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At least 1,603 records · Page 89Linked to original sources
USGS2020

Ecological forecasting—21st century science for 21st century management

Natural resource managers are coping with rapid changes in both environmental conditions and ecosystems. Enabled by recent advances in data collection and assimilation, short-term ecological forecasting may be a powerful tool to help resource managers anticipate impending near-term changes in ecosystem conditions or dynamics. Managers may use the information in forecasts to minimize the adverse effects of ecological stressors and optimize the effectiveness of management actions. To explore the potential for ecological forecasting to enhance natural resource management, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) convened a workshop titled "Building Capacity for Applied Short-Term Ecological Forecasting" on May 29—31, 2019, with participants from several Federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as all mission areas within the USGS. Participants broadly agreed that short-term ecological forecasting—on the order of days to years into the future—has tremendous potential to improve the quality and timeliness of information available to guide resource management decisions. Participants considered how ecological forecasting could directly affect their agency missions and specified numerous critical tools for addressing natural resource management concerns in the 21st century that could be enhanced by ecological forecasting. Given this breadth of possible applications for forecast products, participants developed a repeatable framework for evaluating potential value of a forecast product for enhancing resource management. Applying that process to a large list of forecast ideas that were developed in a brainstorming session, participants identified a small set of promising forecast products that illustrate the value of ecological forecasting for informing resource management. Workshop outcomes also include insights about important likely obstacles and next steps. In particular, reliable production and delivery of operational ecological forecasts will require a sustained commitment by research agencies, in partnership with resource management agencies, to maintain and improve forecasting tools and capabilities.

Open-File Report↗
USGS2000

The Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium Environmental Information Network: Building ‘Learning Communities’ in the Northern Great Plains

In the last two decades alone, the U.S. and large portions of the world have witnessed what can be aptly be described as an explosion of scientific information and technological innovations that has permeated almost every aspect of our lives. Given these trends, it is clear that science and the understanding of science are becoming increasingly more relevant and essential to decision-makers and the decision-making process. Every environmental issue confronting society has an undisputed scientific underpinning. Understanding the implications of the science underpinning issues of particular importance to the health and well being of society constitutes the basis for making more informed and enlightened decisions. However obvious this linkage may be, many factors continue to serve as impediments to the broader understanding and incorporation of science into policy- and decision-making processes, as perhaps is best exemplified by the case of climate science.

Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyomin↗
USGS2009

Recent land cover history and nutrient retention in riparian wetlands

Wetland ecosystems are profoundly affected by altered nutrient and sediment loads received from anthropogenic activity in their surrounding watersheds. Our objective was to compare a gradient of agricultural and urban land cover history during the period from 1949 to 1997, with plant and soil nutrient concentrations in, and sediment deposition to, riparian wetlands in a rapidly urbanizing landscape. We observed that recent agricultural land cover was associated with increases in Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) concentrations in a native wetland plant species. Conversely, recent urban land cover appeared to alter receiving wetland environmental conditions by increasing the relative availability of P versus N, as reflected in an invasive, but not a native, plant species. In addition, increases in surface soil Fe content suggests recent inputs of terrestrial sediments associated specifically with increasing urban land cover. The observed correlation between urban land cover and riparian wetland plant tissue and surface soil nutrient concentrations and sediment deposition, suggest that urbanization specifically enhances the suitability of riparian wetland habitats for the invasive species Japanese stiltgrass [Microstegium vimenium (Trinius) A. Camus]. ?? 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Environmental Management↗
USGS1999

Environmental issues associated with fossil fuel resources; an evaluation of research opportunities for the U.S. Geological Survey's Energy Resources Program

