Landscape Architect & Specifier News

MAR 2018

LASN is a photographically oriented, professional journal featuring topics of concern and state-of-the-art projects designed or influenced by registered Landscape Architects.

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106 Landscape Architect and Specifier News I n f o r m a t i o n R e q u e s t # 6 9 1 Industrial pollution is a big problem in Louisiana. In 2014, the state's waterways were ranked among the worst in the nation, based on data from the EPA, compiled by the Environment America Research and Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The data showed industrial facilities released nearly 13 million pounds of toxic chemicals into Louisiana rivers, bayous and other waterways. Buying and Selling Pollution Credits Lousiana is proposing a pollution credit- trading program ("emissions trading") aimed at incentivizing companies and businesses into reducing their output of pollution, such as fertilizer runoff. In this approach, the state allocates or sells a limited number of permits to discharge specific quantities of certain pollutants over a certain time. Polluters are required to hold permits in amount equal to their emissions. Those companies that go over that threshold must buy permits from others willing to sell them. North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio have already implemented similar programs, with Minnesota and Maryland developing them as well. In theory, the program is meant to prompt polluters who can reduce emissions most cheaply to do so, while forcing those who pollute more to pay up. Critics of the program believe it's simply gives larger, wealthier corporations the right to pollute for a price. App Helps Diagnose Plant Diseases The app is able to see the amount of a disease on a single leaf or fruit by color analysis of the image that the user takes. In 2015, a phone application called Leaf Doctor was introduced for free on iPhone, iPad and iPods. Now, almost three years later, the app is also available on Android and Google devices Researchers at University of Hawaii at Manoa, in conjunction with a team from Cornell University, N.Y., developed the app as a convenient tool that anyone can use to diagnose a plant. To use the application, all you have to do is take a photo of a specific leaf or fruit and the app will analyze that photograph, then display the percentage and severity of the disease visible. The information that the app acquires can then be sent to an email, or viewed right on the phone, and includes useful topics such as the name of the host plant, disease name, location of disease on the plant and any suggested treatment options. An article by Cornell suggests that in the future it may be possible to take an aerial photo of a large landscape or field and analyze the extent of a certain plant disease within a larger area, as opposed to just a single leaf.

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