Payments for Ecosystem Services opportunities for emerging Nature-based Solutions: Integrating Indigenous perspectives from Australia

With recent growing interest and potential investment in nature-based solutions (NbS), a local, regional and global level understanding of what kinds of mechanisms or arrangements work effectively to deliver the required biodiversity and climate change outcomes is essential. This paper presents the status and opportunities for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) arrangements in Australia, with a focus on Indigenous peoples in northern Australia. We reviewed 62 studies related to the distribution and extent of the predominant PES schemes globally and nationally in Australia, including different ecosystems (e.g. forest, water, savannas, etc.), spatial scale (e.g. local, regional or global), types of payment methods used for ecosystem services (ES) transactions, types of ES providers and beneficiaries, funders, users, and contract arrangements and related challenges. Globally, 54% of the studies were supported by government investment, 17% by private–public, and only 29% by private investment. 80% of studies focused on forests as the most common ecosystem for PES, with 61% of the PES arrangements implemented at a local scale, 16% at a catchment scale and the rest (23%) at a national scale. In 33% of the studies, a single ES is the focus for the system, i.e. water quality or carbon sequestration; in 37% of studies a bundled approach was followed where typically > 1–2 services are included as a bundle; and in another 7% stacked ES were included. Within Australia, six main schemes were considered to be PES, i.e. Conservation Agreements, Water trading (buyback) in the Murray Darling Basin, Reef Credits, Carbon Farming, the Queensland Land Restoration Fund, and the Indigenous Protected Areas and Caring for Country programmes on Indigenous lands. About 90% these programmes are funded by the Australian Government, focusing on carbon or biodiversity outcomes, with little consideration of Indigenous values. From an Indigenous perspective, a bottom-up PES approach incorporating the social and cultural aspirations of Indigenous people is preferred. Traditional management with low transaction costs, combining both socio-economic and environmental attributes as verifiable measures, can yield conservation as well as positive socio-economic outcomes for Indigenous communities in Australia and elsewhere. Empowering local communities, recognising and supporting their skills and knowledge, ensuring equitable and just distribution of funds, sustainable and reliable co-designed incentives are essential for the success of these fast-emerging opportunities

Development and optimization of low power non-thermal plasma jet operational parameters for treating dyes and emerging contaminants

Emerging contaminants (ECs) have come out as the latest class of environmental contaminants, which are highly recalcitrant and toxic in nature. Currently, no suitable rectification methods are available against the ECs, resulting in a continuous increase in their concentration. Non-thermal plasma, as an advanced oxidation process, has been emerging as a promising technology against the ECs treatment. In the present work, a detailed experimental study is carried out to evaluate the efficacy of a non-thermal plasma jet with two dyes, Rhodamine B and Methylene Blue, as model contaminants. The plasma jet provided a complete dye decoloration in 30 min with an applied voltage of 6.5 kV. .OH, having the highest oxidation potential, acts as the main reactive species, which with direct action on contaminants also acts indirectly by getting converted into H2O2 and O3. Further, the effect of critical operational parameters viz., sample pH, applied voltage (4.5-6.5 kV), conductivity (5-20 mScm-1), and sample distance on plasma treatment efficacy was also examined. Out of all the assessed parameters, the applied voltage and sample conductivity was found to be the most significant operating parameter. A high voltage and low conductivity were found to favor the dye decoloration, while the pH effect was not that significant. To understand the influence of plasma discharge gas on treatment efficacy, all the experiments are conducted with Argon and Helium gases under the fixed geometrical configuration. Both the gases provided a similar dye decoloration efficiency. The DBD plasma system with complete dye removal also rendered maximum mineralization of 73 % for Rd. B, and 60 % for Met. Blue. Finally, the system's efficiency against the actual ECs (four pharmaceutical compounds, viz., metformin, atenolol, acetaminophen, and ranitidine) and microbial contaminant (Escherichia coli) was also tested.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figure

Social-ecological and institutional factors affecting forest and landscape restoration in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

Bangladesh government has recently pledged to restore 0.75 million ha of degraded forestland as part of its commitment to the Bonn Challenge, however little is known about the potential challenges and opportunities involved in achieving that goal. Using secondary literature complemented by expert consultation and a field survey, we examined the outcomes and limitations of previous restoration programmes and identified key social, ecological and institutional aspects crucial for a successful forest restoration programme in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. The CHT region accounts for over a third of state-owned forests, and it supports a large part of the country's forest-dwelling ethnic populations, although most of the forestland is severely degraded. Our analysis revealed that past programmes had utilised participatory tree planting, horticulture and rubber-based agroforestry to restore degraded forestland and improve community livelihood in the CHT. However, past restoration programmes merely emphasised improving tree cover without considering the ecological functionality, biodiversity and carbon co-benefits of restored forests. The duration of these pro-grammes was also relatively short, and there was no clear plan for engaging local communities in the restoration activities beyond the programme period. Among other things, the local ethnic community's land rights issue remained unresolved and the participant's land ownership influenced their willingness to participate effectively in any restoration programme. Households with secured land rights had a more positive attitude towards participating in forestland restoration than those with unsecured land rights. Suitable acts and policies that would allow people to legally continue to use tree-based land in the regions (i.e. forest and land tenure rights) are also lacking. Future forest and landscape restoration (FLR) programmes may thus need to focus on improving the biodiversity and ecological functionality of those restored forests, resolving local people's forest and land tenure rights and involving them in site-specific restoration interventions. The engagement of local and regional-level multi-stakeholders in such an FLR programme is also essential for realising the restoration's multiple social and ecological benefits

