Abstract Tobacco and cannabis product use can result in debris (a.k.a. litter) on the landscape, with implications to soil and water quality and thus potential impacts to ecosystems. More information is needed regarding how much debris exists on the landscape, such that the magnitude of potential associated environment problems can be quantified. Such information can raise awareness in the public about environmental hazards from tobacco and cannabis product use. The goal of this protocol is to quantify, via a timed survey approach, the tobacco and cannabis debris load (i.e. cigarette butts, cannabis or e-cigarette waste) at study sites. Multiple sites in a geographical location may be of interest for comparative analysis, for example sites used regularly by humans (e.g. trails, parking lots, around buildings, garbage cans) versus other sites that are suspected to have low human use. In any case, the same survey data sheet would be used (included with this protocol). Each survey will take 15 minutes per site to conduct. In the process of surveying, debris is collected and retained for later sorting, counting, and photographic documentation. The time to sort and count the collected debris will depend on the quantity and diversity of debris collected.
Cannabis producers in California can now participate in a regulated supply chain — but little is known, despite considerable speculation, about which types of producers are likely to seek legal status. Growers' decisions about joining the legal market are central to questions about how formalization will transform cannabis production in California, and in particular whether small farms, which were encouraged under Proposition 64, can remain part of the industry. We combine data on the location and characteristics of cannabis farms in 2012 and 2016 with applications for cultivation permits from 2018 to investigate farm characteristics associated with cannabis formalization in Humboldt County. We find strong evidence that the farms most likely to start the permit process are larger, existed in 2012 prior to the start of the "green rush" and expanded at greater rates between 2012 and 2016. The evidence is consistent with concerns that formalization of the cannabis industry may lead to industry consolidation, as has been the trend in California's agricultural and timber industries more broadly.
Communities looking to improve fire protection may consider incorporating landscape features that ‘buffer’ the effects of a fire between developed and undeveloped lands. While landscapes such as golf courses, vineyards, or agriculture are already being considered part of this buffer zone, few empirical studies demonstrate causally how well these different landscape features operate as a fire buffer. This research selects golf courses as an example of a possible buffer landscape and proposes methods to test if this buffer alters fire severity and limits fire spread. Using propensity score matching and multiple linear regression, we demonstrate golf courses that burned in California between 1986 and 2020 had a predicted 49% reduction in fire severity relative to otherwise similar vegetated land. This reduction in fire severity is regionally dependent, with the effect of golf course buffering landscapes most pronounced in the North Bay region. For limiting fire spread, golf courses function similarly to hardscaped land uses such as airports, suggesting that irrigation and vegetation management can be effective in creating desired buffering qualities. These methods suggest that artificially created irrigated green zones act as effective buffers, providing de facto fuel breaks around communities, and can be reproduced for other potential buffering landscape features. This study does not advocate for the use of any specific anthropogenic landscape feature, but rather highlights that community-based fire hazard reduction goals could be attained through considering landscape features beyond fuel reduction manipulations.
<p>Meeting growing challenges to maintain food production and rural livelihoods while minimizing land degradation will require significant changes in the way existing farming landscapes are managed. A systemic understanding of the agroecological impacts of land-use change in established farming landscapes, and the identification of significant trade-offs or synergies, are crucial to inform farm management and land-use governance solutions. Here, we focus on land-use change impacts in an already established farming landscape. We investigate spatial and temporal dynamics of agricultural land-use change from 2002 to 2018, in Kern County, California. Our study region is one of the major agricultural production hotspots in the United States, and has undergone a recent agricultural land-use transition from annual to perennial cropping systems. In this study we analyzed parcel-level data documenting changes in the land-use footprint for individual crops, ranging from annual crops like wheat and cotton to perennial tree crops like almonds and pistachios. We assess how land-use change impacted ecosystem pressures and service indicators selected for their relevance in an agricultural context, including water-use, soil erosion, profit and carbon sequestration. Our results indicate no salient trade-offs or synergies among individual crops, and illustrate the possibility of limited economic-ecological trade-offs associated with a shift from annual to perennial crops in a well-established agricultural landscape. We further discuss the relevance of our findings in the context of land-ownership consolidation and changing export dynamics in the study area.</p>
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