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1650_44 | See also
List of American films of 1944
Timeline of United States history (1930–1949)
Timeline of World War II
References
External links |
1651_0 | The Rolls-Royce RB211 is a British family of high-bypass turbofan engines made by Rolls-Royce. The engines are capable of generating of thrust. The RB211 engine was the first production three-spool engine, and turned Rolls-Royce from a significant player in the aero-engine industry into a global leader.
Originally developed for the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, it entered service in 1972 and was the exclusive engine to power the L-1011. Mismanagement of the initial development and consequent cost issues led to the effective nationalisation of Rolls-Royce Limited, to save the workforce and the engine businesses important to the UK and many other aerospace and aircraft operating companies.
In the early 1970s, the engine was reckoned by the company to be capable of at least 50 years of continuous development. The RB211 was officially superseded in the 1990s by the Rolls-Royce Trent family of engines, which are conceptual offspring of the RB211.
History
Background |
1651_1 | In 1966, American Airlines announced a requirement for a new short-medium range airliner with a focus on low-cost per-seat operations. While it was looking for a twin-engined plane, aircraft manufacturers needed more than one customer to justify developing a new airliner. Eastern Airlines had expressed interest, but required greater range and needed to operate long routes over water. At the time, this demanded three engines to provide redundancy. Other airlines also favored three engines. Lockheed and Douglas responded with designs, the L-1011 TriStar and DC-10 respectively. Both had three engines, transcontinental range and seated around 300 passengers in a widebody layout with two aisles. |
1651_2 | The wide-body McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 was representative of the innovative aircraft and aero-engine technologies which were then being adopted by US and European airframe manufacturers to provide airlines with aircraft of very large carrying capacity and short/medium to long range. These very large capacity aircraft were needed to address the significant increases in passenger numbers and air traffic which were then being forecast by the industry. In Europe, large capacity airliner concept studies had been carried out by both private and government organisations since the late 1950s and early 1960s. Many of the studies conducted by the aviation companies were weighted towards a 200 to 300 seat aircraft, with a high cycle performance that was based on the utilisation of the game-changing new technology of the high by-pass ratio aero-engine. |
1651_3 | Between 1964 and 1967, Hawker Siddeley's examination of British European Airways (BEA)'s requirements produced the 160-seat HS.132 and the 185-seat HS.134; both offered the prospect of a 25–30% reduction in seat mile costs over aircraft then in service. Both of the designs would have utilised two of the new technology Rolls-Royce RB.178 aero-engines of 30,000lbf to provide superior operating performance over the first generation three engine contemporaries. |
1651_4 | According to Cownie, Gunston, Hayward and the UK Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), the roots of the advanced RB.178 go back to 1961 when Rolls-Royce officially initiated work on a high by-pass ratio aero-engine as a replacement for the Conway. The company went ahead with the project and under the leadership of Adrian Lombard built the twin-spool demonstrator. Overall development costs of the RB.178 was £2.6 million. As a comparison, the GE and P&W companies were awarded nearly $20 million by the US DoD ( Department of Defense) to develop and build the TF39 and STF200 technology demonstrators.
The RB.178 was built on the reliable and economic advantages inherent in the Conway and, given that engine's heritage, the new engine's performance looked certain. The RB.178 (designated the 16 series) appears to have been the engine proposed for the Vickers Superb DB.265 (VC10), with four engines powering the high capacity transatlantic airliner. |
1651_5 | There are perhaps many reasons why the RB.178 failed to take off. Chief among them was the refusal of Boeing to accept the Rolls-Royce engine on the transatlantic 747.
The RB.178 was cancelled in May 1966 and in June 1966 Rolls-Royce indicated it did not want to battle with P&W over the Boeing 747. In September 1966 Rolls-Royce revealed its decision to launch an Advanced Technology Engine (A.T.E) family covering thrusts ranging from 10,000lbf (RB.203) through to 60,000lbf. (RB.207). The A.T.E family introduced new scalable technologies such as the triple-shaft architecture, a high-pressure annular combustor and a structurally integrated power-plant (nacelle). |
1651_6 | Both planes also required new engines. Engines were undergoing a period of rapid advance due to the introduction of the high bypass concept, which provided for greater thrust, improved fuel economy and less noise than the earlier low-bypass designs. Rolls-Royce had been working on an engine of the required 45,000 lbf (200 kN) thrust class for an abortive attempt to introduce an updated Hawker Siddeley Trident as the RB178. This work was later developed for the 47,500 lbf (211 kN) thrust RB207 to be used on the Airbus A300, before, with the withdrawal of the UK from the Airbus programme, it was cancelled in favour of the RB211 programme. |
1651_7 | Rolls-Royce was also working on a series of triple-spool designs as replacements for the Conway, which promised to deliver higher efficiency. In this configuration, three groups of turbines spin three separate concentric shafts to power three sections of the compressor area running at different speeds. In addition to allowing each stage of the compressor to run at its optimal speed, the triple-spool design is more compact and rigid, although more complex to build and maintain. Several designs were being worked on at the time, including a 10,000 lbf (44 kN) thrust design known as the RB203 intended to replace the Spey. Work started on the Conway replacement engine in July 1961 and a twin-spool demonstrator engine to prove the HP compressor, combustor, and turbine system designs, had been run by 1966. Rolls-Royce chose the triple-spool system in 1965 as the simplest, lowest cost solution to the problem of obtaining lower fuel consumption and reduced noise levels at a constant power |
1651_8 | setting. Work on the RB211 as essentially a scaled-down RB207 began in 1966-7 with the first certificated engines being scheduled to be available by December 1970 at 33,260lb take-off thrust and at a price of $511,000 each. |
1651_9 | In February 1968, American Airlines had chosen the Rolls-Royce RB.211 to power its order for up to 50 McDonnell-Douglas DC-10s. On 7 March 1968, the Washington correspondent of The Times wrote of an attempt being made by Congress to block Rolls-Royce's bid to supply engines for the projected United States airbus. Representative Robert Taft Jr. of Ohio had marshalled opposition because of a report that Rolls-Royce had won approval for the engine. On 9 March 1968, The Times reported that President Lyndon Johnson had received written protests from six senators and five representatives, from Ohio and New Mexico – states that would benefit if a US manufacturer was selected. Their complaint was that 'not adequately balanced information was given during talks between representatives of airlines and the British Government concerning the American Government's position on buying foreign engines'. The US Congress was concerned that the import of foreign engines would result in a US payments |
1651_10 | deficit of $3,800 million and the loss of 18,000 to 20,000 jobs. |
1651_11 | Finalisation of design
On 23 June 1967, Rolls-Royce offered Lockheed the RB211-06 for the L-1011. The new engine was to be rated at thrust and combined features of several engines then under development: the large high-power, high-bypass design from the RB207 and the triple-spool design of the RB203. To this was added one new piece of technology, a fan stage built of a new carbon fibre material called Hyfil developed at the RAE Farnborough. The weight saving was considerable over a similar fan made of titanium, and gave the RB211 an advantage over its competitors in terms of power-to-weight ratio. Despite knowing that the timetable was challenging for an engine incorporating these new features, Rolls-Royce committed to putting the RB211 into service in 1971. |
1651_12 | Lockheed felt that the new engine enabled the L-1011 to offer a distinct advantage over the otherwise similar DC-10 product. However, Douglas had also requested proposals from Rolls-Royce for an engine to power its DC-10, and in October 1967 the response was a thrust version of the RB211 designated RB211-10. There followed a period of intense negotiation between airframe manufacturers Lockheed and Douglas, engine suppliers Rolls-Royce, General Electric and Pratt & Whitney, and the major US airlines. During this time prices were negotiated downwards and the required thrust ratings were increased. By early 1968, Rolls-Royce was offering a thrust engine designated RB211-18. On 29 March 1968 Lockheed announced that it had received orders for 94 TriStars, and placed an order with Rolls-Royce for 150 sets of engines designated RB211-22.
