Drivers of Loss and Change to Wetland Ecosystems

Wetlands are an expression of the hydrological cycle; water fixed in global cycles. As biological functioning systems they are crucial to river catchment ecology by absorbing additional excess nutrients and pollutants prior to reaching other water bodies. The exponential growth of human development has coincided with the decline of global wetlands. This loss of wetlands and the reduction of integrity of remaining wetlands has been more swift than any other habitat globally that it is a biome that requires significant conservation.

What are the ways human development has contributed to the loss and fragmentation of wetlands?

Human settlements have always been closely aligned next to or near water bodies as a source of water for consumption and agriculture. With growth there has been an early history use for wetlands as a dumping ground, quarry or animal stockage and alterations for human recreation activities such as marinas/boating. The facilitation of human movement and activities around wetlands has subsequently contributed to changes in vegetation structure and composition, wetland hydrology, water and soil pollution and disrupting wildlife activity.

If we think of wetlands as an important part of a watershed that is part of the wider regional catchment, we can imagine the consequences where all water run-off from domestic, agricultural and industrial activities can end up in our local water bodies, including wetlands. This problem is magnified with the increase of run-off from hard surface areas, roads, rooftops and drains due to urban sprawl, that create a direct path towards local water bodies rather than infiltrating through the soil stratum where pollutants are filtered by vegetation.

Many wetlands have been drained and converted for industry, mining and agriculture. The implications from actions such as drainage, dredging, groundwater withdrawal and diverting or channelling streams and other forms of hydrologic alteration can affect soil saturation and inundation of flooding events. Changes also impact the quality of water discharged into wetlands increasing water temperature, pH, salinity and other toxic pollutants such as heavy metals. Compounds can enter wetlands through dry and wet atmospheric deposition. These are pollutants such as nitrous oxides, sulphurous oxides, heavy metals, volatilised pesticides and hydrocarbons discharged by industry and agricultural activities into the atmosphere. Gases can be absorbed by water or settle in sediments and diffuse throughout the system affecting aquatic and terrestrial organisms.

So far direct drivers to wetland loss or damage have been identified but there are also indirect drivers, most notably climate change. Climate change is expected to exacerbate the loss of wetlands through altered hydrological cycles (which will impact vegetation structure and composition) and increase the incidence of vector-borne and water borne diseases in many regions. There is also a disconnect as to how wetlands are used which are not always in agreement. For example land developers, engineers, scientists or a bird watcher will consider wetlands functions and values in different ways. These are some of the many pressures that are needed to be overcome if we hope to conserve what remains and manage wetlands in a sustainable manner.

 

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Wetlands and Human Values

The bond between wetlands and community is based on unison formed by history and human dependence on water. Properties from the functions of wetlands may directly or indirectly benefit humans and other organisms such as ensuring water regulation (flood events) and purification (sediment loads). The values of wetlands are attributes perceived to be desirable or worth protecting. What this also means is the importance of any function or value will vary between groups of people and has changed throughout history.

Traditionally societies were often formed alongside water as human well-being has depended on many services provided by wetlands; these are provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. There are historical cultural roots that have archaeological and scientific values that provide information about the past. Many wetlands have a long history with the indigenous people of a region and thus provide even greater cultural value. Some traditional cultures continue to have an active ceremonial life and undertake semi-traditional hunting and gathering practices. There are also intangible spiritual and health benefits that contribute to human well-being.

Today there are many groups of people that are highly dependent on local wetland services directly such as fish supply and water availability. Countries, such as Cambodia, rely on such services for 60-80% of their dietary animal protein is collected from inland wetlands. Wetlands are also important in local and national economies with commercial products such as fish, shellfish, fibres for textiles, peat for fuels and gardens, wild rice, medicines from soil and plants (bark, leaves and fruit), tourism etc. Furthermore, wetlands provide renewable freshwater for human use (including lakes, rivers, swamps and shallow groundwater aquifers) as groundwater is often recharged through wetlands. It is estimated that around 1.5-3 billion people depend on this source for drinking water. The dependence on wetlands for survival and livelihood, with possible poverty alleviation, makes them fundamental to political discourses.

