African Inland Fisheries: Experiences with Co-Management and Policies of Decentralization

Most countries in Africa have promoted some form of decentralized fisheries management either as discrete co-management projects or as a component of broader decentralization processes that cut across other sectors. These initiatives were shaped by an international policy narrative that emphasises participation in decision making and development. A review of fisheries decentralization experiences in Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, and Malawi reveals marked differences in purpose, strategy, and performance. In general, co-management projects are limited by their ability to scale up new practice and to maintain viable and representative management institutions. In other cases, the decentralization process is not well supported politically or locally or does not articulate with fisheries policy. Experiences of decentralization in other sectors provide useful lessons. Acknowledging the informal institutional environment or realpolitikof fisheries and the rural economy could provide opportunities to better manage and review the process of decentralization.     

A New Approach to 3D Dense LiDAR Data Classification in Urban Environment

Classification of Mobile Mapping LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data is a challenge in the research community since the day when laser scanner system were integrated and mounted on vehicles for collection of 3D data in urban environment. The approach proposed here for classifying LiDAR data is analogous to the process followed for classifying data from satellite images. Pixel based and segmentation based methods have been employed in past for classifying images obtained from satellites. These methods were based on spectral properties of objects present in the images. But for Mobile mapping LiDAR data this approach has been applied and tested for the first time. The properties of this data are completely different from that of satellite images. So even if the basic approach remains the same, many changes have to be made in the entire classification process. The paper here aims to propose the basic procedure of using pixel-wise classification on dense 3D LiDAR data.     

Entanglement of Antarctic fur seals at Bouvetøya, Southern Ocean

Entanglements of Antarctic fur seals Arctocephalus gazella were recorded during four summers from 1996 to 2002 at the subantarctic island, Bouvetøya. Rates of entanglement varied between 0.024% and 0.059%. These rates are low for a pinniped population and might be because of the geographic isolation of the haulout site. An apparent decrease in the levels of entanglement over the course of the study was likely due, at least in part, to the removal of entanglements by observers. At least two-thirds of entangling materials were generated by fishery sources. Since there is no known local source of anthropogenic marine pollution, seals become entangled either in waters distant from the island, or when materials drift into local waters. Significantly more subadults were found entangled than expected from the postulated population age class distribution.     

A computational chemical study of penetration and displacement of water films near mineral surfaces

A series of molecular dynamics simulations have been performed on organic–water mixtures near mineral surfaces. These simulations show that, in contrast to apolar compounds, small polar organic compounds such as phenols can penetrate through thin water films to adsorb on these mineral surfaces. Furthermore, additional simulations involving demixing of an organic–water mixture near a surfactant-covered mineral surface demonstrate that even low concentrations of adsorbed polar compounds can induce major changes in mineral surface wettability, allowing sorption of apolar molecules. This strongly supports a two-stage adsorption mechanism for organic solutes, involving initial migration of small polar organic molecules to the mineral surface followed by water film displacement due to co-adsorption of the more apolar organic compounds, thus converting an initial water-wet mineral system to an organic-covered surface. This has profound implications for studies of petroleum reservoir diagenesis and wettability changes.     

Whole-basin,mass-balance approach for identifying critical phosphorus-loading thresholds in shallow lakes

Lake Lochloosa, Florida (USA) recently underwent a shift from macrophyte to phytoplankton dominance, offering us the opportunity to use a whole-basin, mass-balance approach to investigate the influence of phosphorus loading on ecosystem change in a shallow, sub-tropical lake. We analyzed total phosphorus (TP) sedimentation in the basin to improve our understanding of the forcing factor responsible for the recent shift to phytoplankton dominance. We measured ²¹⁰Pb activity, organic matter (OM), organic carbon (OC) and TP in short sediment cores from 20 locations to develop a comprehensive, whole-basin estimate of recent mass sedimentation rates (MSR) for bulk sediment, OM, OC and TP. The whole-basin sedimentation models provided insights into historic lake processes that were not evident from the limited, historic water quality data. We used Akaike’s Information Criteria to differentiate statistically between constant MSR and exponentially increasing MSR. An eightfold, exponential increase in TP accumulation over the past century provided evidence for the critical role of increased P loading as a forcing factor in the recent shift to phytoplankton dominance. Model results show increased TP retention and decreased TP residence time were in-lake responses to increased TP loading and the shift from macrophyte to phytoplankton dominance in Lake Lochloosa. Comparison of TP loading with TP retention and historic, diatom-inferred limnetic TP concentrations identified the TP loading threshold that was exceeded to trigger the shift to phytoplankton dominance.