Using housing estates as conservation tools: A case study in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Increasing transformation and fragmentation of rural landscapes for economic reasons is causing concern to conservationists worldwide. With this trend likely to continue, perhaps conservation agencies and development corporations need to co-operate and plan housing developments that are environmentally and ecologically sustainable and can serve as refuges for endangered species. In KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, grasslands are particularly threatened by land transformation for housing developments. A case study is presented of a housing development, Wedgewood Estate in KwaZulu-Natal that has been developed and managed for conserving grassland habitat and associated species, particularly the endangered oribi (Ourebia ourebi). Feedback from the Estate's managers about the development and ecological impact were obtained. Wedgewood is an example of the viability of housing estates as refuges for endangered species and shows that the density and placement of housing and management of the natural habitat are important. It emphasizes the need for reviewing the types and amount of housing development, management of natural habitat, and the rules and regulations they put in place to assure the integrity of the conservancy is preserved. This case study also shows the potential of such ecologically sensitive housing developments as sources of surplus game for translocation, especially in the case of endangered species such as oribi.     

A sediment budget for a grazed semi-arid catchment in the Burdekin basin, Australia

In catchments adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area in Queensland, Australia, there is a growing concern that sediments and nutrients being exported from the land are having a detrimental effect on coral reef communities. There is a need to determine the processes and rates of erosion from the major land use types, so that management intervention can be initiated to reduce sediment yields where required. This paper presents a sediment budget for Weany Creek, a 13.5 km² grazed semi-arid sub-catchment of the Burdekin River catchment, Australia. A range of field methods was used to measure erosion from hillslopes, gullies and stream banks, as well as identify the amount of sediment being deposited and remobilised on the bed of gullies and the stream network. The data suggests that at least during drought conditions, the primary erosion source in this catchment is gully erosion. However, the largest source of sediment in the budget is actually associated with the remobilisation of in-channel sediment stores. Overall, the sediment budget is comprised of  81% coarse material and 19% fine sediment and an agreement between the fine sediment yield estimated in the sediment budget and the yield measured at the catchment outlet is within 10%. The total sediment yield estimated for this catchment is  4205 t yr^− 1 and is much lower than expected for a catchment of this size. This may reflect the drought conditions during the measurement period; however, there is also the possibility that the primary erosion sources have been exhausted, and the rates of sediment loss may be much lower now than they may have been in the past. Nonetheless, the results show that stored sediment, which may have been deposited in the channel many decades ago, is an important contributor to end of catchment sediment yields and warrants further investigation.     

Contribution of Mangroves and Salt Marshes to Nature-Based Mitigation of Coastal Flood Risks in Major Deltas of the World

Nature-based solutions are rapidly gaining interest in the face of global change and increasing flood risks. While assessments of flood risk mitigation by coastal ecosystems are mainly restricted to local scales, our study assesses the contribution of salt marshes and mangroves to nature-based storm surge mitigation in 11 large deltas around the world. We present a relatively simple GIS model that, based on globally available input data, provides an estimation of the tidal wetland’s capacity of risk mitigation at a regional scale. It shows the high potential of nature-based solutions, as tidal wetlands, to provide storm surge mitigation to more than 80% of the flood-exposed land area for 4 of the 11 deltas and to more than 70% of the flood-exposed population for 3 deltas. The magnitude of the nature-based mitigation, estimated as the length of the storm surge pathway crossing through tidal wetlands, was found to be significantly correlated to the total wetland area within a delta. This highlights the importance of conserving extensive continuous tidal wetlands as a nature-based approach to mitigate flood risks. Our analysis further reveals that deltas with limited historical wetland reclamation and therefore large remaining wetlands, such as the Mississippi, the Niger, and part of the Ganges-Brahmaputra deltas, benefit from investing in the conservation of their vast wetlands, while deltas with extensive historical wetland reclamation, such as the Yangtze and Rhine deltas, may improve the sustainability of flood protection programs by combining existing hard engineering with new nature-based solutions through restoration of former wetlands.     

Molecular simulation of humic substance-Ca-montmorillonite complexes

An understanding of the processes that lead to long-term stabilization of organic matter in soils is essential to the effective implementation of strategies designed to mitigate CO₂ loss from the soil carbon reservoir in temperate climatic zones. Decomposition studies indicate that montmorillonite, a smectite that often forms with interlayers rich in Ca²⁺, greatly retards the microbial mineralization of soil organic matter. We performed a series of atomistic simulations designed to identify favorable molecular-scale organo-mineral interactions within nanoscale, hydrated complexes consisting of a humic substance and Ca-montmorillonite. Both protonated and Ca-saturated forms of the model humic molecule, representing acidic and circumneutral solution conditions, respectively, were studied within the hydrated interlayer region of a rigid-atom model of Ca-montmorillonite. The protonated humic substance formed direct hydrophobic and hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) interactions with the clay mineral. A few polar organic groups adsorbed via water bridging interactions. The Ca-saturated humic substance adsorbed via numerous cation bridges, less numerous water bridges, and indirect H-bonding interactions mediated by water molecules. Application of molecular modeling techniques to this complex organo-mineral system thus allowed identification of interactions favorable to carbon sequestration under both acidic and circumneutral conditions.     

