Types Of Human Impact Research Articles

Geographic Record of Human Impact Conformance to Different Water Relationships Along a Coastal River (The Łupawa Catchment)

Geographic Record of Human Impact Conformance to Different Water Relationships Along a Coastal River (The Łupawa Catchment) The purpose of this paper is to answer the following two questions: Can one infer the type of human impact found in the northern Pomorze region from the current state of the Łupawa basin? Did regional water relationships determine the type of human impact found in the area? A good place to search for an answer to these two questions is the Łupawa River drainage basin. The entire upper section of the river, upstream from the Bukowina, is characterized by a lack of substantial changes in the hydrographic network, resulting from man's apparent disinterest in the area. The middle section of the river is characterized by human impact in the form of the use of water resources for energy generation purposes (sawmills, gristmills, power plants). The lower section of the Łupawa that includes Lake Gardno is characterized by significant changes in water relationships associated with difficult discharge conditions. Finally, the mouth section of the river, given its location, has been adapted as a port facility.

Invertebrate traits for the biomonitoring of large European rivers: an assessment of specific types of human impact

Summary1. The power of selected biological invertebrate traits for discriminating different types of human impact (heavy metal pollution and cargo‐ship traffic) were tested using ecological reasoning and linear Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA).2. Frequency distributions of individual traits and categories of traits from 68 least impacted river reaches (LIRRs) and 304 impacted river reaches were used to define simple assessment rules based on ecological reasoning for specific impairments in large European rivers. In calibration, a maximum of three variables with a priori predictions and two different impairment threshold levels were used. Similarly, DFA was performed on the same variables included in the ecological reasoning approach, but also on all available traits or trait categories.3. Validation with an independent data set (40 LIRRs, 291 variously impacted river reaches) and using the ecological reasoning approach showed that 75–78% of the reaches were correctly assign with rules on all impact types, 35–57% with rules on heavy metal pollution and 78–93% with rules on cargo‐ship traffic. By comparison, validation showed that DFA performed globally poorer than the ecological reasoning approach. In addition, the performance of the rules based on ecological reasoning remained stable, whereas DFA performance changed between calibration and validation.4. Although not defined for this purpose, our study provided alarming evidence regarding the impact of cargo‐ship traffic on invertebrate communities in river reaches. Reaches with cargo‐ship traffic were found to have more genera with long life cycles that reproduce repeatedly by ovoviviparity and have a sessile life.5. The performance of our trait‐based approach to correctly assign reaches to either least impacted or impacted conditions should promote further research on the topic across larger geographic areas (without regionalization) and across smaller stream types to provide a powerful biomonitoring tool that fulfils current European Union directives.

A Fish-Based Index of Biotic Integrity to Assess Intermittent Headwater Streams in Wisconsin, USA

I developed a fish-based index of biotic integrity (IBI) to assess environmental quality in intermittent headwater streams in Wisconsin, USA. Backpack electrofishing and habitat surveys were conducted four times on 102 small (watershed area 1.7-41.5 km(2)), cool or warmwater (maximum daily mean water temperature > or = 22 C), headwater streams in spring and late summer/fall 2000 and 2001. Despite seasonal and annual changes in stream flow and habitat volume, there were few significant temporal trends in fish attributes. Analysis of 36 least-impacted streams indicated that fish were too scarce to calculate an IBI at stations with watershed areas less than 4 km(2) or at stations with watershed areas from 4-10 km(2) if stream gradient exceeded 10 m/km (1% slope). For streams with sufficient fish, potential fish attributes (metrics) were not related to watershed size or gradient. Seven metrics distinguished among streams with low, agricultural, and urban human impacts: numbers of native, minnow (Cyprinidae), headwater-specialist, and intolerant (to environmental degradation) species; catches of all fish excluding species tolerant of environmental degradation and of brook stickleback (Culaea inconstans) per 100 m stream length; and percentage of total individuals with deformities, eroded fins, lesions, or tumors. These metrics were used in the final IBI, which ranged from 0 (worst) to 100 (best). The IBI accurately assessed the environmental quality of 16 randomly chosen streams not used in index development. Temporal variation in IBI scores in the absence of changes in environmental quality was not related to season, year, or type of human impact and was similar in magnitude to variation reported for other IBI's.