Fossil fuel consumption in the United States has nearly tripled within the last 50 years (fig. 1), and is expected to continue increasing. As our knowledge and awareness of environmental consequences related to fossil fuel extraction and use grow, we as a nation, face the challenge of balancing our energy requirements with a desire for environmentally cleaner fuel. To help meet this challenge, the Energy Resources Program (ERP) of the Geologic Division (GD), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) sponsored three internal workshops and a World Wide Web (WWW) workshop. The primary goal of these workshops was to identify those environmental issues that are related to fossil fuels, are national in scope, and are within the purview of the USGS as an earth-science government agency. Those issues so identified will be prioritized according to ERP's future research plan and according to the extent they provide an environmental framework for ERP's petroleum and coal assessments. The purpose of this paper is to provide the results of the internal and WWW workshops as proposed topics of research for future ERP work, delineate studies to answer the questions related to each proposed research area, and link the studies to the seven science goals of the Geologic Division. The information provided herein will be used in preparing the USGS Geologic Division's FY2000 prospectus and ERP's next five-year strategic plan. Acknowledgements. The authors wish to acknowledge information on ERP environmental projects provided by Les Magoon, Paul Lillis, Keith Kvenvolden, Tom Lorenson, and Bob Rosenbauer. Peter Schweitzer was instrumental in providing the software for the WWW workshop, Cheryl Adkisson for constructing the workshop web pages, and Laura Friedrich for constructing the web pages summarizing the internal workshops. Stan Mroczkowski, Jim Otton, Donna Read, and Dorothy Tanti provided notes of or logistical assistance for the internal workshops. This report reflects the collective input of numerous USGS managers and scientists their participation in the workshops is greatly appreciated.

Open-File Report↗
USGS2016

Management-driven science synthesis: An evaluation of Everglades restoration trajectories

The Synthesis of Everglades Restoration andEcosystem Services (SERES) Project was funded in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) through the Critical Ecosystem Studies Initiative (CESI) and established to synthesize the ever-growing body of Everglades scientific information with the goal of addressing topics that have hampered restoration since the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) was passed in 2000. A distinguishing characteristic of this synthesis effort was that the target end-user was a management/ decision-maker audience. Specifically, the aim was to address the questions of the water managers and other decision leaders in a way that would illuminate and inform but not constrain or specify decisions. Since its inception, the SERES Project has been managed by the Everglades Foundation; however, a core group of scientifc experts from agencies, academic institutions, and the private sector have contributed to the project (see list on page 4). We began the project by interviewing key officials, including resource managers, decision-makers, and heads of agencies and environmental organizations. The objective of these interviews was to establish the Key Science Management Questions that needed to be addressed in order to advance restoration of the Everglades. The resulting questions led to the organization of project teams focused on Hydrology, Water Quality, Soils, Trophic Dynamics, and Landscape Pattern. In order to establish the technical basis for the project, we conducted in depth reviews of the recent scientifc literature, evaluation tools and models, and available data in each of these core areas. Finally, we developed a suite of restoration options that would aid us in addressing the Key Questions and evaluated their relative performance from hydrological, ecological, and economic perspectives. General fndings of the SERES Project are described in subsequent sections, and technical reviews and results of analyses supporting this document are available in reports on the project website.

Florida↗
USGS2023

Synthesizing professional opinion and published science to build a conceptual model of Walleye recruitment

Understanding and predicting recruitment, longstanding goals in fisheries science and ecology, are complicated by variation in the importance of environmental drivers coupled with the dynamic nature of individual ecosystems. Developing an understanding of recruitment from well-monitored stocks offers an opportunity to overcome these complexities. We used a systematic literature review, a survey, and a workshop attended by professionals with expertise in recruitment of Walleye Sander vitreus to identify common environmental drivers of Walleye recruitment and additional sources of variation (i.e., context dependencies) among populations. The importance of individual environmental drivers, as well as the direction of their influence, differed as a function of geographic region, lake surface area, and Walleye life stage. The literature suggested abiotic conditions (e.g., temperature) during the first year of life were influential in determining recruitment. Professional opinion noted the importance of biotic factors, with prey availability and predation risk having the most consistent relationships with recruitment. We synthesized this information to propose a conceptual model that illustrates the suite of characteristics that shape Walleye recruitment over large spatial and temporal scales. Our findings emphasize the importance of first-year growth and system-specific contextual factors, which can alter the relative importance of the environmental drivers of recruitment.