A test architecture design for SoCs using ATAM method

Test arranging is a basic issue in structure on-a-chip (S.O.C) experiment mechanization. Capable investigation designs constrain the general organization check request time, keep away from analysis reserve conflicts, in addition to purpose of restriction control disseminating in the midst of examination manner. In this broadsheet, we absent a fused method to manage a couple of test arranging issues. We first present a system to choose perfect timetables for sensibly evaluated SOC’s among need associations, i.e., plans that spare alluring orderings among tests. This furthermore acquaints a capable heuristic estimation with plan examinations designed for enormous S.O.Cs through need necessities in polynomial occasion. We portray a narrative figuring with the purpose of uses pre-emption of tests to secure capable date-books in favour of SOCs. Exploratory marks on behalf of an educational S-O-C plus a cutting edge SOC exhibit with the aim of capable investigation timetables be able to subsist gained in sensible CPU occasion

An Integrated Assessment of the Horticulture Sector in Northern Australia to Inform Future Development

The horticulture sector in northern Australia, covering north of Western Australia (WA), Northern Territory (NT), and north Queensland (QLD), contributes $1.6 billion/year to the Australian economy by supplying diverse food commodities to meet domestic and international demand. To date, the Australian Government has funded several studies on developing the north’s agriculture sector, but these primarily focused on land and water resources and omitted an integrated, on-ground feasibility analysis for including farmers’/growers’ perspectives. This study is the first of its kind in the north for offering a detailed integrated assessment, highlighting farmers’ perspectives on the current state of the north’s horticulture sector, and related challenges and opportunities. For this, we applied a bottom-up approach to inform future agriculture development in the region, involving a detailed literature review and conducting several focus group workshops with growers and experts from government organisations, growers’ associations, and regional development agencies. We identified several key local issues pertaining to crop production, availability of, and secure access to, land and water resources, and workforce and marketing arrangements (i.e., transport or processing facilities, export opportunities, biosecurity protocols, and the role of the retailers/supermarkets) that affect the economic viability and future expansion of the sector across the region. For example, the availability of the workforce (skilled and general) has been a challenge across the north since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Similarly, long-distance travel for farm produce due to a lack of processing and export facilities in the north restricts future farm developments. Any major investment should be aligned with growers’ interests. This research highlights the importance of understanding and incorporating local growers’ and researchers’ perspectives, applying a bottom-up approach, when planning policies and programs for future development, especially for the horticulture sector in northern Australia and other similar regions across the globe where policy makers’ perspectives may differ from farmers

Increased waterborne blaNDM-1 resistance gene abundances associated with seasonal human pilgrimages to the Upper Ganges River

Antibiotic resistance (AR) is often rooted in inappropriate antibiotic use, but poor water quality and inadequate sanitation exacerbate the problem, especially in emerging countries. An example is increasing multi-AR due to mobile carbapenemases, such as NDM-1 protein (coded by blaNDM-1 genes), which can produce extreme drug-resistant phenotypes. In 2010, NDM-1 positive isolates and blaNDM-1 genes were detected in surface waters across Delhi and have since been detected across the urban world. However, little is known about blaNDM-1 levels in more pristine locations, such as the headwaters of the Upper Ganges River. This area is of particular interest because it receives massive numbers of visitors during seasonal pilgrimages in May/June, including visitors from urban India. Here we quantified blaNDM-1 abundances, other AR genes (ARG) and coliform bacteria in sediments and water column samples from seven sites in the Rishikesh-Haridwar region of the Upper Ganges and five sites on the Yamuna River in Delhi to contrast blaNDM-1 levels and water quality conditions between season and region. Water quality in the Yamuna was very poor (e.g., anoxia at all sites), and blaNDM-1 abundances were high across sites in water (5.4 ± 0.4 log(blaNDM-1·mL-1); 95% confidence interval) and sediment (6.3 ± 0.7 log(blaNDM-1·mg-1)) samples from both seasons. In contrast, water column blaNDM-1 abundances were very low across all sites (2.1 ± 0.6 log(blaNDM-1·mL-1)) in February in the Upper Ganges and water quality was good (e.g., near saturation oxygen). However, per capita blaNDM-1 levels were 20 times greater in June in the Ganges water column relative to February and blaNDM-1 levels significantly correlated with fecal coliform levels (r=0.61; p=0.007). Given waste management infrastructure is limited in Rishikesh-Haridwar; data imply blaNDM-1 levels are higher in visitor's wastes than local residents, which results in seasonally higher blaNDM-1 levels in the river. Pilgrimage areas without adequate waste treatment are possible "hot spots" for AR transmission, and waste treatment must be improved to reduce broader AR dissemination via exposed returning visitors

Climate change effects on agriculture: Economic responses to biophysical shocks

Agricultural production is sensitive to weather and thus directly affected by climate change. Plausible estimates of these climate change impacts require combined use of climate, crop, and economic models. Results from previous studies vary substantially due to differences in models, scenarios, and data. This paper is part of a collective effort to systematically integrate these three types of models. We focus on the economic component of the assessment, investigating how nine global economic models of agriculture represent endogenous responses to seven standardized climate change scenarios produced by two climate and five crop models. These responses include adjustments in yields, area, consumption, and international trade. We apply biophysical shocks derived from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's representative concentration pathway with end-of-century radiative forcing of 8.5 W/m2. The mean biophysical yield effect with no incremental CO2 fertilization is a 17% reduction globally by 2050 relative to a scenario with unchanging climate. Endogenous economic responses reduce yield loss to 11%, increase area of major crops by 11%, and reduce consumption by 3%. Agricultural production, cropland area, trade, and prices show the greatest degree of variability in response to climate change, and consumption the lowest. The sources of these differences include model structure and specification; in particular, model assumptions about ease of land use conversion, intensification, and trade. This study identifies where models disagree on the relative responses to climate shocks and highlights research activities needed to improve the representation of agricultural adaptation responses to climate change