Economic benefit of ecological remediation of mercury pollution in southwest China 2007-2022.

Methylmercury (MeHg) exposure via rice consumption poses health risk to residents in mercury contaminated areas, such as the Wanshan Hg mining area (WSMA) in southwest China. Making use of the published data for WSMA, this study developed a database of rice MeHg concentrations for different villages in this region for the years of 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2019. The temporal changes of human MeHg exposure, health effects, and economic benefits under different ecological remediation measures were then assessed. Results from this study revealed a decrease of 3.88 µg/kg in rice MeHg concentration and a corresponding reduction of 0.039 µg/kg/d in probable daily intake of MeHg in 2019 compared to 2007 on regional average in the WSMA. Ecological remediation measures in this region resulted in the accumulated economic benefits of $38.7 million during 2007-2022, of which 84 % was from pollution source treatment and 16 % from planting structure adjustment. However, a flooding event in 2016 led to an economic loss of $2.43 million (0.38 % of regional total Gross Domestic Product). Planting structure adjustment generates the greatest economic benefits in the short term, whereas pollution source treatment maximizes economic benefits in the long term and prevents the perturbations from flooding event. These findings demonstrate the importance of ecological remediation measures in Hg polluted areas and provide the foundation for risk assessment of human MeHg exposure via rice consumption.

Game analysis on PPP model operation of abandoned mines ecological restoration under the innovation of central government's reward and punishment system in China.

There is a huge funding gap in the abandoned mines ecological restoration in China. It is of great research value to explore how PPP model can better introduce social capital into the low-profit ecological restoration of abandoned mines. Based on the innovation perspective of the central government's reward and punishment system, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model of "local government-social capital", analyzes the interaction and behavior mechanism of core stakeholders in the operation process of abandoned mines ecological restoration PPP mode, and discusses the influence of evolutionary equilibrium strategy and parameters change on evolutionary strategy under different scenarios by Matlab simulation. The research shows that the abandoned mines ecological restoration needs the support of the central government. When the local government lightly punishes the low-quality service of social capital, the central government needs to pay higher costs to promote all parties to actively participate in the operation and supervision of the PPP project. The revenue and cost of government supervision, the operating subsidy for social capital and the cost saved by social capital in providing bad service are the key factors affecting the evolution of the game between government and social capital. Punishment can effectively spur social capital to keep the contract and operate in the project, but the punishment effect will be ineffective without government supervision. Finally, some suggestions are put forward, such as establishing a long-term supervision mechanism and a reasonable income mechanism for PPP projects, increasing penalties for violations, attracting third parties to reduce supervision costs and strengthening communication between the two parties, so as to make the project take into account the economic performance of social capital and the social welfare of government departments, and achieve dual Pareto improvement.

Financing ecosystem restoration.

The global community has outlined ambitious ecosystem restoration targets. Yet implementation is slow, and a lack of funding is a key barrier to upscaling restoration activities. Most restoration projects are funded by public institutions and recent high-level initiatives have emphasised the need to scale private finance in restoration. Private finance can be channelled into restoration through various financial mechanisms but is held back by a lack of return-making investment opportunities. Various institutions have now been created to commodify previously non-market ecosystem services and make them investable, most prominently voluntary carbon markets and biodiversity compliance market-like mechanisms, such as biodiversity-offsetting systems targeting the achievement of 'no net loss' of biodiversity for a given regulated sector. However, attracting private finance into restoration comes with risks, as private finance objectives in restoration often are misaligned with wider social and ecological objectives. Private finance mechanisms to date have tended to underinvest in monitoring and impact evaluation mechanisms and to favour investments in cost-effective nature-based solutions such as plantation monocultures over naturally regenerated ecosystems. Many technological and institutional solutions have been proposed, but these cannot mitigate all risks. Therefore, scaling of ecosystem restoration through market-like mechanisms requires substantial fundamental investments in governance and civil society oversight to ensure that ecological integrity and social equity is safeguarded. Here, we outline the high-level policy landscape driving restoration finance and explore the roles and potential of both public and private investment in restoration. We explain how some common mechanisms for drawing private investment into restoration work in practice. Then, we discuss some of the shortcomings of past private finance initiatives for ecosystem restoration and highlight essential lessons for how to safeguard the ecological and social outcomes of private investments in ecosystem restoration.

