scholarly journals Challenges and agroecological approaches in crop production

2018 ◽  
pp. 75-89
Author(s):  
Zoltán Berzsényi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
World Demand ◽  
Global Population

Never has the need been greater for an ecosystem approach to agriculture. As our global population exceeds 9 billion in the next 30 years, with a concomitant demand for agricultural products, ever more pressure will be placed on our agricultural systems. Meanwhile, climate change is altering the ecological settings in which agriculture is practiced, demanding adaptation. Knowledge generated by long-term research will help to address one of the grand challenges of our time: how to meet sustainably the growing world demand for agricultural products – in a way that minimizes environmental harm and enhances the delivery of a diverse array of ecosystem services.

scholarly journals Iberian Halophytes as Agroecological Solutions for Degraded Lands and Biosaline Agriculture

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1005
Author(s):  
Bernardo Duarte ◽  
Isabel Caçador
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fatty Acids ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Essential Fatty Acids ◽  
Soil Health ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Animal Nutrition ◽  
Adverse Conditions ◽  
Green Solution

Research on biosaline agriculture has been increasing worldwide in recent years. In this respect, the Iberian halophyte diversity present a high-value ecological solution to be implemented for biosaline-based agroecosystems. The research on these halophytic species has been increasing worldwide and, in the recent years, especially in terms saline agriculture adaptation, osmophysiology and nutraceutical potential, highlighting the importance and potential of these species in terms of agrosolutions. The Mediterranean area has high biodiversity in terms of endemic halophytic vegetation (ca. 62 species), providing an alternative pool of potential new agricultural products to be cultivated in adverse conditions. Besides being highly diverse, most of these species are endemic and present a perennial life cycle with several applications in terms of food, forage, nutraceutical, feedstock and remediation. More specifically, the Iberian halophytic flora shows potential as resources of essential fatty acids, minerals and antioxidants—all very important for human and animal nutrition. Alongside the establishment of halophyte agroecological solutions is the provision of key ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and soil rehabilitation. Moreover, halophyte-based ecosystems provide additional recognized ecosystem services, beyond the final product production, by improving soil health, ecosystem biodiversity and storing large amounts of carbon, thereby increasing the ecosystem resilience to climate change and offering a green solution against climate change.

scholarly journals Climate change and drought effects on rural income distribution in the Mediterranean: a case study for Spain

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 4353-4389
Author(s):  
S. Quiroga ◽  
C. Suárez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Crop Productivity ◽  
Social Aspect ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Effects Of Drought ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. This paper examines the effects of climate change and drought on agricultural outputs in Spanish rural areas. By now the effects of drought as a response to climate change or policy restrictions have been analyzed through response functions considering direct effects on crop productivity and incomes. These changes also affect incomes distribution in the region and therefore modify the social structure. Here we consider this complementary indirect effect on social distribution of incomes which is essential in the long term. We estimate crop production functions for a range of Mediterranean crops in Spain and we use a decomposition of inequalities measure to estimate the impact of climate change and drought on yield disparities. This social aspect is important for climate change policies since it can be determinant for the public acceptance of certain adaptation measures in a context of drought. We provide the empirical estimations for the marginal effects of the two considered impacts: farms' income average and social income distribution. In our estimates we consider crop productivity response to both bio-physical and socio-economic aspects to analyze long term implications on both competitiveness and social disparities. We find disparities in the adaptation priorities depending on the crop and the region analyzed.

Effect of persistent water cover on soil structure, investigated on representative Hungarian soil samples

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktória Labancz ◽  
András Sebők ◽  
Imre Czinkota ◽  
Tamás Szegi ◽  
András Makó
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Soil Structure ◽  
Aggregate Stability ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Soil Samples ◽  
Agricultural Crop ◽  
Laser Diffractometry ◽  
Water Cover

