Study shows Brazil’s Soy Moratorium still needed to preserve Amazon

Soybeans grow near a forested area in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. Under the Soy Moratorium, major trading companies do not purchase soybeans produced in the Brazilian Amazon on recently deforested areas. Credit: Lisa Rausch

Today, fewer chicken nuggets can trace their roots to cleared Amazon rain forest.

In 2006, following a report from Greenpeace and under pressure from consumers, large companies like McDonald's and Wal-Mart decided to stop using soy grown on cleared forestland in the Brazilian Amazon. This put pressure on commodity traders, such as Cargill, who in turn agreed to no longer purchase soy from farmers who cleared rain forest to expand soy fields.

The private sector agreement, a type of supply chain governance, is called the Soy Moratorium and it was intended to address the deforestation caused by soy production in the Amazon. In a new study to evaluate the agreement, published today (Jan. 22, 2015) in Science, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Holly Gibbs and colleagues across the U.S. and Brazil show that the moratorium helped to drastically reduce the amount of deforestation linked to soy production in the region and was much better at curbing it than governmental policy alone.

"What we found is that before the moratorium, 30 percent of soy expansion occurred through deforestation, and after the moratorium, almost none did; only about 1 percent of the new soy expansion came at the expense of forest," says Gibbs, a professor of environmental studies and geography in the UW-Madison Nelson Institute's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE).

Between 2001 and 2006, prior to the moratorium, soybean fields in the Brazilian Amazon expanded by 1 million hectares, or nearly 4,000 square miles, contributing to record deforestation rates. By 2014, after eight years of the moratorium, almost no additional forest was cleared to grow new soy, even though soy production area had expanded another 1.3 million hectares. Farmers were planting on already cleared land.

The findings are intended to help policy makers and industry leaders make informed decisions going forward.

"We really wanted to understand if the Soy Moratorium mattered," says Gibbs. "There was a lot of discussion about ending the moratorium in 2014 and we wanted to know what the agreement meant on the ground and how it compared with governmental policy, which is the proposed replacement."

Brazil, Gibbs says, has some of the world's most stringent environmental legislation. Public policies, including increased enforcement of state and federal laws, have gone a long way to slow the destruction of rain forest. Yet, the study shows that "government policy alone is simply not enough," Gibbs says. At least, not yet.

Photo: Brazilian farmers examine their soybean crop Brazilian farmers examine their soybean crop. Credit: Lisa Rausch

Using 15 years (2000-2014) of satellite-based imagery covering the Brazilian Amazon forest and the Cerrado, another large tropical biome in Brazil comprising woodlands and scrublands, the researchers assessed how much land had been cleared to grow soy. They examined land use on thousands of individual farms and identified substantial large-scale deforestations not penalized by Brazilian authorities.

The team also mapped already-cleared areas suitable for soy production to assess the potential for future expansion under the Soy Moratorium and determined how much illegal deforestation was still occurring for purposes other than soy and in direct violation of Brazil Forest Code laws.

What the team found was surprising.

"Only 115 people out of several thousand soy farmers have violated the Soy Moratorium since 2006, but over 600 of them have violated the Forest Code," Gibbs says. "So, this same group of farmers is five times more likely to violate the governmental policy than they are to violate the private sector agreement."

For instance, the Forest Code dictates that 80 percent of Amazon rain forest on a person's property must be held in reserve; they can only clear 20 percent. Yet, just 2 percent of soy farmers have maintained their legal reserve and even farmers abiding by the moratorium were still illegally clearing forest on their properties, just not for growing soy.

A provision in the Forest Code also requires that property owners register their land, after which their name and a clear map of their property becomes publicly available. While the researchers say this is a huge step forward, the study found that property registration alone does not safeguard forests. For example, nearly a quarter of the illegal deforestation that occurred over the last year in the state of Mato Grosso, the Amazon's "soy capital," happened on these registered properties.

An island of forest in a sea of soy agriculture in Mato Grosso. Credit: Rhett Butler

Additionally, the researchers found that while soy-linked deforestation diminished in the Amazon biome, 20 percent of new soy areas created in the Cerrado over the study period directly led to deforestation. Expanding the moratorium to the Cerrado would reduce this conversion.

"It reinforces the idea that private sector interventions will be needed in the long term to maintain the deforestation-free production of soy," says Gibbs, who notes that soy is Brazil's most profitable crop and that most goes to feed animals produced for food. "Without the moratorium, chicken nuggets would once again contribute to rain forest destruction."

Implementing environmental laws across the Brazilian Amazon, an area more than six times the size of Texas, is a huge challenge, and Gibbs points out that enforcement has significantly ramped up in recent years. Despite this, the study found that government enforcement efforts capture only between 15 and 50 percent of illegal, large-scale deforestation. Even then, many factors make execution of fines and other penalties difficult.

Meanwhile, the study shows that a small number of soy traders, like Cargill, ADM and Bunge, have "a lot of power and control to influence land management decisions on the ground," says Gibbs.

The study also found there is enough already-cleared, suitable land in the Amazon to allow soy production area to expand by 600 percent. Presently, the area of land used to grow soy in the Amazon is comparable to the size of Vermont. Brazil rivals only the U.S. in terms of soy production and trade.

The team continues to use satellite data and field surveys to better understand deforestation dynamics and land use decisions in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, the most active land use frontiers in the world. Gibbs and colleagues are also conducting econometric analysis to evaluate the interplay between deforestation and the Soy Moratorium, one of the first voluntary zero-deforestation agreements in the world.

Ensuring this reduced deforestation continues is a priority for those involved, and Gibbs says new approaches to the policy — that combine elements from public and private strategies — are being considered.

"We work closely with policymakers, the agricultural industry and nongovernmental organizations, and aim to use our rigorous scientific analysis to help inform decisions going forward," Gibbs says.

