No bush foods without people: the essential human dimension to the sustainability of trade in native plant products from desert Australia

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Walsh ◽  
Josie Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Research And Development ◽  
Reference Group ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Forest Products ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Ecological Sustainability ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Native Plant ◽  
Plant Products ◽  
Trade Offs

Improvement in Aboriginal people’s livelihoods and economic opportunities has been a major aim of increased research and development on bush foods over the past decade. But worldwide the development of trade in non-timber forest products from natural populations has raised questions about the ecological sustainability of harvest. Trade-offs and tensions between commercialisation and cultural values have also been found. We investigated the sustainability of the small-scale commercial harvest and trade in native plant products sourced from central Australian rangelands (including Solanum centrale J.M. Black, Acacia Mill. spp.). We used semi-structured interviews with traders and Aboriginal harvesters, participant observation of trading and harvesting trips, and analysis of species and trader records. An expert Aboriginal reference group guided the project. We found no evidence of either taxa being vulnerable to over-harvest. S. centrale production is enhanced by harvesting when it co-occurs with patch-burning. Extreme fluctuations in productivity of both taxa, due to inter-annual rainfall variability, have a much greater impact on supply than harvest effects. Landscape-scale degradation (including cattle grazing and wildfire) affected ecological sustainability according to participants. By contrast, we found that sustainability of bush food trade is more strongly impacted by social and economic factors. The relationship-based links between harvesters and traders are critical to monetary trade. Harvesters and traders identified access to productive lands and narrow economic margins between costs and returns as issues for the future sustainability of harvest and trade. Harvesters and the reference group emphasised that sustaining bush harvest relies on future generations having necessary knowledge and skills; these are extremely vulnerable to loss. Aboriginal people derive multiple livelihood benefits from harvest and trade. Aboriginal custodians and harvester groups involved in recent trade are more likely to benefit from research and development investment to inter-generational knowledge and skill transfer than from investments in plant breeding and commercial horticultural development. In an inductive comparison, our study found there to be strong alignment between key findings about the strategies used by harvesters and traders in bush produce and the ‘desert system’..

scholarly journals Rainfall variability and socio-economic constraints on livestock production in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia M. Leweri ◽  
Maurus J. Msuha ◽  
Anna C. Treydte
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Adaptive Capacity ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Herd Size ◽  
Livestock Production ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Conservation Area ◽  
Goat Population

AbstractRainfall variability is of great importance in East Africa, where small-scale farmers and pastoralists dominate. Their livestock production activities are heavily dependent on rainfall. We assessed pastoralist perceptions on climate change, particularly rainfall variability, its impact on livestock production, and the adaptive capacity of pastoralists in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), Tanzania. We combined 241 household interviews and information from 52 participants of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) with archived data from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA). We found that most (71%) pastoralists were aware of general climate change impacts, rainfall variability, and impacts of extreme events on their livestock. Most (> 75%) respondents perceived erratic and reduced amounts of rainfall, prolonged and frequent periods of drought as the main climate change challenges. Mean annual rainfall accounted for only 46% (R2), (p = 0.076) and 32% (R2), (p = 0.22) of cattle, and sheep and goat population variability, respectively. Unexpectedly, cattle losses intensified by 10% when herd size increased (p < 0.001) and by 98% (p = 0.049) when mobility increased, implying that increasing herd sizes and mobility do not cushion households against climate change shocks. Our study highlights the need to enhance adaptive capacity of the pastoralist communities through interventions that proactively reduce vulnerability. We recommend that future research should address the profitability of pastoral cattle production under changing environmental conditions.

Impact of small-scale spatial rainfall variability on runoff modeling

1995 ◽  
Vol 173 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 309-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Marc Faurès ◽  
D.C. Goodrich ◽  
David A. Woolhiser ◽  
Soroosh Sorooshian
Keyword(s):  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Runoff Modeling

Climate change could intensify Sahel conflicts

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Droughts And Floods ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Small Scale Irrigation

Significance It will increase rainfall variability and extreme events such as droughts and floods, as well as raising temperatures. These effects may trigger cascading risks to economic, social and political stability. Impacts The EU could play a key role in moderating climate effects as it shapes migration and security policy in the Sahel. The likelihood and severity of climate impacts will depend on socio-economic and political conditions in the region. Small-scale irrigation, climate-adapted seeds and traditional soil conservation techniques can help increase resilience to climate change.

