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Societal concerns about the social and environmental impacts of biofuel production are driving producers to adopt better management practices. Existing certification schemes for sustainable biofuel production are, however, biased towards industrial-scale producers that have the financial capital and economies of scale to meet sustainability and certification objectives. Smallholder farmers in developing countries, by contrast, often lack the means and capacity to do so. Some of the challenges faced by smallholders include high certification costs, insufficient institutional capacity, inadequate financial and social incentives, poor group organization and lack of external support. Drawing lessons from existing certification...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: energy, environment, health, issues, normal
Our empirical material based on interviews with influental actors in environmental policy in Finland suggested that possible future climatic changes illustrates the greatest single environmental threat on a global scale. The influential actors did not hesitate to consider as an issue of high certainty a kind of man-induced climate change. In mapping out social resources among actors to tackle climatic risks we have utilizised a teleological reasoning of rational action as an ideal model.
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Climate change, environment, life
This paper presents the strategy of the European Union in the field of energy and climate change. At the heart of the package are three commitments to be met by 2020: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20%, to ensure that 20% of final energy consumption is met with renewable sources, and to raise energy efficiency by 20%. This strategy is based on the scientific consensus drawn by the International Panel for Climate Change, and implements the EU political strategy to limit the anthropogenic temperature rise to no more than 2 °C. A Directive for the geological storage of CO2 is another integral part of the package. This should enable the development and subsequent deployment of zero emission power plants....
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Climate, Energy, Environment, Policy
Subsurface drainage is a common practice in many agricultural watersheds in the Mid-Western region of the United States. A typical drainage system in east central Illinois is not spaced in a parallel manner, but the subsurface drain lines are laid out in a random and irregular fashion. These subsurface drain lines most often discharge into numerous man-made drainage channels, which ultimately drain to the rivers and the reservoirs. The Little Vermilion River (LVR) watershed in east central Illinois, USA is an example of a watershed with altered hydrology from subsurface drainage systems. A continuous monitoring study has been conducted from 1991 to 2003 on this watershed to quantify the effects of cropping management...
This recorded presentation is from the April 17, 2014 workshop for the "Integrated Scenarios of the Future Northwest Environment" project. The recording is available on YouTube. The Integrated Scenarios project is an effort to understand and predict the effects of climate change on the Northwest's climate, hydrology, and vegetation. The project was funded by the Northwest Climate Science Center and the Climate Impacts Research Consortium.
The tundra biome is the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of the circumpolar north, and its fate in a rapidly changing climate is of high scientific and socioeconomic concern. One of those concerns is that the majority of caribou herds throughout the circumpolar north are declining, perhaps as a result of climate change. The principal objective of this research is to reveal the connections between soil nutrient cycling, forage quality and caribou habitat selection. This framework is underpinned by the concept that tundra ecosystem productivity is ultimately driven by the thermodynamics of the system induced by climate.
Categories: Data, Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: ALPINE/TUNDRA, ALPINE/TUNDRA, CARBON, CARBON, CARBON CYCLE/CARBON BUDGET MODELS, All tags...
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In this first worldwide synthesis of in situ and satellite-derived lake data, we find that lakesummer surface water temperatures rose rapidly (global mean = 0.34°C decade1) between 1985 and2009. Our analyses show that surface water warming rates are dependent on combinations of climate andlocal characteristics, rather than just lake location, leading to the counterintuitive result that regionalconsistency in lake warming is the exception, rather than the rule. The most rapidly warming lakes are widelygeographically distributed, and their warming is associated with interactions among different climatic factors—from seasonally ice-covered lakes in areas where temperature and solar radiation are increasing whilecloud...
