关键词： Adaptation   Vulnerability   Amu Darya   Integrated indicators   Sensitivity   Sustainability   Irrigated agriculture  

摘要： Agriculture is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. The current vulnerability assessments through traditional fragmented sectoral methods are insufficient to capture the effects on complex agricultural systems. Therefore, the traditional methods need to be replaced by integrated approaches. The objective of this study is to propose a holistic vulnerability assessment method for agricultural systems. By aggregating both agro-ecological and socio-economic information, we develop an agricultural systems vulnerability index (ASVI) which allows for (i) a classification of geographical units according to their vulnerability level, (ii) an identification of key determinants of vulnerability for each unit and (iii) an assessment of adaptation policy scenarios considering their effects on the sustainability of the analysed systems. The proposed method is applied in the Khorezm region of Uzbekistan-a representative irrigated agricultural region in the lower Amu Darya river basin. A decision support tool is used to facilitate multi-criteria decision analysis, including the computation of the index and performing sensitivity analysis of the results. The assessment for Khorezm reveals significant spatial differences of vulnerability levels due to a variation of contributing factors, e.g. natural resources, water productivity, rural-urban ratio. It reveals also that feasible land and water management policies could reduce the vulnerability in Khorezm, particularly in the districts with the poorest agro-ecological conditions. Overall, the proposed method could support national and local authorities in the identification of sustainable adaptation policies for the agriculture sector.

关键词： Adoption   Adaptation   Agro-pastoralists   Borena   Adaptive capacity   Institutions  

摘要： Livestock production is very risky due to climate variability in semi-arid Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data collected from 400 households in the Borena zone of the Oromia Region, we explored what drives adoption of agricultural practices that can decrease the vulnerability of agro-pastoralists to climate change. Households with more adaptive capacity adopted a larger number of practices. The households' adaptive capacity was stronger when the quality of local institutions was high. However, adaptive capacity had less explanatory power in explaining adoption of adaptation options than household socio-economic characteristics, suggesting that aggregating information into one indicator of adaptive capacity for site-specific studies may not help to explain the adoption behaviour of households. Strong local institutions lead to changes in key household-level characteristics (like membership to community groups, years lived in a village, access to credit, financial savings and crop income) which positively affect adoption of agricultural practices. In addition, better local institutions were also positively related to adoption of livestock-related adaptation practices. Poor access to a tarmac road was positively related to intensification and diversification of crop production, whereas it was negatively related to the intensification of livestock production, an important activity for generating cash in the region. Our findings suggest that better local institutions lead to changes in household characteristics, which positively affect adoption of adaptation practices, suggesting that policies should aim to strengthen local institutions.

关键词： representative concentration pathways   non-point source pollution   sediment   total nitrogen   total phosphorus   SWAT  

摘要： Changes in non-point source pollutant loads in the Mankyeong River Basin for the 30-year future period (2011-2040) were assessed with consideration of the uncertainties in the climate change scenario data. The downscaled weather variables from eleven Climate Models for the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 8.5 scenario were used as input to the calibrated and validated Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for simulating the changes of future NPS pollutant loads. The bias-corrected data appropriately reproduced the spatial and temporal patterns of the NPS pollutant load, which was derived by using observed weather data. The rates of change in sediment, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) loads within each sub-basin under the RCP8.5 future scenario showed an average increase of 13.1 to 143%, -13.4 to 49.5%, and 0.40 to 128%, respectively. It can be concluded that sediment and TP loads are sensitive to changes in the characteristics of climate variables by showing an increase trend in most of the sub-basins. Looking at the temporal distribution, the uncertainty ranges for both sediment and TP were higher during the wet season from June to September. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

关键词： RCPs   reservoir   drought   climate change   uncertainty   reproducibility  

摘要： This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of climate change on agricultural drought on 104 agricultural reservoirs in Korea. The bias corrected data appropriately reproduced the temporal trends of inflow from upstream river basins, irrigation water demand from paddy areas and reservoir storage level. When eleven climate model data were applied to a representative reservoir, inflow by individual models had a range of -11.5 to 11.1%, compared to the multi-model ensembles mean value. Water demand also showed a similar trend to the inflow, had a range of -11.0 to 10.0%, while storage level had a narrow range of -3.9 to 2.1%. When 104 reservoirs were considered, inflow in the future period (2011 similar to 2040) increased by 7.8 and 9.3% for the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, respectively, mainly due to the increase in precipitation. Similarly, irrigation water demand increased by 2.3 and 1.6% for RCP4.5 and 8.5, respectively, due to the increase in temperature. As a result, the water storage level increased by 0.7 and 0.5% for RCP4.5 and 8.5, respectively. However, despite the increase in average reservoir storage level, the frequency of the number of droughts more severe than 10year frequency drought increased. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

