A Comprehensive Method for Assessing Marine Resource Governance: Case Study in Kāne‘ohe Bay,Hawai‘i

A recent metaanalysis identified certain management attributes that are associated with successful management of threshold-based systems. However, high variance among case studies indicates that these attributes do not guarantee good conservation outcomes, suggesting that additional factors may be at play. To better understand these additional factors, we compiled a list of effective governance attributes from the literature, and developed guidance for systematically evaluating their presence, absence, and the extent to which each attribute is actually manifested in a given case study. We also examine the distribution of rights and responsibilities within a system, and the resulting impacts on stewardship incentives. Here we present the results of this analysis as applied to Kāneohe Bay, Hawai‘i. Our results confirm that absent or incomplete effective governance attributes can negatively impact conservation outcomes. In Kāneohe Bay, a public-private partnership temporarily compensated for gaps and weaknesses in the governance system, thereby creating conditions conducive to successfully reducing populations of invasive algae. However, this partnership has since dissolved and current capacity to address this and other issues in this system is again lacking. Failure to fix governance weaknesses may compromise the continued health and functioning of the Kāne'ohe Bay system.     

Fisheries Governance Affecting Conservation Outcomes in the United States and European Union

Abstract

Fisheries management in the USA, as governed by the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), has been decidedly more successful at meeting its conservation goals than has fisheries management in the EU, as governed by the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). In an effort to explain the different outcomes in these two systems that share many management attributes, we evaluated them against a list of effective governance attributes gleaned from the literature. We also examined the distribution of rights and responsibilities within each system, and the resulting stewardship incentives. Five effective governance attributes are fully realized under the MSA but have historically been absent from the CFP system: adequate regulatory authority, effective enforcement mechanisms, science-based decision-making, conservation-oriented goals and clear objectives, and directives. These governance system gaps, along with uneven distributions of rights, responsibilities, and incentives, may be responsible for the observed difference in conservation outcomes.     

Enhancement of diesel particulate matter collection in an electrostatic water-spraying scrubber

Marine diesel engines are major sources of air pollution. They emit a large amount of pollutants, including diesel particulate matter (DPM), carbon oxide (CO _x ), unburned hydrocarbons (HC), nitrogen oxide (NO _x ), sulfur oxide (SO _x ), and other products of combustion. Among these, DPM may cause respiratory and mutagenic diseases in humans, including lung and bladder cancer (see Donaldson et al. J Aerosol Sci 29:553–560, 1998). In this study, experiments were performed with an electrostatic water-spraying scrubber (EWSS) to evaluate its effectiveness for the collection of mass- and number-based DPM emissions from a marine diesel engine. The results show that the collection efficiency of the scrubber increases as the engine load increases due to an increase in the large DPM concentration and an increase in the amount of DPM collected by the charged droplets. The effect of water spraying performance on DPM collection at constant engine load was investigated experimentally. The strength of the electrical attraction between the charged water droplets and the charged DPM within the scrubber led to a significant increase in total DPM collection efficiency (up to 4–7 times). In addition, the total DPM collection efficiency was found to be directly related to the corona power, the electrical properties of water, water spraying performance and engine load. The EWSS appears to be a promising alternative method for controlling mass-based as well as number-based DPM emissions.