Synergies and tradeoffs in how managers,scientists, and fishers value coral reef ecosystem services

Managing ecosystems in a changing environment faces the challenge of balancing diverse competing perspectives on which ecosystem services – nature's benefits – to prioritize. Consequently, we measured and compared how different stakeholders (managers, scientists and fishers) prioritize specific coral reef ecosystem services. Managers’ priorities were more aligned with scientists’ priorities but all stakeholder groups agreed that fishery, education, and habitat were high priorities. However, stakeholder groups differed in the extent to which they prioritized certain services. Fishers tended to assigned greater estimates to fishery and education, managers to culture, and scientists to coastal protection. Furthermore, using network analysis to map the interactions between stakeholders’ priorities, we found distinct synergies and trade-offs in how ecosystem services were prioritized, representing areas of agreement and conflict. In the fishers’ network, trade-offs emerged between two services, both of a higher priority, such as fishery and habitat. Conversely, in the scientists’ network, trade-offs emerged between services of a higher and lower priority, such as habitat and culture. The trade-offs and synergies that emerged in the managers’ network overlap with both fishers’ and scientists’ suggesting a potential brokering role that managers can play in balancing both priorities and conflicts. We suggest that measuring ecosystem service priorities can highlight key areas of agreement and conflict, both within and across stakeholder groups, to be addressed when communicating and prioritizing decisions.     

Climate change action as a project of identity: Eight meta-analyses

Identity can improve our understanding of personal climate action, particularly when climate action becomes an expression of a person’s self. However, it is unclear which kind of self or identity is most relevant. Building on a comprehensive series of eight meta-analyses (using data from 188 published articles, N = 414,282 participants) this research systematically compares how strongly climate-friendly intentions and behaviors are associated with place identity, personal connectedness to nature, environmental self-identity (i.e., personal self-definition as a pro-environmentally acting person), and social identity (i.e., identification with social groups). Results suggest robust, medium-sized to strong links of both pro-environmental intentions and behaviors to people’s nature connectedness (r = 0.44/0.52), environmental self-identity (r = 0.62/0.56), and identification with groups considered to support climate-friendly behavior (r = 0.48/0.51), but markedly weaker effects for identification with groups which are unrelated to environmental topics (r = 0.30/0.15) and for place identity (r = 0.18/0.32). Implications for policy interventions and psychological theory are discussed.     

Area-level risk factors for heat-related illness in rural and urban locations across North Carolina,USA

An improved understanding of heat vulnerable populations and locations is needed, especially in rural communities. The objective of this study was to identify area-level risk factors for heat-related illness (HRI) at the ZIP code level for urban and rural locations. We aggregated ZIP code-level emergency department visits into rural and urban locations based on population density. Area-level risk factors included previously established heat health risk factors (e.g. poverty, minority) and unexamined area-level risk factors common to rural locations (e.g. mobile homes, agriculture). Due to high spatial autocorrelation, a spatial error regression model was applied to identify risk factors with a significant relationship with HRI. Our results suggest that rural locations are also heat vulnerable, with greater rates of HRI compared to urban locations. Previously unexamined heat-health risk factors, including the number of mobile homes, non-citizens, and the labor-intensity of the agriculture, were all associated with increases of HRI in rural locations. In urban locations, previously established risk factors for heat-related mortality, such as decreased vegetation, living in poverty, and low education attainment were associated with increases in HRI.     

Current status and cause analysis of microplastic pollution in sea areas in China

As a new type of pollutants in the marine environment,microplastics have attracted increasing attention from scientific researchers and environmental protection workers in China and abroad.However,for the microplastic pollution in sea areas in China,there are a very limited number of studies on its current status and few reviews of research on the microplastics.This paper reviews the surveys and researches of microplastics in the Bohai Sea,the Yellow Sea,the East China Sea,the South China Sea,and main estuaries in China carried out in recent years and proposes an outlook for future work,aiming to provide research suggestions and solutions for ecological protection against microplastic pollution in sea areas in China.Previous studies have shown that microplastics are widely distributed in water bodies and sediments in sea areas and major estuaries in China.The Pearl River Estuary,in the South China Sea suffers the most serious microplastic pollution,followed by the Bohai Sea.In contrast,the microplastic pollution in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea is comparatively slight.Microplastics in sea areas in China are mainly fibrous and are concentrated in offshore areas with developed industry and a dense population(especially around estuaries and bays).In addition,they are widely affected by human activities,such as shipping,aquaculture,industry,and sewage discharge.Here the authors suggest unifying measurement units and research methods and developing related standard systems to carry out researches related to microplastics.Furthermore,this paper also suggests further deepening researches on both the source-sink process of microplastics and nanoscale microplastics while enhancing the development and implementation of related policies,aiming to promote researches and control of microplastics in sea areas in China.     

