Practitioners of environmental water management (EWM) operate within complex social-ecological systems. We sought to better understand this complexity by investigating the management of environmental ...water for vegetation outcomes. We conducted an online survey to determine practitioners' perspectives on EWM for non-woody vegetation (NWV) in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia with regards to: i) desirable outcomes and benefits; ii) influencing factors and risks; iii) challenges of monitoring and evaluation, and iv) improving outcomes. Survey participants indicated that EWM aims to achieve outcomes by improving or maintaining vegetation attributes and the functions and values these provide. Our study reveals that EWM practitioners perceive NWV management in a holistic and highly interconnected way. Numerous influencing factors as well as risks and challenges to achieving outcomes were identified by participants, including many unrelated to water. Survey responses highlighted six areas to improve EWM for NWV outcomes: (1) flow regimes, (2) vegetation attributes, (3) non-flow drivers, (4) management-governance considerations, (5) functions and values, and (6) monitoring, evaluation and research. These suggest a need for more than 'just water' when it comes to the restoration and management of NWV. Our findings indicate more integrated land-water governance and management is urgently required to address the impacts of non-flow drivers such as pest species, land-use change and climate change. The results also indicate that inherent complexity in EWM for ecological outcomes has been poorly addressed, with a need to tackle social-ecological constraints to improve EWM outcomes.
How people value rivers, wetlands and floodplains influences their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours towards these ecosystems, and can shape policy and management interventions. Better understanding ...why people value rivers, wetlands and floodplains and their key ecosystem components, such as vegetation, helps to determine what factors underpin the social legitimacy required for effective management of these systems. This study sought to ascertain perspectives on the value of non-woody vegetation in river-floodplain systems via an online survey. The survey found that participants valued non-woody vegetation for their provision of a range of ecosystem functions and services, with strong emphasis on ecological aspects such as regulation functions, habitat provision and biodiversity. However, the inclusion of a question framed to focus on stories or narratives resulted in a different emphasis. Responses indicated that non-woody vegetation, and rivers, wetlands and floodplains were valued for the way they made people feel through lived experiences such as recreational activities, personal interactions with nature, educational and research experiences. This highlights the important role of storytelling in navigating complex natural resource management challenges and ascertaining a deeper understanding of values that moves beyond provision of function to feeling. Improved understanding of the diverse ways people value and interact with river-floodplain systems will help develop narratives and forms of engagement that foster shared understanding, empathy and collaboration. Appreciation of plural values such as the provision of functions and services along with the role of emotional connections and lived experience will likely increase lasting engagement of the general public with management to protect and restore river-floodplain systems.
High concentrations of the most consumed pharmaceuticals, caffeine and paracetamol, have been observed globally in wastewater treatment plant discharge. Here, we assess the potential for ...photodegradation of caffeine and paracetamol residues at concentrations like those observed in treated wastewater discharges to the environment. Laboratory assays were used to measure rates of photodegradation of these two compounds both in distilled water and in natural river water with leaf litter leachate. When exposed to artificial light simulating natural sunlight, the half‐life values of caffeine and paracetamol were significantly shorter than in the dark. The presence of organic matter increased caffeine and paracetamol half‐life by lessening the photolytic effect. These results suggest that photolysis is a substantial contributor to the degradation of caffeine and paracetamol. The findings contribute to our understanding of persistence of pharmaceuticals in treated wastewater discharge.
Practitioner Points
The photodegradation of caffeine and paracetamol residues in surface water was examined.
With leaf litter leachate, caffeine and paracetamol were photodegraded in distilled and natural river water in laboratory.
Caffeine's half‐life ranged from 2.3 to 16.2 days under artificial sunlight andparacetamols from 4.3 to 12.2 days.
When incubated in the dark, the half‐life for both compounds exceeded 4 weeks.
Organic matter decreased the photolytic action of caffeine and paracetamol.
Photodegradation of caffeine and paracetamol in a stream water by artificial sunlight: Concentrations of caffeine and paracetamol were measured using HPLC, and ANCOVA was used for data analysis.
Climate change will have numerous impacts on crop production worldwide necessitating a broadening of the germplasm base required to source and incorporate novel traits. Major variation exists in crop ...progenitor species for seasonal adaptation, photosynthetic characteristics, and root system architecture. Wheat is crucial for securing future food and nutrition security and its evolutionary history and progenitor diversity offer opportunities to mine favourable functional variation in the primary gene pool. Here we provide a review of the status of characterisation of wheat progenitor variation and the potential to use this knowledge to inform the use of variation in other cereal crops. Although significant knowledge of progenitor variation has been generated, we make recommendations for further work required to systematically characterise underlying genetics and physiological mechanisms and propose steps for effective use in breeding. This will enable targeted exploitation of useful variation, supported by the growing portfolio of genomics and accelerated breeding approaches. The knowledge and approaches generated are also likely to be useful across wider crop improvement.
