How can irrigated agriculture adapt to climate change? Insights from the Guadiana Basin in Spain

Climate change is already affecting many natural systems and human environments worldwide, like the semiarid Guadiana Basin in Spain. This paper illustrates a systematic analysis of climate change adaptation in the Guadiana irrigation farming region. The study applies a solution-oriented diagnostic framework structured along a series of sequential analytical steps. An initial stage integrates economic and hydrologic modeling to evaluate the effects of climate change on the agriculture and water sectors. Next, adaptation measures are identified and prioritized through a stakeholder-based multi-criteria analysis. Finally, a social network analysis identifies key actors and their relationships in climate change adaptation. The study shows that under a severe climate change scenario, water availability could be substantially decreased and drought occurrence will augment. In consequence, farmers will adapt their crops to a lesser amount of water and income gains will diminish, particularly for smallholder farms. Among the various adaptation measures considered, those related to private farming (new crop varieties and modern irrigation technologies) are ranked highest, whereas public-funded hard measures (reservoirs) are lowest and public soft measures (insurance) are ranked middle. In addition, stakeholders highlighted that the most relevant criteria for selecting adaptation plans are environmental protection, financial feasibility and employment creation. Nonetheless, the social network analysis evidenced the need to strengthen the links among the different stakeholder groups to facilitate the implementation of adaptation processes. In sum, the diagnostic framework applied in this research can be considered a valuable tool for guiding and supporting decision making in climate change adaptation and communicating scientific results.

Learning from the living bodies: New principles and techniques for photonic sensing

Signal processing in any living being is much more complex than the one performed in artificial systems. Cortex architecture, although only partly known, gives some useful ideas to be employed in sensing technology. To analyze some of these structures is the objective of this paper. Among the points to be analyzed are the parallel transfer of information, the similarity of the different systems and the massive amount of data analyzed by physical techniques. As an example of these concepts, the possibility to transmit images in a parallel way will be reported.

Facing the climate change challenges in the mining and mineral industry as providers of a sustainable manufacturing process

A sustainable manufacturing process must rely on an also sustainable raw materials and energy supply. This paper is intended to show the results of the studies developed on sustainable business models for the minerals industry as a fundamental previous part of a sustainable manufacturing process. As it has happened in other economic activities, the mining and minerals industry has come under tremendous pressure to improve its social, developmental, and environmental performance. Mining, refining, and the use and disposal of minerals have in some instances led to significant local environmental and social damage. Nowadays, like in other parts of the corporate world, companies are more routinely expected to perform to ever higher standards of behavior, going well beyond achieving the best rate of return for shareholders. They are also increasingly being asked to be more transparent and subject to third-party audit or review, especially in environmental aspects. In terms of environment, there are three inter-related areas where innovation and new business models can make the biggest difference: carbon, water and biodiversity. The focus in these three areas is for two reasons. First, the industrial and energetic minerals industry has significant footprints in each of these areas. Second, these three areas are where the potential environmental impacts go beyond local stakeholders and communities, and can even have global impacts, like in the case of carbon. So prioritizing efforts in these areas will ultimately be a strategic differentiator as the industry businesses continues to grow. Over the next forty years, world?s population is predicted to rise from 6.300 million to 9.500 million people. This will mean a huge demand of natural resources. Indeed, consumption rates are such that current demand for raw materials will probably soon exceed the planet?s capacity. As awareness of the actual situation grows, the public is demanding goods and services that are even more environmentally sustainable. This means that massive efforts are required to reduce the amount of materials we use, including freshwater, minerals and oil, biodiversity, and marine resources. It?s clear that business as usual is no longer possible. Today, companies face not only the economic fallout of the financial crisis; they face the substantial challenge of transitioning to a low-carbon economy that is constrained by dwindling natural resources easily accessible. Innovative business models offer pioneering companies an early start toward the future. They can signal to consumers how to make sustainable choices and provide reward for both the consumer and the shareholder. Climate change and carbon remain major risk discontinuities that we need to better understand and deal with. In the absence of a global carbon solution, the principal objective of any individual country should be to reduce its global carbon emissions by encouraging conservation. The mineral industry internal response is to continue to focus on reducing the energy intensity of our existing operations through energy efficiency and the progressive introduction of new technology. Planning of the new projects must ensure that their energy footprint is minimal from the start. These actions will increase the long term resilience of the business to uncertain energy and carbon markets. This focus, combined with a strong demand for skills in this strategic area for the future requires an appropriate change in initial and continuing training of engineers and technicians and their awareness of the issue of eco-design. It will also need the development of measurement tools for consistent comparisons between companies and the assessments integration of the carbon footprint of mining equipments and services in a comprehensive impact study on the sustainable development of the Economy.

