Life Cycle Assessment of Peach Nectar: a comparative analysis between conventional and bioenergy-from-waste integrated food chains

Modern food systems are characterized by a high energy intensity as well as by the production of large amounts of waste, residuals and food losses. This inefficiency presents major consequences, in terms of GHG emissions, waste disposal, and natural resource depletion. The research hypothesis is that residual biomass material could contribute to the energetic needs of food systems, if recovered as an integrated renewable energy source (RES), leading to a sensitive reduction of the impacts of food systems, primarily in terms of fossil fuel consumption and GHG emissions. In order to assess these effects, a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) has been conducted to compare two different food systems: a fossil fuel-based system and an integrated system with the use of residual as RES for self-consumption. The food product under analysis has been the peach nectar, from cultivation to end-of-life. The aim of this LCA is twofold. On one hand, it allows an evaluation of the energy inefficiencies related to agro-food waste. On the other hand, it illustrates how the integration of bioenergy into food systems could effectively contribute to reduce this inefficiency. Data about inputs and waste generated has been collected mainly through literature review and databases. Energy balance, GHG emissions (Global Warming Potential) and waste generation have been analyzed in order to identify the relative requirements and contribution of the different segments. An evaluation of the energy “loss” through the different categories of waste allowed to provide details about the consequences associated with its management and/or disposal. Results should provide an insight of the impacts associated with inefficiencies within food systems. The comparison provides a measure of the potential reuse of wasted biomass and the amount of energy recoverable, that could represent a first step for the formulation of specific policies on the integration of bioenergies for self-consumption.

New water use efficiency strategies to cope with climate change

Crop water requirements are important elements for food production, especially in arid and semiarid regions. These regions are experience increasing population growth and less water for agriculture, which amplifies the need for more efficient irrigation. Improved water use efficiency is needed to produce more food while conserving water as a limited natural resource. Evaporation (E) from bare soil and Transpiration (T) from plants is considered a critical part of the global water cycle and, in recent decades, climate change could lead to increased E and T. Because energy is required to break hydrogen bonds and vaporize water, water and energy balances are closely connected. The soil water balance is also linked with water vapour losses to evapotranspiration (ET) that are dependent mainly on energy balance at the Earth’s surface. This work addresses the role of evapotranspiration for water use efficiency by developing a mathematical model that improves the accuracy of crop evapotranspiration calculation; accounting for the effects of weather conditions, e.g., wind speed and humidity, on crop coefficients, which relates crop evapotranspiration to reference evapotranspiration. The ability to partition ET into Evaporation and Transpiration components will help irrigation managers to find ways to improve water use efficiency by decreasing the ratio of evaporation to transpiration. The developed crop coefficient model will improve both irrigation scheduling and water resources planning in response to future climate change, which can improve world food production and water use efficiency in agriculture.

Il patrimonio culturale per la dinamizzazione dell'economia territoriale: Il riconoscimento dell'indicazione geografica "Vale do Paraiba Fluminense" ad un caffè con identità culturale

Le Indicazioni Geografiche (IG) giocano un ruolo importante nella crescita economica e nello sviluppo territoriale rurale quando una determinata qualità di prodotto, reputazione o altra caratteristica del prodotto siano attribuibili essenzialmente alla sua origine geografica. In questa ricerca si è verificato la possibilità di valorizzare la regione del Brasile denominata Vale do Paraiba Fluminense, soprannominata “Vale do Café” e di mettere in luce le potenzialità del caffè come prodotto di qualità, sostenibile sotto il profilo ambientale e sociale: un vero e proprio patrimonio culturale che può rivelarsi una valida risorsa economica per il territorio. Nella prima fase dell'indagine è stata realizzata la ricerca a tavolino e sul campo fondata sulle fonti bibliografiche; nella seconda fase è stata applicata la Metodologia Partecipativa della FAO per identificare il collegamento dell’area di origine e del prodotto locale ed il suo potenziale di sviluppo con le risorse locali attraverso questionari on line. Nell’analisi qualitativa sono stati intervistati rappresentanti delle differenti categorie di stakeholder per arricchire il quadro sul contesto storico della regione. Infine, nella parte quantitativa sono stati applicati dei questionari ai consumatori di caffè del territorio. A conclusione della ricerca il territorio potrebbe reintrodurre un caffè storico, simbolo della ricchezza e decadenza di quella regione come elemento di potenziale economico locale, sfruttando la parte immateriale delle aziende agricole storiche, rilocalizzando il prodotto nella memoria locale, riavvicinando la popolazione alla sua storia e principalmente sensibilizzandola del valore del nome geografico “Vale do Paraiba Fluminense” o “Vale do Café” relazionata alla storia della regione, e del prodotto caffè che si propone rilanciare a favore del territorio, rilocalizzando il nome geografico.

