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Introduction There is no doubt that the development of duplex nickel was a major step forward in enhancing the corrosion resistance of nickel/chromium deposits. Various multilayer nickel deposit systems followed, but it became increasingly obvious that any further corrosion protection could only be achieved by improved chromium deposits. Chromium, due to the thin, passive oxide film formed on its surface, under normal circumstances is very resistant to most atmospheric corrosive conditions. However, it is an acknowledged fact that conventional chromium cannot be deposited free from random discontinuities, thus creating relatively active galvanic corrosion cells in the presence of electrolytes such as salt solutions (conditions arising from de‐icing and snow melting operations), sulphurous acid (produced from sulphur dioxide in industrial areas), etc. Since nickel is anodic to chromium, these cells are quite active, and with a small area of nickel exposed the effect is that of having a large cathode area in a cell with a small anode. With the galvanic current thus concentrated at a few sites, the corrosion of the nickel is rapid and penetration to the base metal quickly follows.

Middle school participants in the USA attending an on-campus university informal science program indicate an increase in interest toward careers and disciplines in STEM or STEAM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the arts). Parents or guardians confirm the change. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Participants attended “inquiry-based” lectures by scientists and “hands-on” activities conducted by volunteers on campus at a public university over four months, four Saturdays. Participants completed surveys before each lecture and guardians completed surveys afterwards.

Interest increased significantly according to paired samples t-tests for each STEM discipline for students who reported low interest on the initial pre-lecture survey. There was a significant linear improvement in interests in engineering using a repeated measures general linear model. Guardians or parents reported that they observed a higher interest in STEM disciplines resulting in more technical-related interaction among peers and within the family.

Findings support STEM with arts “out-of-school” programs sponsored by museums, corporations, government, higher education and others. Inclusion of the “hands-on” activities, some with arts content, to the science and technical learning appears to spark enthusiasm.

The value is multidisciplinary. The theory of reasoned action from social psychology, sociology, along with related research in science education and the arts are synthesized. Informal extracurricular experiences sustained and improved interests in the disciplines and careers on which the formal educational career pipeline can build.

DEPLOY is a successful technology demonstration project showing how state of the art technology can be implemented to achieve, continuous, real‐time monitoring of a river catchment.

The DEPLOY system is a wide area network of monitoring stations delivering data in near real‐time. The demonstration sites chosen are based in the River Lee, which flows through Ireland's second largest city, Cork. The sites include monitoring stations in five zones considered typical of significant river systems and demonstrate the versatility of the technology available. Data were collected from stations at pre‐programmed intervals and transmitted to the DEPLOY servers either by short range ISM band radio or directly via the GSM GPRS network. The data were then processed and made available in a controlled manner at www.deploy.ie Findings – The project demonstrates the capability of multi‐sensor systems to remotely monitor temporal and spatial variations in water quality, through the identification of short‐term events. A system like DEPLOY could be used as a decision support tool by regulatory bodies in managing our aquatic environment with the potential to cut overall monitoring costs and provide better coverage representing long‐term trends in fluctuations of pollutant concentrations.

The demonstration of a truly heterogeneous water quality monitoring networked system was one of the first of its kind in Ireland. Based on the collected data DEPLOY can provide recommendations for water quality monitoring systems from various perspectives, technical, operational and strategic.

Prolonged drought and climate change uncertainty have created an urgent need to re‐distribute water away from irrigators and back to environmental flows. Previous approaches to achieve this objective have had mixed results. The current approach focuses on purchasing water from irrigators to bolster river flows for ecosystem health. However, governments are purchasing entitlements, not allocations, which do not provide large amounts of water for the money that is spent. This paper aims to review the policies and events that have driven this process.

Following a the review of the policies and events, the paper identifies how the regulatory/market‐based approaches have resulted in a status quo or path dependent situation, to the detriment of achieving sustainable water use.

Previous approaches have so far simply maintained path dependency, i.e. the consumptive pool at more or less existing levels. Government intervention to purchase entitlements from irrigators for the environment through water markets is meant to break the status quo, but questions whether this can be achieved from a solitary focus on entitlement recovery.

It is suggested that both historical approaches offer less reform value, and that appropriate market intervention is warranted. However, entitlement water purchasing alone may limit provision of wet water to key environmental sites during critical periods and perpetuate a continuation of the path dependency arrangements.

A suggested expansion of the water‐purchasing programme that utilises allocation based products to meet adaptive environmental flow strategies is provided. Such an approach may offer a more suitable framework for dealing with the uncertain outcomes of climate change and ecosystem needs.

Between 2006 and 2016, local communities in semi-arid Bobirwa sub-district in the Limpopo Basin part of Botswana had endured notable fluctuations in the delivery of critical ecosystem services. These changes have been coupled with adverse effects on local people’s livelihood options and well-being. However, a few such studies have focussed on the semi-arid to arid landscapes. This study therefore aims to provide recent knowledge and evidence of consequences of environmental change on semi-arid arid landscapes and communities.