关键词： 联合国粮农组织   农业状况   气候变化   呼吁   粮食系统   可持续发展   小农经济   饥饿  

摘要： 联合国粮农组织日前发布《2016年粮食及农业状况》报告呼吁，农业必须努力克服气候变化的影响，帮助小农经济和粮食系统可持续发展。粮农组织在报告中指出，为了消除饥饿和贫困，农业和粮食系统必须快速转型，否则遭受饥饿威胁的人口可能再增数百万。

关键词： 水资源   气候变化   农业影响   解决策略  

摘要： 该文利用蒸发、降水、气温三个对农业水资源影响较大的气象因素进行分析,得出降水减少、蒸发量增加以及气温升高是影响农业水资源浓度重要因素,为此,针对性的提出若干应对策略,确保水资源的可持续利用。

关键词： Sustainability   Water use   Soybean production   Deforestation   Land use change  

摘要： Agricultural expansion and intensification are main drivers of land-use change in Brazil. Soybean is the major crop under expansion in the area. Soybean production involves large amounts of water and fertiliser that act as sources of contamination with potentially negative impacts on adjacent water bodies. These impacts might be intensified by projected climate change in tropical areas. A Water Footprint Assessment (WFA) serves as a tool to assess environmental impacts of water and fertiliser use. The aim of this study was to understand potential impacts on environmental sustainability of agricultural intensification close to a protected forest area of the Amazon under climate change. We carried out a WFA to calculate the water footprint (WF) related to soybean production, Glycine max, to understand the sustainability of the WF in the Tapajos river basin, a region in the Brazilian Amazon with large expansion and intensification of soybean. Based on global datasets, environmental hotspots potentially unsustainable WF areas were identified and spatially plotted in both baseline scenario (2010) and projection into 2050 through the use of a land-use change scenario that includes climate change effects. Results show green and grey WF values in 2050 increased by 304%, and 268%, respectively. More than one-third of the watersheds doubled their grey WF in 2050. Soybean production in 2010 lies within sustainability I imits. However, current soybean expansion and intensification trends lead to large impacts in relation to water pollution and water use, affecting protected areas. Areas not impacted in terms of water pollution dropped by 20.6% in 2050 for the whole catchment, while unsustainability increased 8.1%. Management practices such as water consumption regulations to stimulate efficient water use, reduction of crop water use and evapotranspiration, and optimal fertiliser application control could be key factors in achieving sustainability wiLhin a river basin. (C) 2016

关键词： Agriculture   Climate change   Interdisciplinary collaboration   Co-authorship networks   EU research policy   Collaborative funding initiatives   Knowledge hub  

摘要： In order to maintain food security and sustainability of production under climate change, interdisciplinary and international collaboration in research is essential. In the EU, knowledge hubs are important funding instruments for the development of an interconnected European Research Area. Here, network analysis was used to assess whether the pilot knowledge hub MACSUR has affected interdisciplinary collaboration, using co-authorship of peer reviewed articles as a measure of collaboration. The broad community of all authors identified as active in the field of agriculture and climate change was increasingly well connected over the period studied. Between knowledge hub members, changes in network parameters suggest an increase in collaborative interaction beyond that expected due to network growth, and greater than that found in the broader community. Given that interdisciplinary networks often take several years to have an impact on research outputs, these changes within the relatively new MACSUR community provide evidence that the knowledge hub structure has been effective in stimulating collaboration. However, analysis showed that knowledge hub partners were initially well-connected, suggesting that the initiative may have gathered together researchers with particular resources or inclinations towards collaborative working. Long term, consistent funding and ongoing reflection to improve networking structures may be necessary to sustain the early positive signs from MACSUR, to extend its success to a wider community of researchers, or to repeat it in less connected fields of science. Tackling complex challenges such as climate change will require research structures that can effectively support and utilise the diversity of talents beyond the already well-connected core of scientists at major research institutes. But network research shows that this core, well-connected group are vital brokers in achieving wider integration.