RB211-22 series
Development and testing |
1651_13 | The RB211's complexity required a lengthy development and testing period. By Autumn 1969 Rolls-Royce was struggling to meet the performance guarantees to which it had committed: the engine had insufficient thrust, was over weight and its fuel consumption was excessive. The situation deteriorated further when in May 1970 the new Hyfil (a carbon fibre composite) fan stage, after passing other tests, shattered when a chicken carcass was fired into it at high speed as part of the bird ingestion test. The company had been developing a titanium blade as an insurance against difficulties with Hyfil, but this meant extra cost and more weight. It also brought its own technical problems when it was discovered that only one side of the titanium billet was of the right metallurgical quality for blade fabrication. |
1651_14 | In addition, the project suffered a setback with the death of Chief Engineer Adrian "Lom" Lombard in July 1967, a loss that was described as Rolls-Royce having been "deprived of one of the finest trouble-shooting engineers in the industry".
"It was all too obvious that the Derby engineers, normally proud and self-confident to the point of arrogance, had slid from bad to worse when their great leader, Lombard, had been so suddenly plucked from them in 1967. His death had left a vacuum which nobody could fill ... " – Stanley Hooker
In September 1970, Rolls-Royce reported to the government that development costs for the RB211 had risen to £170.3 million – nearly double the original estimate. The estimated production costs now exceeded the £230,375 selling price of each engine. The project was in crisis. |
1651_15 | Insolvency and aftermath
By January 1971 Rolls-Royce had become insolvent, and on 4 February 1971 was placed into receivership, seriously jeopardising the L-1011 TriStar programme. Because of its strategic importance, the company was nationalised by the Conservative government of Edward Heath, allowing development of the RB211 to be completed. |
1651_16 | As Lockheed was itself in a vulnerable position, the British government required that the US government guarantee the bank loans that Lockheed needed to complete the L-1011 project. If Lockheed (which was itself weakened by the difficulties) had failed, the market for the RB211 would have evaporated. Despite some opposition, the US government provided these guarantees. In May 1971, a new company called "Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd." acquired the assets of Rolls-Royce from the Receiver, and shortly afterwards signed a new contract with Lockheed. This revised agreement cancelled penalties for late delivery, and increased the price of each engine by £110,000. |
1651_17 | Hugh Conway (managing director RR Gas Turbines), persuaded Stanley Hooker to come out of retirement and return to Rolls Royce. As technical director he led a team of other retirees - including Cyril Lovesey and Arthur Rubbra - to fix the remaining problems on the RB211-22. The engine was finally certified on 14 April 1972, about a year later than originally planned, and the first TriStar entered service with Eastern Air Lines on 26 April 1972. Hooker was knighted for his role in 1974.
Speaking of a famous banker in relation to the RB211:
"We (Rolls-Royce) added a zero to his stature; he used to think £5 million a lot of money, but after a few weeks on the RB211 he came to understand that £50 million is peanuts." – Stanley Hooker. |
1651_18 | The RB211's initial reliability in service was not as good as had been expected because of the focus of the development programme on meeting the engine's performance guarantees. Early deliveries were of the RB211-22C model, derated slightly from the later -22B. A programme of modifications during the first few years in service improved matters considerably, and the series has since matured into a highly reliable engine.
RB211-524 series
Although originally designed for the L-1011-1, Rolls-Royce knew that the RB211 could be developed to provide greater thrust. By redesigning the fan and the IP compressor, Hooker's team increased the engine's thrust to . The new version, which first ran on 1 October 1973, was designated RB211-524, and would be able to power new variants of the L-1011, as well as the Boeing 747. |
1651_19 | Rolls-Royce tried unsuccessfully to sell the RB211 to Boeing in the 1960s, but the new -524 offered significant performance and efficiency improvements over the Pratt & Whitney JT9D which Boeing had originally selected to power the 747. In October 1973 Boeing agreed to offer the RB211-524 on the 747-200, and British Airways became the first airline to order this combination which entered service in 1977. Flight International stated in 1980:
"The importance placed on fuel saving by airlines is emphasised by Qantas' adoption of RB.211-524 power for its new Boeing 747s – the only aircraft on which all big three fans are available. Qantas found that British Airways' Boeing 747s fitted with RB.211s burnt roughly 7% less fuel than its JT9D-equipped fleet, a saving of about $1 million a year per aircraft, at today's prices." |
1651_20 | Rolls continued to develop the -524, increasing its thrust through with the -524C, then in the -524D which was certificated in 1981. Notable airline customers included Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Cargolux and South African Airways. When Boeing launched the heavier 747-400 more thrust was required, and Rolls responded with the -524G rated at thrust and then the -524H with 60,600. These were the first versions to feature FADEC. The -524H was also offered as a third engine choice on the Boeing 767, and the first of these entered service with British Airways in February 1990. |
1651_21 | These would have been the final developments of the -524, but when Rolls developed the successor Trent engine, it was found it could fit the Trent 700's improved HP system to the -524G and -524H. These variants were lighter and offered improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions; they were designated -524G-T and -524H-T respectively. It was also possible to upgrade existing -524G/H engines to the improved -T configuration, and a number of airlines did this.
The -524 became increasingly reliable as it was developed, and the -524H achieved 180-minute ETOPS approval on the 767 in 1993. An RB211 may have a thrust specific fuel consumption around 0.6 lb/(lbf·h).
The -524L, begun in 1987 to allow further growth in the A330 and 777 market, was more extensively redesigned, the considerable differences incorporated leading to the engine eventually receiving the name Trent, under which name development has continued.
RB211-535 series
RB211-535C |
1651_22 | In the mid 1970s, Boeing was considering designs for a new twin-engined aircraft to replace its successful 727. As the size of the proposed plane grew from 150 passengers towards 200, Rolls-Royce realised that the RB211 could be adapted by reducing the diameter of the fan and removing the first IP compressor stage to produce an engine with the necessary thrust. The new version was designated RB211-535. On 31 August 1978 Eastern Airlines and British Airways announced orders for the new 757, powered by the -535. Designated RB211-535C, the engine entered service in January 1983. This was the first time that Rolls-Royce had provided a launch engine on a Boeing aircraft. Eastern Airlines president Frank Borman called the -535C "The finest airline engine in the world".
