A framework to assess the vulnerability of California commercial sea urchin fishermen to the impact of MPAs under climate change

This paper describes the development of a Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) that estimates the relative ability of California commercial sea urchin fishermen to cope with the change associated with proposed marine protected areas. A key goal in establishing marine protected areas is to maximize conservation benefits while minimizing the potential negative impacts to local fishing communities. However, current impact analyses largely assume a linear relationship between percent of fishing area or revenue lost with the magnitude of impact to fishermen. The LVI described in this paper aims to provide an additional dimension to impact analyses in which the adaptive capacity of individual fishermen is examined to estimate the differential abilities of fishermen to cope with the loss of fishing areas or revenue. This paper advances vulnerability assessments as it develops a novel framework for identifying and measuring drivers of vulnerability for understudied fishing populations whose livelihoods depend upon marine resources. This vulnerability assessment is intended to inform the design of marine protected areas by enabling researchers to incorporate the adaptive capacity of fishermen into socioeconomic impact analyses. The LVI was developed for the California commercial sea urchin fishery in the context of proposed marine protected area networks develop through the California Marine Life Protected Act planning process. As climate change advances there is an increasing need to identify vulnerable and resilient populations and ways to bolster adaptive capacity given the environmental and economic changes ahead.     

Socio-cultural dimensions of climate change: charting the terrain

We have reached a crucial turning point in debates around climate change. A well established scientific consensus regarding the physical causes, dynamics, and at least many likely implications of anthropogenic climate change has thus far failed to result in any substantial movement towards mitigation. For many, then, the most urgent questions regarding climate change are now socio-cultural ones, such as: how do people come to hold and act on certain beliefs regarding environmental conditions and processes; how do institutional forms and histories shape and constrain the views and options of various sorts of actors; and what are relationships among fossil fuels, climate change, and the historical geographies and future trajectories of capitalism? Far from being simpler than physical and life science questions, these social science questions introduce entirely new sorts of actors, dynamics, and methodological challenges into this already complex and dynamic domain. This special issue takes up these topics. In this essay, we chart some of the major contours of contemporary social science thinking regarding climate change and introduce the articles in the special issue. We begin by examining work, from political science and scholarship on the commons, that foregrounds questions of sovereignty, territoriality, and cooperation with respect to environmental governance. Then we examine work from neoclassical economics and radical political economy, which frame climate change in terms of externalities, or contradiction and crisis, respectively. Finally, we examine the rapidly proliferating work exploring how individuals think and feel about these issues, emphasizing concepts of risk, communication, and governmentality.     

Eminescu impact structure: Insight into the transition from complex crater to peak-ring basin on Mercury

Peak-ring basins represent an impact-crater morphology that is transitional between complex craters with central peaks and large multi-ring basins. Therefore, they can provide insight into the scale dependence of the impact process. Here the transition with increasing crater diameter from complex craters to peak-ring basins on Mercury is assessed through a detailed analysis of Eminescu, a geologically recent and well-preserved peak-ring basin. Eminescu has a diameter (∼125 km) close to the minimum for such crater forms and is thus representative of the transition. Impact crater size-frequency distributions and faint rays indicate that Eminescu is Kuiperian in age, geologically younger than most other basins on Mercury. Geologic mapping of basin interior units indicates a distinction between smooth plains and peak-ring units. Our mapping and crater retention ages favor plains formation by impact melt rather than post-impact volcanism, but a volcanic origin for the plains cannot be excluded if the time interval between basin formation and volcanic emplacement was less than the uncertainty in relative ages. The high-albedo peak ring of Eminescu is composed of bright crater-floor deposits (BCFDs, a distinct crustal unit seen elsewhere on Mercury) exposed by the impact. We use our observations to assess predictions of peak-ring formation models. We interpret the characteristics of Eminescu as consistent with basin formation models in which a melt cavity forms during the impact formation of craters at the transition to peak ring morphologies. We suggest that the smooth plains were emplaced via impact melt expulsion from the central melt cavity during uplift of a peak ring composed of BCFD-type material. In this scenario the ringed cluster of peaks resulted from the early development of the melt cavity, which modified the central uplift zone.     

California’s local health agencies and the state’s climate adaptation strategy

A changing climate will exacerbate many of the problems currently faced by California’s public health institutions. The public health impacts of climate change include: an increase in extreme heat events and associated increases in heat-related morbidity and mortality, increases in the frequency and severity of air pollution episodes, shifts in the range and incidence of vector-borne diseases, increases in the severity of wildfire, increased risks of drought and flooding, and other extreme events. This article assesses the readiness of California’s public health institutions to cope with the changes that will accompany a changing climate and how they relate to strategies laid out in the state’s Climate Adaptation Strategy. County-level health offices are the front line actors to preserve public health in the face of numerous threats, including climate change. Survey results show that local health officers in California believe that climate change is a serious threat to public health, but feel that they lack the funding and resources to reduce this risk. Local health agencies also have a number of tools in place that will be helpful for preparing for a changing climate.     

