Digital Commons Network^™

Palaeoecology: A Tool To Improve The Management Of Australian Estuaries, Krystyna M. Saunders, Kathryn H. Taffs

Dr Kathryn H Taffs

Addressing environmental problems in estuaries is a worldwide problem. Establishing benchmarks and targets for management is critical, whether the aim is conservation, restoration or ‘sustainable wise use’. Palaeoecological techniques have rapidly improved during the past decade, particularly with advances in methods that allow high resolution quantitative assessments of environmental change, allowing pre-impact conditions, the rate, extent and direction of change, and range of natural variability to be determined. Australian estuarine ecosystems are qualitatively different to the often more well-studied estuaries in North America and Europe, which means site-specific studies of Australian estuaries are needed to inform management. While a potentially …

Fort Richardson Ordnance Detonations And The Harbor Porpoise: A Case Study In Marine Mammal Bioacoustics, Heather Heenehan

Honors Scholar Theses

Hearing is extremely important for cetaceans because it is their “principal sense” (Weilgart, 2007) thus the harbor porpoise and other marine animals are highly dependent on sound for survival. This is why we should care about the impact of noise on animals like the harbor porpoise. Since sound travels so well in water, an explosion, sonar, boat noise, etc. can affect a very large area and thus many different species of marine mammals. Although military actions such as low frequency sonar have made recent news, noise has been affecting cetaceans, especially beaked whales, since at least 1991 (Weilgart, 2007).

This …

Gis Data: Mathews County, Virginia Shoreline Inventory Report Methods And Guidelines, Marcia Berman, Harry Berquist, Sharon Killeen, Carl Hershner, Karinna Nunez, Karen Reay, Tamia Rudnicky, Daniel E. Schatt, David Weiss

Data

The data inventory developed for the Shoreline Situation Reports are based on a three-tiered shoreline assessment approach. This assessment characterizes conditions in the shorezone observed from a small boat moving along the shoreline. Handheld GPS units record data observations in the field. The three tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shorezone into three regions:

1. the immediate riparian zone, evaluated for land use

2. the bank, evaluated for height, stability and natural protection

3. the shoreline, describing the presence of shoreline structures for shore protection and recreational purposes.

Three GIS coverages are generated from the collection technique. The Mathews_lubc coverage are features related …