Classification and inventory of wetlands: A global overview

Classification of wetlands is extremely problematical, definition of the term wetland being a difficult and controversial starting point. Although considerable effort has gone into the development of national and regional wetland classifications, the only attempt at establishing a global system has been under the auspices of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. In view of the fact that the Ramsar Convention has 70 Contracting Parties world-wide, it is suggested that the Convention's definition and classification system should be adopted generally for international purposes. Much of the world has been covered by preliminary wetland inventories, but there is an urgent need to extend coverage to those areas not yet included. It is essential that all inventory projects give adequate attention to meeting the real information needs of agencies and individuals which have an impact on the conservation and wise use of wetlands. Attention should also be given to providing for wide dissemination and regular updating of information and establishment of procedures for monitoring ecological change at the sites identified.     

Keep all the pieces: Systematics 2000 and world conservation

Conserving biological diversity requires a major effort in conducting survey and inventories, establishing priorities, selecting protected areas, managing resources and monitoring the effects of management. Systematics has an important contribution to make to each of these five major activities. Further, the new Convention on Biological Diversity requires systematics information to support action under virtually all of its substantive conservation and sustainable use articles. It seems apparent that large reference collections contribute directly to development, and development assistance agencies should recognize that investing in maintaining these collections is a legitimate form of development assistance.     

Life cycle assessment of emerging technologies at the lab scale: The case of nanowire‐based solar cells

Nanomaterials are expected to play an important role in the development of sustainable products. The use of nanomaterials in solar cells has the potential to increase their conversion efficiency. In this study, we performed a life cycle assessment (LCA) for an emerging nanowire‐based solar technology. Two lab‐scale manufacturing routes for the production of nanowire‐based solar cells have been compared—the direct growth of GaInP nanowires on silicon substrate and the growth of InP nanowires on native substrate, peel off, and transfer to silicon substrate. The analysis revealed critical raw materials and processes of the current lab‐scale manufacturing routes such as the use of trifluoromethane (CHF₃), gold, and an InP wafer and a stamp, which are used and discarded. The environmental performance of the two production routes under different scenarios has been assessed. The scenarios include the use of an alternative process to reduce the gold requirements—electroplating instead of metallization, recovery of gold, and reuse of the InP wafer and the stamp. A number of suggestions, based on the LCA results—including minimization of the use of gold and further exploration for upscaling of the electroplating process, the increase in the lifetimes of the wafer and the stamp, and the use of fluorine‐free etching materials—have been communicated to the researchers in order to improve the environmental performance of the technology. Finally, the usefulness and limitations of lab‐scale LCA as a tool to guide the sustainable development of emerging technologies are discussed.     

Lifting the veil on the correction of double counting incidents in hybrid life cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmentally extended input–output analyses (EEIOA) are two techniques commonly used to assess environmental impacts of an activity/product. Their strengths and weaknesses are complementary, and they are thus regularly combined to obtain hybrid LCAs. A number of approaches in hybrid LCA exist, which leads to different results. One of the differences is the method used to ensure that mixed LCA and EEIOA data do not overlap, which is referred to as correction for double counting. This aspect of hybrid LCA is often ignored in reports of hybrid assessments and no comprehensive study has been carried out on it. This article strives to list, compare, and analyze the different existing methods for the correction of double counting. We first harmonize the definitions of the existing correction methods and express them in a common notation, before introducing a streamlined variant. We then compare their respective assumptions and limitations. We discuss the loss of specific information regarding the studied activity/product and the loss of coherent financial representation caused by some of the correction methods. This analysis clarifies which techniques are most applicable to different tasks, from hybridizing individual LCA processes to integrating complete databases. We finally conclude by giving recommendations for future hybrid analyses.     

Forest ecosystem inventory and monitoring as a framework for terrestrial natural renewable resource survey programmes

ABSTRACT

The established practice of forest ecosystem inventory and monitoring is recognised as a main support for terrestrial natural renewable resource survey programmes. Inventory and monitoring programmes focused on an overall assessment of ecosystem attributes evolving into global environmental survey programmes have been devised, but implementation is still quite contradictory. The state-of-the-art is discussed here, with special reference to the European Union and Italy. Topical issues are reviewed, with selective concern to: remote sensing capability, probability sampling, forest type (habitat) classification and landscape ecology, sustainable management indicators. Benefits brought by information technology are highlighted. Its development and the implementation of approaches based on a sound “per habitat” landscape ecological perspective will bring unique benefits, thus leading to an effective integration among sector surveys aimed at global environmental inventory/monitoring.     

Quantifying variation in forest disturbance,and its effects on aboveground biomass dynamics,across the eastern United States

The role of tree mortality in the global carbon balance is complicated by strong spatial and temporal heterogeneity that arises from the stochastic nature of carbon loss through disturbance. Characterizing spatio‐temporal variation in mortality (including disturbance) and its effects on forest and carbon dynamics is thus essential to understanding the current global forest carbon sink, and to predicting how it will change in future. We analyzed forest inventory data from the eastern United States to estimate plot‐level variation in mortality (relative to a long‐term background rate for individual trees) for nine distinct forest regions. Disturbances that produced at least a fourfold increase in tree mortality over an approximately 5 year interval were observed in 1–5% of plots in each forest region. The frequency of disturbance was lowest in the northeast, and increased southwards along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts as fire and hurricane disturbances became progressively more common. Across the central and northern parts of the region, natural disturbances appeared to reflect a diffuse combination of wind, insects, disease, and ice storms. By linking estimated covariation in tree growth and mortality over time with a data‐constrained forest dynamics model, we simulated the implications of stochastic variation in mortality for long‐term aboveground biomass changes across the eastern United States. A geographic gradient in disturbance frequency induced notable differences in biomass dynamics between the least‐ and most‐disturbed regions, with variation in mortality causing the latter to undergo considerably stronger fluctuations in aboveground stand biomass over time. Moreover, regional simulations showed that a given long‐term increase in mean mortality rates would support greater aboveground biomass when expressed through disturbance effects compared with background mortality, particularly for early‐successional species. The effects of increased tree mortality on carbon stocks and forest composition may thus depend partly on whether future mortality increases are chronic or episodic in nature.     

