Search results for " climate change."
showing 10 items of 164 documents
Old World Megadroughts and Pluvials During the Common Era
2015
An atlas of megadroughts in Europe and in the Mediterranean Basin during the Common Era provides insights into climate variability.
Ocean acidification through the lens of ecological theory
2015
© 2015 by the Ecological Society of America. Ocean acidification, chemical changes to the carbonate system of seawater, is emerging as a key environmental challenge accompanying global warming and other humaninduced perturbations. Considerable research seeks to define the scope and character of potential outcomes from this phenomenon, but a crucial impediment persists. Ecological theory, despite its power and utility, has been only peripherally applied to the problem. Here we sketch in broad strokes several areas where fundamental principles of ecology have the capacity to generate insight into ocean acidification's consequences. We focus on conceptual models that, when considered in the co…
Soil microbial biomass and bacterial diversity in southern European regions vulnerable to desertification
2022
Abstract Soil functionality is strongly dependent on the soil microbiota, which in turn is affected by soil quality and climate. Among global change factors, desertification is the most threatening ecosystem change affecting southern Europe, but the effects on the soil microbiota are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated soil microbial biomass and bacterial diversity in regions of southern European countries (Spain, Portugal and Italy), most under desertification risk, and related to key soil chemical-physical indicators and land use. Soil microbial biomass was positively related, to soil organic carbon (SOC) but bacterial diversity was negatively correlated with it. pH was the mo…
The Spanish Turn against Renewable Energy Development
2018
[EN] In this study, we focus on the case of Spanish energy policy and its implications for sustainable energy development. In recent years, Spanish legislation has changed dramatically in its approach to sustainable energy sources. This change is despite EU and international efforts to increase energy efficiency, and to accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources (RES) in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Based on the socio-technical transitions literature, this paper assesses the role of the new legislation in this altered scenario, and analyzes the evolution of energy production in Spain in the EU context. The results are triangulated with two expert assessments. We find…
Adapting to High Temperatures: Effect of Farm Practices and Their Adoption Duration on Total Value of Crop Production in Uganda
2021
In this article, we use spatially granular climate data merged with four waves of household survey data in Uganda to examine empirically the relationships among high temperatures, total value of crop production, and the adoption and adoption duration of two sustainable agricultural practices (organic fertilizer adoption and maize–legume intercropping). We do this using a fixed-effect model with instrumental variables to address potential endogeneity issues. Our findings indicate that the adoption of these practices has a positive effect on the total value of crop production, and such effect increases monotonically as temperatures increase from long-term averages. Moreover, the number of yea…
Knowing is half the battle: Seasonal forecasts, adaptive cropping systems, and the mediating role of private markets in Zambia
2019
Abstract This paper examines how smallholders living in regions where a drought is forecasted adapt their farm practices in response to receiving seasonal forecast information. The article draws on a unique longitudinal dataset in Zambia, which collected information from farm households before and after a significant drought caused by the 2015/2016 El-Nino Southern Oscillation. It finds that farmers residing in areas forecasted to be drought-affected and receiving seasonal forecast information are significantly more likely to integrate drought tolerant crops into their cropping systems compared to similar households not receiving this information. Moreover, the probability that a farmer imp…
The Climatic Challenge to Global Justice
2014
How should we think of justice when the evil we can do to one another is not visible nor immediate, but rather impalpable and causally, spatially and temporally dispersed? What does justice demand, when our actions and institutions do not directly sabotage the life prospects of others but rather do so derivatively, by sabotaging the very eco-systems in which such lives are or will be lived? In a globalized, resource-depleted, overpopulated, rapidly changing, ecologically deteriorating world, what is owed to the billions of spatiotemporally distant people who are paying or shall pay the costs of the last 200 years of heavy industry, globalized trade and enthusiastic economic growth? And is t…
The potential of multilayer green roofs for stormwater management in urban area under semi-arid Mediterranean climate conditions
2022
Different low impact development measures have been proposed to make cities more flood-resilient, and recent literature is paying great attention to the evaluation of their direct benefits in terms of flood risk mitigation and the numerous co-benefits that they may offer. This study describes an experimental prototype of a technologically advanced multilayer green roof installed in a Mediterranean urban area (i.e., Palermo, Italy) and explores the results of an analysis of data collected over a one-year monitoring period by a complex sensors network. Multilayer green roofs, or "blue-green" roofs (BGRs), are characterized by a high water retention capacity compared to traditional green roofs…
Challenges in EU External Climate Change Policy-Making in the Early Post-Lisbon Era: The UNFCCC Copenhagen Negotiations
2011
The 15th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting held in Copenhagen from 7 to 18 December 2009, which took place one week after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009, has brought about rather disappointing outcomes from the perspective of the European Union (EU), which had previously displayed substantial leadership within the UN climate regime. Contrary to the EU’s objectives for the COP15 meeting, no legally binding agreement was reached to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after 2012 and the final Copenhagen Accord contained disappointingly few ambitious targets. This chapter tries to explain how this resul…