SAT: A Software for Assessing the Risk of Desertification in Spain

Desertification is a major global environmental issue exacerbated by climate change. Strategies to combat desertification include prevention which seeks to reverse the process before the system reaches the stable desertified state. One of these initiatives is to implement early warning tools. This paper presents SAT (the Spanish acronym for Early Warning System), a decision support system (DSS), for assessing the risk of desertification in Spain, where 20% of the land has already been desertified and 1% is in active degradation. SAT relies on three versions of a Generic Desertification Model (GDM) that integrates economics and ecology under the predator-prey paradigm. The models have been programmed using Vensim, a type of software used to build and simulate System Dynamics (SD) models. Through Visual Basic programming, these models are operated from the Excel environment. In addition to the basic simulation exercises, specially designed tools have been coupled to assess the risk of desertification and determine the ranking of the most influential factors of the process. The users targeted by SAT are government land-use planners as well as desertification experts. SAT tool is implemented for five case studies, each one of them representing a desertification syndrome identified in Spain. Given the general nature of the tool and the fact that all United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) signatory countries are committed to developing their National Plans to Combat Desertification (NPCD), SAT could be exported to regions threatened by desertification and expanded to cover more case studies.This work was funded by TRAGSATEC Public Enterprise on behalf of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Environment under Contract 23.674. The generic desertification model was developed under the umbrella of DeSurvey IP (European Commission FP6 Contract no. 003950). The paper was written within the framework of the project BIODESERT, funded by the European Research Council (ERC Grant agreement no. 647038)

AQUACOAST: A Simulation Tool to Explore Coastal Groundwater and Irrigation Farming Interactions

In the framework of coastal groundwater-dependent irrigation agriculture, modelling becomes indispensable to know how this renewable resource responds to complex (usually not conceptualized nor monitored) biophysical, social, and economic interactions. Friendly user interfaces are essential to involve nonmodeling experts in exploiting and improving models. Decision support systems (DSS) are software systems that integrate models, databases, or other decision aids and package them in a way that decision makers can use. This paper addresses these two issues: firstly with the implementation of a System Dynamics (SD) model in Vensim software that considers the integration of hydrological, agronomic, and economic drivers and secondly with the design of a Venapp, push-button interfaces that allow users access to a Vensim model without going through the Vensim modelling environment. The prototype designed, the AQUACOAST tool, gives an idea of the possibilities of this type of models to identify and analyze the impact of apparently unrelated factors such as the prices of cultivated products, subsidies or exploitation costs on the advance of saltwater intrusion, and the great threat to coastal groundwater-dependent irrigation agriculture systems.This study was funded by the European Research Council grant agreement no. 647038 (BIODESERT)

The Importance of Prevention in Tackling Desertification: An Approach to Anticipate Risks of Degradation in Coastal Aquifers

Groundwater degradation is a major issue on an increasingly hot and thirsty planet. The problem is critical in drylands, where recharge rates are low and groundwater is the only reliable resource in a context of water scarcity and stress. Aquifer depletion and contamination is a process of desertification. Land Degradation Neutrality is regarded as the main initiative to tackle land degradation and desertification. It is embedded in target 15.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals and focused on preventing these dynamics. Within this framework, we present an approach to assess risks of degradation and desertification in coastal basins with aquifers threatened by seawater intrusion. The approach utilizes an integrated system dynamics model representing the main relationships between the aquifer and an intensively irrigated area (greenhouses) driven by short- and medium-term profitability. The study area is located in a semi-arid region in Southern Spain, the Gualchos stream basin, which contains the Castell de Ferro aquifer. We found that the risk of salinization of the aquifer is 73%, while there is a 70% risk that the system would increases its demand for surface water in the future, and the chance of doubling the current demand is almost 50%. If the current system of reservoirs in the area were not able to satisfy such an increase in demand because of climate change, the basin would be at a serious risk of desertification.This research was funded by the European Research Council (ERC grant agreement 647038 (BIODESERT)) and by the project 101086497 funded by European Union’s Horizon-CL6-2022-Governance-01-07 research and innovation program

