Constantine Alexander's Journal: January 2017

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January 2017

01/31/2017

World Heritage sites getting hammered by human activities

Study says more than 100 natural World Heritage sites, including Yellowstone, are increasingly damaged by expanding human infrastructure and land uses.

Yellowstone National Park.

A new study warns that more than 100 natural World Heritage sites are being severely damaged by encroaching human activities. The study, led by an international team of researchers from the University of Queensland, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), University of Northern British Columbia and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) appears in the journal Biological Conservation.

Natural World Heritage Sites (NWHS), via the formal process run by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), are globally recognized as containing some of the Earth's most valuable natural assets.

Study says more than 100 natural World Heritage sites, including Yellowstone, are increasingly damaged by expanding human infrastructure and land uses
Many sites are under continued threat and without urgent action could be damaged beyond repair
World Heritage sites are designated by the World Heritage Convention as places of outstanding universal value that should be safeguarded for future generations
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee meets again this coming July in Poland

"The world would never accept the Acropolis being knocked down, or a couple of pyramids being flattened for housing estates or roads, yet right now, across our planet, we are simply letting many of our natural World Heritage sites become severely altered." - Dr. James Watson of the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society

The authors looked at human pressure over time using the updated global Human Footprint criteria, which includes roads, agriculture, urbanization and industrial infrastructure, along with forest loss.

They found that the Human Footprint has increased in 63 percent of NWHS across all continents except Europe over the past two decades. The most impacted NWHS were found in Asia including: Manas Wildlife Sanctuary in India, and Chitwan National Park in Nepal; along with Simien National Park in Ethiopia.

In terms of forest loss, highly impacted parks included the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve in Honduras, which lost 365 km2 (8.5 percent) of their forest respectively, since 2000. Even celebrated places like Yellowstone National Park in the US were impacted, losing some 6 percent of its forests. Meanwhile, Waterton Glacier International Peace Park that crosses the Canadian and USA border lost almost one quarter of its forested area (23 percent or 540 km2).

A new study warns that more than 100 natural World Heritage sites are being severely damaged by encroaching human activities. Credit: Biological Conservation.

"World Heritage natural sites should be maintained and protected fully. For a site to lose ten or twenty percent of its forested area in two decades is alarming and must be addressed," said the lead author James Allan from the University of Queensland.

Said senior author, Dr. James Watson of the University of Queensland and WCS: "Any place that is listed as a World Heritage site is a globally important asset to all of humanity. The world would never accept the Acropolis being knocked down, or a couple of pyramids being flattened for housing estates or roads, yet right now, across our planet, we are simply letting many of our natural World Heritage sites be severely altered."

By highlighting natural World Heritage sites that are in immediate danger, the study provides useful baseline data for future monitoring and protection. It should stimulate the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which meets annually to review the status of World Heritage properties globally, to undertake further action to safeguard natural sites in particular.

"It is time for the global community to stand up and hold governments to account so that they take the conservation of natural World Heritage sites seriously. We urge the World Heritage Committee to immediately assess the highly threatened sites we have identified. Urgent intervention is clearly needed to save these places and their outstanding natural universal values," said James Allan.

Some NWHS such as the Sinharaja Forest Reserve and Mana Pools National Park showed minimal change in forest loss or human pressure, but the authors say they are in the minority.

Citation: James R. Allan, Oscar Venter, Sean Maxwell, Bastian Bertzky, Kendall Jones, Yichuan Shi, James E.M. Watson; Recent increases in human pressure and forest loss threaten many Natural World Heritage Sites; Biological Conservation, 2017; 206: 47; DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2016.12.011.

Contact: Stephen Sautner
Wildlife Conservation Society

Posted at 07:22 AM in Environment, Environmental Politics, Marine Environment, Protected Areas, Science, Sustainable Development, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0)

Getting by with a little help from their friends

A long-term study by UCSB scientists and colleagues demonstrates that failing kelp forests can be rescued by nearby neighbors.

The kelp forest ecosystem is home to many animals, including the rockfish in this photo. Photo Credit: Ron McPeak.

After big winter storms, clumps of kelp forests often wash ashore along the Southern California coast. Contrary to the devastation these massive piles of seaweed might indicate, new research suggests the kelp may rebound pretty quickly, with help from neighboring beds.