RB211-535E, RB211-535E4 |
1651_23 | In 1979 Pratt & Whitney launched its PW2000 engine, claiming 8% better fuel efficiency than the -535C for the PW2037 version. Boeing put Rolls-Royce under pressure to supply a more competitive engine for the 757, and using the more advanced -524 core as a basis, the company produced the thrust RB211-535E4 which entered service in October 1984. While not as efficient as the PW2037, it was more reliable and quieter. Visible differences include a mixed exhaust nozzle and a bigger fan cone. It was also the first to use the wide chord fan which increases efficiency, reduces noise and gives added protection against foreign object damage. As a result, a relatively small number of -535Cs were installed on production aircraft, and almost all -535Cs are still used with Boeing 757-200s owned by DHL and one aircraft is a charter jet. The majority uses the -535E. Visually, the 535Cs can be distinguished from later series of the same engine by their distinctive exhaust ducting. |
1651_24 | Probably the most important single -535E order came in May 1988 when American Airlines ordered 50 757s powered by the -535E4 citing the engine's low noise as an important factor: this was the first time since the TriStar that Rolls-Royce had received a significant order from a US airline, and it led to the -535E4's subsequent market domination on the 757. Humorously (as reported in Air International) at the time of the announcement made by American, selection of the -535E4 was made public prior to the selection of the 757, though this was welcome news to both Rolls-Royce and Boeing. |
1651_25 | After being certified for the 757, the E4 was offered on the Russian Tupolev Tu-204-120 airliner, entering service in 1992. This was the first time a Russian airliner had been supplied with western engines. The -535E4 was also proposed by Boeing for re-engining the B-52H Stratofortress, replacing the aircraft's eight TF33s with four of the turbofans. Further upgrading of the -535E4 took place in the late 1990s to improve the engine's emissions performance, borrowing technology developed for the Trent 700.
The -535E4 is considered by many to be an extremely reliable engine, and achieved 180-minute ETOPS approval on the 757 in 1990.
Industrial RB211 |
1651_26 | When Rolls-Royce was developing the -22, it realised that it would be straightforward to develop a version of the engine for land-based power generation, and in 1974 the industrial RB211 was launched. When the -524 arrived shortly afterwards, its improvements were incorporated in the industrial RB211 which was designated RB211-24. The generator was gradually developed over the following years and is still marketed today as a range of generators producing 25.2–32 MW. Many of its installations have been in the offshore oil and gas production industries.
Marine WR-21
An advanced 25 MW class WR-21 Intercooled Recuperated (ICR) gas turbine was derived for marine propulsion.
Variants
-22
-22C
-24
-52
-56
-61
-524
-524B
-524C
-524D
-524G
-524G-T
-524H
-524H-T
-535C
-535E
-535E4
WR-21
Engines on display
An RB211-22B and RB211-524G are on display at the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust Collection, Derby.
Specifications |
1651_27 | The -535E4 was the first engine to incorporate a hollow wide-chord unsnubbered fan to improve efficiency. It used advanced materials, including titanium in the HP compressor and carbon composites in the nacelle. Later engines incorporate some features (e.g. FADEC) from improved models of the -524.
See also
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Gunston, Bill. Development of Piston Aero Engines. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 2006.
Hooker, Sir Stanley. Not Much of an Engineer, Airlife Publishing, 1985. .
Newhouse, John. The Sporty Game: The High-Risk Competitive Business of Making and Selling Commercial Airliners. 1982.
Keith, Hayward. Government and British civil aerospace: a case study in post-war technology. 1983.
Porter, Andrew. Transatlantic Betrayal. The RB.211 and the Demise of Rolls-Royce Limited. Amberley Publishing, 2013.
External links |
1651_28 | Official Rolls-Royce RB211-524 site
Official Rolls-Royce RB211-535 site
Official Rolls-Royce Industrial RB211 site
The Rolls-Royce RB.211 Turbofan – Flight Archive
"Rolls-Royce 50,000-Pounder" a Flight article on the RB.211-524
"RB.211-535: Rolls-Royce's Boeing 757 fan" a 1980 flight article on the RB.211-535
"RB.211 – Big Fan Broadens Appeal" a 1988 Flight article on the RB.211 series
High-bypass turbofan engines
RB211
1960s turbofan engines
Three-spool turbofan engines |
1652_0 | A pedestrian is a person travelling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically.
The meaning of pedestrian is displayed with the morphemes ped- ('foot') and -ian ('characteristic of'). This word is derived from the Latin term pedester ('going on foot') and was first used (in English language) during the 18th century. It was originally used, and can still be used today, as an adjective meaning plain or dull. However, in this article it takes on its noun form and refers to someone who walks.
The word pedestrian may have been used in middle French in the Recueil des Croniques et Anchiennes Istories de la Grant Bretaigne, à présent nommé Engleterre. |
1652_1 | In California the definition of a pedestrian has been broadened to include anyone on any human powered vehicle that is not a bicycle, as well as people operating self-propelled wheelchairs by reason of physical disability. In some communities, those travelling using tiny wheels such as roller skates, skateboards, and scooters, as well as wheelchair users are also included as pedestrians.
History
Walking has always been the primary means of human locomotion. The first humans to migrate from Africa, about 60,000 years ago, walked. They walked along the coast of India to reach Australia. They walked across Asia to reach the Americas, and from Central Asia into Europe. |
1652_2 | With the advent of the cars in the beginning of the 20th century, the main story is the cars took over, and 'people chose the car', but there were many groups and movements that both held on to walking as their preferred means of daily transport and some who organised and sought to bring forth their conviction, and to counterbalance the onesided media coverage that often favoured cars, e.g as related by Peter Norton. |
1652_3 | During the 18th and 19th centuries, pedestrianism (walking) was a popular spectator sport just as equestrianism still is in places such as the United Kingdom and the United States. One of the most famous pedestrians of that period was Captain Robert Barclay Allardice, known as "The Celebrated Pedestrian", of Stonehaven in Scotland. His most impressive feat was to walk every hour for 1000 hours, which he achieved between 1 June and 12 July 1809. This feat captured many people's imagination, and around 10,000 people came to watch over the course of the event. During the rest of the 19th century, many people tried to repeat this feat, including Ada Anderson who developed it further and walked a half-mile (800 m) each quarter-hour over the 1,000 hours. |
1652_4 | Since the 20th century, interest in walking as a sport has dropped. Racewalking is still an Olympic sport, but fails to catch public attention as it did. However major walking feats are still performed, such as the Land's End to John o' Groats walk in the United Kingdom, and the traversal of North America from coast to coast. The first person to walk around the world was Dave Kunst who started his walk travelling east from Waseca, Minnesota on 20 June 1970 and completed his journey on 5 October 1974, when he re-entered the town from the west. These feats are often tied to charitable fundraising and are undertaken by celebrities such as Sir Jimmy Savile and Ian Botham as well as by others.
