Constantine Alexander's blog

Trading practices affect measure of a country’s sustainability

‘Genuine Savings’ (GS) is one of indicators used to assess the sustainable development of a country. A recent study highlights that GS is an incomplete indicator as it does not account for the impact of sustainable, or unsustainable, practices in trading partners.

A nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) is designed as an indicator of economic production put on the markets and often used as an overall proxy indicator of the state of that country's economy. However, it does not capture social and environmental well-being. For a country to develop in a sustainable manner, where the needs of both present and future generations can be met, alternative indicators of development that measure economic, social and environmental changes, such as Genuine Savings (GS), can be used.

GS reflects changes in the total wealth of a country, including changes in produced, human and natural capital (environmental assets, such as ecosystem services). A negative GS generally implies that the development of a country is unsustainable. GS is an indicator of weak sustainability, as natural capital can be substituted with human or produced capital. This means that GS can have a positive value, even when natural capital is depleted, as long as human and/or produced capital increases to compensate for this loss.

This study uses the GS indicator to explore limitations and correct interpretation when using weak sustainability indicators as a measure of a nation’s sustainable progress and growth when nations are closely linked by trade to other nations. GS is used by a country as an indicator of domestic sustainability which does not take into account the impact of sustainable or unsustainable practices of trading partners.

By including only the value of national resources in a nation’s GS, the effects of changes in its trading partners are ignored and therefore the scope of the GS indicator is limited, the study suggests. For example, countries that rely on imported natural resources could be affected by a major financial crisis in a trading partner that reduces the country's supply of resources through imports. Similarly, the unsustainable management of natural resources in the exporting country could threaten the future supply of resources (and hence sustainability) of the importing country.

Better economic forecasts and assessments of future changes in the value of dwindling exported resources, together with an analysis of a trading partner’s GS, could help importing countries ensure the sustainability of their natural resource supplies. An example is European reliance on agricultural imports from Brazil. Beef and soy production, in particular, are expanding into areas cleared of forests. This is depleting Brazil’s natural capital and causing significant economic loss from deforestation, which is unlikely to be fully compensated for by the value of agricultural exports. Although the GS of Brazil is not negative, in the long-term, the EU countries could be relying on an unsustainable supply model: beef and soy prices could rise to include the cost of social losses through deforestation and it could be difficult to find other exporting countries that meet the health requirements of the EU.

There are also moral concerns. Importing countries may also maintain a positive GS through imports that reduce consumption of domestic natural resources, but which have damaging effects on their suppliers/exporters. Also importing countries may be weakly sustainable through unsustainable practices by its trading partners. This may be when exporting countries do not fully protect the welfare of citizens and future generations and corrupted governments allow the depletion and sale of their natural resources. For example, China’s demand for imported raw materials contributes to deteriorating GS rates in many Sub-Saharan African countries.

Source: Oleson, K.L.L. (2011) Shaky Foundations and Sustainable Exploiters : Problems With National Weak Sustainability Measures in a Global Economy. The Journal of Environment Development. 20: 329–349

Contact: koleson@hawaii.edu

Hold the salt: Coastal drinking water more vulnerable to water use than climate change

Credit: California Coastal Commission Public Education Program

Human activity is likely a greater threat to coastal groundwater used for drinking water supplies than rising sea levels from climate change, according to a study conducted by geoscientists from the University of Saskatchewan and McGill University in Montreal.

Grant Ferguson from the U of S Department of Civil and Geological Engineering worked with Tom Gleeson from McGill's Department of Civil Engineering to examine data from more than 1,400 coastal watersheds. What they found was that with the exception of very flat coastal areas that can be inundated with sea water – rare in North America – most coastal aquifers are relatively unaffected by rising sea level.

What does appear to affect these aquifers is humans pumping water from wells for drinking, domestic use and irrigation.

