Natural Values Research Articles

Geomorphometric maps of Australia’s Marine Park estate and their role in improving the integrated monitoring and management of marine ecosystems

The loss of marine biodiversity is a major global issue that needs to be prioritised. In Australia, a considerable proportion (48%) of its Exclusive Economic Zone is dedicated to marine protected areas. To effectively manage this network of marine protected areas Australia has recently introduced a Management Effectiveness system. This system is designed to identify, monitor, and manage natural values and the various activities and pressures affecting the Australian Marine Parks (AMPs). Key to this approach is the identification and accurate mapping of the location of these values and pressures acting on the seabed. The AusSeabed program is a national initiative in Australia aimed at improving access to bathymetric data and coordinating efforts to collect such data in Australian waters. This manuscript proposes a novel systematic processing method to create detailed and scalable geomorphometric maps from AusSeabed’s bathymetric data holdings, intended as a standard operating procedure for initial bathymetric data interpretation in the AMPs. Utilising this workflow, we produce seafloor geomorphometry maps across 37 AMPs within which sufficient bathymetric data has been collected. These maps can be used 1) for predictive mapping of biological assemblages; 2) in field sampling design for the collection of ‘ground truthing’ data (e.g. underwater imagery and sediment samples) to validate habitat maps from bathymetric datasets; and 3) as input datasets for subsequent geomorphological mapping with a deeper understanding of seafloor processes. This research highlights the importance of robust geomorphometry classification standards to ensure consistency in mapping Australia’s marine estate in preparation for the Decade of Oceans plans. The Seamap Australia program provides a stepwise approach to advancing Australia’s national collection of bathymetric data into derived products that can enable habitat mapping of Australian waters, providing a foundational tool for the adaptive management of AMPs.

“My Favourite Self:” A Retrospective Analysis of an Outdoor Orientation Program

Background: The short-term impacts of outdoor orientation programs (OOPs) have been documented in the literature for close to 40 years. While there is a fair amount of research examining the immediate effects of OOPs, there are relatively few studies exploring long-term impacts. Purpose: This study examined the important longitudinal “lessons learned” from participating in an OOP. Methodology/Approach: This study utilized a retrospective qualitative approach and employed the Most Significant Change technique to understand meaningful lessons learned. Alumni from an OOP participated in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analyses included open coding, focused coding, and axial coding. Findings/Conclusions: Primary themes that emerged from the coding process included community and social connections, mental health and well-being and environmental appreciation and value of nature. Participants reported learning valuable lessons related to community building, coping, stress relief, resiliency and thriving, and connection with nature. Implications: Results provide evidence supporting positive long-term effects of OOPs. A particular highlight is how participants noted the OOP helped shape their “favourite self” years after their university experience. Researchers and practitioners can use these results to inform OOP curricula and to include in program marketing and lobbying efforts.

Effects of management complexity on the composition, plant functional dominance relationships and physiognomy of high nature value grasslands

A significant proportion of Europe’s species-rich grasslands are semi-natural habitats. They have a long history of traditional management. Several studies have been carried out to conserve them, resulting in the establishment of subsidised conservation management schemes. On the other hand, many of these conservation management schemes have failed to provide locally adaptive solutions to maintain the diversity and functional status of species-rich grasslands. In addition, few studies have compared the conservation effectiveness of different levels of management complexity. The levels of management complexity in our study are based on how different management types (e.g. grazing and mowing etc.) and how different herbage removal intensities (e.g. lower and higher grazing intensities) are combined within and between years. To investigate this, we compared the overall effects of management complexity, herbage removal intensity and management type on plant diversity, plant functional type dominance relationships and plant physiognomy. Our field sampling was carried out in the sandy meso-xeric grasslands of the Turján Region of the Great Hungarian Plain (Central Hungary). We sampled nine 2 m × 2 m plots per grassland site (n = 12), recorded all the rooted plant species and estimated their percentage cover in each plot. High level of management complexity had significant positive effects on plant diversity, grazing had positive effects on plant diversity and phanerophyte density, while the studied levels of herbage removal intensity had no effect on diversity, plant functional types or plant physiognomy. In parallel, mowing and/or low levels of management complexity had some negative effects on conservation value (e.g. lower Shannon and Simpson diversity). In this landscape, the dominance of grazing and the more complex management is more optimal than relatively homogeneous mechanical mowing. The choice of management type and intensity is an important tool in the conservation management system of this landscape, but so too is its appropriate application in space and time. Through a detailed analysis of the effects of management complexity levels compared to management types and herbage removal intensity levels, we provide a new opportunity to make grassland management practices more effective for conserving biodiversity in this region, but it would be important to investigate these in different landscapes and conditions.