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Rapid expansion of cropland threatens grassland ecosystems across western North America and broad-scaleplanning can be a catalyst motivating individuals and agencies to accelerate conservation. Sprague’s Pipit(Anthus spragueii) is an imperiled grassland songbird whose population has been declining rapidly in recent decades.Here, we present a strategic framework for conservation of pipits and their habitat in the northern GreatPlains.We modeled pipit distribution across its million-km2 breeding range in Canada and the U.S.We describefactors shaping distribution, delineate population cores and assess vulnerability to future grassland losses. Pipitsselected landscapes with a high proportion of continuous grassland...
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Within the time frame of the longevity of tree species, climate change will change faster than the ability of natural tree migration. Migration lags may result in reduced productivity and reduced diversity in forests under current management and climate change. We evaluated the efficacy of planting climate-suitable tree species (CSP), those tree species with current or historic distributions immediately south of a focal landscape, to maintain or increase aboveground biomass, productivity, and species and functional diversity. We modeled forest change with the LANDIS-II forest simulation model for 100 years (2000–2100) at a 2-ha cell resolution and five-year time steps within two landscapes in the Great Lakes region...
The California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense; hereafter, CTS) is classified as a federally threatened species (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2004). Consequently, much research has been done to provide information for its management and conservation. However, previous research has primarily focused on the use of upland, terrestrial environments by CTS (Trenham and Shaffer 2005), the demography of populations (Trenham et al. 2001), and the effects of hybridization between CTS and the introduced, barred tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum mavortium; Johnson et al. 2013). Information on the characteristics of wetlands (e.g., hydrologic regime) that support reproduction and metamorphosis by CTS is limited....
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The influence of recent climate change on the world’s biota has manifested broadly, resulting in latitudinal range shifts, advancing dates of arrival of migrants and onset of breeding, and altered community relationships. Climate change elevates conservation concerns worldwide because it will likely exacerbate a broad range of identified threats to animal populations. In the past few decades, grassland birds have declined faster than other North American avifauna, largely due to habitat threats such as the intensification of agriculture. We examine the effects of local climatic variations on the breeding performance of a bird endemic to the shortgrass prairie, the Lark Bunting (Calamospiza melanocorys) and discuss...
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Playa wetlands on the west-central Great Plains of North America are vulnerable to sediment infilling from upland agriculture, putting at risk several important ecosystem services as well as essential habitats and food resources of diverse wetland-dependent biota. Climate predictions for this semi-arid area indicate reduced precipitation which may alter rates of erosion, runoff, and sedimentation of playas. We forecasted erosion rates, sediment depths, and resultant playa wetland depths across the west-central Great Plains and examined the relative roles of land use context and projected changes in precipitation in the sedimentation process. We estimated erosion with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE)...
Coastal areas are high-risk zones subject to the impacts of global climate change, with significant increases in the frequencies of extreme weather and storm events, and sea-level rise forecast by 2100. These physical processes are expected to alter estuaries, resulting in loss of intertidal wetlands and their component wildlife species. In particular, impacts to salt marshes and their wildlife will vary both temporally and spatially and may be irreversible and severe. Synergistic effects caused by combining stressors with anthropogenic land-use patterns could create areas of significant biodiversity loss and extinction, especially in urbanized estuaries that are already heavily degraded. In this paper, we discuss...
We conducted detailed resurveys of a montane mammal, Urocitellus beldingi, to examine the effects of climate change on persistence along the trailing edge of its range. Of 74 California sites where U. beldingi were historically recorded (1902–1966), 42 per cent were extirpated, with no evidence for colonization of previously unoccupied sites. Increases in both precipitation and temperature predicted site extirpations, potentially owing to snowcover loss. Surprisingly, human land-use change buffered climate change impacts, leading to increased persistence and abundance. Excluding human-modified sites, U. beldingi has shown an upslope range retraction of 255 m. Generalized additive models of past distribution were...