In the environment wetlands support the wider ecosystem which appeals to people for recreation and aesthetics. Wetlands have been the subject matter for writers, painters and other artists, observation for bird watchers or wildlife photography and leisure activities such as swimming and sailing. There is also scientific (formal) and learning (informal) values attached to wetlands as they are also places where people can observe and measure field ecology. This can help communities develop knowledge that can be used to protect wetlands from continued adverse effects from human populations.

It is clear that wetlands are important places for the community, but is often viewed with regards to how they serve society. This leaves the intangible benefits to human well-being, which cannot be measured, unrecognised and/or undervalued and can be omitted when decisions are made. But as times change there is a shift in perspective on wetland management as the synthesis of human need and wetland ecosystems now aim to benefit one another.

Reference

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Wetlands and Water Synthesis. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC. Accessed Online: http://www.unep.org/maweb/documents/document.358.aspx.pdf

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Wetland Functions and Ecological Values

As a highly productive environment, wetlands play an integral role in the ecology of its catchments. Described as such only when land is saturated with water, seasonally or permanently, with the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The physical, hydrological, chemical and biological functions are the processes within wetlands which are interconnected to the wider watershed making them ecologically and culturally valuable.

Physical and hydrological functions include flood control and groundwater recharge through the capture and storage of water. The slow release of water over time helps to reduce floods. For many low-lying coastal regions, protection of wetlands and their services ease the impacts of floods and storms, warranting high priority in relation to climate change adaptation strategies. They also can aid atmospheric equilibrium by levelling carbon, sulphur and excess nitrogen. Plant communities and the soil structure of wetlands store carbon instead of releasing it to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Wetlands also catch dust particles from the atmosphere which settles into the sediment.

Wetlands have a storage and filtration capacity. Pollutants that dissolve in the water may be absorbed by plant roots and micro-organisms in the soil. The filtration process removes much of the water’s nutrient and pollutant load by the time it leaves the wetland. Vegetation also acts as a buffer trapping soil particles from flowing into the main body of water as sediments settle out with the root systems of the plants. The wetland vegetation decreases water velocity enabling the sedimentation of particles. Also vegetation is particularly effective in removing finely graded particles many of which adhere directly onto the plant surfaces. The root system binds and stabilises deposited particles protecting them against re-suspension. Trapping excess sediments is vital for the prevention of accumulation of particles that may smother aquatic life, congest parts of the wetland or carry pollutants.

Vegetation assists in maintaining regular wetland water regimes, provides habitat and food for fauna, protects against salinity and erosion, provides soil stability, filters pollutants and generally assists in the maintenance of a healthy wetland. Millions of waterbird species and migratory birds depend on the services and the interconnected networks of wetlands for survival. As wetlands function beyond the means of providing habitat for plants and animals, they also absorb excess nutrients, sediment and other pollutants before they reach rivers, lakes and other water bodies and thus effectively provide higher water quality to the greater catchment.

Not all wetlands functions are the same and depend on size and location of the wetland. Other factors also have an impact such as climate, topography, present vegetation, surrounding land use, water quality and quantity inputs, disturbances and or alteration of the wetland. These factors will influence the performance of the system's functions and the values. The functions and values of all the wetlands individually are important for their relationship to the watershed. Wetlands perform many valuable ecological functions that may go unnoticed by people. Understanding the functions of wetlands can help people know what is lost when the productivity of a wetland ecosystem declines.

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The Tragedy of the Commons and Property Rights

Garrett Hardin's (1968) influential essay,‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ describes how a portion of unregulated communal land used for cattle pasture is fated to devastation. The common property Hardin refers to is property that is not owned by any individual, and this is what encourages overuse of the property because no one assumes the costs borne from its misuse. The property also allows non-excludability of its resources as there is open access to a public good. This means that it is almost impossible to prevent others from using that resource but the message of Hardin's essay is that thinking about it in this way can help to influence a right course of action. In effect the problem rests with a lack of well defined property rights; their distribution and/or enforcement.