The study was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation's Department for Civil Society, NASA and several Brazilian agencies. Co-authors include researchers from NASA; the University of Maryland, College Park; the National Wildlife Federation; Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte; IMAZON Institute of People and the Environment; and Instituto Centro de Vida.

Material Source: UW
Source: Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment(SAGE).

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Better dam planning strategies

This is a map showing combined effect of current and future dams. Credit: McGill University

When dams are built they have an impact not only on the flow of water in the river, but also on the people who live downstream and on the surrounding ecosystems. By placing data from close to 6,500 existing large dams on a highly precise map of the world's rivers, an international team led by McGill University researchers has created a new method to estimate the global impacts of dams on river flow and fragmentation.

Among their findings, published online today in Environmental Research Letters: 48% of the world's river volume is moderately or severely affected by dams today -- and that figure would nearly double if all dams planned or under construction are completed in the future.

"Over the past 60 years, a myriad of dams have been built either to provide hydroelectric power, or for irrigation purposes, or as flood protection," says Bernhard Lehner, a professor in McGill University's Department of Geography and the research director of the project. "The construction of large dams then slowed down for the last 20 years as we became more aware of their negative effects on people and ecosystems. But now, with fears about how climate change may affect water flows in the future, the goal of creating reservoirs is once more appealing, and dam construction is on the rise."

The new research was made possible by the team's development of a global river map with unprecedented resolution and detail, showing all waterways of the world from small creeks to the largest of rivers, accounting for a cumulative river length of 48.3 million km -- and by a new map of future dam locations assembled by colleagues at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin.

The key components of the team's dam assessment method are two indices that describe river fragmentation and river regulation.

The river fragmentation index (RFI) is a measure of the way that a river's natural flow path (also known as its connectivity) has been disrupted by the creation of dams or by barriers that allow for the transfer of water between basins or towards irrigation areas, for example.

The river regulation index (RRI) is a measure of the proportion of the river water that can be stored in reservoirs, and thus affects the natural fluctuation and properties of river flow downstream.

By combining these two indices, the researchers have arrived at a way of assessing the impact of any existing or planned dam. So, for example, the Danube is severely impacted by fragmentation effects but is relatively weakly affected in terms of flow regulation due to many dams with relatively small reservoirs. The Murray-Darling basin in southern Australia, by contrast, is only weakly affected by fragmentation, but is heavily impacted by flow regulation, due to fewer but larger reservoirs.

"Not all dams are equal," says Günther Grill, a postdoctoral fellow in McGill University's Department of Geography and the lead author on the paper. "Our research assumes that it is not only the size of a dam but also where it is placed along the river that makes a difference. So depending on whether a dam is high up in the mountain headwaters or further down close to the delta, if it is on the main stem of the river or on a small tributary, all of these factors will have varying effects on the rivers and their surrounding ecosystems."

Researchers at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment and the University of Wisconsin's Center for Limnology also contributed to the study.

Some dam and river facts:

There are 6,374 large dams already in existence and 3,377 planned or proposed large dams to be built by 2030.

Currently 48% of the world's river volume is moderately or severely affected by either flow regulation or fragmentation or both.

Assuming that all the dams that are planned or under construction are completed, this number would almost double to 93%, largely due to multiple dams being planned for major tributaries in the Amazon Basin.

Other large rivers that are currently rather free-flowing but on which large dams are planned are the Mekong River in Southeast Asia and the Amur River in Russia.

Source: McGill University

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How widespread is tax evasion? Cost of 'round-tripping,' a method investors use to avoid the tax collector

A new study puts a cost on "round-tripping," a method investors use to avoid the tax collector.
Credit: Illustration: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT

Tax evasion is widely assumed to be an eternal problem for governments -- but how widespread is it? For the first time, a new study, co-authored by an MIT professor, has put a cost on a particular kind of tax evasion, known as "round-tripping," that the U.S. government has been trying to thwart.

In round-tripping, U.S. investors move funds to offshore tax havens, then invest in U.S. equity and debt markets with these "foreign" funds. In essence, the U.S. investors are disguising themselves as foreign investors, who are not subject to the same tax rates on capital gains and interest income. The money is said to have made a "round trip" since it originates in the U.S., and winds up back in U.S. markets.

According to the study, published in the Journal of Finance, every 1 percent increase in the top U.S. tax rate leads to an increase of 2.1 percent to 2.8 percent in foreign portfolio investment (FPI) from tax havens. As of 2008, some $34 billion to $109 billion of FPI from those havens appears to have been invested in the U.S. via round-tripping, leading to a loss of $8 billion to $27 billion in tax revenue.

"The higher the tax rate, the more securities appear to be purchased from tax haven jurisdictions," says Michelle Hanlon, a professor of accounting at MIT. "This seems to indicate that U.S. individuals are pretending to be foreigners who then invest in the U.S. markets."

The paper, "Taking the Long Way Home: U.S. Tax Evasion and Offshore Investments in U.S. Equity and Debt Markets," is co-authored by Hanlon, Edward L. Maydew of the University of North Carolina, and Jacob R. Thornock of the University of Washington.

Hanlon and her co-authors have presented their findings to the staff of the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, among other groups interested in the results.

A subtle strategy for identifying evaders

To be sure, not all investments from tax havens are dubious, so the study employed a multiprong strategy. First, it looked at changes in investment levels from tax havens after changes in U.S. tax rates. Second, the study evaluated these changes in investment with an eye to whether or not the U.S. has a bilateral Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with the offshore sovereignty in question. TIEAs potentially allow the U.S. to find out considerably more information about the investments being made from those locations.

Sure enough, the researchers found that there is a decrease of up to 32 percent, in both equity and debt investments, when the U.S. creates a TIEA with other sovereign parties.