"The bulk of the research in recent years has focused on climate change effects on coastal groundwater but increases in water demand could be more important," Ferguson says. "This is particularly true in growing coastal cities and towns where groundwater is often an important water supply."

Aquifers are geological formations such as sand or gravel that are saturated with water, much like a sponge. Wells draw fresh water from these aquifers, which are then recharged through surface water such as rain and melting snow.

Coastal aquifers, however, are bordered on one side by seawater that can start to migrate into the formation – and into wells – if too much fresh water is drawn out. Similarly, rising sea levels can cause seawater to enter into the formation. To date, only problems related to pumping have been documented in Canada.

"Coastal aquifers are very vulnerable to increased water demand so we have real policy opportunities," Gleeson says. "We can reduce consumption of groundwater in coastal areas or manage groundwater use wisely."

It is estimated that one billion people world-wide live in coastal areas, and many are dependent on ground water. In Canada, about 25 per cent of people rely on groundwater, with some areas almost totally dependent on the resource.

The paper, "Vulnerability of coastal aquifers to groundwater use and climate change," was published online February 19 in Nature Climate Change. The research was made possible in part through support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Gleeson is a CIFAR Junior Fellow.

Contact: Michael Robin
michael.robin@usask.ca
306-966-1425
University of Saskatchewan

Iconic marine mammals are 'swimming in sick seas' of terrestrial pathogens: UBC researchers

Steller sea lion with tumor. Credit: M Haulena. Taken under authority of U.S. Marine Mammal Permit No. 14326-02 issued to the National Marine Mammal Lab, Seattle, WA.

Parasites and pathogens infecting humans, pets and farm animals are increasingly being detected in marine mammals such as sea otters, porpoises, harbour seals and killer whales along the Pacific coast of the U.S. and Canada, and better surveillance is required to monitor public health implications, according to a panel of scientific experts from Canada and the United States.

UBC scientists Stephen Raverty, Michael Grigg and Andrew Trites and Melissa Miller from the California Department of Fish and Game, presented their research today at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada.

They called for stronger collaboration among public health, coastal water policy and marine mammal health research sectors to reduce land-sea transfer of pathogens and toxins. These terrestrial sourced pollutants are killing coastal marine mammals and likely pose risks to human health.

Between 1998 and 2010, nearly 5,000 marine mammal carcasses were recovered and necropsied along the British Columbia and Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., including whales, dolphins and porpoises, sea lions and otters.

"Infectious diseases accounted for up to 40 per cent of mortalities of these marine animals," says Stephen Raverty, a veterinary pathologist with the Animal Health Centre in the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, and an adjunct professor in UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit.

"In many cases, the diseases found in these marine mammals have similar or genetically identical agents as those infecting pets and livestock. We don't yet know how these diseases are affecting the health of marine mammals" says Raverty.

For example, researchers recently identified the first case of Neospora caninum in sea otters. The parasite is known to cause infectious abortions in dairy cattle and muscular and bone diseases in dogs. Cryptococcus gatti, a fungus typically associated with dead and decomposing eucalyptus trees in tropical regions, has been found in some harbour and Dall's porpoises.

"The marine mammals that died of severe brain disease were infected with two common parasites, Toxoplasma and Sarcocystis, which are shed in the feces of feline and opossum hosts," says Michael Grigg, a researcher with the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases and adjunct professor in UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit. "Expansion of host range for the opossum and climate change may be important factors contributing to the increased incidence of infection from these land-based pathogens "

"We can expect increased health risks for humans, pets and marine mammals sharing the same polluted marine habitat – including along the shorelines right here in downtown Vancouver," says Andrew Trites, director of UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit. "In a way, marine mammals are the canary in the coal mine – we must consider ourselves warned and take appropriate action."

The team recommends better management of urban pest populations, maintaining wetland marshes, reducing run-off from urban areas near the coast, and monitoring water quality to prevent pathogens and toxins from entering the marine food chain. Collaboration amongst coastal regions and countries is also crucial.

