scholarly journals Agricultural intensification vs climate change: What drives long-term changes of sediment load?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shengping Wang ◽  
Peter Strauss ◽  
Carmen Krammer ◽  
Elmar Schmaltz ◽  
Borbala Szeles ◽  
...  

Abstract. Climate change and agricultural intensification are expected to increase soil erosion and sediment production from arable land in many regions. However, so far, most studies have been based on short-term monitoring and/or modeling, making it difficult to assess their reliability in terms of long-term changes. We present the results from a unique data set consisting of measurements of sediment loads from a 60ha catchment (the HOAL Petzenkirchen in Austria) over a time window spanning 72 years. Specifically, we compare Period I (1946–1954) and Period II (2002–2017) by fitting sediment rating curves for the growth and dormant seasons for each of the periods. The results suggest a significant increase in sediment yield from Period I to Period II with an average of 11.6 ± 10.8 ton·yr−1 to 63.6 ± 84.0 ton·yr−1. The sediment flux changed mainly due to a shift of the sediment rating curves (SRC), given that the annual streamflow varied little between the periods (5.6 l·s−1 and 7.6 l·s−1, respectively, on average). The slopes of the log regression lines of the SRC for the growing season and the dormant season of Period I were 16.72 and 4.9, respectively, whilst they were 5.38 and 1.17 for Period II, respectively. Climate change, considered in terms of rainfall erosivity, was not responsible for this shift, given that erosivity decreased by 30.4 % from the dormant season of Period I to that of Period II, and no significant difference was found between the growing seasons of Periods I and II. However, the sediment flux changes can be explained by changes in crop type and parcel structure. During low and median streamflow conditions (i.e. Q < Q20 %), land consolidation in Period II (i.e. theparcel effect) did not exert an apparent influence on sediment production. Whilst with increasing stream flow (Q > Q20 %), parcel structure played an increasingly role in sediment yield contribution, and leading to a dominant role due to enhanced sediment connectivity in the landscape at extremely high flow conditions (i.e. Q > Q2 %). The increase in cropland in Period II at the expense of grassland had an unfavourable effect on sediment flux, independent of streamflow, with declining relevance as flow increased. We conclude that both land cover change and land consolidation should be accounted for simultaneously when assessing sediment flux changes. Especially during extremely high flow conditions, land consolidation substantially alters sediment fluxes, which is most relevant for long-term sediment loads and land degradation. Increased attention to improving parcel structure is therefore needed in climate adaptation and agricultural catchment management.

Author(s):  
Simon R. Leather

Abstract Reports of declines in abundance of a number of insect species have been increasing over the last two decades. These have variously been attributed to climate change, urbanisation, deforestation, agricultural intensification, habitat fragmentation and pesticide usage. The picture has been complicated by the fact that not all insect groups have shown the drastic declines reported for others, flawed methodology, paucity of long-term studies, the lack of data from the tropics with most long-term studies emanating from Europe and North America. In addition, the number of insect groups studied has largely been restricted to charismatic species such as Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Odonata. Despite this, the evidence for long-term declines in insect abundance is incontrovertible. To aid in our understanding of the problem we need to set up more globally coordinated studies, use past data in innovative ways and convince policy makers and governments to support these studies.


Author(s):  
Nguyen Thi Thuc An ◽  
Dau Kieu Ngoc Anh

The 2018 Nobel Economics Prize was awarded to two American economists - William D. Nordhaus and Paul M. Romer - who designed methods for better assessing environmental issues and technological advances on growth. This year’s Laureates, Nordhaus was the first person to create an intergrated model to assess interactions between society and nature and Romer laid the foundation for what is now called endogenous growth theory. According to the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, these two macroeconomists’ research have helped “significantly broaden the scope of economic analysis by constructing models that explain how the market economy interacts with nature and knowledge” which integrates climate change measures into long-term sustainable economic growth. Keywords Nobel in economics, William D. Nordhaus, Paul M. Romer, climate change, endogenous growth theory, economic growth References [1] Y Vân (2018), “Lý lịch 'khủng' của hai nhà khoa học vừa giành giải Nobel Kinh tế 2018”, Vietnambiz, đăng tải ngày 08/10/2018, https://vietnambiz.vn/ly-lich-khung-cua-hai-nha-khoa-hoc-vua-gianh-giai-nobel-kinh-te-2018-95776.html[2] Jonas O. Bergman, Rich Miller (2018), “Nordhaus, Romer Win Nobel for Thinking on Climate, Innovation”, đăng tải ngày 8/10/2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-08/nordhaus-romer-win-2018-nobel-prize-in-economic-sciences [3] Antonin Pottier (2018), “Giải Nobel” William Nordhaus có thật sự nghiêm túc?”, Nguyễn Đôn Phước dịch, đăng tải ngày 11/10/2018, http://www.phantichkinhte123.com/2018/10/giai-nobel-william-nordhaus-co-that-su.html[4] Thăng Điệp (2018), “Giải Nobel kinh tế 2018 về tay hai người Mỹ”, đăng tải ngày 8/10/2018, http://vneconomy.vn/giai-nobel-kinh-te-2018-ve-tay-hai-nguoi-my-20181008185809239.htm[5] Lars P. Syll (2018), “Cuối cùng - Paul Romer cũng có được giải thưởng Nobel”, Huỳnh Thiện Quốc Việt dịch, đăng tải ngày 14/10/2018, http://www.phantichkinhte123.com/2018/10/cuoi-cung-paul-romer-cung-co-uoc-giai.html[6] Phương Võ (2018), “Nobel Kinh tế 2018: Chạm tới bài toán khó của thời đại”, đăng tải ngày 9/10/2018, https://nld.com.vn/thoi-su-quoc-te/nobel-kinh-te-2018-cham-toi-bai-toan-kho-cua-thoi-dai-20181008221734228.htm[7] Đông Phong (2018), “Nobel Kinh tế cho giải pháp phát triển bền vững và phúc lợi người dân”, đăng tải ngày 8/10/2018, https://news.zing.vn/nobel-kinh-te-cho-giai-phap-phat-trien-ben-vung-va-phuc-loi-nguoi-dan-post882860.html[8] Thanh Trúc (2018), “Giải Nobel kinh tế 2018: Thay đổi tư duy về biến đổi khí hậu”, https://tusach.thuvienkhoahoc.com/wiki/Gi%E1%BA%A3i_Nobel_kinh_t%E1%BA%BF_2018:_Thay_%C4%91%E1%BB%95i_t%C6%B0_duy_v%E1%BB%81_bi%E1%BA%BFn_%C4%91%E1%BB%95i_kh%C3%AD_h%E1%BA%ADu[9] Cẩm Anh (2018), “Nobel kinh tế 2018: Lời giải cho tăng trưởng kinh tế bền vững”, đăng tải ngày 11/10/2018, http://enternews.vn/nobel-kinh-te-2018-loi-giai-cho-tang-truong-kinh-te-ben-vung-137600.html.


