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Multi-scenario dynamic prediction of ecological risk assessment in an arid area of northwest China
(2023)
Ecological security is essential for the development of environmental health and human society. However, the driving mechanisms and spatial non-stationarity of ecological risks are still unknown, particularly in arid areas. Thus, this study constructed an ecological risk index (ERI) research framework in arid areas based on land use and socio-economic data from 1980 to 2020 to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution trend, driving mechanisms, and spatial non-stationarity of ecological risk and predict the ecological risk under business-as-usual, economic development, and ecological protection scenarios using a patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model. The results show that: (1) cropland and build-up land were expanding, whereas forestland and grassland water bodies were shrinking. Compared with the two development stages from 1980 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2020, cropland increased by 4.73% and 51.52%, respectively, whereas build-up land increased by 12.64% and 106.52%, respectively, indicating rapid development and drastic changes in the past 20 years. (2) With the change in landscape diversity, the regional ecological risks showed an increasing trend, whereas the future ecological risks showed an increasing trend because of the cumulative effect of landscape pattern changes caused by human activities. (3) Moreover, dramatic changes in ecological risk, particularly in areas of intense human activity in build-up land, agricultural land, artificial oases, and mountainous areas. Corresponding to the analysis of driving mechanisms, population, GDP, distance to government, water, and primary roads; have a significant effect on ecological risk, whereas DEM has direct and indirect effect paths. Ultimately, the proposed analysis framework can present the spatiotemporal changes of ecological risks and their influencing mechanisms, which can help develop sustainable development policies.
Forschungsdatenmanagement (FDM) gewinnt an den Hochschulen in Brandenburg eine immer größere Bedeutung. Für den Aufbau und die Institutionalisierung eines nachhaltigen FDM an den brandenburgischen Hochschulen ist eine möglichst genaue Ermittlung des aktuellen Kenntnisstandes der Forschenden und deren Bedarfe bezüglich des Umgangs mit Forschungsdaten erforderlich. Hierzu diente die Bedarfserhebung, die im Rahmen des vom BMBF und dem MWFK geförderten Projekts IN-FDM-BB durchgeführt wurde. Beteiligt an der brandenburgweiten Umfrage waren alle acht staatlichen forschenden Hochschulen: vier Universitäten (die Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus – Senftenberg (BTU), die Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF (FB), die Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) (EUV) und die Universität Potsdam (UP)) und vier Hochschulen für Angewandte Wissenschaften (die Fachhochschule Potsdam (FHP), die Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde (HNEE), die Technische Hochschule Brandenburg (THB) und die Technische Hochschule Wildau (THW)). Die Hochschulen unterscheiden sich erheblich in ihrer Größe und fachlichen Ausrichtung. So hat die UP deutlich über 20.000 Studierende und über 1.900 Professor*innen und akademische Mitarbeiter*innen, die FB hingegen, weniger als 1.000 Studierende und ca. 140 Professor*innen und akademische Mitarbeiter*innen. Landesweit sind fast alle Fachdisziplinen vertreten, jedoch mit unterschiedlichen Schwerpunkten je Hochschule.
Das Ziel der Bedarfserhebung war, den Kenntnisstand bezüglich des professionellen Umgangs mit Forschungsdaten der Forschenden an den einzelnen Hochschulen zu ermitteln, FDM-Bedarfe zu erkennen und daraus mögliche FDM-Aktivitäten für die jeweilige Hochschule abzuleiten. Die Bedarfserhebung richtete sich daher in erster Linie an die Forschenden der jeweiligen Hochschule.
Academic data stewardship at universities has to fulfil many different roles. One of the most important is to build up a connection to researchers and bridge the gap between research data infrastructure and researchers. Different scientific communities have different requirements for research data management and expectations regarding text and data publication. In many of the sub-disciplines of engineering sciences, research data management practices are not established so far. When it comes to contact between data stewards and researchers, a common knowledge base has to be established to become clear about why and what actions for research data management has to take, that engineering researchers can adapt them for their research data management practices. Many research data management standards have to take into consideration. However, to this point of time, the research data management community lacks for data literacy graphics to explain how the technical data management ecosystem works together with standards like the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse (FAIR) principles. Therefore, we developed a graphic for data literacy and consulting scenarios.
This is a data management plan for the DFG research project "Predictability of color changes of wood used indoor - A new approach to evaluate the color change as a function of the radiation dose". DFG Funding code / Project number: 442135169
Project website: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/442135169?language=en
This data management plan (DMP) applies to the Research Data Management Organizer (RDMO) questionnaire and was operated with the RDMO software: https://rdmorganiser.github.io/en/
Nepal is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, which is negatively affecting agricultural production and food security. However, the role of agro-ecological zones and social groups in climate change adaptation (CCA) and its impact on smallholder farmers in Nepal remains unexplored. To fill this gap, this study aimed to identify the effect of agro-ecological zones and social groups on smallholder farmers' adaptation to climate change using the multivariate probit model. Multistage sampling was used to collect data from 400 households in three agro-ecological zones of Nepal. These zones were highland (mountainous region), midland (hilly region) and lowland (terai/plain region). The results of our study showed that farmers in the Mountain region are more likely to adopt off-farm activities and temporary migration as a CCA strategy than those in the Terai/plain agro-ecological zone. In the Terai/Plain, farmers mainly adopt small-scale irrigation and agroforestry. In terms of social groups, the Brahmin group was more likely to adopt new crop varieties and small-scale irrigation than the Sudra group. The Sudra farmers preferred temporary migration and off-farm activities more than the Brahmins. Our study shows that policies to promote the adoption of CCA strategies need to take into account location and social group differences in order to improve the adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable farmers. Mountain and Sudra farmers need support to adapt to climate change and sustain agriculture.
