium (Cr)—potentially toxic trace metals found in olivine—require careful evaluation.</p><p>In 2019, Project Vesta was established as a nonprofit, philanthropically funded effort to evaluate the technical feasibility and ecological impacts of CEWO through a dedicated research program ultimately culminating in small-scale, real-world field trials of CEWO. This presentation will provide an overview and discussion of our overall research strategy, share insights from interim modeling and mesocosm experiments designed to ensure the practicality and safety of future field experiments, and explain our approach for ensuring transparent, responsible, and ethical research oversight and governance.</p>


Author(s):  
Jagannath Reddy ◽  
Biplab Das ◽  
Jagadish

Nowadays along with the rapid development of industrialization across the globe, the environmental and ecological impacts of products have become a serious issue. Taking into account purely the economic impacts of industrial decisions, and excluding their ecological impacts, make the human beings and animals more at risk to many threats such as global warming, ozone layer depletion, toxic environments, and natural resources depletion. To minimize the environmental effect, implementation of green supply chain management (GSCM) is much more essential for industries in the environmental and social point of view. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze barriers to an implementation of green supply chain management in a stone crushing plant of Southern India by using modified simple additive weighting (SAW) to rank approaches. Further, this study will help the small-scale industries to understand the factors affecting implementation of GSCM in their organizations.


Author(s):  
Lin Chen

Supercritical CO2 fluid has been widely used in chemical extraction, chemical synthesis, micro-manufacturing, and heat transfer apparatus, and so forth. The current chapter deals with near-critical CO2 micro-scale thermal convective flow and the effects of thermal-mechanical process. When the scale becomes smaller, new, and detailed figures of near-critical thermal effects emerges. To explore this new area, theoretical developments and numerical investigations are discussed and explained in this chapter. From a theoretical point of view, the thermal-mechanical nature of near-critical fluid would play a leading role in small time and spatial scales. This effect is found dominant to the thermal dynamic responses and convective structures of micro-scale fluid behaviors. The scaling effects, boundary thermal-mechanical process, instability evolutions, mixing flows and characteristics, possible extensions, and applications are also discussed in this chapter.


2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1900) ◽  
pp. 20182745 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Kennedy Rhoades ◽  
Steve I. Lonhart ◽  
John J. Stachowicz

Humans have restructured food webs and ecosystems by depleting biomass, reducing size structure and altering traits of consumers. However, few studies have examined the ecological impacts of human-induced trait changes across large spatial and temporal scales and species assemblages. We compared behavioural traits and predation rates by predatory fishes on standard squid prey in protected areas of different protection levels and ages, and found that predation rates were 6.5 times greater at old, no-take (greater than 40 years) relative to new, predominantly partial-take areas (approx. 8 years), even accounting for differences in predatory fish abundance, body size and composition across sites. Individual fishes in old protected areas consumed prey at nearly twice the rate of fishes of the same species and size at new protected areas. Predatory fish exhibited on average 50% longer flight initiation distance and lower willingness to forage at new protected areas, which partially explains lower foraging rates at new relative to old protected areas. Our experiments demonstrate that humans can effect changes in functionally important behavioural traits of predator guilds at large (30 km) spatial scales within managed areas, which require protection for multiple generations of predators to recover bold phenotypes and predation rates, even as abundance rebounds.


Author(s):  
Piotr Migon

The preceding chapters have already indicated that granite properties and structures play a key role in the progress of rock weathering, the development of many medium and small-scale landforms, and in the patterns of mass movement phenomena on slopes. But the influence of geological factors sensu lato is by no means limited to these, rather restricted spatial scales. Geotectonic settings, modes of emplacement, and long-term geological histories are all relevant to the understanding of the diversity of granite landforms and landscapes. The aim of this section is show the variety of geological controls and how they are reflected in granite landscapes, moving progressively from large to small spatial scales. If plate tectonics is used as a framework, then granite intrusions form in two major settings: orogenic, including transitional, and anorogenic (see Chapter 2). Geographically, the former take place at convergent plate margins, whereas the latter take place at divergent plate margins (rift zones) and within continental interiors, at hot spots. However, for the purpose of a geomorphological approach to granite landscapes of the world, the time-independent plate tectonics framework is less useful. This is because many granite intrusions occur in settings different than those in which they formed millions of years ago, and it is their post-emplacement long-term geological history and current location that are crucial to understanding the landscapes that have developed upon them. For example, late Paleozoic granite intrusions in central and western Europe took place within the Hercynian orogenic belt, hence in a convergent plate margin setting, but their present-day morphology is mainly the legacy of long-term evolution in an anorogenic regime and late Cainozoic rejuvenation, including plateau uplift and faulting. In a somewhat similar manner, ancient orogenic granite intrusions have been incorporated into shield interiors and passive margins. Figure 8.1 is an attempt to relate the tectonic settings of granite intrusions to the distribution of granite areas, as we see them today, against the background of global tectonics. From this point of view, granite landscapes occur within the following five main geodynamic settings: (1) orogenic zones along convergent plate margins, (2) eroded and rejuvenated ancient orogenic belts, subject to geologically recent plateau uplift, (3) passive margins at divergent plate boundaries, (4) stable shield interiors, and (5) oceanic islands.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyma Mercimek ◽  
Claudio Codella ◽  
Linda Podio ◽  
Eleonora Bianchi ◽  
Layal Chahine ◽  
...  