"Marine mammals recognize no borders, and neither do pathogens and parasites," says Raverty.

Contact: Brian Lin
brian.lin@ubc.ca
604-818-5685
University of British Columbia

Southwest pueblo-dwellers key to modern climate policy?

Anthropology gives scientists and policy-makers an edge, a new window to learn from the past

Vulnerability to climate change presents policy challenges to local, state, regional, national and international entities, particularly at a time when the public and policy-makers still struggle conceptually with the complexities of rising ocean levels, falling water tables and shifting ecoclines. How can we plan sustainably for an unknowable future outcome? Arizona State anthropologist Michelle Hegmon says, look back to simpler times.

Hegmon believes that there is power in the scope of our own human history and experience: "Anthropologists are able to humanize complex situations and ask what it was like to live in societies over long periods of time. Understanding more how different societies adapted to change and what it was like to live in those societies reveals ways to approach our own modern social dilemmas." She investigates these issues with an innovative approach that involves drawing on seven dimensions of human security developed by the United Nationals Development Programme. Hegmon has developed methods of applying these dimensions – originally intended to today's world – to understand human experience in the archaeologically known past.

A professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Hegmon's forward-thinking research focuses on decades of work she and ASU colleague Margaret Nelson have done in the Mimbres region of southwest New Mexico. The duo demonstrated that what had been perceived as the end of the Mimbres culture (the disappearance of a spectacular style of pottery) was actually a reorganization, in which people left their large villages, relocated to smaller hamlets scattered across the region, and began to make and use new styles.

Understanding what fueled past societies' resilience, the implications for future human security and how to apply that knowledge to modern times is the focus of Hegmon's talk "Socially created vulnerabilities and their human costs: Archaeological perspectives," on Friday, Feb. 19 at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

Hegmon's study of this transition offer lessons about the pressures that face societies in times of changing climate. One of the key issues, she notes is that "there are always tradeoffs." A policy that is good for the environment may be difficult for some people; an irrigation system that buffers people from fluctuations in rainfall may make them more vulnerable to floods.

Hegmon and her collaborators at the AAAS symposium are also applying this approach to broad comparisons that investigate a variety of past societies in the U.S. Southwest and in North Atlantic (including the Norse settlement of Greenland and Iceland). What unites these approaches is the researchers' concern with drawing on the past to help the future, their comparative perspective, and their explicit concern with the human experience in these societies' successes and failures.

"With the right methods and questions, these new methods can humanize our understanding of what it was like to live in other times and places," says Hegmon. "That knowledge, even if it isn't always rosy, is critical to thinking about and developing solutions for our choices during a time of climactic change."

"Anthropology gives scientists and policy-makers an edge, a new window to learn from the past," she adds.

Hegmon holds a doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Michigan. She has worked on projects that range from the archeology of the American Southwest, to examination of feminist theory, gender and archeology. Hegmon is part of several transdisciplinary teams, including the Long-Term Vulnerability and Transformation Project funded by the National Science Foundation, and the North Atlantic Bicultural Organization (NABO). She is also the director of MimPIDD (Mimbres Pottery Image Digital Database), funded by the Turner Foundation.

Contact: Margaret Coulombe
margaret.coulombe@asu.edu
480-727-8934
Arizona State University

Landscape fire smoke contributes to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide, new research suggests

Andros Island Household Trash Management

Worldwide, smoke from landscape fires contributed to an average of 339,000 deaths per year between 1997 and 2006, according to new research published in Environmental Health Perspectives and released today during the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia were the hardest hit by fire-smoke deaths, with an estimated annual average of 157,000 and 110,000 deaths, respectively, attributable to landscape fire smoke exposure, said researcher Fay Johnston, who represented a global team at the 2012 AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

"It's time to look at deforestation impacts on fires, which in turn affect human health," said Johnston, a research fellow at the Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.