<p>Today, due to climate change, soil degradation processes related to extreme water supply situations (flood, inland water or drought) are occurring more and more frequently. Soil structure is one of the most important soil characteristics influencing many transport of materials (transport, storage of heat, gas, water and nutrients).Furthermore, it defines and ultimately determines the significant physical, chemical and biological processes involved and also the most important factor in agricultural crop production. Permanent water cover has a significant effect on soil structure, but the dynamics of disaggregation and the role of the soil factors influencing it is not yet fully understood. Our basic research aim is to investigate the effect of permanent water cover on soil structure on representative Hungarian soil samples. In our experiment, we sought to find the answer to the question of how long-term water coverage causes changes and damage to the soil structure under laboratory conditions by artificial water cover. We measured aggregate stability with Mastersizer 3000 Hydro LV laser diffractometry device and some soil chemistry parameters with Agilent 4210 MP-AES at different water cover times (selected in the literature). Based on experiences the effect of persistent water cover from the soil structure side can be most noticeable in the changes of macro- and microaggregate stability, as well as in the change of certain chemical parameters (e.g. calcium and iron content), thus, the aim of our research was to investigate these characteristics also. After compiling our results in a database, we evaluated and deduced statistical data on the long-term degradation effects of water cover. We also made an attempt to describe its disaggregation dynamics for different Hungarian soil types. Based on the results, we have selected the most sensitive soils for permanent water cover, which are also expected to be sensitive to extreme water management related to climate change.</p>

scholarly journals Trends of weather-related impacts on Austrian crop production under changing climate

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabina Thaler ◽  
Josef Eitzinger ◽  
Gerhard Kubu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Winter Wheat ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Crop Growth ◽  
Risk Indicators ◽  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Crop Water

<p>Weather-related risks can affect crop growth and yield potentials directly (e.g. heat, frost, drought) and indirectly (e.g. through biotic factors such as pests). Due to climate change, severe shifts of cropping risks may occur, where farmers need to adapt effectively and in time to increase the resilience of existing cropping systems. For example, since the early 21st century, Europe has experienced a series of exceptionally dry and warmer than usual weather conditions (2003, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018) which led to severe droughts with devastating impacts in agriculture on crop yields and pasture productivity.</p><p>Austria has experienced above-average warming in the period since 1880. While the global average surface temperature has increased by almost 1°C, the warming in Austria during this period was nearly 2°C. Higher temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and more severe and frequent extreme weather events will significantly affect weather-sensitive sectors, especially agriculture. Therefore, the development of sound adaptation and mitigation strategies towards a "climate-intelligent agriculture" is crucial to improve the resilience of agricultural systems to climate change and increased climate variability. Within the project AGROFORECAST a set of weather-related risk indicators and tailored recommendations for optimizing crop management options are developed and tested for various forecast or prediction lead times (short term management: 10 days - 6 months; long term strategic planning: climate scenarios) to better inform farmers of upcoming weather and climate challenges.</p><p>Here we present trends of various types of long-term weather-related impacts on Austrian crop production under past (1980-2020) and future periods (2035-2065). For that purpose, agro-climatic risk indicators and crop production indicators are determined in selected case study regions with the help of models. We use for the past period Austrian gridded weather data set (INCA) as well as different regionalized climate scenarios of the Austrian Climate Change Projections ÖKS15. The calculation of the agro-climatic indicators is carried out by the existing AGRICLIM model and the GIS-based ARIS software, which was developed for estimating the impact of adverse weather conditions on crops. The crop growth model AQUACROP is used for analysing soil-crop water balance parameters, crop yields and future crop water demand.</p><p>Depending on the climatic region, a more or less clear shift in the various agro-climatic indices can be expected towards 2050, e.g. the number of "heat-stress-days" for winter wheat increases significantly in eastern Austria. Furthermore, a decreasing trend in maize yield is simulated, whereas a mean increase in yield of spring barley and winter wheat can be expected under selected scenarios. Other agro-climatic risk indicators analysed include pest algorithms, risks from frost occurrence, overwintering conditions, climatic crop growing conditions, field workability and others, which can add additional impacts on crop yield variability, not considered by crop models.</p>

scholarly journals The rate of ecological acclimation is the dominant uncertainty in long-term projections of a key ecosystem service

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Felton ◽  
Robert K. Shriver ◽  
Michael Stemkovski ◽  
John B. Bradford ◽  
Katharine N. Suding ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽  
Species Turnover ◽  
Spatial Gradient ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Forage Production ◽  
Global Circulation Models ◽  
Decadal Scale

