Soil organic carbon and molecular characterisation of soils and vegetation inputs along a Savannah-rainforest boundary in Central Guyana, South America

PhD ThesisAmazonian soils have been estimated to contain a globally substantial 66.9 Pg C within 1 m depth. Current uncertainty in model projections for future climate scenarios emphasises the need to better understand soil and vegetation carbon stocks which may become significant sources of CO2 and CH4. Contemporary data of bulk and molecular carbon stocks for full soil profiles and corresponding above ground inputs is needed to understand how these stocks may alter with climate change. The savannah-rainforest boundary is particularly sensitive to alteration in response to these local climatic changes and is thus a focal point of international research. The study site in Central Guyana, which lies within the north eastern Amazon, encompasses pristine and relatively unexplored savannah-rainforest boundary, providing an advantageous location for assessing both soil and vegetation carbon. Soil profiles classified as gleysols (FAO) under rainforest have the greatest soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks of those studied, and are 43% greater than previously published data for tropical regions (up to 1 m depth). Further, estimations of the full soil profile SOC stocks show a 94% increase compared to previous 1 m depth data. Although not inclusive of the whole boundary region, these SOC stocks emphasise the significance of local responses to more extreme weather conditions induced by climate change. Molecular surface SOC characteristics are site specific: likely influenced by local water table depth, mineralogy, vegetation inputs and microbial activity. However, measured environmental variables (pH and water content) show no relationship to molecular characteristics. Gleysols have the most degraded lignin and carbohydrates, indicating high inputs and a faster turnover than the bulk SOC. Drier savannah woodland plinthosols have the greatest amounts of lignin, tannin and carbohydrates, reflecting high inputs. Despite this, this soil has significantly lower SOC stocks than gleysols. If local weather patterns alter towards postulated longer and more intense dry seasons, rainforest die-back may occur. With savannah encroachment, the release of SOC stocks from the swamp forest and forest island gleysols is likely to occur. Phenol-rich soil organic matter may preside in developing areas of savannah woodland, but nevertheless a net decrease in SOC stocks is likely to result. The data collected here can be used to inform management policies and practices to help conserve and monitor the significant stocks of SOC in the swamp forests and forest island on these boundaries

Social Emotional Learning: A Multi-Tiered School Counseling Approach

The authors explore the importance of social and emotional learning (SEL) at the elementary school level. A review of the literature on the short term and long term benefits of SEL in schools and a description of the competencies of SEL programming: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making, is provided. The authors propose a three-tier comprehensive prevention and intervention model of SEL instruction, intervention, and progress monitoring that involves elementary school counselors, staff, parents, and community stakeholders to provide students with essential skills to be utilized throughout secondary and post-secondary education

How is 'the local' framed in UK system food debates? A review of mainstream and local food sector reports during the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic shook the UK’s food system, highlighting differences in long and short supply chains and their ability to respond and cope with disruption. Where long supply chains revealed weakness and suffered from the disruption, especially in the first few weeks of the pandemic, short supply chains stepped up to fill in these gaps and helped the vulnerable. Various reports were published during this time to highlight the relative strengths and weaknesses in supply chains and changes in consumer habits, including from the perspective of local food systems’ actors. The pandemic also coincided with the government’s release of the Agricultural Transition Plan 2021-2024, as well as the National Food Strategy. In this report, we review a selection of key documents (evidence papers, reports, manifestos and strategies) published during the pandemic (Spring 2020 - end of 2021) which examine local food chains and the UK food system, including analysis from non-governmental, government, science and industry organisations. We use these materials to assess how the UK’s local food sector was framed and understood during the first two years of the pandemic (impacts, responsiveness, adaptability, contribution to system resilience, etc.), and to understand what visions and recommendations were being proposed for the sector going forward. Due to differences in perspective and their approach to the food system and supply chains, we group the organisations who have published the reports into two main sets of actors: a ‘local food movement group’ and a ‘mainstream food system group’, the latter including policy, science and industry. Our analysis reveals that: • There is an evident split between those who call for an urgent strategy to create resilience where they posit the food system has failed, and others who claim an existing level of resilience that needs to be strengthened. • There are significant differences between the local food movement group and mainstream food system group in the way local food is framed, understood and imagined as a pathway for systemic food system resilience and security. • Central to this difference is how the two groups position local food in the wider UK food system. For the local food movement group, re-localising food supply chains should be a central part of an improved UK food system, a means to provide multi-benefit solutions (sustainable, fair, etc.), and build capacity for resilience. In contrast, the mainstream food system group focuses on how to support the current system, which it sees as largely resilient. The reports from this group emphasised tweaks (such as making better use of new technologies) to buffer the just-in-time system of supply chain organisation. • In terms of UK food system resilience for the future, and the place of local food within that food future, recommendations from local food movement bodies focused on supporting local food initiatives and short supply chains through funding, infrastructure and skills support. The pandemic was viewed as providing a test of local food resilience, and the initiatives in the main were viewed to have proved their resilient and adaptive capacity. This outcome, these reports concluded, should support further investment in distributed systems, and so is an opportunity to better fund and support the sector. • The mainstream food system group has a more circumspect approach to future resilience regarding local food, in which the focus is on public procurement and associated technology developments. These are posited as a key way to shorten food chains, in part framed as a market opportunity for smaller producers to access new markets via local authority anchor institutes. • The interests of the mainstream and local food groups align around public procurement, which featured prominently in local food movement reports as well as in the mainstream corpus, e.g. in Recommendation 13 of the National Food Strategy (The Plan). • There is no discussion of ‘local food’ in Defra’s Agricultural Transition Plan 2021-2024, and caution around the concept of ‘local’ in the National Food Strategy (Part 1), stemming from historical issues over limits to self-sufficiency