Although pesticides ensure the quality and quantity of agricultural produce, they have adverse effects on farmers, their families, and consumers. Therefore, in order to reduce the unpleasant effects of pesticide use, stakeholders would be well advised to extend guidance and precautions to end users. The objective of this study was to determine the pesticide handling behaviour and the effectiveness of pesticide information on pesticide handling knowledge and personal protective equipment (PPE) use among farmers in southwest Nigeria. One hundred and fifty-six farmers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire in December 2019 and January 2020. The results revealed that a one-third of the farmers dispose their pesticide residues on the field, only 3% of the farmers dispose the hazardous pesticide waste at a collection point, and 65% of them dispose the empty containers indiscriminately. The majority of farmers never use respirators (79%), hats (60%), and boots (57%) when applying pesticides. Knowledge of pesticide application and waste management is low (58% of respondents scored less than 10 on a knowledge scale of 0–14). The result of the regression model shows that information from pesticide labels and farmer-to-farmer exchanges significantly increase farmers’ knowledge of pesticide handling and PPE use. Our results suggest that the effectiveness of current information provision to smallholder farmers on the correct use of pesticides is not sufficient. Therefore, we highlight the need for pesticide companies, distributors, and government agencies to intensify and further develop their efforts to empower smallholder farmers to improve their knowledge and use of pesticides.
As the risk of forest fires increases around the globe, the issues of how to control, suppress, and prevent them are the subjects of growing public and political attention. This study focuses on the political debate in Germany regarding forest fires and provides insights into the conceptualization of forest fires and forest fire management at the federal and state policymaking levels. By examining forest fire narratives through the policy lens, this case study takes an exemplary extreme weather event exacerbated by climate change as an opportunity to examine the policy response to this problem. In this way, we examine the role of policy narratives in civil and environmental protection and disaster management. The findings reveal that all politicians examined in this study agree that forest fire management is an urgent matter that needs to be supported. In the prevailing human-centered narrative, policymakers see active forest management and use as tools to improve forest resilience to fire and other calamities. Those who advocate a nature-based narrative assert that it is natural processes in protected forest areas that most effectively enhance resilience. The policy solutions derived from these views include financial support, recognition of the work of foresters, forest fire managers, and civil protection agencies as well as, depending on the type of narrative argument favored, either increased forest management or improved protection of forest ecologies. This suggests that narrative analysis may illuminate the rationales underlying previous policy decisions and the framework for future ones. This contribution throws light on how narratives shape policymaking and, by extension, disaster management. Future studies should therefore take into account the influence of prevailing narratives when it comes to evaluating the potential that policymaking can offer for disaster management in the future.
Seit Anfang 2022 ist das Töten der männlichen Eintagsküken der Legelinien in Deutschland verboten. Im Beitrag wird eine Übersicht über etwaige Auswirkungen des Verbots auf die verschiedenen Akteure der Wertschöpfungskette gegeben. Ferner wird der aktuelle Stand bei den Alternativen zum Kükentöten beleuchtet.
Große international tätige Zuchtunternehmen wie Lohmann haben in ihren Brütereien Anlagen zur Geschlechtsbestimmung im Ei installiert (seit 2022 auch in Deutschland). Ferner bieten sie ihren Kunden alternativ die Bruderhahnaufzucht oder auch Zweinutzungsherkünfte an.
Die Zahl der Brütereien mit Legeküken (zum Gebrauch) hat von 2021 auf 2022 abgenommen (von 22 auf 14). Da die Gesamtzahl aller Brütereien aber nur von 54 auf 51 zurückging, haben offensichtlich einige auf andere Geflügelarten umgestellt. Die Zahl der geschlüpften Legeküken nahm stark ab (2020 40,5 Mio., 2022 16,2 Mio., 1. Halbjahr 2023 9,9 Mio.).
Es besteht ein Bedarf von 47 – 63 Millionen Junghennen im Jahr (bei 12 – 15 Monaten Nutzungsdauer). Mit den für 2020 angegebenen 12,2 Millionen Plätzen konnten nur etwa 28 Millionen Junghennen erzeugt werden, woran der Importbedarf deutlich wird. Der größte Teil der importierten Legeküken (für Aufzuchtbetriebe) oder Junghennen (für Legehennenbetriebe) kommt allerdings aus Erzeugung ohne Kükentöten. Denn von 50 Millionen Haltungsplätzen mit alternativen Haltungssystemen in Deutschland werden 86 Prozent vom Verein KAT kontrolliert, der das Kükentöten auch bei Importen ausschließt.
Die Haltung von Legehennen stieg im Jahr 2022 weiter an (Anzahl Betriebe + 6 %, Haltungsplätze + 3 %, Legehennen + 2 %). Auf eine verlängerte Nutzungsdauer der Hennen deuten sinkende Schlachtzahlen für Althennen in Deutschland hin (2021 34,0 Mio., 2022 29,7 Mio.).
Die großen Einzelhandelsketten haben sich verpflichtet, nur noch Schaleneier ohne Kükentöten (OKT) anzubieten, auch für importierte Eier. Einige Ketten dehnen das schrittweise auch auf Eier in verarbeiteten Produkten aus. Traditionell werden etwa 30 Prozent aller Eier in Deutschland importiert. Die Verbraucherpreise stiegen bereits 2021 aufgrund des Kükentötungsverbots etwas an, 2022 hingegen Inflationsbedingt stark.
Dennoch ist der Konsum von Eiern nur leicht zurückgegangen (von 233 in 2021 auf 230 in 2022). Beim Kauf von Schaleneiern gab es in 2022 eine leichte Verschiebung zu kostengünstigeren Eiern (Bio-Eier - 1,2 %), sowie zu Käufen im Discounter (+ 2 %).
Verbraucherstudien haben gezeigt, dass mittlerweile die meisten Konsumenten die Problematik des Kükentötens kennen und dieses auch ablehnen. Die Alternativen dazu sind jedoch weniger bekannt. Dies trifft am meisten auf Zweinutzungshühner zu.
Bei der Geschlechtsbestimmung im Ei hat eine starke Weiterentwicklung stattgefunden. Mittlerweile sind Anlagen mit fünf verschiedenen Verfahren in Brütereien im Einsatz (seit 2022 auch in Deutschland). Die für Deutschland angegebenen Kapazitäten addieren sich auf etwa 17 – 21 Millionen Eiern im Jahr. Die derzeit in den Brütereien genutzten Verfahren können nach der Gesetzesänderung (Bestimmung bis max. 12. Bruttag) künftig weiter angewendet werden. Aus Tierschutzsicht wäre allerdings eine Betäubung der Embryonen vor der Tötung zu diskutieren.
