Estimating the benefits of stream water quality improvements in urbanizing watersheds: An ecological production function approach.

Streams in urbanizing watersheds are threatened by economic development that can lead to excessive sediment erosion and surface runoff. These anthropogenic stressors diminish valuable ecosystem services and result in pervasive degradation commonly referred to as "urban stream syndrome." Understanding how the public perceives and values improvements in stream conditions is necessary to support efforts to quantify the economic benefits of water quality improvements.

Applying Decision Science to the Prioritization of Healthcare-Associated Infection Initiatives.

Objectives: Improving patient quality remains a top priority from the perspectives of both patient outcomes and cost of care. The continuing threat to patient safety has resulted in an increasing number of options for patient safety initiatives, making choices more difficult because of competing priorities. This study provides a proof of concept for using low-cost decision science methods for prioritizing initiatives.

A taxonomic framework for assessing governance challenges and environmental effects of integrated food-energy systems.

Predominant forms of food and energy systems pose multiple challenges to the environment as current configurations tend to be structured around centralized one-way through-put of materials and energy. In addition, these configurations can introduce vulnerability to input material price and supply shocks as well as contribute to localized food insecurity and lost opportunities for less environmentally harmful forms of local economic development. One proposed form of system transformation involves locally integrating “unclosed” material and energy loops from food and energy systems.

Linking material flow analysis and resource policy via future scenarios of in-use stock: an example for copper.

A key aspect to achieving long-term resource sustainability is the development of methodologies that explore future material cycles and their environmental impact. Using a novel dynamic in-use stock model and scenario analysis, I analyzed the multilevel global copper cycle over the next 100 years. In 1990, the industrialized world had an in-use copper stock about twice as large as the developing world and a per capita in-use stock of about six times as large.

In-use stocks of metals: status and implications.

The continued increase in the use of metals over the 20th century has led to the phenomenon of a substantial shift in metal stocks from the lithosphere to the anthroposphere. Such a shift raises social, economic, and environmental issues that cannot be addressed without quantifying the amount of stock of "metal capital" utilized by society. Estimation of the in-use stock of metals has occurred for at least 70 years, with over 70% of the publications occurring after the year 2000.