"The reverse effect we see is that when the U.S. enters into an exchange agreement, we see less investment from tax havens," adds Hanlon, who is the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Accounting at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

To be clear, Hanlon says, "It's very hard to identify tax evasion, because obviously people are trying to hide it." However, she adds, "Once we started seeing the data, we realized we could try to tackle this problem. We had to do a lot of tests to try to isolate the effect we're looking for, [and] we think it's a big step to try to put some numbers around this phenomenon."

The conclusions come from data collected by both the U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury, which allowed the researchers to piece together monthly flows of foreign investment into U.S. equity and debt markets.

Policy changes: What can be done?

Hanlon suggests that greater international cooperation will at least make this type of tax evasion more difficult and riskier. Additional TIEAs, for instance, would force some investors to go to greater lengths to engage in round-tripping.

"People always try to evade taxes, but [more TIEAs] will make it harder," Hanlon suggests. "And the more costly and risky it becomes, the costs will outweigh the benefits, at least on the margin, and the less likely people are to do it."

On the academic front, Hanlon recognizes that the study's findings present a wide range for the total cost of this tax evasion, but hopes the paper will be a spur to other scholars who may want to delve into the same topic.

"We felt it was important enough that someone try to do research like this, to get people thinking about other data sources and other ways to examine [tax evasion]," Hanlon says. 

"Our hope was that it would lead to more research and that people would take more risks to look at things like this."

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Climate change not responsible for altering forest tree composition, experts say

Eastern US forest canopy. Credit: Mary Ann Fajvan, West Virginia University, Bugwood.org

Change in disturbance regimes -- rather than a change in climate -- is largely responsible for altering the composition of Eastern forests, according to a researcher in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

Forests in the Eastern United States remain in a state of "disequilibrium" stemming from the clear-cutting and large-scale burning that occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s, contends Marc Abrams, professor of forest ecology and physiology.

Moreover, Abrams noted, since about 1930 -- during the Smokey Bear era -- aggressive forest-fire suppression has had a far greater influence on shifts in dominant tree species than minor differences in temperature.

"Looking at the historical development of Eastern forests, the results of the change in types of disturbances -- both natural and man-caused -- are much more significant than any change in climate," said Abrams, who is the Steimer Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management.

"Over the last 50 years, most environmental science has focused on the impact of climate change. In some systems, however, climate change impacts have not been as profound as in others. This includes the forest composition of the eastern U.S."

To determine how forest tree species have responded to changes in disturbance regimes, temperature and precipitation over long periods of time, Abrams collaborated with Gregory Nowacki, a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service office in Milwaukee, on a study of the tolerance and sensitivity of trees to various factors.

"Many ecological phenomena combine to direct vegetation trends over time, with climate and disturbance playing prominent roles," said Nowacki, who received his Ph.D under Abrams. "To help decipher their relative importance during Euro-American times, we employed a unique approach whereby tree species/genera were partitioned into temperature, shade tolerance and pyrogenicity classes and applied to comparative tree-census data."

The researchers compared presettlement -- original land survey data -- and current vegetation conditions in the eastern United States. Early tree surveys chronicle the westward progression of European land acquisition, with some dating back to the 1600s along the East Coast.

In the research, published online in Global Change Biology, researchers analyzed 190 datasets to determine the relative impacts of climate versus altered disturbance regimes for various biomes across the eastern United States. Because the Euro-American period from 1500 to today spans two major climatic periods -- from the Little Ice Age to the current Anthropocene -- the researchers expected vegetation changes consistent with warming.

"In most cases, however, European disturbance overrode regional climate change," Abrams said. "To the north, intensive and expansive early European disturbance resulted in the ubiquitous loss of conifers and large increases of Acer (maple), Populus (poplar) and Quercus (oak) in northern hardwoods, whereas to the south, these disturbances perpetuated the dominance of oak in central hardwoods."

Maple increases and associated mesophication -- the forest growing increasingly dense, cool, shady and moist in the absence of regular fire -- in oak-pine systems were delayed until mid-20th century fire suppression. This led to significant warm-to-cool shifts in temperature in which cool-adapted sugar maple increased and caused temperature-neutral changes in which warm-adapted red maple increased.

"In both cases, these shifts were attributed to fire suppression rather than climate change," Abrams said. "Because mesophication is ongoing, eastern U.S. forests formed during the catastrophic disturbance era followed by fire suppression will remain in climate disequilibrium into the foreseeable future."

Overall, he concluded, the results of the study suggest that altered disturbance regimes rather than climate had the greatest influence on vegetation composition and dynamics in the eastern United States over multiple centuries.

"Land-use change often trumped or negated the impacts of warming climate, and this needs greater recognition in climate change discussions, scenarios and model interpretations," he said.

Source: Penn State

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Is Sahara Desert several million years older than previously thought?

Sahara desert. Credit: © mrks_v / Fotolia

A team of scientists from Norway, France and China have revised the view that the Sahara desert has existed for only the last 2 to 3 million years.

The Sahara is the world's largest subtropical desert. During the last decades, numerous scientific studies have probed its geological and archeological archives seeking to reveal its history. Despite some important breakthroughs, there are still basic questions that lack satisfactory answers.

For example, how old is the Sahara desert? It is widely believed that Sahara desert first appeared during the last 2 to 3 million years, but recent discoveries such as ancient sand dunes and dust records in marine cores push the possible onset of Saharan aridity back in time by several million years. Until now, however, there have been no good explanations for such an early Sahara onset.

This study pinpoints the Tortonian stage (~7-11 million years ago) as a pivotal period for triggering North African aridity and creating the Sahara desert. Using snapshot simulations with the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM) model suite, the international team explored the climate evolution of North Africa through major tectonic shifts over the last 30 million years. They found that the region undergoes aridification with the shrinkage of the Tethys -- a giant ocean that was the origin of the modern Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas -- during the Tortonian.

