The Impacts of Biofuel Expansion on the Resilience of Social-Ecological Systems in Ethiopia

Abstract This thesis investigates biofuel expansion as a disturbance to the resilience of social-ecological systems. Examining this issue through a resilience framework illustrates the dynamics of such systems, identifying potential trade-offs and regime shifts. Additionally, this research highlights the differentiated impacts for actors across multiple scales, allowing power relations to be taken into account – the lack of which is a common criticism of resilience studies. The thesis presents a systems analysis of sugarcane-ethanol expansion in Ethiopia at the current and planned levels of production, incorporating both the production and consumption sub-systems. To create an integrated systems analysis multiple methods were utilised between 2010 and 2012 to collect primary data – household surveys and interviews in multiple localities and interviews with key stakeholders, supplemented with documentary evidence. The production sub-system analysis incorporates food system impacts at the household scale and ecological impacts at the regional scale, whilst the consumption sub-system analysis investigates the impacts of ethanol adoption as a household fuel. The findings of these analyses are then synthesised in a resilience assessment at the national scale. The results show that current levels of sugarcane and ethanol production have not surpassed the majority of potential critical thresholds that would induce regime shifts. Therefore, most of the sub-systems under study, and actors within them, are resilient to the perturbation of biofuel expansion to date. However, a detrimental regime shift is underway for pastoralists being relocated for sugarcane expansion. The planned expansion will replicate this regime shift across a much larger population. In addition, the larger scale of operation will more severely influence the ecological sub-system. The analysis of multiple nested scales using a resilience model demonstrates the need to examine all scales to highlight the winners and losers, as only examining one scale conceals the dynamic nature of interactions

Resilience of Working Agricultural Landscapes

Many alternative agricultural approaches have been developed as a response to the social and ecological costs of modern industrialized agriculture. These include diversified, organic, sustainably intensified, and ecologically intensified farming systems, each of which addresses different aspects of agriculture as a social-ecological system. However, clear theoretical models that account for human-nature coupling and the importance of scale are lacking. Global change, including climate change, land use change, and other human activities influencing social-ecological systems, is exacerbating uncertainty regarding agriculture system dynamics and increasing the need for comprehensive models that include a dynamical integration of socio-ecological-economic influences. Resilience theory and related ideas such as panarchy have begun to actively inform agricultural science and practice in ways that should help enable current agricultural practices to become more sustainable – and resilient. However, there are several key resilience concepts that have yet to be fully developed within the agricultural research community. In this chapter, we briefly present resilience and its relevance to agriculture, and then we focus on three interrelated resilience ideas that have received less attention in the agriculture literature: (1) the functional attributes which underpin resilience; (2) the possibility of alternative regimes in agricultural systems and the implications for both continued agricultural production and the ecological landscapes in which agricultural systems are embedded; and (3) the relevance of scale for understanding and managing complex agricultural systems. We finish by discussing a path forward for the continued development of theories that can adequately encompass the full complexity of agricultural systems

Assessment of the level of technical skills of category U12 soccer players of different performance levels

the first league Czech academy (n = 14, age = 11.66 ± 0.25 years, height = 149.31 ± 6.2 cm, weight = 37.61 ± 4.8 kg). The second group included sub 11.50 ± 0.55, height = 149.31 ± 6.2 cm, weight = 37.61 ± 4.8 kg). Fourteen elite players (age 11.66 ± 0.3 years, height 149.31 ± 6.20 cm and weight 37.61 ± 4.82 elite players (age 11.50 ± 0.55, body height 152.36 ± 6.61 cm ght 38.91 ± 5.39 kg) were tested. The players completed field testing inNázev: Hodnocení rychlostních schopností mladých fotbalistů různé výkonnostní úrovně kategorie U12 Cíle: Cílem diplomové práce liší úroveň rychlostních schopností hráčů závislosti na různé výkonnostní úrovni a současně zjistit jak velké rozdíly jsou mezi elitními a sub elitními hráči. Výzkumný soubor se skládá z 28 hráčů kategorie mladší žáků U12. Hráči byli rozdělen do dvou skupin podle výkonnostní úrovně. První skupinu tvoří elitní hráči české prvoligové akademie (n = 14, věk = 11,66 ± 0,25 let, výška = 149,31 ± 6,2 cm, hmotnost = 37,61 ± 4,8 kg). Do druhé skupiny jsou zařazeni sub elitní hráči nižší výkonnostní úrovně české žákovské ligy (n = 14, věk = 11,50 ± 0,55, výška = 149,31 ± 6,2 cm, hmotnost = 37,61 ± 4,8 kg). Testování se zúčastnilo 14 elitních hráčů (věk 11,66 ± 0,3 let, výška 149,31 ± 6,20 cm ± 4,82 kg) a 14 sub elitních hráčů (věk 11,50 ± 0,55, tělesná výška 152,36 ± hmotnost 38,91 ± 5,39 kg). Hráči absolvovali terénní testování v rámci tréninkové jednotky na umělé trávě. Pro analýzu rychlostních schopností použity tři terénní testy (akcelerace na vzdálenost 20 m s měřením mezičasu na m, test lokomoční maximální rychlosti na 20 m s náběhovou vzdálenosti 20 m a test 505 gility, který hodnotí rychlost se změnou směru Výsledky: Při analýze vybraných parametrů jsme mezi výkonnostními skupinami...Laboratoř sportovní motorikyFaculty of Physical Education and SportFakulta tělesné výchovy a sport

