Consistent Risk Management in a Changing World: Risk Equivalence in Fisheries and Other Human Activities Affecting Marine Resources and Ecosystems

A changing climate makes the evaluation of human impacts on natural systems increasingly uncertain and affects the risk associated with management decisions. This influences both the achievability and meaning of marine conservation and resource management objectives. A risk-based framework that includes a risk equivalence approach in the evaluation of the potential consequences from human activity, can be a powerful tool for timely and consistent handling of environmental considerations in management advice. Risk equivalence permits a formal treatment of all sources of uncertainty, such that objectives-based management decisions can be maintained within acceptable risk levels and deliver outcomes consistent with expectations. There are two pathways to risk equivalence that can be used to account for the short-term and longer-term impacts of a changing environment: adjusting the degree of exposure to human pressure and adjusting the reference levels used to measure the risk. The first uses existing data and knowledge to derive risk conditioning factors applied to condition management advice on environmental departures from baseline conditions. The second is used to formalise the review and update of management objectives, reference levels and risk tolerances, so they remain consistent with potential consequences from human activity under new biological, ecological and socio-economic realities. A risk equivalence approach is about adapting existing practice to frame environmental considerations within objectives-based risk frameworks, systematically exploring alternative scenarios and assumptions, and conditioning management advice on environmental status. It is applicable to the management of all human activities impacting biological and ecological systems. Concepts of risk, risk conditioning factors, and incremental changes in risk, provide a common currency for the inclusion and communication of environmental effects into advice. Risk equivalence can ensure timely delivery of robust management advice accounting for demonstrated, anticipated or projected environmental effects. This can guide management decisions in a changing world, and greatly facilitate the implementation of an ecosystem approach for the management of human activities.

Detecting the Quantitative Hydrological Response to Changes in Climate and Human Activities at Temporal and Spatial Scales in a Typical Gully Region of the Loess Plateau, China

This study examined the Chabagou River watershed in the gully region of the Loess Plateau in China’s Shaanxi Province, and was based on measured precipitation and runoff data in the basin over a 52-year period (1959–2010), land-use types, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and other data. Statistical models and distributed hydrological models were used to explore the influences of climate change and human activity on the hydrological response and on the temporal and spatial evolution of the basin. It was found that precipitation and runoff in the gully region presented a downward trend during the 52-year period. Since the 1970s, the hydrological response to human activities has become the main source of regional hydrological evolution. Evapotranspiration from the large silt dam in the study area has increased. The depth of soil water decreased at first, then it increased by amount that exceeded the evaporation increase observed in the second and third change periods. The water and soil conservation measures had a beneficial effect on the ecology of the watershed. These results provide a reference for water resource management and soil and water conservation in the study area.

Spatial-Temporal Variation of Snow Black Carbon Concentration in Snow Cover in Northeast China from 2001 to 2016 Based on Remote Sensing

The amount of black carbon (BC) on snow surface can significantly reduce snow surface albedo in the visible-light range and change the surface radiative forcing effect. Therefore, it is key to study regional and global climate changes to understand the BC concentration on snow. In this study, we simulated the BC concentration on the surface snow of northeast China using an asymptotic radiative transfer model. From 2001 to 2016, the BC concentration showed no significant increase, with an average increase of 82.104 ng/g compared with that in the early 21st century. The concentration of BC in December was the largest (1344.588 ng/g) and decreased in January and February (1248.619 ng/g and 983.635 ng/g, respectively). The high black carbon content centers were concentrated in the eastern and central regions with dense populations and concentrated industries, with a concentration above 1200 ng/g, while the BC concentration in the southwest region with less human activities was the lowest (below 850 ng/g), which indicates that human activities played an important role in snow BC pollution. Notably, Heilongjiang province has the highest concentration, which may be related to its atmospheric stability in winter. These findings suggest that the BC pollution in northeast China has been aggravated from 2001 to 2016. It is estimated that the snow surface albedo will decrease by 16.448% due to the BC pollution of snow in northeast China. The problem of radiative forcing caused by black carbon to snow reflectivity cannot be ignored.

