Water transaction programs have evolved since they were first implemented in the early 1990s, from bilateral water rights transfers to complex, multi-sector water sharing agreements. There is consensus that these water rights transactions, can mutually benefit all parties involved, but these benefits have never been measured holistically across multiple geographies.
Population endangerment typically arises from multiple, potentially interacting anthropogenic stressors. Extensive research has investigated the consequences of multiple stressors on organisms, frequently focusing on individual life stages. Less is known about population-level consequences of exposure to multiple stressors, especially when exposure varies through life. We provide the first theoretical basis for identifying species at risk of magnified effects from multiple stressors across life history.
Sweet Potato is an important staple food crop grown by subsistence farmers in the Solomon Islands. It plays an important food security role and a major source of nutrition and livelihood in the rural areas as well as urban areas in the country. However, the spread of agricultural pests, in particular, the green leaf folder pest (Psara hipponalis), has significantly increased in recent years leaving many smallholder farmers with reduced yields and food insecurity.
Natural forest management in the tropics is often impeded by scarcity of advanced regeneration of commercial species. To supplement natural regeneration in a forest managed by a community in the Selva Maya of Mexico, nursery-grown Swietenia macrophylla seedlings were planted in multiple-tree felling gaps, known as bosquetes. Remnant trees are often left standing in gaps for cultural and economic reasons or due to their official protected status. We focus on these purposefully retained trees and their impacts on planted seedlings.
The elicitation of expert judgment is an important tool for assessment of risks and impacts in environmental management contexts, and especially important as decision-makers face novel challenges where prior empirical research is lacking or insufficient. Evidence-driven elicitation approaches typically involve techniques to derive more accurate probability distributions under fairly specific contexts. Experts are, however, prone to overconfidence in their judgements.
Coastal fish populations are typically threatened by multiple human activities, including fishing pressure and run-off of terrestrial pollution. Linking multiple threats to their impacts on fish populations is challenging because the threats may influence a species directly, or indirectly, via its habitats and its interactions with other species. Here we examine spatial variation in abundance of coral reef fish across gradients of fishing pressure and turbidity in Fiji.
Management of the diverse fisheries of the world has had mixed success. While managing single species in data-rich environments has been largely effective, perhaps the greatest challenge facing fishery managers is how to deal with mixed stocks of fish with a range of life histories that reside in the same location. Because many fishing gears are nonselective, and the costs of making gear selective can be high, a particular problem is bycatch of weak stocks.
The world’s rural poor rely heavily on their immediate natural environment for subsistence and suffer high rates of morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases. We present a general framework for modelling subsistence and health of the rural poor by coupling simple dynamic models of population ecology with those for economic growth. The models show that feedbacks between the biological and economic systems can lead to a state of persistent poverty.
Marine aquaculture presents an opportunity for increasing seafood production in the face of growing demand for marine protein and limited scope for expanding wild fishery harvests. However, the global capacity for increased aquaculture production from the ocean and the relative productivity potential across countries are unknown. Here, we map the biological production potential for marine aquaculture across the globe using an innovative approach that draws from physiology, allometry and growth theory.