Species traits for future biomonitoring across ecoregions: patterns along a human‐impacted river

1. Current budgets for environmental management are high, tend to increase, and are used to support policy and legislation which is standardized for large geographic units. Therefore, the search for tools to monitor the effects of this investment is a major issue in applied ecology. Ideally, such a biomonitoring tool should: (1) be as general as possible with respect to its geographic application; (2) be as specific as possible by separating different types of human impact on a given ecosystem; (3) reliably indicate changes in human impact of a particular type; and (4) be derived from a sound theoretical concept in ecology.2. We developed an approach to biomonitoring which matches these ‘ideal’ characteristics by focusing on numerous, general biological species traits (e.g. size, number of descendants per reproductive cycle, parental care, mobility) and on the habitat templet concept, which relates trends in these general species traits to disturbance patterns. Using the French Rhône River and benthic macroinvertebrates as an example, we have used the data to demonstrate a general framework and the potential of our approach rather than to produce a ready‐made tool. Our data covered a large river and its major tributaries, which has a catchment that crosses ecoregions, and known gradients and discontinuities in human impact.3. We applied multivariate analyses to evaluate how the distribution of species traits in invertebrate communities could discriminate environmental differences along the Rhône in comparison to traditionally used approaches (e.g. community structure, based on species abundances, or ecological species traits, such as velocity preferences and pollution tolerance). Invertebrate community structure expressed in terms either of the abundance or the traits of species reliably indicated differences in overall human impact. The community structure based on biological traits was less confounded by natural spatial gradients and reliably indicated human impact, while community structure based on ecological traits was the most confounded by natural spatial gradients and was the poorest indicator of human impact. Community structure based on species abundances was an intermediate indicator of human impact.4. These results indicate that a revision of biomonitoring approaches which have been based on a single aspect of the biological responses may be warranted. The biological traits of species could separate the different types of human impact. Therefore, the use of these traits in biomonitoring could improve existing multi‐metric approaches. Future research has to show if the general applicability of species traits allows the development of a unique biomonitoring tool for running waters of the European Union, for running waters in temperate climates on several continents, for freshwater, marine and terrestrial systems, and/or for global biodiversity assessment.

The Response of Antelope Ground Squirrels ( Ammospermophilus leucurus ) to Human Impacts in the Western Mojave Desert

Many areas of the western Mojave Desert have been severely impacted during the past 30 years because of human activity on lands adjacent to rapidly developing desert cities. Antelope ground squirrels were studied in order to determine the degree and scope of these borderland utilization zones. Three suburban-to-rural transects, plus one control site, were located near the city of Ridgecrest. Each transect was surveyed and rated for 10 types of human impact, and live-trapping for ground squirrel abundance was conducted along the entire length. Both the cumulative human impact ratings and the number of ground squirrel captures tended to increase with increasing proximity to the edge of development. This suggests that these ground squirrels are an edge-enhanced species and may in turn be an indicator of an overall reduction in habitat quality.

SOIL-GEOCHEMICAL MAPPING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION PURPOSES

The authors outline a procedure for the mapping of soil geochemical anomalies surrounding a gas condensate deposit in upland East Siberia. An end product is a map showing areas in which matter is biologically cycled in different ways and at different intensities, as reflected in the dominance of different combinations of chemical elements in the soil. The paper explores the relationship between these geochemical regions and (a) related natural regions (vegetation, geomorphologic-geologic) and (b) types of human impact (e.g., fires, oil-gas drilling, pipeline construction). The methods employed are compared with previous methodologies of geochemical mapping—e.g., of Perel'man. Translated by Edward Torrey, Alexandria, VA 22308 from: Geografiya i prirodnyye resursy, 1997, No. 1, pp. 23-33

AN ECOLOGICAL-LANDSCAPE MAP OF ALTAY KRAY

The paper briefly reviews the design and compilation of a map of natural ecological zones in Altay Kray of West Siberia. Methodological considerations and map content are both described, and particular attention is devoted to outlining the design of the map legend—a matrix consisting of categories of land use/use intensity (rows) and types of human impact on the environment (columns). Translated by Edward Torrey, Alexandria, VA 22308 from: Geografiya i prirodnyye resursy, 1996, No. 2, pp. 140-142.