<p>Understanding how molecular complexity varies in Sun-like star forming regions is mandatory to comprehend whether the chemical composition of the protostellar stages is inherited by protoplanetary disks and planets. In this perspective, our ambitious overall goal is to follow the chemical evolution from the earliest protostellar stages to the relics of our pristin Solar System, i.e. comets. We investigate the chemical composition of Class I protostars, with a typical age of 10<sup>5</sup> yr. Class I sources represent a bridge between Class 0 protostars (about 10<sup>4</sup> yr), where the bulk of the material that eventually form the protostar is still in the envelope, and the Class II protoplanetary disks (10<sup>6</sup> yr). The importance of the Class I stage has been recently strengthened by recent ALMA images showing that planet formation occurs already in disks with ages < 1 Myr. Unfortunately, only very few Class I sources, e.g. SVS13-A and Ser-17, have been chemically characterized through spectral survey at millimeter wavelengths. Therefore, we are still far to conclude if Class I protostars are also a bridge from a chemical point of view.</p><p>In this context, and in the framework of the H2020 MSCA ITN Project AstroChemical Origins (www.aco-itn.org), we present a chemical census of 4 Class I sources: L1551-IRS5, L1489-IRS (in the Taurus star forming region) and B5-IRS1, L1455-IRS1 (in Perseus). We used IRAM 30m single-dish observations at 1.3 mm sampling spatial scales of 1500-2500 au. We detect up to 80 lines (depending on the source) due to 27 species: from simple molecules (e.g. S-bearing: OCS, H<sub>2</sub>S, CCS, H<sub>2</sub>CS,  N-bearing: CN, HNCO, C-chains: c-C<sub>3</sub>H<sub>2</sub>, c-C<sub>3</sub>H, D-species: CCD, DCN, D<sub>2</sub>CO, CH<sub>2</sub>DOH, ions: N<sub>2</sub>D<sup>+</sup>, DCO<sup>+</sup>) to the so called interstellar Complex Organic Molecules (iCOMs), which can be considered as the bricks of a prebiotic chemistry (H<sub>2</sub>CO, H<sub>2</sub>CCO, CH<sub>3</sub>OH, CH<sub>3</sub>CN, CH<sub>3</sub>CHO, CH<sub>3</sub>CCH, HCOOCH<sub>3</sub>).</p><p> </p><p>All the sources are associated with high-velocity CO, H<sub>2</sub>CO, and SO outflows. In addition, our observations show a chemical differentiation, that can be summarized as follows: (1) we detect hot corino chemistry in one source, L1551 -IRS5, revealed by iCOMs as well as OCS, H<sub>2</sub>S, which could be the main S-bearing carriers on icy grains; (2) the envelopes of all the protostars are rich of carbon-chains molecules; (3) we find that the iCOMs of L1551 have similar abundance ratio, within one order of magnitude, as Class 0 and Class I hot corinos previously observed. </p><p> </p><p>We also compare the iCOMs abundance ratios as measured in the Class I source L1551-IRS5 with those measured in comets Hale-Bopp, Lemmon, Lovejoy, and 67P to understand if the cometary composition is inherited from the previous evolutionary stages. We find that the iCOMs abundance ratio (e.g. CH3CHO/HCOOCH3) at the Class 0 and Class I protostellar stages is comparable with that of comets, suggesting that cometary material could be inherited from the early stages of the star forming process leading to a Sun-like star. These results are a basis to future follow-up interferometric observations aimed to obtain a full inventory of the chemistry of Class I sources and to reconstruct the chemical route from Class 0 protostars to protoplanetary disks and planets.</p><p><br><br><br><br></p>


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