Structural characteristics of zooplankton of the Shardarinskoe Reservoir and their use in water quality assessment

Data on the Shardarinskoe Reservoir are used to assess the indicator role of zooplankton community under unstable hydrological regime. The structural characteristics of zooplankton featured significant seasonal variations. The averaged indices characterized reservoir water quality at the level of mesotrophic and eutrophic water bodies. The possible use of cyclopidas to characterize toxic pollution of water is discussed.     

Mapping the Stakeholders: Using Social Network Analysis to Increase the Legitimacy and Transparency of Participatory Scenario Planning

Participatory scenario planning (PSP) processes rely on accurate stakeholder identification to develop a key set of critical uncertainties. While many stakeholder analysis methods are able to identify stakeholders and describe their relationships, we found these efforts to have limited use in the fast-moving and in-depth approach of PSP research. We find that social network analysis (SNA) is an efficient, objective, and transparent approach to stakeholder identification in highly contested natural resource management issues. We present a case study of our research on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula to describe how SNA’s ability to contextualize the relations between actors can benefit participatory research.     

Zooplankton Size Structure in the Kolsay Mountain Lakes (Kungei Alatau,Southeastern Kazakhstan) and Its Relationships with Environmental Factors

Water Resources - The size structure of zooplankton in Kolsay Lakes was characterized with the use of the values of Clarke W-statistic, ?-Shannon–Weaver, and the average individual mass...     

Modeling decadal timescale interactions between surface water and ground water in the central Everglades, Florida, USA

Surface-water and ground-water flow are coupled in the central Everglades, although the remoteness of this system has hindered many previous attempts to quantify interactions between surface water and ground water. We modeled flow through a 43,000 ha basin in the central Everglades called Water Conservation Area 2A. The purpose of the model was to quantify recharge and discharge in the basin's vast interior areas. The presence and distribution of tritium in ground water was the principal constraint on the modeling, based on measurements in 25 research wells ranging in depth from 2 to 37 m. In addition to average characteristics of surface-water flow, the model parameters included depth of the layer of ‘interactive’ ground water that is actively exchanged with surface water, average residence time of interactive ground water, and the associated recharge and discharge fluxes across the wetland ground surface. Results indicated that only a relatively thin (8 m) layer of the 60 m deep surfical aquifer actively exchanges surface water and ground water on a decadal timescale. The calculated storage depth of interactive ground water was 3.1 m after adjustment for the porosity of peat and sandy limestone. Modeling of the tritium data yielded an average residence time of 90 years in interactive ground water, with associated recharge and discharge fluxes equal to 0.01 cm d⁻¹. ³H/³He isotopic ratio measurements (which correct for effects of vertical mixing in the aquifer with deeper, tritium-dead water) were available from several wells, and these indicated an average residence time of 25 years, suggesting that residence time was overestimated using tritium measurements alone. Indeed, both residence time and storage depth would be expected to be overestimated due to vertical mixing. The estimate of recharge and discharge (0.01 cm d⁻¹) that resulted from tritium modeling therefore is still considered reliable, because the ratio of residence time and storage depth (used to calculated recharge and discharge) is much less sensitive to vertical mixing compared with residence time alone. We conclude that a small but potentially significant component of flow through the Everglades is recharged to the aquifer and stored there for years to decades before discharged back to surface water. Long-term storage of water and solutes in the ground-water system beneath the wetlands has implications for restoration of Everglades water quality.     

An effect of pier pilings on nearshore submarine groundwater discharge from a (partially) confined aquifer

Concurrent bulk ground conductivity mapping and direct measurements of seepage rates were carried out near a pier at Shelter Island, New York, U.S.A. A shallow sediment layer was identified to provide confinement for lower aquifer units. The conductivity and seepage rate data indicate that pilings of the pier apparently pierce this shallow sediment layer, producing a comparatively high seepage rate driven by the hydraulic head of the (partially) confined aquifer, resulting in a substantial increase in submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) near the pier. Seepage rate measurements made close to the pier, which runs perpendicular to the shoreline, cannot be considered representative for the area. At the study site, the magnitude of SGD depends both on the distance from shore and on the distance from the pier, a rmding that confounds the commonly observed patterns of decreasing SGD with increasing distance from shore. This alteration of a groundwater flow pattern is a previously undescribed effect of anthropogenic perturbation in a coastal system.     

Who’s Winning the Public Process? How to Use Public Documents to Assess the Equity,Efficiency, and Effectiveness of Stakeholder Engagement

Abstract

It is widely recognized that stakeholder engagement processes produce advantages, but few studies acknowledge that they also can produce disadvantages. There is a global need to better assess stakeholder engagement processes by defining success and developing new methods to analyze stakeholder participation data. Our method of digitizing and coding stakeholder communications (1) produces a wide range of analyses, (2) tells the story of governance over time, (3) is comparable with other datasets, and (4) can be used wherever public documents exist. We demonstrate the utility of these integrated methods by examining statewide differences in public participation and success rates in Alaska’s Board of Fisheries’ (Board) proposal process. We determine that significantly different participation and success rates across the state indicate the existence of disadvantages and the need for further investigation into the equity, efficiency, and effectiveness of the Board process.