As part of the amended Metal Mining Liquid Effluent Regulations under the Fisheries Act, mines will be required to develop and conduct Environmental Effects Monitoring (EEM). EEM will be done to evaluate the effects of mine effluent on fish, fish habitat, and fish usability. Mines will be required to determine if there are changes in fish populations and/or in the usability of fish due to mine effluent. The EEM program has been designed with a tiered monitoring approach, with the first phase determining if an effect is present. Subsequent phases of EEM will focus on continued monitoring and determining the magnitude, geographic extent, and cause of effects (if any). Fish collected from the area exposed to mine effluent will be compared to fish from a reference area in order to determine if there is an effect, if the effect is mine related and the cause of the effect within the effluent. The fish population survey will examine the growth, reproduction, condition, and survival of one or more resident sentinel fish species. Fish usability will be determined based on the appearance of fish, their use, and the contaminant levels in fish tissue. It is recognized that some mines may not be able to implement a fish monitoring program as outlined, so it has been recommended that alternative methods, such as a caged bivalves or on-site bioassays, may also be used. Frequency of monitoring will be dependent on the previous results of the fish and benthic invertebrate monitoring phases.
The paper reports on a wayfinding study aimed at identifying the information needs of the congenitally totally blind population. A route-finding experiment in a complex architectural setting was undertaken with a group of 15 congenitally totally blind and a matched control group of 15 sighted subjects. The experiment showed that, compared to the sighted control group, the blind persons planned the journey in more detail, requiring for this purpose additional environmental information. During the journey, they formulated significantly more decisions and used significantly more units of information than the sighted control. Furthermore, the nature of the information used and its source were also different for the two groups. A cognitive mapping exercise, on the other hand, showed the blind to perform virtually as well as the sighted person.
Specific aspects of mobility and spatial orientation of the visually handicapped have attracted the attention of researchers for a quarter of a century; generally speaking, their work can be placed in four fields of study. First, interest has been focused on the capacity of blind people to move unaided in various spatial settings and to mentally map an environment. A second preoccupation revealed by the literature has been the spatial information transmitted to the visually handicapped by tactile maps, by adapted sign system and by electronic guidance systems. Other projects have focused on the environment in which visually handicapped move and on the environmental aspects that affect their mobility. Finally, some researchers have investigated how the development of technical aids has facilitated the mobility of blind people.
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