2019 ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
N.E. Terentiev

Based on the latest data, paper investigates the dynamics of global climate change and its impact on economic growth in the long-term. The notion of climate risk is considered. The main directions of climate risk management policies are analyzed aimed, first, at reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions through technological innovation and structural economic shifts; secondly, at adaptation of population, territories and economic complexes to the irreparable effects of climate change. The problem of taking into account the phenomenon of climate change in the state economic policy is put in the context of the most urgent tasks of intensification of long-term socio-economic development and parrying strategic challenges to the development of Russia.


2021 ◽  
pp. 108602662110316
Author(s):  
Tiziana Russo-Spena ◽  
Nadia Di Paola ◽  
Aidan O’Driscoll

An effective climate change action involves the critical role that companies must play in assuring the long-term human and social well-being of future generations. In our study, we offer a more holistic, inclusive, both–and approach to the challenge of environmental innovation (EI) that uses a novel methodology to identify relevant configurations for firms engaging in a superior EI strategy. A conceptual framework is proposed that identifies six sets of driving characteristics of EI and two sets of beneficial outcomes, all inherently tensional. Our analysis utilizes a complementary rather than an oppositional point of view. A data set of 65 companies in the ICT value chain is analyzed via fuzzy-set comparative analysis (fsQCA) and a post-QCA procedure. The results reveal that achieving a superior EI strategy is possible in several scenarios. Specifically, after close examination, two main configuration groups emerge, referred to as technological environmental innovators and organizational environmental innovators.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Anda David ◽  
Frédéric Docquier

How do weather shocks influence human mobility and poverty, and how will long-term climate change affect future migration over the course of the 21st century? These questions have gained unprecedented attention in public debates as global warming is already having severe impacts around the world, and prospects for the coming decades get worse. Low-latitude countries in general, and their agricultural areas in particular, have contributed the least to climate change but are the most adversely affected. The effect on people's voluntary and forced displacements is of major concern for both developed and developing countries. On 18 October 2019, Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) organized a workshop on Climate Migration with the aim of uncovering the mechanisms through which fast-onset variables (such as weather anomalies, storms, hurricanes, torrential rains, floods, landslides, etc.) and slow-onset variables (such as temperature trends, desertification, rising sea level, coastal erosion, etc.) influence both people's incentives to move and mobility constraints. This special issue gathers five papers prepared for this workshop, which shed light on (or predict) the effect of extreme weather shocks and long-term climate change on human mobility, and stress the implications for the development community.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1109
Author(s):  
Nobuaki Kimura ◽  
Kei Ishida ◽  
Daichi Baba

Long-term climate change may strongly affect the aquatic environment in mid-latitude water resources. In particular, it can be demonstrated that temporal variations in surface water temperature in a reservoir have strong responses to air temperature. We adopted deep neural networks (DNNs) to understand the long-term relationships between air temperature and surface water temperature, because DNNs can easily deal with nonlinear data, including uncertainties, that are obtained in complicated climate and aquatic systems. In general, DNNs cannot appropriately predict unexperienced data (i.e., out-of-range training data), such as future water temperature. To improve this limitation, our idea is to introduce a transfer learning (TL) approach. The observed data were used to train a DNN-based model. Continuous data (i.e., air temperature) ranging over 150 years to pre-training to climate change, which were obtained from climate models and include a downscaling model, were used to predict past and future surface water temperatures in the reservoir. The results showed that the DNN-based model with the TL approach was able to approximately predict based on the difference between past and future air temperatures. The model suggested that the occurrences in the highest water temperature increased, and the occurrences in the lowest water temperature decreased in the future predictions.


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