Fisheries Magazine↗
USGS2025

Review: The hydrogeology of critical mineral resources relevant to the energy transition

Attaining the goals of the international treaty on climate change (the Paris Agreement) will greatly increase the demand for the critical minerals required to implement clean-energy technologies. This poses both challenges and opportunities to the hydrogeologic community from several perspectives. Here, important insights that the hydrogeological sciences have to offer for mineral exploration, mineral production, and addressing environmental issues related to mining and mine decommissioning are summarized. This study focuses on copper, cobalt, lithium, and rare earths to represent the broad spectrum of critical minerals and illustrate their relevance by referring to projected demands and production rates. The current understanding of the hydrogeologic processes that form major deposits of these minerals are then summarized. Ore is defined as the naturally occurring material from which minerals of economic value can be extracted, where most ore deposits are the products of complex hydrogeologic couplings between fluid flow, heat transport, solute transport, chemical reactions, and mechanical deformation. Exploration models for the discovery of deeper, hidden deposits are potentially informed by hydrogeologic theory and hydrogeochemical processes. Hydrogeologic understanding and methods are also essential to production and recovery. Longstanding challenges are mine dewatering and (conversely) mine water supply, as well as mineral-extraction practices such as spoil heap leaching and in situ mining. New challenges arise from element extraction from subsurface brines. Finally, the quantity of water use and potential environmental impacts of mining on water quality are at the core of ‘social license’: the approval and acceptance of society to mining activities.

Hydrogeology Journal↗
USGS2026

Guidelines for producing integrated 210Pb and 14C age-models

Accurate reconstructions of past environmental changes are crucial in paleoecological research and require reliable chronologies of sedimentary archives. Establishing robust age-models and obtaining the most appropriate proxies for analysis is a complex scientific endeavor, requiring extensive resources and collaboration among specialists, including radiochronologists. Radiometric dating methods, such as 210 Pb and radiocarbon ( 14 C), are frequently employed to establish chronologies in aquatic sedimentary deposits and peat bogs. In this study, we review key aspects of sampling, analysis, and the principles underlying 210 Pb and 14 C age-models, focusing on methods for developing robust joint chronologies for paleoenvironmental research. Drawing largely from the authors' experiences and group discussions during and after a scientific workshop in 2022, we discuss important considerations for site selection, sampling strategies, and radiometric dating to construct integrated 210 Pb and 14 C age-models. Using expert consensus, this group – called Paleostats – aims to provide a set of best practices for other geochronologists with this methods paper. Among our conclusions, we emphasize the importance of accounting for site-specific factors such as prior information on sedimentation rates to establish appropriate sampling and analytical strategies. The use of appropriate coring devices can minimize disturbance to sediments and ensure the core surface remains intact and preserved until sectioning. Where excess 210 Pb is expected, sectioning at intervals of ≤1 cm provides an adequate sampling resolution for 210 Pb dating. Exceptions are possible, allowing for ~2–3 cm sections in areas with confirmed high sedimentation rates (e.g., > 1 cm yr −1 ). Recovering deeper core sections for 14 C dating with sufficient overlap allows for accounting errors in depth estimates made in the field. Special attention is advised during time intervals where validation proxies, such as the human-made radionuclides 137 Cs or post-bomb 14 C, are expected, and to determine the depth of secular equilibrium between 210 Pb and 226 Ra. Radiocarbon analyses are commonly performed by accelerator mass spectrometry, and age models are constructed mainly using Bayesian statistics with Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques (e.g., Bacon ). A Bayesian approach ( Plum ) is now available for producing 210 Pb age-models, which infers the 210 Pb ex flux, eliminates the need for selecting an equilibrium depth, and allows dating cores with incomplete 210 Pb ex inventory. Plum offers improved chronologies by integrating raw 210 Pb and 14 C data, and these age-models can be enriched with other dating methodologies, such as identifying tephras and other well-recorded historical events. Harmonized reporting would contribute to making radiometric age-models reproducible, which would benefit from an international effort. Using 210 Pb and 14 C to produce integrated age-models may yield better insights into the interplay between natural and recent anthropogenic forcings on ecosystems. This can enhance our understanding of environmental processes and their impacts on climate change, ultimately supporting science-based assessments and decisions.

