SPATIAL PATTERNS OF SUPPORT FOR A NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREEZE*

Support for a Freeze on nuclear weapons is greatest in the East with pockets of support in the Middle West and Pacific Coast States. Factors influencing the spatial pattern are Walker's innovativeness rankings, the number of peace/Freeze activist groups and the pattern of defense employment.     

Environmental and political implications of Vietnam's water vulnerabilities: A multiscale assessment

Vietnam's low‐lying areas of the Lower Mekong Basin are prone to floods, salt water inundation, and riparian competition with upstream neighbours. Vietnam's opening to the global economy, accompanied by industrialization and a rapidly growing population, impose multiscale (global, regional, local) stresses on urban and rural water systems resulting in water contamination and groundwater overdraft. Water vulnerability is a function of both natural and social hazards and depends on the scope of capital investment, political and ideological institutions, managerial capacity and governance. Water distribution and riparian ecosystem health are also hydropolitical issues related to dam‐building activity by Vietnam and its transboundary neighbours, Laos, Cambodia and particularly China, whose territory contains the source of the Mekong River. A multiscale assessment of Vietnam's interlinked water vulnerabilities indicates that the resilience of the country's social‐ecological water system rests on peaceful resolution of regional transboundary conflicts based on shared economic interests and on improved managerial practices of local authorities.     

Political ecology in the key of policy: From chains of explanation to webs of relation

Political ecology (PE) is rooted in a combination of critical perspectives and the hard won insights distilled from field work. The theoretical base of political ecology was joined, by Piers Blaikie and others, to an unflinching commitment to empirical observation of biophysical and socio-economic phenomena in place. To this already ambitious mix was added a practical intent to contribute to material as well as social change: a practical political ecology of alternative development ran beneath the surface of much of this work. For many this led to serious encounters with policy and the machinery of policy research institutions. While seemingly contradictory with the critical tenets of political ecology, Blaikie’s pursuit of this pathway led beyond the ivory tower to Political Ecology in the Key of Policy, initially to inform national and international policy and eventually expanding - through the work of second-generation PE - to address internal policy in social movements and alternative development networks. Among recent variations on political ecology that have built partly on the work of Blaikie, Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) expands PE to address women as a group, and gender as a category. FPE and post-structural PE are based on multiple actors with complex and overlapping identities, affinities and interests. An emergent wave of political ecology joins FPE, post-structural theory, and complexity science, to address theory, policy and practice in alternatives to sustainable development. It combines a radical empiricism and situated science, with feminist post-structural theories of multiple identity and “location”, and alternative development paradigms. This approach honors the legacy of Piers Blaikie and other PE founders yet incorporates the insights and political projects of feminism, post-structural critique and autonomous or alternative development movements.     

Linking phytoplankton community composition with juvenile-phase growth in the Northern QuahogMercenaria mercenaria (L.)

This study examined whetherMercenaria mercenaria (L.) (quahog) growth is influenced by variability in phytoplantkon community composition in the waters of Long Island, New York. Field studies conducted during 1999 and 2000 compared juvenile quahog growth and phytoplankton assemblages between West Sayville (WS), an embayment in Great South Bay along Long Island’s south shore where quahog landings have recently declined, and Oyster Bay (OB), an embayment on Long Island’s north shore where quahog landings are still high. Quahogs grew better at OB than WS during both study years. Centric diatoms were typically the dominant phytoplankton species at OB, and pennate diatoms and dinoflagellates characterized WS. At WS, the phytoplankton community consisted of heterotrophic dinoflagellates during a brown tide in 2000 and pennate diatoms afterward. Nanoflagellates were abundant (10⁵–10⁶ cells ml^?1) at WS throughout the summer of 2000. Multiple regression analysis revealed a significant effect of site and temperature on individual clam biomass during both years, but brown tide was only significant during 2000. Biomass comparisons of dominant phytoplantkon taxa with laboratory physiology studies showed that 0B, with its abundance of centric diatoms, likely represented a more nutritional diet for quahogs than pennate diatoms, which were abundant at WS. Small flagellates, which were common at WS, may also have been important for sustaining growth during some months. Variability in plankton assemblages between OB and WS likely represented two distinct, diets that were critical influences on clam growth.     