Hold big business to task on ecosystem restoration.

Corporate reporting must embrace holistic, scientific principles.

Is it best to add native shrubs to a coastal sage scrub restoration project as seeds or as seedlings?

Ecological restoration frequently involves the addition of native plants, but the effectiveness (in terms of plant growth, plant survival, and cost) of using seeds versus container plants has not been studied in many plant communities. It is also not known if plant success would vary by species or based on functional traits. To answer these questions, we added several shrub species to a coastal sage scrub restoration site as seeds or as seedlings in a randomized block design. We measured percent cover, density, species richness, size, survival, and costs. Over the two years of the study, shrubs added to the site as seeds grew more and continued to have greater density than plants added from containers. Seeded plots also had greater native species richness than planted plots. However, shrubs from containers had higher survival rates, and percent cover was comparable between the planted and seeded treatments. Responses varied by species depending on functional traits, with deep-rooted evergreen species establishing better from container plants. Our cost analysis showed that it is more expensive to use container plants than seed, with most of the costs attributed to labor and supplies needed to grow plants. Our measurements of shrub density, survival, species richness, and growth in two years in our experimental plots lead us to conclude that coastal sage scrub restoration with seeds is optimal for increasing density and species richness with limited funds, yet the addition of some species from container plants may be necessary if key species are desired as part of the project objectives.

A meta-analysis of the ecological and economic outcomes of mangrove restoration.

Mangrove restoration has become a popular strategy to ensure the critical functions and economic benefits of this ecosystem. This study conducts a meta-analysis of the peer-reviewed literature on the outcomes of mangrove restoration. On aggregate, restored mangroves provide higher ecosystem functions than unvegetated tidal flats but lower than natural mangrove stands (respectively RR' = 0.43, 95%CIs = 0.23 to 0.63; RR' = -0.21, 95%CIs = -0.34 to -0.08), while they perform on par with naturally-regenerated mangroves and degraded mangroves. However, restoration outcomes vary widely between functions and comparative bases, and are mediated by factors such as restoration age, species, and restoration method. Furthermore, mangrove restoration offers positive benefit-cost ratios ranging from 10.50 to 6.83 under variable discount rates (-2% to 8%), suggesting that mangrove restoration is a cost-effective form of ecosystem management. Overall, the results suggest that mangrove restoration has substantial potential to contribute to multiple policy objectives related to biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and sustainable development.

Coral growth, survivorship and return-on-effort within nurseries at high-value sites on the Great Barrier Reef.

Coral reefs are deteriorating worldwide prompting reef managers and stakeholders to increasingly explore new management tools. Following back-to-back bleaching in 2016/2017, multi-taxa coral nurseries were established in 2018 for the first time on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) to aid reef maintenance and restoration at a "high-value" location-Opal Reef-frequented by the tourism industry. Various coral species (n = 11) were propagated within shallow water (ca. 4-7m) platforms installed across two sites characterised by differing environmental exposure-one adjacent to a deep-water channel (Blue Lagoon) and one that was relatively sheltered (RayBan). Growth rates of coral fragments placed onto nurseries were highly variable across taxa but generally higher at Blue Lagoon (2.1-10.8 cm2 month-1 over 12 months) compared to RayBan (0.6-6.6 cm2 month-1 over 9 months). Growth at Blue Lagoon was largely independent of season, except for Acropora tenuis and Acropora hyacinthus, where growth rates were 15-20% higher for December 2018-July 2019 ("warm season") compared to August-December 2018 ("cool season"). Survivorship across all 2,536 nursery fragments was ca. 80-100%, with some species exhibiting higher survivorship at Blue Lagoon (Acropora loripes, Porites cylindrica) and others at RayBan (A. hyacinthus, Montipora hispida). Parallel measurements of growth and survivorship were used to determine relative return-on-effort (RRE) scores as an integrated metric of "success" accounting for life history trade-offs, complementing the mutually exclusive assessment of growth or survivorship. RRE scores within sites (across species) were largely driven by growth, whereas RRE scores between sites were largely driven by survivorship. The initial nursery phase of coral propagation therefore appears useful to supplement coral material naturally available for stewardship of frequently visited Great Barrier Reef tourism (high-value) sites, but further assessment is needed to evaluate how well the growth rates and survival for nursery grown corals translate once material is outplanted.