The study, conducted by UC Santa Barbara scientists and colleagues at UC Santa Cruz, UCLA and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, found that kelp forests can bounce back from destructive storms when the forests are in reasonably close proximity to healthy beds. In much the same way that the wind scatters plant seeds over the land, ocean currents carry trillions of microscopic spores from one kelp forest to another, where they create life for ailing populations. The marine scientists' findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"Historically, researchers thought that kelp forest resilience depended on only the local environment," explained lead author Max Castorani, a postdoctoral scholar at UCSB's Marine Science Institute. "However, that turned out to be wrong, as we showed that kelp forests from miles away influence whether a local kelp forest persists or goes extinct. Declining kelp forests can be rescued or recolonized by neighboring populations, so the proximity among forests is very important."

For example, kelp forests off the coast of Santa Barbara are linked to neighboring beds near Montecito and Goleta Beach but also to those farther away -- as far south as Carpinteria and as far north as Isla Vista and the Gaviota coast.

"From year to year, the ocean currents change and the size of kelp populations expand or contract," Castorani said. "In a given year, we could estimate how many spores were sent among all the hundreds of kelp forests in Southern California, allowing us to identify important rescuing populations."

To measure kelp abundance from San Diego to Point Conception, the researchers used data from a 32-year time series assembled from Landsat satellite images. This was calibrated to kelp abundance and spore production gathered from diving expeditions.

Also included was more than a decade of Southern California oceanographic modeling performed by co-authors David Siegel and Rachel Simons of UCSB's Earth Research Institute.

The analysis overall showed that the chance of a population being rescued depends on the size of the neighboring forest, the number of spores it produces and the strength of ocean currents that carry the spores.

"Of these factors, year-to-year changes in spore production turned out to be the most important to successfully rescuing neighboring kelp populations," Castorani noted. "This is valuable to ocean conservation because it can inform which kelp forests should be prioritized for protection or where coastal restoration efforts could be most effective."

Citation: Max C. N. Castorani, Daniel C. Reed, Peter T. Raimondi, Filipe Alberto, Tom W. Bell, Kyle C. Cavanaugh, David A. Siegel, Rachel D. Simons; Fluctuations in population fecundity drive variation in demographic connectivity and metapopulation dynamics; Proceedings of the Royal Society B (25 January 2017); DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2086.

Contact: Julie Cohen
University of California Santa Barbara

Posted at 06:54 AM in Biodiversity, Marine Environment, Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

01/30/2017

SF State research could improve conservation in regional marine sanctuaries

A sooty shearwater and a pink-footed shearwater skim the waters near the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Credit: Sophie Webb, Point Blue/NOAA-ONMS/ACCESS.

A new study published Wednesday by San Francisco State University researchers could benefit ocean zoning for coastal development plans and prove life-saving for foraging seabirds along the Central California coastline in the event of an oil spill.

SF State geographer Anna Studwell and her collaborators published "Modeling Nonresident Seabird Foraging Distributions to Inform Ocean Zoning in Central California," which appears today in the journal PLOS ONE. The paper was actually the first chapter in Studwell's master's thesis in Geography and Environment at SF State under the supervision of Professor Ellen Hines. Studwell is interested in both conservation and in seabirds, which face threats at sea such as entanglement in fishing gear, she said. A 2015 study published in PLOS ONE recorded a 69.5 percent decline in seabird populations between 1950 and 2010 that's due in part to increased commercial fishing and pollution.

In the recent study, Studwell looked at 10 years (2004-2013) of data on six species of nonresident seabirds collected at the Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries by researchers with the Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies (ACCESS) partnership. Nonresident seabirds are animals that are not breeding on the nearby islands off Central Calif., but rather are migrating or visiting to forage in the surrounding sea. There's already a lot of research on the Farallon Islands and the birds that live there, but the importance of Studwell's study is identifying the areas where seabirds that do not breed locally concentrate.

At least three times a year for 10 years, the ACCESS team and other researchers took to the sea and counted seabirds along specific routes called transect lines. But that left some parts of the sea unsampled. Studwell's research shows how it's possible to identify these offshore areas with existing data and then using predictive modeling. "Offshore areas, where seabirds spend a lot of their time when they forage are extremely challenging to predict," she said. "We found a way to identify areas that could have protections and we are overcoming those challenges."

The study fills a gap in terms of identifying and prioritizing important seabird areas around the two sanctuaries.

"We already are aware that breeding sites should be targeted for protection. It's much more challenging to target offshore areas, or areas that are far at sea," she said. "They are areas that are fluid. An island is something you can protect and lay a pretty clear boundary around. For those areas where birds go when they are no longer breeding, it's very difficult to identify a specific location that should have higher management and potentially more protection."

