Design of Efficient Water Pricing Policies Integrating Basinwide Resource Opportunity Costs

By ignoring the opportunity cost of water use, water is undervalued, which can lead to significant errors in investments and water allocation decisions. The marginal resource opportunity cost (MROC) varies in time and space, as resource availability, demands, and users’ WTP vary. This spatial and temporal variability can only be captured by basinwide hydro-economic models integrating water demands and environmental requirements, resources, infrastructure, and operational and institutional restrictions. This paper presents a method for the simulation of water pricing policies linked to water availability, and the design of efficient pricing policies that incorporate the basinwide marginal value of water. Two approaches were applied: priority-based simulation and economic optimization. The improvement in economic efficiency was assessed by comparing the results from simulation of the current system operation and the pricing schedule. The difference between the benefits for the simulated current management and the upper bound benefits from optimization indicates the maximum gap that could be bridged with pricing. In the application to a synthetic case, a storage-dependent step pricing schedule derived from average MROC values led to benefits that capture 80% of the gap of net benefits between management without pricing and the economically optimal management. Different pricing policies were tested, depending not only on reservoir storage but also on previous inflows. The results show that the method is useful for designing pricing policies that enhance the economic benefits, leading to more efficient resource allocations over time and across the competing uses.This study has been partially funded by the EU 6th FP project AQUAMONEY (SSPI-022723), the 7th FP GENESIS project (226536), and SAWARES (Plan Nacional I+D+i 2008-2011, CGL2009-13238-C02-01 and C02-02) and SCARCE (Consolider-Ingenio 2010 CSD2009-00065) of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.Pulido-Velazquez, M.; Álvarez Mendiola, E.; Andreu Álvarez, J. (2013). Design of Efficient Water Pricing Policies Integrating Basinwide Resource Opportunity Costs. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. 139(5):583-592. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000262S583592139

Assessing the effectiveness of Multi-Sector Partnerships to manage droughts: The case of the Jucar river basin

[EN] South-east Spain is a drought prone area, characterized by climate variability and water scarcity. The Jucar River Basin, located in Eastern Spain, has suffered many historical droughts with significant socio-economic impacts. For nearly a hundred years, the institutional and non-institutional strategies to cope with droughts have been successful through the development of institutions and partnerships for drought management including multiple actors. In this paper, we show how the creation and institutionalisation of Multi-Sector Partnerships (MSPs) has supported the development of an efficient drought management. Furthermore, we analyze the performance of one of the suggested instruments by the partnership related to drought management in the basin. Two methodologies are used for these purposes. On one hand, the Capital Approach Framework to analyze the effectiveness of the governance processes in a particular partnership (Permanent Drought Commission), which aims to highlight the governance strength and weakness of the MSP for enhancing drought management in the Jucar River Basin. Through a dynamic analysis of the changes that the partnership has undergone over time to successfully deal with droughts, its effectiveness on drought management is demonstrated. On the other hand, an econometric approach is used to analyze the economic efficiency of the emergency drought wells as one of the key drought mitigation measures suggested by the Permanent Drought Commission and implemented. The results demonstrate the potential and efficiency of applying drought wells as mitigation measures (significant reduction of economic losses, around 50 M(sic) during the drought period, 2005-2008).We acknowledge the project ENHANCE (Grant Agreement number 308438) for the financial support to this research. As well as, we thank the Jucar River Basin stakeholders for providing the help to get data for the analysis. The data used are listed in the references, tables, and Appendix A.Carmona, M.; Mañez, M.; Andreu Álvarez, J.; Pulido-Velazquez, M.; Haro Monteagudo, D.; Lopez-Nicolas, A.; Cremades, R. (2017). Assessing the effectiveness of Multi-Sector Partnerships to manage droughts: The case of the Jucar river basin. Earth's Future. 5(7):750-770. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000545S7507705

Predictors of adverse events after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair: A meta-analysis of case reports

Introduction: Endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair is a life-saving intervention. Nevertheless, complications have a major impact. We review the evidence from case reports for risk factors of complications after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. Case presentation: We selected case reports from PubMed reporting original data on adverse events after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. Extracted risk factors were: age, sex, aneurysm diameter, comorbidities, re-interventions, at least one follow-up visit being missed or refusal of a re-intervention by the patient. Extracted outcomes were: death, rupture and (non-)device-related complications. In total 113 relevant articles were selected. These reported on 173 patients. A fatal outcome was reported in 15% (N = 26) of which 50% came after an aneurysm rupture (N = 13). Non-fatal aneurysm rupture occurred in 15% (N = 25). Endoleaks were reported in 52% of the patients (N = 90). In half of the patients with a rupture no prior endoleak was discovered during follow-up. In 83% of the patients one or more re-interventions were performed (N = 143). Mortality was higher among women (risk ratio 2.9; 95% confidence interval 1.4 to 6.0), while the presence of comorbidities was strongly associated with both ruptures (risk ratio 1.6; 95% confidence interval 0.9 to 2.9) and mortality (risk ratio 2.1; 95% confidence interval 1.0 to 4.7). Missing one or more follow-up visits (≥1) or refusal of a re-intervention by the patient was strongly related to both ruptures (risk ratio 4.7; 95% confidence interval 3.1 to 7.0) and mortality (risk ratio 3.8; 95% confidence interval 1.7 to 8.3). Conclusion: Female gender, the presence of comorbidities and at least one follow-up visit being missed or refusal of a re-intervention by the patient appear to increase the risk for mortality after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. Larger aneurysm diameter, higher age and multimorbidity at the time of surgery appear to increase the risk for rupture and other complications after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. These risk factors deserve further attention in future studies