Earth-Science Reviews↗
USGS2012

Using assemblage data in ecological indicators: A comparison and evaluation of commonly available statistical tools

Ecological indicators are science-based tools used to assess how human activities have impacted environmental resources. For monitoring and environmental assessment, existing species assemblage data can be used to make these comparisons through time or across sites. An impediment to using assemblage data, however, is that these data are complex and need to be simplified in an ecologically meaningful way. Because multivariate statistics are mathematical relationships, statistical groupings may not make ecological sense and will not have utility as indicators. Our goal was to define a process to select defensible and ecologically interpretable statistical simplifications of assemblage data in which researchers and managers can have confidence. For this, we chose a suite of statistical methods, compared the groupings that resulted from these analyses, identified convergence among groupings, then we interpreted the groupings using species and ecological guilds. When we tested this approach using a statewide stream fish dataset, not all statistical methods worked equally well. For our dataset, logistic regression (Log), detrended correspondence analysis (DCA), cluster analysis (CL), and non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) provided consistent, simplified output. Specifically, the Log, DCA, CL-1, and NMDS-1 groupings were ≥60% similar to each other, overlapped with the fluvial-specialist ecological guild, and contained a common subset of species. Groupings based on number of species (e.g., Log, DCA, CL and NMDS) outperformed groupings based on abundance [e.g., principal components analysis (PCA) and Poisson regression]. Although the specific methods that worked on our test dataset have generality, here we are advocating a process (e.g., identifying convergent groupings with redundant species composition that are ecologically interpretable) rather than the automatic use of any single statistical tool. We summarize this process in step-by-step guidance for the future use of these commonly available ecological and statistical methods in preparing assemblage data for use in ecological indicators.

Ecological Indicators↗
USGS1998

Land and people: finding a balance

Land and People: Finding a Balance is an environmental study project that engages high school students in studying earth science resource issues. The project focuses on the interaction between people and the environment in three regions of the United States: Cape Cod, Los Angeles, and the Everglades. Each section of this project is devoted to one of the three regions.

General Information Product↗
USGS2007

Soil and sediment chemistry in the Mississippi River Delta following Hurricane Katrina

In October 2005, the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Mid-Continent Geographic Science Center and the University of Missouri-Rolla's (UMR) Environmental Research Center for Emerging Contaminants partnered to collect perishable environmental data along the Mississippi River Delta to catalog the effects of Hurricane Katrina, a category 3 storm that caused nearly complete destruction to the delta's population support structure and industry. The data presented here begin the process of characterizing the chemical composition of sediments and soil along the delta following this significant natural disaster.

Louisiana↗
USGS2015

Porphyry copper assessment of northeast Asia: Far East Russia and northeasternmost China: Chapter W in Global mineral resource assessment

The U.S. Geological Survey assesses resources (mineral, energy, water, environmental, and biologic) at regional, national, and global scales to provide science in support of land management and decision making. Mineral resource assessments provide a synthesis of available information about where mineral deposits are known and suspected to be in the Earth’s crust, which commodities may be present, and estimates of amounts of resources in undiscovered deposits. A probabilistic mineral resource assessment of undiscovered resources associated with porphyry copper deposits in northeast Asia—composed mainly of Far East Russia and a small part of northeasternmost China—was completed as part of a global mineral resource assessment. Porphyry copper deposits are the main source of copper globally. Russia is an important source of copper, consistently ranking as 6th, 7th, or 8th in world production since 2000, and ranked 7th in 2014. Most of this production has been from magmatic copper-nickel-platinum-group element, volcanogenic massive sulfide, and sediment-hosted copper deposit types. The purpose of the assessment was to (1) compile a database of known deposits and significant prospects, (2) delineate permissive areas (tracts) for undiscovered porphyry copper deposits that may be present in the upper kilometer of the Earth’s crust, and (3) provide probabilistic estimates of amounts of copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo), gold (Au), and silver (Ag) that could be contained in undiscovered porphyry copper deposits in the tracts. The assessment was completed by the U.S. Geological Survey in collaboration with geologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences and industry consultants. The database of known deposits, significant prospects, and prospects includes an inventory of mineral resources in two known porphyry copper deposits, as well as key characteristics derived from available exploration reports for 70 significant porphyry copper prospects and 86 other prospects. Resource and exploration and development activity are updated with information current through February 2013.