Johnston and her co-authors specifically assessed the health impacts of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers, an important byproduct of landscape fire smoke. First, they looked at satellite data to gather information on areas burned each year during the study period; particulate matter exposures were estimated using a chemical transport model, satellite-based observations, and other data. They applied an accepted World Health Organization framework for determining annual mortality in different regions, and they used results from previous research on the health effects of smoke-related particulate matter to estimate deaths attributable to fire smoke. They further calculated annual mortality during a La Niña period, and an El Niño period. Worldwide, deaths from fire smoke during those periods were estimated at 262,000 and 532,000, respectively, compared with an estimated 10-year global average of 339,000 deaths.

"Fire emissions are an important contributor to global mortality," the EHP article concludes. "Adverse health outcomes associated with landscape fire smoke could be substantially reduced by curtailing burning of tropical rainforests, which rarely burn naturally. The large estimated influence of El Niño suggests a relationship between climate and the burden of mortality attributable to landscape fire smoke."

Johnston is participating in a special AAAS Annual Meeting seminar at 8:30 am Pacific Standard Time on Sunday, February 19. The session is titled "Climate Change in Northern Latitudes—Forest Fires in Canada: Impacts of Climate Change and Fire Smoke."

She also agreed to take part in a related news briefing at 2:00 pm PST on Saturday, February 18. She was joined by fellow panelists Michael Brauer of the University of British Columbia; Mike Flannigan of the University of Alberta; Gordon McBean of the University of Western Ontario; and Douglas Woolford of Wilfrid Laurier University.

The panelists noted that fire scorches 350 to 400 million hectares of land every year—an area larger than the size of India—emitting greenhouse gases as well as fine particulate matter that can be harmful to people and animals. As global warming continues, vegetation becomes dryer, lightning strikes more frequently, and fire seasons change.

Woolford's research reveals, for example, that the fire season now begins earlier and ends later in Alberta than it did in 1960. Climate change affects the frequency of extreme weather, too, causing unusually warm events to happen more often.

Also during the AAAS news briefing, Mike Flannigan released new predictions of future global fire severity, based on three specific climate-change scenarios. He further discussed concerns about the increasing number of peat fires, which release significant amounts of greenhouse gases as well as high levels of mercury.

Brauer discussed approaches for estimating population exposure to forest fire smoke and the evaluation of a smoke forecasting tool for public health preparedness. He summarized studies of health impacts of fire smoke exposure in Canada and evaluated the effectiveness of room air cleaners in reducing exposure to fire smoke.

Johnston's co-authors on the EHP paper, "Estimated Global Mortality Attributable to Smoke from Landscape Fires," were Sarah B. Henderson, Yang Chen, James T. Randerson, Miriam Marlier, Ruth S. DeFries, Patrick Kinney, David M.I.S. Bowman, and Michael Brauer. Environmental Health Perspectives is published by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health. Funding for the research was provided by the Australian Research Council, the University of Tasmania, and NASA.

Contact: Ginger Pinholster
gpinhols@aaas.org
202-326-6440
American Association for the Advancement of Science

Andros Island Household Trash Management

 

How Fires Impact Human Health & Air Quality

Phytoplankton key to a healthy planet

Phytoplankton key to a healthy planet says Canada Research Chair at the forefront of phytoplankton research

Diatoms - phytoplankton. Credit: NOAA

Phytoplankton Key to a Healthy Planet says Canada Research Chair at the Forefront of Phytoplankton Research

Maria (Maite) Maldonado, Canada Research Chair in Phytoplankton Trace Metal Physiology at The University of British Columbia, has made understanding the intricacies of marine phytoplankton her life's work. These tiny, single-celled algae, which act as a natural sponge for carbon dioxide and are a critical part of the global carbon cycle, may play a key role in ensuring the health of the planet.