南海周边越赤道气流的多时间尺度变化特征及其与环流和降水的联系

利用NCAR/NCEP-1再分析资料、NOAA的OLR资料以及GPCP降水资料等,通过功率谱分析、超前滞后回归等方法,对夏季南海周边105 °E、125 °E以及150 °E三支越赤道气流进行了多尺度特征分析,重点探讨三支越赤道气流季节内振荡与热带大气环流异常及南海周边降水的联系。结果表明,在季节内时间尺度上,105 °E与125 °E越赤道气流均具有10~20 d以及30~60 d低频振荡显著周期,而150 °E越赤道气流则以10~20 d周期为主。在年际尺度上,105 °E、125 °E、150 °E越赤道气流分别具有2~4年、2~3年、2~6年振荡周期。无论是季内还是年际变化,皆以105 °E与125 °E这两支越赤道气流之间关系较密切。南亚-南海-西太平洋地区对流层低层10~20 d振荡的气旋(对流加强)和反气旋(对流减弱)的环流活动变化,决定着105 °E及125 °E越赤道气流的10~20 d振荡的演变。这两支越赤道气流之30~60 d振荡所伴随的异常变化与热带夏季季节内振荡(BSISO)的演变过程非常相似,而150 °E越赤道气流之30~60 d振荡所伴随的异常低频环流则与南半球热带辐合带关系密切。105 °E及125 °E越赤道气流的季节内振荡及年际异常均与南海周边降水异常密切相关。      

Social cohesion and passive adaptation in relation to climate change and disease

Climate change affects biophysical processes related to the transmission of many infectious diseases, with potentially adverse consequences for the health of communities. While our knowledge of biophysical associations between meteorological factors and disease is steadily improving, our understanding of the social processes that shape adaptation to environmental perturbations lags behind. Using computational modeling methods, we explore the ways in which social cohesion can affect adaptation of disease prevention strategies when communities are exposed to different environmental scenarios that influence transmission pathways for diseases such as diarrhea. We developed an agent-based model in which household agents can choose between two behavioral strategies that offer different levels of protection against environmentally mediated disease transmission. One behavioral strategy is initially set as more protective, leading households to adopt it widely, but its efficacy is sensitive to variable weather conditions and stressors such as floods or droughts that modify the disease transmission system. The efficacy of the second strategy is initially moderate relative to the first and is insensitive to environmental changes. We examined how social cohesion (defined as average number of household social network connections) influences health outcomes when households attempt to identify an optimal strategy by copying the behaviors of socially connected neighbors who seem to have adapted successfully in the past. Our simulation experiments suggest that high-cohesion communities are able to rapidly disseminate the initially optimal behavioral strategy compared to low-cohesion communities. This rapid and pervasive change, however, decreases behavioral diversity; i.e., once a high cohesion community settles on a strategy, most or all households adopt that behavior. Following environmental changes that reduce the efficacy of the initially optimal strategy, rendering it suboptimal relative to the alternative strategy, high-cohesion communities can fail to adapt. As a result, despite faring better early in the course of computational experiments, high-cohesion communities may ultimately experience worse outcomes. In the face of uncertainty in predicting future environmental stressors due to climate change, strategies to improve effective adaptation to optimal disease prevention strategies should balance between intervention efforts that promote protective behaviors based on current scientific understanding and the need to guard against the crystallization of inflexible norms. Developing generalizable models allows us to integrate a wide range of theories and multiple datasets pertaining to the relationship between social mechanisms and adaptation, which can provide further understanding of future climate change impacts. Models such as the one we present can generate hypotheses about the mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of adaptation events and suggest specific points of measurement to assess the impact of these mechanisms. They can be incorporated as modules within predictive simulations for specific socio-ecological contexts.     

Offshore installations,decommissioning and artificial reefs: Do current legal frameworks best serve the marine environment?

The offshore oil and gas industry is facing the prospect of de-commissioning thousands of installations in the coming decades. In some parts of the world the issue is already pressing. The financial cost of complete removal is significant, and therefore the prospect of leaving part of the installation in situ is attractive. The way forward, though, is not clear. Despite the success of rigs-to-reef projects in the US it is unclear whether such initiatives are transferable to other contexts given very different physical and jurisdictional contexts. This paper explores current legal frameworks including international law and the state of play in Australia compared with that in the US and UK. Tentative recommendations are made for future developments in this area.     

Marine governance in an industrialised ocean: A case study of the emerging marine renewable energy industry

The world׳s oceans are currently undergoing an unprecedented period of industrialisation, made possible by advances in technology and driven by our growing need for food, energy and resources. This is placing the oceans are under intense pressure, and the ability of existing marine governance frameworks to sustainably manage the marine environment is increasingly being called into question. Emerging industries are challenging all aspects of these frameworks, raising questions regarding ownership and rights of the sea and its resources, management of environmental impacts, and management of ocean space. This paper uses the emerging marine renewable energy (MRE) industry, particularly in the United Kingdom (UK), as a case study to introduce and explore some of the key challenges. The paper concludes that the challenges are likely to be extensive and argues for development of a comprehensive legal research agenda to advance both MRE technologies and marine governance frameworks.     

Losing ground: The marginalization of the St. Lawrence eel Fisheries in Québec,Canada

The world׳s eel fisheries are in a state of crisis. While an increasing number of studies have documented the biophysical dynamics of the decrease in eel populations in Canada and around the world, studies documenting fishing practices, fisheries management, and the impact of eel declines on the livelihoods of fishermen are still rare. This paper aims to contribute to this discussion by examining the American eel (Anguilla rostrata) fishery in the St. Lawrence River Estuary, positioning it within larger historical, economic, and socio-environmental contexts. More particularly, it explores the issues these fishermen face as a consequence of the declining eel population, changing management practices, global trends in eel commercialization, and initiatives taken to promote eel fishing and the landscape that surrounds it as an important component of natural and cultural heritage. It is argued that these changes, many of which have been amplified by neoliberal policy shifts, have contributed to the marginalization of eel fishers and are making their future increasingly uncertain.