Maximizing US nitrate removal through wetland protection and restoration.

Growing populations and agricultural intensification have led to raised riverine nitrogen (N) loads, widespread oxygen depletion in coastal zones (coastal hypoxia)1 and increases in the incidence of algal blooms.Although recent work has suggested that individual wetlands have the potential to improve water quality2-9, little is known about the current magnitude of wetland N removal at the landscape scale. Here we use National Wetland Inventory data and 5-kilometre grid-scale estimates of N inputs and outputs to demonstrate that current N removal by US wetlands (about 860 ± 160 kilotonnes of nitrogen per year) is limited by a spatial disconnect between high-density wetland areas and N hotspots. Our model simulations suggest that a spatially targeted increase in US wetland area by 10 per cent (5.1 million hectares) would double wetland N removal. This increase would provide an estimated 54 per cent decrease in N loading in nitrate-affected watersheds such as the Mississippi River Basin. The costs of this increase in area would be approximately 3.3 billion US dollars annually across the USA-nearly twice the cost of wetland restoration on non-agricultural, undeveloped land-but would provide approximately 40 times more N removal. These results suggest that water quality improvements, as well as other types of ecosystem services such as flood control and fish and wildlife habitat, should be considered when creating policy regarding wetland restoration and protection.

Global priority areas for ecosystem restoration.

Extensive ecosystem restoration is increasingly seen as being central to conserving biodiversity1 and stabilizing the climate of the Earth2. Although ambitious national and global targets have been set, global priority areas that account for spatial variation in benefits and costs have yet to be identified. Here we develop and apply a multicriteria optimization approach that identifies priority areas for restoration across all terrestrial biomes, and estimates their benefits and costs. We find that restoring 15% of converted lands in priority areas could avoid 60% of expected extinctions while sequestering 299 gigatonnes of CO2-30% of the total CO2 increase in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The inclusion of several biomes is key to achieving multiple benefits. Cost effectiveness can increase up to 13-fold when spatial allocation is optimized using our multicriteria approach, which highlights the importance of spatial planning. Our results confirm the vast potential contributions of restoration to addressing global challenges, while underscoring the necessity of pursuing these goals synergistically.

