Whooping Crane Roost Site Characteristics on the Platte River, Buffalo County, Nebraska

Whooping Crane (Grus americana) use of the Platte River in Nebraska has been a controversial topic, especially in the last decade. Pressures from water development interests seeking Platte River water conflict with the needs of wildlife and interests from the conservation community. Between spring 1942 and fall 1984 there were 13 confirmed Whooping Crane sightings on or near the Platte River (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 1985). Lingle et al. (1984) described physical characteristics of a Platte River roost site used in 1983. This report describes the physical characteristics of the most recent known roost site on the Platte River

Organic search: How metaphors help cultivate the web

Tomatoes, apples and bread can be ‘organic.’ But search results? Anna Jobin and Malte Ziewitz wonder about the currency of agricultural metaphors in web search and show how they do different work for different users. This article is part of our blog series How metaphors shape the digital society

Reproductive ecology of interior least tern and piping plover in relation to Platte River hydrology and sandbar dynamics

Historical and contemporary use of large, economically important rivers by threatened and/or endangered species in the United States is a subject of great interest to a wide range of stakeholders. In a recent study of the Platte River in Nebraska, Farnsworth et al. (2017) (hereinafter referred to as “the authors” or “Farnsworth et al.”) used distributions of nest initiation dates taken mostly from human-created, off-channel habitats and a model of emergent sandbar habitat to evaluate the hypothesis that least terns (Sternula antillarum) and piping plovers (Charadrius melodus) are physiologically adapted to initiate nests concurrent with the cessation of spring river flow rises. The authors conclude that (1) these species are not now, nor were they in the past, physiologically adapted to the hydrology of the Platte River, (2) habitats in the Platte River did not, and cannot support reproductive levels sufficient to maintain species subpopulations, (3) the gap in local elevation between peak river stage and typical sandbar height, in combination with the timing of the average spring flood, creates a physical environment which limits opportunities for successful nesting and precludes persistence by either species, and (4) the presence of off-channel habitats, including human-created sand and gravel mines, natural lakes, and a playa wetland, allowed the species to expand into the Platte River basin

Bureaucracy as a Lens for Analyzing and Designing Algorithmic Systems

Scholarship on algorithms has drawn on the analogy between algorithmic systems and bureaucracies to diagnose shortcomings in algorithmic decision-making. We extend the analogy further by drawing on Michel Crozier’s theory of bureaucratic organizations to analyze the relationship between algorithmic and human decision-making power. We present algorithms as analogous to impartial bureaucratic rules for controlling action, and argue that discretionary decision-making power in algorithmic systems accumulates at locations where uncertainty about the operation of algorithms persists. This key point of our essay connects with Alkhatib and Bernstein’s theory of ’street-level algorithms’, and highlights that the role of human discretion in algorithmic systems is to accommodate uncertain situations which inflexible algorithms cannot handle. We conclude by discussing how the analysis and design of algorithmic systems could seek to identify and cultivate important sources of uncertainty, to enable the human discretionary work that enhances systemic resilience in the face of algorithmic errors.Peer reviewe

WHOOPING CRANE RIVERINE ROOSTING HABITAT SUITABILITY MODEL

Water development interests on the Platte River in Nebraska and recognition of the importance of this river as migratory bird habitat have prompted studies to determine how much water is needed to maintain wildlife habitat values. The whooping crane (Grus americana) is one of many species that use the Platte. A model was developed to quantify the relationship between river discharge and roosting habitat suitability for whooping cranes, designed to accommodate the data collection and hydraulic simulation techniques of the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology. Results of the model indicate that optimum roosting habitat conditions in the Big Bend reach of the Platte River are provided by flows of approximately 56.7 m3/s to 60.0 m3/s

Quantifying the federal requirement: water for fish and wildlife in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin

I explore the idea of a federal requirement for flow in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin to protect fish and wildlife. This idea is complicated by the fact that both water and wildlife are public trust resources of the states, not the federal government. However, the federal government exercises considerable control of water in the ACF through the operations of several large reservoirs. Also, several ACF aquatic species are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Until its termination in 2003, negotiations for an allocation formula under the ACF Compact provided briefly a forum for considering a federal flow requirement for fish and wildlife. I discuss in general terms what is known and not known about the flow needs of the ESA-listed aquatic species in the ACF. The overarching need in the basin is for a flow prescription that both federal and state water managers and regulators would apply adaptively to decisions affecting the water resource. The prescription should represent an informed societal choice about the desired balance between human uses of the basin’s waters and the ecological integrity of those waters.Sponsored by: Georgia Environmental Protection Division U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Water Science Center U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Water Resources Institute The University of Georgia, Water Resources Facult

A not quite random walk: Experimenting with the ethnomethods of the algorithm

Algorithms have become a widespread trope for making sense of social life. Science, finance, journalism, warfare, and policing—there is hardly anything these days that has not been specified as “algorithmic.” Yet, although the trope has brought together a variety of audiences, it is not quite clear what kind of work it does. Often portrayed as powerful yet inscrutable entities, algorithms maintain an air of mystery that makes them both interesting and difficult to understand. This article takes on this problem and examines the role of algorithms not as techno-scientific objects to be known, but as a figure that is used for making sense of observations. Following in the footsteps of Harold Garfinkel’s tutorial cases, I shall illustrate the implications of this view through an experiment with algorithmic navigation. Challenging participants to go on a walk, guided not by maps or GPS but by an algorithm developed on the spot, I highlight a number of dynamics typical of reasoning with running code, including the ongoing respecification of rules and observations, the stickiness of the procedure, and the selective invocation of the algorithm as an intelligible object. The materials thus provide an opportunity to rethink key issues at the intersection of the social sciences and the computational, including popular concerns with transparency, accountability, and ethics