Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) have been documented across the seven continents, including Antarctica, and are likely an impediment to the sustainable management of natural resources. Most ...studies to date have relied on sweeping chemistry surveys, reliant upon sophisticated instrumentation. This approach is expensive, relies on limited laboratory capacity, and generates results that are spatially and temporally constrained. Here we review existing approaches that can overcome these limitations by focusing on effects-based monitoring. Passive samplers can generate long-term records regarding the occurrence of CECs. As samples are concentrated, their analysis can be achieved using equipment that will be more common and less expensive. A second approach involves rapid test methods for single compounds, including test strips, ELISA assays, and mobile phone-based analytic tools. These can provide inexpensive CEC presence data for many field sites and can be used to stratify sampling and thereby reduce cost. Identifying the presence of a single compound can often shed light on the likely presence of entire groups of chemicals. Pairing these chemistry-derived approaches with geospatial modeling to predict CEC presence and concentrations across watersheds has already been applied in several large watersheds. Utilizing available ecotoxicological knowledge bases provides an opportunity to link modeled CEC occurrence and concentrations with likely adverse biological responses. Finally, confirmatory on-site exposure experiments can corroborate the presence or absence of biological effects hypothesized from the above chain of evidence to provide natural resource managers with information to make conservation decisions.
Systematically collected and comparable data on drinking water safety at city-scale is currently unavailable, despite the stated importance of water safety monitoring at scale under the United ...Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We developed a rapid drinking water quality assessment methodology intended to be replicable across all cities and useful for monitoring towards achieving SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation).
We collected drinking water samples at the point-of-consumption for basic microbial, physical and chemical water quality analysis and conducted household surveys on drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene access from 80 households in the city of Cochabamba over 1 week. We categorized the household's water service level according to the SDG 6 framework.
We estimated an average time requirement of 6.4 person-hours and a consumable cost of US $51 per household (n = 80). In this cross-sectional study, 71% of drinking water samples met World Health Organization (WHO) microbiological safety criteria, 96% met WHO chemical quality criteria, and all met WHO aesthetic quality criteria. However, only 18% of the households were categorized as having safely managed drinking water services. None met the criteria for having safely managed sanitation services; nonetheless, 81% had basic sanitation services and 78% had basic hygiene facilities.
This method can generate basic water safety data for a city at a relatively low cost in terms of person-time and materials, yielding useful information for inter-city analyses. Because 29% of samples did not meet microbiological safety criteria, 22% of the households did not have access to handwashing facilities and none had safe sanitation services, we concluded that Cochabamba did not meet normative SDG 6 targets when surveyed. Our study further suggests that water quality at point-of-use more accurately characterizes drinking water safety than infrastructure type.
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•Robust data on drinking water safety is currently not available for many cities.•This is a standard and scalable methodology where data is not readily available.•Access to infrastructure does not mean access to safe water.•Current drinking water safety levels in Cochabamba do not meet UN SDG 6.•This method yields credible and comparable urban drinking water safety data.
•MarshRAM reflects salt marsh inundation stress and human disturbances.•MarshRAM uses a novel walking-transect method to assess salt marsh integrity.•MarshRAM estimates site-specific salt marsh ...landward migration potential.•MarshRAM data can be used to prioritize salt marsh ecological interventions.•MarshRAM can be adjusted to work across regions.
Salt marshes are increasingly vulnerable to degradation and loss from accelerating sea-level rise and other pervasive disturbances, spurring a need for broad, science-based information to guide management. The Salt Marsh Rapid Assessment Method, MarshRAM, was designed to address this need by documenting information characterizing salt marsh type, setting, ecological value, disturbance, integrity, and opportunity for landward migration at the site scale. We used the method to collect information from onsite and remote observations of thirty-one (31) salt marshes in Rhode Island, USA. MarshRAM's Wetland Disturbance Index is a checklist that ranks the intensity of individual and cumulative human disturbances, while the Index of Marsh Integrity (IMI) is generated using a novel walking-transect approach to rapidly characterize site-wide vegetation-community composition. The IMI was designed to reflect ecological response to direct disturbances and inundation stress, and our finding that IMI strongly correlates with cumulative disturbance + marsh platform elevation indicates it works as intended. A strong correlation between IMI components and historic marsh loss suggests that salt marsh community cover can also serve as an indicator of salt marsh resilience. Our study marshes diverge from accounts of historic New England salt marsh conditions in that meadow high marsh species no longer dominate the high marsh zone, Spartina alterniflora is now the dominant high marsh species, and severe edge erosion and invasion by Phragmites australis are ubiquitous. We demonstrate how MarshRAM data can be analyzed to inform restoration and conservation strategies and policy decision-making. For example, our findings suggest that inundation stress is strongly impacting marsh platform integrity, high-marsh vegetation loss is a strong indicator of degradation and vulnerability, and unassisted landward marsh migration may already be promoting resilience to inundation stress. We suggest adapting MarshRAM to meet the management needs of other regions or broader applications.
Background: The understanding of ecosystem services can be quantified and qualitative to assess the impacts of changes in the ecosystem to support human well-being. In the Democratic People’s ...Republic of Korea, sustainable use of ecosystem services has attracted the interest of a range of decision-makers. However, although there is a concern for biodiversity, natural ecosystem, and their services, linking ecosystems with conservation planning remains challenging.
Results: This study assessed the first qualitative ecosystem services provided by the Mundok wetland with decision makers of the West/Yellow Sea region. Furthermore, this study applied the Rapid Assessment Wetland Ecosystem method to support natural resources management, improving living conditions. We identified that cultural and supporting services index are highly provided, but preparing a plan to increase the provisioning and regulating services in Mundok wetland is necessary.
