Alternative Farming Techniques for Sustainable Food Production

Topicality. Military conflicts significantly affect natural assets and ecosystem services, including water resources, forests and soils. The war in eastern Ukraine is leading to serious environmental impacts, including water pollution, deforestation and soil degradation. Military operations in Ukraine have caused significant damage to natural ecosystems, which has significantly affected the provision of ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are the benefits that people receive from the functioning of natural ecosystems. The loss of these services caused by war has both environmental and economic consequences. This study examines methods for economically assessing the loss of ecosystem services, including forest, water and agricultural resources, which have been destroyed by military operations. Scientists emphasize the need to integrate environmental aspects into post-war recovery processes to minimize losses and restore natural assets. Land is a natural asset, and it should be taken into account that changing landscapes from natural vegetation to any other use can lead to a loss of fertility as a source of ecosystem services. The topic of valuing the loss of ecosystem services is relevant and important for sustainable development. Aim and tasks. The purpose of our study is to study the impact of military actions on the natural assets of Ukraine and assess potential ways to restore ecosystem services after the end of the war. Materials and methods. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is institutional, retrospective, systemic analysis and the case method, which is based on real facts and materials about the restoration of natural assets in European countries in the post-war years. The information base of the study was scientific and applied developments and information and analytical materials of Ukrainian and foreign scientists and practitioners. Research results. The topic of restoring natural assets and lost ecosystem services caused by military actions is relevant and important for sustainable development. Research in this area shows that the economic assessment of the loss of ecosystem services should include not only direct economic losses, but also environmental and social consequences. Among the services provided by ecosystems and lost due to war, supply services, regulatory services, supporting, cultural and recreational services should be mentioned. To restore Ukraine's natural assets after the end of military actions, it is necessary to develop an ecological rehabilitation strategy. Soil restoration is an important element of this strategy. Therefore, it is important to study and systematize the losses in order to further search for ways to restore natural assets. The study systematizes the loss of ecosystem services, including the loss of land fertility after military intervention, and considers ways to restore fertility. We also proposed the introduction of a fee for failure to comply with restoration measures, which leads to a decrease in fertility and a decrease in product quality. This fee should contribute to a change in priorities in the choice of crops and increase corporate responsibility of the business. We have created a decision-making algorithm for planning enterprise costs, taking into account environmental risk planning. The introduction of this algorithm should contribute to a change in priorities in decision-making and contribute to the restoration of fertility. Conclusion. Losses of natural assets and ecosystem services as a result of military actions in Ukraine are not only ecological, but also economic in nature. Valuing such losses is an important step in developing effective measures for environmental restoration and sustainable development.

Global decline in capacity of coral reefs to provide ecosystem services

Suitability of regional development based on ecosystem service benefits and losses: A case study of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, China

The study analyses the household food security situation in Libokemkem woreda of the Amhara region in Ethiopia using 285 randomly selected sample households. The Household Calorie Acquisition (HCA) is used to measure the diet quantity aspect of food insecurity, and 225 kg/year/AE is used as a food security threshold. The Household Diet Diversity Score (HHDDS) is used to measure the diet quality aspect of food insecurity, and consuming four food groups is used as a food security line. Approximately 83 per cent of the total households achieved minimum food security status in terms of diet quantity, and 64 per cent were food secure in terms of diet quality. Determinants of food security in terms of diet quantity and quality were analysed using Tobit and logit regression models, respectively. Sex, family size, farm size, number of oxen, expenditure on agricultural technology, agroecology zone and distance from market centre are statistically significant determinants of food security in terms of diet quantity. On the other hand, sex, education status, off-farming activities, livestock ownership and agroecology zone are statistically significant determinants of food security in terms of diet quality or diversity. The study suggested the urgency of human capital development, increasing the production and productivity of major cereal crops, and promoting labour-intensive rural employment opportunities to break the vicious circle of poverty and food insecurity. It also suggested the promotion of soil and water conservation, livestock rearing and the use of organic fertiliser in highland areas, while mechanised farming for major crops such as rice, onion, chickpea, tomato and garlic is recommended for midland areas.