Lesson from the habitat suitability models to evaluate the environmental of Pinus nigra Arnold and Pinus sylvesris L. in the Iberian Peninsula

PREDICT POTENTIAL DISTRIBUTION. Spatial and temporal evolution of the species under different climate scenarios. Generation of habitat suitability models (HSM)  high degree of uncertainty and limitations. The importance of their validation has been stressed. In this work we discuss the present potential distribution of P. sylvestris and P. nigra in the Iberian Peninsula by using MaxEnt, and evaluate the influence of the different environmental variables. Our intention is to select a set of environmental variables that explains better their current distribution, to achieve the most accurate and reliable models. Then we project them to the past climatic conditions (21 to 0 kyrs BP), to evaluate the outputs with existing palaeo-ecological data.

Analyzing climate change adaptation in the agriculture and water sectors: screening risks and opportunities.

As part of the Mediterranean area, the Guadiana basin in Spain is particularly exposed to increasing water stress due to climate change. Future warmer and drier climate will have negative implications for the sustainability of water resources and irrigation agriculture, the main socio- economic sector in the region. This paper illustrates a systematic analysis of climate change impacts and adaptation in the Guadiana basin based on a two-stage modeling approach. First, an integrated hydro-economic modeling framework was used to simulate the potential effects of regional climate change scenarios for the period 2000-2069. Second, a participatory multi-criteria technique, namely the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), was applied to rank potential adaptation measures based on agreed criteria. Results show that, in the middle-long run and under severe climate change, reduced water availability, lower crop yields and increased irrigation demands might lead to water shortages, crop failure, and up to ten percent of income losses to irrigators. AHP results show how private farming adaptation measures, including improving irrigation efficiency and adjusting crop varieties, are preferred to public adaptation measures, such as building new dams. The integrated quantitative and qualitative methodology used in this research can be considered a socially-based valuable tool to support adaptation decision-making.

Impacts of global change on iberian forest ecosystems inferred from the spanish national forest inventory = Impactos del cambio global en ecosistemas forestales ibéricos a partir del inventario forestal nacional

Los efectos del cambio global sobre los bosques son una de las grandes preocupaciones de la sociedad del siglo XXI. Algunas de sus posibles consecuencias como son los efectos en la producción, la sostenibilidad, la pérdida de biodiversidad o cambios en la distribución y ensamblaje de especies forestales pueden tener grandes repercusiones sociales, ecológicas y económicas. La detección y seguimiento de estos efectos constituyen uno de los retos a los que se enfrentan en la actualidad científicos y gestores forestales. En base a la comparación de series históricas del Inventario Forestal Nacional Español (IFN), esta tesis trata de arrojar luz sobre algunos de los impactos que los cambios socioeconómicos y ambientales de las últimas décadas han generado sobre nuestros bosques. En primer lugar, esta tesis presenta una innovadora metodología con base geoestadística que permite la comparación de diferentes ciclos de inventario sin importar los diferentes métodos de muestreo empleados en cada uno de ellos (Capítulo 3). Esta metodología permite analizar cambios en la dinámica y distribución espacial de especies forestales en diferentes gradientes geográficos. Mediante su aplicación, se constatarán y cuantificarán algunas de las primeras evidencias de cambio en la distribución altitudinal y latitudinal de diferentes especies forestales ibéricas, que junto al estudio de su dinámica poblacional y tasas demográficas, ayudarán a testar algunas hipótesis biogeográficas en un escenario de cambio global en zonas de especial vulnerabilidad (Capítulos 3, 4 y 5). Por último, mediante la comparación de ciclos de parcelas permanentes del IFN se ahondará en el conocimiento de la evolución en las últimas décadas de especies invasoras en los ecosistemas forestales del cuadrante noroccidental ibérico, uno de los más afectados por la invasión de esta flora (Capítulo 6). ABSTRACT The effects of global change on forests are one of the major concerns of the XXI century. Some of the potential impacts of global change on forest growth, productivity, biodiversity or changes in species assembly and spatial distribution may have great ecological and economic consequences. The detection and monitoring of these effects are some of the major challenges that scientists and forest managers face nowadays. Based on the comparison of historical series of the Spanish National Forest Inventory (NFI), this thesis tries to shed some light on some of the impacts driven by recent socio-economic and environmental changes on our forest ecosystems. Firstly, this thesis presents an innovative methodology based on geostatistical techniques that allows the comparison of different NFI cycles regardless of the different sampling methods used in each of them (Chapter 3). This methodology, in conjunction with other statistical techniques, allows to analyze changes in the spatial distribution and population dynamics of forest species along different geographic gradients. By its application, this thesis presents some of the first evidences of changes in species distribution along different geographical gradients in the Iberian Peninsula. The analysis of these findings, of species population dynamics and demographic rates will help to test some biogeographical hypothesis on forests under climate change scenarios in areas of particular vulnerability (Chapters 3, 4 and 5). Finally, by comparing NFI cycles with permanent plots, this thesis increases our knowledge about the patterns and processes associated with the recent evolution of invasive species in the forest ecosystems of North-western Iberia, one of the areas most affected by the invasion of allien species at national scale (Chapter 6).