Die Anzahl Brütereien mit Sortierung von Bruderhähnen hat deutlich zugenommen (2021 4, 2022 13). 2022 wurden 10,59 Millionen männliche Küken zur Aufzucht aussortiert. Dies macht einen Anteil von 65,3 Prozent der 16,20 Millionen geschlüpften Legeküken aus (Übrige Geschlechtsbestimmung). Mit den von der Branche angegebenen 5 – 8 Millionen Plätzen ließen sich 20 – 23 Millionen Bruderhähne im Jahr aufziehen. Die KAT gibt an, dass 2022 9 von 20 Millionen Bruderhähnen in Polen aufgezogen wurden. Über die Verwendung der Bruderhähne ist wenig bekannt. KAT schreibt eine Verwendung als Lebensmittel vor.
Zweinutzungshühner sind bislang noch selten in der Praxis anzutreffen (geschätzt unter 1 % der Hennen). Sie sind bei vielen Verbrauchern nicht bekannt und in den Supermärkten gibt es keine speziellen Angebote. Aufgrund der geringeren Leistungen müssen die Landwirte höhere Preise erzielen.
CONTEXT
Long-Term Field Experiments (LTEs) were implemented to study the long-term effects of different management practices, including tillage, fertilization and crop rotation under otherwise constant conditions. Climate change is expected to change these conditions, challenging interpretation of LTE data with regard to the distinction between climate change and management effects.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of the study was to quantify the expected, spatially differentiated changes of agroclimatic conditions for the German LTE sites as a precondition for modelling and LTE data interpretation.
METHODS
We developed a framework combining spatially distributed climate data and LTE metadata to identify the possible climatic changes at 247 LTE sites with experiments running for 20 years or more. The LTEs were classified using the following categories: fertilization, tillage, crop rotation, field crops or grassland, conventional or organic. We utilized climate variables (temperature, precipitation) and agroclimatic indicators (aridity, growing degree days, etc.) to compare a baseline (1971–2000) with future periods (2021−2100) under the IPCC's Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSP). A comprehensive LTE risk assessment was conducted, based on changes in climate variables and agroclimatic indicators between baseline and future scenarios.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
Under the most extreme scenario (SSP585), 150 LTEs are expected to shift from humid and dry sub-humid to semi-arid conditions. Frost days in LTE areas are expected to decline by 81%, and the growing season to lengthen by up to 92%. The spatial differentiation of expected climate change also facilitates the identification of suitable sites for future agricultural practices and may inform the design of new LTEs.
SIGNIFICANCE
Our results may guide the interpretation of LTE data regarding the effect of climate change, facilitating future soil crop modelling studies with LTE data and providing information for planning new LTE sites to support future agricultural research and/or adapting management on existing LTE sites. The framework we developed can easily be transferred to LTE sites in agricultural regions worldwide to support LTE research on climate change impacts and adaptation.
Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in agricultural soils removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and contributes towards achieving carbon neutrality. For farmers, higher SOC levels have multiple benefits, including increased soil fertility and resilience against drought-related yield losses. However, increasing SOC levels requires agricultural management changes that are associated with costs. Private soil carbon certificates could compensate for these costs. In these schemes, farmers register their fields with commercial certificate providers who certify SOC increases. Certificates are then sold as voluntary emission offsets on the carbon market.
In this paper, we assess the suitability of these certificates as an instrument for climate change mitigation. From a soils' perspective, we address processes of SOC enrichment, their potentials and limits, and options for cost-effective measurement and monitoring. From a farmers’ perspective, we assess management options likely to increase SOC, and discuss their synergies and trade-offs with economic, environmental and social targets. From a governance perspective, we address requirements to guarantee additionality and permanence while preventing leakage effects. Furthermore, we address questions of legitimacy and accountability.
While increasing SOC is a cornerstone for more sustainable cropping systems, private carbon certificates fall short of expectations for climate change mitigation as permanence of SOC sequestration cannot be guaranteed. Governance challenges include lack of long-term monitoring, problems to ensure additionality, problems to safeguard against leakage effects, and lack of long-term accountability if stored SOC is re-emitted. We conclude that soil-based private carbon certificates are unlikely to deliver the emission offset attributed to them and that their benefit for climate change mitigation is uncertain. Additional research is needed to develop standards for SOC change metrics and monitoring, and to better understand the impact of short term, non-permanent carbon removals on peaks in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and on the probability of exceeding climatic tipping points.
This virtual issue comprises papers that address diversification for providing sustainable solutions at different scales from cropping and grassland to food systems. The authors investigated processes in case studies at the landscape scale where synergies and trade-offs between social and environmental objectives become the most tangible. Contributions from all continents highlighted regional specificities related to diversification and include research from natural and social sciences, with inter- and transdisciplinary approaches including synthesis of knowledge (reviews), empirical studies with experiments as well as assessments with interviews in case studies: Model-based design of crop diversification, the role of digitalization for achieving sustainability in the European context, ecological engineering for rice pest suppression in China, the role of cereal species mixtures in Ethiopian smallholder farmers, diversified planting in arid irrigation areas in northwestern China, integration of legumes in European and Canadian cropping systems, screening of native forage legumes for northern Swedish grassland systems, cropping system diversification of smallholder farmers in south-central Bangladesh, identification of how farmers imagine diversified landscapes in southern Idaho in the US, farm diversification affecting impacts from COVID-19 across Europe, the role of diversified farming in Mato Grosso Brazil, diversification and soil management measures in Germany, value chain formation for the scaling of crop diversification, and the design process with farmers and scientists for the transition toward legume-supported farming in Europe. A key finding from these examples is that agricultural intensification has led to the simplification of cropping systems and landscapes in terms of species diversity and ecosystem function. To instead move towards sustainable transformation, all system levels (i.e. from the plot, farm, landscape, governance and overall food systems) need to interact and reinforce each other for diversification to deliver the desired outcomes.
