Perceived stressors of climate vulnerability across scales in the Savannah zone of Ghana: a participatory approach

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with climatic and non-climatic stressors. Research attention has focused on climatic stressors, such as rainfall variability, with few empirical studies exploring non-climatic stressors and how these interact with climatic stressors at multiple scales to affect food security and livelihoods. This focus on climatic factors restricts understanding of the combinations of stressors that exacerbate the vulnerability of farming households and hampers the development of holistic climate change adaptation policies. This study addresses this particular research gap by adopting a multi-scale approach to understand how climatic and non-climatic stressors vary, and interact, across three spatial scales (household, community and district levels) to influence livelihood vulnerability of smallholder farming households in the Savannah zone of northern Ghana. This study across three case study villages utilises a series of participatory tools including semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The incidence, importance, severity and overall risk indices for stressors are calculated at the household, community, and district levels. Results show that climatic and non-climatic stressors were perceived differently; yet, there were a number of common stressors including lack of money, high cost of farm inputs, erratic rainfall, cattle destruction of crops, limited access to markets and lack of agricultural equipment that crossed all scales. Results indicate that the gender of respondents influenced the perception and severity assessment of stressors on rural livelihoods at the community level. Findings suggest a mismatch between local and district level priorities that have implications for policy and development of agricultural and related livelihoods in rural communities. Ghana’s climate change adaptation policies need to take a more holistic approach that integrates both climatic and non-climatic factors to ensure policy coherence between national climate adaptation plans and District development plans.     

The roles of nuclear energy,renewable energy,and economic growth in the abatement of carbon dioxide emissions in the G7 countries

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In the current century, the G7 countries have attached more importance to energy security, and have prioritized low-carbon sources which have...     

Soil C and N models that integrate microbial diversity

Industrial agriculture is yearly responsible for the loss of 55–100 Pg of historical soil carbon and 9.9 Tg of reactive nitrogen worldwide. Therefore, management practices should be adapted to preserve ecological processes and reduce inputs and environmental impacts. In particular, the management of soil organic matter (SOM) is a key factor influencing C and N cycles. Soil microorganisms play a central role in SOM dynamics. For instance, microbial diversity may explain up to 77 % of carbon mineralisation activities. However, soil microbial diversity is actually rarely taken into account in models of C and N dynamics. Here, we review the influence of microbial diversity on C and N dynamics, and the integration of microbial diversity in soil C and N models. We found that a gain of microbial richness and evenness enhances soil C and N dynamics on the average, though the improvement of C and N dynamics depends on the composition of microbial community. We reviewed 50 models integrating soil microbial diversity. More than 90 % of models integrate microbial diversity with discrete compartments representing conceptual functional groups (64 %) or identified taxonomic groups interacting in a food web (28 %). Half of the models have not been tested against an empirical dataset while the other half mainly consider fixed parameters. This is due to the difficulty to link taxonomic and functional diversity.     

Field scale evaluation of volatile organic compound production inside biosecure swine mortality composts

Emergency mortality composting associated with a disease outbreak has special requirements to reduce the risks of pathogen survival and disease transmission. The most important requirements are to cover mortalities with biosecure barriers and avoid turning compost piles until the pathogens are inactivated. Temperature is the most commonly used parameter for assessing success of a biosecure composting process, but a decline in compost core temperature does not necessarily signify completion of the degradation process. In this study, gas concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced inside biosecure swine mortality composting units filled with six different cover/plant materials were monitored to test the state and completion of the process. Among the 55 compounds identified, dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl trisulfide, and pyrimidine were found to be marker compounds of the process. Temperature at the end of eight weeks was not found as an indicator of swine carcass degradation. However, gas concentrations of the marker compounds at the end of eight weeks were found to be related to carcass degradation. The highest gas concentrations of the marker compounds were measured for the test units with the lowest degradation (highest respiration rates). Dimethyl disulfide was found to be the most robust marker compound as it was detected from all composting units in the eighth week of the trial. Concentration of dimethyl disulfide decreased from a range of 290–4340 ppmv to 6–160 ppbv. Dimethyl trisulfide concentrations decreased to a range of below detection limit to 430 ppbv while pyrimidine concentrations decreased to a range of below detection limit to 13 ppbv.     

Perceptions matter: household adaptive capacity and capability in two Australian coastal communities

Regional Environmental Change - This paper presents empirical data on household perceptions of capability to adapt to climate hazards and associated capacity needs. Households play an important...     

低剂量臭氧的直接通加对活性污泥的活性、微生物种群及污泥减量化的影响

研究构建了2个容积为1.1 L的好氧活性污泥反应器（即1号和2号反应器）1,号反应器每天直接通加低剂量臭氧（投加量为0.01 g O3/g TSS）,不加臭氧的2号反应器作为对照平行运行,均采用每天换一次人工污水的充/排式操作。运行71 d的结果表明2,个反应器对人工污水COD的处理效果基本相同。反应器运行40 d后1,号反应器的污泥浓度比2号反应器的污泥浓度低1 400～1 700 mg/L并可稳定在8 200 mg/L,污泥减量化效果明显。低剂量臭氧的直接通加明显降低了胞内ATP浓度,并影响了微生物的抗氧化活性,2号反应器的平均超氧化物歧化酶和过氧化氢酶酶活比1号反应器分别高了24.3%和9.5%。PCR-DGGE对两反应器微生物种群的分析结果表明：Uncultured gammaproteobacteria bacteri-um、Nannocystis exedens和Uncultured actinobacterium为1号反应器的主要种群;而2号反应器的主要种群为Uncultured bacte-rium和Uncultured gammaproteobacteria bacterium。     

NABat: A top-down,bottom-up solution to collaborative continental-scale monitoring

Collaborative monitoring over broad scales and levels of ecological organization can inform conservation efforts necessary to address the contemporary biodiversity crisis. An important challenge to collaborative monitoring is motivating local engagement with enough buy-in from stakeholders while providing adequate top-down direction for scientific rigor, quality control, and coordination. Collaborative monitoring must reconcile this inherent tension between top-down control and bottom-up engagement. Highly mobile and cryptic taxa, such as bats, present a particularly acute challenge. Given their scale of movement, complex life histories, and rapidly expanding threats, understanding population trends of bats requires coordinated broad-scale collaborative monitoring. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) reconciles top-down, bottom-up tension with a hierarchical master sample survey design, integrated data analysis, dynamic data curation, regional monitoring hubs, and knowledge delivery through web-based infrastructure. NABat supports collaborative monitoring across spatial and organizational scales and the full annual lifecycle of bats.