Variation in Phosphorus Concentration and Flux at Zhutuo Section in the Yangtze River and Source Apportionment

Phosphorus (P) is a pollutant of great concern in the Yangtze River Basin. The Xiangjiaba Reservoir and Xiluodu Reservoir on the lower reach of the Jinsha River began to operate in 2012 and 2013, respectively, which greatly changed the concentrations of suspended sediment and characteristics of P form and transport in the reservoirs and the downstream reach from Yibin to Jiangjin of the Yangtze River. The Zhutuo section is representative in the water quality of the Yibin-Jiangjin reach, which can not only reflect the comprehensive effects of the formation of the two reservoirs and changes in the aquatic environment in the Min-Tuo Rivers but also reflect the quality of water flowing into the Three Gorges Reservoir. The runoff, concentrations and fluxes of suspended sediments (SS), and P concentrations and fluxes at Zhutuo section were studied during 2002-2019, and the source of P was apportioned based on the principle of river base flow. The results showed that in the past 18 years, the concentrations and fluxes of total phosphorus (TP) and particulate phosphorus (PP) at Zhutuo section in the wet season were higher than those in the level and dry seasons; the rule of positive correlation between PP and SS concentrations remained unchanged. From 2002 to 2019, the concentrations and fluxes of TP, PP, and dissolved P (DP) generally increased first and then decreased, and the operation of the Xiangjiaba Reservoir was a time node for the trend turning. Compared with that in the period from 2002-2012, the SS concentration and flux decreased by 94% and 77%, TP and PP concentrations decreased by 46% and 70%, and TP and PP fluxes decreased by 58% and 74%, respectively, during 2014-2019. The decline mainly occurred in the wet season, followed by that in the level season. After the formation of the two reservoirs, the relationship between water and sediment and the form of P greatly changed, and the proportion of DP in TP increased significantly, whereas the proportion of PP was the opposite. The TP pool in overlying water in the dry and level seasons shifted from mainly particulate to mainly dissolved. The change in water and sediment conditions was the main driving force for the significant change in P concentration, flux, and form. Before the operation of the Xiangjiaba Reservoir, the Jinsha River was the maximum contributor to the whole and diffuse source part of the TP load at Zhutuo section among the contributing catchment sub-basins; however, the Minjiang River became the largest contributor after the operation. The average TP load at Zhutuo section from 2017-2019 was 3.575×104 t·a-1 (after deducting the natural background value), of which the contribution of diffuse sources and point sources accounted for 68% and 32%, respectively. The Minjiang River represented 49%, 43%, and 62% of the total TP load, diffuse source TP load, and point source TP load at Zhutuo section, respectively. Considering the load contribution and pollution intensity, the key area for P pollution control in the area upstream of the Three Gorges Reservoir was the Min-Tuo River Basin.

Two-to-three times increase in natural hip and lumbar non-sagittal plane kinematics can lead to anterior cruciate ligament injury and cartilage failure scenarios during single-leg landings

BackgroundAnalyzing sports injuries is essential to mitigate risk for injury, but inherently challenging using in vivo approaches. Computational modeling is a powerful engineering tool used to access biomechanical information on tissue failure that cannot be obtained otherwise using traditional motion capture techniques. MethodsWe extrapolated high-risk kinematics associated with ACL strain and cartilage load and stress from a previous motion analysis of 14 uninjured participants. Computational simulations were used to induce ACL failure strain and cartilage failure load, stress, and contact pressure in two age- and BMI-matched participants, one of each biological sex, during single-leg cross drop and single-leg drop tasks. The high-risk kinematics were exaggerated in 20% intervals, within their physiological range of motion, to determine if injury occurred in the models. Where injury occurred, we reported the kinematic profiles that led to tissue failure. FindingsOur findings revealed ACL strains up to 9.99%, consistent with reported failure values in existing literature. Cartilage failure was observed in all eight analyzed conditions when increasing each high-risk kinematic parameter by 2.61 ± 0.67 times the participants' natural landing values. The kinematics associated with tissue failure included peak hip internal rotation of 22.48 ± 19.04°, peak hip abduction of 22.51 ± 9.09°, and peak lumbar rotation away from the stance limb of 11.56 ± 9.78°. InterpretationOur results support the ability of previously reported high-risk kinematics in the literature to induce injury and add to the literature by reporting extreme motion limits leading to injurious cases. Therefore, training programs able to modify these motions during single-leg landings may reduce the risk of ACL injury and cartilage trauma.