This article defines the term valorization of biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES) measures, as distinguished from their valuation, and underpins it with an assessment of private valorization examples along the agri-food value chain. Valorization incentivizes measures for promoting BES, while valuation refers to its quantification. Valuation can be a step of valorization but is not indispensable. In scientific literature, the terms valorization and valuation are often used interchangeably. In addition, there is a lack of research on private options versus conventional, public policy options. Therefore, we searched for private valorization options primarily in public sources (gray literature and websites). This led to the identification of four clusters (markets for voluntary services, labeling, and certification, environmental management/CSR, and tradable permits and quotas). Based on these clusters the options were assessed from a legal and systems dynamics perspective. In addition, the viability of selected valorization options in different future scenarios was examined. The analysis revealed a wide range of private valorization options, which in contrast to public policy options that focus almost entirely on the production stage, are spread across the agri-food value chain. Their suitability differs under different future scenarios, legal and systems conditions.
The measurement of roadside wood stacks in the forest still plays an important role in many forestry operations. Traditional manual measuring methods can be laborious, inaccurate and error-prone. Therefore, the issue is whether 2.5D or 3D optical remote sensing measuring methods provide more precise or detailed results and advantages in further data processing. This study examined and partly developed nine different manual, photo-optical, iPad®-LiDAR and handheld laser scanner-LiDAR-based wood stack measurement methods. Forty-seven wood stacks, ranging from 8.9 to 209.3 m3 (totalling approximately 2700 m3), were measured and compared using these nine methods. All the methods give volume estimations, and none can be seen to give the real or true wood stack gross volume. Surprisingly, the results varied significantly within and between the individual methods, with up to a 9% mean relative deviation. The relative deviation is strongly dependent on the size of the wood stack. The 3D measurement methods using iPad® RGB and LiDAR recorded lower timber volumes than the other methods, in contrast to the method based on samples taken with handheld laser scanner-LiDAR, which overestimated the volume. Generally, optical- and laser-based surveying techniques could be more widely applied in measuring wood stacks in the future. However, such automatic wood stack gross volume determination approaches still face some challenges, regarding accuracy in the case of the 2.5D methods and the lack of automatisation in the case of 3D methods. Consequently, further research is required in the near future.
This paper presents initial findings on the establishment of a social logistics project in a peripheral rural region in Germany. As part of a real-life laboratory, two services were developed and tested with the aim of improving rural supply: the delivery of regional goods and the return of online orders in cooperation with a regional public transport provider, regional retailers and parcel services. An evaluation team provided support to the project in identifying, monitoring, and documenting the societal impact of the services and promoted impact-oriented project management. The concept of providing services of general interest through social logistics and testing them in a real-world laboratory was based on preliminary work in the region. The results indicate that this approach can promote this type of social logistics in the long term. A social logistics approach does not focus solely on economic aspects but emphasises social and environmental benefits for the region. A real-world laboratory approach enables an environment that promotes open exchange, involvement of different stakeholders and joint problem solving in a reflective, iterative process. This methodological approach enabled the continuation and out-scaling of the service’s core offerings immediately after ending the test phase and is seen as an important prerequisite for establishing a long-term perspective.
One of the major challenges in semi-arid regions of Iran is to supply the adequate forage for livestock and meanwhile prevent the destruction of rangelands due to overgrazing. Therefore, this study aimed to compare three cropping systems of barley using Salsola turcomanica (ST), and Chrysopogon zizanioides (CZ) in three treatments of barley+ST, barley+ST+CZ and mono-culture of barley. Two-year field trials data were collected from November 2018 to October 2020 in two experimental sites using a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. The results of analysis of variance over two years indicated that the effects of year, location, and year by location interaction were significant (p<0.01) for all of barley’s yield components. Mixed cropping of barley with other species had no negative effect on barley traits such as grain yield, straw yield and harvest index. In addition, the mixed cropping of barley+ST and barley+ST+CZ in the first year produced 2.5 t/ha more forage yield than that mono-culture of barley. This was due to high production of Salsola (ST), in mixed cropping. In both years, yield of Salsola production was about 25% of whole produced biomass. Drastic reduction in rainfall in the second year reduced the obtained yield; so, there was no significant difference among three cropping systems in the second year. However, cropping systems of barley+ST and barley+ST+CZ produced about 1 t/ha more forage than that for the mono-culture of barley. Mixed cropping of barley +ST+CZ did not affect yield components of barley. Mixed cropping of barley with Salsola turcomanica could guarantee soil cover throughout the year and is recommended for forage production in rangeland in Iran.
Multifunctional and diversified agriculture can address diverging pressures and demands by simultaneously enhancing productivity, biodiversity, and the provision of ecosystem services. The use of digital technologies can support this by designing and managing resource-efficient and context-specific agricultural systems. We present the Digital Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (DAKIS) to demonstrate an approach that employs digital technologies to enable decision-making towards diversified and sustainable agriculture. To develop the DAKIS, we specified, together with stakeholders, requirements for a knowledge-based decision-support tool and reviewed the literature to identify limitations in the current generation of tools. The results of the review point towards recurring challenges regarding the consideration of ecosystem services and biodiversity, the capacity to foster communication and cooperation between farmers and other actors, and the ability to link multiple spatiotemporal scales and sustainability levels. To overcome these challenges, the DAKIS provides a digital platform to support farmers' decision-making on land use and management via an integrative spatiotemporally explicit approach that analyses a wide range of data from various sources. The approach integrates remote and in situ sensors, artificial intelligence, modelling, stakeholder-stated demand for biodiversity and ecosystem services, and participatory sustainability impact assessment to address the diverse drivers affecting agricultural land use and management design, including natural and agronomic factors, economic and policy considerations, and socio-cultural preferences and settings. Ultimately, the DAKIS embeds the consideration of ecosystem services, biodiversity, and sustainability into farmers' decision-making and enables learning and progress towards site-adapted small-scale multifunctional and diversified agriculture while simultaneously supporting farmers' objectives and societal demands.