The next step in Studwell's research is to look at the specific threats seabirds face and how to prioritize seabird conservation, while considering disturbances posed by maritime activities that share the ocean.

Professor Hines, an SF State professor of geography and environment and associate director of the Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies, also worked on the study with Studwell. According to Hines, what's really important about the research is that it establishes a baseline of data for the foraging seabirds. "I want to see this kind of research continue," she said. "If we can figure out ways to keep funding this research to get these kind of data and can continue modeling environmental relationships over time, we can look at some very important correlations between climate change and human use and how it affects these animals. Marine megafauna are the indicators of the health of the food chain outside the San Francisco Bay."

Citation: Studwell AJ, Hines E, Elliott ML, Howar J, Holzman B, Nur N, et al. (2017); Modeling Nonresident Seabird Foraging Distributions to Inform Ocean Zoning in Central California; PLoS ONE 12(1): e0169517; DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0169517.

Contact: Mary Kenny
San Francisco State University

Posted at 04:20 AM in Marine Environment, Protected Areas, Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

01/21/2017

Estimated 1.455 tonnes of plastic floating in the Mediterranean

Credit: Cózar A, Sanz-Martín M, Martí E, González-Gordillo JI, Ubeda B, Gálvez JÁ, et al. (2015) Plastic Accumulation in the Mediterranean Sea. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0121762. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121762

By Science for Environment Policy

A rough total of 1.455 tonnes of floating plastic is present across the Mediterranean, estimates a new study. Researchers gathered floating plastics using trawl nets and found that microplastics with a surface area of around 1 square milimetre (mm²) were the most abundant size of plastic particles found.

Plastics are among the most commonly used materials and, as a result, plastic waste is found throughout the marine environment. It has been estimated that 4.8–12.7 million tonnes of plastic were released into oceans worldwide in 2010. Plastics can have a number of impacts on marine ecosystems, including entanglement of and ingestion by wildlife, and can accumulate through the food chain. Micro-plastics are particularly harmful to marine animals due to their small size and ability to adsorb other pollutants. Plastics can also have adverse impacts on human health and industry, affecting tourism, fishing and aquaculture.

This study examined the size, distribution and abundance of floating plastics within the north-western and central Mediterranean Sea, in accordance with established classifications under the European Union Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The Mediterranean Sea has a population of approximately 100 million people living within 10 km of the coastline, giving high potential for plastic accumulation.

The researchers used a trawl with a mesh size of 333 µm net to collect plastics from the surface of the water across four Mediterranean regional seas (the Sea of Sardinia, the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic Sea). Plastics were divided into three size categories: microplastics (less than 5 mm), mesoplastics (5–25 mm) and macroplastics (25–1 000 mm).

The plastics were dried and weighed, and for each of the 71 trawls, the researchers recorded the plastic weight concentration in grams of dryweight per square kilometre (g dw km⁻²) and plastic particle concentration as the number of plastic items per square kilometre (items km⁻²).

A total of 17 495 items were collected within the trawl samples, including 16 719 microplastics, 691 mesoplastics and 85 macroplastics. Plastics made up almost 97% of the manmade debris found and were in all 71 samples. Weight concentration ranged from 7.43 to 9292.24 g dw km-2. Particle concentration ranged from 8 999 to 1 164 403 items km−2. Microplastics with a surface area of around 1 mm² were the most abundant particle size found.

The highest particle concentration by weight was found in the Gulf of Taranto in the Ionian Sea (9 298.2 g dw km⁻²) and the highest concentration by particles was found between the Greek Islands of Antipaxi and Lefkada (1 164 403 items km⁻²). Assuming that the range of concentrations of plastic in the sampled areas is similar across the entire region, the researchers give a rough estimate of 1 455 tonnes of floating plastic within the Mediterranean.

In contrast to other seas, the high variability of surface currents in the Mediterranean means that concentrations of plastic are less stable and less likely to remain in set locations. However, the researchers identified four potential areas of plastic accumulation due to currents and other factors, such as coastal populations, tourism and plastic washing into the sea from rivers. These areas are the Otranto Strait, the northern coast of Sicily, the Ionian Islands and the Menorca Channel.

The study is one of the first large-scale surveys of plastic waste in the Mediterranean. The researchers say that the issue of floating plastic waste is likely to get worse as increases in global plastic production, inadequate waste-management systems and human behaviour all contribute to the problem. Measures to increase social awareness and efforts to reduce the release of plastic waste into the oceans are, therefore, recommended.

