A Feasibility Analysis of Applying Water Quality Trading

Water quality trading is a policy tool that could improve the cost-effectiveness of achieving environmental goals, but it is not currently used in the state of Georgia. This paper evaluates the feasibility of applying water quality trading in Georgia watersheds. The criteria used for this evaluation include environmental suitability, regulatory incentive, economic incentive, availability of participants, and stakeholder response. The evaluation concludes that the Georgia watersheds where WQT appears to be most feasible include the Chattahoochee, Coosa, Savannah, and Ocmulgee basins. Feasibility is also likely to be high in the Flint and Oconee basins. However, it is important to note that WQT could develop in any watershed where a pollution source has an economic interest in trading. The evaluation concludes that the opportunity for WQT in Georgia is somewhat limited by present regulatory conditions, but offers alterative WQT models that should be considered. Working Paper Number 2005-002

Water Quality Trading: Legal Analysis for Georgia Watersheds

Water quality trading is a policy tool that could improve the cost effectiveness of achieving environmental goals, but it is not currently used in the state of Georgia. This paper seeks to evaluate the applicability of water quality trading in Georgia watersheds with a specific focus on legal issues. This paper reviews Georgia law and regulations to evaluate barriers to and support for water quality trading. It also reviews water quality trading policies from other states and explores the value of adopting a state water quality trading policy in Georgia. The paper concludes that while existing law provides implicit authority to implement water quality trading in Georgia, inadequate regulatory pressure in most Georgia watersheds and possible legal challenges could be significant impediments to implementing water quality trading in the state at this time. The paper also suggests that successful pilot trades should precede the development of statewide water quality trading policy. Working Paper Number 2005-002

An Evaluation of Water Quality Trading for Georgia Watersheds

Water quality trading is a policy tool that could improve the cost effectiveness of achieving environmental goals, but it is not currently used in the state of Georgia. This research seeks to evaluate the applicability of water quality trading in Georgia watersheds. This report provides an update on the status of current research on water quality trading conducted through a collaboration of the Georgia Water Policy and Planning Center, the Georgia State University Andrew Young School of Public Policy, and the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forest Resources. Working Paper Number 2005-00

Strategy as Learning: Capturing Emerging Knowledge

The process of strategy making presents a multi-faceted debate, with the ‘Learning School’ of strategic management being one of the main approaches to conceptualise strategy formation. This approach suggests that strategy making is a process of emergent learning over time, where strategy makers critically reflect on past experience, experiment in new competitive conditions and adapt their strategies accordingly. The premises of the Learning School are similar to the premises of action learning, and yet, the action learning paradigm appears to have made little or no impact in strategic management literature and practice. This paper proposes that implementing an action learning methodology into the process of strategy making could make an important contribution to strategy makers by capturing, harnessing and developing organizational learning and knowledge

A study of property and knowledge inheritance in 19th Century Scania, Sweden

Knowledge and property are both inheritable from parents to children, and who receives the inheritance is influential in deciding which children maintain or advance in social class in societies where social mobility exists. Since knowledge and property have different characteristics, it is expected that their would be a difference between the two in how they affect the ultimate social status of the children who receive them. This is a study of those affects, using a public genealogical database of thousands of individuals who existed in Scania, Sweden throughout the 19th century, during a time where primogeniture inheritance was the norm. Analysis was done to see whether knowledge and property inheritance followed typical primogeniture patterns in the resulting social class of children based on birth order of the children

Estimation of Costs of Phosphorus Removal In Wastewater Treatment Facilities: Adaptation of Existing Facilities

As part of a wider enquiry into the feasibility of offset banking schemes as a means to implement pollutant trading within Georgia watersheds, this is the second of two reports addressing the issue of estimating costs for upgrades in the performance of phosphorus removal in point-source wastewater treatment facilities. Earlier, preliminary results are presented in Jiang et al (2004) (Working Paper # 2004-010 of the Georgia Water Planning and Policy Center). The present study is much more detailed and employs an advanced software package (WEST®, Hemmis nv, Kortrijk, Belgium) for simulating a variety of treatment plant designs operating under typical Georgia conditions. Specifically, upgrades in performance, in a single step, from a plant working at an effluent limit of less than 2.0 mg/l phosphorus to one working with limits variously ranging between less than 1.0 mg/l to less than 0.05 mg/l phosphorus are simulated and the resulting costs of the upgrade estimated.Five capacities of plant are considered, from 1 MGD to 100 MGD. Three strategic, alternative designs for the facility are considered: the basic activated sludge (AS) process with chemical addition, the Anoxic/Oxic (A/O) arrangement of the AS process, and the Anaerobic/Aerobic/Oxic (A/A/O) arrangement of the AS process. Upgrades in performance are consistent with the logical alternatives for adapting these options. Cost comparisons are made primarily on the basis of the incremental cost of the upgrade, i.e., from the base-case, reference plant to that performing at the higher level, as expressed through the incremental Total Annual Economic Cost (TAEC; in $) and the marginal unit cost of phosphorus removal, expressed in ($/kg).For the most stringent upgrade, for example, to a plant generating an effluent with less than 0.05 mg/l phosphorus, these marginal costs -- the cost of the additional phosphorus removed as a result of the upgrade -- amount to something of the order of 150-425 $/kg, with the upper bound being associated with the smallest plant configuration (1 MGD). Working Paper Number 2005-001