Footpaths and roads
Outdoor pedestrian networks |
1652_5 | Roads often have a designated footpath for pedestrian traffic, called the sidewalk in North American English, the pavement in British English, and the footpath in Australian and New Zealand English. There are also footpaths not associated with a road; these include urban short cuts and also rural paths used mainly by ramblers, hikers, or hill-walkers. Footpaths in mountainous or forested areas may also be called trails. Pedestrians share some footpaths with horses and bicycles: these paths may be known as bridleways. Other byways used by walkers are also accessible to vehicles. There are also many roads with no footpath. Some modern towns (such as the new suburbs of Peterborough in England) are designed with the network of footpaths and cycle paths almost entirely separate from the road network. |
1652_6 | The term trail is also used by the authorities in some countries to mean any footpath that is not attached to a road or street. If such footpaths are in urban environments and are meant for both pedestrians and pedal cyclists, they can be called shared use paths or multi-use paths in general and official usage.
Some shopping streets are for pedestrians only. Some roads have special pedestrian crossings. A bridge solely for pedestrians is a footbridge.
Under British law, regardless of whether there is a footpath, pedestrians have the right to use most public roads, excluding motorways and some toll tunnels and bridges such as the Blackwall Tunnel and the Dartford Crossing. The UK Highway Code advises that pedestrians should walk in the opposite direction to oncoming traffic on a road with no footpath. |
1652_7 | Indoor pedestrian networks
Indoor pedestrian networks connect the different rooms or spaces of a building. Airports, museums, campuses, hospitals and shopping centres might have tools allowing for the computation of the shortest paths between two destinations. Their increasing availability is due to the complexity of path finding in these facilities. Different mapping tools, such as OpenStreetMap, are extending to indoor spaces.
Pedestrianisation
Pedestrianisation might be considered as process of removing vehicular traffic from city streets or restricting vehicular access to streets for use by pedestrians, in order to improve the environment and the safety. |
1652_8 | Efforts are under way by pedestrian advocacy groups to restore pedestrian access to new developments, especially to counteract newer developments, 20% to 30% of which in the United States do not include footpaths. Some activists advocate large pedestrian zones where pedestrians only or pedestrians and some non-motorised vehicles are allowed. Many urbanists have extolled the virtues of pedestrian streets in urban areas. In the US the proportion of households without a car is 8%, but a notable exception is New York City, the only locality in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car (the figure is even higher in Manhattan, over 75%). |
1652_9 | The use of cars for short journeys is officially discouraged in many parts of the world, and construction or separation of dedicated walking routes in city centres receives a high priority in many large cities in Western Europe, often in conjunction with public transport enhancements. In Copenhagen, the world's longest pedestrian shopping area, Strøget, has been developed over the last 40 years principally due to the work of Danish architect Jan Gehl, a principle of urban design known as copenhagenisation.
Safety issues
Safety is an important issue where cars can cross the pedestrian way. Drivers and pedestrians share some responsibility for improving safety of road users. Road traffic crashes are not inevitable; they are both predictable and preventable. |
1652_10 | Key risks for pedestrians are well known. Among the well documented factors are: driver behaviour, (including speeding, drinking and driving); infrastructure missing facilities (including pavements, crossings and islands); and vehicle design which are not forgiving to pedestrians crashed by a vehicle. Because pedestrians are not protected by their vehicle while car occupants are, pedestrians are usually classified in the vulnerable road user category, even in Canada. Most of pedestrian are injured at crossing a street/road. |
1652_11 | Most of pedestrian crash occur by night. Most of pedestrians are killed by a frontal impact. In such a situation, a pedestrian is struck by a car front; for instance the bumper touch either the leg or knee-joint area; then, the lower part of the body is accelerated forwards, while the upper part of the body rotates and accelerated to the car; this will likely cause damage to the pelvis and thorax. Then the head hits the windscreen with the velocity of the striking car.
Finally, the victim falls to the ground. |
1652_12 | Some special interest groups consider pedestrian fatalities on American roads a carnage.
Five states — Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and Texas — produce 46% of all pedestrians deaths in the country.
The advent of SUVs is considered a leading cause; speculation of other factors includes population growth, driver distraction with mobile phones, poor street lighting, alcohol and drugs and speeding.
Cities have had mixed result in addressing pedestrian safety with Vizion zero plan: Los Angeles has failes while NYC has had success. Nonetheless in the US, some pedestrians have just 40 seconds to cross a 10 lanes street. |
1652_13 | Pedestrian fatalities are much more common in accident situations in the European Union than in the United States. In the European Union countries, more than 200,000 pedestrians and cyclists are injured annually. Also, each year, more than 270 000 pedestrians lose their lives on the world's roads. At a global level pedestrians constitute 22% of all road deaths, but might be two thirds in some countries.
Pedestrian fatalities, in 2016, are 2.6 per million population in the Netherlands, 4.3 in Sweden, 4.5 per million population in Wales, 5.3 in New Zealand, 6.0 in Germany; 7.1 in United Kingdom, 7.5 in Australia, 8.4 in France, 8.4 in Spain, 9.4 in Italy, 11.1 in Israel, 13 in Japan, 13.8 in Greece, 18.5 in the United States of America, 22.9 in Poland, and 36.3 in Romania
Safety trends
Road design impact on safety |
1652_14 | It is well documented that a minor increase in speed might greatly increase the likelihood of a crash, and exacerbate resulting casualties. For this reason, the recommended maximum speed is or in residential and high pedestrian traffic areas, with enforced traffic rules on speed limits
and traffic-calming measures.
The design of road and streets plays a key role in pedestrian safety. Roads are too often designed for motorized vehicles, without taking into account pedestrian and bicycle needs. The non-existence of sidewalk and signals increases risk for pedestrians. This defect might more easily be observed on arterial roadways, intersections and fast-speed lanes without adequate attention to pedestrian facilities. For instance, an assessment of roads in countries from many continents shows that 84% of roads are without pedestrian footpaths, while maximum limited speed is greater than 40 km/h. |
1652_15 | Among the factors which reduce road safety for pedestrians are wider lanes, roadway widening, and roadways designed for higher speeds and with increased numbers of traffic lanes.
For this reason, some European cities such as Freiburg (Germany) have lowered the speed limit to 30 km/h on 90% of its streets, to reduce risk for its 15 000 people. With such policy, 24% of daily trips are performed by foot, against 28% by bicycles, 20% by public transport and 28% ( See Zone 30)
A similar set of policies to discourage the use of cars and increase safety for pedestrians has been implemented by the Northern European capitals of Oslo and Helsinki. In 2019, this resulted in both cities counting zero pedestrian deaths for the first time.
Seasonality
In Europe, pedestrian fatalities have a seasonal factor, with 6% of annual fatalities occurring in April for 13% (twice more) occurring in December. The rationale for such a change might be complex.
Pedestrian safety in the United States |
1652_16 | Pedestrian crashes in the United States
In the US, the number of pedestrians killed increased 27 percent between 2007 and 2016. and 46% from 2010 to 2020.
In 2016 and 2017 near 6,000 pedestrians died in a motor vehicle crash. This did not occurred during the previous 25 years according to the GHSA.
Each US state is not equal on the topic of pedestrian fatalities:
Number of pedestrian fatalities range from one in Hawaii and Wyoming to 352 in California, for the first half of 2017.