Conclusions: The assessment results can provide helpful information for ecosystem services assessment, habitat conservation, conservation planning, and decision-making at local level. KCI Citation Count: 1
Purpose: To determine the prevalence of refractive error (RE), presbyopia, spectacle coverage, and barriers to uptake optical services in Bangladesh.
Method: Rapid assessment of refractive error ...(RARE) study following the RARE protocol was conducted in a northern district (i.e., Sirajganj) of Bangladesh (January 2010-December 2012). People aged 15-49 years were selected, and eligible participants had habitual distance and near visual acuity (VA) measured and ocular examinations were performed in those with VA<6/18. Those with phakic eyes with VA <6/18, but improving to ≥6/18 with pinhole or optical correction, were considered as RE and people aged ≥35 years with binocular unaided near vision of <N8 were considered presbyopic.
Result
: A total of 3,043 people were examined, of which 143 had RE (4.7%, 95% CI: 3.9-5.5). Among people aged ≥35 years (n = 1402), 869 had presbyopia (62.0, 95% CI: 59.4-64.5). Spectacle coverage for RE and presbyopia were 13.3% (95% CI 7.7-18.9) and 3.2% (95% CI 2.2-4.6), respectively. "Unaware of the problem" was the main reason for not utilizing any optical services among the people with RE (92.8%) and presbyopia (89.5%). Extrapolating the survey findings to the 2011 national census data, the magnitude of RE among people aged 15-49 years in Bangladesh is estimated to be 3,493,980 people (95% CI 2,899,260-4,088,700), of whom 3,029,280 people do not use any spectacles.
Conclusion
: The burden of RE and presbyopia is substantial in Bangladesh. Improving awareness and availability of refraction services is required to correct REs and presbyopia in Bangladesh.
Mid‐infrared (MIR) spectroscopy models have been developed for rapid assessment of soils but are often soil and instrument specific because of differences in laboratory conditions and sensor setup. ...Calibration transfer is required to apply a spectral model such as partial least squares (PLS) regression developed from a primary instrument to a spectral dataset measured by a secondary instrument with statistically retained accuracy and precision. The study aimed to compare the performance of three transfer methods (i.e., direct standardization DS, piecewise direct standardization PDS, and spectral space transfer SST) and investigate the effects of transfer sample size and sample selection methods. The transfer methods were developed for predicting total C, clay, silt, and sand contents, cation exchange capacity (CEC), pH in water (pHW) and CaCl2, CaCO3 equivalent, and −1,500‐kPa water retention using spectral measurements of a secondary instrument. Calibration transfer methods of three PLS models for estimating soil properties with a high (total C), intermediate (clay content), and low (pHW) predictability were discussed. The effect of sample size required for the development of the calibration transfer and the selection method of the transferred samples were investigated. It was found that SST was most favorable for a relatively small sample size used in calibration transfer (≤12 samples). The performance of transfer methods was optimal when the transfer samples accounted for the variability of MIR spectra from the secondary instrument. We conclude that SST and PDS have the potential to be applied in spectroscopy for predicting soil properties using secondary instruments.
Core Ideas
Piecewise direct standardization (PDS) and spectral space transformation (SST) perform best.
The SST was most favorable for a relatively small number of transfer samples.
The performance of the SST was not influenced by the variability of the soil property.
After a major earthquake, the rapid identification and mapping of co-seismic landslides in the whole affected area is of great significance for emergency rescue and loss assessment of seismic ...hazards. In recent years, researchers have achieved good results in research on a small scale and single environment characteristics of this issue. However, for the whole earthquake-affected area with large scale and complex environments, the correct rate of extracting co-seismic landslides remains low, and there is no ideal method to solve this problem. In this paper, Planet Satellite images with a spatial resolution of 3 m are used to train a seismic landslide recognition model based on the deep learning method to carry out rapid and automatic extraction of landslides triggered by the 2018 Iburi earthquake, Japan. The study area is about 671.87 km2, of which 60% is used to train the model, and the remaining 40% is used to verify the accuracy of the model. The results show that most of the co-seismic landslides can be identified by this method. In this experiment, the verification precision of the model is 0.7965 and the F1 score is 0.8288. This method can intelligently identify and map landslides triggered by earthquakes from Planet images. It has strong practicability and high accuracy. It can provide assistance for earthquake emergency rescue and rapid disaster assessment.
Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife embarked on a programme to identify all the estuaries within the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province. Following an aerial survey along the coastline in 2012, images of all ...the visible inlets and estuaries were captured. Among these are a number of areas where flows of freshwater to the sea appeared to be present but which were not among the estuaries that had previously been named. There are already well defined and recognised estuary types being managed in South Africa in terms of existing environmental legislation. Following the initial survey and the observation that there are coastal inlets/freshwater outlets that are potentially small estuaries that had not been included among them prompted a further investigation into whether some of these inlets were in fact features that should be classified in some way or other. Based on a rapid qualitative assessment, 181 sites were classified as either a "micro-estuary", "freshwater seep", "hard-structure freshwater outflow point" or as sites that had been considerably modified by engineered structures. A total of 61 of these 181 sites are included in a new classification as micro-estuaries. Most of these systems are in a degraded condition and require intensive rehabilitation to restore them to their historical ecological function. This study emphasises the urgency of accepting "micro-estuary" as a new estuarine type to provide formal protection against further deterioration. This is the first study to provide a description and spatially define these smaller systems present along the KZN coast.
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