The Performance Evaluation of State Grassland Ecological Compensation and Rewards—A Case Study in Yili, Xinjiang, China

Since 2011, the State Grassland Ecological Compensation and Rewards(GECR) had implemented in 13 provinces (regions) in China. This policy controlled livestock carrying capacity on pasture and provided subsidies to pastoralists, aimed at reducing livestock number on grassland, increasing income of pastoralist households, and restoring degraded grassland ecosystem. Taking Nileke County of Xinjiang, China as a case study, this research evaluated the ecological, economic and social performance of GECR in agro-pastoral area. Using annual series data during 2006-2010 and 2011-2015, the change of grassland ecological condition, household living standard and labor population was compared between the two periods, and the influence of GECR were validated and detailed with semi-structured household interviews. The results showed that after 2011, livestock number in pastoral area decreased. In contract, the livestock in agricultural area showed large growth. Farmers’ livestock use pasture through grazing transaction, which means farmers paid herders to graze their livestock on the herder’s pasture. Widespread transactions between farmers and herders led to overgrazing on pasture and grassland degradation. GECR also had no significant contribution on improving household income and encouraging livelihood transition. The policy had no significant benefits in ecology, economy and society in case area. Based on the findings, we put forwards suggestions from three aspects: improving the design of the GECR policy, establishing performance evaluation system, strengthening the supervision and punishment of grassland overgrazing and improving local human capital quality .

WAVELET TRANSFORM FOR MEDIUM-RANGE STREAMFLOWS PROJECTIONS IN NATIONAL INTERCONNECTED SYSTEM

This work aims to analyze the variability of average annual streamflow time series of the SIN (Brazil) and create a projection model of future streamflow scenarios from 3 to 10 years using wavelet transform. The streamflow time series were used divided into two periods: 1931 to 2005 and 2006 to 2017, for calibration and verification, respectively. The annual series was standardized, and by the wavelet transform, it was decomposed into two bands plus the residue for each Base Posts (BP) for later reconstruction. Then an autoregressive model per band and residue was made. The projection was obtained by adding the autoregressive models. For performance evaluation, a qualitative analysis of the cumulative probability distribution of the projected years and the likelihood were made. The model identified the probability distribution function of the projected years and obtained likelihood greater than 1 in most of the SIN regions, indicating that this methodology can capture the medium-range variability.

Trends in pluviometric precipitation and climatic water balance in the hydrographic region of Paraguaçu – BA

Trend analysis of hydroclimatic data is essential in the development of water resources management, as it can envisage changes in the pattern of behaviour, helping develop strategies for adaptation in the face of imminent climate change. This study aimed to investigate possible annual and seasonal trends in rainfall and climatological water balance in the hydrographic region of Paraguaçu - BA. From the historical series of precipitation, deficiency and water surpluses, between 1989 and 2018, two analysis scenarios were conducted: the first to verify the annual and seasonal trends of each station, using the traditional Mann-Kendall (MK) methods and Sen’s estimator; and the second for each sub-region of Paraguaçu, by comparing MK with the Innovative Trend Analysis (ITA). The results of the annual series, regardless of the methodology adopted, point to negative trends in rainfall, positive trends in deficit and negative trends in water surplus. Seasonally, in the autumn and winter seasons, generally considered to be drought, there were more trends of increasing rainfall and decreasing water deficiency. A comparison between the MK and ITA models showed that both have similar results for indicating trends in the sub-regions of Paraguaçu. However, the ITA has shown a higher number of significant trends.