TNF-α and TGF-β Counter-Regulate PD-L1 Expression on Monocytes in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Monocytes in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are hyperstimulatory for T lymphocytes. We previously found that the normal program for expression of a negative costimulatory molecule programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) is defective in SLE patients with active disease. Here, we investigated the mechanism for PD-L1 dysregulation on lupus monocytes. We found that PD-L1 expression on cultured SLE monocytes correlated with TNF-α expression. Exogenous TNF-α restored PD-L1 expression on lupus monocytes. Conversely, TGF-β inversely correlated with PD-L1 in SLE and suppressed expression of PD-L1 on healthy monocytes. Therefore, PD-L1 expression in monocytes is regulated by opposing actions of TNF-α and TGF-β. As PD-L1 functions to fine tune lymphocyte activation, dysregulation of cytokines resulting in reduced expression could lead to loss of peripheral T cell tolerance

Arrival Directions of Cosmic Rays above 32 EeV from Phase One of the Pierre Auger Observatory

A promising energy range to look for angular correlations between cosmic rays of extragalactic origin and their sources is at the highest energies, above a few tens of EeV (1 EeV equivalent to 10^(18) eV). Despite the flux of these particles being extremely low, the area of similar to 3000 km^(2) covered at the Pierre Auger Observatory, and the 17 yr data-taking period of the Phase 1 of its operations, have enabled us to measure the arrival directions of more than 2600 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays above 32 EeV. We publish this data set, the largest available at such energies from an integrated exposure of 122,000 km^(2) sr yr, and search it for anisotropies over the 3.4 pi steradians covered with the Observatory. Evidence for a deviation in excess of isotropy at intermediate angular scales, with similar to 15 degrees Gaussian spread or similar to 25 degrees top-hat radius, is obtained at the 4 sigma significance level for cosmic-ray energies above similar to 40 EeV

Global burden of cardiovascular diseases and risk factors, 1990–2019: update from the GBD 2019 study

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), principally ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, are the leading cause of global mortality and a major contributor to disability. This paper reviews the magnitude of total CVD burden, including 13 underlying causes of cardiovascular death and 9 related risk factors, using estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019. GBD, an ongoing multinational collaboration to provide comparable and consistent estimates of population health over time, used all available population-level data sources on incidence, prevalence, case fatality, mortality, and health risks to produce estimates for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019. Prevalent cases of total CVD nearly doubled from 271 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 257 to 285 million) in 1990 to 523 million (95% UI: 497 to 550 million) in 2019, and the number of CVD deaths steadily increased from 12.1 million (95% UI:11.4 to 12.6 million) in 1990, reaching 18.6 million (95% UI: 17.1 to 19.7 million) in 2019. The global trends for disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and years of life lost also increased significantly, and years lived with disability doubled from 17.7 million (95% UI: 12.9 to 22.5 million) to 34.4 million (95% UI:24.9 to 43.6 million) over that period. The total number of DALYs due to IHD has risen steadily since 1990, reaching 182 million (95% UI: 170 to 194 million) DALYs, 9.14 million (95% UI: 8.40 to 9.74 million) deaths in the year 2019, and 197 million (95% UI: 178 to 220 million) prevalent cases of IHD in 2019. The total number of DALYs due to stroke has risen steadily since 1990, reaching 143 million (95% UI: 133 to 153 million) DALYs, 6.55 million (95% UI: 6.00 to 7.02 million) deaths in the year 2019, and 101 million (95% UI: 93.2 to 111 million) prevalent cases of stroke in 2019. Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of disease burden in the world. CVD burden continues its decades-long rise for almost all countries outside high-income countries, and alarmingly, the age-standardized rate of CVD has begun to rise in some locations where it was previously declining in high-income countries. There is an urgent need to focus on implementing existing cost-effective policies and interventions if the world is to meet the targets for Sustainable Development Goal 3 and achieve a 30% reduction in premature mortality due to noncommunicable diseases

Establishing sustainability science in higher education institutions: towards an integration of academic development, institutionalization, and stakeholder collaborations

The field of sustainability science aims to understand the complex and dynamic interactions between natural and human systems in order to transform and develop these in a sustainable manner. As sustainability problems cut across diverse academic disciplines, ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities, interdisciplinarity has become a central idea to the realm of sustainability science. Yet, for addressing complicated, real-world sustainability problems, interdisciplinarity per se does not suffice. Active collaboration with various stakeholders throughout society-transdisciplinarity-must form another critical component of sustainability science. In addition to implementing interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in practice, higher education institutions also need to deal with the challenges of institutionalization. In this article, drawing on the experiences of selected higher education academic programs on sustainability, we discuss academic, institutional, and societal challenges in sustainability science and explore the potential of uniting education, research and societal contributions to form a systematic and integrated response to the sustainability crisis