Market-oriented conservation governance: The particularities of place

Conservation policy and practice is increasingly turning towards market-based interventions to reconcile the growing conflicts between environmental conservation and rural livelihood needs. This short introductory paper to the special issue on “market-oriented conservation governance” critically investigates the growing commitment to markets as a means of meeting conservation objectives and livelihood security. We distinguish market oriented conservation from neoliberal conservation and argue for a grounded, empirically rich investigation into the passive and active promotion of markets in conservation landscapes – analysis which pays attention to how and why certain markets are promoted by ENGOs, governments and private sector, as well as how rural people negotiate livelihoods and markets when adjusting to conservation pressures. Such an approach takes seriously how the particularities of place, from local harvests to trans-local trade, shape market-oriented conservation in practice and expose the messiness of such ventures. The range of papers in this special issue show how neither neoliberal nor market-based interventions in conservation are uniform in character, impact and outcome, and that while identifying the patterns and logic behind these processes remains crucial, the basis for understanding how markets inform conservation, must be done by drawing on empirical data that speaks clearly to how actors variously engage the logic of market-driven conservation in terms of their histories and contemporary realities. We argue that doing so makes it possible to understand not only what is ‘new’ about contemporary market-oriented conservation but also its continuities with earlier forms of command and control conservation.     

Adapting rail and road networks to weather extremes: case studies for southern Germany and Austria

The assessment of the current impacts of extreme weather conditions on transport systems reveals high costs in specific locations. Prominent examples for Europe are the economic consequences of the harsh winter periods 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 and the floods in Austria, Eastern Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom in 2005 and 2007. Departing from the EC-funded project WEATHER, this paper delves into the subject of adaptation strategies by revisiting the project’s general findings on adaptation strategies and by adding two specific cases: (1) advanced winter maintenance on roads in southwest Germany and (2) technical and organizational measures in Alpine rail transport. For these two cases, feasible adaptation strategies are elaborated and their potential is discussed in light of damage cost forecasts up to 2050. For the road sector, we find a high potential to mitigate weather-related costs, although damages here are expected to decline. In contrast, rail systems face strongly increasing damages and the mitigation options offered by improved information and communication systems seem to be largely exploited. Consequently, it is easier to justify expensive adaptation measures for high-cost rail infrastructures than for road transport. A generic analysis of 14 damage cases worldwide, however, revealed that generally awareness raising, cooperation and communication strategies are sufficient to mitigate the most severe damages by natural disasters.     

Seepage of methane at Jaco Scar,a slide caused by seamount subduction offshore Costa Rica

Methane (CH₄) concentrations and CH₄ stable carbon isotopic composition ( \( \delta^{13} {\text{C}}_{{{\text{CH}}_{4} }} \) ) were investigated in the water column within Jaco Scar. It is one of several scars formed by massive slides resulting from the subduction of seamounts offshore Costa Rica, a process that can open up structural and stratigraphical pathways for migrating CH₄. The release of large amounts of CH₄ into the adjacent water column was discovered at the outcropping lowermost sedimentary sequence of the hanging wall in the northwest corner of Jaco Scar, where concentrations reached up to 1,500 nmol L^?1. There CH₄-rich fluids seeping from the sedimentary sequence stimulate both growth and activity of a dense chemosynthetic community. Additional point sources supplying CH₄ at lower concentrations were identified in density layers above and below the main plume from light carbon isotope ratios. The injected CH₄ is most likely a mixture of microbial and thermogenic CH₄ as suggested by \( \delta^{13} {\text{C}}_{{{\text{CH}}_{4} }} \) values between ?50 and ?62 ‰ Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite. This CH₄ spreads along isopycnal surfaces throughout the whole area of the scar, and the concentrations decrease due to mixing with ocean water and microbial oxidation. The supply of CH₄ appears to be persistent as repeatedly high CH₄ concentrations were found within the scar over 6 years. The maximum CH₄ concentration and average excess CH₄ concentration at Jaco Scar indicate that CH₄ seepage from scars might be as significant as seepage from other tectonic structures in the marine realm. Hence, taking into account the global abundance of scars, such structures might constitute a substantial, hitherto unconsidered contribution to natural CH₄ sources at the seafloor.     

Modeling the Subsurface Structure of Sunspots

While sunspots are easily observed at the solar surface, determining their subsurface structure is not trivial. There are two main hypotheses for the subsurface structure of sunspots: the monolithic model and the cluster model. Local helioseismology is the only means by which we can investigate subphotospheric structure. However, as current linear inversion techniques do not yet allow helioseismology to probe the internal structure with sufficient confidence to distinguish between the monolith and cluster models, the development of physically realistic sunspot models are a priority for helioseismologists. This is because they are not only important indicators of the variety of physical effects that may influence helioseismic inferences in active regions, but they also enable detailed assessments of the validity of helioseismic interpretations through numerical forward modeling. In this article, we provide a critical review of the existing sunspot models and an overview of numerical methods employed to model wave propagation through model sunspots. We then carry out a helioseismic analysis of the sunspot in Active Region 9787 and address the serious inconsistencies uncovered by Gizon et al. (2009a, 2009b). We find that this sunspot is most probably associated with a shallow, positive wave-speed perturbation (unlike the traditional two-layer model) and that travel-time measurements are consistent with a horizontal outflow in the surrounding moat.     