Arizona has the highest rate of pedestrian deaths per resident population (1.61), while Hawaii has the lowest (0.07), during first semester 2017
New Mexico has highest pedestrian fatality rate (3.45) while Nebraska has the lowest (0.68), in 2016. |
1652_17 | Possible cause of the increase of pedestrian fatalities are the decriminalization of the recreational use of marijuana (judgment and reaction time) and increased use of smartphones, source of distraction:
Seven states (Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington) which legalized marijuana have a 16.4% increase of pedestrian fatalities while other state have a decrease of 5.8%.
Cell-phone in Emergency Department visits increase with revalence of cell phone use in the United States
State policies for pedestrian in the US
Some states developed 3E policies with enforcement, engineering improvements, and public education, based on evidence-based strategies.
Separation of Pedestrians from Motor Vehicles can be improved with pedestrian islands, pavements, pedestrian overpasses or pedestrian underpasses, countdown pedestrian signals, pedestrian hybrid beacons (or HAWK signals). |
1652_18 | Pedestrians can be more visible to drivers with Improved street lighting, high-visibility crossings, flashing beacons.
Engineering and enforcement measures to reduce speeds with increased space for modes other than motor vehicles, roundabouts, traffic calming devices including speed bumps or kerb extension, automated traffic enforcement.
Montana yearly reviews fatalities on high-risk roads and constructs infrastructure improvements (midblock crossing improvements; signal coordination and timing improvements; improved lighting; and improved signing). Il also requires pedestrian issues are considered during a construction project. Montana pedestrian fatalities decrease by 37% between first semesters 2016 end 2017.
Vermont has a Vermont Governor’s Highway Safety Program since 2015. Vermont pedestrian fatalities decreased by 60% between first semesters 2016 and 2017. |
1652_19 | Connecticut DOT is also involved in statewide policy. Connecticut pedestrian fatalities decreased by 35% between first semesters 2016 and 2017.
In California, the California Department of Transportation provides new roundabouts while the Office of Traffic Safety is funds Pedestrian Assessments in cities where many pedestrian crashes occur, based on engineering, education and enforcement strategies. California pedestrian fatalities decreased by 18% between first semesters 2016 and 2017.
In Texas, the DOT worked on pedestrian issues on I-35 in the Austin area and distributed reflective bags to at-risk groups (homeless population and school children).
Education is also provided for bicycle, pedestrian, children and alcohol.
Texas also relies on engineering with marked pedestrian crossings, pedestrian signals, new pavements, pedestrian islands, and kerb extensions. Texas pedestrian fatalities decreased by 18% between first semesters 2016 and 2017.
Health benefits and environment |
1652_20 | Regular walking is important both for human health and for the natural environment. Frequent exercise such as walking tends to reduce the chance of obesity and related medical problems. In contrast, using a car for short trips tends to contribute both to obesity and via vehicle emissions to climate change: internal combustion engines are more inefficient and highly polluting during their first minutes of operation (engine cold start). General availability of public transportation encourages walking, as it will not, in most cases, take one directly to one's destination.
Unicode
In Unicode, the hexadecimal code for "pedestrian" is 1F6B6. In XML and HTML, the string 🚶 produces 🚶.
See also
Dérive aimless walking usually through city streets
Footpath
Jaywalking
Junior safety patrol
List of U.S. cities with most pedestrian commuters
Pedestrian zone
Traffic calming
Trail ethics
Walkability
Walking audit
Walking
References
External links
Walking
Transport |
1653_0 | Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and from healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystems, grassland ecosystems and aquatic ecosystems. These ecosystems, functioning in healthy relationship, offer such things like natural pollination of crops, clean air, extreme weather mitigation, and human mental and physical well-being. Collectively, these benefits are becoming known as 'ecosystem services', and are often integral to the provisioning of clean drinking water, the decomposition of wastes, and resilience and productivity of food ecosystems. |
1653_1 | While scientists and environmentalists have discussed ecosystem services implicitly for decades, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) in the early 2000s popularized this concept. There, ecosystem services are grouped into four broad categories: provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and oxygen production; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits. To help inform decision-makers, many ecosystem services are being valuated in order to draw equivalent comparisons to human engineered infrastructure and services. |
1653_2 | Estuarine and coastal ecosystems are both marine ecosystems. Together, these ecosystems perform the four categories of ecosystem services in a variety of ways: "Regulating services" include climate regulation as well as waste treatment and disease regulation and buffer zones. The "provisioning services" include forest products, marine products, fresh water, raw materials, biochemical and genetic resources. "Cultural services" of coastal ecosystems include inspirational aspects, recreation and tourism, science and education. "Supporting services" of coastal ecosystems include nutrient cycling, biologically mediated habitats and primary production. |
1653_3 | Definition
Ecosystem services are defined as the gains acquired by humankind from surroundings ecosystems. Per the 2006 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), ecosystem services are "the benefits people obtain from ecosystems". The MA also delineated the four categories of ecosystem services—supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural—discussed below.
By 2010, there had evolved various working definitions and descriptions of ecosystem services in the literature. To prevent double counting in ecosystem services audits, for instance, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) replaced "Supporting Services" in the MA with "Habitat Services" and "ecosystem functions", defined as "a subset of the interactions between ecosystem structure and processes that underpin the capacity of an ecosystem to provide goods and services".
Categories |
1653_4 | Four different types of ecosystem services have been distinguished by the scientific body: regulating services, provisioning services, cultural services and supporting services. An ecosystem does not necessarily offer all four types of services simultaneously; but given the intricate nature of any ecosystem, it is usually assumed that humans benefit from a combination of these services. The services offered by diverse types of ecosystems (forests, seas, coral reefs, mangroves, etc.) differ in nature and in consequence. In fact, some services directly affect the livelihood of neighboring human populations (such as fresh water, food or aesthetic value, etc.) while other services affect general environmental conditions by which humans are indirectly impacted (such as climate change, erosion regulation or natural hazard regulation, etc.). |
1653_5 | The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report 2005 defined ecosystem services as benefits people obtain from ecosystems and distinguishes four categories of ecosystem services, where the so-called supporting services are regarded as the basis for the services of the other three categories.
Regulating services
Purification of water and air
Carbon sequestration and climate regulation
Waste decomposition and detoxification
Predation regulates prey populations
Biological control pest and disease control
Pollination
Disturbance regulation, i.e. Flood protection |
1653_6 | Provisioning services
The following services are also known as ecosystem goods:
food (including seafood and game), crops, wild foods, and spices
raw materials (including lumber, skins, fuel wood, organic matter, fodder, and fertilizer)
genetic resources (including crop improvement genes, and health care)
biogenic minerals
medicinal resources (including pharmaceuticals, chemical models, and test and assay organisms)
energy (hydropower, biomass fuels)
ornamental resources (including fashion, handicraft, jewelry, pets, worship, decoration and souvenirs like furs, feathers, ivory, orchids, butterflies, aquarium fish, shells, etc.) |
1653_7 | Cultural services
cultural (including use of nature as motif in books, film, painting, folklore, national symbols, advertising, etc.)
spiritual and historical (including use of nature for religious or heritage value or natural)
recreational experiences (including ecotourism, outdoor sports, and recreation)
science and education (including use of natural systems for school excursions, and scientific discovery)
Therapeutic (including Ecotherapy, social forestry and animal assisted therapy) |
1653_8 | As of 2012, there was a discussion as to how the concept of cultural ecosystem services could be operationalized, how landscape aesthetics, cultural heritage, outdoor recreation, and spiritual significance to define can fit into the ecosystem services approach. who vote for models that explicitly link ecological structures and functions with cultural values and benefits. Likewise, there has been a fundamental critique of the concept of cultural ecosystem services that builds on three arguments: |
1653_9 | Pivotal cultural values attaching to the natural/cultivated environment rely on an area's unique character that cannot be addressed by methods that use universal scientific parameters to determine ecological structures and functions.