The Relationship Between The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and The Urucuia Aquifer System Recharge

This study investigates and detects links between the precipitation characteristics with meteorological systems and teleconnections around the Urucuia Aquifer System (UAS). Several studies show the influence of meteorological systems and teleconnections on the volume and intensity of precipitation in South America, mainly the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the El Niño South Oscillation (ENSO), and the Pacific Decadal Oscillations (PDO). Then, the precipitation series’ statistical characterization impacted the aquifer system’s recharge from 1973 to 2006. Monthly and annual series were analyzed and tested the correlation analysis with the indexes of the AMO, PDO, and ENSO. Finally, the series of maximum daily rainfall on the UAS was determined, and the 15 largest events were chosen to analyze the retroactive trajectories of air masses and thus try to estimate which atmospheric systems was acting and their origin. It concluded that the total annual precipitation data indicated a decreasing linear trend and that external climatic phenomena can influence precipitation characteristics. The correlation with the AMO index revealed a potential teleconectivity between climate circulation patterns with average annual precipitation over the UAS (p-value ≤ 0.03). Moreover, the analysing of precipitation trajectories observed a greater amount of specific humidity in the atmosphere during the AMO negative period concerning the AMO positive period. Also, the negative AMO phase’s trajectories had higher latitudes closer to the Intertropical Convergence Zone, as opposed to the positive AMO phase, where the trajectory altitudes were lower and closer to the Capricorn tropic.

7th World Multidisciplinary Earth Sciences Symposium - WMESS 2021

The current “IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (EES)” volume includes papers presented in the capital city of the Czech Republic, Prague for the 7th Anniversary of the “World Multidisciplinary Earth Sciences Symposium” from 6th September to 10th September 2021. The purpose of the WMESS 2021 is to give a place to converse and consider the current data, discoveries, and mechanics in various areas of Earth Sciences, to provide favourable circumstances for forthcoming cooperation. It is a stage for contributing information and skills in the areas of Earth Sciences, by arranging a conference for researchers at the beginning of their career and letting them present their findings and leave them space to discuss it with for the presentation of their work and discussion of their ideas with specialists in diverse fields of Earth Sciences. WMESS 2021 (www.mess-earth.org) is the 7th of the Annual series. The main aim of WMESS 2021 is to make work in multidisciplinary studies connected with Earth Sciences and to develop collaborations with researchers. WMESS 2021 arranged a conference for varying studies communicating the most recent findings and recording arising knowledge of connected systems and our place in them. We give our deep appreciation to the respected Scientific Committee and Institutional Scientific Partners of WMESS 2021. The Scientific Committee and Institutional Scientific Partners of WMESS 2021 were achieved by paying rigorous concentration, and all members were picked from acclaimed, highly valued, creative scientific communities representing countries from all around the world. List of Editors of WMESS 2021, Committee WMESS 2021 are available in this pdf.

Development of a Quality-Controlled and Homogenised Long-Term Daily Maximum and Minimum Air Temperature Network Dataset for Ireland

Accurate long-term daily maximum and minimum air temperature series are needed to assess the frequency, intensity, distribution, and duration of extreme climatic events. However, quality control and homogenisation procedures are required to minimise errors and inhomogeneities in climate series before the commencement of climate data analysis. A semi-automatic quality control procedure consisting of climate consistency, internal consistency, day-to-day step-change, and persistency tests was applied for 12 long-term series registered in Ireland from 1831–1968, Armagh Observatory (Northern Ireland) from 1844–2018, and for 21 short-term series dating to the mid-19th century. There were 976,786 observations quality-controlled, and 27,854 (2.9%) values flagged. Of the flagged records, 98.5% (n = 27,446) were validated, 1.4% (n = 380) corrected and 0.1% (n = 28) deleted. The historical long-term quality-controlled series were merged with the modern series quality-controlled by Met Éireann and homogenised using the software MASHv3.03 in combination with station metadata for 1885–2018. The series presented better homogenisation outcomes when homogenised as part of smaller regional networks rather than as a national network. The homogenisation of daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual series improved for all stations, and the homogenised records showed stronger correlations with the Central England long-term temperature series.

China’s Effect on World Energy–Growth Nexus: Spillovers Evidence from Financial Development and CO2 Emissions

This paper aims to extend the literature on the impacts of China’s policies on the world energy–growth nexus by analyzing the spillover effects of financial development and CO2 emissions. An autoregressive distributed lag approach was applied to annual series data from 1977 to 2016. Models for four world regions were developed, as well as a global model. The results reveal the traditional feedback hypothesis on the whole, both in the short- and long-run. Additionally, the results support that China’s CO2 emission and financial development promote world energy consumption. In regard to the four world regions, heterogeneous results were observed. Overall, China’s financial development and CO2 emissions also have heterogenous worldwide impacts with distinct magnitudes. Accordingly, no country should be indifferent to China’s policies, and independence should be promoted for Europe, Central Asia and Asia Pacific aggregates.