Numerical simulation and laboratory measurements on an open tunable acoustic barrier

[EN] A new open, thin and low frequency acoustic barrier is presented. These barriers, based on arrays of isolated pickets produce high acoustic attenuation in a selective range of frequencies related to their geometry and distribution. These open barriers are acoustically competitive with traditional ones, which are based on con-tinuous and rigid materials. To show its versatility to in attenuating di¿erent selected ranges of frequencies, a compact numerical model is presented. Di¿erent cases are analysed and compared with experimental results. The accuracy of the experimental re-sults compared to the simulated ones allow us to use the compact model to design these barriers in order to reduce both industrial and tra¿c noise on demand and to introduce them into the noise control market.This work was financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through project MAT2010-16879.Rubio Michavila, C.; Castiñeira Ibáñez, S.; Uris Martínez, A.; Belmar Ibáñez, F.; Candelas Valiente, P. (2018). Numerical simulation and laboratory measurements on an open tunable acoustic barrier. Applied Acoustics. 141:144-150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2018.07.002S14415014

On the Role of the Geometrical Parameters in the Ultrasonic Transmission Through Plates with Subwavelength Holes Arrays

[EN] This paper presents an overview of the recents studies on the ultrasonic transmission through subwavelength holes arrays. The role of the geometrical parameters of the perforated plates in the transmission features has been reported by using a theoretical model under the rigid-solid assumption. It is shown that the transmission spectrum can be tailored by varying the geometrical parameters.This work has been supported by the Spanish MICINN (MAT2010-16879).Uris Martínez, A.; Gómez Lozano, V.; Candelas Valiente, P.; Belmar Ibáñez, F. (2014). On the Role of the Geometrical Parameters in the Ultrasonic Transmission Through Plates with Subwavelength Holes Arrays. Acta Acustica united with Acustica. 100(4):595-603. https://doi.org/10.3813/AAA.918739S595603100

LTCC microflow analyzers with monolithic integration of thersmal control

Recently, the low temperature co-fired ceramics technology has shown to be an excellent alternative to silicon-based microfabrication techniques for the production of three-dimensional structures using a multi-layer approach. This enables the integration of several unitary operations of a classical analytical process and also the integration of sensors, actuators and electronics in the same substrate. In this work, we show the integration of the actuators and the sensors needed for the control of temperature inside a miniaturized fluidic device. The proposed device presents enough thermal accuracy to be used in chemical systems where temperature control is a crucial factor, such as enzyme reactions or polymerase chain reaction systems.The authors would like to thank the Spanish MEC for its financial support through: Consolider-Ingenio 2010 (CSD2006-00012), TEC2006-13907-C04-04/MIC and CIT-310200-2007-29. CSM is also thankful to the Alban Program (High-level grants from the European Union to Latin America for its financial support (Grant number: E05D053315MX)

Guía para el marcado CE en Máquinas

Guía práctica para ingenieros del marcado CE y directiva europea de máquinas 2006/42/CE, con plantillas y etapas necesarias para obtener dicha certificación

Pinhole Zone Plate Lens for Ultrasound Focusing

[EN] The focusing capabilities of a pinhole zone plate lens are presented and compared with those of a conventional Fresnel zone plate lens. The focusing properties are examined both experimentally and numerically. The results confirm that a pinhole zone plate lens can be an alternative to a Fresnel lens. A smooth filtering effect is created in pinhole zone plate lenses, giving rise to a reduction of the side lobes around the principal focus associated with the conventional Fresnel zone plate lens. The manufacturing technique of the pinhole zone plate lens allows the designing and constructing of lenses for different focal lengths quickly and economically and without the need to drill new plates.This work has been supported by Spanish MINECO (TEC2015-70939-R)Rubio Michavila, C.; Fuster Escuder, JM.; Castiñeira Ibáñez, S.; Uris Martínez, A.; Belmar Ibáñez, F.; Candelas Valiente, P. (2017). Pinhole Zone Plate Lens for Ultrasound Focusing. Sensors. 17(1690):1-7. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17071690S1717169