The simulations are the first to show that the Tethys shrinkage has two main consequences for North African climate. First, it weakens the African summer monsoon circulations and dries out North Africa. Second, it enhances the sensitivity of the African summer monsoon and its associated rainfall to orbital forcing. The Tortonian stage thus marks the time when North Africa shifted from a permanently lush, vegetated landscape to a landscape experiencing arid/humid cycles on orbital time scales.

Interestingly, these major changes in North African climate and environment are coincident with an important time period for the emergence of early hominids.

Source: Uni Research

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Scale of declines of UK migratory birds wintering in Africa revealed

Yellow Wagtails have declined in the UK by 43% since 1995. Credit: Andy Hay; rspb-images.com

The migration of millions of birds across the face of the planet is one of nature's greatest annual events. Every spring some species move in one direction, while every autumn those same species move in the opposite one, very often linking continents.

Although these migration patterns are as regular as the seasons, monitoring is revealing that, for some species, fewer birds are making the journey each season as the populations of these birds, including species nesting in the UK, are declining rapidly.

The latest in the annual series of State of the UK's Birds report includes a migratory birds section, including trends for 29 migrant species which nest in the UK in summer and spend the winter around the Mediterranean, or in Africa south of the Sahara Desert. For the first time the recent population trends for these migratory species have been combined into an indicator revealing some marked differences between species that winter in different areas.

Species, such as Whinchat, Common Nightingale, Tree Pipit and Spotted Flycatcher, which winter in the humid zone of Africa -- stretching across the continent from southern Senegal to Nigeria and beyond -- show the most dramatic declines: the indicator for this group of species has dropped by just over 70% since the late 1980s. This contrasts with species, such as Sand martin, Common Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler, wintering in the arid zone (just below the Sahara desert). These species have fluctuated considerably since 1970, but show a less than 20% decline overall.

One of the most dramatic declines is that of the European Turtle-dove with a decline of 88% since 1995. The following species have also declined over the same period: Wood Warbler, 66%; European Pied Flycatcher, 53%; Spotted Flycatcher, 49%; Common Cuckoo, 49%; Common Nightingale, 43%; and Yellow Wagtail, 43%.

Concern about migratory bird species is growing and future editions of the State of the UK's Birds report will contain a regular update to the migratory bird indicator. To understand the changing status of the UK's migratory birds, researchers need to understand more about what's driving these declines. Evidence is currently being gathered from a variety of sources including tracking studies and on-the-ground surveys.

Martin Harper, RSPB Conservation Director, said: 'West Africa is the winter home for many species bird species that breed in the UK. But many of these birds that cross continents are in rapid decline. Their nomadic lifestyle, requiring sites and resources spread over vast distances across the globe makes identifying and understanding the causes of decline extremely complex.

'The problems may be in the UK or in West Africa, or indeed on migration in between the two.'

David Noble, Principal Ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), said: 'We can accurately monitor the patterns of decline in these once-familiar summer breeders thanks to several decades of careful observations by an army of volunteer birdwatchers. More recently, tracking devices have shed light on migratory routes and key wintering areas.

'To take appropriate action, further study is needed to determine the pressures faced in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as breeding here in the UK.'

Colette Hall, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) Species Monitoring Officer, said: 'The length of many bird migrations -- often thousands of miles -- makes it very difficult to pinpoint where and what is causing populations to fall.

'So the more information we can get all along the migration routes -- on land use changes, new infrastructure etc -- the better we can target protection measures. It's important that we help build up the capacity of local bird organisations and volunteers across the world to provide vital information through their own long-term monitoring.'

Alan Law, Director of Biodiversity Delivery at Natural England said: 'It is self-evident that effective conservation of a migratory species requires appropriate measures to be in place at each step of the migratory cycle.

'For some species, there is growing evidence of pressure on breeding success here in England. Our focus therefore is to ensure that well-managed habitats are available in this country so that migratory species can breed here successfully; this work involves close collaboration with land managers both on designated conservation sites and across the wider farmed countryside.'

David Stroud, Senior Ornithologist with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, said: 'Migratory birds depend on conservation actions in all the countries they move through in the course of their annual cycle.

'The UK is working with these countries to help improve the condition of their critical habitats through its participation in multi-lateral environmental agreements such as the Biodiversity Convention and the Ramsar Convention on wetlands.'

The State of the UK's Birds report also covers the UK's Overseas Territories. The latest evidence reveals mixed fortunes for two important albatross populations in the UK's Overseas Territories. Seventy per cent of the world's Black-browed Albatrosses nest in the Falkland Islands. A population increase here has allowed researchers to downgrade the extinction threat of this species from Endangered to Near Threatened. Sadly, the fortunes of the Grey-headed Albatross has deteriorated as declines have been reported in nesting colonies on South Georgia, which hosts half the world's population.

The State of the UK's Birds report is available online at: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/state-of-the-uks-birds_tcm9-383971.pdf

Source: BirdLife International

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'Non-echolocating' fruit bats actually do echolocate, with wing clicks

In a discovery that overturns conventional wisdom about bats, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Dec. 4 have found that Old World fruit bats -- long classified as "non-echolocating" -- actually do use a rudimentary form of echolocation. Perhaps most surprisingly, the clicks they emit to produce the echoes that guide them through the darkness aren't vocalizations at all. They are instead produced by the bats' wings, although scientists don't yet know exactly how the bats do it.

In a discovery that overturns conventional wisdom about bats, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on December 4 have found that Old World fruit bats--long classified as "non-echolocating"--actually do use a rudimentary form of echolocation. Perhaps most surprisingly, the clicks they emit to produce the echoes that guide them through the darkness aren't vocalizations at all. They are instead produced by the bats' wings, although scientists don't yet know exactly how the bats do it.

"I was surprised by the fact that all of the fruit bats we recorded clicked and by the fact that clicks are produced by the wings," says Yossi Yovel of Tel Aviv University in Israel. "Arjan and I still find that hard to believe."

