Pulling it all together: Harmonizing marine environmental assessment, with Ruud Jongbloed

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Port of Tagonoura, Japan, with Mt. Fuji in the background. Credit: Hoshner Sigmaniax, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped and brightened from original).

Human activities and other pressures on marine ecosystems are ever increasing, underscoring the need for responsible, sustainable management. Several types of environmental assessment exist, but which is the most appropriate for your assessment needs? Enter CUMULEO, a framework that defines common EA elements and introduces consistency, while remaining adaptable to assessments for marine and other ecosystems. We chat with Ruud Jongbloed to get the highlights of CUMULEO. Access the critical review in the October 2016 issue of IEAM.

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At your service! Linking healthy ecological function to human well-being, with Wayne Munns

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Shenandoah River. Credit: Mariano Mantel, CC BY-NC 2.0.

 

We benefit from ecosystem services (ES) everyday—the water we drink, the food we eat, even the vacation at the beach. It is widely recognized that we need to protect the ecological processes that deliver these benefits, yet ES have not yet been formally incorporated into environmental risk assessment, one of the primary methods that inform regulatory decision making. Wayne Munns discusses the reasons for and challenges to the routine inclusion of ES endpoints in ERAs. Access the article in the July 2016 issue of IEAM.

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Impaired Ecosystems: Ounce of Prevention or Pound of Cure? With Aida Farag & Ruth Hull

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Blackwater Wildife Refuge Wetlands Restoration Project, Maryland. Credit: Adam Lindquist, CC BY-NC 2.0.

Although many people confuse the terms remediation and restoration, they are two separate processes in the restoration of impaired ecosystems. A special series in the April 2016 issue of IEAM challenges practitioners and researchers to rethink the traditional linear, sequential process of ecological restoration, instead encouraging a collaborative approach along the way, to integrate restoration goals throughout the process, beginning with site assessment. Guest Editors Aida Farag and Ruth Hull discuss workshop findings and tell us why we should heed an ounce of prevention when restoring ecosystems. Access the series in the April 2016 issue of IEAM.

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Get Real! Stuart Hurlbert on Pseudoreplication and Other Sins of Statistical Analysis

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Experimental zebrafish (Danio rerio). Credit: Novartis AG, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Think you know stats? Stuart Hurlbert first described pseudoreplication—a common but serious statistical error—in 1984. Despite widespread knowledge of the error, pseudoreplication is often misinterpreted, and literature surveys show that the error is on the rise in certain fields. Listen to Hurlbert define pseudoreplication and other related errors, plus hear why we shouldn’t dichotomize results as “significant” and “non-significant,” what’s missing from basics stats courses, and what’s next on his list.

Access the Learned Discourse by Hurlbert and Lombardi in the January 2016 issue of IEAM.

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Oil’s Well That Ends Well? Brock Bernstein Talks Rigs-To-Reefs and the Fate of Oil Platforms

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Oil platform, Santa Barbara, California. Credit: Berardo62, CC BY-SA 2.0.

The 27 oil and gas platforms off the southern California coast are aging quickly. What’s next for an oil rig once it reaches the end of its useful life? Deciding the fate of these massive hulks of steel and machinery is no simple feat, and this podcast highlights the efforts by a team of authors that set out to do exactly that.

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Reuse it or Lose it! Using LCA to Quantify the Environmental Benefits of Reuse, with Valentina Castellani

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Credit: Lauren Jong, CC BY-ND 2.0.

“Going green” has become a sweeping campaign for consumers at all levels. One way to become more environmentally responsible is to practice reuse—the second of the three R’s in the mantra “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Although reusing items such as clothing is easy to do, measuring the environmental benefits conferred by reuse is not as obvious as, say, a reduction in energy usage. Author Valentina Castellani uses life cycle assessment to quantify the environmental impacts avoided by the reuse of commonplace items, through a secondhand store. Access her article in the July 2015 issue of IEAM.

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What’s In Your Toolbox? Julie Panko Talks Shop on Tools for Chemical Risk Assessment

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“Tools” by John Griffiths, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Hazardous chemicals and consumer product safety garner tremendous public attention nowadays, and rightly so. The European Commission’s landmark REACH regulation set a high standard, and regulatory agencies around the world are moving towards chemical regulatory reform. The resulting need to characterize thousands of chemicals with regard to their hazard, risk, and exposure potential poses an enormous task, and dozens of chemical assessment tools have been developed to aid assessors. An article in the April 2015 issue of IEAM identifies the most robust and comprehensive tools used in chemical assessment. Author Julie Panko discusses how she and her fellow authors critically evaluated dozens of chemical assessment tools, to help assessors select the right tool for the job.

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From the Ashes: Using BERA to Assess a Coal Fly Ash Spill in Tennessee, with Suzy Walls

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Kingston Fossil Plant, coal ash spill cleanup, 2012. Credit: Appalachian Voices, CC BY 2.0, cropped from original.

The largest coal fly ash spill in US history occurred in 2008, at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee. Over 4.1 million cubic meters of toxic coal fly ash spilled into the surrounding river ecosystem, which included three rivers and a reservoir. The January 2015 issue of IEAM features a special series of articles that detail the Baseline Ecological Risk Assessment (BERA) conducted to assess residual ash remaining in the Watts Bar Reservoir.

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Survey Says! Top PPCP Research Questions Identified by Environmental Scientists, with Murray Rudd

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Credit: Alberto G., CC BY 2.0

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are a hot topic in environmental science. From synthetic estrogens that feminize male fish to concerns about resistance to antibiotics, this is a growing area of research and public attention. Yet potential and long-term effects on human and ecosystem health remain largely unknown. Author Murray Rudd leads an international study in the October 2014 issue of IEAM where environmental scientists identify their top PPCP research priorities. The identification of research priorities—according to hundreds of environmental scientists—serve as a guide for the types of hazard- and risk-based research needed to inform regulation of PPCPs as well as provide opportunities to collaborate among researchers across disciplinary sectors and countries.

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Biomarkers for Good Measure: Assessing Aquatic Ecosystem Status, with Sharon Hook

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Sampling biomarkers with gel electrophoresis. Credit: Iwan Gabovitch, CC0 1.0.

Biomarkers—biological endpoints long used in medical screening and disease detection—are finding new relevance in the environmental science community. Toxicologists have used biomarkers in certain aquatic contaminant assessments; however, these endpoints have barely been tapped as a valuable resource for informing ecological risk assessments and integrated monitoring. Sharon Hook, author of a critical review in the July 2014 issue of IEAM, talks to us about advantages and caveats for using biomarkers in environmental assessments.

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