Ecosystems design

Petersen JE, Hastings A. 2001. Dimensional approaches to scaling experimental ecosystems designing mousetraps to catch elephants. Am Nat 157 324-333. 

Chemical processes will in the future need to be designed as part of a sustainable industrial development which retains the capacity of ecosystems to support industrial activity and life. This book therefore places a high emphasis on waste minimization and energy efficiency in the context of good economic performance and good health and safety practices. 

Receptors. The receptor can be a person, animal, plant, material, or ecosystem. The criteria and hazardous air pollutants were so designated because, at sufficient concentrations, they can cause adverse health effects to human receptors. Some of the criteria pollutants also cause damage to plant receptors. An Air QuaUty Criteria Document (12) exists for each criteria pollutant and these documents summarize the most current Hterature concerning the effects of criteria pollutants on human health, animals, vegetation, and materials. The receptors which have generated much concern regarding acid deposition are certain aquatic and forest ecosystems, and there is also some concern that acid deposition adversely affects some materials. 

A balanced landscape needs waterbodies. These should be designed to have shallow margins to provide the appropriate conditions for wetland planting which, in turn, provide the balanced habitats for a rich wetland ecosystem. 

Comparable experiments in natural aquatic ecosystems are generally difficult to design (Madsen 1991), although some examples of what may be accomplished are given as illustration, and are applicable when there is sufficient knowledge about the degradative pathways of the xenobiotic ... 

Frescholtz 2002). Although ongoing and new planned field and laboratory studies are designed to further test this hypothesis, we feel that it is warranted at this time to develop a pilot-scale network of aimual ecosystem fluxes of THg in TF and LF as indicators of total atmospheric deposition. These fluxes can then be compared with measured wet plus modeled diy deposition based on both inferential and regional-scale models to develop independent estimates of total atmospheric deposition for forested catchments. We also believe that this approach could eventually be applied to a national network, such as the MDN. Although this method is best aimed at forested sites, ongoing research will address methods appropriate for other ecosystems. 

In designing a mercury monitoring network that includes a wildlife component, a principal objective would be to docrrment changes in merctrry exposure (and potentially effects) relative to changes in merctrry loadings to an ecosystem. More specific objectives might include the ability to ... 

Health, Environmental, Quarantine and Other Regulations Many countries have strict regulations designed to protect the ecosystem and agrochemical business. For example any matrix material derived from pork, beef, sheep or horse tissue has to be accompanied with a Veterinary Certificate confirming that the matrix material is free of certain specified diseases before it can be imported into the EU. The Australian import restrictions are even tougher and require the importer to obtain prior permission to import plant and animal materials and products derived from biological materials. To get an import license it is necessary to complete an application, which includes information from the producer about the actual production process used to prepare the matrix ... 

The first step in a wildlife exposure assessment is to document the occurrence and persistence of a pesticide in the study area throughout the study duration. Several articles in this book describe the experimental designs and best practices to conduct field crop and environmental dissipation (air, soil and water) studies. This article presents methods to quantify spatial and temporal distributions of pesticide presence in ecosystems following normal application and resultant exposure of nontarget wildlife. 

The ET cover cannot be tested at every landfill site so it is necessary to extrapolate the results from sites of known performance to specific landfill sites. The factors that affect the hydrologic design of ET covers encompass several scientific disciplines and there are numerous interactions between factors. As a consequence, a comprehensive computer model is needed to evaluate the ET cover for a site.48 The model should effectively incorporate soil, plant, and climate variables, and include their interactions and the resultant effect on hydrology and water balance. An important function of the model is to simulate the variability of performance in response to climate variability and to evaluate cover response to extreme events. Because the expected life of the cover is decades, possibly centuries, the model should be capable of estimating long-term performance. In addition to a complete water balance, the model should be capable of estimating long-term plant biomass production, need for fertilizer, wind and water erosion, and possible loss of primary plant nutrients from the ecosystem. 

Chemical processes should be designed as part of a sustainable industrial activity that retains the capacity of ecosystems to support both life and industrial activity into the future. Sustainable industrial activity must meet the needs of the present, without compromising the needs of future generations. For chemical process design, this means that processes should use raw materials as efficiently as is economic and practicable, both to prevent the production of waste that can be environmentally harmful and to preserve the reserves of raw materials as much as possible. Processes should use as little energy as is economic and practicable, both to prevent the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and to preserve the reserves of fossil fuels. Water must also be consumed in... 

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