The potential for ecosystems to continue providing society with essential services may depend on their ability to acclimate to climate change through multiple processes operating from cells to landscapes. While models to predict climate change impacts on ecosystem services often consider uncertainty among greenhouse gas emission scenarios or global circulation models (GCMs), they rarely consider the rate of ecological acclimation, which depends on decadal-scale processes such as species turnover. Here we show that uncertainty due to the unknown rate of ecological acclimation is larger than other sources of uncertainty in late-century projections of forage production in US rangelands. Combining statistical models fit to historical climate data and remotely-sensed estimates of herbaceous productivity with an ensemble of GCMs, we projected changes in forage production using two approaches. The time-series approach, which assumes minimal acclimation, projects widespread decreases in forage production. The spatial gradient approach, which assumes ecological acclimation keeps pace with climate, predicts widespread increases in forage production. This first attempt to quantify the magnitude of a critical uncertainty emphasizes that better understanding of ecological acclimation is essential to improve long-term forecasts of ecosystem services, and shows that management to facilitate ecological acclimation may be necessary to maintain ecosystem services at historical baselines.

scholarly journals Biodiversity policies, opportunities for restoring the economy

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-169
Author(s):  
Nicoleta-Nona Ardeleanu ◽  
Iuliana-Gabriela Breaban
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Regional Development ◽  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Institutional Integration ◽  
Correct Analysis ◽  
Funding Programs

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the strategic and legal framework of the various areas directly dependent on the protection of biodiversity and the ecosystem approach in the funding programmes related to them. Data were collected by consulting a variety of sources, including articles, project results, European and national legislation, strategies and funding programs in the fields of Water, Forestry, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Agriculture and Rural Development, Energy and Regional Development. The results showed that, in the areas analyzed, there are no efficient tools for the integration of ecosystem services and natural capital. The level of integration of the ecosystem approach in the analyzed areas compared to the state of ecosystems in Romania indicates that there are not enough measures to protect natural capital through sustainable management. Both inter-institutional integration and coordination are needed to streamline the management of natural capital and the correct analysis and implementation of a payment system for ecosystem services.

scholarly journals Revisiting the effects of relevant factors on Pakistan's agricultural products export

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (No. 12) ◽  
pp. 527-541
Author(s):  
Zaid Ashiq Khan ◽  
Mansoor Ahmed Koondhar ◽  
Noshaba Aziz ◽  
Uzair Ali ◽  
Liu Tianjun
Keyword(s):  
Error Correction ◽  
National Economy ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Error Correction Model ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Correction Model ◽  
Distributed Lag ◽  
Autoregressive Distributed Lag

Pakistan is an agriculture-based country, so the agricultural sector is known as the backbone of the national economy. Considering the national economy and the agricultural industry, it is necessary to focus on earnings through agricultural products export to improve the livelihood of local farmers. Therefore, the current study aimed to analyse the short-term and long-term factors affecting agricultural products export. The annual time series of 1976–2016 were collected from World Bank indicators, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Statistical Bureau of Pakistan. An autoregressive distributed lag, along with a vector error correction model, was employed. A cointegration test showed long-term associations between the selected variables. While the autoregressive distributed lag model confirmed the short-term correlation between area sown and crop production towards agricultural products export, there is no long-term relationship between the selected variables. In addition, the bidirectional correlation between employment in agriculture and agricultural products export was confirmed by the vector error correction model. Therefore, it is essential to increase agricultural production with the available natural resources to increase foreign earnings.

scholarly journals PGPR in Agriculture: A Sustainable Approach to Increasing Climate Change Resilience

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ateeq Shah ◽  
Mahtab Nazari ◽  
Mohammad Antar ◽  
Levini A. Msimbira ◽  
Judith Naamala ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Plant Growth ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Growth Promotion ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Environmentally Friendly ◽  
Environmental Stability ◽  
Food Demand ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Global Food

Growing environmental concerns are potentially narrowing global yield capacity of agricultural systems. Climate change is the most significant problem the world is currently facing. To meet global food demand, food production must be doubled by 2050; over exploitation of arable lands using unsustainable techniques might resolve food demand issues, but they have negative environmental effects. Current crop production systems are a major reason for changing global climate through diminishing biodiversity, physical and chemical soil degradation, and water pollution. The over application of fertilizers and pesticides contribute to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and toxic soil depositions. At this crucial time, there is a pressing need to transition to more sustainable crop production practices, ones that concentrate more on promoting sustainable mechanisms, which enable crops to grow well in resource limited and environmentally challenging environments, and also develop crops with greater resource use efficiency that have optimum sustainable yields across a wider array of environmental conditions. The phytomicrobiome is considered as one of the best strategies; a better alternative for sustainable agriculture, and a viable solution to meet the twin challenges of global food security and environmental stability. Use of the phytomicrobiome, due to its sustainable and environmentally friendly mechanisms of plant growth promotion, is becoming more widespread in the agricultural industry. Therefore, in this review, we emphasize the contribution of beneficial phytomicrobiome members, particularly plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), as a strategy to sustainable improvement of plant growth and production in the face of climate change. Also, the roles of soil dwelling microbes in stress amelioration, nutrient supply (nitrogen fixation, phosphorus solubilization), and phytohormone production along with the factors that could potentially affect their efficiency have been discussed extensively. Lastly, limitations to expansion and use of biobased techniques, for instance, the perspective of crop producers, indigenous microbial competition and regulatory approval are discussed. This review largely focusses on the importance and need of sustainable and environmentally friendly approaches such as biobased/PGPR-based techniques in our agricultural systems, especially in the context of current climate change conditions, which are almost certain to worsen in near future.