Yovel and postdoctoral fellow Arjan Boonman got their first hint about the fruit bats from a friendly man on a bus in Indonesia who told them about a species of bat that clicked with its wings. As further confirmation, Boonman found a single old paper about a fruit bat with wings that clicked, but it wasn't clear whether those clicks were good for anything.

Rather than look for that one earlier-described species in particular, Yovel suggested something else: "Why not check other fruit bats?"

They selected a total of 19 wild individuals representing three species of fruit bat and different parts of the evolutionary family tree to find that all of them did produce audible clicks with their wings.

"We did all we could to prove it wrong, including sealing the bats' mouths and anesthetizing their tongues, but nothing stopped them from clicking, except for when we interfered with their wing flaps," Yovel says.

Further study showed that two of the three species increased their clicking rate by a factor of three to five or even more when placed in a dark tunnel, implying that the clicks are a natural behavior for the bats.

Tests of the animals' ability to find their way in the dark showed that the fruit bats do have echolocation abilities, although they are poorer than those of other echolocating species. The fruit bats constantly crashed into thick cables, but they could readily learn to discriminate between larger objects: an acoustically reflective black board versus a similar-looking sheet of cloth. Even with large objects, however, the fruit bats didn't exactly come in for a smooth landing, suggesting that their ability is rather rudimentary in comparison to that of bats that rely on clicks produced from their larynxes.

The findings are interesting in light of earlier suggestions that echolocation may have evolved initially for bats to identify and avoid crashing into large objects such as cave walls, Boonman and Yovel say. The new discovery in fruit bats offers insight into how this sophisticated ability in other bats may have evolved over time, although it is unlikely that the laryngeal clicks of those other bats evolved directly from fruit bats' wing clicks. In fact, Yovel says, it's possible that echolocation in bats has independently evolved many times.

"When we study extant species of echolocating bats, we see a developed sensory system that has been adapted and improved over millions of years of evolution," Yovel says. "The rudimentary echolocation of the fruit bat is one example of how the first types of echolocation may have evolved."

Source: Cell Press

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Improving forecasts for rain-on-snow flooding

Flooding in January 2009 closed a section of Interstate 5 south of Seattle.Washington State Dept. of Transportation Credit: Image courtesy of University of Washington

Many of the worst West Coast winter floods pack a double punch. Heavy rains and melting snow wash down the mountains together to breach riverbanks, wash out roads and flood buildings.

These events are unpredictable and difficult to forecast. Yet they will become more common as the planet warms and more winter precipitation falls as rain rather than snow.

University of Washington mountain hydrology experts are using the physics behind these events to better predict the risks.

"One of the main misconceptions is that either the rain falls and washes the snow away, or that heat from the rain is melting the snow," said Nicholas Wayand, a UW doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering. He will present his research Dec. 18 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Most of the largest floods on record in the western U.S. are associated with rain falling on snow. But it's not that the rain is melting or washing away the snow.

Instead, it's the warm, humid air surrounding the drops that is most to blame for the melting, Wayand said. Moisture in the air condenses on the cold snow just like water droplets form on a cold drink can. The energy released when the humid air condenses is absorbed by the snow. The other main reason is that rainstorms bring warmer air, and this air blows across the snow to melt its surface. His work support previous research showing that these processes provide 60 to 90 percent of the energy for melting.

Places that experience rain-on-snow flooding are cities on rivers that begin in the mountains, such as Sacramento, California, and Centralia, Washington. In the 1997 New Year's Day flood in Northern California, melting snow exacerbated flooding, which broke levees and caused millions of dollars in damage. The biggest recent rain-on-snow event in Washington was the 2009 flood in the Snoqualmie basin. And the Calgary flood in summer of 2013 included snow from the Canadian Rockies that caused rivers to overflow their banks.
The UW researchers developed a model by recreating the 10 worst rain-on-snow flooding events between 1980 and 2008 in three regions: the Snoqualmie basin in Washington state, the upper San Joaquin basin in central California and the East North Fork of the Feather River basin in southern California.

Their results allow them to gauge the risks for any basin and any incoming storm. The three factors that matter most, they found, are the shape of the basin, the elevation of the rain-to-snow transition before and during the storm, and the amount of tree cover. Basins most vulnerable to snowmelt are treeless basins with a lot of area within the rain-snow transition zone, where the precipitation can fall as snow and then rain.

Trees reduce the risk of flooding because they slow the storm's winds.

"If you've ever been in a forest on a windy day, it's a lot calmer," Wayand said. That slows the energy transferred from condensation and from contact with warm air to the snowpack.
Simulations also show that meltwater accounted for up to about a quarter of the total flooding. That supports earlier research showing that snow is not the main contributor to rain-on-snow floods, but cannot be neglected since it adds water to an already heavy winter rainstorm.

The complexity of mountain weather also plays a role.

"The increase in precipitation with elevation is much greater than usual for some of these storms," said Jessica Lundquist, a UW associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. "Higher flows can result from heavier rainfall rates at higher elevations, rather than from snowmelt."

In related work, Lundquist's group has developed a tennis-ball snow sensor and is measuring growth and melt of the snowpack in the foothills east of Seattle. The scientists aim to better understand how changes in climate and forestry practices might affect municipal water supplies and flood risks.

Wayand and another student in the group have developed a high school curriculum for Seattle teachers to explain rain-on-snow events and the physics behind why they occur. They hope to begin teaching the curriculum sometime next year.

The other collaborator on the work being presented in San Francisco is Martyn Clark at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

Source: University of Washington

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Recreational activity a major pollutant on Canadian coast of Pacific Ocean

This is University of Calgary associate professor in geography Stefania Bertazzon.
Credit: Robert Walker

From recreational boats and fishing vessels to commercial cruise ships and private marinas, a newly published study shows that oil discharges related to human maritime activity on the Canadian coast is posing a major threat to marine ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean.

