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Unconventional oil and gas spills: Risks, mitigation priorities and state reporting requirements

Rapid growth in unconventional oil and gas (UOG) has produced jobs, revenue, and energy, but also concerns over spills and environmental risks. We assessed spill data related to 31,481 UOG wells in Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania between 2005 and 2014. We found between 2 to 14 percent of wells reported a spill each year. Median spill volumes ranged from 0.5 m3 in Pennsylvania to 4.9 m3 in New Mexico; large spills exceeding 100 m3 have also been reported. Spill rates differed with state reporting requirements.

Effects of biological, economic and management factors on tuna and billfish stock status

Commercial tunas and billfishes (swordfish, marlins and sailfish) provide considerable catches and income in both developed and developing countries. These stocks vary in status from lightly exploited to rebuilding to severely depleted. Previous studies suggested that this variability could result from differences in life-history characteristics and economic incentives, but differences in exploitation histories and management measures also have a strong effect on current stock status.

Building with Nature

Costly stakeholder participation creates inertia in marine ecosystems

Ecosystems often shift abruptly and dramatically between different regimes in response to human or natural disturbances. When ecosystems tip from one regime to another, the suite of available ecosystem benefits changes, impacting the stakeholders who rely on these benefits. These changes often create some groups who stand to incur large losses if an ecosystem returns to a previous regime.

Ecology under lake ice

Winter conditions are rapidly changing in temperate ecosystems, particularly for those that experience periods of snow and ice cover. Relatively little is known of winter ecology in these systems, due to a historical research focus on summer ‘growing seasons’. We executed the first global quantitative synthesis on under-ice lake ecology, including 36 abiotic and biotic variables from 42 research groups and 101 lakes, examining seasonal differences and connections as well as how seasonal differences vary with geophysical factors.

Lidar and RDMs for 5 logging concessions in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Forest carbon flux data for Berau, Indonesia

Riverine Flood Mitigation Opportunity Indicators for 70 Latin American Cities

City Water Map (version 2.2)

An explicit GIS-based river basin framework for aquatic ecosystem conservation in the Amazon

Despite large-scale infrastructure development, deforestation, mining and petroleum exploration in the Amazon Basin, relatively little attention has been paid to the management scale required for the protection of wetlands, fisheries and other aspects of aquatic ecosystems. This is due, in part, to the enormous size, multinational composition and interconnected nature of the Amazon River system, as well as to the absence of an adequate spatial model for integrating data across the entire Amazon Basin.