Evaluating atmospheric CO2 inversions at multiple scales over a highly inventoried agricultural landscape

An intensive regional research campaign was conducted by the North American Carbon Program (NACP) in 2007 to study the carbon cycle of the highly productive agricultural regions of the Midwestern United States. Forty‐five different associated projects were conducted across five US agencies over the course of nearly a decade involving hundreds of researchers. One of the primary objectives of the intensive campaign was to investigate the ability of atmospheric inversion techniques to use highly calibrated CO₂ mixing ratio data to estimate CO₂ flux over the major croplands of the United States by comparing the results to an inventory of CO₂ fluxes. Statistics from densely monitored crop production, consisting primarily of corn and soybeans, provided the backbone of a well studied bottom‐up inventory flux estimate that was used to evaluate the atmospheric inversion results. Estimates were compared to the inventory from three different inversion systems, representing spatial scales varying from high resolution mesoscale (PSU), to continental (CSU) and global (CarbonTracker), coupled to different transport models and optimization techniques. The inversion‐based mean CO₂‐C sink estimates were generally slightly larger, 8–20% for PSU, 10–20% for CSU, and 21% for CarbonTracker, but statistically indistinguishable, from the inventory estimate of 135 TgC. While the comparisons show that the MCI region‐wide C sink is robust across inversion system and spatial scale, only the continental and mesoscale inversions were able to reproduce the spatial patterns within the region. In general, the results demonstrate that inversions can recover CO₂ fluxes at sub‐regional scales with a relatively high density of CO₂ observations and adequate information on atmospheric transport in the region.     

利用红外相机公里网格调查钱江源国家公园的兽类及鸟类多样性

2014年5月至2019年4月, 作者采用红外相机技术调查了浙江省钱江源国家公园的兽类及鸟类多样性。将整个国家公园划分为267个1 km × 1 km的调查网格, 每个网格内设置3个固定调查位点, 使用1台红外相机定期在同一网格内的位点之间进行轮换。其中, 古田山片区在5年内共完成14轮次调查, 古田山以外的区域自2018年7月纳入调查范围, 何田、长虹片区完成2次轮换, 齐溪片区完成1次轮换。在253个网格内的741个有效位点上共获得140,413个相机工作日的数据, 采集兽类和鸟类的照片和视频268,833份, 有效探测数74,368次, 鉴定出21种野生兽类, 72种野生鸟类, 5种家畜及家禽。包括国家一级重点保护野生动物2种, 即黑麂(Muntiacus crinifrons)、白颈长尾雉(Syrmaticus ellioti); 国家二级重点保护野生动物17种, 合计占野生物种总数的20.4%。被IUCN物种红色名录评估为易危(VU)的5种, 近危(NT)的4种, 合计占物种总数的9.7%。被中国脊椎动物红色名录评估为濒危(EN)的1种, 易危(VU)的9种, 近危(NT)的10种, 合计占物种总数的21.5%。相对多度指数最高的大中型兽类为小麂(Muntiacus reevesi), 鸟类为白鹇(Lophura nycthemera)。本次调查获得了国家公园内兽类和鸟类的多样性组成、空间分布和相对多度, 为长期科研监测和科学管理提供了基础数据。     

利用红外相机调查祁连山国家公园(青海片区)兽类和鸟类多样性

2017年5-9月,采用红外相机调查祁连山国家公园(青海片区)兽类和鸟类多样性。共布设154个相机位点,累计12 096个相机日,共获得9 675张有效独立照片,鉴定23种野生兽类和50种野生鸟类物种,分别隶属5目10科和9目19科,另记录到家畜5种。相对多度指数最高的前五种野生动物依次为岩羊(Pseudois rnayaur)(18.23)、喜马拉雅旱獭(Marmota himalayarea)(15.98)、灰尾兔(Lepus oiostolus)(5.06)、红嘴山鸦(Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax)(3.39)、高原鼠兔(Ochotona curzoniae)(2.49)。中国特有物种有荒漠猫(Felis bieti)、白唇鹿(Ceryus albirostris)、西藏马鹿(Cervus wallichii)、藏原羚(Procapra picticaudata)、红耳鼠兔(Ochotana erythrotis)、蓝马鸡(Crossoptilon auritum)和地山雀(Pseudopocdoces humilis)7种。国家Ⅰ级重点保护野生动物有4种,国家Ⅱ级重点保护野生动物有20种;被中国脊椎动物红色名录评估为极危、濒危、易危、近危的物种分别有1种、6种、3种、14种。红外相机调查结果反映出祁连山国家公园(青海片区)兽类和鸟类现状,为祁连山国家公园体制试点生物多样性保护和管理提供基础数据。