Aim: Ecological models that do not account for interactions among stressors, if interactions are important, could be inaccurate and lead to inefficient conservation strategies. Conversely, if ...interactions are not important (i.e., stressors operate largely independently), then actions concentrating on a stressor-by-stressor basis would be warranted. Here, we investigated whether interactions among multiple stressors affected widely used indices of freshwater macroinvertebrate biodiversity, which are sensitive to environmental change at management-relevant scales (i.e., reaches and catchments). Location: State of Victoria, south-eastern Australia. Methods: We used a 7,418-sample dataset for stream macroinvertebrates from 2,165 sites distributed over 237,630 km² for 20 years. We calculated the interactive effects on stream macroinvertebrates of stressors operating at different scales, namely vegetation loss at the catchment and reach scales and hydrological change and salinization at the local scale. The importance of interactions among multiple stressors was assessed by comparing the cross-validated predictive performance of models with and without multiple stressor interaction terms. Results: Cross-validated models explained 31%-63% of the variation in the macroinvertebrate responses. The most important stressors were catchment vegetation loss (the proportion of remaining native vegetation cover) and salinity. The inclusion of interaction terms did not increase cross-validated predictive performance, which indicates that there was little evidence that interactions among stressors were important for explaining variation in commonly used freshwater macroinvertebrate condition indices. Main conclusions: Interactions among vegetation, salinity and hydrological change stressors may not always be of importance for determining patterns of stream macroinvertebrate biodiversity, so that such interactions may not necessarily be critical considerations for catchment and reach scale management, at least if based on these or comparable condition indices. The mitigation of the impacts of vegetation loss, salinization and hydrological change stressors one-by-one probably is sufficient to guide conservation activities and might be advantageous if socio-political contexts make it difficult to address interactions among stressors.
In many parts of the world the combined pressures of population growth and a drying climate have resulted in the proliferation of water focused policies which aim to increase the resilience of ...socio-ecological systems. Until recently, these policies often reflected surface water centric views of water resources, with groundwater receiving scant attention. In this paper we provide an introduction to the importance of groundwater for water-dependent socio-ecological systems and why it needs to be better incorporated into environmental water management policies. Specifically we highlight the key role of groundwater in buffering the environment and socio-economic activities against drought. We also outline some of the key challenges that face policy-makers and managers implementing groundwater management policies. These include dealing with groundwater resources that are spatially and temporally mismatched with surface water resources; transboundary governance issues; challenges between focusing on either preventative or restorative actions and most importantly limited knowledge about groundwater resources and groundwater-ecology relationships. We hope that the information in this paper will assist in the development of sustainable surface-groundwater water management policies, as well as highlight important challenges that should be considered before implementing groundwater related policies.
A new copper catalysed desymmetrisation reaction of bisalkynyl ferrocenecarboxylic acids using (R,R)‐Ph‐Pybox results in the first asymmetric synthesis of planar chiral pseudo‐isocoumarins in up to ...64 % enantiomeric excess and up to 99 % yield with complete regioselectivity. Tri‐functionalised planar chiral ferrocenes are synthesised in five steps from commercially available materials, without the need for traditional directing group chemistry via an easily diversified route exploiting the double Sonogashira coupling reaction. The absolute configuration of the chiral heterocycles is proven by chemical correlation and circular dichroism spectroscopy giving the asymmetric reaction synthetic utility and opening the way for the rational extension of this method to produce bioactive isocoumarin‐fused ferrocene derivatives.
A new copper catalysed desymmetrisation reaction of bisalkynyl ferrocenecarboxylic acids results in the first asymmetric synthesis of planar chiral pseudo‐isocoumarins in up to 64 % enantiomeric excess and up to 99 % yield. The absolute configuration of the chiral heterocycles is proven by chemical correlation and circular dichroism spectroscopy, opening the way for the rational extension of this method to produce bioactive isocoumarin‐fused ferrocene derivatives.