Citation: Ruiz-Orejón, L.F., Sardá, R., Ramis-Pujol, J. (2016). Floating plastic debris in the Central and Western Mediterranean Sea. Marine Environmental Research, 120: 136-144. DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2016.08.001.

Contact: Luis Ruiz-Orejon

Posted at 08:45 AM in Environmental Disasters, Marine Environment, Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

Half of the land area in Europe is within 1.5 kilometres of transport infrastructure, with large-scale impact on wildlife

The green infrastructure approach advocates that green infrastructure assets should be protected and enhanced to help sustain and improve our way of life. Green infrastructure assets should be linked to form part of a wider network, as this helps them to withstand climate change and other impacts. Credit: Devon County Council, UK.

By Science for Environment Policy

Transport infrastructure is so widespread in Europe that half of the land area is within 1.5 kilometres (km) of paved roads and railway lines, researchers have calculated. The researchers found that in Spain, transport infrastructure has an impact on the abundance of birds in almost half of the country and is affecting the abundance of mammals across almost all of the land area.

The biggest threat to terrestrial biodiversity comes from habitat loss and degradation, driven by human development, especially building settlements and roads. The challenge is to preserve biodiversity and vital ecosystem services in the face of continued infrastructure expansion.

This study is the first to assess the extent of transport infrastructure across Europe and the large-scale effect that built infrastructure has on wildlife populations.

Using a pan-European database of geographic information, the researchers measured the distance of land areas to the nearest paved road or railway line in 36 European countries. They found that human infrastructure is so prevalent that nearly one quarter of land in Europe is within half a kilometre of transport infrastructure, one half of the land is within 1.5 km and almost all of Europe is within 10 km of a paved road or railway line.

Then, using Spain as a case study, the researchers assessed how the prevalence of built infrastructure affects bird and mammal wildlife. They first calculated the nearest distances to all built-up areas, impervious surfaces and paved road and railway infrastructures and also used a more precise and complete national database. They found that, on average, half of all land in Spain is within approximately 1.5 km of a built-up area, a bit less than 900 m from a road or railway line, and less than 750 m from an impervious surface. The researchers consider that the European estimates are very conservative, since using a more precise database for Spain revealed that transport infrastructure was most likely underrepresented in the pan-European database. Thus, the distances to the nearest transport infrastructure in Europe are likely shorter than their estimations from the pan-European database.

To assess how proximity to the built infrastructure affected the distribution of six iconic species of birds and mammals, the researchers overlaid maps of built infrastructure on distribution maps of tawny owl (Strix aluco), great bustard (Otis tarda), Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti), grey wolf (Canis lupus), Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), and brown bear (Ursus arctos).

Since so little land is far from a transport infrastructure, all six species were found relatively close to roads and railway lines. Nevertheless, the great bustard, Spanish imperial eagle, Iberian lynx, and brown bear all tend to avoid the closest 500 metres next to a road or railway line. The Spanish imperial eagle, Iberian lynx, and brown bear, in particular, are all more prevalent at locations further from transport infrastructure, indicating their preference for more remote areas, or that they were able to survive only in those areas.

In 2014, 20 critically endangered Iberian lynxes, out of a population of approximately 320 (over 6%), were killed on the roads in Spain, illustrating the large-scale impact that roads have on roaming species.

The researchers then used data from an earlier meta-analysis to model how the abundance of Spanish birds and mammals was affected by proximity to the built infrastructure. They predicted that the presence of roads and railways lines, for example, reduces the overall abundance of birds by 19% and the abundance of mammals by almost 47% compared with undisturbed areas.

The maps revealed that, compared with undisturbed areas, built infrastructure reduce the abundance of the birds across 55.5% of the Spanish land area and the abundance of mammals across almost all (97.9%) of the land. The influence on the abundance of wildlife of paved roads and railways alone is similar (reduction by almost 50% for birds and 96% for mammals).

Across Europe, the researchers say areas unaffected by paved roads are so small that scientists may no longer be able to compare the impacts of road developments with undeveloped ‘control’ areas, particularly for wide-ranging mammals and birds.

The researchers suggest that their approach may be used to identify priority conservation sites in areas that currently contain little infrastructure, e.g., roadless areas, before they are lost to development. Past and ongoing habitat losses may lead to the future potential extinction of some species, which is not yet evident. Conservation efforts should, therefore, include securing existing habitats, strengthening remaining species and restoring essential ecosystem services to prevent threatened species from becoming extinct through the expansion of infrastructure development.