The significance of Hardin's essay is that he managed to effectively popularise a way in considering environmental problems. As a metaphor it is applicable to any environmental resource covering land, forests, oceans and the atmosphere. 'The Tragedy of the Commons' is in a way a precautionary tale where the pursuit of self interest in an open access commons will lead to its ruin for the whole. This is where the pertinence of regulation and policy from international agreements, like the Kyoto Protocol for the mitigation of climate change, is formed with the goal of preventing a tragedy. It is very much a political process in managing an open access commons. As Hardin shows with the example of how the herders will add more sheep out of self interest to the detriment of the pasture commons, there is no interest group that has the interest of the whole over the few and is why we still face this problem of the tragedy of the commons today.

The barriers for global action lay in the vagueness of the ‘commons’ concept, implementing multilateral agreements, market imperfections and wealth inequality between nations which cause further implications for future policy and management of the global commons. As it is difficult to justify natural resources as part of the global commons, a clear definition of resources of the global commons and rights to commons need to be developed particularly as misplaced property rights can create perverse incentives. In Hardin's view, he suggests securing well defined property rights to individuals that place responsibility on behalf of the community as an incentive to behave as stewards of the environment which he believes will deter mismanagement. However, the issue with ‘common property’ is that it is a right to a benefit that is only secure in its duty to others and protects that resource, but inevitable resource degradation is not caused by ‘common property’ issues, it is with unrestricted open access regimes.

Pursuit for a property rights definition that can be universally applied will be difficult, but not impossible. What we are seeing now is that property rights of open access resources is important for economic prosperity and ecological sustainability, which are not as previously viewed, mutually exclusive. The role of property-based institutions is vital for the adoption of resource management where sustainable practices result. Future management will need to overcome the cultural divide which will raise the role of institutions collaborating with government and community to reconcile the interests of different stakeholders for appropriate resource management.

The Electromagnetic Field Effects on Plants

Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) have magnetic and electrical properties that surround objects with an electrical charge which will interact with other objects within that field. For example, Earth has an electromagnetic field due to the movement of electrons within the core and used for navigation by birds and fish. Electrical fields result from the strength (voltage) of the charge and magnetic fields result from the motion (amperage) of the charge. The fields exist with varying strength and degrees, and wavelength and frequency will determine how it behaves.

EMF sources have steadily increased since the 20th century including electrical distribution lines, common household and occupational electrical appliances. This increase in exposure has lead to considerable scientific inquiry for associated health risks. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that the effects of electromagnetic fields on the human body depends not only on the field, but on the frequency and energy, though has found negligible risk of health consequences from low level exposure. However, they recognise that there are some gaps in knowledge about biological effects that need further research.

The impacts of EMFs on plants is a question being explored since plants are just as readily exposed to low-level magnetic fields as humans as a consequence of power lines and other industrial technology. It appears that magnetic fields does have an effect on the growth of plants. Belyavskaya (2004) found that weak electromagnetic fields suppressed the growth of plants, reduced cell division, intensified protein synthesis and disintegration in plant roots. Conversely, other studies such as Ramezani Vishki et al. (2012) found an increase in plant growth while other studies like Davies (1996) found some seeds increased in growth and others showed no change.

Despite the variable results from research, one thing that is not well understood is how magnetic fields affect plants. One of the proposed mechanisms is related to the levels of calcium ions within plant cells. It is found that exposure to weak EMFs remove calcium ions from cell membranes influencing calcium availability and thereby affecting plant processes and ability to respond to stress (Pazur et al. 2006). Researchers like Ramezani Vishki et al. (2012) suggest that the intensification of growth is due to the increasing of metabolism in irradiated seeds. The leakage of calcium ions into the cytosol (the main part of the cell) acts as a metabolic stimulant, which accounts for the reported accelerations of plant growth (Goldsworthy 2007). Goldsworthy (2007) hypothesises that the loss of calcium ions from cell membranes is the reason why weak fields are more effective than strong ones, why low frequencies such as 16 Hz are more potent and why pulsed fields do more damage. Another proposed mechanism is geotaxis, a phenomenon where magnetic fields will affect cellular organelles such as amyloplasts and influence the direction of plant growth (Peňuelas et al. 2004).