A direct-AMS assessment of Re-Os in a Cigar Lake uranium ore specimen

The decay constant of 187Re is known to change when its inner shell electrons are ionized; the possibility of a small change occurring in a terrestrial radioactive environment has not been assessed. A recently completed multi-isotope survey of uranium ore concentrates (UOC) has prompted the question. As an extension of that work, using direct accelerator mass spectrometry (direct-AMS), this paper reports a closer investigation of such possibility in an unaltered natural rock specimen of the Cigar Lake uranium ore, containing wt.30–60 % uranium oxide. Stimulated by this research goal, the direct-AMS quantification methods were first investigated, and later tested in connection with the Re-Os assessment. Complete sets of measurement of the anion beams of 185ReOn−, (187Re+187Os)On− and 189OsOn− (n = 0–5) were carried out to find suitable sputter target matrices that would yield self-consistent solutions of (187Os/189Os)Today and (187Re/185Re)Today. These two quantities are best determined by these multi-beam measurements to be 4400 ± 500 (2σ) and 1.635 ± 0.060 (2σ), respectively. The sample is then reasoned to contain [Re/Os]Initial ∼42,000. These results do not show apparent 187Re decay constant changes, but cannot rule out the possibility, either. As a quick follow-up inspection, a simplified approach was used to surveying 187Re/185Re in a series of uranium-concentrated materials, in which this ratio was all measured somewhat smaller than the natural known value. This work was also intended to be a pilot feasibility study of using the direct-AMS method as a form of sensitive secondary ionization mass spectrometry (SIMS) for rapid Re-Os assessment in mg-sized raw minerals and environmental samples.

Agro–economic determinants of violations of protected areas in Western Africa

Despite protected areas are a useful instrument for preserving locations with a high natural value, violations are frequent, endangering their primary scope. Encroachment, the use of land inside protected areas for agricultural purposes, is a common violation. The present paper investigates the determinants of encroachment in eight Western African countries, with a broad coverage rarely seen in previous research on the topic. The focus is placed on the agro–economic determinants, in the form of average characteristics of rural households living in the proximity of protected areas. The analysis is performed through a Tobit model, with OLS, Probit and Poisson regressions used as robustness checks. Protected areas in locations with a strong agricultural vocation or with a high percentage of protected land are more likely to be subject to violations. Furthermore, economic deprivation and land profitability are other two mild drivers of encroachment together with mechanization. Other indicators of modern practices such as irrigation and use of inorganic fertilizers, instead, do not increase the probability of violations to protected areas. Furthermore, husbandry is a significant determinant of encroachment, but only when involving cattle, while specializing in certain types of crops, e.g. cereals, vegetables or cash crops, does not affect the probability of violations.

Modelling the evolution of water retention hysteresis loops during soil deformation based on the ink‐bottle effect

AbstractThe ink‐bottle effect, resulting from the heterogeneous pore structure, plays a significant role in the hydraulic hysteresis of water retention behavior. Experimental evidence indicates that volumetric deformation extensively influences the hysteresis characteristics of the soil‐water retention curve (SWRC). This paper presents a physical–based model that aims to simulate the contraction of the hysteresis loop in the SWRC during soil compression by considering the evolution of the ink‐bottle effect. Within the proposed model, it is assumed that the suction increment is consumed in two distinct manners: to overcome the ink‐bottle effect and to alter soil saturation. As soil undergoes compression, the ink‐bottle effect weakens, resulting in a reduced proportion of suction consumed in counteracting this effect. To quantitatively describe the impact of ink‐bottle effect evolution on SWRC hysteresis, a novel concept known as hysteresis potential is introduced, which is defined as the difference in natural logarithmic values of suction between the drying and wetting curves at a given saturation. Finally, the proposed model was validated using five sets of experimental data, affirming its capability to capture the hysteresis loop evolution in SWRC attributed to the weakening of the ink‐bottle effect during soil compression.

