Thirty-three brothels in rural and small-town Nevada, which contain between 225 and 250 prostitutes, are legal or openly tolerated and strictly controlled by state statute, city and county ordinances, and local rules. Twenty-two of the brothels are in places with populations between 500 and 8,000, and the remaining eleven are in rural areas. The legal and quasi-legal restrictions placed on prostitutes severely limit their activities outside brothels. These restrictions in conjunction with historical inertia, perceived benefits of crime and venereal disease control, and the good image of madams contribute to widespread positive local attitudes toward brothel prostitution. Interactions between clients and prostitutes in brothel parlors are also restricted and limited to a few basic types which are largely determined by entrepreneurial philosophy. KEY WORDS : Nevada, Political geography, Prostitution, Restricted activity spaces.

ANNALS of the Association of American Geographers

Twenty-four articles by biologists, ecologists, and other scientists represent a year's progress in the field. Among the topics addressed: the effects of introduced species, paleobiogeography, genetics and geographic structure, marine fisheries management, time as an ecological resource, genetic var

Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics

An important component of the biological assessment of stream condition is an evaluation of the direct or indirect effects of human activities or disturbances. The concept of a ''reference condition'' is increasingly used to describe the standard or benchmark against which current condition is compared. Many individual nations, and the European Union as a whole, have codified the concept of reference condition in legislation aimed at protecting and improving the ecological condition of streams. However, the phrase ''reference condition'' has many meanings in a variety of contexts. One of the primary purposes of this paper is to bring some consistency to the use of the term. We argue the need for a ''reference condition'' term that is reserved for referring to the ''naturalness'' of the biota (structure and function) and that naturalness implies the absence of significant human disturbance or alteration. To avoid the confusion that arises when alternative definitions of reference condition are used, we propose that the original concept of reference condition be preserved in this modified form of the term: ''reference condition for biological integrity,'' or RC(BI). We further urge that these specific terms be used to refer to the concepts and methods used in individual bioassessments to characterize the expected condition to which current conditions are compared: ''minimally disturbed condition'' (MDC); ''historical condition'' (HC); ''least disturbed condition'' (LDC); and ''best attainable condition'' (BAC). We argue that each of these concepts can be narrowly defined, and each implies specific methods for estimating expectations. We also describe current methods by which these expectations are estimated including: the reference-site approach (condition at minimally or least-disturbed sites); best professional judgment; interpretation of historical condition; extrapolation of empirical models; and evaluation of ambient distributions. Because different assumptions about what constitutes reference condition will have important effects on the final classification of streams into condition classes, we urge that bioassessments be consistent in describing the definitions and methods used to set expectations.

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Setting expectations for the ecological condition of streams: the concept of reference condition