Maldonado will discuss her research and answer questions from the media as part of the February 17 Canada Press Breakfast on the Arctic and oceans. The breakfast will be part of the 178th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to be held in Vancouver, and will feature a variety of prominent researchers.

Why the emphasis on phytoplankton? Phytoplankton form the base of the ocean food chain, have an integral role in controlling global warming and provide more than half of our oxygen supply.

Each year, phytoplankton are responsible for converting about 45 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to organic carbon. Of this, approximately 16 gigatons is transferred to the waters of the deep ocean in a process commonly referred to as a "biological carbon pump."

The deep ocean is one of the Earth's natural carbon "sinks" and will hold carbon from the atmosphere for centuries. The biological carbon pump controls the carbon dioxide content in the upper ocean, which in turn regulates atmospheric carbon dioxide levels—and, as a result, climate change.

Scientists have established that low iron concentrations in ocean water limit phytoplankton growth, since phytoplankton use iron to photosynthesize and grow. In these iron-limited environments (which make up approximately 30 per cent of the global ocean), the biological pump becomes inefficient and the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is reduced.

For the past 20 years, Maldonado has been examining how phytoplankton adapt to and survive in, these iron-limited environments.

"In essence, what we are illustrating is that they have evolved to deal with iron limitation, and we are trying to figure out how they have adapted to take up iron more efficiently," she says.

"In the process of answering these questions, what we have seen is the importance of other trace metals. For example, copper for many years has been thought of as a toxic trace metal for phytoplankton," says Maldonado. "We know that phytoplankton need a little bit of copper . . . but what we have discovered is that phytoplankton that are iron-limited need more copper than normal. Iron-limited phytoplankton have a very good transport system for iron, and in order for this transport system to operate properly they need copper. So we are discovering uses of these other metals that we didn't know of."

In addition to copper, Maldonado and her team have also uncovered how the intracellular iron content of phytoplankton affects their ability to acquire other elements, such as nitrate and cadmium.

Maldonado's findings on cadmium have already helped British Columbia's oyster aquaculture industry, which had been suffering high losses because of elevated cadmium levels in ocean waters. Her team developed specific guidelines on the best culture depth, seed size and site selection, and developed a model with indicators that farmers can routinely measure against to schedule their oyster harvests when cadmium levels are at their lowest. The result has been a more robust oyster industry in British Columbia—with higher yields and healthier oysters.

The Canada Press Breakfast on the Arctic and oceans is part of the 178th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The breakfast will be held in Room 306 of the Vancouver Convention Centre at 8 a.m. on February 17, 2012, and will feature Canadian research experts from across natural sciences, engineering, health, social sciences and humanities.

The Canada Research Chairs Program is designed to attract and retain the best talent from Canada and around the world, helping Canadian universities achieve research excellence in health sciences, natural sciences and engineering, and social sciences and humanities. Since the program was launched in 2000, chairholders have improved Canadians' depth of knowledge and quality of life, strengthened the country's international competitiveness, and helped train the next generation of highly skilled people. For Tier 2 chairholders, the award is worth $500,000 and is allocated over five years.

Contact: Michael Adams
michael.adams@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca
613-219-7523
Social Science and Humanities Research Centre

Mother of pearl tells a tale of ocean temperature, depth

Nacre -- or mother of pearl, scientists and artisans know, is one of nature's amazing utilitarian materials.

Produced by a multitude of mollusk species, nacre is widely used in jewelry and art. It is inlaid into musical instruments, furniture and decorative boxes. Fashioned into buttons, beads and a host of functional objects from pens to flatware, mother of pearl lends a lustrous iridescence to everyday objects.

In recent years, subjecting the material to the modern tools of scientific analysis, scientists have divined the fine points of nacre architecture and developed models to help explain its astonishing durability: 3,000 times more fracture resistant than the mineral from which it is made, aragonite.

Now, in a new report (Thursday, Feb. 16) in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison show that nacre can also be deployed in the interest of science as a hard-wired thermometer and pressure sensor, revealing both the temperature and ocean depth at which the material formed.