Assessing the sensitivity of a Mediterranean commercial rangeland to droughts under climate change scenarios by means of a multidisciplinary integrated model

Rangeland productivity is strongly conditioned by the amount and temporal distribution of precipitation. Thus, the worsening of droughts with climate change could be a serious threat to their existence. This paper presents a modelling study aimed at evaluating the sensitivity of a valuable type of commercial rangelands, namely Spanish dehesas, to increases in the frequency and intensity of droughts driven by climate change. The assessment consisted in a multi-way ANOVA carried out on the basis of 5400 simulations of a multidisciplinary integrated model. It included two blocking factors linked to climate change scenarios, namely Representative Concentration Pathway and downscaling method, and two treatment factors, namely return period and severity of droughts. The levels of all factors were included as part of the simulation scenarios. The response variables constituted a summary of model's behaviour throughout one simulation. They were average profits per farmer and average stocking rate, both calculated over the entire simulation period, and remaining soil depth at the end of the simulation. The effects of the treatment factors on the response variables were small for all blocks, thereby suggesting that the sensitivity, and thus the vulnerability, of Spanish dehesas to the worsening of droughts would be low under climate change. Farmers were defined as conservative in all model simulations, that is, they minimized changes in the size of their herds and bought supplementary feed to meet shortfalls in livestock feed unless it was excessively expensive. Thus, we conclude that this group strategy could explain the adaptive capacity of Spanish dehesas to droughts. This paper shows that multidisciplinary integrated models are valuable learning tools to acquire insights into the relationships between climate, ecologic and socio-economic factors. Although there is a recurrent call for holistic studies, they are still rare in the rangeland literature. Hopefully, this paper will motivate some researchers to consider this approach.This paper was written within the framework of Junta de Andalucía Research Project ‘Mesotopos: Habitat Conservation and Land Degradation in Andalucía’ P08 RNM-4023. The partial support of the Chilean FONDECYT Research Project 1161105 is also acknowledged. The authors are funded by the European Research Council grant agreement n◦ 647038 (BIODESERT)

Retinoic acid receptor-beta prevents cisplatin-induced proximal tubular cell death

Cisplatin toxicity in renal tubular epithelial cells limits the therapeutic efficacy of this antineoplastic drug. In cultured human proximal tubular HK-2 cells (PTC) a prostaglandin uptake transporter (PGT)-dependent increase in intracellular prostaglandin E2 (iPGE2) mediates cisplatin's toxicity (i.e. increased cell death and loss of cell proliferation) so that it is prevented by PGT inhibitors. Here we found in cisplatin-treated PTC that 4,4?-diisothiocyanostilbene-2,2?-disulfonic acid (DIDS), a PGT inhibitor, prevented cisplatin's toxicity but not the increase in iPGE2. Because expression of retinoic acid receptor-? (RAR-?) is dependent on iPGE2 and because RAR-? is a regulator of cell survival and proliferation, we hypothesized that RAR-? might mediate the protective effect of DIDS against cisplatin's toxicity in PTC. Our results confirmed this hypothesis because: i) protection of PTC by DIDS was abolished by RAR-? antagonist LE-135; ii) DIDS increased the expression of RAR-? in PTC and prevented its decrease in cisplatin-treated PTC but not in cisplatin-treated human cervical adenocarcinoma HeLa cells in which DIDS failed to prevent cisplatin's toxicity; iii) while RAR-? expression decreased in cisplatin-treated PTC, RAR-? over-expression prevented cisplatin's toxicity. RAR-? agonist CH55 or RAR pan-agonist all-trans retinoic acid did not prevent cisplatin's toxicity, which suggests that RAR-? does not protect PTC through activation of gene transcription. In conclusion, RAR-? might be a new player in cisplatin-induced proximal tubular injury and the preservation of its expression in proximal tubules through treatment with DIDS might represent a novel strategy in the prevention of cisplatin nephrotoxicity without compromising cisplatin's chemotherapeutic effect on cancer cells