An Innovation System Perspective on Adaptation Strategies to Climate Variability and Water Management in India

Government policies play a critical role in influencing market conditions, institutions and overall agricultural productivity. The thesis therefore looks into the history of agriculture development in India. Taking a political economy perspective, the historical account looks at significant institutional and technological innovations carried out in pre- independent and post independent India. It further focuses on the Green Revolution in Asia, as forty years after; the agricultural community still faces the task of addressing recurrent issue of food security amidst emerging challenges, such as climate change. It examines the Green Revolution that took place in India during the late 1960s and 70s in a historical perspective, identifying two factors of institutional change and political leadership. Climate change in agriculture development has become a major concern to farmers, researchers and policy makers alike. However, there is little knowledge on the farmers’ perception to climate change and to the extent they coincide with actual climatic data. Using a qualitative approach,it looks into the perceptions of the farmers in four villages in the states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. While exploring the adaptation strategies, the chapter looks into the dynamics of who can afford a particular technology and who cannot and what leads to a particular adaptation decision thus determining the adaptive capacity in water management. The final section looks into the devolution of authority for natural resource management to local user groups through the Water Users’ Associations as an important approach to overcome the long-standing challenges of centralized state bureaucracies in India. It addresses the knowledge gap of why some local user groups are able to overcome governance challenges such as elite capture, while others-that work under the design principles developed by Elinor Ostrom. It draws conclusions on how local leadership, can be promoted to facilitate participatory irrigation management.

Natural patterns and anthropogenic disturbance in north Adriatic marine benthic assemblages: descriptive and methodological studies

Marine soft bottom systems show a high variability across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Both natural and anthropogenic sources of disturbance act together in affecting benthic sedimentary characteristics and species distribution. The description of such spatial variability is required to understand the ecological processes behind them. However, in order to have a better estimate of spatial patterns, methods that take into account the complexity of the sedimentary system are required. This PhD thesis aims to give a significant contribution both in improving the methodological approaches to the study of biological variability in soft bottom habitats and in increasing the knowledge of the effect that different process (both natural and anthropogenic) could have on the benthic communities of a large area in the North Adriatic Sea. Beta diversity is a measure of the variability in species composition, and Whittaker’s index has become the most widely used measure of beta-diversity. However, application of the Whittaker index to soft bottom assemblages of the Adriatic Sea highlighted its sensitivity to rare species (species recorded in a single sample). This over-weighting of rare species induces biased estimates of the heterogeneity, thus it becomes difficult to compare assemblages containing a high proportion of rare species. In benthic communities, the unusual large number of rare species is frequently attributed to a combination of sampling errors and insufficient sampling effort. In order to reduce the influence of rare species on the measure of beta diversity, I have developed an alternative index based on simple probabilistic considerations. It turns out that this probability index is an ordinary Michaelis-Menten transformation of Whittaker's index but behaves more favourably when species heterogeneity increases. The suggested index therefore seems appropriate when comparing patterns of complexity in marine benthic assemblages. Although the new index makes an important contribution to the study of biodiversity in sedimentary environment, it remains to be seen which processes, and at what scales, influence benthic patterns. The ability to predict the effects of ecological phenomena on benthic fauna highly depends on both spatial and temporal scales of variation. Once defined, implicitly or explicitly, these scales influence the questions asked, the methodological approaches and the interpretation of results. Problem often arise when representative samples are not taken and results are over-generalized, as can happen when results from small-scale experiments are used for resource planning and management. Such issues, although globally recognized, are far from been resolved in the North Adriatic Sea. This area is potentially affected by both natural (e.g. river inflow, eutrophication) and anthropogenic (e.g. gas extraction, fish-trawling) sources of disturbance. Although few studies in this area aimed at understanding which of these processes mainly affect macrobenthos, these have been conducted at a small spatial scale, as they were designated to examine local changes in benthic communities or particular species. However, in order to better describe all the putative processes occurring in the entire area, a high sampling effort performed at a large spatial scale is required. The sedimentary environment of the western part of the Adriatic Sea was extensively studied in this thesis. I have described, in detail, spatial patterns both in terms of sedimentary characteristics and macrobenthic organisms and have suggested putative processes (natural or of human origin) that might affect the benthic environment of the entire area. In particular I have examined the effect of off shore gas platforms on benthic diversity and tested their effect over a background of natural spatial variability. The results obtained suggest that natural processes in the North Adriatic such as river outflow and euthrophication show an inter-annual variability that might have important consequences on benthic assemblages, affecting for example their spatial pattern moving away from the coast and along a North to South gradient. Depth-related factors, such as food supply, light, temperature and salinity play an important role in explaining large scale benthic spatial variability (i.e., affecting both the abundance patterns and beta diversity). Nonetheless, more locally, effects probably related to an organic enrichment or pollution from Po river input has been observed. All these processes, together with few human-induced sources of variability (e.g. fishing disturbance), have a higher effect on macrofauna distribution than any effect related to the presence of gas platforms. The main effect of gas platforms is restricted mainly to small spatial scales and related to a change in habitat complexity due to a natural dislodgement or structure cleaning of mussels that colonize their legs. The accumulation of mussels on the sediment reasonably affects benthic infauna composition. All the components of the study presented in this thesis highlight the need to carefully consider methodological aspects related to the study of sedimentary habitats. With particular regards to the North Adriatic Sea, a multi-scale analysis along natural and anthopogenic gradients was useful for detecting the influence of all the processes affecting the sedimentary environment. In the future, applying a similar approach may lead to an unambiguous assessment of the state of the benthic community in the North Adriatic Sea. Such assessment may be useful in understanding if any anthropogenic source of disturbance has a negative effect on the marine environment, and if so, planning sustainable strategies for a proper management of the affected area.