Ecosystems. Ecosystems provide humans with food, clean water, and a variety of other services that can be affected by climate change. The following seven indicators are related to ecosystems. o Wildfires – Since 1983, the National Interagency Fire Center has documented an average of 72,000 wildfires per year. The extent of area burned by wildfires each year appears to have increased since the 1980s. According to National Interagency Fire Center data, of the 10 years with the largest acreage burned, nine have occurred since 2000, including the peak year in 2015. o Streamflow – Annual average streamflow has increased at many sites in the Northeast and Midwest, while other regions have seen few substantial changes. Overall, sites show more increases than decreases. o Stream Temperature – From 1960 through 2014, water temperature increased at 79 percent of the stream sites measured in the Chesapeake Bay region. More than half of these increases were statistically significant. Only 5 percent of stations had a significant temperature decrease over the same period.
Ecosystems. Forests productivity and ability to contribute to the global carbon circle must be maintained
Ecosystems. In this life science unit students describe the relationships and roles of biotic and abiotic factors within ecosystems, using those in the Great Lakes region as local and familiar examples. They recognize patterns in the flow of energy in ecosystems, and categorize organisms as producers, consumers, and decomposers based on the way in which they obtain this energy. Students explore relationships and interactions within populations and discover how interrelations impact population stability. They identify abiotic factors and examine their effect on ecosystems. Students analyze the impact and predict the outcome of human activity affecting the balance of an ecosystem. Unit 3: Earth Materials This unit attends to the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations as they are gathered in Unit 3 of the Michigan Department of Education Science Companion Document. Topically, the unit addresses concepts related to earth materials (rocks, minerals, soil) and landforms which are produced from erosion and deposition of earth materials. To organize the content of this unit the Oakland Schools Science Scope has established two learning cycles:
Ecosystems o Sub-Objective 4.3.1 Protect and Restore Ecosystems o Sub-Objective 4.3.2 Increase Wetlands Objective 4.4 Enhance Science and Research o Sub-Objective 4.1.1 Apply the Best Available Science o Sub-Objective 4.1.2 Conduct Relevant Research Goal 5: Compliance and Environmental Stewardship
Ecosystems. Improve the water quality and ecosystem function in high priority watersheds. • Protect wetlands functions and values. • Protect endangered and threatened fish species using coastal zone management regulatory tools. MEASURING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RESULTS A key purpose of the National Environmental Performance Partnership System is to focus attention on the environmental results of activities performed by state environmental agencies and EPA. State environmental agencies have worked with EPA over the past several years to develop a national set of Core Performance Measures to track progress in their environmental efforts. The August 20, 1997 agreement between the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) and EPA on Core Performance Measures stated a commitment to work together to reduce the overall reporting burden as we move toward more outcome- related reporting measures. The Air Quality, Hazardous Waste, Water Quality and Ecosystem Programs in each agency have reviewed the media–specific performance measures appropriate to their programs, as well as core performance measures proposed for tracking Compliance Assurance and Enforcement activities. Those media-specific performance measures and appropriate core performance measures are specified in the Air, Water, and Hazardous Waste Program Sections below. Most of the activity reporting is accomplished through direct data submittal to federal databases, such as RCRA Info, TRI and AIRS. This is an efficient mechanism that provides data to both agencies simultaneously. In the Water Programs, Ecology provides data to EPA Region10, which their staff input into national databases. Ecology and EPA are committed to continued review and improvement of reporting requirements to most efficiently and accurately reflect out-come based environmental indicators. AGREEMENT COVERAGE This Agreement is between the Department of Ecology and EPA Region
Ecosystems. In 2014 the so called “Ecosystems” were installed in the street lighting network, providing the stabilization of tension in the grid. The mounting of the device is aimed at the efficient use of electric energy and the increase of its quality index. During 2014 this appliance has been installed in 150 cupboards out of 784 existing ones. By this way in 9 months of 2014 about 983 000 KWh of electric energy has been saved, reducing 103 tons of GHG emissions in CO2eq , calculated using the grid average emission factor. Presently the complete licensing of the system is under way and the positioning of such ecosystems in other cupboards is being examined. In the meantime the number of installations is unknown, as well as the efficiency of this system in case of implementing the Activity S2. Therefore the energy reduction potential through this measure is not assessed at this stage and the main emphasis is made on the Activity S2. Activity S2: Application of LED lanterns in the street lighting The execution of pilot projects in this deirection was started in 2015 at some streets, namely X. Xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Kachinski, Baratashvili Bridge, Melikishvili, the Airport entrance and Leonidze st, where LED lanterns produced by different companies were installed and observations are going on. In 2015 a competition was announced on taking interest on the program, in frames of which the substitution of all streetlights (about 100 000 lamps) by LED lanterns is planned in 2016. According to the competition terms the investment is enacted by the investor, while the cost will be compensated by the “City of Light” from the saving of energy income. Resulting from preliminary tests the replacement of streetlights brings more than 60% saving of energy. For the estimation of this saving conservatively it has been assumed that its value would make 50%. In 2014 the total consumption of energy for street lighting made nearly 74.4 thousand MWh. In case of half as much consumption the saving will constitute 23.7 thousand MWh, being the equivalent of 2.42 thousand tons of CO2eq.
