A social-ecological systems approach for environmental management.

Urgent environmental issues are testing the limits of current management approaches and pushing demand for innovative approaches that integrate across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Practitioners, scholars, and policy-makers alike call for increased integration of natural and social sciences to develop new approaches that address the range of ecological and societal impacts of modern environmental issues. From a theoretical perspective, social-ecological systems (SES) science offers a compelling approach for improved environmental management through the application of transdisciplinary and resilience concepts.

Secular trends in the prevalence of iron deficiency among US toddlers, 1976-2002.

Objective: To examine secular trends in iron deficiency among US children 1 to 3 years old.

Design: Secular trend analyses of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey II-IV.

Setting: Large-scale national survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics from 1976 to 2002.

Iron deficiency in early childhood in the United States: risk factors and racial/ethnic disparities.

Background: Iron deficiency affects 2.4 million US children, and childhood iron-deficiency anemia is associated with behavioral and cognitive delays. Given the detrimental long-term effects and high prevalence of iron deficiency, its prevention in early childhood is an important public health issue.

Vertical distribution, migration rates, and model comparison of actinium in a semi-arid environment.

Vertical soil characterization and migration of radionuclides were investigated at four radioactively contaminated sites on Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB), New Mexico to determine the vertical downward migration of radionuclides in a semi-arid environment. The surface soils (0-15 cm) were intentionally contaminated with Brazilian sludge (containing (232)Thorium and other radionuclides) approximately 40 years ago, in order to simulate the conditions resulting from a nuclear weapons accident. Site grading consisted of manually raking or machine disking the sludge.

Uptake rates of thorium progeny in a semiarid environment.

The release rates and transformation processes that influence the mobility, biological uptake, and transfer of radionuclides are essential to the assessment of the health effects in the food chain and ecosystem. This study examined concentrations of 222Th in both soil and vegetation at a closed military training site, Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB), New Mexico. Brazilian sludge was intentionally introduced into the topsoil in the early 1960s to simulate nuclear weapon accidents.