This chapter presents the budget estimates and program justifications for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD’s core mission is to promote adequate and affordable housing, economic opportunity and a suitable living environment free from discrimination. The 2001 Budget for HUD reflects the successful implementation of a multiyear comprehensive reform effort which has helped restore the effectiveness and financial integrity of the Department’s critical affordable housing and economic development initiatives. Building on the success of these reforms, Congress and the Administration have provided significant increases in key HUD programs over the past two years. The 2001 Budget will continue these historic successes by providing the Department with the tools to fulfill its fundamental strategic goals: increasing the availability of decent, safe and affordable housing in American communities (including the enhancement of homeownership opportunities, especially for minorities and first-time homebuyers, the transformation of public housing and the expansion of housing assistance to alleviate severe housing needs); ensuring equal housing opportunity; promoting self-sufficiency and asset development of families and individuals (including moving homeless families to self-sufficiency through locally-developed continuum of care strategies and contributing to the success of welfare-to-work efforts); and improving community quality of life and economic vitality through locally-driven initiatives and programs. The 2001 budget provides increases for two successful block grant programs which serve HUD’s fundamental affordable housing and economic development missions—the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the HOME Investment Partnerships programs. These programs provide states and localities with formula funding pursuant to locally-developed consolidated plans for a wide variety of activities which benefit low and moderate-income families. The Community Development Loan Guarantee program (under Section 108 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974) will be continued with level funding and a slightly increased loan guarantee limitation. The Economic Development Initiative will also be maintained. Grants for Urban Empowerment Zones will continue support for ten-year plans to provide new job opportunities and community revitalization in 15 urban areas. The Rural Housing and Economic Development program will be continued at an increased level. HUD’s Homeless Assistance programs will be funded at an increased level to enable communities to continue their development and implementation of comprehensive coordinated continuum of care systems to address the needs of homeless people and families. This funding includes 18,000 rental assistance vouchers designed to provide affordable permanent housing for formerly homeless individuals and families in order to provide a stable living environment, a critical necessity for maintaining access to needed services and providing access to employment opportunities. HUD’s Continuum of Care approach recently received the prestigious 1999 Innovations in Government award from the Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Ford Foundation. The 2001 Budget maintains the Federal commitment to replacing distressed and obsolete public housing with attractive, mixed-income communities and creating new economic opportunities for residents. Consistent with this commitment and with a special focus on replacing projects that have been determined to be non-viable, the HOPE VI program will receive a significant increase from last year’s enacted level. The 2001 Budget provides $3,192 million for the Public Housing Operating Fund, which helps to maintain good quality housing, and provides a slight increase for the Public Housing Capital Fund, which helps modernize and improve the housing stock. The 2001 budget includes 120,000 incremental vouchers that will help address the severe housing needs of low-income households. These vouchers are necessary to address the continued increase in the number of families nationwide which have worst case needs for housing assistance, including extremely-low income families currently paying more than half their income for rent or living in severely inadequate living conditions. The Administration reaffirms its long-held commitment to renew all expiring Section 8 contracts, to protect residents from displacement by substantially increasing funding for Section 8 renewals, to provide Section 8 tenant-based assistance for displaced families, and for the replacement of affordable housing due to opt-outs from the project-based Section 8 program. The Administration also continues its support for the Department’s successful Housing for Persons With HIV/AIDS program (HOPWA) by providing increased funding to prevent thousands of persons with HIV/AIDS from becoming homeless. This increase is necessary to continue to provide stable housing and services in existing local programs and fund new jurisdictions as they become eligible for formula funding due to the continued increase in the number of AIDS cases. Building on last year’s successful adoption of the Housing Security Plan for Older Americans, the Housing for the Elderly program (under Section 202 of the Housing Act of 1959) will receive a substantial increase, including an increase in capital funding to convert existing housing to assisted living with services and an increase for construction of new affordable assisted living. The Housing for Persons with Disabilities (under Section 811 of the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990) will receive additional funding. In support of the Administration’s strong commitment to increase homeownership opportunities, the 2001 budget includes major support to help lowand moderate-income American families become homebuyers. The budget will increase the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) maximum mortgage loan limits, allowing Single Family insurance to cover loans up to the same level as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs) limits. (Currently FHA can insure home mortgages only up to 87 percent of the GSE limits in high cost areas and only up to 48 percent in low-cost areas, including approximately 2,200 rural counties throughout the Nation). In addition, the budget authorizes FHA to develop new adjustable rate mortgage products. These provisions will provide much-needed assistance to first-time homebuyers, minorities, and other underserved populations. Increased funding for the Fair Housing Assistance and Fair Housing Initiatives programs (FHAP and FHIP) will strengthen the ability of public and private fair housing groups, and partnerships between them, to enforce the laws protecting all Americans against illegal housing discrimination. In order to ensure the effective implementation of its programs, the Department’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) will be provided with a budget increase. These additional funds are necessary to ensure timely provision of data, research and analysis of national housing and economic conditions, and to measure the performance of pro-

The Department of Housing and Urban Development

Water samples collected from 1992 through 2001 from 186 streams and rivers and from 5,047 wells in 51 of the nation's major river basins and aquifer systems were summarized to provide the most comprehensive national-scale analysis of pesticide occurrence to date. At least one pesticide was detected in water from all streams studied, and at least one pesticide was detected more than 90 percent of the time in water from streams draining agricultural, urban, or mixed land uses. Pesticides were less common in groundwater than in streams, but were detected in more than 50 percent of the sampled shallow wells beneath agricultural and urban areas. About one-third of the deeper wells sampled, which tap major aquifers used for water supply, contained one or more pesticides or pesticide degradates.