The contribution of agricultural and urban activities to inorganic carbon fluxes within temperate watersheds

The lateral transport of bicarbonate as dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) to the oceans is an integral component of the global carbon budget and can represent the sequestration of CO₂ from the atmosphere. Recently studies have implicated land use change, in particular agricultural development, as an accelerator of bicarbonate export. However, due to the co-variation of land use, bedrock and surficial geologies, and the relationship between bicarbonate export and climate, the impact of anthropogenic activities on DIC export remains an important research question. In order to examine the land use controls on DIC export from small temperate watersheds we sampled 19 streams draining catchments of varying land uses with similar bedrock and surficial geologies. In addition to an agricultural effect, there was a strong correlation between the percent of watershed in urban development and DIC concentrations and DIC yields. Urban watersheds exported 7.8 times more DIC than their nearby forested counterparts and 2.0 times more DIC than nearby agricultural catchments. Isotopic data suggest that excess DIC export from altered systems results from increased chemical weathering, enhanced CO₂ production within urban green spaces, and as a result of organic matter loading from septic systems and leaky sewer lines. Furthermore, we found that nitrogen additions (e.g. fertilizers and manure) are aiding in the dissolution of lime, increasing the total export of DIC from agricultural watersheds. Calculated anthropogenic loading rates ranged from 0.43 to 0.86 mol C m^− 2 yr^− 1. These loading rates suggest that a significant portion of global DIC export might be attributable to human activities, although the impacts on CO₂ sequestration are difficult to determine.     

The importance of sewage effluent discharge in the export of dissolved organic carbon from U.K. rivers

The flux of fluvial carbon from the terrestrial biosphere to the world's oceans is known to be an important component of the global carbon cycle, but within this pathway, the flux and return of carbon to the river network via sewage effluent has not been quantified. In this study, monitoring data from 2000 to 2016 for the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration, biochemical oxygen demand, and chemical oxygen demand of the final effluent of sewage treatment works from across England were examined to assess the amount of DOC contributing to national‐scale fluvial fluxes of carbon. The study shows that the median concentration of DOC in final effluent was 9.4 compared with 4.8 mg C/L for all surface waters for the United Kingdom over the study period and that the DOC in final effluent significantly declined over the study period from 11.0 to 6.4 mg C/L. Rivers receiving sewage effluent showed a significant, on average 19%, increase in DOC concentration downstream of sewage discharges. At the scale of the United Kingdom, the flux of DOC in final effluent was 31 ktonnes C/year with a per capita export of 0.55 kg C/year and compared with an average annual flux of DOC from the United Kingdom of 859 ktonnes C/year, that is, only 3.6% of national‐scale flux. The lability of this DOC was limited, with only 7.4% loss of final effluent DOC concentration over in‐stream residence times of up to 5 days. The direct decline in DOC concentration from sewage treatment works was not large enough on its own to explain the declines observed in DOC concentration in U.K. rivers at their tidal limit.     

Physics of the earth and the solar system

Book Review

Physics of the earth and the solar systemB. Bertotti and P. Farinella, Kluwer Academic Publishers, (Volume 31 of Geophysics and Astrophysics Monographs) xv + 479 pp., subject index; price, £74.00, $99.00, Dfl 200 (hardcover); ISBN 0-7923-0535-3     

Political orientation and climate concern shape visual attention to climate change

Despite the scientific consensus, there is widespread public controversy about climate change. Previous explanations focused on interpretations hampered by political bias or insufficient knowledge of climate facts. We propose that public views of climate change may also be related to an attentional bias at a more basic level of cognitive processing. We hypothesized that selective visual attention towards or away from climate-related information would be associated with climate concern. To test prioritization of climate-related stimuli under conditions of limited attention, we asked participants to identify climate-related and neutral words within a rapid stream of stimuli. Undergraduate students attended to climate-related words more readily than neutral words. This attentional prioritization correlated with self-rated climate concern. We then examined this relationship in a more diverse community sample. Principal component analysis of survey data in the community sample revealed a component indexing a relationship between climate concern and political orientation. That component was correlated with the degree of selective inattention to climate-related words. Our findings suggest that climate-related communications may be most effective if tailored in a manner accounting for how attentional priorities differ between audiences—particularly those with different political orientations.     

PORTRAITS OF PLACELESSNESS: BRITISH NINETEENTH-CENTURY IMAGES OF THE AFRICAN LANDSCAPE

Landscape art provides a window on the world of subjective interpretation and shared perceptions of place. Portraits of places are therefore simultaneously portraits of a society, its preferences and prejudices, and the meaning it imparts to the world. In the nineteenth century, settlers in Africa felt alienated, uncomfortable, abandoned and detached, and their landscape art—both paintings and poetry—was testimony to their emotional and psychological responses to the foreign environment. Both the imported artistic techniques for portraying nat?re and the symbols populating the landscape images revealed the temperament of the pioneers’ attitudes to place.