Making Socio-Ecological Art and Science Collaboration Work: A Guide

With global environmental challenges we are facing, such as the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, together with the role of ecosystems for human wellbeing, we can no longer rely on a singular disciplinary approach to address these challenges and the associated potential landscape change conflicts. In order to develop environmental strategies that encompass the social, economic and cultural, multi/ inter/trans-disciplinary approaches are required that seek inclusivity in sociocultural and intellectual terms. ‘The Arts’ is well placed to contribute to research and action that is inclusive and opens space for new imaginings and change. Artists and arts-based researchers have important knowledge and experiential contributions to make alongside those of natural and social scientists and the humanities. Research projects that include artists working alongside and in partnership with their natural and social science colleagues can build new perspectives and achieve a more holistic understanding of many socioecological issues. However, there is still a sense within the wider research community that bringing an arts perspective into applied research can be challenging, not least precisely because understanding what art is – and what art can contribute – is limited. This in turn leads to challenges when it comes to finding and commissioning artists. This guide to making socio-ecological art and science collaboration work sets out practical steps for finding and commissioning artists who have the appropriate skill sets and expertise. It has been written in response to the challenges and barriers faced by those not fully acquainted with art - its history, canons and current contemporary position - in commissioning artists to be a part of a research team. Arising through multiple conversations between researchers, artists and academics, the Guide aims to assist non-arts’ researchers incorporate arts based research and arts practice into multi and interdisciplinary research projects

SUREFARM- Towards SUstainable and REsilient EU FARMing systems

Modern agricultural systems develop in the face of changes at both a global and national level. While arable farming is a highly competitive and strategic sector of UK agriculture, it has to deal with and respond to a range of global challenges such as climate change and the imperative to reduce its carbon footprint, the price volatility of a globalised food system, extreme weather events, labour shortages and more recently the COVID-19 Pandemic. This summary focuses on a selected set of outputs from SURE-Farm and the work specifically undertaken by CCRI

SUREFARM- Towards SUstainable and REsilient EU FARMing systems

Modern agricultural systems develop in the face of changes at both a global and national level. While arable farming is a highly competitive and strategic sector of UK agriculture, it has to deal with and respond to a range of global challenges such as climate change and the imperative to reduce its carbon footprint, the price volatility of a globalised food system, extreme weather events, labour shortages and more recently the COVID-19 Pandemic. This summary focuses on a selected set of outputs from SURE-Farm and the work specifically undertaken by CCRI

Constrained Sustainability and Resilience of Agricultural Practices from Multiple Lock-In Factors and Possible Pathways to Tackle Them

5.2 Aim of This Chapter While other chapters focus more upon economic and production factors and their contribution to resilience, this chapter focuses on environmental sustainability and its inherent importance to resilience. Using Therond et al.’s farming system classification framework and the theory of lock-in in agricultural systems, we assess the environmental sustainability and therefore resilience of three case studies within Europe. We demonstrate how the challenges they face lock them in to their current systems, despite EU policies geared towards agrienvironment schemes. With multi-stakeholder input, we then show how tackling these lock-in factors can create more sustainable and resilient systems