Effect of Check Dam on Sediment Load Under Vegetation Restoration in the Hekou-Longmen Region of the Yellow River

With years of vegetation restoration and check dam construction on the Loess Plateau, the sediment load of the middle reaches of the Yellow River have decreased sharply; however, the effects of check dam on this decrease of sediment load with such extensive vegetation restoration remains unclear. In order to further clarify the effects of check dam on sediment load reduction under vegetation restoration, we calculated vegetation coverage and check dam index based on multi-source remote sensing data, and calculated sediment reduction rate caused by human activities by Mann-Kendall statistical test and double cumulative curve, then established regression equations incorporating the check dam index and the sediment reduction rate using data from different geomorphic regions with different vegetation coverages. The results showed that sediment load in the Hekou-Longmen region and its 17 tributaries decreased significantly every year, and the change in sediment load could be divided into 3 typical periods: the base period (P1), the period mainly impacted by check dam construction (P2) and the period with comprehensive impact of check dam construction and vegetation restoration (P3). Compared with sediment load of the tributaries during P1, the sediment load decreased by 60.96% during P2 and by 91.76% during P3. Compared with the contribution of human activities to the reduction in sediment load in P2, the contribution of human activities in P3 increased significantly, while that of precipitation decreased slightly. The sediment reduction effect of check dams is greater in basins with low vegetation coverage than in basins with high vegetation coverage. There are differences in sediment reduction effect of vegetation restorations in different geomorphic regions, and the effect of vegetation restoration alone have certain upper limits. Such as, the upper limit of sediment reduction rate of vegetation restoration for rivers flowing through the sandstorm region is 47.86%. Hence, only combined the construction of check dam with vegetation restoration can it achieve more significant sediment reduction benefit and control soil erosion more effectively.

Impacts of Climatic Variation and Human Activity on Runoff in Western China

Hydrological cycle is sensitively affected by climatic variation and human activity. Taking the upper- and middle-stream of the Weihe River in western China as an example, using multiple meteorological and hydrological elements, as well as land-use/land-cover change (LUCC) data, we constructed a sensitivity model of runoff to climatic elements and human activities based on the hydro-thermal coupling equilibrium equation, while a cumulative slope was used to establish a comprehensive estimation model for the contributions of climatic variation and human activities to the changes of runoff. The results showed that the above function model established could be well applied to quantitatively study the elasticity of runoff’s response to climatic variation and human activities. It was found that the annual average precipitation, evaporation, wind velocity, sunshine hours, relative humidity and runoff showed decreasing trends and that temperature increased. While in the hydrological cycle, precipitation and relative humidity had a non-linear positive driving effect on runoff, while temperature, evaporation, sunshine hours, wind velocity, and land-use/land-cover change (LUCC) have non-linearly negatively driven the variation of runoff. Moreover, runoff has a strong sensitive response to precipitation, evaporation and LUCC. In areas with strong human activities, the sensitivity of runoff to climatic change was decreasing, and runoff has a greater elastic response to underlying surface parameters. In addition, the analysis showed that the abrupt years of climate and runoff changes in the Weihe River Basin were 1970, 1985 and 1993. Before 1985, the contribution rate of climatic variation to runoff was 68.3%, being greater than that of human activities to runoff, and then the contribution rates of human activities to runoff reached 75.1%. The impact of natural climate on runoff was weakened, and the effect of human activities on runoff reduction increased. Under 30 hypothetical climatic scenarios, the evaluation of runoff in the future showed that the runoff in the Weihe River Basin will be greatly reduced, and the reduction will be more significant during the flood season. Comparing the geographically fragile environments and intense human activities, it was believed that climatic variation had a dramatic effect on driving the water cycle of precipitation and evaporation and affected regional water balance and water distribution, while human activities had driven the hydrological processes of the underlying surface, thus becoming the main factors in the reduction of runoff. This study provided scientific tools for regional climate change and water resources assessment.