The study -- published in the August edition of the journal Applied Geography, with University of Calgary associate professor in geography Stefania Bertazzon as lead author -- provides a geospatial analysis of oil discharges in the Canadian Pacific Ocean.

The findings show that a large portion of oil discharge within these waters stems from recreational activities, passenger traffic and fisheries. According to this scientific analysis -- conducted on oil spills observed by the National Aerial Surveillance Program with the use of remote sensing devices -- these sources are polluting the ocean along the British Columbia coast more than oil tankers and commercial cargo ships.

"Cargo ships and oil tankers are much more regulated with portside inspections and they have to meet certain standards," explains Bertazzon. "They're very aware of this surveillance and this is probably why our analysis suggests that they are responsible for a smaller portion of detected oil discharges. They have to be more careful."

Bertazzon adds: "We're not saying that cargo ships and oil tankers are not polluting. What we are saying is that they are not the only source of pollution in the Canadian Pacific Ocean."
Bertazzon and her co-authors explain that fuel docks for recreational and fishing vessels can be problematic. "We know that there's a lot of oil discharge in these fuel docks, which is largely uncontrolled," she says.

"One thing that happens in these marinas is there's a lot of old boats which have been sitting there for years slowly leaking into the ocean. These are not huge spills. It's a relatively small discharge. But there's a lot of these derelict vessels and together they make for a large source of pollution."

While there's no denying the impact of large-scale oil industry disasters such as the Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010, Bertazzon argues that the oil discharges related to maritime activities are even more devastating to marine ecosystems in the long run.
"There is scientific evidence to show that these day to day activities have a larger impact on the wild life and the marine ecosystem than those accidents that are huge, but limited in space and time," says Bertazzon. "What we're talking about happens every day, all along the coast. The impact is longer term and over a larger spatial extent."

Source:  University of Calgary

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The Composite plane life cycle assessment shows lighter planes are the future

Boeing Dreamliner 787. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Sheffield

A global fleet of composite planes could reduce carbon emissions by up to 15 per cent, but the lighter planes alone will not enable the aviation industry to meet its emissions targets, according to new research.

The study, by the Universities of Sheffield, Cambridge and University College London, is the first to carry out a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of a composite plane, such as the Boeing Dreamliner 787 or Airbus 350, and extrapolate the results to the global fleet.
The LCA covers manufacture, use and disposal, using publicly available information on the Boeing Dreamliner 787 fuselage and from the supply chain -- such as the energy usage of the robots that construct the planes. The study compares the results to the traditional -- and heavier -- aluminium planes.

Emissions during the manufacture of composite planes are over double those of aluminium planes. But because the lighter aircraft use significantly less fuel, these increased emissions are offset after just a few international flights. Over its lifetime, a composite plane creates up to 20 per cent fewer CO2 emissions than its aluminium equivalent.

Professor in Advanced Materials Technologies at the University of Sheffield, Alma Hodzic, said: "This study shows that the fuel consumption savings with composites far outweigh the increased environmental impact from their manufacture. Despite ongoing debates within the industry, the environmental and financial savings from composites mean that these materials offer a much better solution."

The researchers fed the data from the LCA into a wider transport model to gauge the impact on CO2 emissions as composite planes are introduced into the global fleet over the next 25 years, taking into account other factors including population, economic prosperity, oil prices and speed of adoption of the new technology.

The study -- published in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment -- estimated that by 2050, composite planes could reduce emissions from the global fleet by 14-15 per cent relative to a fleet that maintains its existing aluminium-based configuration.

Professor in Energy and Transport at UCL, Andreas Schäfer, explains: "The overall emissions reduction for the global fleet is lower than the reduction for an individual plane, partly, because by 2050, not all the fleet will be of composite construction. New planes entering the fleet before 2020 could still be in use by 2050, but the faster the uptake of this technology, the greater the environmental benefits will be."

Dr Lynette Dray from the University of Cambridge added: "Given that global air traffic is projected to increase four-fold between now and 2050, changing the materials used could avoid 500 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2050 alone, a value that roughly corresponds to current emission levels."

Professor Hodzic commented: "The industry target is to halve CO2 emissions for all aircrafts by 2020 and while composites will contribute to this, it cannot be achieved by the introduction of lighter composite planes alone. However, our findings show that composites -- alongside other technology and efficiency measures -- should be part of the picture."

Source: University of Sheffield

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New study explains the role of oceans in 'global warming hiatus'

Warming hiatus illustrated.
Credit: Image courtesy of University of Southampton

New research shows that ocean heat uptake across three oceans is the likely cause of the ‘warming hiatus’ – the current decade-long slowdown in global surface warming. Using data from a range of state-of-the-art ocean and atmosphere models, the research shows that the increased oceanic heat drawdown in the equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Ocean basins has played a significant role in the hiatus.

Using data from a range of state-of-the-art ocean and atmosphere models, the research shows that the increased oceanic heat drawdown in the equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Ocean basins has played a significant role in the hiatus.

The new analysis has been published in Geophysical Research Letters by Professor Sybren Drijfhout from the University of Southampton and collaborators from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) Dr Adam Blaker, Professor Simon Josey, Dr George Nurser and Dr Bablu Sinha, together with Dr Magdalena Balmaseda from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF).

Professor Drijfhout said: "This study attributes the increased oceanic heat drawdown in the equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Ocean to specific, different mechanisms in each region. This is important as current climate models have been unable to simulate the hiatus. Our study gives clues to where the heat is drawn down and by which processes. This can serve as a benchmark for climate models on how to improve their projections of future global mean temperature."

Previously, the drawdown of heat by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean over the hiatus period, due to cool sea-surface temperatures associated with a succession of cool-surface La Nina episodes, was thought to be sufficient to explain the hiatus.