With their study focused on Spain and much of their data taken from European research, the researchers say their approach to assessing the impact of infrastructure on wildlife would be particularly useful in regional and national infrastructure planning in other European areas. The results of the study confirm the need to enhance actions to reduce habitat fragmentation and to adopt corrective measures for reducing collision risks on existing roads and infrastructures.

However, less economically developed countries are set to build nine-tenths of road developments in the next 40 years. Many of these areas, such as tropical forests, are still rich in biodiversity and the researchers say their approach can also be used for planning scenarios and regulating infrastructure expansion and helps to develop mitigation measures that reduce the negative impacts of built infrastructure on wildlife in these places.

Therefore, the researchers are calling for the development of an internationally coordinated database and for studies on the impact of infrastructure on wildlife across a range of ecosystems and geographical areas, particularly in developing economies.

Citation: Torres, A., Jaeger, J.A.G. & Alonso, J.C. (2016). Assessing large-scale wildlife responses to human infrastructure development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113 (30): 8472-8477. DOI:10.1073/pnas.1522488113.

Contact: Aurora Torres

Posted at 08:19 AM in Bears, Wolves & Big Cats, Biodiversity, Environment, Environmental Politics, Science, Sustainable Development | Permalink | Comments (0)

Marine repairmen

New research shows limpets are construction workers of the seashore.

Common or European Limpet in litoral of the Finistére, near Porspoder, in the region that was affected by the Amoco Cadiz tanker disaster in 1978. Photo by Stefan Thiesen (CC 3.0).

New research from a beach-roaming biomechanics engineer paints a surprisingly industrious picture of limpets -- the marine snails that are abundantly plastered on rocks at low tide. His work shows that limpets survive and thrive by being the busy construction workers of the seashore.

Limpets frequently suffer damage at the apex of their conical shells, but rather than drying out due to dehydration or getting picked off like sitting ducks by dinner-hungry predators such as seagulls, the hard-working creatures quickly patch over small holes with new biological building material from within. Incredibly, these repaired shells turned out to be just as strong as the originals when subjected to impacts from rocks.

However, while the shells have excellent resistance to single impacts, which, in the wild, would encompass rocks and stones colliding with them in rough seas, the shells are not so good at resisting multiple impacts. Electron microscopy showed that the layered structure of the shell makes it susceptible to a type of failing called 'spalling,' which is a well-known cause of failure in engineering materials such as concrete.

Professor of Materials Engineering, David Taylor, from the Trinity Centre for Bioengineering at Trinity College Dublin, has recently published his findings in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Professor Taylor said: "You will see rocks covered with limpets along many seashores across the world. They have several features that make them interesting from a biomechanics point of view -- they have evolved mechanisms for adhering very strongly to the underlying rock and are also equipped with a set of very hard teeth."

"But they also have this very hard, stiff shell and it is this feature I was interested in knowing more about. It is incredible that they can repair their shells to be just as strong as the original ones, but it is also really interesting that they are still at risk from spalling weaknesses."

"As engineers we often gain inspiration for solutions to real-world problems from nature, and from the way different plants and animals have adapted to life in harsh environments. Spalling is evidently one problem that doesn't have a perfect solution -- whether you are a concrete foreman overseeing a building site or a limpet trying to speedily repair his or her home on the seashore."

Citation: David Taylor; Impact damage and repair in shells of the limpet Patella vulgata; The Journal of Experimental Biology, 2016; 219 (24): 3927 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.149880.

Contact: Thomas Deane
Trinity College Dublin

Posted at 03:45 AM in Biodiversity, Marine Environment, Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

01/20/2017

New regional sea level scenarios help communities prepare for future economic risks

Localized data helps economies and infrastructure adapt.

Florida Sea Lever Rise.

New U.S. regional sea level scenarios developed by NOAA and its partners will give coastal communities better, more localized data to help them plan for and adapt to the risk of rising sea levels to their economies and infrastructure.

Sea level rise is occurring worldwide, but not at the same rate everywhere. Differences will also likely continue in the future, so decision-makers need local information to assess their community's vulnerability. These new scenarios integrate updated global sea level rise scenarios with regional factors, such as changes in land elevations and ocean circulation, that influence sea level regionally.