Tajikistan's agricultural sector, primarily dominated by cotton cultivation, has experienced significant changes since the Soviet era. Although farmers introduced food crops into agricultural production to ensure food security after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the government still mandates that cotton cultivation occupy a considerable portion of Tajikistan's limited irrigated land. However, following the recent Covid-19 pandemic crisis, farmers have encountered the need to reassess their agricultural practices, given constrained governmental assistance and a range of socioeconomic considerations. This research adopts resilience as a conceptual framework to examine the coping strategies of smallholder farmers in the Khatlon region of Tajikistan, with a specific emphasis on the period spanning from 2019 to 2022. At the outset, our research employed the snowballing technique to increase respondent participation, later transitioning to a representative sample size that facilitated the collection of qualitative data from around 100 semi-structured interviews, 10 focus groups, and personal visits to agricultural fields over the course of four years. The paper not only demonstrates the overall creativity of Tajikistani farmers in growing and selecting non-cotton crops in this most recent period of crisis, but also points to wealthier farmers’ generally greater willingness to adopt technological innovations and gain new knowledge to apply to them. Although these strategies have been taken in order to address farmers’ immediate needs in troubled times against the backdrop of the existing state cotton policy, their sustainability remains uncertain. While the qualitative focus of this study bears certain inherent limitations, the data collected nevertheless show that this period of crisis has been generative for many farmers as they seek out new methods of subsistence.
Current production standards and communication campaigns about animal welfare in relation to beef strongly emphasise the “humane” rearing of cattle. Aspects such as transport and slaughtering conditions are often overlooked in both production standards and communications with consumers. Long transport routes and conventional slaughtering can cause significant stress to animals and have negative impacts on their welfare and on meat quality. On-farm slaughter can address these criticisms. Communicating the value of low-stress slaughtering conditions like on-farm slaughtering may offer significant sales potential for a premium market segment. In this study, we explore consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for beef that is slaughtered on-farm rather than in conventional abattoirs. We conducted an online survey (n = 400) in 2022, with a sample that is representative of the German population with respect to gender, age, income and education. Our survey included a discrete choice experiment for the purchase of minced beef, incorporating product attributes that influence purchase decisions. These included: price, information on the social, economic and environmental benefits of regional production, different production standards (conventional/organic) and information on on-farm slaughtering. Our findings indicate that consumers derive the highest utility from a low price, followed by information about on-farm slaughtering. Participants indicated a preference for information on high animal welfare over high beef quality. We conclude that highlighting on-farm slaughtering could be a significant benefit in marketing premium beef products.
The background of the topic is to compare the colour changes at different irradiances and temperatures at constant relative humidity. The issue is important because evaluation in terms of irradiance has not been studied in more detail. Irradiation intensities were reported in many studies but tended to have metadata status. The concrete influence of the irradiance on chemical and colour changes in the wood remains open. This paper presents an approach to inquiry-based teaching within a basic research project. Initial results from a large-scale data series are presented here. Irradiance is the term for the total power of incoming electromagnetic energy striking a surface, related to the size of the area, measured in watts per square metre [W/m²].
Trockenheitsgefährdung und Anpassung unterschiedlicher Fichtenpopulationen (Fichte-Trockenheit)
(2019)
Similar to a normal wave, a shock wave travels as energy through matter but it causes an abrupt raise of pressure, temperature and density. In this study the influence of shock waves on wood structure were investigated in the light of possible future industrial utilization e.g. timber impregnating treatment.
In strukturschwachen ländlichen Regionen die nachhaltige Entwicklung und Digitalisierung durch Transferprojekte zu unterstützen und gemeinsam mit regionalen Akteuren weiterzuentwickeln ‐ das ist das Ziel des Verbundvorhabens InNoWest ‐ Einfach machen! Gemeinsam nachhaltig und digital in Nord-West-Brandenburg. Wir stellen das Projekt vor.
Die Hochschulrektorenkonferenz hat sich 2018 für eine „Kultur der Nachhaltigkeit“ ausgesprochen. Um dieses neue Leitbild für die Hochschulentwicklung auszugestalten, hat sich das Verbundvorhaben Hochschulen in Gesellschaft – Realexperimente transformativer Lern- und Forschungsprozesse für eine Kultur der Nachhaltigkeit an Hochschulen gegründet. Es will alle relevanten Stakeholder von Hochschulen ansprechen und einen wichtigen Impuls für die Nachhaltigkeitstransformation an Hochschulen setzen.
Feeding effects of the invasive, polyphagous brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), Halyomorpha halys (Hemiptera:Pentatomidae), on some agricultural fruits (hazelnut, blueberry, mandarin, lemon) were investigated in Guria and Samegrelo regions of Georgia in 2019 and 2020. The damage to hazelnut kernels was evaluated when H. halys adults were allowed to feed on kernels in different stages of development. Furthermore, BMSB adults were allowed to feed on almost ripened fruits of blueberry, on small mandarin fruits which were not yet well developed, and on ripened fruits of mandarin. The evaluation of damage on lemon was recorded after allowing adult BMSB on small, not yet developed fruits and on almost developed fruits. It was shown that hazelnuts are susceptible to damage caused by feeding of BMSB throughout the entire period of kernel development (100% of kernels were damaged and did not develop at all). Furthermore, BMSB damages blueberry severely (100% damage) when the fruits are almost ripened. Damage to mandarin fruits in early development stages was over 90%, and 100% of ripened mandarin fruits dropped to the ground. We did not find any damage when BMSB was allowed to feed on Lemon throughout the development of the fruits.
