Effects Of Industrial Activities Research Articles

Tundra disturbance and ecosystem production: Implications for impact assessment

Environmental regulations governing industrial activities in tundra environments stem largely from the expected ecological effects of the activities. One of the major ecological effects of industrial activities is the surface subsidence associated with thermokarst, which can result in changes in primary and secondary production. The primary production changes associated with thermokarst are strongly governed by three ecosystem properties—soil temperature, water regime, and nutrient availability. Most disturbances set in motion a more-or-less predictable sequence of landscape change related to these properties: soil warming, thermokarst, surface flooding, accelerated organic matter decomposition, and increased nutrient availability. The warmed soil and the enhanced nutrient availability typically lead to increased annual primary production, increased dominance by graminoids, and reduced plant species diversity. These vegetational changes may in turn potentially enhance secondary production, but in general these second-level responses have yet to be quantified. More information is needed about the food-chain effects of tundra landscape disturbances before regulators can make well-informed predictions of impacts or plan useful habitat rehabilitation.

Grizzly Bears and Resource-Extraction Industries: Habitat Displacement in Response to Seismic Exploration, Timber Harvesting and Road Maintenance

SUMMARY within-year distributions of individual bears, two of the eleven bears showed a significant difference in habitat use. (3) Significant displacement was not found in the four other bear-industry interactions, including two seismic, one road maintenance and one timber-harvest activity. These activities all occurred in spring, when bears are more mobile than in summer. (4) The effect of industrial activity on the productivity of the test bears, the potential factors influencing the general lack of displacement, and management implications are discussed.

A study of the sediments and communities in Milford Haven, Wales

Milford Haven is a well-established oil port which has been in operation since the early 1960s, at which time biological monitoring activities were also in progress. The majority of these activities were rocky shore studies. The first comprehensive study of sediments using remote sampling techniques was carried out in 1975 and revealed that a variety of community types were present within Milford Haven. Two further sediment surveys were completed during the months of April 1982 andApril 1984. In 1982, 135 stations were sampled. This was reduced to 55 in 1984, of which 46 were relocated from the 1982 work. The samples, obtained by means of a Day grab, were used for biological, sediment particle size, trace metal and hydrocarbon analyses. The objectives of the 1982 benthic survey were to make a thorough investigation of the distribution of species and communities in relation to environmental factors, and also to note possible effects of industrial activity within the survey area. Populations of several species appeared to have changed since the area was last surveyed during 1975. Several species characteristic of stressed environments, notably Chaetozone ?setosa, had increased in abundance. In Pembroke River there were interesting variations in the distribution and types of species present. Areas of interest were resurveyed during 1984 in order to monitor the status of the opportunist species in Milford Haven, and to provide more detailed data on the distribution of intertidal species in Pembroke River. The 1984 data showed that whilst the opportunistic species Chaetozone ?setosa had shown fluctuations in density from station to station, it had changed little in distribution or abundance between the two surveys. Other species typical of muddy areas had increased in density. Although not grossly polluted, communities showed signs of disturbance, probably as a result of dredging activities and various kinds of anthropogenic input. Pembroke River maintained a reasonably high diversity of species in comparison with other estuarine areas in the British Isles. The range in total hydrocarbon concentration was from 1 to 615 μgg −1 whilst the overall trace elements were comparatively low for an estuary with substantial areas of fine sediment. However, all contaminants showed a clear enrichment at certain localities within Milford Haven.

The accretion of cosmic matter to the Earth

The results of recent investigations of the accretion of cosmic matter to earth, made by analyzing deep-sea cores and air samples taken at observations remote from the contaminating effects of industrial activity, are reviewed. For the study of deep-sea deposits, a piston core-sampler was used to raise almost undisturbed cores 15m in length. All the investigated samples showed the presence of cosmic spherules in amounts from 100 to 2000 per kg. The variation in numbers depended both on geographical location and depth below the sediment surface. In general, the number of spherules was greatest in the more recent sediments. Calculations based on average concentrations in the most recent sediments indicated a fall of 1000 to 5000 tons of spherules annually. The rate of accretion of meteoric dust was calculated from the results obtained by passing large volumes of air through filters at two highaltitude observatories in Hawaii. Results indicated that the annual rate of accretion of cosmic dust is 5 million tons. (M.C.G.)