A MC approach to simulate up- and down-going neutrino showers including local topographic conditions

The extragalactic flux of protons is predicted to be suppressed above the famous Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin cut-off at about E_GZK  50 EeV due to the resonant photo-pion production with the cosmic microwave background. Current cosmic ray data do not give a conclusive confirmation of the GZK cut-off and the quest about the origin and the chemical composition of the highest energy cosmic rays is still open. Amongst other particles neutrinos are expected to add to the composition of the cosmic radiation at highest energies. We present an approach to simulate neutrino induced air showers by a full Monte Carlo simulation chain. Starting with neutrinos at the top of the atmosphere, the performed simulations take into account the details of the neutrino propagation inside the Earth and atmosphere as well as inside the surrounding mountains. The products of the interactions are input for air shower simulations. The mountains are modelled by means of a digital elevation map. To exemplify the potential and features of the developed tools we study the possibility to detect neutrino induced extensive air showers with the fluorescence detector set-up of the Pierre Auger Observatory. Both, down-going neutrinos and up-going neutrinos are simulated and their rates are determined. To evaluate the sensitivity, as a function of the incoming direction, the aperture, the acceptance and the total observable event rates are calculated for the Waxman–Bahcall (WB) bound.     

Mapping of Titan: Results from the first Titan radar passes

The first two swaths collected by Cassini's Titan Radar Mapper were obtained in October of 2004 (Ta) and February of 2005 (T3). The Ta swath provides evidence for cryovolcanic processes, the possible occurrence of fluvial channels and lakes, and some tectonic activity. The T3 swath has extensive areas of dunes and two large impact craters. We interpret the brightness variations in much of the swaths to result from roughness variations caused by fracturing and erosion of Titan's icy surface, with additional contributions from a combination of volume scattering and compositional variations. Despite the small amount of Titan mapped to date, the significant differences between the terrains of the two swaths suggest that Titan is geologically complex. The overall scarcity of impact craters provides evidence that the surface imaged to date is relatively young, with resurfacing by cryovolcanism, fluvial erosion, aeolian erosion, and likely atmospheric deposition of materials. Future radar swaths will help to further define the nature of and extent to which internal and external processes have shaped Titan's surface.     

Arsenic Removal from Natural Groundwater Using Cupric Oxide

Groundwater is a main source of drinking water for some rural areas. People in these rural areas are potentially at risk from elevated levels of arsenic (As) due to a lack of water treatment facilities. The objectives of this study were to (1) measure As concentrations in approximately 50 groundwater samples from rural domestic wells in the western United States, (2) explore the potential of cupric oxide (CuO) particles in removal of As from groundwater samples under natural conditions (i.e., without adding competing anions and adjusting the pH or oxidation state), and (3) determine the effects of As removal on the chemistry of groundwater samples. Forty‐six groundwater well samples from rural domestic areas were tested in this study. More than 50% of these samples exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Maximum Contaminant Limit (US EPA MCL) of 10 µg/L for As. CuO particles effectively removed As from groundwater samples across a wide range of pH (7.11 and 8.95) and concentrations of competing anions including phosphate (<0.05 to 3.06 mg/L), silica (<1 to 54.5 mg/L), and sulfate (1.3 to 735 mg/L). Removal of As showed minor effects on the chemistry of groundwater samples, therefore most of the water quality parameters remained within the US EPA MCLs. Overall, results of this study could help develop a simple one‐step process to remove As from groundwater.     

The leeway of shipping containers at different immersion levels

The leeway of 20-ft containers in typical distress conditions is established through field experiments in a Norwegian fjord and in open-ocean conditions off the coast of France with a wind speed ranging from calm to 14 m s⁻¹. The experimental setup is described in detail, and certain recommendations were given for experiments on objects of this size. The results are compared with the leeway of a scaled-down container before the full set of measured leeway characteristics are compared with a semianalytical model of immersed containers. Our results are broadly consistent with the semianalytical model, but the model is found to be sensitive to choice of drag coefficient and makes no estimate of the crosswind leeway of containers. We extend the results from the semianalytical immersion model by extrapolating the observed leeway divergence and estimates of the experimental uncertainty to various realistic immersion levels. The sensitivity of these leeway estimates at different immersion levels are tested using a stochastic trajectory model. Search areas are found to be sensitive to the exact immersion levels, the choice of drag coefficient, and somewhat less sensitive to the inclusion of leeway divergence. We further compare the search areas, thus, found with a range of trajectories estimated using the semianalytical model with only perturbations to the immersion level. We find that the search areas calculated without estimates of crosswind leeway and its uncertainty will grossly underestimate the rate of expansion of the search areas. We recommend that stochastic trajectory models of container drift should account for these uncertainties by generating search areas for different immersion levels and with the uncertainties in crosswind and downwind leeway reported from our field experiments.     

Gapfilling interrupted helioseismic data with the EM algorithm

Helioseismic data are often interrupted by gaps, which diminish the quality of the data. In the frequency domain, these gaps lead to systematical effects with misleading interpretation of the power spectra. We propose a gap filling method that is based on modeling solar oscillation data with a statistical process, i.e., the stochastic nature of a single oscillation is taken into account by regarding it as realization of an autoregressive (AR) processes of second order. From the whole oscillation time series given as the superposition of the realization of many excited modes, the process parameters are estimated via the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. Then the estimated model is used to predict the further course of the oscillatory process during occurring gaps. We demonstrate the applicability of this procedure on the basis of both simulations and data obtained with the DIFOS satellite experiment suffering from gaps of 30 min duration occurring regularly every 90 min due to the orbit around the Earth.