"The ocean is not rising like water would in a bathtub," said William Sweet, Ph.D., a NOAA oceanographer and the lead author of the report detailing the scenarios. "For example, in some scenarios sea levels in the Pacific Northwest are expected to rise slower than the global average, but in the Northeast they are expected to rise faster. These scenarios will help communities better understand local trends and make decisions about adaptation that are best for them."

In the report, the researchers relied on the latest published and peer reviewed science to refine six global sea level rise scenarios (Low, Intermediate Low, Intermediate, Intermediate High, High, and Extreme) decade by decade for this century.

The report helps communities track a range of scenarios that they may fall under for each of the timeframes, and assess their risk of experiencing impacts under the scenario. The researchers scaled these scenarios down to a one-degree gridded resolution, or roughly 70 miles. This allows a coastal manager in Miami and one in Mobile, Alabama, using the same scenario to prepare for different outcomes.

A similar method is already being used in state planning in the mid-Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico and has been previously used to assess risk to worldwide U.S. military installations in an inter-agency report prepared for the Department of Defense in 2016.

A joint public- and private-sector group developed the report for the Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flood Hazard Scenarios and Tools Interagency Task Force, which was convened by the U.S. Global Change Research Program and National Ocean Council in 2015. Researchers from NOAA, Rutgers University, the Environmental Protection Agency, South Florida Water Management District, Columbia University, and U.S. Geological Survey co-authored the report.

Citations:

Contact: Keeley Belva
NOAA

Posted at 06:16 AM in Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Marine Environment, Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

01/18/2017

Climate change to shift global pattern of mild weather

New research shows the global average of mild weather days will drop, with dramatic declines for some, increases for others.

This global map shows the change in the annual number of mild days for 2081-2100 with areas of blue seeing an increase and areas of brown seeing a decline. The six graphics below the global map show the changes occurring in several major cities. Credit: Van der Wiel/NOAA/Princeton.

As scientists work to predict how climate change may affect hurricanes, droughts, floods, blizzards and other severe weather, there's one area that's been overlooked: mild weather. But no more.

NOAA and Princeton University scientists have produced the first global analysis of how climate change may affect the frequency and location of mild weather - days that are perfect for an outdoor wedding, baseball, fishing, boating, hiking or a picnic. Scientists defined "mild" weather as temperatures between 64 and 86 degrees F, with less than a half inch of rain and dew points below 68 degrees F, indicative of low humidity.

Knowing the general pattern for mild weather over the next decades is also economically valuable to a wide range of businesses and industries. Travel, tourism, construction, transportation, agriculture, and outdoor recreation all benefit from factoring weather patterns into their plans.

Tropics to lose milder days

The new research, published in the journal Climatic Change, projects that globally the number of mild days will decrease by 10 or 13 percent by the end of the century because of climate warming from the buildup of human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The current global average of 74 mild days a year will drop by four days by 2035 and 10 days by 2081 to 2100. But this global average decrease masks more dramatic decreases in store for some areas and increases in mild days in other regions.

"Extreme weather is difficult to relate to because it may happen only once in your lifetime," said first author Karin van der Wiel, a Princeton postdoctoral researcher at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) located on the university's Forrestal Campus. "We took a different approach here and studied a positive meteorological concept, weather that occurs regularly, and that's easier to relate to."

Scientists predict the largest decreases in mild weather will happen in tropical regions because of rising heat and humidity. The hardest-hit areas are expected to be in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where some regions could see 15 to 50 fewer days of mild weather a year by the end of the century. These are also areas where NOAA and partner research shows economic damages due to climate change. The loss of mild weather days, especially during summer, when they can serve to break up extended heatwaves, also could significantly affect public health.

These four maps show that on average the number of mild weather days in the US will increase in winter, spring and fall and decline in the summer in the period from 2081-2100. Credit: Karin Van der Wiel/ NOAA/ Princeton.

Mild weather days will shift seasonally in major US cities. Declining in summer and rising in the shoulder seasons and winter for the period from 2081 to 2100. Credit: Van der Wiel/NOAA/Princeton

U.S., Canada, northern Europe to gain milder days

People living in the mid-latitudes, which include much of the United States, as well as many mountainous areas around the world, will gain mild weather days on average, the new study found. The biggest winners will include communities along the border with Canada in the Northeast, Midwest and Northwest, as well as many parts of Canada.

Other areas projected to gain as much as 10 to 15 days more annually of mild weather by the end of the 21st century include parts of England and northern Europe, and Patagonia in extreme southern South America. In some of these areas, mild weather will drop during increasingly hot and humid summers but become more plentiful in fall, winter and spring as winters warm and the shoulder seasons last longer.

