scholarly journals An Improved Forest Structure Data Set for Europe

2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 395
Author(s):  
Christoph Pucher ◽  
Mathias Neumann ◽  
Hubert Hasenauer

Today, European forests face many challenges but also offer opportunities, such as climate change mitigation, provision of renewable resources, energy and other ecosystem services. Large-scale analyses to assess these opportunities are hindered by the lack of a consistent, spatial and accessible forest structure data. This study presents a freely available pan-European forest structure data set. Building on our previous work, we used data from six additional countries and consider now ten key forest stand variables. Harmonized inventory data from 16 European countries were used in combination with remote sensing data and a gap-filling algorithm to produce this consistent and comparable forest structure data set across European forests. We showed how land cover data can be used to scale inventory data to a higher resolution which in turn ensures a consistent data structure across sub-regional, country and European forest assessments. Cross validation and comparison with published country statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicate that the chosen methodology is able to produce robust and accurate forest structure data across Europe, even for areas where no inventory data were available.

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Crystal Lupo

Reduced demand for wood and wood products resulting from the economic crisis in the first decade of the 2000s severely impacted the forest industry throughout the world, causing large forest-based organizations to close (CBC News, 2008; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2009; Pepke, 2009). The result was a dramatic increase in unemployment and worker displacement among forest product workers between 2011 and 2013 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Forested rural communities often depended on the large-scale forest industry for their livelihood, and as a result, decreased reliance on large-scale industry became increasingly important (Lupo, 2015). This article explores portable-sawmill-based entrepreneurship as an opportunity to promote social change in the local community. Results indicated that portable-sawmill-based small businesses created community development opportunities, which promoted social change in the larger community through farm business expansion, conservation efforts to improve local community development, and niche market creation in the local or larger community.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1445-1464
Author(s):  
R.R. Mukhametzyanov ◽  
◽  
E.V. Britik ◽  

Horticulture is an important branch of agriculture with particular importance in some countries of the world. The production of fruits, berries and nuts is an important part of forming a high-grade food supply for the population in many countries, including the developing ones. Basing on the statistical data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN), the authors examined the change in the production volume of these products in the world as a whole for 1961-2018, as well as for the period 1992-2018 in some countries - twenty largest producers in 2018; and a number of trends were identified. In particular, it was noted that in 2018 the global gross harvest of fruits and berries increased by 4.34 times compared to 1961, while that of nuts - by 7.04 times. A deeper analysis in the context of states, which are the main producers of fruits, berries and nuts, carried out for 1922-2018, indicates that there is a change in the positions of these countries in the corresponding world ranking. The quantitative and qualitative changes we observe inevitably have a significant impact both on the volume of the world market in terms of production, and, consequently, the supply of fruit and berry products, and on the parameters of international trade in fruits, berries and nuts. Due to the fact that the Russian Federation is not among the countries - largest producers of fruit and berry products (in 2018 it was the 31st in the global rating for fruits and berries, and the 52nd for nuts), it occupies a very significant position in the world on its imports, especially on some of them. In connection with the policy of import substitution, deployed in response to sanctions from a number of Western states, some positive changes are also observed in the Russian gardening industry. However, imports in the resources of fruits and berries still amounted to 53.6% in 2018. Naturally, many types of fruit and berry products are economically inexpedient to cultivate on an industrial scale in the natural and climatic conditions of our country, but it is necessary to carry out scientifically grounded and systematic work to increase the production of relatively traditional for Russia fruit and berry plants in the large-scale commodity sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-512
Author(s):  
O. M. Olayiwola ◽  
F. S. Apantaku ◽  
Kazeem A. Oyekunle ◽  
A. A. Akintunde ◽  
O. A. Wale-Orojo ◽  
...  

Calibration is a technique for the adjustment of the original design weight to improve the precision of the survey. There is a dearth of information on calibration approach adapted for survey such that the survey cost is put into consideration.  This research work developed a modified calibration approach for improving survey precision by considering the cost function. Data set on vegetable and tobacco productions (metric tonnes) were considered for this study. The data were obtained from the website of Food and Agriculture Organization. Data used was stratified based on geographical location. The population under study was divided into subpopulation of units, these subpopulations were non-overlapping homogenous sub- group. Observations were drawn within each stratum by simple random sampling with optimum allocation procedure. The proposed estimator was derived and used to determine the linear weight estimator of population parameters. The statistical properties of the derived estimator was examined. Using Lagrange multiplier, Mean Square Error and Relative Efficiency was obtained. The proposed estimator is found to be efficient


2010 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Auster ◽  
Kristina Gjerde ◽  
Eric Heupel ◽  
Les Watling ◽  
Anthony Grehan ◽  
...  

Abstract Auster, P. J., Gjerde, K., Heupel, E., Watling, L., Grehan, A., and Rogers, A. D. 2011. Definition and detection of vulnerable marine ecosystems on the high seas: problems with the “move-on” rule. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 254–264. Fishing in the deep sea in areas beyond national jurisdiction has produced multiple problems related to management for conservation and sustainable use. Based on a growing concern, the United Nations has called on States to prevent significant adverse impacts to vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) in the deep sea. Although Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) guidelines for management were produced through an international consultative process, implementing criteria for designation of VMEs and recognition of such areas when encountered by fishing gear have been problematic. Here we discuss assumptions used to identify VMEs and current requirements related to unforeseen encounters with fishing gear that do not meet technological or ecological realities. A more precautionary approach is needed, given the uncertainties about the location of VMEs and their resilience, such as greatly reducing the threshold for an encounter, implementation of large-scale permanent closed areas, and prohibition of bottom-contact fishing.