If a natural/cultivated environment has symbolic meanings and cultural values the object of these values are not ecosystems but shaped phenomena like mountains, lakes, forests, and, mainly, symbolic landscapes.
Cultural values do result not from properties produced by ecosystems but are the product of a specific way of seeing within the given cultural framework of symbolic experience.
The Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) is a classification scheme developed to accounting systems (like National counts etc.), in order to avoid double-counting of Supporting Services with others Provisioning and Regulating Services. |
1653_10 | Supporting services
These may be redundant with regulating services in some categorisations, but include services such as, but not limited to, nutrient cycling, primary production, soil formation, habitat provision. These services make it possible for the ecosystems to continue providing services such as food supply, flood regulation, and water purification. Slade et al. outline the situation where a greater number of species would maximize more ecosystem services |
1653_11 | Ecology |
1653_12 | Understanding of ecosystem services requires a strong foundation in ecology, which describes the underlying principles and interactions of organisms and the environment. Since the scales at which these entities interact can vary from microbes to landscapes, milliseconds to millions of years, one of the greatest remaining challenges is the descriptive characterization of energy and material flow between them. For example, the area of a forest floor, the detritus upon it, the microorganisms in the soil, and characteristics of the soil itself will all contribute to the abilities of that forest for providing ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, water purification, and erosion prevention to other areas within the watershed. Note that it is often possible for multiple services to be bundled together and when benefits of targeted objectives are secured, there may also be ancillary benefits—the same forest may provide habitat for other organisms as well as human recreation, which |
1653_13 | are also ecosystem services. |
1653_14 | The complexity of Earth's ecosystems poses a challenge for scientists as they try to understand how relationships are interwoven among organisms, processes and their surroundings. As it relates to human ecology, a suggested research agenda for the study of ecosystem services includes the following steps:
identification of ecosystem service providers (ESPs)—species or populations that provide specific ecosystem services—and characterization of their functional roles and relationships;
determination of community structure aspects that influence how ESPs function in their natural landscape, such as compensatory responses that stabilize function and non-random extinction sequences which can erode it;
assessment of key environmental (abiotic) factors influencing the provision of services;
measurement of the spatial and temporal scales ESPs and their services operate on. |
1653_15 | Recently, a technique has been developed to improve and standardize the evaluation of ESP functionality by quantifying the relative importance of different species in terms of their efficiency and abundance. Such parameters provide indications of how species respond to changes in the environment (i.e. predators, resource availability, climate) and are useful for identifying species that are disproportionately important at providing ecosystem services. However, a critical drawback is that the technique does not account for the effects of interactions, which are often both complex and fundamental in maintaining an ecosystem and can involve species that are not readily detected as a priority. Even so, estimating the functional structure of an ecosystem and combining it with information about individual species traits can help us understand the resilience of an ecosystem amidst environmental change. |
1653_16 | Many ecologists also believe that the provision of ecosystem services can be stabilized with biodiversity. Increasing biodiversity also benefits the variety of ecosystem services available to society. Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and an ecosystem's stability is essential to the management of natural resources and their services. |
1653_17 | Redundancy hypothesis
The concept of ecological redundancy is sometimes referred to as functional compensation and assumes that more than one species performs a given role within an ecosystem. More specifically, it is characterized by a particular species increasing its efficiency at providing a service when conditions are stressed in order to maintain aggregate stability in the ecosystem. However, such increased dependence on a compensating species places additional stress on the ecosystem and often enhances its susceptibility to subsequent disturbance. The redundancy hypothesis can be summarized as "species redundancy enhances ecosystem resilience". |
1653_18 | Another idea uses the analogy of rivets in an airplane wing to compare the exponential effect the loss of each species will have on the function of an ecosystem; this is sometimes referred to as rivet popping. If only one species disappears, the loss of the ecosystem's efficiency as a whole is relatively small; however, if several species are lost, the system essentially collapses—similar to an airplane that lost too many rivets. The hypothesis assumes that species are relatively specialized in their roles and that their ability to compensate for one another is less than in the redundancy hypothesis. As a result, the loss of any species is critical to the performance of the ecosystem. The key difference is the rate at which the loss of species affects total ecosystem functioning. |
1653_19 | Portfolio effect
A third explanation, known as the portfolio effect, compares biodiversity to stock holdings, where diversification minimizes the volatility of the investment, or in this case, the risk of instability of ecosystem services. This is related to the idea of response diversity where a suite of species will exhibit differential responses to a given environmental perturbation. When considered together, they create a stabilizing function that preserves the integrity of a service.
Several experiments have tested these hypotheses in both the field and the lab. In ECOTRON, a laboratory in the UK where many of the biotic and abiotic factors of nature can be simulated, studies have focused on the effects of earthworms and symbiotic bacteria on plant roots. These laboratory experiments seem to favor the rivet hypothesis. However, a study on grasslands at Cedar Creek Reserve in Minnesota supports the redundancy hypothesis, as have many other field studies. |
1653_20 | Estuarine and coastal ecosystem services
Estuarine and coastal ecosystems are both marine ecosystems. Together, these ecosystems perform the four categories of ecosystem services in a variety of ways: "Regulating services" include climate regulation as well as waste treatment and disease regulation and buffer zones. The "provisioning services" include forest products, marine products, fresh water, raw materials, biochemical and genetic resources. "Cultural services" of coastal ecosystems include inspirational aspects, recreation and tourism, science and education. "Supporting services" of coastal ecosystems include nutrient cycling, biologically mediated habitats and primary production. |
1653_21 | Coasts and their adjacent areas on and offshore are an important part of a local ecosystem. The mixture of fresh water and salt water (brackish water) in estuaries provides many nutrients for marine life. Salt marshes, mangroves and beaches also support a diversity of plants, animals and insects crucial to the food chain. The high level of biodiversity creates a high level of biological activity, which has attracted human activity for thousands of years. Coasts also create essential material for organisms to live by, including estuaries, wetland, seagrass, coral reefs, and mangroves. Coasts provide habitats for migratory birds, sea turtles, marine mammals, and coral reefs.
