Catastrophic Environmental Events Research Articles

Consequences of the Australian 2019/20 wildfires for sites important for biodiversity and other world heritage values

ABSTRACT The 2019/20 wildfire season was devastating for Australia’s biodiversity and unprecedented in its extent and severity, yet the consequences for sites important for biodiversity and other world heritage values remain unknown. Here, we summarise the 2019/20 wildfire impacts on key sites set aside for, or identified as being important for, biodiversity, with specific reference to nationally designated protected areas, World Heritage Listings, and Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs). We also explore patterns between burn extent or severity, and underlying landscape characteristics. Over seven months, approximately 10 million hectares (ha) of native vegetation burned. Of these burned landscapes, ~3.2 million ha (41%) were within the Australian protected area estate (n = 815 and impacted >0.1% of each protected area). Six Australian World Heritage Listings were impacted by the 2019/20 wildfires, with the largest impact being in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (680,000 ha or 67% was affected by the fires). The 2019/20 fires impacted over 2 million ha across 69 KBAs. Of these, 18 KBAs had >15% of their area burned. Critically, for the management of intact and recovering forests, we show that the degree of forest integrity and ecosystem intactness affected fire severity: more degraded forests and ecosystems experienced higher severity burns in the protected area estate and KBAs. Recovery for many of these places will require targeted effort and resources to help reduce the likelihood of future megafires, as well as increased resilience in the face of other catastrophic environmental events.

Modelling coupled human-environment complexity for the future of the biosphere: strengths, gaps and promising directions.

Humans and the environment form a single complex system where humans not only influence ecosystems but also react to them. Despite this, there are far fewer coupled human–environment system (CHES) mathematical models than models of uncoupled ecosystems. We argue that these coupled models are essential to understand the impacts of social interventions and their potential to avoid catastrophic environmental events and support sustainable trajectories on multi-decadal timescales. A brief history of CHES modelling is presented, followed by a review spanning recent CHES models of systems including forests and land use, coral reefs and fishing and climate change mitigation. The ability of CHES modelling to capture dynamic two-way feedback confers advantages, such as the ability to represent ecosystem dynamics more realistically at longer timescales, and allowing insights that cannot be generated using ecological models. We discuss examples of such key insights from recent research. However, this strength brings with it challenges of model complexity and tractability, and the need for appropriate data to parameterize and validate CHES models. Finally, we suggest opportunities for CHES models to improve human–environment sustainability in future research spanning topics such as natural disturbances, social structure, social media data, model discovery and early warning signals.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years’.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead: 2020 and What Comes Next

This has been quite a year! When we prepared the first issue of volume 44 in Social Work Research, we had no idea what was in store for all of us. The challenges we have faced as community members, scholars, and social workers have seemed insurmountable at times, and have called on us to marshal all our existing resources and build new skills. This year has raised new challenges, such as COVID-19, and emphasized the intransigence of racial injustice and catastrophic environmental events that are incredibly persistent in the United States and throughout the globe. Social workers are at the forefront of practice, policy, and research to address these problems. Although the problems are daunting, we do have some tools and skills to support our work in these difficult times. The social work profession relies on a set of ethical principles to guide our focus and our actions. The NASW Code of Ethics declares that our primary obligation is service, and that challenging injustice is central to our mission. We have all seen many opportunities to put these ethics into action over the past months, and our work is nowhere near done. Previous editorials in this journal, emerging scholarship, the news from around the globe, and daily life in our home communities have shown us the vast inequalities and systemic racism that persist despite our well-intentioned work. We truly have a long way to go and must confront head-on the ways we fail to embody the ethics to which we aspire.

An approach based on association rules and social network analysis for managing environmental risk: A case study from a process industry

One of the most important challenges of high-risk industries regards environmental risk management. In all sectors characterized by high-risk processes, failure can lead to catastrophic environmental events, so it is necessary to have a model capable of extracting useful information from the data collected and able to provide company managers with decision-making tools. In this work, a framework has been developed to manage environmental risk in a process industry. In order to analyse adverse environmental events, data provided by different sources and geographically dispersed repositories have been considered. A conceptual model, based on Association Rules (AR), has been developed to investigate the network of influences among data collected. Moreover, a Social Network Analysis has been used to represent the association rules, providing a complete overview of the factors’ interaction and to identify communities of nodes in order to define local and global patterns and locate influential entities. To test the proposed approach and assess its impact on environmental management strategies, a medium-sized refinery case study has been analysed. The big data analytics approach proposed in this work, taking into consideration a wide set of objective and predictive variables, allowed the refinery managers to show new cause–effect correlations in refinery processes regarding adverse environmental event typology, immediate and root causes, refinery plant area involved in the adverse event, risk index and corrective actions.

A Bayesian Analysis of Abundance, Trend, and Population Viability for Harbor Seals in Iliamna Lake, Alaska.

Harbor seals in Iliamna Lake, Alaska, are a small, isolated population, and one of only two freshwater populations of harbor seals in the world, yet little is known about their abundance or risk for extinction. Bayesian hierarchical models were used to estimate abundance and trend of this population. Observational models were developed from aerial survey and harvest data, and they included effects for time of year and time of day on survey counts. Underlying models of abundance and trend were based on a Leslie matrix model that used prior information on vital rates from the literature. We developed three scenarios for variability in the priors and used them as part of a sensitivity analysis. The models were fitted using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The population production rate implied by the vital rate estimates was about 5% per year, very similar to the average annual harvest rate. After a period of growth in the 1980s, the population appears to be relatively stable at around 400 individuals. A population viability analysis assessing the risk of quasi-extinction, defined as any reduction to 50 animals or below in the next 100 years, ranged from 1% to 3%, depending on the prior scenario. Although this is moderately low risk, it does not include genetic or catastrophic environmental events, which may have occurred to the population in the past, so our results should be applied cautiously.