Coletiva de imprensa: anúncio da atualização das Fases do Plano SP 04/09/2020

O Governador João Doria anunciou nesta sexta-feira (4) a mobilização de 20 mil policiais para a Operação Independência. Ao longo de todo o feriado prolongado, ações integradas entre as forças de segurança e a Secretaria de Logística e Transportes vão garantir apoio a municípios do litoral e interior na fiscalização de medidas sanitárias contra o coronavírus e patrulhamento de rodovias. “Peço que todos tenham cuidado e zelo ao saírem de suas casas. Cada município tem o direito de estabelecer os seus limites para parques, praças, praias e calçadões. O Governo de São Paulo apoiará aqueles que solicitaram formalmente o apoio da PM no sentido de proteger a vida de seus cidadãos”, declarou Doria. “Por favor, tenham cuidado. Aglomerações colocam em risco a sua vida e as de outras pessoas. Usem máscara, sigam o exemplo correto e façam o distanciamento social de um metro e meio”, acrescentou. A Operação Independência teve início na madrugada desta sexta e se estende até o final da noite de segunda (7). Em Santos, as ações vão se prolongar até terça (8) devido ao feriado municipal em celebração a Nossa Senhora do Monte Serrat, padroeira do município. Além da atuação dos 20 mil policiais, as ações do Estado durante o feriado prolongado vão envolver o uso diário de 7,2 mil viaturas, 880 motocicletas, 35 montarias, 11 helicópteros Águia da PM e oito drones para monitoramento de pontos estratégicos nas rodovias e também nas áreas urbanas. “Desde o início da pandemia, o trabalho da Segurança Pública foi potencializado. Neste feriado, estamos focados em apoiar e contribuir com os agentes municipais no combate e fiscalização à pandemia”, afirmou o Secretário de Segurança Pública, General João Camilo Pires de Campos. “Estamos contribuindo para poupar vidas. A missão dos policiais é apoiar agentes municipais de saúde e segurança”, reforçou. A fiscalização de tráfego vai se concentrar em testes de bafômetro e verificação do uso obrigatório de cinto de segurança, assentos infantis e capacetes. Por dia, a previsão é de 160 pontos de fiscalização nas estradas e 1,5 mil em áreas urbanas. No litoral, a PM fará patrulhamento ostensivo em áreas de orla ou que concentram quiosques, bares e restaurantes. Haverá uso de megafones para divulgação de mensagens de conscientização e prevenção ao coronavírus e também apoio a equipes locais de Vigilância Sanitária e Guarda Civil. Por parte da Secretaria de Logística e Transportes, Artesp e concessionárias, as ações envolvem mensagens informativas via redes sociais e painéis rodoviários; fiscalização, socorro mecânico, guincho e ambulância; e monitoramento 24 horas nos CCOs (Centros de Controle Operacional). Nas praças de pedágio, haverá oferta de álcool em gel nas cabines, além da distribuição de 40 mil máscaras nos sistemas Anchieta-Imigrantes e Ayrton Senna-Carvalho Pinto.

Quantifying the impacts of drought and ecological restoration on net primary production changes in the Chinese Loess Plateau.

Net primary production (NPP) can regulate global climate change and carbon balance. Although scholars have qualitatively studied the influencing factors of NPP, few have quantified the contribution of different degrees of drought aggravation or mitigation and major land-use changes to NPP changes. Based on the temporal and spatial characteristics of NPP for 2000-2015 in the Chinese Loess Plateau, we quantified the contribution of drought, land use and land cover change (LUCC), and hydrothermal conditions to changes in NPP. Particularly, we analyzed the contribution of major land-use change and different drought levels to NPP. Our results showed that the 15-years average NPP was approximately 227 gC/m2 and decreased from southeast to northwest. Overall, NPP showed a linear increasing trend over the 15-years period. The results suggested that changes in hydrothermal conditions had the strongest impact on NPP (~61%), followed by drought (~33%), and land use and land cover change had the weakest impact (~1.4%). In particular, ~13% of the NPP decreases was affected by light drought aggravation, ~10% of the NPP decreases was affected by moderate drought aggravation, and ~0.3% was affected by the conversion of cropland to grassland or non-NPP main production land. Moreover, ~12.7% of the NPP increase was affected by light drought alleviation, ~9.4% was affected by moderate drought alleviation, and ~1.1% was affected by the conversion of grassland to cropland or forestland. The mechanisms underlying the effect of drought and land-use change on NPP were clarified and provide an important reference value for future research on the carbon cycle and regional ecological environmental restoration.

The hidden land use cost of upscaling cover crops.

Cover cropping is considered a cornerstone practice in sustainable agriculture; however, little attention has been paid to the cover crop production supply chain. In this Perspective, we estimate land use requirements to supply the United States maize production area with cover crop seed, finding that across 18 cover crops, on average 3.8% (median 2.0%) of current production area would be required, with the popular cover crops rye and hairy vetch requiring as much as 4.5% and 11.9%, respectively. The latter land requirement is comparable to the annual amount of maize grain lost to disease in the U.S. We highlight avenues for reducing these high land use costs.

Cost-benefit analysis of rehabilitating old landfills: A case of Beiyangqiao landfill, Wuhan, China.

