6ª Revisión de la Ordenación del Monte Nº 54 del C.U.P. Propiedad del Ayuntamiento de San Miguel del Arroyo (Valladolid)

El contenido del proyecto trata de la 6ª Revisión de la Ordenación del monte Nº 54 del C.U.P.”, denominado “El Negral”, Propiedad del Ayuntamiento de San Miguel del Arroyo, provincia de Valladolid. Este monte tiene una extensión de unas 668 ha. y está compuesto por Pinus pinaster, como especie principal, y por Pinus pinea, como especie secundaria. En este proyecto el inventario está basado en tecnología LiDAR.Grado en Ingeniería Forestal y del Medio Natura

Perspectives on climate change and human development in the Mediterranean agriculture

The Mediterranean region is one of the world's climate change hotspots. Future climate projections envisage dramatic implications for the agricultural and water sectors that will endanger economic development and lead to natural resources degradation and social instability

Integrated economic-hydrologic analysis of policy responses

Water is a vital resource, but also a critical limiting factor for economic and social development in many parts of the world. The recent rapid growth in human population and water use for social and economic development is increasing the pressure on water resources and the environment, as well as leading to growing conflicts among competing water use sectors (agriculture, urban, tourism, industry) and regions (Gleick et al., 2009; World Bank, 2006). In Spain, as in many other arid and semi-arid regions affected by drought and wide climate variability, irrigated agriculture is responsible for most consumptive water use and plays an important role in sustaining rural livelihoods (Varela-Ortega, 2007). Historically, the evolution of irrigation has been based on publicly-funded irrigation development plans that promoted economic growth and improved the socio-economic conditions of rural farmers in agrarian Spain, but increased environmental damage and led to excessive and inefficient exploitation of water resources (Garrido and Llamas, 2010; Varela-Ortega et al., 2010). Currently, water policies in Spain focus on rehabilitating and improving the efficiency of irrigation systems, and are moving from technocratic towards integrated water management strategies driven by the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD)

Integrated assessment of policy interventions for promoting sustainable irrigation in semi-arid environments: A hydro-economic modeling approach

Sustaining irrigated agriculture to meet food production needs while maintaining aquatic ecosystems is at the heart of many policy debates in various parts of the world, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. Researchers and practitioners are increasingly calling for integrated approaches, and policy-makers are progressively supporting the inclusion of ecological and social aspects in water management programs. This paper contributes to this policy debate by providing an integrated economic-hydrologic modeling framework that captures the socio-economic and environmental effects of various policy initiatives and climate variability. This modeling integration includes a risk-based economic optimization model and a hydrologic water management simulation model that have been specified for the Middle Guadiana basin, a vulnerable drought-prone agro-ecological area with highly regulated river systems in southwest Spain. Namely, two key water policy interventions were investigated: the implementation of minimum environmental flows (supported by the European Water Framework Directive, EU WFD), and a reduction in the legal amount of water delivered for irrigation (planned measure included in the new Guadiana River Basin Management Plan, GRBMP, still under discussion). Results indicate that current patterns of excessive water use for irrigation in the basin may put environmental flow demands at risk, jeopardizing the WFD s goal of restoring the ?good ecological status? of water bodies by 2015. Conflicts between environmental and agricultural water uses will be stressed during prolonged dry episodes, and particularly in summer low-flow periods, when there is an important increase of crop irrigation water requirements. Securing minimum stream flows would entail a substantial reduction in irrigation water use for rice cultivation, which might affect the profitability and economic viability of small rice-growing farms located upstream in the river. The new GRBMP could contribute to balance competing water demands in the basin and to increase economic water productivity, but might not be sufficient to ensure the provision of environmental flows as required by the WFD. A thoroughly revision of the basin s water use concession system for irrigation seems to be needed in order to bring the GRBMP in line with the WFD objectives. Furthermore, the study illustrates that social, economic, institutional, and technological factors, in addition to bio-physical conditions, are important issues to be considered for designing and developing water management strategies. The research initiative presented in this paper demonstrates that hydro-economic models can explicitly integrate all these issues, constituting a valuable tool that could assist policy makers for implementing sustainable irrigation policies

MADFORWATER. Decision Support Tool for wastewater management and for water & land management in agriculture