scholarly journals Climate SPHINX: evaluating the impact of resolution and stochastic physics parameterisations in the EC-Earth global climate model

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1383-1402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Davini ◽  
Jost von Hardenberg ◽  
Susanna Corti ◽  
Hannah M. Christensen ◽  
Stephan Juricke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Low Resolution ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Stochastic Physics

Abstract. The Climate SPHINX (Stochastic Physics HIgh resolutioN eXperiments) project is a comprehensive set of ensemble simulations aimed at evaluating the sensitivity of present and future climate to model resolution and stochastic parameterisation. The EC-Earth Earth system model is used to explore the impact of stochastic physics in a large ensemble of 30-year climate integrations at five different atmospheric horizontal resolutions (from 125 up to 16 km). The project includes more than 120 simulations in both a historical scenario (1979–2008) and a climate change projection (2039–2068), together with coupled transient runs (1850–2100). A total of 20.4 million core hours have been used, made available from a single year grant from PRACE (the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and close to 1.5 PB of output data have been produced on SuperMUC IBM Petascale System at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) in Garching, Germany. About 140 TB of post-processed data are stored on the CINECA supercomputing centre archives and are freely accessible to the community thanks to an EUDAT data pilot project. This paper presents the technical and scientific set-up of the experiments, including the details on the forcing used for the simulations performed, defining the SPHINX v1.0 protocol. In addition, an overview of preliminary results is given. An improvement in the simulation of Euro-Atlantic atmospheric blocking following resolution increase is observed. It is also shown that including stochastic parameterisation in the low-resolution runs helps to improve some aspects of the tropical climate – specifically the Madden–Julian Oscillation and the tropical rainfall variability. These findings show the importance of representing the impact of small-scale processes on the large-scale climate variability either explicitly (with high-resolution simulations) or stochastically (in low-resolution simulations).

scholarly journals Forest Product Trade Impacts of an Invasive Species: Modeling Structure and Intervention Trade-Offs

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey P. Prestemon ◽  
Shushuai Zhu ◽  
James A. Turner ◽  
Joseph Buongiorno ◽  
Ruhong Li
Keyword(s):  
Forest Products ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Forest Sector ◽  
Spatial Equilibrium ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Spatial Equilibrium Model ◽  
The World ◽  
Nun Moth ◽  
Market Consequences

Asian gypsy and nun moth introductions into the United States, possibly arriving on imported Siberian coniferous logs, threaten domestic forests and product markets and could have global market consequences. We simulate, using the Global Forest Products Model (a spatial equilibrium model of the world forest sector), the consequences under current policies of a widespread, successful pest invasion, and of plausible trading partner responses to the successful invasion. We find that trade liberalization would have a negligible effect on U.S. imports of Siberian logs and, consequently, on the risk of a pest invasion. But, if it happened, possibly through trade in other commodities, a successful and widespread pest invasion would have large effects on producers and consumers over the period 2002 to 2030.

scholarly journals China's water sustainability in the 21st century: a climate-informed water risk assessment covering multi-sector water demands

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 1653-1662 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Chen ◽  
D. Naresh ◽  
L. Upmanu ◽  
Z. Hao ◽  
L. Dong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Stress ◽  
Risk Measures ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Temporal Distribution ◽  
High Water ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Water Sustainability ◽  
Domestic Water ◽  
Water Demands

Abstract. China is facing a water resources crisis with growing concerns as to the reliable supply of water for agricultural, industrial and domestic needs. High inter-annual rainfall variability and increasing consumptive use across the country exacerbates the situation further and is a constraint on future development. For water sustainability, it is necessary to examine the differences in water demand and supply and their spatio-temporal distribution in order to quantify the dimensions of the water risk. Here, a detailed quantitative assessment of water risk as measured by the spatial distribution of cumulated deficits for China is presented. Considering daily precipitation and temperature variability over fifty years and the current water demands, risk measures are developed to inform county level water deficits that account for both within-year and across-year variations in climate. We choose political rather than watershed boundaries since economic activity and water use are organized by county and the political process is best informed through that unit. As expected, the risk measures highlight North China Plain counties as highly water stressed. Regions with high water stress have high inter-annual variability in rainfall and now have depleted groundwater aquifers. The stress components due to agricultural, industrial and domestic water demands are illustrated separately to assess the vulnerability of particular sectors within the country to provide a basis for targeted policy analysis for reducing water stress.