However, this new analysis reveals that the northern North Atlantic, the Southern Ocean and Equatorial Pacific Ocean are all important regions of ocean heat uptake. Each basin contributes a roughly equal amount to explaining the hiatus, but the mechanisms of heat drawdown are different and specific in each basin.

In the North Atlantic, more heat has been retained at deep levels as a result of changes to both the ocean and atmospheric circulations, which have led to the winter atmosphere extracting less heat from the ocean.

In the Southern Ocean, the extra drawdown of heat had gone unnoticed and is increasing on a much longer timescale (multi-decadal) than the other two regions (decadal). Here, gradual changes in the prevailing westerly winds have modified the ocean-atmosphere heat exchange, particularly in the Southern Indian Ocean.

The team calculated the change in the amount of heat entering the ocean using a state-of-the-art high resolution ocean model developed and run by NOC scientists that is driven by surface observations. This estimate was compared with results from an ocean model-data synthesis from ECMWF and a leading atmospheric model-data synthesis produced in the US. Professor Josey said: "It is the synthesis of information from models and observational data that provides a major strength of our study."

Dr Sinha concluded: "The deeper understanding gained in this study of the processes and regions responsible for variations in oceanic heat drawdown and retention will improve the accuracy of future climate projections."

Source: University of Southampton

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Mining can damage fish habitats far downstream, study shows

In this image, acid is seeping from a Kentucky coal mine. 
Credit: Wesley Daniel, Michigan State University

Anglers across the nation wondering why luck at their favorite fishing spot seems to have dried up may have a surprising culprit: a mine miles away, even in a different state.

Scientists at Michigan State University (MSU) have taken a first broad look at the impacts of mines across the country- and found that mining can damage fish habitats miles downstream, and even in streams not directly connected to the mines.

The work is published in this week's issue of the journal Ecological Indicators.
"We've been surprised that even a single mine in headwaters might influence larger rivers miles downstream," said Wesley Daniel, a research associate at Michigan State University. "Mines have a much stronger influence on fishes than has been assumed. It's important, when considering the location of a new mine, to not just look local -- but look way downstream."

Mining occurs in every state for a variety of natural resources -- such as coal, precious metals, pebbles, sand and salt. Mining disrupts the environment around it, Daniel said. It can add sediments and chemicals to rivers, alter the flow of streams, lead to fewer forests in headwaters, and compact soil -- all of which can change fish habitats.

And what happens to the river or stream near the mine flows downstream and can wreak havoc on populations of trout or bass and the smaller fishes that they prefer, far from the mine's location. The study looked at areas throughout the eastern United States typically known for mining, such as Appalachia, but also included areas where little mining research has been done, such as Iowa and Illinois

Daniel works in the lab of Dana Infante, associate professor of fisheries and wildlife who studies the way landscape and land use affect water. Colleagues in her lab recently developed an algorithm capable of crunching the mountains of data that tell the connected stories of the nation's streams and rivers.

That algorithm has allowed Daniel to take a long look at how extensive the effects of mines on rivers can be. His conclusion calls mines a "regional stress" and cites the example of pollutants from a mine in a headwater stream in Kentucky disrupting the breeding grounds of bass in Tennessee rivers.
While large rivers can dilute the damage a mine may do, the small streams that feed into a watershed may be much more fragile.

"The quality of headwater streams will determine quality of rivers," Daniel said. "The condition of small streams that flow into larger rivers will affect downstream fish communities. Everything is cumulative -- again and again we can see that the effects of one mine can be associated with altered fish communities."

Along with Daniel and Infante, "Characterizing coal and mineral mines as a regional source of stress to stream fish assemblages" was written by Robert Hughes at Amnis Opes Institute; Yin-Phan Tsang, Daniel Wieferich, Kyle Herreman, Arthur Cooper and William Taylor at MSU; Peter Esselman at the U.S. Geological Survey Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Lizhu Wang of the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Regional Office in Detroit.

Infante, Tsang, Esselman and Taylor are affiliated with the MSU Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, an interdisciplinary research center that works in the innovative new field of coupled human and natural systems to find sustainable solutions that both benefit the environment and enable people to thrive.

The research was funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Source: Michigan State University

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Mapping reveals targets for preserving tropical carbon stocks

This is an image from the Peru-wide, high-resolution carbon map showing the effects of deforestation (blue; no more carbon remaining) into a region of ultra-high carbon stocks in the surrounding forest (red). You can see massive losses in the bustling city of Pucallpa (right side) and the thousands of small farmers spreading into the forest to the west of Pucallpa. Image courtesy of Greg Asner. Credit: Greg Asner

A new high-resolution mapping strategy has revealed billions of tons of carbon in Peruvian forests that can be preserved as part of an effort to sequester carbon stocks in the fight against climate change. Tropical forests convert more carbon from the atmosphere into biomass than any other terrestrial ecosystem on Earth. However, when land is used for agriculture, as a wood source, or for mining, carbon is often released into the atmosphere where it contributes to climate change. Tropical deforestation and forest degradation account for about 10 percent of the world's carbon emissions annually.

There remain major challenges to conserving the carbon that's stored in these tropical landscapes on a national and international scale. A team led by Carnegie's Greg Asner developed a new high-resolution approach for prioritizing carbon conservation efforts throughout tropical countries. Their findings are published the week of November 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team of authors emphasized that the low cost of conducting their project means that the same approach can be rapidly implemented in any country, thereby supporting both national and international commitments to reduce and offset carbon emissions.

Many of the geographic details about the carbon that's stored in tropical forest ecosystems remain unknown. In order for people involved in conservation efforts to select new areas in which carbon stocks can be best protected and enhanced, detailed information on which areas would make the best targets for protection are necessary. This means understanding each landscape's climate, topography, geology, and hydrology.

Using advanced three-dimensional forest mapping data provided by the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO), integrated with satellite imaging data, the team was able to create a map of carbon density throughout the 128 million hectare (320 million acre) country of Peru, at a resolution of one hectare (2.5 acres).

