Your browser doesn't support javascript.
loading
Show: 20 | 50 | 100
Results 1 - 7 de 7
Filter
Add more filters










Database
Language
Publication year range
3.
Environ Manage ; 61(6): 1062-1071, 2018 06.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29556722

ABSTRACT

Environmental assessment is the process that decision-makers rely on to predict, evaluate, and prevent biophysical, social, and economic impacts of potential project developments. The determination of significance in environmental assessment is central to environmental management in many nations. We reviewed ten recent environmental impact assessments from British Columbia, Canada and systematically reviewed and scored significance determination and the approaches used by assessors, the use of thresholds in significance determination, threshold exceedances, and the outcomes. Findings of significant impacts were exceedingly rare and practitioners used a combination of significance determination approaches, most commonly relying upon reasoned argumentation. Quantitative thresholds were rarely employed, with less than 10% of the valued components evaluated using thresholds. Even where quantitative thresholds for significance were exceeded, in every case practitioners used a variety of rationales to demote negative impacts to non-significance. These reasons include combinations of scale (temporal and spatial) of impacts, an already exceeded baseline, model uncertainty and/or substituting less stringent thresholds. Governments and agencies can better protect resources by requiring clear and defensible significance determinations, by making government-defined thresholds legally enforceable and accountable, and by requiring or encouraging significance determination through inclusive and collaborative approaches.


Subject(s)
Environmental Monitoring/methods , Environmental Policy/trends , British Columbia , Decision Making , Environmental Monitoring/economics , Environmental Monitoring/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Socioeconomic Factors , Uncertainty
4.
Mar Pollut Bull ; 132: 26-32, 2018 Jul.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29331283

ABSTRACT

Marine debris is one of the leading threats to the ocean and the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 washed away an estimated 5million tons of debris in a single, tragic event. Here we used shoreline surveys, disaster debris reports and ocean drift models to investigate the temporal and spatial trends in the arrival of tsunami marine debris. The increase in debris influx to surveyed North American and Hawaiian shorelines was substantial and significant, representing a 10 time increase over the baseline in northern Washington State where a long term dataset was available. The tsunami event brought different types of debris along the coast, with high-windage items dominant in Alaska and British Columbia and large, medium-windage items in Washington State and Oregon. Recorded cumulative debris landings to North America were close to 100,000 items in the four year study period. The temporal peaks in measured shoreline debris and debris reports match the ocean drift model solutions. Mitigation and monitoring activities, such as shoreline surveys, provide crucial data and monitoring for potential impacts should be continued in the future.


Subject(s)
Models, Theoretical , Tsunamis , Water Pollution , British Columbia , Earthquakes , Environmental Monitoring , Japan , Oceans and Seas , United States , Water Movements
5.
Mar Pollut Bull ; 132: 90-101, 2018 Jul.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29336824

ABSTRACT

Nearly 300 coastal marine species collected from >630 debris items from the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami have landed alive along the North American Pacific coast and the Hawaiian Archipelago. We synthesized life history, environmental, and distributional traits for 103 of these species and compared species with (n=30) and without (n=62) known invasion histories. The species represent 12 phyla, and Mollusca, Crustacea, and Bryozoa accounted for 71 of the 103 species. The majority are native to the Northwest Pacific and the Central Indo-Pacific. Species with known invasion history were more common on artificial and hardpan substrates, in temperate reef, fouling, and flotsam habitats, at subtropical and tropical temperatures, and exhibited greater salinity tolerance than species with no prior invasion history. Thirty-five Japanese tsunami marine species without prior invasion history overlapped in ordination trait space with known invaders, indicating a subset of species in this novel assemblage that possess traits similar to species with known invasion history.


Subject(s)
Aquatic Organisms , Tsunamis , Waste Products/analysis , Water Pollution/analysis , Animals , Earthquakes , Environmental Monitoring , Japan , North America , Pacific Ocean
6.
Mar Pollut Bull ; 132: 44-51, 2018 Jul.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28916350

ABSTRACT

The abundance of marine macro-debris was quantified with high spatial resolution by applying an image processing technique to archived shoreline aerial photographs taken over Vancouver Island, Canada. The photographs taken from an airplane at oblique angles were processed by projective transformation for georeferencing, where five reference points were defined by comparing aerial photographs with satellite images of Google Earth. Thereafter, pixels of marine debris were extracted based on their color differences from the background beaches. The debris abundance can be evaluated by the ratio of an area covered by marine debris to that of the beach (percent cover). The horizontal distribution of percent cover of marine debris was successfully computed from 167 aerial photographs and was significantly related to offshore Ekman flows and winds (leeway drift and Stokes drift). Therefore, the estimated percent cover is useful information to determine priority sites for mitigating adverse impacts across broad areas.


Subject(s)
Environmental Monitoring/methods , Water Pollution/analysis , Bathing Beaches , British Columbia , Islands , Pacific Ocean , Photography , Water Movements , Wind
7.
PLoS One ; 11(9): e0162932, 2016.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-27632287

ABSTRACT

The multi-scalar complexity of social-ecological systems makes it challenging to quantify impacts from human activities on ecosystems, inspiring risk-based approaches to assessments of potential effects of human activities on valued ecosystem components. Risk assessments do not commonly include the risk from indirect effects as mediated via habitat and prey. In this case study from British Columbia, Canada, we illustrate how such "indirect risks" can be incorporated into risk assessments for seventeen ecosystem components. We ask whether (i) the addition of indirect risk changes the at-risk ranking of the seventeen ecosystem components and if (ii) risk scores correlate with trophic prey and habitat linkages in the food web. Even with conservative assumptions about the transfer of impacts or risks from prey species and habitats, the addition of indirect risks in the cumulative risk score changes the ranking of priorities for management. In particular, resident orca, Steller sea lion, and Pacific herring all increase in relative risk, more closely aligning these species with their "at-risk status" designations. Risk assessments are not a replacement for impact assessments, but-by considering the potential for indirect risks as we demonstrate here-they offer a crucial complementary perspective for the management of ecosystems and the organisms within.


Subject(s)
Ecosystem , Animals , Food Chain , Marine Biology , Predatory Behavior , Risk Assessment
SELECTION OF CITATIONS
SEARCH DETAIL
...