Regulating services
Regulating services are the "benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes". In the case of coastal and estuarine ecosystems, these services include climate regulation, waste treatment and disease control and natural hazard regulation. |
1653_22 | Climate regulation
Both the biotic and abiotic ensembles of marine ecosystems play a role in climate regulation. They act as sponges when it comes to gases in the atmosphere, retaining large levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (methane and nitrous oxide). Marine plants also use CO2 for photosynthesis purposes and help in reducing the atmospheric CO2. The oceans and seas absorb the heat from the atmosphere and redistribute it through the means of water currents, and atmospheric processes, such as evaporation and the reflection of light allow for the cooling and warming of the overlying atmosphere. The ocean temperatures are thus imperative to the regulation of the atmospheric temperatures in any part of the world: "without the ocean, the Earth would be unbearably hot during the daylight hours and frigidly cold, if not frozen, at night". |
1653_23 | Waste treatment and disease regulation
Another service offered by marine ecosystem is the treatment of wastes, thus helping in the regulation of diseases. Wastes can be diluted and detoxified through transport across marine ecosystems; pollutants are removed from the environment and stored, buried or recycled in marine ecosystems: "Marine ecosystems break down organic waste through microbial communities that filter water, reduce/limit the effects of eutrophication, and break down toxic hydrocarbons into their basic components such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water". The fact that waste is diluted with large volumes of water and moves with water currents leads to the regulation of diseases and the reduction of toxics in seafood.
Buffer zones |
1653_24 | Coastal and estuarine ecosystems act as buffer zones against natural hazards and environmental disturbances, such as floods, cyclones, tidal surges and storms. The role they play is to "[absorb] a portion of the impact and thus [lessen] its effect on the land". Wetlands (which include saltwater swamps, salt marshes, ...) and the vegetation it supports – trees, root mats, etc. – retain large amounts of water (surface water, snowmelt, rain, groundwater) and then slowly releases them back, decreasing the likeliness of floods. Mangrove forests protect coastal shorelines from tidal erosion or erosion by currents; a process that was studied after the 1999 cyclone that hit India. Villages that were surrounded with mangrove forests encountered less damages than other villages that weren't protected by mangroves.
Provisioning services
Provisioning services consist of all "the products obtained from ecosystems". |
1653_25 | Forest products |
1653_26 | Forests produce a large type and variety of timber products, including roundwood, sawnwood, panels, and engineered wood, e.g., cross-laminated timber, as well as pulp and paper. Besides the production of timber, forestry activities may also result in products that undergo little processing, such as fire wood, charcoal, wood chips and roundwood used in an unprocessed form. Global production and trade of all major wood-based products recorded their highest ever values in 2018. Production, imports and exports of roundwood, sawnwood, wood-based panels, wood pulp, wood charcoal and pellets reached their maximum quantities since 1947 when FAO started reporting global forest product statistics. In 2018, growth in production of the main wood-based product groups ranged from 1 percent (woodbased panels) to 5 percent (industrial roundwood). The fastest growth occurred in the Asia-Pacific, Northern American and European regions, likely due to positive economic growth in these areas. |
1653_27 | Forests also provide non-wood forest products, including fodder, aromatic and medicinal plants, and wild foods. Worldwide, around 1 billion people depend to some extent on wild foods such as wild meat, edible insects, edible plant products, mushrooms and fish, which often contain high levels of key micronutrients. The value of forest foods as a nutritional resource is not limited to low- and middle-income countries; more than 100 million people in the European Union (EU) regularly consume wild food. Some 2.4 billion people – in both urban and rural settings – use wood-based energy for cooking.
Marine products
Marine ecosystems provide people with: wild & cultured seafood, fresh water, fiber & fuel and biochemical & genetic resources. |
1653_28 | Humans consume a large number of products originating from the seas, whether as a nutritious product or for use in other sectors: "More than one billion people worldwide, or one-sixth of the global population, rely on fish as their main source of animal protein. In 2000, marine and coastal fisheries accounted for 12 per cent of world food production". Fish and other edible marine products – primarily fish, shellfish, roe and seaweeds – constitute for populations living along the coast the main elements of the local cultural diets, norms and traditions. A very pertinent example would be sushi, the national food of Japan, which consists mostly of different types of fish and seaweed. |
1653_29 | Fresh water
Water bodies that are not highly concentrated in salts are referred to as 'fresh water' bodies. Fresh water may run through lakes, rivers and streams, to name a few; but it is most prominently found in the frozen state or as soil moisture or buried deep underground. Fresh water is not only important for the survival of humans, but also for the survival of all the existing species of animals, plants. |
1653_30 | Raw materials
Marine creatures provide us with the raw materials needed for the manufacturing of clothing, building materials (lime extracted from coral reefs), ornamental items and personal-use items (luffas, art and jewelry): "The skin of marine mammals for clothing, gas deposits for energy production, lime (extracted from coral reefs) for building construction, and the timber of mangroves and coastal forests for shelter are some of the more familiar uses of marine organisms. Raw marine materials are utilized for non-essential goods as well, such as shells and corals in ornamental items". Humans have also referred to processes within marine environments for the production of renewable energy: using the power of waves – or tidal power – as a source of energy for the powering of a turbine, for example. Oceans and seas are used as sites for offshore oil and gas installations, offshore wind farms. |
1653_31 | Biochemical and genetic resources
Biochemical resources are compounds extracted from marine organisms for use in medicines, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and other biochemical products. Genetic resources are the genetic information found in marine organisms that would later on be used for animal and plant breeding and for technological advances in the biological field. These resources are either directly taken out from an organism – such as fish oil as a source of omega3 –, or used as a model for innovative man-made products: "such as the construction of fiber optics technology based on the properties of sponges. ... Compared to terrestrial products, marine-sourced products tend to be more highly bioactive, likely due to the fact that marine organisms have to retain their potency despite being diluted in the surrounding sea-water". |
1653_32 | Cultural services
Cultural services relate to the non-material world, as they benefit the benefit recreational, aesthetic, cognitive and spiritual activities, which are not easily quantifiable in monetary terms.
Inspirational
Marine environments have been used by many as an inspiration for their works of art, music, architecture, traditions... Water environments are spiritually important as a lot of people view them as a means for rejuvenation and change of perspective. Many also consider the water as being a part of their personality, especially if they have lived near it since they were kids: they associate it to fond memories and past experiences. Living near water bodies for a long time results in a certain set of water activities that become a ritual in the lives of people and of the culture in the region. |
1653_33 | Recreation and tourism
Sea sports are very popular among coastal populations: surfing, snorkeling, whale watching, kayaking, recreational fishing...a lot of tourists also travel to resorts close to the sea or rivers or lakes to be able to experience these activities, and relax near the water. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 also has targets aimed at enhancing the use of ecosystem services for sustainable tourism especially in Small Island Developing States.
Science and education
A lot can be learned from marine processes, environments and organisms – that could be implemented into our daily actions and into the scientific domain. Although much is still yet to still be known about the ocean world: "by the extraordinary intricacy and complexity of the marine environment and how it is influenced by large spatial scales, time lags, and cumulative effects". |
1653_34 | Supporting services
Supporting services are the services that allow for the other ecosystem services to be present. They have indirect impacts on humans that last over a long period of time. Several services can be considered as being both supporting services and regulating/cultural/provisioning services.