Here are provided the user guide and the code for a Decision Support Tool (DST) relative to wastewater management and water & land management in agriculture, developed in the MADFORWATER project. The DST is an integrated agro-economic model developed in Tasks 3.3 and 5.3, aimed at integrating water reuse and irrigation technologies with economic instruments into basin-scale strategies to enhance the use of treated wastewater. The hydro-agro-economic DST consists of statements that define the data first, followed by the model and the solution statements. The DST is contained in a computer code constructed with the text editor GAMS IDE. The file has the file extension .gsm and can be read using any text editor. To run the DST, it is necessary to install the GAMS IDE software. The code has been written in order to be usable also with the demo license of GAMS, that can be freely obtained at the following link: https://www.gams.com/download/. At the same link, it is possible to freely download the GAMS software, for Windows, Linux or MAC operating systems. An extremely wide documentation on the use of GAMS, including a relevant library of GAMS codes, is available at this link: https://www.gams.com/31/docs/

Analysing trade-offs between food production and ecosystem services in tropical forests of lowland Bolivia

The expansion of agricultural land is responsible for most tropical deforestation. Historically, smallholder farming and shifting cultivation has been reported as the main agent of deforestation. However, the increasing global demand for food in recent years has greatly boosted the development of medium and large-scale commercial agriculture which is nowadays causing the majority of tropical forest cover loss, particularly in Latin America

A methodological approach for prioritizing water reuse projects in agricultural irrigation: a case study in Spain

Water reuse is a strategic priority for Water Authorities in Europe to reduce the pressure on water resources. However, its implementation is lagging behind expectations largely due to financial concerns. In this context, there is a special interest to identify in which specific Wastewater Treatment Plants it would be interesting to add a Water Regeneration Plant, taking account of potential existing clients in the vicinity and the implied costs and benefits. This paper proposes a methodology to quantify the infrastructure and operation costs of project implementation, and the benefits generated by the additional water offer. An algorithm designs the distribution network, allowing for a quick infrastructure cost analysis. The methodology is applied to the Upper Guadiana in Central Spain, where irrigation led to the overexploitation of the local aquifers and the subsequent restrictions on water use. Taking account of the existing Wastewater Treatment Plants, candidate reuse projects are classified according to their benefit/cost ratio, showing large differences according to the location and potential use of the regenerated water. The methodology allows for a quick assessment of the costs and benefits implied in different reuse projects and scenarios, providing science-based evidence to support water policy decisions

Analysis of current patterns of deforestation in Latin America and the Caribbean

Climate change is a major threat to human and natural systems, and particularly to the functionality of ecosystems and the services they provide (IPCC, 2014). Tropical deforestation contributes to 12?14% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Harris et al., 2014). Deforestation also reduces the capacity of forests as key above ground sinks of carbon, and has considerable effects upon biodiversity (Peres et al., 2010 and Pereira et al., 2012). Forest conservation and management offers a strategy for climate change mitigation through restoration of the capacity of forest carbon sequestration

Lecciones de la plataforma e-learning Econosfera

En este trabajo se estudia el tipo de recursos educativos más interesantes para la plataforma educativa Econosfera, desarrollada para complementar la enseñanza presencial de Economía en primer curso universitario de ingeniería, con el fin de favorecer la adquisición de conocimientos de forma autónoma. Basándonos en diferentes literaturas que inciden en la importancia de la interacción con los estudiantes, estudiamos qué esperan de Econosfera, y qué materiales educativos les serían más atractivos. Para ello, hemos realizado una encuesta en la que se pregunta sobre materiales educativos y sobre el uso habitual que los alumnos hacen de Internet. Un análisis econométrico nos ha permitido evaluar qué materiales potencialmente ayudan a los estudiantes a un proceso de aprendizaje más activo (ejercicios de autoevaluación, vídeos), y qué otros pueden desanimar a un grupo grande de alumnos (lecturas, experimentos)

Analyzing climate change adaptation in the agriculture and water sectors: screening risks and opportunities.

As part of the Mediterranean area, the Guadiana basin in Spain is particularly exposed to increasing water stress due to climate change. Future warmer and drier climate will have negative implications for the sustainability of water resources and irrigation agriculture, the main socio- economic sector in the region. This paper illustrates a systematic analysis of climate change impacts and adaptation in the Guadiana basin based on a two-stage modeling approach. First, an integrated hydro-economic modeling framework was used to simulate the potential effects of regional climate change scenarios for the period 2000-2069. Second, a participatory multi-criteria technique, namely the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), was applied to rank potential adaptation measures based on agreed criteria. Results show that, in the middle-long run and under severe climate change, reduced water availability, lower crop yields and increased irrigation demands might lead to water shortages, crop failure, and up to ten percent of income losses to irrigators. AHP results show how private farming adaptation measures, including improving irrigation efficiency and adjusting crop varieties, are preferred to public adaptation measures, such as building new dams. The integrated quantitative and qualitative methodology used in this research can be considered a socially-based valuable tool to support adaptation decision-making