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Pesticides in the Nation's Streams and Ground Water, 1992-2001

Stream habitat is characterized in the US Geological Survey’s National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program as part of an integrated physical, chemical, and biological assessment of the Nation's water quality The goal of stream habitat characterization is to relate habitat to other physical, chemical, and biological factors that describe water-quality conditions To accomplish this goal, environmental settings are described at sites selected for water-quality assessment In addition, spatial and temporal patterns in habitat are examined at local, regional, and national scales This habitat protocol contains updated methods for evaluating habitat in NAWQA Study Units Revisions are based on lessons learned after 6 years of applying the original NAWQA habitat protocol to NAWQA Study Unit ecological surveys Similar to the original protocol, these revised methods for evaluating stream habitat are based on a spatially hierarchical framework that incorporates habitat data at basin, segment, reach, and microhabitat scales This framework provides a basis for national consistency in collection techniques while allowing flexibility in habitat assessment within individual Study Units Procedures are described for collecting habitat data at basin and segment scales; these procedures include use of geographic information system data bases, topographic maps, and aerial photographs Data collected at the reach scale include channel, bank, and riparian characteristics INTRODUCTION The US Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program is designed to assess the status of and trends in the Nation’s water quality (Gilliom and others, 1995) and to develop an understanding of the major factors that affect observed water-quality conditions and trends (Hirsch and others, 1988; Leahy and others, 1990) This assessment is accomplished by collecting physical, chemical, and biological data at sites that represent major natural and human factors (for example, ecoregion, land use, stream size, hydrology, and geology) that are thought to control water quality These data are used to provide an integrated assessment of water quality within selected environmental settings, assess trends in water quality, and investigate the influence of major natural and human factors on water quality Study Unit investigations in the NAWQA Program are done on a staggered time scale in approximately 59 of the largest and most significant hydrologic systems across the Nation (Gilliom and others, 1995) These investigations, which consist of 4 to 5 years of intensive assessment followed by 5 years of low-intensity assessment, consist of four main components—(1) retrospective analysis; (2) occurrence and distribution assessment; (3) assessment of long-term trends and changes; and (4) case studies of sources, transport, fate, and effects (Gilliom and others, 1995) Occurrence and distribution assessments are done in a nationally consistent and uniform manner for identification of spatial and temporal trends in water quality at a national scale (Gilliom and others, 1995) Characterization of stream habitat is an essential component of many water-quality assessment programs (Osborne and others, 1991) and an important element in the NAWQA Program (Gurtz, 1994)

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Revised Methods for Characterizing Stream Habitat in the National Water-Quality Assessment Program

Responses of benthic macroinvertebrates along gradients of urban intensity were investigated in nine metropolitan areas across the United States. Invertebrate assemblages in metropolitan areas where forests or shrublands were being converted to urban land were strongly related to urban intensity. In metropolitan areas where agriculture and grazing lands were being converted to urban land, invertebrate assemblages showed much weaker or nonsignificant relations with urban intensity because sites with low urban intensity were already degraded by agriculture. Ordination scores, the number of EPT taxa, and the mean pollution-tolerance value of organisms at a site were the best indicators of changes in assemblage condition. Diversity indices, functional groups, behavior, and dominance metrics were not good indicators of urbanization. Richness metrics were better indicators of urban effects than were abundance metrics, and qualitative samples collected from multiple habitats gave similar results to those of single habitat quantitative samples (riffles or woody snags) in all metropolitan areas. Changes in urban intensity were strongly correlated with a set of landscape variables that was consistent across all metropolitan areas. In contrast, the instream environmental variables that were strongly correlated with urbanization and invertebrate responses varied among metropolitan areas. The natural environmental setting determined the biological, chemical, and physical instream conditions upon which urbanization acts and dictated the differences in responses to urbanization among metropolitan areas. Threshold analysis showed little evidence for an initial period of resistance to urbanization. Instead, assemblages were degraded at very low levels of urbanization, and response rates were either similar across the gradient or higher at low levels of urbanization. Levels of impervious cover that have been suggested as protective of streams (5-10%) were associated with significant assemblage degradation and were not protective.