Particulate aluminium in boreal streams: Towards a better understanding of its sources and influence on dissolved aluminium speciation

The adverse impacts of the inorganic labile monomeric Al (Al_i) fraction on aquatic organisms have meant that Al (Al_tot) determination and even speciation has become a routine part of environmental monitoring and assessment. However, if samples are not filtered prior to analysis then particulate Al (Al_tot(p)) could influence the determination of Al_tot, and therefore the determination of the more toxicologically important (Al_i), both when it is measured analytically or modelled from Al_tot. This paper shows that the Al/DOC ratio in unfiltered samples can identify the Al_tot(p) fraction, and thus improve the speciation of Al_i. These findings are based on data from a study in a 67 km² catchment in northern Sweden during the snowmelt-driven spring flood of two consecutive years. Filtered and unfiltered samples were studied to determine the spatial and temporal patterns in Al_tot(p). The concentrations of Al_tot(p) were greatest in larger downstream sites where significant silt deposits are located. The sites with no silt in their drainage area showed a mean difference between filtered (Al_tot(f)) and unfiltered (Al_tot(uf)) samples of 6%, while sites with silt deposits had a mean difference of 65%. The difference between filtered and unfiltered samples was greatest at peak flow. Spikes in Al_tot(p) did not behave consistently during fractionation with a cation exchange column, resulting in increases in either measured Al_i(f) or non-labile monomeric Al (Al_o(f)). Al_tot(p) spikes were associated with sharp increases in the Al:DOC ratio. The baseflow Al:DOC ratio could be used to model filtered Al_tot from DOC with a Spearman rho of 0.75.     

“We will go side-by-side with you.” Labour union engagement with Aboriginal peoples in Canada

The inclusion of new groups of workers has been an important component of union renewal efforts. Several unions in Canada have begun to dedicate significant resources to better organize and represent Aboriginal workers. Drawing on interviews with union activists, organizers and representatives from two national public sector unions in Canada, we present an overview of union strategies to engage with Aboriginal peoples. Results suggest that understanding the distinct territorial context of Aboriginal peoples’ relationships to work and unions has been necessary to the success of these union strategies. This approach begins by drawing connections between Aboriginal peoples’ present-day relationships to work and their prior occupancy of, and dispossession from, lands and resources. Because of the geographical specificity of how the colonial experience affected Aboriginal peoples’ relationships to work and unions, unions have had to adopt non-normative approaches to their engagements with Aboriginal peoples. In workplaces where settlers were dominant, addressing racism in the workplace and gaining support for initiatives to hire and train Aboriginal workers were important. Alternatively, in Aboriginal workplaces, organizing was a priority. Here questions of union legitimacy have taken precedence and the focus of unions has been on partnership building. Most importantly, however, engagement with Aboriginal peoples has brought attention to the colonial practices within unions and helped to foster growing Aboriginal voice within the labour movement.     

Sediment connectivity: a framework for understanding sediment transfer at multiple scales

A major challenge for geomorphologists is to scale up small‐magnitude processes to produce landscape form, yet existing approaches have been found to be severely limited. New ways to scale erosion and transfer of sediment are thus needed. This paper evaluates the concept of sediment connectivity as a framework for understanding processes involved in sediment transfer across multiple scales. We propose that the concept of sediment connectivity can be used to explain the connected transfer of sediment from a source to a sink in a catchment, and movement of sediment between different zones within a catchment: over hillslopes, between hillslopes and channels, and within channels. Using fluvial systems as an example we explore four scenarios of sediment connectivity which represent end‐members of behaviour from fully linked to fully unlinked hydrological and sediment connectivity. Sediment‐travel distance – when combined with an entrainment parameter reflecting the frequency–magnitude response of the system – maps onto these end‐members, providing a coherent conceptual model for the upscaling of erosion predictions. This conceptual model could be readily expanded to other process domains to provide a more comprehensive underpinning of landscape‐evolution models. Thus, further research on the controls and dynamics of travel distances under different modes of transport is fundamental. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Steady wave model of spiral galaxies and its application in cosmogony

The model is based on the assumption that logarithmic spiral arms of most spiral galaxies are due to the totating density wave obeying the steady wave equation . It is shown that this equation accounts also for the so-called Titius-Bode's law in the solar system.     

Mesure des Raies de [Sii] dans Trois Nébuleuses planétaires de L'hémisphère Austral

Three southern planetary nebulae (NGC 2818, He 2-130, and NGC 3132) have been observed with the IDS (Image Dessector Scanner) combined with the Boller and Chivens spectrograph mounted at the Cassegrain focus of the 1.52 m telescope of the ESO in Chile. The spectrograph dispersion was 60 Å mm^–1 in the spectral range 6170–7298 Å. The slit aperture was 4×4. Spectra were obtained from an array of positions across each nebula along the E-W direction and/or N-S direction. The data reduction followed the standard IHAP routines for IDS observations. In order to derive electron density, only the [Sii] lines (6617 Å–6731 Å) are given in this paper. The results are in agreement with a shell structure for the observed nebulae.

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Toutes les observations ont été faites à l'Observatoire européen Austral (ESO) au Chili.