Simulation of Actual Evapotranspiration and Evaluation of Three Complementary Relationships in the Upper Regions of the Mekong River and the Salween River

Based on observed precipitation and runoff data, monthly actual evapotranspiration (ETa) was calculated by the hydrological budget balance method in the Nu River Basin (NRB) and Lancang River Basin (LCRB). The performance of three developed complementary relationship methods, the nonlinear advection-aridity (nonlinear AA) method, generalized complementary relationship method (B2015), and sigmoid generalized complementary function (H2018), on simulating (ETa) were evaluated. The evaluation results showed that three methods were able to accurately simulate monthly (ETa) series. The NSE between the monthly (ETa) simulated by the nonlinear AA, B2015, and H2018 methods and the water-balance-derived (ETa) were 0.89, 0.83, and 0.91, respectively. The R-square were 0.90, 0.84, and 0.93, respectively. Overall, the H2018 method showed the best performance. The parameter α had a negative correlation with regional aridity index. Annual (ETa) and precipitation showed significant increasing trends during 1956–2018 in the basins at all temporal scales (dry and wet seasons and annual series). Runoff also exhibited an increasing trend in each sub-basin, except for the downstream region of the LCRB. The increasing magnitudes of wet reason precipitation and runoff in the mid-stream region was the highest, with the value of 73.7 mm/10a and 44.9 mm/10a, respectively. The (ETa) increased dramatically in the downstream region, the magnitude reached 25.9 mm/10a. Precipitation was the main factor leasing to (ETa) change. The increasing magnitude of (ETa) accounted for 42.4% of the precipitation increment. Research on the influence mechanism between meteorological factors and (ETa) showed that the contribution rate of air temperature to (ETa) was the highest, reaching 23.5%, which showed a significant positive correlation. The second was wind speed, whose contribution rate was − 10.2% on average, and even reached − 14.1% in the upstream region of the NRB. The correlation coefficient between (ETa) and wind speed was highest in mid-stream region of the NRB, which was greater than 0.80. The contribution rates of increasing humidity to (ETa) were − 12.5% and − 9.2% in the NRB and LCRB, respectively. (ETa) was negatively correlated with humidity. The negative correlation was especially strong in the mid-stream region, with coefficients were greater than − 0.65. The sunshine hours had the least effect on (ETa), and the contribution rates were − 6.5% and − 4.1%, respectively.

Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume X

Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It also publishes work on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought. The core of the subject matter is philosophy and its history. But the volume’s chapters reflect the fact that philosophy in the early modern period was much broader in its scope than it is currently taken to be and included a great deal of what now belongs to the natural sciences. Furthermore, philosophy in the period was closely connected with other disciplines, such as theology, law and medicine, and with larger questions of social, political, and religious history. Volume 10 includes chapters dedicated to a wide set of topics in the philosophies of Thomas White, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume.

Price Stickiness in US-Corn Market: Evidence from Dsge-Var Simulation

This study examines price stickiness in the United States (US) corn market using annual series data, on the dollar price of corn per bushel, obtained from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis (FRED), between 1930 and 2017. The study implemented the Calvo price stick model based on an agent in a general equilibrium and New Keynesian type, simulated using DSGE-VAR. The approach permits the indexing formula to include expected corn inflation rather than lagged inflation. The results show that corn price inflation only persists by 2% every trading year, resulting from changes in the immediate future corn-price inflation and output-gap, respectively. The shock to stochastic term only causes a partial decline in the corn price, converging at a future date with its long-run equilibrium. The experiment confirmed that corn price fluctuations are beyond the purview of the domestic economy, and any attempt to impose price policies will offset the price setting, creating further distortions and a wider gap in the corn yield. The study provides fresh insight into the Calvo price stick model of the New Keynesian type and its use to forecast agricultural outcomes.