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Responses of benthic macroinvertebrates to environmental changes associated with urbanization in nine metropolitan areas

Summary

1. During late spring 1993–1995, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) sampled 490 wadeable streams in the mid-Atlantic Highlands (MAH) of the U.S. for a variety of physical, chemical and biological indicators of environmental condition. We used the resulting data set to evaluate the importance of differing levels of macroinvertebrate taxonomic resolution in bioassessments by comparing the ability of family versus genus to detect differences among sites classified by type and magnitude of human impact and by stream size. We divided the MAH into two physiographic regions: the Appalachian Plateau where mine drainage (MD) and acidic deposition are major stressors, and the Ridge and Valley where nutrient enrichment is a major stressor. Stream sites were classified into three or four impact classes based on water chemistry and habitat. We used stream order (first to third Strahler order) in each region as a measure of stream size. Ordination, 2 × 2 chi-square and biotic metrics were used to compare the ability of family and genus to detect differences among both stressor and size classes.



2. With one notable exception, there were only a small number of different genera per family (interquartile range = 1–4). Family Chironomidae, however, contained 123 different genera. As a result, significant information loss occurred when this group was only classified to family. The family Chironomidae did not discriminate among the predefined classes but many chironomid genera did: by chi-square analysis, 10 and 28 chironomid genera were significant in discriminating MD and nutrient impacts, respectively.



3. Family and genus data were similar in their ability to distinguish among the coarse impacts (e.g. most severe versus least severe impact classes) for all cases. Though genus data in many cases distinguished the subtler differences (e.g. mixed/moderate impacts versus high or low impacts) better than family, differences in significance levels between family and genus analyses were relatively minor. However, genus data detected differences among stream orders in ordination analyses that were not revealed at the family level. In the ordinations, both family and genus levels of analysis responded to similar suites of environmental variables.



4. Our results suggest that identification to the family level is sufficient for many bioassessment purposes. However, identifications to genus do provide more information in genera-rich families like Chironomidae. Genus or finer levels of identification are important for investigating natural history, stream ecology, biodiversity and indicator species. Decisions about the taxonomic level of identification need to be study specific and depend on available resources (cost) and study objectives.

The effects of macroinvertebrate taxonomic resolution in large landscape bioassessments: an example from the Mid-Atlantic Highlands, U.S.A.

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA) Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) sampled ∼500 wadeable streams in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands region of the US during the late spring of 1993 to 1995 for a variety of physical, chemical, and biological indicators of environmental condition. Eighty-eight sites that were minimally affected by human activities were chosen to determine the extent to which geographic and stream-based classifications accounted for variation in the composition of riffle macroinvertebrate assemblages. Bray–Curtis similarities among sites were calculated from the relative abundance of macroinvertebrates to assess the strength of classifications based on geography (ecoregions and catchments), habitat (slope and stream order), and water chemistry (conductivity). For comparison, a taxonomic classification (two-way indicator species analysis, TWINSPAN) and a gradient analysis (correspondence analysis, CA) were performed on the macroinvertebrate data. To asse...

Comparing strengths of geographic and nongeographic classifications of stream benthic macroinvertebrates in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands, USA

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment Program, fish were collected from 24 selected stream sites in the Willamette Basin during 1993–1995 to determine the composition of the fish assemblages and their relation to the chemical and physical environment. Variance in fish relative abundance was greater among all sites than among spatially distinct reaches within a site (spatial variation) or among multiple sampled years at a site (temporal variation). Therefore, data from a single reach in an individual year was considered to be a reliable estimator of the fish assemblage structure at a site when the data were normalized by percent relative abundance. Multivariate classification and ordination were used to examine patterns in environmental variables and fish relative abundance over differing spatial scales (among versus within ecoregions). Across all ecoregions (all sites), fish assemblages were primarily structured along environmental gradients of water temperatur...

Ian R. Waite

Papers

Revised Methods for Characterizing Stream Habitat in the National Water-Quality Assessment Program

Responses of benthic macroinvertebrates to environmental changes associated with urbanization in nine metropolitan areas

The effects of macroinvertebrate taxonomic resolution in large landscape bioassessments: an example from the Mid-Atlantic Highlands, U.S.A.

Comparing strengths of geographic and nongeographic classifications of stream benthic macroinvertebrates in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands, USA

Associations among Fish Assemblage Structure and Environmental Variables in Willamette Basin Streams, Oregon