The biological assessment of rivers i.e., their assessment through use of aquatic assemblages, integrates the effects of multiple-stressors on these systems over time and is essential to evaluate ...ecosystem condition and establish recovery measures. It has been undertaken in many countries since the 1990s, but not globally. And where national or multi-national monitoring networks have gathered large amounts of data, the poor water body classifications have not necessarily resulted in the rehabilitation of rivers. Thus, here we aimed to identify major gaps in the biological assessment and rehabilitation of rivers worldwide by focusing on the best examples in Asia, Europe, Oceania, and North, Central, and South America. Our study showed that it is not possible so far to draw a world map of the ecological quality of rivers. Biological assessment of rivers and streams is only implemented officially nation-wide and regularly in the European Union, Japan, Republic of Korea, South Africa, and the USA. In Australia, Canada, China, New Zealand, and Singapore it has been implemented officially at the state/province level (in some cases using common protocols) or in major catchments or even only once at the national level to define reference conditions (Australia). In other cases, biological monitoring is driven by a specific problem, impact assessments, water licenses, or the need to rehabilitate a river or a river section (as in Brazil, South Korea, China, Canada, Japan, Australia). In some countries monitoring programs have only been explored by research teams mostly at the catchment or local level (e.g., Brazil, Mexico, Chile, China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam) or implemented by citizen science groups (e.g., Southern Africa, Gambia, East Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada). The existing large-extent assessments show a striking loss of biodiversity in the last 2-3 decades in Japanese and New Zealand rivers (e.g., 42% and 70% of fish species threatened or endangered, respectively). A poor condition (below Good condition) exists in 25% of South Korean rivers, half of the European water bodies, and 44% of USA rivers, while in Australia 30% of the reaches sampled were significantly impaired in 2006. Regarding river rehabilitation, the greatest implementation has occurred in North America, Australia, Northern Europe, Japan, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea. Most rehabilitation measures have been related to improving water quality and river connectivity for fish or the improvement of riparian vegetation. The limited extent of most rehabilitation measures (i.e., not considering the entire catchment) often constrains the improvement of biological condition. Yet, many rehabilitation projects also lack pre-and/or post-monitoring of ecological condition, which prevents assessing the success and shortcomings of the recovery measures. Economic constraints are the most cited limitation for implementing monitoring programs and rehabilitation actions, followed by technical limitations, limited knowledge of the fauna and flora and their life-history traits (especially in Africa, South America and Mexico), and poor awareness by decision-makers. On the other hand, citizen involvement is recognized as key to the success and sustainability of rehabilitation projects. Thus, establishing rehabilitation needs, defining clear goals, tracking progress towards achieving them, and involving local populations and stakeholders are key recommendations for rehabilitation projects (Table 1). Large-extent and long-term monitoring programs are also essential to provide a realistic overview of the condition of rivers worldwide. Soon, the use of DNA biological samples and eDNA to investigate aquatic diversity could contribute to reducing costs and thus increase monitoring efforts and a more complete assessment of biodiversity. Finally, we propose developing transcontinental teams to elaborate and improve technical guidelines for implementing biological monitoring programs and river rehabilitation and establishing common financial and technical frameworks for managing international catchments. We also recommend providing such expert teams through the United Nations Environment Program to aid the extension of biomonitoring, bioassessment, and river rehabilitation knowledge globally.
River managers in Australia are managing in the face of extremes to provide security of water supply for people, production and the environment. Balancing the water requirements of people, ...environments and economies requires that water security is viewed holistically, not just in terms of the water available for human consumption. Common definitions of water security focus on the needs of both humans and ecosystems for purposes such as drinking, agriculture and industrial use, and to maintain ecological values. Information about achieving water security for the environment or ecological purposes can be a challenge to interpret because the watering requirements of key ecological processes or assets are not well understood, and the links between ecological and human values are often not obvious to water users. Yet the concepts surrounding river health are inherently linked to holistic concepts of water security. The measurement of aquatic biota provides a valuable tool for managers to understand progress toward achieving ecological water security objectives. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the reference condition approach to river health assessment, using the development of the Australian River Assessment System (AUSRIVAS) as a case study. We make the link between the biological assessment of river health and assessment of ecological water security, and suggest that such an approach provides a way of reporting that is relevant to the contribution made by ecosystems to water security. The reference condition approach, which is the condition representative of minimally disturbed sites organized by selected physical, chemical, and biological characteristics, is most important for assessing ecological water security objectives.
Riparian restoration is an important objective for landscape managers seeking to redress the widespread degradation of riparian areas and the ecosystem services they provide. This study investigated ...the long-term outcomes of ‘one-off’ restoration activities undertaken in the Upper Murrumbidgee Catchment, NSW, Australia. The objective of the restoration was to protect and enhance riparian vegetation and control erosion, and consequently reduce sediment and nutrient delivery into the Murrumbidgee River. To evaluate the outcomes 10 years after restoration, rapid riparian vegetation and geomorphological assessments were undertaken at 29 sites spanning the four different restoration methods used (at least five replicates per treatment), as well as at nine comparable untreated sites. We also trialed the use of aerial imagery to compare width of riparian canopy vegetation and projective foliage cover prior to restoration with that observed after 10 years. Aerial imagery demonstrated the width of riparian canopy vegetation and projective foliage cover increased in all restored sites, especially those with native plantings. The rapid assessment process indicated that 10 years after riparian restoration, the riparian vegetation was in a better condition at treated sites compared to untreated sites. Width of riparian canopy vegetation, native mid-storey cover, native canopy cover and seedling recruitment were significantly greater in treated sites compared to untreated sites. Geomorphological condition of treated sites was significantly better than untreated sites, demonstrating the importance of livestock exclusion to improve bank and channel condition. Our findings illustrate the value of ‘one-off’ restoration activities in achieving long-term benefits for riparian health. We have demonstrated that rapid assessments of the vegetation and geomorphological condition can be undertaken post-hoc to determine the long-term outcomes, especially when supported with analysis of historical aerial imagery.
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