Impact of climate change on human-wildlife-ecosystem interactions in the Trans-Himalaya region of Nepal

The Trans-Himalaya region boasts an immense biodiversity which includes several threatened species and supports the livelihood of local human populations. Our aim in this study was to evaluate the impact of recent climate change on the biodiversity and human inhabitants of the upper Mustang region of the Trans-Himalaya, Nepal. We found that the average annual temperature in the upper Mustang region has increased by 0.13 °C per year over the last 23 years; a higher annual temperature increase than experienced in other parts of Himalaya. A predictive model suggested that the mean annual temperature will double by 2161 to reach 20 °C in the upper Mustang region. The combined effects of increased temperature and diminished snowfall have resulted in a reduction in the area of land suitable for agriculture. Most seriously affected are Samjung village (at 4,100 m altitude) and Dhey village (at 3,800 m) in upper Mustang, where villagers have been forced to relocate to an area with better water availability. Concurrent with the recent change in climate, there have been substantial changes in vegetation communities. Between 1979 and 2009, grasslands and forests in the Mustang district have diminished by 11 and 42 %, respectively, with the tree line having shifted towards higher elevation. Further, grasses and many shrub species are no longer found in abundance at higher elevations and consequently blue sheep (Pseduois nayaur) move to forage at lower elevations where they encounter and raid human crops. The movement of blue sheep attracts snow leopard (Panthera uncia) from their higher-elevation habitats to lower sites, where they encounter and depredate livestock. Increased crop raiding by blue sheep and depredations of livestock by snow leopard have impacted adversely on the livelihoods of local people.     

The weathering of norite at Black Hill,South Australia

Black Hill is a boulder‐strewn residual of norite standing 45 m above the Murray Plains about 80 km northeast of Adelaide. Between the boulders, the crystalline rock has weathered to a dark‐brown terra rossa‐rendzina soil with calcite, illite, kaolin, and hematite as the principal secondary minerals. At one site on the smooth lower slopes of the outcrop, the material above the norite consists of partially weathered granular fragments with considerable dolomite and some calcite in nodular form. Below the surface, the rock has been weathered along joints to produce the clay mineral nontronite, and between each corestone and this plastic clay there is a zone of laminated but essentially unaltered rock 10–25 cm thick. Pieces of amorphous silica occur sporadically in some joints and on the surface.

The dark‐brown soil appears to be related to the present environment but the nontronite in the joint weathering, the dolomite, and the amorphous silica are all consistent with the norite having been inundated, possibly during the Miocene marine transgression.

Calculations based on the retention of elements such as aluminium, potassium, titanium, and iron have been used to predict quantitatively the amount of certain minerals such as quartz, calcite, and dolomite introduced to the weathering profiles.     

Investigations of iron coordination and redox reactions in seawater using Fe radiometry and ion-pair solvent extraction of amphiphilic iron complexes

Iron coordination and redox reactions in synthetic and coastal seawater were investigated at nanomolar concentrations using ⁵⁹Fe radiometry and ion-pair solvent extraction of iron chelated by sulfoxine (8-hydroxyquinoline-5-sulfonate) and BPDS (bathophenanthroline disulfonate). Using sulfoxine, we determined the rate at which the monomeric Fe(III) hydroxide species present in seawater of pH 8 are complexed by the microbial siderophore deferriferrioxamine B and the synthetic chelator EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid). Forward rate constants of 2 × 10⁶M⁻¹s⁻¹ and 20 M⁻¹s⁻¹, respectively, were obtained. The kinetics of these reactions have not been measured previously at pH values near that of seawater. Conditional equilibrium constants measured for the Fe(III)-EDTA system are consistent with published stability constants for EDTA complexes and for Fe(III) hydrolytic equilibria minus the neutral Fe(OH)₃^o species, suggesting it is not quantitatively significant near pH 8. Commercial humic acid was found to have sufficient affinity for iron to compete with Fe(III) hydrolysis in seawater, and limited evidence was obtained for an interaction with dissolved organic matter in coastal seawater.In our investigations of redox reactions using BPDS to trap Fe(II) produced in the medium, we observed enhanced photoreduction of Fe(III) by humic acid as well as reduction induced by solutes released from phytoplankton in seawater of pH 8. Although the method is sensitive enough to work at near-oceanic levels of iron, the difficulty in distinguishing Fe(II) generated by Fe(III)-BPDS interactions from Fe(II) produced by other means limits its utility. This analytical ambiguity may be generalizable to other methods which measure ferrous iron in seawater using Fe(II)-specific ligands.     

Photolysis of 2,4-Dinitrotoluene and 2,6-Dinitrotoluene in Seawater

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the rate of photolysis for 2,4-dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT) and 2,6-dinitrotoluene (2,6-DNT) in salt water and pure water, examine the influence of salt concentration on the photolysis rate, and to identify the products of the photolysis of 2,4-DNT and 2,6-DNT in seawater. For the photolysis of 2,4-DNT in pure water, the half-life was longer than 100 h, whereas the photolysis half-life in salt water was ~15 h. For 2,6-DNT, the pure water photolysis half-life was close to 20 h, but the salt water photolysis half-life was only 5 h. The photolysis rate for 2,6-DNT in seawater was affected by the ionic strength of the parent solution and was independent of the identity of the salt. The photolysis of both DNTs in seawater resulted in a complex mixture of products that exhibit a distinct yellow color. Analysis by gas and liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy (GCMS, LCMS) following liquid–liquid extraction or solid phase extractions resulted in the confirmation of the corresponding dinitrobenzaldhydes and dinitrobenzoic acids as photolysis products and a probable azoxy compound among the photolysis products in seawater.