Climate change is rapidly degrading the conditions of crop production. For instance, increasing salinization and aridity is forecasted to increase in most parts of the world. As a consequence, new stress-tolerant species and genotypes must be identified and used for future agriculture. Stress-tolerant species exist but are actually underutilized and neglected. Many stress-tolerant species are indeed traditional crops that are only cultivated by farmers at a local scale. Those species have a high biodiversity value. Besides, the human population will probably reach nine billion within coming decades. To keep pace with population growth, food production must increase dramatically despite the limited availability of cultivable land and water. Here, we review the benefits of quinoa, Chenopodium quinoa Willd., a seed crop that has endured the harsh bioclimatic conditions of the Andes since ancient times. Although the crop is still mainly produced in Bolivia and Peru, agronomic trials and cultivation are spreading to many other countries. Quinoa maintains productivity on rather poor soils and under conditions of water shortage and high salinity. Moreover, quinoa seeds are an exceptionally nutritious food source, owing to their high protein content with all essential amino acids, lack of gluten, and high content of several minerals, e.g., Ca, Mg, Fe, and health-promoting compounds such as flavonoids. Quinoa has a vast genetic diversity resulting from its fragmented and localized production over the centuries in the Andean region, from Ecuador to southern Chile, and from sea level to the altiplano. Quinoa can be adapted to diverse agroecological conditions worldwide. Year 2013 has therefore been declared the International Year of Quinoa by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Here, we review the main characteristics of quinoa, its origin and genetic diversity, its exceptional tolerance to drought and salinity, its nutritional properties, the reasons why this crop can offer several ecosystem services, and the role of Andean farmers in preserving its agrobiodiversity. Finally, we propose a schematic model integrating the fundamental factors that should determine the future utilization of quinoa, in terms of food security, biodiversity conservation, and cultural identity.

Countries all over the globe are facing climate change. Global warming is a real problem that occurs and affects food production. Precipitation and temperature rise are causes of the changes observed in this study. This study examines the relationship between food security level due to climate change. To provide further clarity, a systematic literature review (SLR) towards the impacts of climate change was conducted to identify the extent of its impacts on food security and to identify the extent of its impacts on the level of food security and research gaps. This systematic review identifies and analyzes documents on the impact of climate change on the level of food security in terms of the impact of climate change, the methods used to analyze climate change, and the available climate change adaptation policies. Following SLR guidelines, Google Scholar is the main database. This research can broaden our knowledge about the impacts of climate change and the role we can play in maintaining food security.

Big-data mining approaches based on Artificial Intelligence models can help forecast biodiversity changes before they happen. These approaches can predict macroscopic species distribution patterns and trends that can inform preventive measures to avoid the loss of ecosystem functions and services. They can, therefore, help study and mitigate climate change implications on biodiversity conservation in fragile ecosystems. Wetlands are particularly fragile ecosystems where climate change poses severe risks and has dramatically reduced their size over the past century, with profound consequences on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Through big-data mining approaches, we can predict future wetland biodiversity trends in the context of climate change. This paper proposes such predictive analysis for a specific wetland: The Massaciuccoli Lake basin in Tuscany, Italy. This basin is a critical tourist attraction due to its rich biodiversity, making it an area of interest for citizens, tourists, and scientists. However, the region's suitability for native and non-native species is at risk due to climate and land-use change. Using machine-learning models, we predict the potential effects of climate change on animal spatial distribution in the basin under different greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The results suggest that habitat suitability has generally improved from 1950 to today, presumably owing to the targeted conservation strategies adopted in the area, but climate change will severely reduce bird biodiversity by 2050 while favouring several insect species' proliferation and other species' habitat change, even under a medium-emission scenario. This will lead to significant changes in the basin's biodiversity. Our methodology is adaptable to other wetland basins, being fully based on open data and models. The spatially explicit modelling used in this research provides valuable information for policymakers and spatial planners, complementing traditional biodiversity trend analyses.

Research that connects the effects of urbanization on biodiversity and ecosystem services is lacking. Ants perform multifarious ecological functions that stabilize ecosystems and contribute to a number of ecosystem services. We studied responses of ant communities to urbanization in the Lake Tahoe basin by sampling sites along a gradient of urban land development. We sampled ant communities, measured vegetation characteristics, quantified human activities, and evaluated ant-community responses by grouping ants into service-providing units (SPUs), defined as a group of organisms and their populations that perform specific ecosystem services, to provide an understanding of urbanization impacts on biodiversity and their delivery of ecosystem services. Species richness and abundance peaked at intermediate levels of urban development, as did the richness of 3 types of ant SPUs (aerators, decomposers, and compilers). With increasing land development aerator and decomposer ants significantly declined in abundance, whereas compiler ants significantly increased in abundance. Competing models demonstrated that precipitation was frequently among the strongest influences on ant community structure; however, urban development and human activities also had a strong, negative influence on ants, appearing in most models with DeltaAIC(c) < 2 for species richness and abundance patterns of SPUs and generalists. Response diversity was observed within SPUs, which suggests that the corresponding ecosystem services were maintained until development reached 30-40%. Our data provide evidence that ecosystem functions, such as water infiltration and soil productivity, may be diminished at sites subject to greater levels of urbanization and that conserving ant communities and the ecosystem services they provide could be an important target in land-use planning and conservation efforts.