"We believe improving the public understanding of how climate change will affect something as important as mild weather is an area ripe for more research and more focused studies," said Sarah Kapnick, a physical scientist at NOAA's GFDL and co-author. "Predicting changes in mild weather is not only important to business and industry, but can also contribute to research on the future of physical and mental health, leisure and urban planning."

Scientists used high-resolution climate models to investigate the changing patterns of mild weather globally by examining the effect over time of increased warming from the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. The work was made possible by decades of Earth system and model development at NOAA's GFDL and by improvements made to NOAA's research supercomputing capability, including access to two high performance supercomputers, Gaea and Theia, named after figures in Greek mythology.

Citation: Derek Lemoine & Sarah Kapnick; A top-down approach to projecting market impacts of climate change; Nature Climate Change 6, 51–55 (2016); DOI:10.1038/nclimate2759.

Contact: Monica Allen
NOAA

Posted at 08:45 AM in Climate Change, Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

01/17/2017

Diversification key to resilient fishing communities

Fishing boats in Juno, Alaska. Credit: Unsplash.

Fishing communities can survive -- and even thrive -- as fish abundance and market prices shift if they can catch a variety of species and nimbly move from one fishery to the next.

These findings, published Jan. 14 in Nature Communications, draw upon 34 years of data collected in more than 100 fishing communities in Alaska that depend on fishing for livelihoods, cultural traditions and daily subsistence. The University of Washington researchers found that communities that fished for many different species and had the ability to shift what they harvested, and when, were more resilient to unpredictable downturns in fish abundance and market prices than communities that put all their effort into only a few fisheries.

"This study is about starting the conversation about how communities can buffer themselves against unpredictable ecosystem changes in the future," said lead author Timothy Cline, a doctoral student in the UW's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. "There is no reason why any community in the world that depends on renewable resources could not benefit from this approach."

In their analysis, the researchers used common financial principles to illustrate how fishing communities can buffer against market and ecosystem shifts. Maintaining a diverse portfolio of fishing permits, for example, ensures that a community can switch to halibut or Dungeness crab if salmon take a turn for the worse. Just like with financial stocks, each fishery might not deliver at the same time, but that diversity allows for stability in the long run.

"Human systems can collapse if they have no ability to roll with the punches and adapt when ecosystems re-express themselves," said co-author Daniel Schindler, a UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. "This analysis shows that the communities that did not suffer from oceanic regime shifts were those that could adapt to changes in the quantity and composition of natural resources."

The researchers looked specifically at the average fishing revenue in 106 Alaskan communities for 10 years before and after 1989, a year when the North Pacific Ocean experienced a significant shift in productivity and abrupt changes in the composition of marine food webs, while at the same time the global price for salmon dropped because of competition from farm-raised fish.

Commercial fishing in Alaska provides $1.3 billion in annual income from harvest alone, and in some remote areas fishing is the only major industry.

Many Alaskan communities lost more than half of their revenue following 1989. However, the researchers found that communities with the highest level of diversity in what they fished for saw little or no change in revenue. Specifically, communities that had high diversity were able to shift to different fisheries after 1989, and some even increased their revenue streams by leveraging new and emerging fish markets.

The average revenues from major fishing types in Alaska from 1980-2013, aggregated by census area or borough. Circle size reflects the average annual earnings from fishing. Credit: University of Washington.

"We found that well-diversified communities also had higher turnover, or the ability to go out and fish for species that are more abundant while relying less on those that declined," Cline said. "If you are diversified, it's just a matter of focusing on fisheries that are more abundant or more valuable, and if you're not diversified, that means adapting your portfolio by selling what you had and buying something new."

The authors recognize this can be difficult for individual fishermen - fishing permits are expensive and can be hard to obtain. When dispersed across the community level, however, individuals could still specialize, but differently from their neighbor. For example, one subset could fish for pink salmon, while another tackles halibut or Dungeness crab. Revenues from these efforts are felt throughout the community.

Additionally, this approach promotes a powerful shared identity, the authors explain.

"There's intrinsic value in the identity of being a fishing community," Schindler said. "That sense of community identity is basically reinforced by the fact that the community is adapting to the ecosystem, which is always changing."

The rich dataset used in this analysis, provided by the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, was invaluable in allowing the researchers to test concepts of diversification and turnover -- switching to catch more abundant fish -- which have been put forth in other papers as ways of managing human interactions with natural resources.