Vibration Characteristics of FML Cylindrical Shell Bonded by Thin Piezoelectric Actuator and Sensor Layer with and Without Fluid–Structure Interaction Resting on Pasternak Elastic Foundation

The present study investigates the vibration analysis of cylindrical shells composed of fiber metal laminate (FML) with embedded piezoelectric layers, undergoing fluid-structure interaction (FSI) and resting on a Pasternak elastic foundation based on the principles of three-dimensional elasticity theory. Using the state space approach, the equations of motion were derived under simply supported boundary conditions. The natural frequencies of the FML cylindrical shell, accounting for the presence of a moving fluid, were computed by solving the eigenfrequency equations. The study examined the influence of various parameters, including boundary conditions, length-to-radius ratio, fluid type, fluid velocity, circumferential wave number, and radius-to-thickness ratio, on glass-reinforced aluminum laminate (GLARE), aramid-reinforced aluminum laminate (ARALL), and carbon-reinforced aluminum laminate (CARALL). A constant composite/metal volume ratio was assumed. The results obtained were validated by comparing with natural frequency values from the existing literature, confirming the agreement and convergence with previous studies. The results confirm that the highest natural frequency values are assigned to the CARALL, ARALL and GRALE structures in descending order. Furthermore, an increase in fluid flow velocity through the cylindrical shell correlates with a reduction in natural frequency.

Harmonious Human Settlements in the Light of the Principles of Ekistics

Confronted with mounting challenges such as rapid urbanization, global living disparities, climate change, natural disasters, the recent upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ukrainian-Russian War, the United Nations and other international entities have redirected their focus towards fostering resilient, democratic, cohesive, sustainable, and digital societies. This paradigm shift necessitates a global partnership to conserve, protect, and restore the health and integrity of the Earth's ecosystem. Amid these complex issues, the Ekistics principles provide a comprehensive framework, advocating for harmonious urbanization and balanced territorial development. These principles prioritize the incorporation of ethical, social, environmental, and economic considerations into urban planning and governance processes. Nevertheless, critics argue that sustaining the capitalist system poses a challenge to achieving harmonious settlements, balanced urbanization, and the preservation of natural, environmental, and cultural values. This paper underscores the significance and relevance of Ekistics principles in shaping the discourse around Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It contends that revolutionary changes in globalization, communications technology, and industrial development mandate a reevaluation of existing approaches to address the most pressing global issues and their potential solutions. By highlighting the Ekistics principles, this article contributes to a nuanced understanding of the intricate dynamics shaping urban living in the contemporary era. The analysis aims to stimulate a reorientation of prevailing strategies and policies, fostering a more sustainable and harmonious trajectory for global urbanization.

A Possibility for Environmentalists to Deny Intrinsic Value in Nature

A Possibility for Environmentalists to Deny Intrinsic Value in Nature

FinTech and Climate Action, and Affordable and Clean Energy

In this study we analyse FinTech (financial technology) tools and their role in achieving sustainable development. FinTech strives to improve and streamline the provision of financial services. As a modern technology, it can significantly contribute to the sustainable development and it has a capacity to foster a more inclusive and more equitable society. FinTech promotes sustainable development by ensuring green finance, reducing costs and informational inequities, promoting efficiency, appreciating the value of nature's assets, and promoting realistic sustainable lifestyles. Bibliometric analysis shows growing importance and extensive use of the financial technology in achieving SDGs, especially in SDG 13 Climate Action. Green FinTech is focused on emerging trends that are associated with protecting the environment and impacts of climate change. Green finance is supporting environmentally friendly investments and advancing low-carbon technologies, projects and businesses.In accelerating the sustainable development several FinTech tools have been recognized: robo-advisors for environmentally friendly expenditures, payment tokens to be used for peer-to-peer power associations, and blockchain technologies for environmentally conscious supply chains and financial inventiveness. FinTech advances financial inclusion, sustainable finance, and sustainable investment while harnessing innovations in technology and financial services. Governments, legislators, financial institutions, and tech firms must work together to establish a supportive climate that takes advantage of the FinTech while assuring that it is used responsibly.

Estimating conservation value and natural capital value of land cover classes in the Irish National Land Cover Map and application to a case study area

Conservation science and planning, by measuring proxies of biodiversity and ecosystem services provision, aim to identify priority areas for nature conservation and ecosystem services. In Ireland, fine-scale data on ecosystems functioning and biodiversity are limited, making it challenging to map conservation value (CV) and natural capital value (NCV) accurately. We elicited expert knowledge to rank habitat classes mapped in the recently published National Land Cover Map (NLCM) (EPA and Tailte Éireann, 2023). A scoring system from 0 to 10 was used to score habitats based on their estimated provision of biodiversity (CV) and ecosystem services (NCV). As a case study, we applied this scoring system to a catchment in the south-east of Ireland (>2,000 km2) with land cover information available from the draft NLCM. The expert elicitation showed little overall difference between the scores assigned by the team and the experts invited to validate the CV and NCV scores. However, some scores were revised based on experts’ contributions. Results of the mapping exercise indicated a high correlation between monads with high CV and high NCV scores. Future work should focus on differentiating the weighting assigned to each ecosystem service associated with each land cover class. This could result in changes in the overall NCV scores assigned to each habitat (and monads). Nevertheless, the approach developed here has the potential to identify areas in the landscape that should be targeted for conservation. For reproducibility, we provide the R code for analysis at polygon scale.

КОНСТИТУЦИОННАЯ КУЛЬТУРА РОССИЯН НА ЭТАПЕ ПЕРЕХОДА ОТ ЛИБЕРАЛИЗАЦИИ КОНСТИТУЦИОННО-ПРАВОВОГО ПРОСТРАНСТВА К ЗАЩИТЕ ТРАДИЦИОННЫХ ЦЕННОСТЕЙ

The purpose of the study is to analyze the state of modern constitutional culture in the era of changing political and ideological guidelines, the transition from a liberal-universal model of constitutional development to a nationally oriented one.The objectives of the study are the following: to determine the main characteristics of the state of constitutional culture in the era of excessive enthusiasm for universal liberal values at the end of the last century; analyze the main trends in the processes of constitutional and legal reform in the light of the ideas of protecting constitutional identity, ensuring constitutional sovereignty and protecting traditional values; consider the impact of the constitutional reform of 2020 on the qualitative change in the constitutional culture of Russians, its significance for determining the future paths of constitutional and legal development of Russia, and identify the positive and most controversial aspects of the reform. The work used general scientific, special scientific and special research methods. Based on the results of the study, the author concludes that today a steady trend has formed towards reforming the constitutional and legal space - the ideas of liberal universalization are opposed to the ideas of constitutional identity and the protection of traditional values. At one time, the new Russian Constitution was designed to take into account all the shortcomings of decades of socialist construction and act not as a document of a political-declaratory nature, but as a basis for the creation of a state and society of a fundamentally new type. According to the author, excessive passion for borrowed values of a universal nature has had the most negative impact on the state of the constitutional culture of Russians. However, even today it is obvious that a well-developed theoretical structure that would relatively accurately and legally definitely outline the main directions of further constitutional development, in line with the development of the idea of protecting traditional values, does not exist today, which is especially noticeable in the example of documents of a programmatic and political nature . The constitutional reform of 2020, according to the author, reflected new trends and approaches to the idea of ensuring constitutional identity and symbolized significant changes in constitutional culture, including at the level of ordinary consciousness of ordinary Russians who were directly involved in the process of constitutional reform. However, the author concludes that the constitutional reform is incomplete, which generally characterizes the state of domestic constitutional culture.

RPM: RF-Based Pose Machines

Radio-frequency (RF) based human sensing technologies, due to their great practical value in various applications and privacy-preserving nature, have gained tremendous attention in recent years. However, without fully exploiting the characteristics of radio signals, the performance of existing methods are still limited. First, RF features of the moving human body have different representations in dimensions such as channel and scale, which is challenging when performing feature fusion. Besides, the human body is specularly reflective with respect to the radar, which means the human body cannot be fully captured by a single RF snapshot. Therefore, the radar signal reflected by the human body is sparse and incomplete, which is difficult to extract high-quality features for 3D human pose estimation. In this paper, we present the RF-based Pose Machines (RPM), a novel framework which can generate 3D skeletons from RF signals. Considering the characteristics of RF signals, RPM includes several modules to overcome the challenges. Firstly, a Feature Fusion Network (FFN) is designed to effectively fuse radio signals from horizontal and vertical planes based on the channels' correlation and maintain high-quality feature via a multi-scale fusion block. A Spatio-Temporal Attention network is then designed to reconstruct 3D skeletons from the sparse and incomplete RF signals. Specifically, a spatial attention module is designed to model non-local relationships among joints and reconstruct body parts that a single RF snapshot cannot capture. Afterwards, a temporal attention module is proposed to refine 3D pose based on temporal coherency learned from frame queries. To evaluate the performance of our RPM framework, we construct a large-scale dataset of synchronized 3d skeletons and RF signals, RFSkeleton3D. Our experimental results show that RPM locates 3D key points of the human body with an average error of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5.71 cm$</tex-math></inline-formula> and maintains its performance in new environments with occlusion or bad illumination. The dataset and codes will be made in public.

ІННОВАЦІЙНІ НАПРЯМКИ УПРАВЛІННЯ ЕКОЛОГІЧНИМ ТУРИЗМОМ В УКРАЇНІ В КОНТЕКСТІ СТАЛОГО РОЗВИТКУ

The article examines modern approaches to ecological tourism as a complex management system, which includes environmental educational and educational activities among participants. The main task of this model is to achieve economic goals while simultaneously preserving nature and cultural values for future generations. The article examines how economic, environmental, social and political aspects have contributed to the rapid progress of ecotourism. It was discussed how ecotourism can become a means not only for economic growth, but also for the preservation of the ecosystem and cultural heritage. Much attention is paid to the importance of applying the latest management approaches, infrastructure development and conducting educational programs for communities. The importance of establishing ecological routes with proper information and safe infrastructure is highlighted, as well as the formation of clear rules for tourists. The role of monitoring and control over compliance with environmental norms for the adaptation of tourist activities is revealed. The importance of local population participation in ecotourism projects for economic development and raising environmental awareness is emphasized. Ecotourism is presented as a tool for the protection of nature and culture, while offering ways of social and economic progress. International experience in the field of ecotourism is also mentioned, showing its impact on local communities, regional economies and the environment. Based on this experience, recommendations are offered for adapting global best practices to local conditions to create a sustainable ecotourism environment. The conclusions call for an integrated approach to the development of ecotourism, which requires the joint actions of government, business, local communities and international organizations. The article emphasizes the importance of creating an effective ecotourism management system that provides a balance between the needs of tourists, environmental protection, and economic interests of regions. The need to involve the public and the private sector in the development and implementation of projects in the field of ecotourism is also emphasized.

APPLICATION OF TWISTER SUPERSONIC GAS-LIQUID SEPARATOR FOR IMPROVED NATURAL GAS RECOVERY IN A PROCESS STREAM

Natural gas is one of the most precious natural resources that generates foreign earnings for its host nation. Energy is the building block of modern society and natural gas is one of the cleanest primary energy sources. The production and subsequent recovery of natural gas is a challenging aspect of the entire natural gas value chain. One of the problems associated with natural gas utilization is the extraction and conditioning of the gas, as most of the fractions are extracted with certain percentages of water and other contaminants. To solve the problem of liquid carryover and gas entrainment in gas processing and recover an excellent volume of gas, several types of gas separators have been developed. This case study aims to solve the problem of gas wastage and recurrent plant downtime. Notore Chemical Industries is our focus as one of the largest natural gas consumers, situated in Rivers State Nigeria. The company has several plant downtimes due to the inefficiency of the conventional separator. The inefficiency of the installed knock-out drum separator in dispersing the condensate from the feed supplied by Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) and delivering the required dry gas to the plant battery limit has been one of the leading causes of the plant recording downtime. This work presents a reliable separation process using the Twister supersonic gas separator to recover a high percentage of dry natural gas (Methane). Feed gas data was collected from the plant after several visits and a computer-based simulation was conducted. From the simulation using the Aspen Hysys package, it was seen that the Twister supersonic gas separator is more efficient than the knockout drum separator. Less methane and less condensate were produced using the knockout drum separator at 0.699% and 0.092% respectively while the Twister supersonic gas separator produced methane and condensate at 95.15% and less condensate at 0.0047% respectively.

Ecotourism branding in protected areas of Iran: Using an efficient hybrid multi‐criteria decision‐making method model

AbstractEcotourism, as a nature‐based sustainable tourism, raises awareness about the protection of natural and cultural landscape values. This study aims to determine the ecotourism criteria to develop strategies for a sustainable ecotourism branding in Golestan, located in the northeast of Iran. To reach this aim, Strengths‐Weaknesses‐Opportunities‐Threats (SWOT) analysis, multi‐criteria decision‐making methods consisting of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and Best and Worst Method (BWM) were integrated. The most appropriate ecotourism strategies for the branding of the study area were ranked according to their priorities. The results of this study reveal that among the 5 main and 20 sub ecotourism criteria, “having natural protected areas,” which is an opportunity, and “having ecological values,” which is a strength, were determined as the highest priority strategies for ecotourism branding. The methods and results of this quantitative‐based research present an exemplary hybrid model that prioritizes the strategies required for branding ecotourism in similar protected areas.

MEASURING THE SMALL LINEAR DISPLACEMENTS BY THE PHASE METHOD

A measuring device with a differential capacitive measuring transducer (CMT) designed to measure small linear displacements is considered. The CMT has a plane-parallel design of the plates, the natural input value is the change in the gap between the plates. In the measuring circuit (MC), model resistors with the same resistance are connected in series with the sensitive elements of the CMT. The voltage dividers formed by these connections are powered by counter currents of a high-frequency sinusoidal voltage generator. An informative measurement parameter is the phase shift angle between the two output voltages of the MC. These voltages are supplied to the analog inputs of the programmable microcontroller (PMC). The PMC controls the measurement process, measures the specified phase shift angle and determines the measured displacement. Thanks to the used algorithm for processing the measurement results, a ratiometric output signal is obtained to determine the measured displacement. This ensures high metrological characteristics of the meter. The theory of the meter's functioning, the features of the choice of nodes, and the method of calculating the parameters of the MC elements are described. A methodology for the theoretical study of measurement errors has been developed, and the results of their calculation for the implemented version of the meter are presented. It is substantiated that the relative measurement error of the developed device for small linear displacements does not exceed 0.065%. Ensuring high measurement accuracy is also due to the use of phase signals instead of potential-current signals.

Characterization of the natural resource potential of the agricultural zone of the Krasnoyarsk territory

The aim of the study was to determine the natural resource potential of the agricultural territories in the agricultural regions of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and to investigate the fundamental characteristics of climatic conditions. Location and time of the study. The study utilized multi-year data (from 1978 to 2020) from 22 meteorological stations located in the natural districts of the Krasnoyarsk Territory to analyze climatic conditions. Methods. A georesource database was used to assess the natural resource potential (NRP), including information about soils, agroclimatic parameters, and their impact on agricultural crops. Soils and climatic parameters were ranked on a scale of 5 to 100. The NRP assessment was categorized as follows (points): 1–20 – low; 21–40 – below average; 41–60 – average; 61–80 – above average; 81–100 – high. Climatic conditions were analyzed based on multi-year data from meteorological stations in different natural regions of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, using trend analysis and data smoothing methods to identify dynamics. Results. The natural resource potential values vary from 32.5 points for the northern forest-steppe podzolic soils in the Kansk Natural District to 62.5 points for chernozems (black soils) in the northern forest-steppe of the South Minusinsk Natural District. Weighted average NRP values for the agricultural territories of the Krasnoyarsk Krai increase in the following sequence (points): subtaiga (38.0) – Kansk Natural District (45.4) –Krasnoyarsk Natural District (46.3) – Achinsk-Bogotol Natural District (47.4) – Chulymo-Yenisei Natural District (47.8) – Nazarovo Natural District (49.4) – South Minusinsk Natural District (54.3). Conclusions. Climate warming, accompanied by significant increases in summer and winter precipitation, milder winters, and prolonged growing seasons favorable for agricultural crops and varieties, will have a positive impact on the NRP of the region's agrolandscapes, promoting the development of commercial agriculture, especially in the forest-steppe zone. The range of agricultural crops and varieties may expand. Cultivating winter and hard wheat varieties is expected to become more effective. Improved natural conditions will contribute to bringing long abandoned lands into agricultural production. Changes in soil regimes and properties will lead to the transformation of agricultural crop cultivation technologies.