Rainfed farmers are among the most vulnerable farming communities to climate change in Pakistan because of the heavy reliance of crop farming on rain and of farmers’ livelihoods on crop farming. The best and most timely responses against climate change are suitable adaptation measures. Accurately perceiving the risks associated with climate change is an essential factor for planning and then implementing adaptations. Using farm household-level data of 400 rainfed farmers collected through a well-designed and field-tested questionnaire, this study examines the association between various adaptation stages (climate risk perceptions, adaptation planning, and implementation of adaptation) and their determinants using a multivariate probit (MVP) model. The findings indicate that farmers’ perceptions of climatic changes are in line with historical climatic data. Climate risk management (CRM) trainings and digital agriculture extension and communication (DAEC) services (indicators of formal institutional arrangements) show a highly significant impact on all adaptation stages. Input market distance, farmer cooperative meetings (an indicator of informal institutional arrangement), off-farm income, education, and number of male family members are among the other key determinants. A highly significant association between various adaptation stages indicates that accurate climate risk perceptions lead to planning and implementation of adaptations. When risk perceptions are underestimated or lacking, then adaptations do not occur. The results further indicate that the timely availability of reliable information on advanced agricultural inputs, weather parameters, crop farming advisory services, and market information could help rainfed farmers devise sound adaptations to minimize risks associated with climate change. The study recommends the provision of CRM trainings and DAEC services to provide a better understanding and promote sound adaptation planning through the adaptive capacity enhancement of rainfed farming communities for sustainable production and livelihood security.
Primary forests, defined here as forests where the signs of human impacts, if any, are strongly blurred due to decades without forest management, are scarce in Europe and continue to disappear. Despite these losses, we know little about where these forests occur. Here, we present a comprehensive geodatabase and map of Europe’s known primary forests. Our geodatabase harmonizes 48 different, mostly field-based datasets of primary forests, and contains 18,411 individual patches (41.1 Mha) spread across 33 countries. When available, we provide information on each patch (name, location, naturalness, extent and dominant tree species) and the surrounding landscape (biogeographical regions, protection status, potential natural vegetation, current forest extent). Using Landsat satellite-image time series (1985–2018) we checked each patch for possible disturbance events since primary forests were identified, resulting in 94% of patches free of significant disturbances in the last 30 years. Although knowledge gaps remain, ours is the most comprehensive dataset on primary forests in Europe, and will be useful for ecological studies, and conservation planning to safeguard these unique forests.
By leveraging a wide range of novel, data-driven technologies for agricultural production and agri-food value chains, digital agriculture presents potential enhancements to sustainability across food systems. Accordingly, digital agriculture has received considerable attention in policy in recent years, with emphasis mostly placed on the potential of digital agriculture to improve efficiency, productivity and food security, and less attention given to how digitalization may impact other principles of sustainable development, such as biodiversity conservation, soil protection, and human health, for example. Here, we review high-level policy and law in the German and European context to highlight a number of important institutional, societal, and legal preconditions for leveraging digital agriculture to achieve diverse sustainability targets. Additionally, we combine foresight analysis with our review to reflect on how future frame conditions influencing agricultural digitalization and sustainability could conceivably arise. The major points are the following: (1) some polices consider the benefits of digital agriculture, although only to a limited extent and mostly in terms of resource use efficiency; (2) law as it applies to digital agriculture is emerging but is highly fragmented; and (3) the adoption of digital agriculture and if it is used to enhance sustainability will be dependent on future data ownership regimes.
CONTEXT
Current research emphasises that agricultural innovation projects are influenced in multiple ways by the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) in which they operate. Yet little attention has been paid to the reverse direction of this relationship, i.e. how agricultural innovation projects affect AIS in the course of their innovative activities. Accordingly, there are currently no tools to measure such AIS spillovers from agricultural innovation projects.
OBJECTIVE
This paper shows that even where agricultural innovation projects have not been designed with the explicit aim of influencing AIS they can have spillovers on the AIS in which they operate. Based on this finding, it argues that designing agricultural innovation projects in a way that maximises such positive and reduces negative AIS spillovers would be a useful tool for strengthening agricultural innovation capacities in a particular territory or sector.
METHODS
Based on the concept of agricultural innovation projects as Organisational Innovation Systems (OIS) that are embedded in AIS, the paper develops an analytical framework for assessing spillovers of such projects on AIS and applies it to a case study of an Operational Group in the German Federal State of Hessen.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The case study shows that agricultural innovation projects may yield diverse spillovers on the AIS in which they operate. In addition to considering how agricultural innovation projects are shaped – constrained and/or enabled – by AIS, the research community on agricultural innovation should pay more attention to this side of the interrelation of AIS and agricultural innovation projects. Designing agricultural innovation projects responsibly so that spillovers on AIS are monitored can help to improve national or sectoral AIS.
SIGNIFICANCE
This paper points to an underexplored issue in research on agricultural innovation and, related to this, a thus far unused potential policy tool for improving national and sectoral AIS. It further develops the concept of innovation projects as OIS into an approach for assessing the effects of projects on AIS; an area of project assessment that until now has not been adequately covered.
Since the Soviet breakup, rural communities in the Kazakhstan–China borderlands have faced cataclysmic social, economic, and ecological transformations. Collective and state farms have been replaced by precarious smallholder agriculture suffering from a decline in financial inputs and the deterioration of infrastructure. At the same time, dynamic transformations of border permeability (and trans-border reconnections) between Kazakhstan and China have challenged the until relatively recent widespread Soviet rhetoric on Western China (or rather Xinjiang) as an underdeveloped space across the border. This article is based on several months of fieldwork between 2019 and 2021 in Panfilov District, located at major cross-border road and railway intersections and hosting important infrastructural objects, such as a dry port, a major railway transhipment hub, and a trans-border special economic zone. The article explores how the border situation (and the border’s changing permeability for people, commodities, and ideas since the early 1990s) as well as the implementation of new trans-border infrastructures eventually shaped local discourses and practices in the socio-economic development of south-east Kazakhstan’s agricultural sector. It is scrutinized herein how various forms of trans-border socio-economic interactions (although heavily regulated) and China’s (agri-) economic policy in Xinjiang started to affect farmers’ ambitions and practices across the border.