2013 ◽  
Vol 164 (9) ◽  
pp. 271-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mart-Jan Schelhaas

European Forest Sector Outlook Study II: Switzerland in the European context The European Forest Sector Outlook Study II (EFSOS II) is the latest in a series of outlook studies by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), providing an outlook for the European forest sector for the period 2010–2030. The study is structured around a reference scenario and four policy scenarios, implemented in a set of mathematical models. The paper summarises the methodology and main outcomes for Central Europe, discusses specific Swiss aspects, the usefulness of such outlook results at the national level and possible future improvements. The picture for Switzerland is one broadly characterised by opportunities, facilitated by a favourable starting point with regard to the forest resources and increasing demand in the surrounding countries. However, a preliminary comparison with national supply scenarios reveals some important differences with regard to increment and mortality and thus possibilities for increased supply. The time between successive new studies should therefore be used to update the underlying data sources, make comparisons to national studies and improve understanding of the models, all in close cooperation with the countries.


Experimental results of remote satellite data processing with different resolution from 3 to 60 m of bands are discussed in the article. The purpose of the article is to present and justify various options for using satellite imagery data and technologies of geographic information systems (GIS technologies) to solve various problems, taking into account previous research experience. The main material. The author suggests using Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope to compile large-scale maps of territories of different sizes. Based on the improvement of the methodology (previously used by the author), it is proposed to distinguish plant groups as indicative objects of indicative contours using remote sensing data. The second reference object is the contours of water bodies. We propose using colors (RGB), shapes and roughness to identify the contours of objects, but given the actual material of the field outputs to key areas. These characteristics can indirectly determine geomorphology. Based on spectral characteristic images, we consider the seasons, vegetation periods, and territory. During the filed practice students process a data set for different periods and analyze this information to study landscape changes. Based on studies from 2015 to 2019, a database for landscape monitoring of the protected area is being formed. The author with students and other researchers have determined that it is necessary to separately analyze northern and southern parts of the Slobozhansky National Nature Park. QGis and ArcGis tools allow you to prepare data and do overlay analysis to compile a hypothesis map, and then the resulting map. Conclusions and further research. It is established that the number of classes and the classification method depend on the properties of the objects of study. The best results were shown by isolating the contours of plant communities by the method of automatic classification by identifying key areas. It has been experimentally established that the decoding of satellite images PlanetScope gives the best results in small areas. For decoding of a larger area, Sentinel-2 gives the best results, the thematic image data of which is more generalized. Based on the information received from thematic maps, we have attributive data on the topography, geological structure, soil for each contour. All information will be used for the landscape monitoring base in the Slobozhansky National Nature Park.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacopo Dari ◽  
Pere Quintana-Seguí ◽  
María José Escorihuela ◽  
Vivien Stefan ◽  
Renato Morbidelli ◽  
...  

<p>Irrigation represents a primary source of anthropogenic water consumption, whose effects impact on the natural distribution of water on the Earth’s surface and on food production. Over anthropized basins, irrigation often represents the missing variable to properly close the hydrological balance. Despite this, detailed information on the amounts of water actually applied for irrigation is lacking worldwide. In this study, a method to estimate irrigation volumes applied over a heavily irrigated area in the North East of Spain through high-resolution (1 km) remote sensing soil moisture is presented. Two DISPATCH (DISaggregation based on Physical And Theoretical scale CHange) downscaled data sets have been used: SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) and SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity). The SMAP experiment covers the period from January 2016 to September 2017, while the SMOS experiment is referred to the time span from January 2011 to September 2017. The irrigation amounts have been retrieved through the SM2RAIN algorithm, in which the guidelines provided in the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) paper n.56 about the crop evapotranspiration have been implemented for a proper modeling of the crop evapotranspiration. A more detailed analysis has been performed in the context of the SMAP experiment. In fact, the spatial distribution and the temporal occurrence of the irrigation events have been investigated. Furthermore, the loss of accuracy of the irrigation estimates when using different sources for the evapotranspiration data has been assessed. In order to do this, the SMAP experiment has been repeated by forcing the SM2RAIN algorithm with several evapotranspiration data sets, both calculated and observed. Finally, the merging of the results obtained through the two experiments has produced a data set of almost 7 years of irrigation estimated from remote sensing soil moisture.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos A Almenara

[THE MANUSCRIPT IS A DRAFT] According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2020), food waste and losses comprises nearly 1.3 billion tonnes every year, which equates to around US$ 990 billion worldwide. Ironically, over 820 million people do not have enough food to eat (FAO, 2020). This gap production-consumption puts in evidence the need to reformulate certain practices such as the controversial monocropping (i.e., growing a single crop on the same land on a yearly basis), as well as to improve others such as revenue management through intelligent systems. In this first part of a series of articles, the focus is on the Peruvian anchoveta fish (Engraulis ringens).


2009 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 2737-2740
Author(s):  
Xiao ZHANG ◽  
Shan WANG ◽  
Na LIAN

Author(s):  
Eun-Young Mun ◽  
Anne E. Ray

Integrative data analysis (IDA) is a promising new approach in psychological research and has been well received in the field of alcohol research. This chapter provides a larger unifying research synthesis framework for IDA. Major advantages of IDA of individual participant-level data include better and more flexible ways to examine subgroups, model complex relationships, deal with methodological and clinical heterogeneity, and examine infrequently occurring behaviors. However, between-study heterogeneity in measures, designs, and samples and systematic study-level missing data are significant barriers to IDA and, more broadly, to large-scale research synthesis. Based on the authors’ experience working on the Project INTEGRATE data set, which combined individual participant-level data from 24 independent college brief alcohol intervention studies, it is also recognized that IDA investigations require a wide range of expertise and considerable resources and that some minimum standards for reporting IDA studies may be needed to improve transparency and quality of evidence.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document