Potential trade-offs between providing sufficient food for a growing human population in the future and sustaining ecosystems and their services are driven by various biophysical and socio-economic parameters at different scales. In this study, we investigate these trade-offs by using a three-step interdisciplinary approach. We examine (1) how the expected global cropland expansion might affect food security in terms of agricultural production and prices, (2) where natural conditions are suitable for cropland expansion under changing climate conditions, and (3) whether this potential conversion to cropland would affect areas of high biodiversity value or conservation importance. Our results show that on the one hand, allowing the expansion of cropland generally results in an improved food security not only in regions where crop production rises, but also in net importing countries such as India and China. On the other hand, the estimated cropland expansion could take place in many highly biodiverse regions, pointing out the need for spatially detailed and context-specific assessments to understand the possible outcomes of different food security strategies. Our multidisciplinary approach is relevant with respect to the Sustainable Development Goals for implementing and enforcing sustainable pathways for increasing agricultural production, and ensuring food security while conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services.

This article aims to analyze how the Global Food Security Index (GFSI) has evolved across the European countries for the period 2012-2018. In this respect, we have taken as a starting point the Report of Global Food Security Index 2018 as well as the scientific literature from the main stream of publications focusing on food security. The data presented were analyzed and presented statistically, on the basis of which we prepared tables relevant to the proposed goal. The aim of this research is to determine the most vulnerable countries in terms of food security. We analyzed the evolution of the Global Food Security Index for the period 2012-2018, and the subcategories of indicators underlying the determination of the overall GFSI index score: food affordability, food availability, food quality and safety. We also looked at the adjustment indicator data used to determine the GFSI index, natural resources and adaptability. The natural resources and adaptive capacity indicator measure the exposure of a country to the impact of a changing climate; its susceptibility to the risks of the natural resources and how a country adapts to these risks. When applied, it acts as an adjustment factor for countries' food security scores. The originality of the paper is to build a globally optimized index for GFSI to provide a comparative analysis of European countries in terms of food security, highlighting Romania's position in this scientific approach. The motivation for calculating the optimized global food security index lies in the fact that it has only sub-indicators contributing to significant achievements, and its refining has gone through mathematical processing that led to a more relevant hierarchy. The indicator categories selected within this article are based on the analysis conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Research Division of The Economist that is the world leader in global business intelligence in the above-mentioned report. On the basis of the analysis we drew conclusions regarding the food security in Romania compared to the European countries.

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 基于能值分析的我国小水电生态影响研究 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201306091484 作者: 作者单位: 北京师范大学环境学院 水环境模拟国家重点实验室,北京师范大学环境学院 水环境模拟国家重点实验室,北京师范大学环境学院 水环境模拟国家重点实验室 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: Emergy evaluation for ecological impacts of small hydropower in China Author: Affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation,School of Environment,Beijing Normal University,State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation,School of Environment,Beijing Normal University,State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation,School of Environment,Beijing Normal University Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:如何系统定量地评价小水电开发过程所引起的景观变化、河流局部断流等生态影响,是平息争议、进行合理规划与开发小水电前提之一。运用能值分析方法,以贵州省赤水市观音岩水电站为例,将小水电建设、运行的资源投入,以及河道中水流的时空改变所导致生态服务功能的损失纳入核算体系,对其生态影响进行综合定量评估。从2010年的实际结果来看,由于河流断流,导致水坝下游生态系统服务功能的能值损失为2.77×1018sej,占到了系统建设运行总投入的44.84%,其中重点保护鱼种在影响河段的生境破坏是最大的能值损失。若不考虑下游生态系统服务功能损失,系统的环境负载率为1.92,可持续性指标为1.22;而考虑下游生态影响之后,系统环境负载率增大至4.26,可持续性指标减小为0.34。研究表明,小水电的开发必须遵循适度开发、规划优先,保障河流最基本的生态需水底线,是协调小水电开发和河流健康矛盾、追求小水电持续发展的刚性要求。 Abstract:In China, most of the small hydropower (short for SHP) plants are currently seeking for benefits in power generation and economic revenue with little consideration of environmental flows for ecosystems, causing great impacts on river ecosystem services in the downstream of the dams. Negative ecological impacts of small hydropower have drawn increasing attention from the public. This paper used emergy analysis, one of the ecological energetic accounting methods, to evaluate the overall ecological impacts of construction and operation of small hydropower and took Guanyinyan hydropower plant in Chishui City, northwest of Guizhou Province as an example. Having capabilities in accounting multiple forms of energy and materials both from environmental and economic points of view on a common energy basis, the method of emergy analysis was widely used for supporting the evaluation of agricultural, wetlands and urban systems and was proved to be a useful tool for evaluating the overall performance of a mixed ecological and economic systems. The related indices and ratios based on emergy flows such as emergy yield ratio (EYR), environmental loading ratio (ELR) and emergy sustainability index (ESI) can be used for characterizing resource consumptions, environmental impacts and overall system sustainability. Through incorporating losses of the downstream ecosystem services into the operation cost of the power production system, the results showed that the studied system was supported by a total emergy of 6.18×1018sej in 2010 to produce 2.26×1013J of electricity, of which the downstream ecosystem service losses was the largest among multiple marginal costs, accounting for 44.84% of total ecological economic cost. The losses of ecosystem service mainly included those due to biodiversity losses (especially rare species losses) and climate regulation losses, with 2.77×1018 and 4.63×1013 sej/a respectively. Without considering the ecosystem service losses, the ELR of the studied system was 1.92 and the ESI was 1.22. However, when considering ecosystem service losses, the ELR of the studied system increased to 4.26, which was much larger than those of large hydropower generation projects in Mekong River or those in Korea, showing an increased pressure on local environment. And the value of ESI decreased to 0.34, which was much lower than 1, indicating that the studied power production system was not sustainable. Furthermore, the results suggested that the degradation of river ecosystem in the downstream of the dam during operation period greatly reduced the sustainability of the system. Thus, for a small hydropower, occupying environmental flows of the downstream and the development pattern at the expense of the ecosystem approach would be unsustainable. Sufficient environmental flows would be essential to the river ecosystem in the downstream, especially for maintaining the aquatic biodiversity. Environmental-friendly and social harmonious development of water resources would be necessary to achieve sustainable development for small hydropower. Relevant authorities should strengthen the planning and management of water resources development to ensure the sustainability of small hydropower and the health of river ecosystem. In addition, this paper reflected that emergy analysis, as a measure of the environmental support and the work to keep ecosystem sustainability, is an effective tool that is capable of providing an integrative assessment, and then provide a basic for the sustainable development of small hydropower. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Re-defining Sustainability: Living in Harmony with Life on Earth