Islands have unique vulnerabilities to biodiversity loss and climate change. Current Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement are insufficient to avoid the irreversible loss of critical island ecosystems. Existing research, policies, and finance also do not sufficiently address small islands’ social-environmental challenges. For instance, the new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) mentions islands in the invasive species management target. This focus is important, as islands are at high risk to biological invasions; however, this is the only GBF target that mentions islands. There are threats of equal or greater urgency to small islands, including coastal hazards and overexploitation. Ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves are crucial for biodiversity, coastal protection, and human livelihoods, yet are unaddressed in the GBF. While research and global policy, including targeted financial flows, have a strong focus on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the situation of other small islands has been largely overlooked. Here, through a review of policy developments and examples from islands in the Philippines and Chile, we urge that conservation and climate change policies place greater emphasis on acknowledging the diversity of small islands and their unique governance challenges, extending the focus beyond SIDS. Moving forward, global policy and research should include the recognition of small islands as metacommunities linked by interacting species and social-ecological systems to emphasize their connectivity rather than their isolation. Coalition-building and knowledge-sharing, particularly with local, Indigenous and traditional knowledge-holders from small islands, is needed to meet global goals on biodiversity and sustainable development by 2030.
Since the 1990s, Mongolia's capital city Ulaanbaatar has recorded steady and rapid population growth due to rural-urban migration. So far, little is known about how the social and ecological conditions of migration interact. Thus, in our study we investigated the rural-urban migration process from the countryside to the capital in the Eastern Steppe conducting semi-structured interviews. Our results show that this rural-urban migration often follows a stepwise process from smaller settlements to larger urban agglomerations. The results also demonstrate a complex interplay between the prevailing social, economic, and ecological factors. While social factors (kinship, education) show the same relevance at each step of migration, ecological factors such as the occurrence of dzud seem more relevant at the early stages, from the steppe to the sum centres. Ecological factors only seem to rank second in importance, after social reasons. Economic reasons are also revealed to be very significant but seem most relevant the closer the migrations are to the capital. These results are essential in order to cope with current and future challenges of population development and find solutions to enable traditional Mongolian nomadism even under a modern lifestyle.
Extensively used grasslands (meadows and pastures) are ecologically valuable areas in the agricultural landscape and part of the multifunctional agriculture. In Germany, the quality of these grasslands is assessed based on the occurrence of certain plant species known as indicator or character species, with indicators being defined at regional level. Therefore, the recognition of these indicators on a spatial level is a prerequisite for monitoring grassland biodiversity. The identification of indicator species for the status quo of grassland using traditional methods was found to be challenging and tedious. Deep learning-algorithms applied to high-resolution UAV imagery could be the key solution, where UAV with remote sensors can map a large area of grassland in comparison to manual or ground mapping methods and deep learning-algorithms can automate the detection process. In this research work, we use an EfficientDet based algorithm to train an object detection model capable of recognizing indicators on RGB data. The experimental results show that this approach is very promising in contrast to the difficult and time-consuming manual recognition methods. The model was trained with the momentum-SGD optimizer with a momentum value of 0.9 and a learning rate of 0.0001. The model was trained and tested on 1200 images and achieves 45.7 AP (and 85.7 AP50) on test data set. The dataset includes images of four distinct indicator plant species: Armeria maritima, Campanula patula, Cirsium oleraceum, and Daucus carota
Digitale Plattformen avancieren zu einem wichtigen Teil der kommunalen Daseinsvorsorge. Richtig eingesetzt, können plattformbasierte Leistungen ein wirksames Steuerungsinstrument für eine nachhaltige Kommunalentwicklung darstellen. Für diese kommunale Gestaltungsaufgabe wird in der Kurzstudie ein Kriterienkatalog erarbeitet, anhand dessen die Nachhaltigkeitspotenziale und -risiken unterschiedlicher Plattformmodelle beschrieben und untersucht werden können.
Sustainability innovations influence societal transformations through the development of new products, processes, organizations, behaviors or values. Although various research approaches have tackled technological innovations in the last few decades, the specificities and enabling conditions of individual sustainability innovations remain rather unknown. We therefore propose an analytical framework, built on learning from the social–ecological systems and transitions literature. The sustainability innovation framework features four dimensions: context, actors, process and outcomes, which are detailed in 31 variables. We use the sustainability innovation framework to analyze two case studies selected in the Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve, Germany. The first refers to technological and organizational innovation in mobility, while the second relates to social and organizational innovation in agriculture. As a result, we highlight commonalities and differences in enabling conditions and variables between the two cases, which underpin the influence of trust, commitment, resource availability, experimenting, learning, advocating, and cooperating for innovation development. The cases further demonstrate that sustainability innovations develop as bundles of interdependent, entangled novelties, due to their disruptive character. Their specificity thereby resides in positive outcomes in terms of social–ecological integrity and equity. This study therefore contributes to transitions studies via a detailed characterization of sustainability innovations and of their outcomes, as well as through a generic synthesis of variables into an analytical framework that is applicable to a large and diverse range of individual sustainability innovations. Further empirical studies should test these findings in other contexts, to pinpoint generic innovation development patterns and to develop a typology of sustainability innovation archetypes.
The project presented here has pursued two main goals. First, the so-called Tourism Sustainability Satellite Account (TSSA), an accounting system for measuring the sustainability of tourism in Germany, which was initially developed and applied in the previous project phase,
was repopulated with the currently available data. The TSSA is an extended tourism satellite account (TSA) and indicator system respectively that is essentially based on the statistical
frameworks of national accounts (NA) and environmental economic accounts (EEA). In addition, the TSSA includes social indicators that measure the sustainability of labour relations in tourism.
The TSSA thus enables a systematic attribution of the economic, environmental and social impacts of tourism to tourism-related economic sectors at the national level.
The results of the TSSA update show that tourism in Germany continues to make a significant contribution to value added and job creation. Around 3.6 % of total gross value added and 6.1 % of employment were attributable to tourism in Germany in 2019. However, labour productivity in the tourism sector remains relatively low.
In terms of environmental impact, energy consumption in the tourism sector has slightly increased compared to the last measurement (based on data from 2015 or 2016). However, energy intensity has decreased over the same period. Energy intensity in tourism is about as
high as for the average of the German economy. Regarding tourism-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and particularly emissions intensity, the situation has also improved, even though the GHG emissions intensity of tourism is still well above the average of the German economy. Within the tourism sector, transportation (in particular aviation and shipping) contribute the most to energy use and GHG emissions. By contrast, tourism-induced water consumption appears to be less of a problem in Germany. The water intensity of tourism is significantly lower than the average of the German economy. Within the tourism sector it is the highest in accommodation and gastronomy.
