Knowledge coproduction on the impact of decisions for waterbird habitat in a changing climate

Scientists, resource managers, and decision makers increasingly use knowledge coproduction to guide the stewardship of future landscapes under climate change. This process was applied in the California Central Valley (USA) to solve complex conservation problems, where managed wetlands and croplands are flooded between fall and spring to support some of the largest concentrations of shorebirds and waterfowl in the world. We coproduced scenario narratives, spatially explicit flooded waterbird habitat models, data products, and new knowledge about climate adaptation potential. We documented our coproduction process, and using the coproduced models, we determined when and where management actions make a difference and when climate overrides these actions. The outcomes of this process provide lessons learned on how to cocreate usable information and how to increase climate adaptive capacity in a highly managed landscape. Actions to restore wetlands and prioritize their water supply created habitat outcomes resilient to climate change impacts particularly in March, when habitat was most limited; land protection combined with management can increase the ecosystem's resilience to climate change; and uptake and use of this information was influenced by the roles of different stakeholders, rapidly changing water policies, discrepancies in decision-making time frames, and immediate crises of extreme drought. Although a broad stakeholder group contributed knowledge to scenario narratives and model development, to coproduce usable information, data products were tailored to a small set of decision contexts, leading to fewer stakeholder participants over time. A boundary organization convened stakeholders across a large landscape, and early adopters helped build legitimacy. Yet, broadscale use of climate adaptation knowledge depends on state and local policies, engagement with decision makers that have legislative and budgetary authority, and the capacity to fit data products to specific decision needs.     

Assessing intervention effectiveness at promoting voluntary conservation practice adoption in agrienvironments

Although implementing conservation practices on private farms and forests can produce substantial environmental benefits, these practices are not being adopted widely enough to result in measurable improvements at regional scales. Researchers have investigated the production and program factors influencing producer choices to voluntarily adopt these practices. However, the findings of reviews are inconsistent, raising questions about review methods, including the omission of relevant variables. Further, applying lessons from past work to promote adoption is difficult because many reviews investigated dispositional or demographic variables that practitioners and policy makers cannot directly observe or influence. We conducted a new review of 146 empirical studies that tested the effects of different interventions (e.g., financial incentives, outreach events, and nudges) on increasing the likelihood of producers adopting conservation practices. We conducted a metaregression of quantitative studies from diverse disciplines that filtered studies by quality (i.e., use of randomization and clear analysis reporting). We synthesized these results with a thematic analysis of qualitative studies on producer perspectives about conservation practices. Financial incentives had the strongest evidence of increasing producers’ likelihood of adopting conservation practices (odds ratio 1.86, p < 0.05). However, this effect was only apparent after filtering by study quality, which also improved model fit and identified significant regional differences (odds ratio –1.69, p < 0.01). The thematic review of qualitative studies revealed that peer groups may be successful in reinforcing adoption behaviors due to homophily effects and that financial incentives not only offset implementation costs but also mitigated perceived risks of adoption. Given the problems we encountered in testing hypotheses about the magnitude of variability explained by intervention types and practice characteristics, we recommend additional experimental and longitudinal work that accounts for financial incentives and pairs qualitative and quantitative data to clarify relationships between program design and practice adoption rates.     

有机食品发展与生态省建设

分析论述了发展有机食品与生态省建设概念、理论、理念和建设指标的一致性关系,阐述了有机食品发展是生态省建设的重要内容,提出了在生态省建设中重视加强有机食品发展的具体措施.     

Are consumers willing to pay for conservation agriculture? The case of white maize in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Throughout the low-income world, agricultural producers have a motivation to slash-and-burn rainforests as they cannot afford inorganic fertilizers. Farmers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who are predominantly women, are often forced to walk long distances to cultivate more productive lands, when fertility near their villages is reduced. On their way and while working away from home, women become targets for rape. Adopting conservation agriculture (CA) could help mitigate deforestation and potentially create a safer environment for women. Limited knowledge about the benefits of CA across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has hindered its adoption. Taking these impediments into account, we estimate if consumers in the DRC are willing to pay (WTP) a premium for CA, using maize flour as the medium. By means of a double-bounded dichotomous choice valuation method, 600 consumers in Bukavu, DRC, were surveyed about their willingness-to-pay for CA-produced maize. Our study finds that only those consumers who identify themselves as farmers are WTP a premium. This study indicates that if CA adoption is to spread in the DRC, it will likely need to happen via increased yields or reduced costs before the farm gate and not premiums after the farm gate.     