To examine these recent changes in key ecosystem services, the authors conducted six participatory mapping processes, eight key informant interviews and several rapid scoping appraisals in three study villages. The analyses were centred on changes in seasonal quantities, seasonality, condition of ecosystem service sites, distance to ecosystem service sites and total area providing these services. Drivers of change in the delivery of key ecosystem services and the associated adverse impacts on human well-being of these recent changes in bundles of ecosystem services delivered were also analyzed.

Results show that adverse weather conditions, drought frequency, changes in land-use and/or land-cover together with unsustainable harvesting because of human influx on local resources have intensified in the past decade. There was circumstantial evidence that these drivers have resulted in adverse changes in quantities and seasonality of key ecosystem services such as edible Mopane caterpillars, natural pastures, wild fruits and cultivated crops. Similarly, distance to, condition and total area of sites providing some of the key ecosystem services such as firewood and natural pastures changed adversely. These adverse changes in the key ecosystem services were shown to increasingly threaten local livelihoods and human well-being.

This paper discusses the importance of engaging rural communities in semi-arid areas in a participatory manner and how such information can provide baseline information for further research. The paper also shows the utility of such processes and information toward integrating community values and knowledge into decisions regarding the management and utilization of local ecosystem services under a changing climate in data-poor regions such as the Bobirwa sub-district of Botswana. However, the extent to which this is possible depends on the decision makers’ willingness to support local initiatives through existing government structures and programmes.

This study shows the importance of engaging communities in a participatory manner to understand changes in local ecosystem services considering their unique connection with the natural environment. This is a critical step for decision makers toward integrating community values in the management and utilization of ecosystem services under a changing climate as well as informing more sustainable adaptive responses in semi-arid areas. However, the extent to which decision makers can integrate such findings to inform more sustainable responses to declining capacity of local ecosystems in semi-arid areas depends on how they value the bottom-up approach of gaining local knowledge as well as their willingness to support local initiatives through existing government structures and programmes.

This paper aims to study the temporal and spatial variation of vegetation and the influence of climate change on vegetation coverage in the Yellow River basin, China. The current study aimed to evaluate the role of a series of government-led environmental control projects in restoring the ecological environment of the Yellow River basin.

This paper uses unary linear regression, Mann–Kendall and wavelet analyses to study the spatial–temporal variations of vegetation and the response to climate changes in the Yellow River, China.

The results showed that for the past 17 years, not only the mean annual increase rate of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was 0.0059/a, but the spatial heterogeneity also yields significant results. The vegetation growth in the southeastern region was significantly better than that in the northwestern region. The variation period of the NDVI in the study area significantly shortened, and the most obvious oscillation period was half a year, with two peaks in one year. In addition, there are positive and negative effects of human activities on the change of vegetation cover of the Loess Plateau. The project of transforming cultivated land to forest and grassland promotes the increase of vegetation cover of the Loess plateau. Unfortunately, the regional urbanization and industrialization proliferated, and the overloading of grazing, deforestation, over-reclamation, and the exploitation and development of the energy area in the grassland region led to the reduction of the NDVI. Fortunately, the positive effects outweigh the negative ones.

This paper provides a comprehensive insight to analysis of the vegetation change and the responses of vegetation to climate change, with special reference to make the planning policy of ecological restoration. This paper argues that ecological restoration should be strengthened in areas with annual precipitation less than 450 mm.

This paper aims to provide a view on the implications of large‐scale increases in demand for biomass production on water storage behaviours. In climates of high variability in rainfall, the pressures on farmers to build up on‐farm surface water supplies to the detriment of communities and businesses downstream is already present. Therefore, the added water storage pressures that arise from future demands for biomass need to be investigated.

This viewpoint presents a review of the issues surrounding the forecast for demand for agriculturally produced biomass and the increased demands on surface water storage created. The paper then presents the problem of unfair and unsafe water storage in agriculture through a review of the surrounding literature and policy in place in Australia.

The paper finds that if predicted skyrocketing future demand for biomass production for energy eventuates, then surface water on‐farm storages would be placed at increased risk as farmers experience pressure to store more water than they are entitled to. Increased demands from biomass production could mean that surrounding communities suffer increased threat from unfair water sharing in times of drought, and unsafe water storage in times of flood.

Policy should be developed rapidly to address the current unsustainable water storage management practices of farmers and sustainable biomass production. Water management behaviour certification should be introduced immediately to counter the risk of over storage in light of the demands of the future.

The paper provides an overview of the issues surrounding unfair and unsafe on farm water storage in dams in climate extremes placed in the context of a new and emerging demand on farmers to produce in an unsustainable manner.