In terms of the social sustainability dimension, the relatively low and decreasing income gap between men and women (known as the Gender Pay Gap; unadjusted) in the tourism sector over time is worth mentioning. By contrast, all other indicators regarding the working conditions in tourism continue to perform less favourably. Consequently, employees in the tourism sector still assess the working conditions as worse compared to the average of the overall economy.
It has already been shown in the previous project phase that for some sustainability indicators, especially from the ecological dimension, a consideration within the framework of the TSSA approach is not possible without restrictions. This is due, among other things, to the insufficient data available from official statistics and the complexity of causally attributing certain ecological effects to tourism activities. In the second part of the project presented here, a detailed research of existing data bases was therefore conducted for the environmental indicators "biodiversity", "water quality", "noise pollution", "land use", "air emissions" and "waste generation" as well as for the social indicator "tourism acceptance". Based on this, it was evaluated to what extent alternative accounting approaches - as a supplement to the TSSA measurement system - can indicate the tourism effect. The data screening initially confirmed the insufficient data
availability at national level.
The subsequent feasibility analysis yielded that a spatial differentiation according to the degree of tourism relevance (based on tourism density and intensity) and an ensuing analysis of the
change in environmental conditions in regions strongly influenced by tourism in comparison to the overall German average represents an opportunity to quantify the contribution of tourism e.g. to land use. On the one hand, existing official regional data could be used here. On the other hand, additional data collections at the local level would also be essential for certain environmental indicators in the future. In other cases, in particular for biodiversity impacts and
solid waste generation, the preconditions for suitable data availability must be created first. By contrast, the acceptance of tourism by residents can easily be measured through standardised
surveys.
The aim of the presented project was to develop a practicable system for measuring sustainability of national tourism in Germany. Initially, 18 sustainability criteria for tourism were identified. In a second step, these criteria were analyzed with regard to their measurability using indicators in a coherent accounting system in compliance with international recommendations. The outcome is a Tourism Sustainability Satellite Account (TSSA), a system of
indicators which is mainly based on statistical frameworks of national accounts and environmental-economic accounts. In addition, social indicators have been added that mainly measure decent job creation in tourism. Thus, the TSSA allows a systematic allocation of the
economic, ecological and social impacts of tourism to the tourism-relevant economic sectors at a national level. However, there is still a need for development of some sustainability indicators,
especially from the management and, to some extent, the ecological sector.
As a test, the TSSA indicators have been filled with currently available data. The results show that tourism in Germany contributes significantly to creating added value and jobs, although labor productivity is low. In terms of ecological impacts, climate impacts with a slightly above-average greenhouse gas intensity compared to the economy as a whole are at the top of the list, although this intensity varies significantly within the tourism sub-sectors. Working conditions are generally considered to be less sustainable than in other industries. Only the pay gap between men and women is significantly smaller than in other sectors of the economy.
Tourism needs to reduce emissions in line with other economic sectors, if the international community's objective of staying global warming at 1.5°-2.0 °C is to be achieved. This will require the industry to half emissions to 2030, and to reach net-zero by mid-century. Mitigation requires consideration of four dimensions, the Scales, Scopes, Stakeholders and Strategies of carbon management. The paper provides a systematic review of these dimensions and their interrelationships, with a focus on emission inventory comprehensiveness; allocation principles at different scales; clearly defined responsibilities for decarbonization; and the identification of significant mitigation strategies. The paper concludes that without mitigation efforts, tourism will deplete 40% of the world's remaining carbon budget to 1.5 °C. Yet, the most powerful decarbonization measures face major corporate, political and technical barriers. Without worldwide policy efforts at the national scale to manage the sector's emissions, tourism will turn into one of the major drivers of climate change.
Random year intercepts in mixed models help to assess uncertainties in insect population trends
(2023)
1. An increasing number of studies is investigating insect population trends based on time series data. However, the available data is often subject to temporal pseudoreplication. Inter-annual variability of environmental conditions and strong fluctuations in insect abundances can impede reliable trend estimation. Temporal random effect structures in regression models have been proposed as solution for this issue, but remain controversial.
2. We investigated trends in ground beetle abundance across 24 years using generalised linear mixed models. We fitted four models: A base model, a model featuring a random year intercept, a model featuring basic weather parameters, and a model featuring both random year intercept and weather parameters. We then performed a simple sensitivity analysis to assess the robustness of the four models with respect to influential years, also testing for possible spurious baseline and snapshot effects.
3. The model structure had a significant impact on the overall magnitude of the estimated trends. However, we found almost no difference among the models in how the removal of single years (sensitivity analysis) relatively affected trend coefficients. The two models with a random year intercept yielded significantly larger confidence intervals and their p-values were more sensitive during sensitivity analysis. Significant differences of the model with random year intercept and weather parameters to all other models suggest that the random year effects and specific weather effects are rather additive than interchangeable.
4. We conclude that random year intercepts help to produce more reliable and cautious uncertainty measures for insect population trends. Moreover, they might help to identify influential years in sensitivity analyses more easily. We recommend random year intercepts in addition to any variables representing temporally variable environmental conditions, such as weather variables.
Learning and transdisciplinary research are widely acknowledged as key components for achieving sustainability; however, the links between these concepts remain vague in the sustainability literature. Recently, emphasis has been given to transdisciplinary learning, highlighting its potential as an approach that contributes to solving real-world problems. To better understand and foster transdisciplinary learning for sustainability transformations, it is relevant to pay attention to two dimensions that define transdisciplinary learning: social interaction (individual learning in a social setting, as a group, or beyond the group), and learning forms (single-, double-, or triple-loop learning). This article introduces a conceptual framework built upon these two dimensions to understand three specific forms of transdisciplinary learning as a) individual competence development, b) experience-based collaboration, and c) societal interaction. This framework helps to clarify the design of learning processes as well as their interactions in transdisciplinary processes to support transformative change.