Cost-Benefit Studies use scarce resources too: some lessons from a study of forested wetlands in the Moreton region

Although proposed developments which may adversely affect environmental assets are increasingly subjected to scrutiny through the application of an environmental assessment technique such as cost-benefit analysis, little consideration has been given to the question of the optimal allocation of resources to the actual cost-benefit study itself. It is argued here that significant resource savings may be made if the allocation of resources to cost-benefit analyses is commensurate with the importance of the decisions being informed by the analyses. Using a study of the Melaleuca quinquenervia dominated forested wetlands of the Moreton Region, it is demonstrated that the decisions about their future use may be accompanied by significant resource savings as a result of the development of rules of thumb linking the characteristics of wetland vegetation with the functions which wetlands perform.Cost-benefit, environmental assessment, wetlands, vegetation characteristics,

Earthshine as an Illumination Source at the Moon

Earthshine is the dominant source of natural illumination on the surface of the Moon during lunar night, and at locations within permanently shadowed regions that never receive direct sunlight. As such, earthshine may enable the exploration of areas of the Moon that are hidden from solar illumination. The heat flux from earthshine may also influence the transport and cold trapping of volatiles present in the very coldest areas. In this study, Earth's spectral radiance at the Moon is examined using a suite of Earth spectral models created using the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) three dimensional modeling capability. At the Moon, the broadband, hemispherical irradiance from Earth near 0 phase is approximately 0.15 watts per square meter, with comparable contributions from solar reflectance and thermal emission. Over the simulation timeframe, spanning two lunations, Earth's thermal irradiance changes less than a few mW per square meter as a result of cloud variability and the south-to-north motion of sub-observer position. In solar band, Earth's diurnally averaged light curve at phase angles < 60 degrees is well fit using a Henyey Greenstein integral phase function. At wavelengths > 0.7 microns, near the well known vegetation "red edge", Earth's reflected solar radiance shows significant diurnal modulation as a result of the longitudinal asymmetry in projected landmass, as well as from the distribution of clouds. A simple formulation with adjustable coefficients is presented for estimating Earth's hemispherical irradiance at the Moon as a function of wavelength, phase angle and sub-observer coordinates. It is demonstrated that earthshine is sufficiently bright to serve as a natural illumination source for optical measurements from the lunar surface.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures, 1 tabl

Oxygen photolysis in the Mauritanian upwelling: Implications for net community production

We carried out 16 photochemical experiments of filtered surface water in a custom-built solar simulator and concomitant measurements of in vitro gross primary production (GPP) and respiration (R) in the Mauritanian upwelling during a Lagrangian study following three sulfur hexafluoride–labeled patches of upwelled water (P1 to P3). Oxygen photolysis rates were correlated with the absorbance of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) at 300 nm, suggesting first-order kinetics with respect to CDOM. An exponential fit was used to calculate the apparent quantum yield (AQY) for oxygen photolysis, giving an average AQY of 0.00053 mmol O2 (mole photons m22 s21)21 at 280 nm and slope of 0.0012 nm21. Modeled photochemical oxygen demand (POD) at the surface (3–16 mmol m23 d21) occasionally exceeded R and was dominated by ultraviolet radiation (71– 79%). Euphotic-layer integrated GPP decreased with time during both P-1 and P-3, whereas R remained relatively constant and POD increased during P-1 and decreased during P-3. On Day 4 of P-3, GPP and POD maxima coincided with high CDOM absorbance, suggesting ‘‘new’’ CDOM production. Omitting POD may lead to an underestimation of net community production (NCP), both through in vitro and geochemical methods (here by 2–22%). We propose that oxygen-based NCP estimates should be revised upward. For the Mauritanian upwelling, the POD-corrected NCP was strongly correlated with standard NCP with a slope of 1.0066 6 0.0244 and intercept of 46.51 6 13.15 mmol m22 d21

Does elevated CO2 alter silica uptake in trees?

© The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Frontiers in Plant Science 5 (2015): 793, doi:10.3389/fpls.2014.00793.Human activities have greatly altered global carbon (C) and Nitrogen (N) cycling. In fact, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased 40% over the last century and the amount of N cycling in the biosphere has more than doubled. In an effort to understand how plants will respond to continued global CO2 fertilization, long-term free-air CO2 enrichment experiments have been conducted at sites around the globe. Here we examine how atmospheric CO2 enrichment and N fertilization affects the uptake of silicon (Si) in the Duke Forest, North Carolina, a stand dominated by Pinus taeda (loblolly pine), and five hardwood species. Specifically, we measured foliar biogenic silica concentrations in five deciduous and one coniferous species across three treatments: CO2 enrichment, N enrichment, and N and CO2 enrichment. We found no consistent trends in foliar Si concentration under elevated CO2, N fertilization, or combined elevated CO2 and N fertilization. However, two-thirds of the tree species studied here have Si foliar concentrations greater than well-known Si accumulators, such as grasses. Based on net primary production values and aboveground Si concentrations in these trees, we calculated forest Si uptake rates under control and elevated CO2 concentrations. Due largely to increased primary production, elevated CO2 enhanced the magnitude of Si uptake between 20 and 26%, likely intensifying the terrestrial silica pump. This uptake of Si by forests has important implications for Si export from terrestrial systems, with the potential to impact C sequestration and higher trophic levels in downstream ecosystems.This research was supported in part by the Sloan Foundation in a fellowship to Robinson W. Fulweiler. The Duke Forest FACE was supported by his study was supported by the US Department of Energy (Grant No. DE-FG02-95ER62083) through the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) and its National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC), Southeast Regional Center (SERC) at the University of Alabama, and by the US Forest Service through both the Southern Global Climate Change Program and the Southern Research Station. Adrien C. Finzi acknowledges ancillary support from the US NSF (DEB0236356)

Climate and livestock disease: assessing the vulnerability of agricultural systems to livestock pests under climate change scenarios

Livestock as a sector is extremely important to the global economy and to rural livelihoods. As of 2013, there was an estimated 38 billion livestock in the world, or five animals for every person. Most (81%) were in developing countries. Around one billion smallholder farmers keep livestock, many of them women. The burden of animal disease in developing countries is high: livestock disease probably kills 20% of ruminants and more than 50% of poultry each year causing a loss of approximately USD 300 billion per year. Climate change can exacerbate disease in livestock, and some diseases are especially sensitive to climate change. Among 65 animal diseases identified as most important to poor livestock keepers, 58% are climate sensitive. Climate change may also have indirect effects on animal disease, and these may be greater than the direct effects