"We found a strong correlation between the temperature at which nacre was deposited during the life of the mollusk and water temperature," explains Pupa Gilbert, a UW-Madison professor of physics and chemistry and the senior author of the new JACS report. "All other (temperature) proxies are based on chemical analyses and the relative concentration of different elements or isotopes. This could be our first physical proxy, in which the microscopic structure of the material tells us the maximum temperature and maximum pressure at which the mollusk lived."

The new study was conducted using mother of pearl from modern mollusks, but Gilbert notes that nacre is widespread in the fossil record going back 450 million years. If the techniques used by the Wisconsin group can be applied to fossil nacre, scientists can begin to accurately reconstruct a global record of ancient environments and environmental change.

"If the correlation holds, we would have a thermometer that goes back in time, a paleothermometer of how hot or cold water temperatures were when the nacre formed," says Gilbert.

The material also holds a distinctive signature—the thickness of the nacre layers — for the water depth at which the material was assembled by a mollusk, potentially providing even more insight into environmental conditions of the present and past.

"These are two independent parameters, measured by different aspects of nacre structure," the Wisconsin physicist explains. "The maximum temperature can be measured by how disordered the nacre crystal orientations are, while the maximum pressure can be taken from the thickness of the nacre layers."

Working with UW-Madison graduate student Ian C. Olson, the lead author of the JACS report, Gilbert subjected nacre from eight mollusk species from different environments to a technique capable of mapping the orientation of nacre crystals. From the different shells, they observed uneven thicknesses, widths and angles of the crystalline "bricks" that, together with an organic mortar, are laid down by the mollusk to form mother of pearl.

"We wondered why the shells were so different and concluded that the key parameters to test were the environmental ones, including maximum, minimum and mean annual temperatures as well as maximum and minimum water pressure, which depends on water depth," says Gilbert.

Comparing the structural maps of nacre from the different mollusks and environmental data from the places where the animals were collected, Olson, Gilbert and their collaborators found an extremely high correlation between the microscopic structural characteristics of their nacre specimens and the temperature and pressure data obtained from the various environments where they were collected.

Contributing to the new study were Reinhard Kozdon and John Valley, both of the UW-Madison department of geoscience. The work was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Contact: Pupa Gilbert
pupa@physics.wisc.edu
608-262-5829
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Households responsible for 25% of EU GHG emissions, says report

European Environment Agency

A different picture of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be achieved if responsibility for emissions from different economic sectors is placed with the end energy users, according to a new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA). This approach makes sectors such as households responsible for many emissions that would otherwise be attributed to the energy industry.

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) guidelines for emissions reporting, emissions for the energy industries include those attributable to heating and electricity use for the household sector. According to this scheme, only energy generated at home – for instance, by burning coal in a stove – counts towards residential emissions.

The EEA report applies a new demand-focused method, which attributes energy use and emissions to the end user. This means that emissions from the energy industries are shifted both to the residential sector and the other end users which are responsible for the electricity and heat demand that leads to the generation of those emissions. Using the end user model, a quarter of all emissions are attributed to households, both directly and indirectly. Homes in the EU only emit 12% of energy emissions directly. Most emissions associated with commercial and residential sectors are indirect emissions from heating and electricity – the energy for which is generated at heat and power plants.

In 2009, the European Council committed to reduce GHGs by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. GHGs in the EU are regulated under two broad areas. Most (around 60% of the total in the EU) fall under the Effort Sharing Decision (ESD), which covers direct emissions from households, services, transport, waste and agriculture, under countries’ national commitments to emissions cuts. The rest come under the Emissions Trading System (ETS), which covers direct emissions from energy transformation industries, in other words, heat and power plants, and other major industrial installations.