Temporal Distribution of Arsenic and Metals in Soil From King George Island, Antarctica

The polar regions are vulnerable to impacts caused by local and global pollution. The Antarctic continent has been considered an environment that has remained little affected by human activities. Direct exposure to contaminants may occur in areas continuously occupied by research stations for several decades. Admiralty Bay on the southeast coast of King George Island, has potential for being affected by human activities due research stations operating in the area, including the Brazilian Commandant Ferraz Antarctic Station (CFAS). The levels of metals and arsenic were determined in soils collected near CFAS (points 5, 6, 7, and 9), Base G and at two points distant from the CFAS: Refuge II and Hennequin. Samples were collected after the fire in CFAS occurred in February 2012, up to December 2018 to assess the environmental impacts in the area. Al and As were related with Base G. Refuge II and Hennequin can be considered as control points for this region. As a consequence of the accident, the increased levels for Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn, especially at point 9 (inside the CFAS) and in the soil surrounding the CFAS in 2013. The results from 2016 to 2018 demonstrated a reduction in levels of all studied metals near CFAS, which may be related to the leaching of metals into Admiralty Bay; it is thus, being important the continue monitoring soil, sediments, and Antarctic biota.

Daily Living Activity Recognition In-The-Wild: Modeling and Inferring Activity-Aware Human Contexts

Advancement in smart sensing and computing technologies has provided a dynamic opportunity to develop intelligent systems for human activity monitoring and thus assisted living. Consequently, many researchers have put their efforts into implementing sensor-based activity recognition systems. However, recognizing people’s natural behavior and physical activities with diverse contexts is still a challenging problem because human physical activities are often distracted by changes in their surroundings/environments. Therefore, in addition to physical activity recognition, it is also vital to model and infer the user’s context information to realize human-environment interactions in a better way. Therefore, this research paper proposes a new idea for activity recognition in-the-wild, which entails modeling and identifying detailed human contexts (such as human activities, behavioral environments, and phone states) using portable accelerometer sensors. The proposed scheme offers a detailed/fine-grained representation of natural human activities with contexts, which is crucial for modeling human-environment interactions in context-aware applications/systems effectively. The proposed idea is validated using a series of experiments, and it achieved an average balanced accuracy of 89.43%, which proves its effectiveness.

Enhanced bioavailability of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in human-disturbed streams in Alpine fluvial networks

The influence of human activities on the role of inland waters in the global carbon (C) cycle is poorly constrained. In this study, we investigated the impact of human land use on the sources and biodegradation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and its potential impact on bacterial respiration in 10 independent catchments of the Lake Geneva basin. Sites were selected along a gradient of human disturbance (agriculture and urbanization) and were visited twice during the winter high-flow period. Bacterial respiration and DOM bioavailability were measured in the laboratory through standardized dark bioassays, and the influence of human land uses on DOM sources, composition and reactivity was assessed from fluorescence spectroscopy. Bacterial respiration was higher in agro-urban streams but was related to a short-term bioreactive pool (0–6 d of incubation) of autochthonous origin, whose relative contribution to the total DOM pool increased with the degree of human disturbance. On the other hand, the degradation of a long-term (6–28 d) bioreactive pool related to terrestrial DOM was independent from the catchment land use and did not contribute substantially to aquatic bacterial respiration. From a greenhouse gas emission perspective, our results suggest that human activities may have a limited impact on the net C exchanges between inland waters and the atmosphere, as most CO2 fixed by aquatic producers in agro-urban streams is cycled back to the atmosphere after biomineralization. Although seasonal and longitudinal changes in DOM sources must be considered, the implications of our results likely apply more widely as a greater proportion of autochthonous-DOM signature is a common feature in human-impacted catchments. Yet, on a global scale, the influence of human activities remains to be determined given the large diversity of effects of agriculture and urbanization on freshwater DOM depending on the local environmental context.