"We found that nearly a billion metric tons of above-ground carbon stocks in Peru are at imminent risk for emission into the atmosphere due to land uses such as fossil fuel oil exploration, cattle ranching, oil palm plantations and gold mining," Asner said. "The good news is that our high-resolution mapping was able to identify three strategies for offsetting these upcoming emissions."
The team determined that there are opportunities to establish additional protected areas in some lowland Amazonian regions of Peru, where they found very high carbon densities, as well as in the so-called sub-montane region, which exists between the lowland Amazonian and Andean highland regions. Together the lowland Amazonian and sub-montane forests offer about 30 million hectares for potential new protected forest areas, which may be able to store close to 3 billion metric tons of carbon.

"Research is necessary to determine the exact state of our forests," stated Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Peru's Minister of Environment, "For that, the Carnegie Institution, with the support of the Peruvian Environment Ministry, has developed the first high-resolution map of Peru's carbon stocks. This new map provides the evidence needed to start negotiating in the carbon market at a bigger scale. Our government is also studying carbon stocks in the soil, and is doing a forest inventory, and we have a forest investment program. These initiatives will better prepare us to face changes in land use."
The team also asserted that there are further opportunities for offsetting future emissions by improving enforcement in areas that are already designated for protection of carbon stocks. According to their research, the majority of already protected carbon stocks exist only in 10 parks and reserves, and just four of these are fully enforced.

"Transitioning partially protected preserves to fully protected ones would help to counterbalance a great deal of the carbon that is expected to be lost due to land use in the near future," Asner said.

Source:  Carnegie Institution

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A fraction of the global military spending could save the planet's biodiversity, say experts: Only one in four protected areas is well managed

This image shows Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). Credit: Julie Larsen Maher, copyright WCS

A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA).

The paper, The performance and potential of protected areas, comes ahead of the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 -- a once-in-a-decade global forum on protected areas opening next week in Sydney, Australia.

According to the authors, allocating US$45 -- $76 billion to protected areas annually -- just 2.5% of the global annual military expenditure -- could help adequately manage those areas, ensuring their potential contribution to the well-being of the planet is fully met.

Many threatened species, such as the Asian elephant, the tiger, and all rhinoceros species, as well as numerous plants, reptiles and amphibians, survive thanks to protected areas. Well-managed marine protected areas contain more than five times the total large fish biomass and 14 times the shark biomass compared with fished areas.

"Protected areas offer us solutions to some of today's most pressing challenges" says Dr James Watson of the Wildlife Conservation Society and The University of Queensland and lead author of the study. "But by continuing with 'business as usual', we are setting them up for failure. A step-change in the way we value, fund, govern and manage those areas is neither impossible nor unrealistic and would only represent a fraction of what the world spends annually on defense."

According to the latest data, protected areas cover around 15% of land and 3% of oceans. Experts warn, however, that despite the significant increase in their coverage over the past century, this is still short of the global 2020 targets to protect at least 17% of land and 10% of oceans. Many ecosystems remain poorly conserved because protected areas do not always encompass the most important areas for biodiversity.

In addition, the vast majority of existing protected areas that are well placed do not have sufficient resources to be effective, with some studies finding as few as one quarter of them are being effectively managed. Growing threats from climate change and the escalating poaching crisis place additional pressures on protected areas globally.

"Some of the most iconic protected areas, such as Ecuador's Galapagos National Park, are undergoing significant degradation, partly due to an inability to manage them effectively," says Professor Marc Hockings of The University of Queensland,co-author of the study and member of the IUCN WCPA. "But governments cannot be solely responsible for ensuring that protected areas fulfill their potential. We need to find new, innovative ways to fund and manage them, actively involving government, business and community groups."

The paper also highlights an alarming increase in governments -- in both developing and developed countries -- backtracking on their commitments through funding cuts and changes in policy. A recent global analysis has documented 543 instances where protected areas saw their status downgraded or removed altogether.

For example, recent cuts to the Parks Canada budget have reduced conservation spending by 15%¬. In Uganda, active oil exploration and development is occurring inside many protected areas, including Murchison Falls National Park. In Indonesia, in 2010, mining permits were issued inside 481,000 hectares of protected areas and in the Virgin Komi Forests in Russia, significant boundary changes have been made to reserves such as the Yugyd Va National Park to allow mining. The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman was removed from the World Heritage List after the government reduced the size of the reserve by 90% to allow for oil and gas extraction.

"There is a fundamental need for an increase in support of global protected areas, including better recognition, funding, planning and enforcement" says Nigel Dudley, co-author of the paper, from Equilibrium Research and The University of Queensland, member of the IUCN WCPA. "It is government's responsibility to step up but there is also the need for the wider community to take collective responsibility for protected areas."

Protected areas conserve biodiversity and sustain a large proportion of the world's poorest people by providing them with food, water, shelter and medicine. They play a key part in climate change mitigation and adaptation and bolster national economies through tourism revenues. In Rwanda, for example, tourism revenue from visits to see mountain gorillas inside Volcanoes National Park is now the country's largest source of foreign exchange, raising US$200 million annually. In Australia, the 2012-2013 budget for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was approximately AUS$50 million, but tourism to the reef was worth more than A$5.2 billion annually to the Australian economy.

"The growth of the modern global protected area movement over the last 100 years is arguably the greatest conservation achievement," says Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. "It is also increasingly important for livelihoods and global security. The key now is for countries to recognize the return on investment that protected areas offer and realize that those places are fundamental to the future of life on earth. This is exactly what we hope to achieve at the upcoming IUCN World Parks Congress."

Effective management of protected areas, the threats they face and the solutions they offer to today's global challenges will be discussed at the IUCN World Parks Congress taking place in Sydney from 12 to 19 November 2014.

Source: Wildlife Conservation Society

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