scholarly journals Spatial and temporal variability of rainfall and their effects on hydrological response in urban areas – a review

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 3859-3878 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Cristiano ◽  
Marie-Claire ten Veldhuis ◽  
Nick van de Giesen
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Hydrological Processes ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Hydrological Response ◽  
Weather Radars ◽  
New Instruments

Abstract. In urban areas, hydrological processes are characterized by high variability in space and time, making them sensitive to small-scale temporal and spatial rainfall variability. In the last decades new instruments, techniques, and methods have been developed to capture rainfall and hydrological processes at high resolution. Weather radars have been introduced to estimate high spatial and temporal rainfall variability. At the same time, new models have been proposed to reproduce hydrological response, based on small-scale representation of urban catchment spatial variability. Despite these efforts, interactions between rainfall variability, catchment heterogeneity, and hydrological response remain poorly understood. This paper presents a review of our current understanding of hydrological processes in urban environments as reported in the literature, focusing on their spatial and temporal variability aspects. We review recent findings on the effects of rainfall variability on hydrological response and identify gaps where knowledge needs to be further developed to improve our understanding of and capability to predict urban hydrological response.

scholarly journals Climatologia da pluviometria do município de Teresina, Piauí, Brasil

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Hudson Ellen Alencar Menezes ◽  
Raimundo Mainar de Medeiros ◽  
José Lucas Guilherme Santos
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Intertropical Convergence Zone ◽  
Atmospheric Dynamics ◽  
Rainfall Data ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Convergence Zone ◽  
Northeast Brazil ◽  
Urban Structures ◽  
Urbanized Areas

<p>As variações nas precipitações refletem claramente a dinâmica atmosférica da região, marcada pela intensa variabilidade, onde se observa a atuação da Zona de Convergência Intertropical (ZCIT) com sua atuação entre os meses de janeiro a março, sendo esse período mais chuvoso. As variabilidades espaço temporal no comportamento das chuvas tem sido analisadas e diagnosticadas por vários autores no Nordeste do Brasil (NEB), portanto objetivou-se diagnosticar a variabilidade dos índices pluviométricos em Teresina no Estado do Piauí no período de 1913 a 2010. A análise do comportamento da precipitação nas cidades de grande e médio porte é de extrema importância para o gerenciamento dos recursos hídricos, uma vez que se trata de áreas densamente urbanizadas. Muitas vezes, sem uma estruturação urbana adequada, estas cidades se encaixam perfeitamente nesse contexto. Foram utilizados dados mensais observados e anuais de precipitação pluviométrica no período de 1913 a 2010, com 97 anos de observações. Os resultados mostraram a recorrência de valores máximos de precipitação anual dentro de um intervalo de 18, 11 e 8 anos. Na análise dos desvios-padrões, os resultados mostraram predominância dos desvios negativos em relação aos desvios positivos.</p><p align="center"><strong><em>Climatology of rainfall in the Teresina city, Piauí state, Brazil</em></strong></p><p>Variations in precipitation clearly reflect the atmospheric dynamics of the region, marked by intense variability, where we observe the performance of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) with his performance in the months of January-March, this being more rain tem period. The timeline of rainfall variability in behavior has been analyzed and diagnosed by several authors in Northeast Brazil (NEB), so let's study this variability between the periods 1913 to 2010 of Teresina city.  The behavior of rainfall in cities large and medium sized is of utmost importance to the managerial of water resources, since it is densely urbanized areas. Often without adequate urban structures these cities fit perfectly in this context. We used observed monthly and annual rainfall data for the period 1913-2010, 97 years of observations. The results showed recurrence of maximum values of annual precipitation an interval of 18, 11 and 8 years. In the analysis of standard deviations, the results showed a predominance of negative deviations from the positive deviations.<strong></strong></p><p align="center"><strong><em><br /></em></strong></p>

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