Constant diversification rates of endemic gastropods in ancient Lake Ohrid: ecosystem resilience likely buffers environmental fluctuations

Abstract. Ancient lakes represent key ecosystems for endemic freshwater species. This high endemic biodiversity has been shown to be mainly the result of intra-lacustrine diversification. Whereas the principle role of this mode of diversification is generally acknowledged, actual diversification rates in ancient lakes remain little understood. At least four types are conceivable. Diversification rates may be constant over time, they may fluctuate, rates may be higher in the initial phase of diversification, or there may be a pronounced lag phase between colonization and subsequent diversification. As understanding the tempo of diversification in ancient lake environments may help reveal the underlying processes that drive speciation and extinction, we here use the Balkan Lake Ohrid as a model system and the largest species flock in the lake, the non-pyrgulinid Hydrobiidae, as a model taxon to study changes in diversification rates over time together with the respective drivers. Based on phylogenetic, molecular-clock, lineage-through-time plot, and diversification-rate analyses we found that this potentially monophyletic group is comparatively old and that it most likely evolved with a constant diversification rate. Preliminary data of the SCOPSCO (Scientific Collaboration On Past Speciation Conditions in Lake Ohrid) deep-drilling program do indicate signatures of severe environmental/climatic perturbations in Lake Ohrid. However, so far there is no evidence for the occurrence of catastrophic environmental events. We therefore propose that the constant diversification rate observed in endemic gastropods has been caused by two factors: (i) a potential lack of catastrophic environmental events in Lake Ohrid and/or (ii) a probably high ecosystem resilience, buffering environmental changes. Parameters potentially contributing to the lake's high ecosystem resilience are its distinct bathymetry, ongoing tectonic activities, and karst hydrology. The current study not only contributes to one of the overall goals of the SCOPSCO deep-drilling program – inferring the driving forces for biotic evolution in Lake Ohrid. It might also enhance our understanding of how ecosystem resilience, in general, may promote relatively constant diversification rates in isolated ecosystems. However, we encourage future studies testing hypotheses about the lack of catastrophic events in Lake Ohrid. These studies should be based on high-resolution data for the entire geological history of the lake, and they should potentially involve information from the sediment fossil record, not only for gastropods but also for other groups with a high share of endemic taxa.

Response to ‘How far did dinosaurs really migrate, and how hot do elephants really get?’

The results of our study ([Rowe et al., 2013][1]) demonstrated a functionally significant relationship between heat storage and submaximal exercise in Asian elephants ( Elephas maximus ), which was sensitive to seasonal variations in radiant environmental heat. In addition, we modeled behavioral

Paradigms in seamount ecology: fact, fiction and future

AbstractDespite a relatively short history, the field of seamount ecology is rife with ecological paradigms, many of which have already become cemented in the scientific literature and in the minds of advocates for seamount protection. Together, these paradigms have created a widely held view of seamounts as unique environments, hotspots of biodiversity and endemicity, and fragile ecosystems of exceptional ecological worth. However, closer examination reveals significant gaps in our knowledge, thereby calling the accuracy of some of these paradigms into question. Here, we review the evolution of the major paradigms in seamount ecology, assess their status against the weight of existing evidence to date, identify emerging paradigms, and suggest future research directions. We find the assertions that seamount communities are vulnerable to fishing, and that these communities have high sensitivity and low resilience to bottom trawling disturbance are well supported by existing data. We find plausible evidence that seamounts are stepping stones for dispersal, oases of abundance and biomass, and hotspots of species richness. Nonetheless, the poor sampling coverage of these discrete but globally distributed environments prevents us from accepting these ideas as paradigms. Also plausible, but requiring further investigation, are the emerging paradigms that seamount communities are structurally distinct, that populations of invertebrates on seamounts are the source of propagules for nearby slope sinks, and that seamounts have acted and can act as biological refugia from large‐scale catastrophic environmental events. In contrast, the generalizations that seamounts are island habitats with highly endemic faunas that comprise unique communities distinct in species composition from other deep‐sea habitats, and that they have high production supported by localized bottom‐up forcing, are not supported by the weight of existing evidence.

Ventricular Assist Devices: Preparing for Catastrophic Environmental Events

In the summer of 2004, Florida experienced 4 major hurricanes in a matter of weeks. These hurricanes left many Floridians without power and passable roads, interrupted communications, and destroyed some homes. During this time, Tampa General Hospital had 1 patient living at home with an implanted ventricular assist device. The patient had been discharged home only 2 weeks before hurricane Frances hit hard. Although the patient was able to stay at home and experienced no major problems with the device, there were several situations that taught us many lessons about caring for patients with ventricular assist devices during environmental catastrophic events.

Ventricular assist devices: preparing for catastrophic environmental events

In the summer of 2004, Florida experienced 4 major hurricanes in a matter of weeks. These hurricanes left many Floridians without power and passable roads, interrupted communications, and destroyed some homes. During this time, Tampa General Hospital had 1 patient living at home with an implanted ventricular assist device. The patient had been discharged home only 2 weeks before hurricane Frances hit hard. Although the patient was able to stay at home and experienced no major problems with the device, there were several situations that taught us many lessons about caring for patients with ventricular assist devices during environmental catastrophic events.