A comprehensive approach for evaluating the feasibility of landfill rehabilitation should be developed to allow landfill owners to thoroughly examine the feasibility of a landfill soil remediation project in advance. With a view of contributing to the development of a common framework for the evaluation of landfill rehabilitation projects, this paper presents the results of a case study in which the issue of assessing the costs and benefits of rehabilitating the Beiyangqiao simple landfill is addressed. Based on the results of a survey, the cost-benefit assessment criteria and candidate remediation methods were selected. The alternatives included are, in-situ landfill closure; in-situ aerobic stabilization combined with in-situ screening and classification of recovered materials, transport for off-site disposal; and ectopic mining combined with recycling and incineration. Results show that the costs of landfill rehabilitation would range from 11.23 to 32.02 million United States dollars (USD). The key benefits would be land reclamation, heat, or electricity generation by incineration, and recycling of waste materials. The total benefits would range in value from 59.62 to 61.47 million USD. The net present value of the three scenarios would be positive and would range from 8.6 to 10.02 million USD. The results suggest that all three scenarios were positive. Nevertheless, "in-situ aerobic stabilization, in-situ screening, transportation, and off-site disposal" was most beneficial considering all parameters.Implications: This study applied a cost-benefit analysis model for assessing the economic feasibility of landfill rehabilitation, which is important to promoting landfill rehabilitation, and the market potential was assessed based on an actual project. The findings can be useful for providing landfill owners choices in a landfill rehabilitation project to achieve least quantified costs and overhead.

A Comprehensive Evaluation of Carbon Emission Reduction Capability in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is an essential part of China's goal of reducing its national carbon emissions. Focusing on economic and social development, the development of science and technology, carbon sinks, energy consumption, and carbon emissions, this paper uses "the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution mode" (TOPSIS) and "an obstacle factor diagnosis method" to measure the reduction capacity of each province and municipality of the YREB. Key obstacles to achieving the goal of carbon emission reduction are also identified. The main finding is that the emission reduction capacities of Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang in China's east is far greater than that of all other provinces and municipalities, the main obstacle of Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang are carbon sinks, energy consumption and carbon emission, and other provinces and municipalities are social and economic development. Taking into consideration those evaluation results and obstacles, paths for carbon emission reduction are delineated through a four-quadrant matrix method with intent to provide suitable references for the development of a low-carbon economy in the YREB.

Study on the Livelihood Vulnerability and Compensation Standard of Employees in Relocation Enterprises: A Case of Chemical Enterprises in the Yangtze River Basin.

The relocation of chemical enterprises along the Yangtze River a necessary means of ecological protection in the Yangtze River Basin. Vulnerability assessment provides a new idea for the study of livelihood ability and compensation standard of employees after relocation. Based on the framework of "Exposure-Sensitivity-Adaptability" proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the survey data of 410 employees of relocation enterprises in the Hubei Province of the Yangtze River Basin, this study firstly constructs a livelihood vulnerability evaluation index system and evaluation model, and analyzes whether the employees of relocation enterprises have the ability to cope with the risk impact brought by the Yangtze River Ecological Restoration policy. Then, we use multiple linear regression model to explore the relationship between the group's exposure, sensitivity, adaptability and livelihood vulnerability. Finally, we design a new compensation standard calculation method for special groups from the perspective of social cost, to alleviate their livelihood vulnerability and provide a theoretical basis and decision support for the government and enterprises to formulate and implement relevant resettlement standards. The results show that: (1) employees of all ages show a certain degree of vulnerability in their livelihood; (2) there are differences in livelihood vulnerability between male and female employees; (3) compared with other positions, the livelihood vulnerability of producers is relatively high, and the vulnerability index is unevenly distributed and internally differentiated; (4) a low family burden ratio, high education, convenient living conditions and complex social network can effectively reduce the vulnerability of employees' livelihood; (5) the key obstacle factors affecting the sustainable livelihood of families are living convenience, adaptability to relocation, policy understanding, children's burden ratio, education, and annual income per capita; (6) the alternative opportunity cost method can be used as the basis to determine the compensation standard of the relocated employees, which can better reflect the compensation effect of the opportunity cost in the existing definition of international compensation mechanisms and realize the leap from concept to action.