低碳农业对农产品安全的影响研究

针对我国现代农业、农产品生产及安全的现状,深入分析高碳农业对农产品安全的危害,阐述低碳农业与农产品安全的关系,探讨低碳农业对农产品安全的保障机理,探索发展低碳农业、保障农产品安全实现的途径。通过对英国、美国以及国内有机农业实践的研究,指出保障农产品安全的关键因素是将农业的生态系统和经济系统结合起来,减少以化石燃料为基础的要素投入,提高农业系统生产力。该研究成果对加快转变农业发展模式,实现农业可持续发展,降低农产品的安全隐患具有一定的理论指导和实践参考价值。     

Is there a Kuznets curve for cropland use? The evidence from international panel data

The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis assumes the nonlinear relationship between production and its environmental effects, suggesting that the negative effect of production on the natural environment is reversed at higher levels of development. In contrast to the majority of the studies, this paper considers the possibility of non-linear effects of per capita output on agricultural land use (cropland), as one of the natural resource stocks, and additionally examines the influence of demographic and productivity variables on the agricultural land use. The study draws on panel data from 143 economies over the 1990–2019 period and employs a series of panel econometrics techniques (including panel unit root and cointegration tests, panel ordinary least squares, generalized method of moments, and panel quantile models). The results unequivocally indicate the inverted U-shaped relationship between the GDP per capita and cropland use, as per EKC hypothesis. The results are robust with respect to employing different techniques, the identified turning points correspond to low and low-middle-income levels, and the effects of agricultural productivity and population density on land use are respectively negative and positive.     

Agricultural Lakes in Finland: Current Water Quality and Trends

Agriculture is the largest source of nutrients into surface waters in Finland, and yet relatively little is known about the actual impact of the agricultural load on the state of lakes. We analysed the water quality data of 20 Finnish agricultural lakes and found that they had higher levels of nutrients, chlorophyll a and turbidity than did the other types of lakes (e.g. those receiving point-source load) in the national monitoring network (the Finnish Eurowaternet). Currently, six of the agricultural lakes can be classified as eutrophic and 14 as hypertrophic. Trend analysis (based on Kendall's tau-b) indicated that during 1976–2002 the water quality of the lakes either remained constant or showed signs of increasing eutrophication and elevated turbidity. Decreasing nutrient concentrations were found only in one intensively restored lake. In none of the lakes had the chlorophyll a concentration decreased. The results of the trend analysis are compatible with the recent finding that, despite vigorous efforts, the nutrient load from agriculture has not declined in Finland. Recovery of the most eutrophied agricultural lakes would call for a drastic reduction in the external nutrient load, possibly supplemented with in-lake restoration.     

Interactive effects of multiscale diversification practices on farmland bird stress

Farmland diversification practices (i.e., methods used to produce food sustainably by enhancing biodiversity in cropping systems) are sometimes considered beneficial to both agriculture and biodiversity, but most studies of these practices rely on species richness, diversity, or abundance as a proxy for habitat quality. Biodiversity assessments may miss early clues that populations are imperiled when species presence does not imply persistence. Physiological stress indicators may help identify low-quality habitats before population declines occur. We explored how avian stress indicators respond to on-farm management practices and surrounding seminatural area (1-km radius) across 21 California strawberry farms. We examined whether commonly used biodiversity metrics correlate with stress responses in wild birds. We used ∼1000 blood and feather samples and body mass and wing chord measurements, mostly from passerines, to test the effects of diversification practices on four physiological stress indicators: heterophil to lymphocyte ratios (H:L), body condition, hematocrit values, and feather growth rates of individual birds. We then tested the relationship between physiological stress indicators and species richness, abundance, occurrence, and diversity derived from 285 bird point count surveys. After accounting for other biological drivers, landscape context mediated the effect of local farm management on H:L and body condition. Local diversification practices were associated with reduced individual stress in intensive agricultural landscapes but increased it in landscapes surrounded by relatively more seminatural area. Feathers grew more slowly in landscapes dominated by strawberry production, suggesting that nutritional condition was lower here than in landscapes with more crop types and seminatural areas. We found scant evidence that species richness, abundance, occurrence, or diversity metrics were correlated with the individual's physiological stress, suggesting that reliance on these metrics may obscure the impacts of management on species persistence. Our findings underscore the importance of considering landscape context when designing local management strategies to promote wildlife conservation.     

黄土高原沟道农业系统与优化模式

黄土高原沟道农业是现代人地关系耦合发展的一种新兴农业地域类型，其可持续发展对于区域农业提质增效、乡村振兴和黄河流域高质量发展具有重大现实意义。本文基于人地系统科学原理阐述了沟道农业的概念内涵、科学认知、优化模式及其保障政策。结果表明：（1）沟道农业可持续性应遵从“要素—系统”到“结构—功能”，注重“沟坡水土保持、流域生态建设与区域乡村振兴”的多目标有机结合。同时，处理好宏观与微观效益的关系以及不同尺度的沟道水土构型、农田景观、农业系统的层次体系，深化贯通式研究，全面揭示沟道农业发展演变过程及其微观作用机理。（2）总结了沟道农业优化模式，搭建了不同模式的框架图，建议完善相关的技术与制度保障体系，以支撑实现区域乡村振兴和黄河流域高质量发展目标。（3）新时期黄土高原现代沟道农业高质量发展应立足于人地系统科学前沿，全面构建现代沟道农业系统理论与方法，深入探究优化沟道农业生产方式和创新经营管理模式的新途径。（4）基于要素流、产业链、流通网，面向SDGs目标和乡村振兴、粮食与生态安全，深入探究不同尺度沟道农业状态评估与情景模拟，服务支撑区域现代化建设决策。黄土高原沟道农业系统特征与优化模式研究，是推动农业地理学研究理论与方法创新，进而为黄土高原农业高质量发展提供科学依据的重要途径。