Human impact on atmospheric precipitation in a protected area in Western Poland. Results of long–term observations: Concentrations, deposition and trends

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 778-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Walna
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Western ◽  
Victor N. Mose ◽  
David Maitumo ◽  
Caroline Mburu

Abstract Background Studies of the African savannas have used national parks to test ecological theories of natural ecosystems, including equilibrium, non-equilibrium, complex adaptive systems, and the role of top-down and bottom-up physical and biotic forces. Most such studies have excluded the impact of pastoralists in shaping grassland ecosystems and, over the last half century, the growing human impact on the world’s rangelands. The mounting human impact calls for selecting indicators and integrated monitoring methods able to track ecosystem changes and the role of natural and human agencies. Our study draws on five decades of monitoring the Amboseli landscape in southern Kenya to document the declining role of natural agencies in shaping plant ecology with rising human impact. Results We show that plant diversity and productivity have declined, biomass turnover has increased in response to a downsizing of mean plant size, and that ecological resilience has declined with the rising probability of extreme shortfalls in pasture production. The signature of rainfall and physical agencies in driving ecosystem properties has decreased sharply with growing human impact. We compare the Amboseli findings to the long-term studies of Kruger and Serengeti national parks to show that the human influence, whether by design or default, is increasingly shaping the ecology of savanna ecosystems. We look at the findings in the larger perspective of human impact on African grasslands and the world rangelands, in general, and discuss the implications for ecosystem theory and conservation policy and management. Conclusions The Amboseli study shows the value of using long-term integrated ecological monitoring to track the spatial and temporal changes in the species composition, structure, and function of rangeland ecosystems and the role of natural and human agencies in the process of change. The study echoes the widespread changes underway across African savannas and world’s rangelands, concluding that some level of ecosystem management is needed to prevent land degradation and the erosion of ecological function, services, and resilience. Despite the weak application of ecological theory to conservation management, a plant trait-based approach is shown to be useful in explaining the macroecological changes underway.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALICE B. KELLY ◽  
A. CLARE GUPTA

SUMMARYThis study considers the issue of security in the context of protected areas in Cameroon and Botswana. Though the literature on issues of security and well-being in relation to protected areas is extensive, there has been less discussion of how and in what ways these impacts and relationships can change over time, vary with space and differ across spatial scales. Looking at two very different historical trajectories, this study considers the heterogeneity of the security landscapes created by Waza and Chobe protected areas over time and space. This study finds that conservation measures that various subsets of the local population once considered to be ‘bad’ (e.g. violent, exclusionary protected area creation) may be construed as ‘good’ at different historical moments and geographical areas. Similarly, complacency or resignation to the presence of a park can be reversed by changing environmental conditions. Changes in the ways security (material and otherwise) has fluctuated within these two protected areas has implications for the long-term management and funding strategies of newly created and already existing protected areas today. This study suggests that parks must be adaptively managed not only for changing ecological conditions, but also for shifts in a protected area's social, political and economic context.


2021 ◽  
pp. 87-99
Author(s):  
G. KH. ISMAIYLOV ◽  
◽  
N. V. MURASCHENKOVA ◽  
I. G. ISMAIYLOVA

The results of the analysis and assessment of changes in annual and seasonal characteristics of hydrometeorological processes in a private catchment area of the Kuibyshev hydroelectric complex of the Volga river are presented. To analyze the temporal dynamics of the variability of the annual and seasonal characteristics of the hydrometeorological processes in the considered territory of the river basin we used more than 100 years of observations of annual and seasonal fluctuations of lateral inflow, total atmospheric precipitation and air temperature regimes on the Volgariver. Relationship equations for annual and seasonal changes in hydrometeorological characteristics in time are obtained. It was found that long-term fluctuations of hydrometeorological processes (lateral inflow, total atmospheric precipitation and air temperature) are characterized by tendencies (trends). The analysis of these trends showed that the non-standard climatic situation, starting from the 70s of the last century, had a very significant impact on the distribution of annual and especially on the seasonal (low-water and winter) characteristics of hydrometeorological processes. It has been established that non-standard unidirectional changes are found in the fluctuations in the total atmospheric precipitation. If the winter total precipitation is characterized over the 100-year period in question by a continuously decreasing trend,the summer-autumn period is an increasing trend. This leads to the fact that long-term fluctuations in total precipitation during the period of low water are formed as a stationary process. At the same time, the total precipitation of the spring flood and inflowing to the Kuibyshev hydroelectric unit is characterized by a constantly increasing trend.


Oryx ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Okot Omoya ◽  
Tutilo Mudumba ◽  
Stephen T. Buckland ◽  
Paul Mulondo ◽  
Andrew J. Plumptre

AbstractDespite > 60 years of conservation in Uganda's national parks the populations of lions and spotted hyaenas in these areas have never been estimated using a census method. Estimates for some sites have been extrapolated to other protected areas and educated guesses have been made but there has been nothing more definitive. We used a lure count analysis method of call-up counts to estimate populations of the lion Panthera leo and spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta in the parks where reasonable numbers of these species exist: Queen Elizabeth Protected Area, Murchison Falls Conservation Area and Kidepo Valley National Park. We estimated a total of 408 lions and 324 hyaenas for these three conservation areas. It is unlikely that other conservation areas in Uganda host > 10 lions or > 40 hyaenas. The Queen Elizabeth Protected Area had the largest populations of lions and hyaenas: 140 and 211, respectively. It is estimated that lion numbers have declined by 30% in this protected area since the late 1990s and there are increasing concerns for the long-term viability of both species in Uganda.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1431-1447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo E. Gürtler ◽  
Lucía I. Rodríguez-Planes ◽  
Guillermo Gil ◽  
V. Martín Izquierdo ◽  
Marcelo Cavicchia ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (14) ◽  
pp. 2137-2152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Mary An Heyvaert ◽  
Jan Walstra
Keyword(s):  

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro I. Chiquetto-Machado ◽  
Felipe W. Amorim ◽  
Marcelo Duarte

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