Nutrient cycling
Nutrient cycling is the movement of nutrients through an ecosystem by biotic and abiotic processes. The ocean is a vast storage pool for these nutrients, such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. The nutrients are absorbed by the basic organisms of the marine food web and are thus transferred from one organism to the other and from one ecosystem to the other. Nutrients are recycled through the life cycle of organisms as they die and decompose, releasing the nutrients into the neighboring environment. "The service of nutrient cycling eventually impacts all other ecosystem services as all living things require a constant supply of nutrients to survive". |
1653_35 | Biologically mediated habitats
Biologically mediated habitats are defined as being the habitats that living marine structures offer to other organisms. These need not to have evolved for the sole purpose of serving as a habitat, but happen to become living quarters whilst growing naturally. For example, coral reefs and mangrove forests are home to numerous species of fish, seaweed and shellfish... The importance of these habitats is that they allow for interactions between different species, aiding the provisioning of marine goods and services. They are also very important for the growth at the early life stages of marine species (breeding and bursary spaces), as they serve as a food source and as a shelter from predators. |
1653_36 | Primary production
Primary production refers to the production of organic matter, i.e., chemically bound energy, through processes such as photosynthesis and chemosynthesis. The organic matter produced by primary producers forms the basis of all food webs. Further, it generates oxygen (O2), a molecule necessary to sustain animals and humans. On average, a human consumes about 550 liter of oxygen per day, whereas plants produce 1,5 liter of oxygen per 10 grams of growth.
Economics |
1653_37 | There are questions regarding the environmental and economic values of ecosystem services. Some people may be unaware of the environment in general and humanity's interrelatedness with the natural environment, which may cause misconceptions. Although environmental awareness is rapidly improving in our contemporary world, ecosystem capital and its flow are still poorly understood, threats continue to impose, and we suffer from the so-called 'tragedy of the commons'. Many efforts to inform decision-makers of current versus future costs and benefits now involve organizing and translating scientific knowledge to economics, which articulate the consequences of our choices in comparable units of impact on human well-being. An especially challenging aspect of this process is that interpreting ecological information collected from one spatial-temporal scale does not necessarily mean it can be applied at another; understanding the dynamics of ecological processes relative to ecosystem services |
1653_38 | is essential in aiding economic decisions. Weighting factors such as a service's irreplaceability or bundled services can also allocate economic value such that goal attainment becomes more efficient. |
1653_39 | The economic valuation of ecosystem services also involves social communication and information, areas that remain particularly challenging and are the focus of many researchers. In general, the idea is that although individuals make decisions for any variety of reasons, trends reveal the aggregated preferences of a society, from which the economic value of services can be inferred and assigned. The six major methods for valuing ecosystem services in monetary terms are:
Avoided cost: Services allow society to avoid costs that would have been incurred in the absence of those services (e.g. waste treatment by wetland habitats avoids health costs)
Replacement cost: Services could be replaced with man-made systems (e.g. restoration of the Catskill Watershed cost less than the construction of a water purification plant) |
1653_40 | Factor income: Services provide for the enhancement of incomes (e.g. improved water quality increases the commercial take of a fishery and improves the income of fishers)
Travel cost: Service demand may require travel, whose costs can reflect the implied value of the service (e.g. value of ecotourism experience is at least what a visitor is willing to pay to get there)
Hedonic pricing: Service demand may be reflected in the prices people will pay for associated goods (e.g. coastal housing prices exceed that of inland homes)
Contingent valuation: Service demand may be elicited by posing hypothetical scenarios that involve some valuation of alternatives (e.g. visitors willing to pay for increased access to national parks) |
1653_41 | A peer-reviewed study published in 1997 estimated the value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital to be between US$16–54 trillion per year, with an average of US$33 trillion per year. However, Salles (2011) indicated 'The total value of biodiversity is infinite, so having debate about what is the total value of nature is actually pointless because we can't live without it'. |
1653_42 | As of 2012, many companies were not fully aware of the extent of their dependence and impact on ecosystems and the possible ramifications. Likewise, environmental management systems and environmental due diligence tools are more suited to handle "traditional" issues of pollution and natural resource consumption. Most focus on environmental impacts, not dependence. Several tools and methodologies can help the private sector value and assess ecosystem services, including Our Ecosystem, the 2008 Corporate Ecosystem Services Review, the Artificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability (ARIES) project from 2007, the Natural Value Initiative (2012) and InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services & Tradeoffs, 2012)
Management and policy |
1653_43 | Although monetary pricing continues with respect to the valuation of ecosystem services, the challenges in policy implementation and management are significant and multitudinous. The administration of common pool resources has been a subject of extensive academic pursuit. From defining the problems to finding solutions that can be applied in practical and sustainable ways, there is much to overcome. Considering options must balance present and future human needs, and decision-makers must frequently work from valid but incomplete information. Existing legal policies are often considered insufficient since they typically pertain to human health-based standards that are mismatched with necessary means to protect ecosystem health and services. In 2000, to improve the information available, the implementation of an Ecosystem Services Framework has been suggested (ESF), which integrates the biophysical and socio-economic dimensions of protecting the environment and is designed to guide |
1653_44 | institutions through multidisciplinary information and jargon, helping to direct strategic choices. |
1653_45 | As of 2005 Local to regional collective management efforts were considered appropriate for services like crop pollination or resources like water. Another approach that has become increasingly popular during the 1990s is the marketing of ecosystem services protection. Payment and trading of services is an emerging worldwide small-scale solution where one can acquire credits for activities such as sponsoring the protection of carbon sequestration sources or the restoration of ecosystem service providers. In some cases, banks for handling such credits have been established and conservation companies have even gone public on stock exchanges, defining an evermore parallel link with economic endeavors and opportunities for tying into social perceptions. However, crucial for implementation are clearly defined land rights, which are often lacking in many developing countries. In particular, many forest-rich developing countries suffering deforestation experience conflict between different |
1653_46 | forest stakeholders. In addition, concerns for such global transactions include inconsistent compensation for services or resources sacrificed elsewhere and misconceived warrants for irresponsible use. As of 2001, another approach focused on protecting ecosystem service biodiversity hotspots. Recognition that the conservation of many ecosystem services aligns with more traditional conservation goals (i.e. biodiversity) has led to the suggested merging of objectives for maximizing their mutual success. This may be particularly strategic when employing networks that permit the flow of services across landscapes, and might also facilitate securing the financial means to protect services through a diversification of investors. |
1653_47 | For example, as of 2013, there had been interest in the valuation of ecosystem services provided by shellfish production and restoration. A keystone species, low in the food chain, bivalve shellfish such as oysters support a complex community of species by performing a number of functions essential to the diverse array of species that surround them. There is also increasing recognition that some shellfish species may impact or control many ecological processes; so much so that they are included on the list of "ecosystem engineers"—organisms that physically, biologically or chemically modify the environment around them in ways that influence the health of other organisms. Many of the ecological functions and processes performed or affected by shellfish contribute to human well-being by providing a stream of valuable ecosystem services over time by filtering out particulate materials and potentially mitigating water quality issues by controlling excess nutrients in the water. |
1653_48 | As of 2018, the concept of ecosystem services had not been properly implemented into international and regional legislation yet. |
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