These principles could be applied to fisheries around the world, and many small fishing communities already diversify naturally, the authors explained. Traditional science tends to emphasize gathering data to make better predictions of how natural resources will fare, but perhaps that isn't the best approach when managing resources in a highly variable and unpredictable environment, they argue.

"With ongoing climate change, population growth and ocean acidification, the question is, what's the future going to look like? We should expect the unexpected," Schindler said. "Then the question becomes, what can we do to develop resilient communities for what is guaranteed to be an unexpected new future?"

"While 40 years ago most fishermen were generalists, and switched between fish stocks as they fluctuated, the efforts to reduce overall fishing effort has generally forced fishermen to specialize in a small number of fisheries, said co-author Ray Hilborn, a UW professor in aquatic and fishery sciences. "We need to explore ways to allow flexibility while still restraining the total catch."

Citation: Timothy J. Cline, Daniel E. Schindler, Ray Hilborn; Fisheries portfolio diversification and turnover buffer Alaskan fishing communities from abrupt resource and market changes. Nature Communications, 2017; 8: 14042 DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS14042.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Contact: Michelle Ma
University of Washington

Posted at 05:27 AM in Environmental Politics, Fisheries, Science | Permalink | Comments (0)

How China is poised for marine fisheries reform

Chinese boats being chased after alleged illegal fishing in South Korean waters in the Yellow Sea (16-11-2011). Credit: Dong-A Ilbo

As global fish stocks continue sinking to alarmingly low levels, a joint study by marine fisheries experts from within and outside of China concluded that the country's most recent fisheries conservation plan can achieve a true paradigm shift in marine fisheries management - but only if the Chinese government embraces major institutional reform.

The researchers, led by Stanford University's Ling Cao and Rosamond Naylor, published their perspective piece "Opportunity for Marine Fisheries Reform in China," in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The researchers examined the history of Chinese government priorities, policies, and outcomes related to marine fisheries since China's 1978 Economic Reform, and examined how its leaders' agenda for "ecological civilization" could successfully transform marine resource management in the coming years.

"The goal of our research was to explore the opportunities for marine fisheries reform in China that arise from their 13th Five-Year Plan and show how the best available science can be used in the design and implementation of fisheries management in China's coastal and ocean ecosystems," said Cao, a Research Scholar with Stanford's Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The most recent plan provides a policy platform for the protection of marine ecosystems and the restoration of fisheries within China's exclusive economic zone - an area of coastal water and seabed to which China claims exclusive rights for fishing, drilling, and other economic activities. They found that while China has attempted to reverse the trend of declining fish stocks in the past, serious institutional reforms are needed to achieve a true shift in marine fisheries management. The authors recommend new institutions for science-based fisheries management, secure fishing access, policy consistency across provinces, educational programs for fisheries managers, and increasing public access to scientific data.

The paper emphasizes the cultural norms that underpin China's fisheries management - norms that are often overlooked and misunderstood by Western scientists. "China will follow its own cultural norms in governing its fisheries resources," observed Roz Naylor, FSE Director and William Wrigley Professor in Earth System Science at Stanford University. "Understanding cultural differences will promote a stronger international community in marine science and sustainable fisheries management."

As China accounts for almost one-fifth of global catch volume, it has made great efforts to carry out conservation and management of fisheries resources by adopting and practicing various measures over the past three decades. The government is introducing a series of new programs for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, with greater traceability and accountability in marine resource management and area controls on coastal development. The most recent plan notably includes marine ecosystem protection as a significant component of the central government's environmental agenda.

The timing of this research comes at a unique phase in China's fisheries conservation strategy as they recently introduced specific goals for both the Ocean and Fisheries Five-Year Plans.

"The Chinese government is poised to take serious action on marine ecosystem management," Cao said. "Time is of the essence."

Although the paper's authors view China's efforts as a signal of dedication toward furthering fisheries conservation, they hope their perspective paper helps highlight the need for true institutional reform in order to see the Chinese government's goals realized.

"Fisheries management and resource conservation is a complex undertaking. To rebuild China's depleted fisheries, serious institutional reforms are needed. The road ahead is still long," said co-author Yingqi Zhou from Shanghai Ocean University.

Citation: Ling Cao, Rosamond Naylor et al.; Opportunity for marine fisheries reform in China; Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (2017); DOI:10.1073/pnas.1616583114.

Contact: Michelle Horton
Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences