Description: As part of the activities of the Global Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (GEOHAB)programme, Open Science Meetings (OSMs) have been organized to discuss and synthesize research efforts on various aspects of harmful algal blooms (HABs), and to plan future collaborative activities relevant to the research theme. Within this framework, the steering committee of the GEOHAB Core Research Project on HABs in Fjords and Coastal Embayments has organized two OSMs. The first OSM was held in 2004 in Santiago, Chile; the major goals were to identify the primary research priorities and to initiate an agenda to further our understanding of HAB dynamics in these small-scale coastal systems. The second OSM was held in May 2012 in Victoria,Canada to highlight the progress accomplished since the first OSM and to focus attention on the importance of a comparative approach in conducting ecosystem studies to improve our understanding of HABs. This second OSM addressed four major themes for which significant advances have been made in recent years, with particular focus on their application to semi-enclosed basins linked to coastal ecosystems: (1) Life history of HAB species; (2) Chemical ecological and toxin interactions; (3) Genetic diversity and (4) Transport and mixing of blooms in small-scale, mesoscale and semi-confined systems. This Report presents the major outcomes of this OSM, followed by recommendations for future collaborative studies. These recommendations include the maintenance of international activities on the ecology and oceanography of HABs after the end of the GEOHAB programme in December 2013. A future agenda should focus on a few key questions with clearly identifiable deliverables. These questions should include the development of (i) improved methods to determine the rates of cyst formation and germination in the field, and (ii) coupled biological-physical-chemical models more appropriate to small-scale environments and which incorporate the role of allelochemicals and toxins, as well as the pelagic and benthic coupling components. Research devoted to life history stages should be continued, particularly with respect to fish-killing algal species that cause particular damage in coastal environments. The influence of aquaculture activities on the development of HABs is poorly understood and should be of greater concern in future research on HABs. The influence of climate change, which may be exacerbated in coastal environments, also should be a focus of future research. Long-term ecological research should be encouraged in this respect, in order to make better predictions in the future concerning the development of HABs in coastal environments.

Description: Consumption of natural resources should not exceed sustainable levels. The increasing use of biofuels and to some extent biomaterials, on top of rising food and feed demands, is causing countries to use a growing amount of global land, which may lead to land use conflicts and the expansion of cropland and intensive cultivation at the expense of natural ecosystems. Selective product certification cannot control the land use change triggered by growing overall biomass consumption. We propose a comprehensive approach to account for the global land use of countries for their domestic consumption, and assess this level with regard to globally acceptable levels of resource use, based on the concept of safe operating space. It is shown that the European Union currently uses one-third more cropland than globally available on a per capita basis and that with constant consumption levels it would exceed its fair share of acceptable resource use in 2030. As the use of global forests to meet renewable energy targets is becoming a concern, an approach to account for sustainable levels of timber flows is also proposed, based on the use of net annual increment, exemplified with preliminary data for Switzerland. Altogether, our approach would integrate the concept of sustainable consumption into national resource management plans; offering a conceptual basis and concrete reference values for informed policy making and urging countries to monitor and adjust their levels of resource consumption in a comprehensive way, respectful of the limits of sustainable supply.

Description: The scope of this Science Plan is to describe the scientific background, applications, and activities related to the EnMAP mission. Primarily, the Science Plan addresses scientists and funding institutions, but it may also be of interest for environmental stakeholders and governmental bodies. It is conceived to be a living document that will be updated throughout the whole mission. Current global challenges call for interdisciplinary approaches. Hence, the science plan is not structured in the traditional disciplinary way. Instead, it builds on overarching research themes to which EnMAP can contribute. This Science Plan comprises the following five chapters presenting the significance, background, framework, applications, and strategy of the EnMAP mission: Chapter 2 highlights the need for EnMAP data with respect to major environmental issues and various stakeholders. This chapter states the mission’s main objectives and provides a list of research themes addressing global challenges to whose understanding and management EnMAP can contribute. Chapter 3 presents an overview of the EnMAP mission from a scientific point of view including a brief description of the mission parameters, data products and access, and calibration/validation issues. Chapter 4 provides an overview of hyperspectral remote sensing regarding its principles, development, and current state and synergies to other satellite missions. Chapter 5 describes current lines of research and EnMAP applications to address the research themes presented in Chapter 2. Finally, Chapter 6 outlines the scientific exploitation strategy, which includes the strategy for community building, dissemination of knowledge and increasing public awareness.

Description:    Pesticides are widely used in modern agriculture to minimize financial losses and maintain food supplies. In southeast Asia, where agriculture is the principal economic activity, pesticides are considered essential, particularly in tropical regions seeking to enter the global economy by providing off-season fresh fruits and vegetables. The absence of a strong legal framework for pesticides facilitated a significant increase in the use of low-quality pesticides. Farmers ignore the risks, safety instructions, and protective directives when using pesticides. They are only concerned about the effectiveness of the pesticides for killing pests, without paying attention to the effects on their health and the environment. The improper usage of pesticides and the incorrect disposal of pesticide wastes contributed to the pollution of groundwater, surface water, and soil, and induced health problems in local communities. This paper describes the impact of the exposure of pesticides on human health and water resources in connection with the usage of pesticides and their management. Because of availability, the data are mainly taken for Northern Vietnam, and applied to the water quality in the delta; nevertheless, the problem relates to all countries in the delta, and similar situations may be found in other regions, particularly in Asia. Content Type Journal Article Category ORIGINAL ARTICLE Pages 1-9 DOI 10.1007/s10163-012-0081-x Authors Pham Thi Thuy, Laboratory of Applied Physical Chemistry and Environmental Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, K.U. Leuven, W. de Croylaan 46, 3001 Leuven, Belgium Steven Van Geluwe, Laboratory of Applied Physical Chemistry and Environmental Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, K.U. Leuven, W. de Croylaan 46, 3001 Leuven, Belgium Viet-Anh Nguyen, Institute of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, 55 Giai Phong Road, Hanoi, Vietnam Bart Van der Bruggen, Laboratory of Applied Physical Chemistry and Environmental Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, K.U. Leuven, W. de Croylaan 46, 3001 Leuven, Belgium Journal Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management Online ISSN 1611-8227 Print ISSN 1438-4957

Description: A comprehensive understanding of the deep-sea environment and mining’s likely impacts is necessary to assess whether and under what conditions deep-seabed mining operations comply with the International Seabed Authority’s obligations to prevent ‘serious harm’ and ensure the ‘effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects’ in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. A synthesis of the peer-reviewed literature and consultations with deep-seabed mining stakeholders revealed that, despite an increase in deep-sea research, there are few categories of publicly available scientific knowledge comprehensive enough to enable evidence-based decision-making regarding environmental management, including whether to proceed with mining in regions where exploration contracts have been granted by the International Seabed Authority. Further information on deep-sea environmental baselines and mining impacts is critical for this emerging industry. Closing the scientific gaps related to deep-seabed mining is a monumental task that is essential to fulfilling the overarching obligation to prevent serious harm and ensure effective protection, and will require clear direction, substantial resources, and robust coordination and collaboration. Based on the information gathered, we propose a potential high-level road map of activities that could stimulate a much-needed discussion on the steps that should be taken to close key scientific gaps before any exploitation is considered. These steps include the definition of environmental goals and objectives, the establishment of an international research agenda to generate new deep-sea environmental, biological, and ecological information, and the synthesis of data that already exist.

Description: To determine the relationships between the functional trait composition of forest communities and environmental gradients across scales and biomes and the role of species relative abundances in these relationships.

Description: While environmental science, and ecology in particular, is working to provide better understanding to base sustainable decisions on, the way scientific understanding is developed can at times be detrimental to this cause. Locked-in debates are often unnecessarily polarised and can compromise any common goals of the opposing camps. The present paper is inspired by a resolved debate from an unrelated field of psychology where Nobel laureate David Kahneman and Garry Klein turned what seemed to be a locked-in debate into a constructive process for their fields. The present paper is also motivated by previous discourses regarding the role of thresholds in natural systems for management and governance, but its scope of analysis targets the scientific process within complex social-ecological systems in general. We identified four features of environmental science that appear to predispose for locked-in debates: (1) The strongly context-dependent behaviour of ecological systems. (2) The dominant role of single hypothesis testing. (3) The high prominence given to theory demonstration compared investigation. (4) The effect of urgent demands to inform and steer policy. This fertile ground is further cultivated by human psychological aspects as well as the structure of funding and publication systems.

Description: 38th IAMSLIC Conference: Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.A., August 26-30, 2012, held jointly with the 24th Cyamus Meeting: August 24-25

Description: Food webs are central entities mediating processes and external pressures in marine ecosystems. They are essential to understand and predict ecosystem dynamics and provision of ecosystem services. Paradoxically, utilization of food web knowledge in marine environmental conservation and resource management is limited. To better understand the use of knowledge and barriers to incorporation in management, we assess its application related to the management of eutrophication, chemical contamination, fish stocks, and non-indigenous species. We focus on the Baltic, a severely impacted, but also intensely studied and actively managed semi-enclosed sea. Our assessment shows food web processes playing a central role in all four areas, but application varies strongly, from formalized integration in management decisions, to support in selecting indicators and setting threshold values, to informal knowledge explaining ecosystem dynamics and management performance. Barriers for integration are complexity of involved ecological processes and that management frameworks are not designed to handle such information. We provide a categorization of the multi-faceted uses of food web knowledge and benefits of future incorporation in management, especially moving towards ecosystem-based approaches as guiding principle in present marine policies and directives. We close with perspectives on research needs to support this move considering global and regional change.

Description: The ability of management strategies to achieve the fishery management goals are impacted by environmental variation and, therefore, also by global climate change. Management strategies can be modified to use environmental data using the "dynamic B 0 " concept, and changing the set of years used to define biomass reference points. Two approaches have been developed to apply management strategy evaluation to evaluate the impact of environmental variation on the performance of management strategies. The "mechanistic approach" estimates the relationship between the environment and elements of the population dynamics of the fished species and makes predictions for population trends using the outputs from global climate models. In contrast, the "empirical approach" examines possible broad scenarios without explicitly identifying mechanisms. Many reviewed studies have found that modifying management strategies to include environmental factors does not improve the ability to achieve management goals much, if at all, and only if the manner in which these factors drive the system is well known. As such, until the skill of stock projection models improves, it seems more appropriate to consider the implications of plausible broad forecasts related to how biological parameters may change in the future as a way to assess the robustness of management strategies, rather than attempting specific predictions per se .