The Structure of Molecular Clouds: III - A link between cloud structure and star formation mode

We analyse extinction maps of nearby Giant Molecular Clouds to forge a link between driving processes of turbulence and modes of star formation. Our investigation focuses on cloud structure in the column density range above the self shielding threshold of 1mag Av and below the star formation threshold -- the regime in which turbulence is expected to dominate. We identify clouds with shallow mass distributions as cluster forming. Clouds that form stars in a less clustered or isolated mode show a steeper mass distribution. Structure functions prove inadequate to distinguish between clouds of different star formation mode. They may, however, suggest that the turbulence in the average cloud is governed by solenoidal forcing. The same is found using the Delta-variance analysis which also indicates that clouds with a clustered mode of star formation show an enhanced component of compressive driving in the turbulent field. Thus, while star formation occurs in each cloud, independent of the turbulent driving mechanism, compressive forcing appears to be associated with the formation of stellar clusters.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication by MNRAS, a version with higher resolution figures can be found at http://astro.kent.ac.uk/~df

Optimising the spatial pattern of landscape revegetation

The spatial pattern of landscape reconstruction makes a substantial difference to environmental outcomes. We develop a spatially explicit bio-economic model that optimises the reconstruction of a heavily cleared landscape through revegetation. The model determines the spatial priorities for revegetation that minimises economic costs subject to achieving particular improvements in habitat for 29 woodland-dependent bird species. The study focuses on the Avoca catchment (330 thousand ha) in North-Central Victoria. Our model incorporates spatial pattern and heterogeneity of existing and reconstructed vegetation types. The revegetation priorities are identified as being: sites in the vicinity of existing remnants, riparian areas, and parts of the landscape with diverse land uses and vegetation types. Optimal reconstruction design is affected by opportunity costs due to the loss of agricultural production and the costs of revegetation. 1 Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, 6009 2 Department of Primary Industries, Rutherglen, RMB 1145 Chiltern Valley Rd, Rutherglen, Victoria, 3685 3 North Central Catchment Management Authority, PO Box 18, Huntly, Victoria, 3551landscape reconstruction, biodiversity, optimisation, habitat, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Q57,

Roman fort construction : the benefits of standardization

Roman forts have been studied in both archaeology and history for many years. Standardization has often been mentioned as a tool of the Roman army and also one of its greatest strengths. In this study, the key aspects of three Roman fort designs have been identified and analyzed with regard to their strategic, logistical, and spatial significance. In addition, the possible ramifications of these designs upon later fort building in the United States during the late 18th century were also considered in addition to the analysis that was performed on the Roman fort designs.Honors CollegeThesis (B.?.

The Structure of Molecular Clouds: II - Column Density and Mass Distributions

The formation of stars is inextricably linked to the structure of their parental molecular clouds. Here we take a number of nearby giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and analyse their column density and mass distributions. This investigation is based on four new all-sky median colour excess extinction maps determined from 2MASS. The four maps span a range of spatial resolution of a factor of eight. This allows us to determine cloud properties at a common spatial scale of 0.1pc, as well as to study the scale dependence of the cloud properties. We find that the low column density and turbulence dominated part of the clouds can be well fit by a log-normal distribution. However, above a universal extinction threshold of 6.0 \pm 1.5mag A_V there is excess material compared to the log-normal distribution in all investigated clouds. This material represents the part of the cloud that is currently involved in star formation, and thus dominated by gravity. Its contribution to the total mass of the clouds ranges over two orders of magnitude from 0.1 to 10%. This implies that our clouds sample various stages in the evolution of GMCs. Furthermore, we find that the column density and mass distributions are extremely similar between clouds if we analyse only the high extinction material. On the other hand, there are significant differences between the distributions if only the low extinction, turbulence dominated regions are considered. This shows that the turbulent properties differ between clouds depending on their environment. However, no significant influence on the predominant mode of star formation (clustered or isolated) could be found. Furthermore, the fraction of the cloud actively involved in star formation is only governed by gravity, with the column density and mass distributions not significantly altered by local feedback processes.Comment: 31 pages, 4 tables, 99 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS, a version with higher resolution figures can be found at http://astro.kent.ac.uk/extinction