The phenomenon of cheatgrass die-off is a common and naturally- occurring stand failure that can eliminate the presence of this annual grass for a year or more, affecting tens to hundreds of thousands of acres in some years. We designed a study to determine if the temporary lack of cheatgrass caused by die-offs is a restoration opportunity. We seeded native perennial species at three die-offs in the Winnemucca, Nevada area. Native grass establishment in die-offs was almost three times higher in the first season at all sites, relative to adjacent areas without die-off. In the second season, establishment was five times higher in the die-off at two sites, and plants were notably larger in the die-off at the third...
Rising temperatures have begun to shift flowering time, but it is unclear whether phenotypic plasticity canaccommodate projected temperature change for this century. Evaluating clines in phenological traits and the extentand variation in plasticity can provide key information on assessing risk of maladaptation and developing strategiesto mitigate climate change. In this study, flower phenology was examined in 52 populations of big sagebrush (Artemi-sia tridentata) growing in three common gardens. Flowering date (anthesis) varied 91 days from late July to lateNovember among gardens. Mixed-effects modeling explained 79% of variation in flowering date, of which 46% couldbe assigned to plasticity and genetic variation...
Content Changing aspen distribution in response to climate change and fire is a major focus of biodiversity conservation, yet little is known about the potential response of aspen to these two driving forces along topoclimatic gradients. Objective This study is set to evaluate how aspen distribution might shift in response to different climate-fire scenarios in a semi-arid montane landscape, and quantify the influence of fire regime along topoclimatic gradients. Methods We used a novel integration of a forest landscape succession and disturbance model (LANDIS-II) with a fine-scale climatic water deficit approach to simulate dynamics of aspen and associated conifer and shrub species over the next 150 years under...
Conservation Biology Institute (CBI) has been developing web applications to centralize and serve credible and usable information that allows natural resource managers, as well as the general public, to better understand the challenges posed by on-going environmental change. In particular CBI has designed a series of climate consoles that provide natural resource managers the most recent 5th Climate Model Intercomparison Program (CMIP5) climate projections, landscape intactness, and soil sensitivity for a series of reporting units over the western United States. The publically available web sites were refined based on feedback from a variety of users. In this paper, we describe each of the tools developed as open-source...
The loss of big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) on sites disturbed by fire has motivated restoration seeding and planting efforts. However, the resulting sagebrush establishment is often lower than desired, especially in dry areas. Sagebrush establishment may be increased by addressing factors such as seed source and condition or management of the plant community. We assessed initial establishment of seeded sagebrush and four populations of small outplants (from different geographies, climates, and cytotypes) and small sagebrush outplants in an early seral community where mowing, herbicide, and seeding of other native plants had been experimentally applied. No emergence of seeded sagebrush was detected. Mowing...
Publication from the NALCC co-funded project Identifying Important Migratory Landbird Stopover Sites in the Northeast.With many of the world’s migratory bird populations in alarming decline, broad‐scale assessments of responses to migratory hazards may prove crucial to successful conservation efforts. Most birds migrate at night through increasingly light‐polluted skies. Bright light sources can attract airborne migrants and lead to collisions with structures, but might also influence selection of migratory stopover habitat and thereby acquisition of food resources. We demonstrate, using multi‐year weather radar measurements of nocturnal migrants across the northeastern U.S., that autumnal migrant stopover density...
map background search result map search result map Modeling sediment accumulation in North American playa wetlands in response to climate change, 1940–2100 Publication: Climate change effects on northern Great Lake (USA) forests: A case for preserving diversity Rapid and highly variable warming of lake surface waters around the globe One step ahead of the plow: Using cropland conversion risk to guide Sprague's Pipit conservation in the northern Great Plains Weather effects on avian breeding performance and implications of climate change Rapid and highly variable warming of lake surface waters around the globe One step ahead of the plow: Using cropland conversion risk to guide Sprague's Pipit conservation in the northern Great Plains Modeling sediment accumulation in North American playa wetlands in response to climate change, 1940–2100 Weather effects on avian breeding performance and implications of climate change Publication: Climate change effects on northern Great Lake (USA) forests: A case for preserving diversity