Climate change and global warming interconnected with the new contexts created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have brought serious challenges to national and international organizations, especially in terms of food security and agricultural planning. These circumstances are of particular concern due to the impacts on food chains and the resulting disruptions in supply and price changes. The digital agricultural transition in Era 4.0 can play a decisive role in dealing with these new agendas, where drones and sensors, big data, the internet of things and machine learning all have their inputs. In this context, the main objective of this study is to highlight insights from the literature on the relationships between machine learning and food security and their contributions to agricultural planning in the context of Agriculture 4.0. For this, a systematic review was carried out based on information from text and bibliographic data. The proposed objectives and methodologies represent an innovative approach, namely, the consideration of bibliometric evaluation as a support for a focused literature review related to the topics addressed here. The results of this research show the importance of the digital transition in agriculture to support better policy and planning design and address imbalances in food chains and agricultural markets. New technologies in Era 4.0 and their application through Climate-Smart Agriculture approaches are crucial for sustainable businesses (economically, socially and environmentally) and the food supply. Furthermore, for the interrelationships between machine learning and food security, the literature highlights the relevance of platforms and methods, such as, for example, Google Earth Engine and Random Forest. These and other approaches have been considered to predict crop yield (wheat, barley, rice, maize and soybean), abiotic stress, field biomass and crop mapping with high accuracy (R2 ≈ 0.99 and RMSE ≈ 1%).

Climate change is globally recognized as one of the key drivers of degradation of coastal wetland ecosystems, causing considerable alteration of services provided by these habitats. Quantifying the physical impacts of climate change on these services is therefore of utmost importance. Yet, practical work in this field is fragmented and scarce in current literature, especially in developing countries which are likely to suffer most from the adverse climate change impacts. Using a coherent scenario-based approach that combines assessment of physical impacts with economic valuation techniques, here we quantify potential climate change driven losses in the value of wetland ecosystems services due to relative sea-level rise (RSLR)-induced inundation in the vulnerable Western coastal area of Bangladesh in 2100. The results show a small inundation area in 2100 under the three IPCC climate scenarios of RCP2.6 (with 0.25 m of RSLR), RCP6.0 (with 1.18 m of RSLR), and RCP8.5 (with 1.77 m of RSLR) for the coastal wetland ecosystems including the Sundarbans mangrove forest, neritic system and aquaculture ponds. In all scenarios, RSLR will drive a loss in the total value of ecosystem services such as provision of raw materials, and food provision, ranging from US$ 0–1 million to US$ 16.5–20 million, respectively. The outcomes of this study reveal that RSLR-induced inundation on its own, is unlikely to be a major threat to the wetland ecosystems in Western coast of Bangladesh. This would suggest that other climate change impacts such as coastal erosion, increase in frequency of cyclone events, and sea temperature rise might be the likely primary drivers of change in the value of wetland ecosystems services in this area.

Climate change, famine, and low-income communities challenge Sustainable Development Goals