The EEA report finds that emissions are already decreasing across all sectors, revealing a downward trend from 2005 onwards, but emissions covered by the ETS are falling more steeply. In 2009, the biggest reductions were in the industry sector, which contributed two thirds of the total emissions reductions by end use. The residential sector contributed around 9% of the total emissions reductions.

The highest emissions for 2009 were for the transport sector, at 29%, but emissions for the sector also fell in 2009, contributing 12% to total emissions reductions that year. Most transport emissions are direct and covered by ESD. Over the coming decades, the EEA expects electric vehicles will begin to redistribute more of the emissions from transport across the ETS area, via indirect emissions from electricity. Reductions in transport emissions will then depend on the energy sources used for electricity.

According to the EEA, by reallocating indirect emissions to the end users, policymakers will gain a clearer understanding of how household energy demand affect overall emissions and thus, the impact of future emissions reductions in the household sector via implementation of measures such as energy efficiency improvements will become more apparent. The same will be true of other sectors, which could help policymakers to develop policies that encourage emissions reductions in specific sectors.

Source: EEA. (2011).End-user GHG emissions from energy:Reallocation of emissions from energy industries to end users 2005–2009. EEA Technical Report, 19, 1-12. 

• Download 19 2011 End-user GHG inventory
• Download FULL REPORT — End user GHG emissions from energy
• Download Data viewer — end user GHG emissions from energy

Contact: Ricardo.fernandez@eea.europa.eu

Data on alien species in need of standardisation

Global map showing the number of harmful alien species by coastal ecoregions. The darker red shades indicate a greater number of species with a high impact on the local ecology. The blue colour indicates ecoregions with alien species that have been described as less harmful. Source: Molnar et al. 2008

A new study has identified several differences between two major European databases on alien species, which could be communicating mixed messages for biodiversity policymakers. Researchers recommend creating a single pan-European database to address these differences.

In recent years, scientific information for alien species policy has improved in Europe with the creation of several publically available databases. However, the number of databases can cause problems in terms of integration and standardisation between them.

To explore the different approaches to constructing an alien species database, the study compared two independently developed large-scale datasets that cover the same regions in Europe. These are the DAISIE¹ and NOBANIS² databases. For 13 countries shared between the databases the study compared the terminology, taxonomic classification (i.e. which major group of organisms they belong to), representation across countries, and estimates of alien richness (number of different species) per country. They then examined the socioeconomic factors that might influence on alien richness.

The representation of major organism groups (mammals, birds, plants, etc.) was the same for both databases, but they used different classification schemes with DAISIE identifying 33 taxonomic groups and NOBANIS using only 22. Averaging over the different groups, the total number of alien species across all countries was 38.3% higher for NOBANIS compared to DAISIE. When considering only alien species that were established, i.e. those that have been introduced for some time, the difference in species richness was less: only 17.7% higher for NOBANIS compared to DAISIE.

The study also considered whether country area, human population density and per capita GDP could explain regional variation in alien species. In general, these three factors offered greater explanation for differences among countries in alien richness in the DAISIE rather than NOBANIS database. Consistent with finding from other parts of the world, human population density was more important in explaining total alien numbers for DAISIE, but this was not the case for NOBANIS where country area was most important.

The research suggests that differences between databases are likely to be caused by their information sources, knowledge of taxonomies and how they interpret definitions of alien species. This is supported by the finding that differences were more marked for total numbers of aliens than established aliens, suggesting that non-established species (which are included in total numbers) are less easy to define. It is also likely that the cut-off date of species introduction has a role to play as DAISIE restricts its content to species known to have been introduced after 1500AD. However, there is no cut-off for NOBANIS which explains the higher numbers of alien species in this database. The databases also reveal differences in interpretation of ‘alien’, for example, DAISIE records the greylag goose and rock pigeon as established aliens in Austria. NOBANIS has no record for these species but does record the mute swan and ring-necked parakeet as established aliens, which do not feature in DAISIE.