Scientific Investigations Report↗
USGS2011

Proceedings of the Fourth Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds—Observing, Studying, and Managing for Change

These proceedings contain the abstracts, manuscripts, and posters of presentations given at the Fourth Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds—Observing, Studying, and Managing for Change, held at the Westmark Hotel in Fairbanks, Alaska, September 26–30, 2011. The conference was jointly hosted by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. Watersheds face resource impacts driven by accelerated change related to land use, population, and climate. About every three years a conference is held to bring together watershed researchers, observers, and managers to share scientific advances and management strategies. This year, the Fourth ICRW took a wider perspective on watershed science and examined some pressing issues of watershed science and management in our largest and perhaps most vulnerable state, Alaska. The purpose of the conference was to better understand the processes driving change and help managers incorporate societal needs and scientific uncertainty in the management of natural resources. The conference echoed similar themes to the last, highlighting the challenges of managing watersheds based on available science when considerably uncertainty remains regarding the hypothesized relationships between observed environmental changes and their ultimate effects. For example, while the scientific case for anthropogenic climate change has been well presented, confirming possible cause and effect relationships between climatic change and physical and ecological impacts in highly variable, natural systems continues to represent a scientific challenge. This goal becomes even more difficult when superimposed upon a long history of natural resource and land management practices that have fundamentally changed the physical, chemical and biological processes important in maintaining naturally functioning ecosystems. Designing and implementing studies to better understand watersheds and clearly communicating the findings to decisionmakers will be the primary challenge for natural resource scientists and managers into the foreseeable future.

Scientific Investigations Report↗
USGS2016

A review and synthesis of recreation ecology research supporting carrying capacity and visitor use management decisionmaking

Resource and experiential impacts associated with visitation to wilderness and other similar backcountry settings have long been addressed by land managers under the context of “carrying capacity” decisionmaking. Determining a maximum level of allowable use, below which high-quality resource and experiential conditions would be sustained, was an early focus in the 1960s and 1970s. However, decades of recreation ecology research have shown that the severity and areal extent of visitor impact problems are influenced by an interrelated array of use-related, environmental, and managerial factors. This complexity, with similar findings from social science research, prompted scientists and managers to develop more comprehensive carrying capacity frameworks, including a new Visitor Use Management framework. These frameworks rely on a diverse array of management strategies and actions, often termed a “management toolbox,” for resolving visitor impact problems. This article reviews the most recent and relevant recreation ecology studies that have been applied in wildland settings to avoid or minimize resource impacts. The key findings and their management implications are highlighted to support the professional management of common trail, recreation site, and wildlife impact problems. These studies illustrate the need to select from a more diverse array of impact management strategies and actions based on an evaluation of problems to identify the most influential factors that can be manipulated.

Journal of Forestry↗
USGS2020

Assessing the ecological risks of per‐ and polyfluoroalkyl substances: Current state‐of‐the science and a proposed path forward

Per‐ and poly‐fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) encompass a large, heterogenous group of chemicals of potential concern to human health and the environment. Based on information for a few relatively well‐understood PFAS such as perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoate, there is ample basis to suspect that at least a subset can be considered persistent, bioaccumulative, and/or toxic. However, data suitable for determining risks in either prospective or retrospective assessments are lacking for the majority of PFAS. In August 2019, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry sponsored a workshop that focused on the state‐of‐the‐science supporting risk assessment of PFAS. The present review summarizes discussions concerning the ecotoxicology and ecological risks of PFAS. First, we summarize currently available information relevant to problem formulation/prioritization, exposure, and hazard/effects of PFAS in the context of regulatory and ecological risk assessment activities from around the world. We then describe critical gaps and uncertainties relative to ecological risk assessments for PFAS and propose approaches to address these needs. Recommendations include the development of more comprehensive monitoring programs to support exposure assessment, an emphasis on research to support the formulation of predictive models for bioaccumulation, and the development of in silico, in vitro, and in vivo methods to efficiently assess biological effects for potentially sensitive species/endpoints. Addressing needs associated with assessing the ecological risk of PFAS will require cross‐disciplinary approaches that employ both conventional and new methods in an integrated, resource‐effective manner.

Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry↗
USGS2007

Identifying biotic integrity and water chemistry relations in nonwadeable rivers of Wisconsin: Toward the development of nutrient criteria

We sampled 41 sites on 34 nonwadeable rivers that represent the types of rivers in Wisconsin, and the kinds and intensities of nutrient and other anthropogenic stressors upon each river type. Sites covered much of United States Environmental Protection Agency national nutrient ecoregions VII-Mostly Glaciated Dairy Region, and VIII-Nutrient Poor, Largely Glaciated upper Midwest. Fish, macroinvertebrates, and three categories of environmental variables including nutrients, other water chemistry, and watershed features were collected using standard protocols. We summarized fish assemblages by index of biotic integrity (IBI) and its 10 component measures, and macroinvertebrates by 2 organic pollution tolerance and 12 proportional richness measures. All biotic and environmental variables represented a wide range of conditions, with biotic measures ranging from poor to excellent status, despite nutrient concentrations being consistently higher than reference concentrations reported for the regions. Regression tree analyses of nutrients on a suite of biotic measures identified breakpoints in total phosphorus (~0.06 mg/l) and total nitrogen (~0.64 mg/l) concentrations at which biotic assemblages were consistently impaired. Redundancy analyses (RDA) were used to identify the most important variables within each of the three environmental variable categories, which were then used to determine the relative influence of each variable category on the biota. Nutrient measures, suspended chlorophyll a, water clarity, and watershed land cover type (forest or row-crop agriculture) were the most important variables and they explained significant amounts of variation within the macroinvertebrate (R 2 = 60.6%) and fish (R 2 = 43.6%) assemblages. The environmental variables selected in the macroinvertebrate model were correlated to such an extent that partial RDA analyses could not attribute variation explained to individual environmental categories, assigning 89% of the explained variation to interactions among the categories. In contrast, partial RDA attributed much of the explained variation to the nutrient (25%) and other water chemistry (38%) categories for the fish model. Our analyses suggest that it would be beneficial to develop criteria based upon a suite of biotic and nutrient variables simultaneously to deem waters as not meeting their designated uses. ?? 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Environmental Management↗
USGS1994

U.S. Geological Survey yearbook, fiscal year 1993: At work across the Nation

The need for earth science has never been more paramount. The devastating flooding of the Mississippi River this past year, strikingly portrayed on the cover and discussed in detail in this report (p. 37-42), was a sobering reminder of nature's elemental power. As a Nation, we face many environmental and economic challenges, such as natural hazards, that can be addressed effectively only through science. Water quality, resource assessments, climate change, and toxic wastes are all critical issues that can best be dealt with when approached from a sound scientific base. The goal of the U.S. Geological Survey is to provide hydrologic, geologic, and topographic information and understanding that contribute to the wise management of the Nation's natural resources and that promote the health, safety, and well-being of all Americans. FY1993 has proven to be a particularly challenging one for the USGS. We entered into a time of transition from the long-term leadership of Director Dallas Peck and Associate Director Doyle Frederick to the appointment of a new director. We thank Dallas and Doyle for their many years of service and for their support during the transition.

Yearbook↗
USGS2017

Foundations of translational ecology

Ecologists who specialize in translational ecology (TE) seek to link ecological knowledge to decision making by integrating ecological science with the full complement of social dimensions that underlie today's complex environmental issues. TE is motivated by a search for outcomes that directly serve the needs of natural resource managers and decision makers. This objective distinguishes it from both basic and applied ecological research and, as a practice, it deliberately extends research beyond theory or opportunistic applications. TE is uniquely positioned to address complex issues through interdisciplinary team approaches and integrated scientist–practitioner partnerships. The creativity and context‐specific knowledge of resource managers, practitioners, and decision makers inform and enrich the scientific process and help shape use‐driven, actionable science. Moreover, addressing research questions that arise from on‐the‐ground management issues – as opposed to the top‐down or expert‐oriented perspectives of traditional science – can foster the high levels of trust and commitment that are critical for long‐term, sustained engagement between partners.

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment↗