scholarly journals The Potential Long-Term Impacts of Climate Change on the Hydrologic Regimes of North Carolina’s Coastal Plain Non-Riverine Wetlands

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 1591-1606
Author(s):  
J. Jack Kurki-Fox ◽  
Michael R. Burchell ◽  
Brock J. Kamrath
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Water Table ◽  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Hydrologic Regimes ◽  
Coastal Plain Wetlands ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

HighlightsBased on current emissions, mean water table decline in these wetlands will likely range from 25 to 65 cm by 2100.Projected changes could lead to a decline or loss of the important ecosystem services that wetlands provide to society.Results indicate a potential need to allocate more resources to developing strategies for managing wetlands.Abstract. Wetlands are especially at risk from climate change because of their intermediate landscape position (i.e., transition between upland and aquatic environments), where small changes in precipitation and/or evapotranspiration can have substantial impacts on wetland hydrology. Because hydrology is the primary factor influencing wetland structure and function, the important ecosystem services that wetlands provide may be altered or lost as a result of climate change. While a great deal of uncertainty is associated with the projected impacts of climate change on wetlands, hydrologic models and downscaled climate model projections provide tools to reduce this uncertainty. DRAINMOD is one such process-based hydrologic model that has been successfully adapted to simulate the daily water level fluctuations in natural wetlands. The objective of this project was to determine the range of possible impacts of climate change on the hydrologic regimes of non-riverine, non-tidal Coastal Plain wetlands in North Carolina. DRAINMOD models were calibrated and validated for two minimally disturbed, natural wetland sites using observed water table and local weather data. Two representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios were evaluated: RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Nine models were selected from an ensemble of 32 climate models to represent the range of possible changes in mean precipitation and temperature. Downscaled climate projections were obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Simulations were run from 1986 to 2099, and results were evaluated by comparing the projected mean water table levels between the base period (1986-2015) and two future evaluation periods: 2040-2069 and 2070-2099. The model simulation results indicated that the projected mean water table level may decline by as much as 25 to 84 cm by the end of this century (2070-2099) for the RCP8.5 scenario and may decline by 4 to 61 cm for the RCP4.5 scenario. In Coastal Plain wetlands, declines in water tables can lead to the subsidence of organic soils, which can lead to the loss of stored carbon and increased risk of peat fires. Lower mean water levels can also lead to shifts in vegetation community composition and loss of habitat functions for wetland-dependent fauna. These results provide an overview of the potential impacts of climate change on North Carolina wetlands, and they provide a range of scenarios to inform and guide possible changes to water management strategies in wetland ecosystems that can be implemented now to limit the loss of ecosystem services over the long term. Keywords: Climate change, DRAINMOD, Hydrology, Modeling, North Carolina, Wetlands.

Harmful Effects of Ecosystem Impairment on Human Health

2017 ◽  
pp. 224-232
Author(s):  
Suruchi Singh ◽  
Shashi Bhushan Agrawal ◽  
Madhoolika Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Will Force ◽  
Over Exploitation ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Global Population ◽  
Harmful Effects ◽  
Environment Degradation

Growing global population has caused environment degradation through ecosystem impairment and over exploitation. Although, people have made great moves for improving life style, and enjoy a drastically improved quality of life but such improvements have been made at the cost of environment degradation. Climate change will force humans to adjust with changing environment and find ways to deal with short term protection and long term health consequences. The range of potential threats to human health caused by climate change is increasing and at the same time is not clear. So, owing to the potential magnitude and universality of such an issue, we have a moral obligation for developing proper tools and make informed choices that ultimately result in better lives for the humans.

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