It is impossible to assess which is the better database for policymaking purposes, but the notable differences between the two are of concern. The researchers suggest working towards a common agreed set of species for each country, which could be encouraged by a centralised data capturing system to help ensure standardisation. Without more consensus there will be mixed messages from the databases, especially when policymakers are using headline indicators without exploring the underlying data. The researchers suggest that this centralised system should be designed to meet the needs of regulatory and legislative institutions.

1. DAISIE (Delivering Alien Invasive Species Inventories for Europe) was supported by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme. 
2. NOBANIS (North European and Baltic Network on Invasive Alien Species). 

Source: Hulme, P.E. & Weser, C. (2011) Mixed messages from multiple information sources on invasive species: a case of too much of a good thing? Diversity and Distributions. 17:1152-1160.

Contact: Philip.hulme@lincoln.ac.nz

Rivers are slow to recover from nutrient overload

In recent years, strict legislation was introduced to control the amount of nitrate and phosphate that runs into the sea from European rivers. However, new research reveals that water quality has not improved as much as expected. Policymakers need to take into account a time lag in the system that could be up to 40 years, say the researchers.

Excess nutrients can cause an unnatural algae ‘bloom’, stripping oxygen from water and reducing populations of fish and other animals. Controlling discharge of nutrients from human sources, including agricultural fertilisers and wastewater, has been a key aspect of EU environmental legislation^1-3. However, very few long-term studies exist at the European level to assess how effective these regulations have been in improving the quality of freshwater discharged into the sea.

In the new study, scientists used several global databases to estimate nutrient input to all river basins that drain into European seas. To investigate the connection between nutrient input and water quality, the scientists compared the total change in nutrient input from 1990 to 2005 with measurements of nitrate and phosphate from 39 European river outlets (data reported annually by member states of the OECD).

The results revealed that nitrate pressure for the EU-15 Member States has fallen by 32% since 1990, thanks mainly to a reduction of 13% in fertiliser use. Wastewater input has remained fairly stable overall, although differences exist between countries. Phosphate input has also declined, but this is because over the years it has accumulated in soils meaning that farmers apply less phosphate fertiliser, rather than the result of environmental legislation.

In total, 30% of the OECD monitoring stations demonstrated a decrease in nitrate concentration and there was an increase for 10%. Phosphorus decreased in 32% of stations and increased in 3%. For nitrate, the trend was strongly associated with both wastewater discharge and agricultural sources, whereas for phosphate, the relationship was slightly stronger for the former.

The scientists found that some river basins experienced increases in nutrient concentrations despite reduced anthropogenic input. Looking closely at two case studies, the Elbe in Germany and the Loire in France, they found that this could be partly explained by a time lag in the transport of excess nitrate into the groundwater as well as by storage of nitrate in the soil and aquifers.

The implication of this time delay is that for those countries that have been slow to implement EU legislation, the expected improvements in water quality will not be observable for some time, a situation that should be taken into account in monitoring and management of river basins e.g. under the Water Framework Directive⁴. For the Elbe and the Loire, the scientists calculated time lags of 8 and 14 years, respectively, but previous research suggests this could be up to 40 years for some rivers.

The new research also raises questions about techniques for monitoring water quality. Trends calculated using long-term time-series data (as is done here) rather than the difference between two time periods, as is currently used to evaluate the Nitrates Directive¹, are better able to distinguish between climate variability and the effects of policy changes. The researchers recommend that the network of European monitoring stations includes a greater number near river outlets as well as within the river basins. This would allow local conditions and the integrated effect on water discharged to the sea to be analysed.

1. Nitrates Directive 91/676/EEC.
2. Urban Waste Water Directive 91/271/EEC.
3. Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
4. Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC.

Source: Bouraoui, F. & Grizzetti, B. (2011). Long-term change of nutrient concentrations of rivers discharging in European seas. Science of the Total Environment. 409; 4899-4916.

Contact: faycal.bouraoui@jrc.ec.europa.eu