Literature supports that weak EMFs interfere with plant physiology but the mechanisms are not clear. The inconsistency and contradictory outcomes from the studies appear to indicate that the effects of magnetic fields on plants may be species-specific and/or is dependent on the characteristics of field exposure such as intensity and duration. Research of the effects EMFs have on plants is relatively new, and information is still limited. Most research focuses on agriculturally important plants leaving a knowledge gap on other species such as algae. Considering possible consequences, including economic and ecological impacts, more work is needed to clarify the basics of biological effects by electromagnetic fields.

References

1. Belyavskaya, N.A. (2004). Biological effects due to weak magnetic field on plants. Advances in Space Research, 34: 1566–1574.

2. Davies, M.S. (1996). Effects of 60 Hz electromagnetic fields on early growth in three plant species and a replication of previous results. Bioelectromagnetics. 17(2):154-61.

3. Goldsworthy A. (2007). The Biological Effects of Weak Electromagnetic Fields. H.E.S.E UK. http://www.hese-project.org/hese-uk/en/papers/goldsworthy_bio_weak_em_07.pdf

4. Pazur A., Rassadina V., Dandler J and Zoller J. (2006). Growth of etiolated barley plants in weak static and 50 Hz electromagnetic fields turned to calcium ion cyclotron resonance. BioMagnetic Research and Technology. 4: 1 doi: 10.1186/1477-044X-4-1.

5. Peňuelas J., Llusià J., Martínez B and Fontcuberta J. (2004). Diamagnetic Susceptibility and Root Growth Responses to Magnetic Fields in Lens culinaris, Glycine soja and Triticum aestivum. Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine. Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 97-112.

6. Ramezani Vishki F., Majd A., Nejadsattari T. and Arbabian P.S. (2012). Study of Effects of Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Radiation on Biochemical Changes in Satureja Bachtiarica L. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research Volume 1, Issue 7. ISSN 2277-8616 77 IJSTR.

Is 'Sustainability' Sustainable?

Environmental awareness has grown since the 1970's and sustainability has continued to be a fashionable term competitively used in way to be at the forefront. It is an often used word along with 'green', 'environmental', 'smart' or 'eco-friendly' which are the most accepted common buzzwords that are subject to the same abuse. Usually these terms are indiscriminately used for self or product promotion, which can remove a positive association such as helping the environment, and used to boost profits or public profile leaving an individual feeling exploited rather than empowered. It is also a word that is often misinterpreted and used to encompass a variety of ideas that it starts to mean nothing. But does an umbrella term like sustainability make it unsuitable for use?

 

Source: xkcd.com

How is the word sustainability used? Note that the Oxford English Dictionary has no definition of the word itself but instead defines 'sustainable' as 'capable of being maintained at a certain rate or level' in terms of sustainable economic growth or in commitment towards sustainable development. Yet sustainability is listed as a noun, adjective and an adverb, so it is not surprising that the abundant use of the term proliferates politics, business and media to the point it becomes tired and uninspiring. If the more commonly accepted definition of sustainable development from the Brundtland Commission is applied, 'development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations' it becomes broad enough to be used internationally but leaving it open to interpretation, raising more questions than answering problems of sustainability.

Determining a universal definition is further complicated by its coverage across dynamically interrelated issues. This means sustainability is problematic in terms of perception and circumstance as an environmentalist will focus on the environment element while developers on the development element. As an undefined concept, this can suggest a lack of homogeneity among the different discourses. One example is that resource extraction and use cross all spheres – environmental, economic and social so opinions on it will differ accordingly. Even if resource extraction and use is measured to be sustainable, by other measures it can represent what is unsustainable about society. Therefore continued use of 'sustainability' increases the concepts it covers which only lowers its perceived value and reputation.

