Recent droughts and concerns about water use for petroleum extraction renew the need to inventory water use for oil production. We quantified water volumes used and produced by conventional oil production and hydraulic fracturing (HF) in California. Despite a 25% decrease in conventional oil production from 1999 to 2012, total water use increased by 30% though much of that increase was derived from reuse of produced water. Produced water volumes increased by 50%, with increasing amounts disposed in unlined evaporation ponds or released to surface water. Overall freshwater use (constituting 1.2% of the state's nonagricultural water consumption) increased by 46% during this period due to increased freshwater-intensive tertiary oil production. HF has been practiced in California for more than 30 years, accounting for 1% of total oil production in 2012 from mostly directional and vertical wells. Water use intensity for HF wells in California averaged at 3.5 vol water/vol oil production in 2012 and 2.4 vol/vol in 2013, higher than the range from literature estimates and net water use intensity of conventional production (1.2 vol/vol in 2012). Increasing water use and disposal for oil production have important implications for water management and have potentially adverse health, environmental, and ecological impacts.
The global recognition of modern agricultural practices’ impact on the environment has fuelled policy responses to ameliorate environmental degradation in agricultural landscapes. In the US and the EU, agri-environmental subsidies (AES) promote widespread adoption of sustainable practices by compensating farmers who voluntarily implement them on working farmland. Previous studies, however, have suggested limitations of their spatial targeting, with funds not allocated towards areas of the greatest environmental need. We analysed AES in the US and EU—specifically through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and selected measures of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD)—to identify if AES are going where they are most needed to achieve environmental goals, using a set of environmental need indicators, socio-economic variables moderating allocation patterns, and contextual variables describing agricultural systems. Using linear mixed models and linear models we explored the associations among AES allocation and these predictors at different scales. We found that higher AES spending was associated with areas of low soil organic carbon and high greenhouse gas emissions both in the US and EU, and nitrogen surplus in the EU. More so than successes, however, clear mismatches of funding and environmental need emerged—AES allocation did not successfully target areas of highest water stress, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, and nutrient runoff. Socio-economic and agricultural context variables may explain some of these mismatches; we show that AES were allocated to areas with higher proportions of female producers in the EU but not in the US, where funds were directed towards areas with less tenant farmers. Moreover, we suggest that the potential for AES to remediate environmental issues may be curtailed by limited participation in intensive agricultural landscapes. These findings can help inform refinements to EQIP and EAFRD allocation mechanisms and identify opportunities for improving future targeting of AES spending.
Terrestrial mammals exploiting coastal resources must cope with the challenge that resource availability and accessibility fluctuate with tidal cycles. Tool use can improve foraging efficiency and provide access to structurally protected resources that are otherwise unavailable (e.g., mollusks and fruits). To understand how variable accessibility of valuable resources shapes behavioral patterns, and whether tool use aids in the efficient exploitation of intertidal resources, we compared the relationship between tidal cycles and activity patterns of tool-using vs. non-tool-using groups of white-faced capuchin monkeys on Jicarón Island in Coiba National Park, Panama. Although only a single group of capuchins on Jicarón uses tools, all coastal groups forage on intertidal resources. Using data from >3 years of camera trapping at varying distances from the coast, we found that capuchins on Jicarón showed increased coastal activity during specific parts of the tidal cycle, and that this relationship differed between tool-using and non-tool-using groups, as well as between seasons. Activity patterns of tool-using capuchins were more strongly and consistently tied to tidal cycles compared to non-tool-users, indicating that tool use might allow for more efficient exploitation of tidal resources. Our findings highlight the potential of tool use to aid niche expansion.
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