Perhaps since the sustainability word has been so overused into banality it can provide opportunities for groups to carefully define the use of it, educate and communicate better. By careful use and reminders of what it means to the user, it can also be used to link different concepts and highlight their interdependency such as food security with land use, water use, emissions, soils etc. This is fundamentally what is important about sustainability, that it illustrates the need to connect concepts and actions in order to create a better and more equitable future. This is something that requires systemic thinking and separating issues only dilutes the ability to understand and solve them.

As a result of its wide and broad range of use, the definition of sustainability is likely to become less uniform as people will interpret information based on their own understanding of the terminology. Despite the lack of common understanding of sustainability and its concepts, the fact that it has become so mainstream shows that awareness is rising and that it can narrow the gap from theory into practice. The success of sustainability and its use of concepts shows that its progressive adoption is something people want. What really matters is how to find a way to define sustainability and its underlying values that is aligned and able to translate into a workable framework demonstrating what it means to be a sustainable society and how to get there.

Can Democracy Foster Environmental Justice & Sustainable Development?

What are the inherent rights of the environment? The environment, by definition, that which is everything that surrounds us. Our fundamental rights as human beings includes the right to live in a healthy and safe environment. To live in a healthy environment means that regardless of our background, culture, race or income, people should be able to participate in the development, implementation and enforcement of policies that protect our environment. This is the basis of environmental justice.


Protesting is one way a community fights for environmental justice.

Environmental justice began as a grassroots social movement in the 1980's so it is a relatively new idea. Today it features part of environmental discourse for the protection of the people whom are more vulnerable, people with the least power and money, from seeing their environmental rights denied. Environmental justice is an agenda that argues for the communities that are often exposed to a range of environmental stresses and risks than others and so aims to integrate social justice and equity considerations into a framework which extends into political and environmental ethics. But does democracy facilitate environmental justice and how does it relate to sustainable development?

Sustainable development is about ensuring that development meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. This is achieved through an in integrated approach to decision-making over the economy, environment and society. It is within the social context that environmental justice relates to sustainable development with values of social justice, fairness and poverty reduction. Democracy is congruous with the principle of information sharing and citizen engagement for equal say in making informed decisions about protecting rights to a clean environment. So there are various concepts and values in environmental justice that is compatible with sustainability and democracy.

Democracy can foster sustainability and environmental justice but it is constrained and sometimes it doesn't. Short-term interests based on electoral cycles, such as giving a disproportionate amount of focus on issues like economic growth, is one reason governments limit action towards sustainability and environmental justice. Initiatives, such as wind farms, eco-town planning and landscaping, and voluntary home saving measures have been slow in some countries because of community opposition. A lack of community acceptance has been linked to failures in policy delivery and limited public knowledge on the issue. This means that slow moving initiatives could have improved with better information exchange. There is also a level of distrust in government because they may have the interests of a group rather than the whole community, the translation of good intentions doesn't work out in practice because of lack of competence among bureaucracy and governments have a tendency to limit the right information needed for decision-making by compartmentalising issues. Some democracies outright violate fundamental human rights and fail to provide proper access to information and to justice. Other constraints to the movement is a lack of a unifying framework, to properly map ethics of equity and environmental justice which have varying definitions and implications to different communities.

When democracy does not foster the kind of social and environmental justice that is embedded in sustainable development, an erosion of democracy is likely to result. Research continues into finding ways to equip democracy to deliver environmental justice and sustainable development. This includes determining means that improve the quality of consultation and involvement at the local level. It is unknown if a decentralisation of power on sustainable development to local authorities is better than a centralised, global authority as one can result in an unequal distribution of innovation and the other will have the power to create innovation that may not carry public support. What needs to be remembered is that democracy for environmental justice and sustainability is more than action by elected representatives and realising the power of citizens in creating social justice.

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