The COVID-19 consumption game-changer: Evidence from a large-scale multi-country survey

Prospective economic developments depend on the behavior of consumer spending. A key question is whether private expenditures recover once social distancing restrictions are lifted or whether the COVID-19 crisis has a sustained impact on consumer confidence, preferences, and, hence, spending. The elongated and profound experience of the COVID-19 crisis may durably affect consumer preferences. We conducted a representative consumer survey in five European countries in summer 2020, after the release of the first wave’s lockdown restrictions, and document the underlying reasons for households’ reduction in consumption in five key sectors: tourism, hospitality, services, retail, and public transports. We identify a large confidence shock in the Southern European countries and a shift in consumer preferences in the Northern European countries, particularly among high-income earners. We conclude that the COVID-19 experience has altered consumer behavior and that long-term sectoral consumption shifts may occur

Resilience characteristics of the urban agriculture system in Lansing, Michigan: Importance of support actors in local food systems

Urban agriculture is a growing movement in cities across the United States, including the post-industrial Midwest. Maintaining a resilient local food system is a challenge given the environmental, resource, and institutional barriers facing urban farmers. In this descriptive correlational study, we take an in-depth look at the demographics, farm characteristics, motivations, barriers, and resilience indicators of individuals in the urban agriculture system in Lansing, Michigan, a city of the US Midwest with a growing urban agriculture system. Survey responses (n = 92) revealed that support actors, community gardeners, and farmers have descriptive differences in their motivations, with support actors (e.g. non-profits, university extension, or municipalities) being most strongly motivated by social and environmental justice. Community gardeners reported the lowest barriers to engaging in urban agriculture. Individuals who reported stronger motivations for building community and social and environmental justice showed significant correlations to several resilience indicators, indicating that those motivations may be important to system resilience. Urban agriculture support agencies report high barriers and are most often consulted for informational and social support. These results can inform recommendations for organizations, local governments, and researchers working in midwestern urban agriculture initiatives to better assess and promote a thriving system into the futur

Fungal decomposition of terrestrial organic matter accelerated Early Jurassic climate warming

This is the final version of the article. Available from Nature via the DOI in this record.Soils – constituting the largest terrestrial carbon pool - are vulnerable to climatic warming. Currently existing uncertainties regarding carbon fluxes within terrestrial systems can be addressed by studies of past carbon cycle dynamics and related climate change recorded in sedimentary successions. Here we show an example from the Early Jurassic (early Toarcian, c. 183 mya) marginal-marine strata from Poland, tracking the hinterland response to climatic changes through a super-greenhouse event. In contrast to anoxia-related enhanced carbon storage in coeval open marine environments, Total Organic Carbon (TOC) concentrations in the Polish successions are substantially reduced during this event. Increasing temperature favoured fungal-mediated decomposition of plant litter – specifically of normally resistant woody tissues. The associated injection of oxidized organic matter into the atmosphere corresponds to abrupt changes in standing vegetation and may have contributed significantly to the amplified greenhouse climate on Earth. The characteristic Toarcian signature of multiple warm pulses coinciding with rapidly decreasing carbon isotope ratios may in part be the result of a radical reduction of the terrestrial carbon pool as a response to climate change.This paper is a part of the project financed from resources of the Polish National Science Centre, granted on the basis of decision no. DEC-2012/06/M/ST10/00478. C.V.U. was supported by the Leopoldina - German National Academy of Sciences (grant no LPDS 2014-08), and G.P. by the scientific funds of the Polish Geological Institute, project 61.3608.1501.00.0. This is a contribution to the IGCP project 632 “Continental Crises of the Jurassic”. We thank Przemysław Karcz for performing RockEval pyrolithic analyses and Stephen Hesselbo and anonymous reviewer for valuable remarks

A mixed methods approach to exploring values that inform desirable food-systems futures

Throughout the United States, urban food systems are in suboptimal states that are not operating efficiently or equitably and thus do not support food security for all. Creating transformation to a more sustainable and desirable state first requires acknowledging the different values of diverse groups within a city. Then these diverse values can be used to explore pluralistic pathways to futures that maximize benefits for multiple stakeholders. We demonstrate how integrating visioning and Q-methodology can achieve an inclusive understanding of values as priorities for such a food system. Applied in Flint, Michigan, a post-industrial Rust Belt city, this approach can shape the planning process for cities experiencing food insecurity. Qualitative analysis of data from a visioning workshop resulted in sixteen values as priorities for a sustainable and desirable food system. Values as priorities were then ranked in a Q-sort activity, from which three unique groups of ranking patterns emerged, each of which can be interpreted as a vision for a better future. The three visions were a food system with healthy foods that residents are willing to travel for; a food system with convenient, fresh food options for those who cannot travel; and a food system that maintains the community’s food traditions. Our novel mixed methods approach empowers communities by giving them a voice in the planning process but also allows decision makers to create transformation pathways that more accurately reflect the needs of the various subsets of community members who hold diverse visions and priorities

Studying the complexity of change: toward an analytical framework for understanding deliberate social-ecological transformations

Faced with numerous seemingly intractable social and environmental challenges, many scholars and practitioners are increasingly interested in understanding how to actively engage and transform the existing systems holding such problems in place. Although a variety of analytical models have emerged in recent years, most emphasize either the social or ecological elements of such transformations rather than their coupled nature. To address this, first we have presented a definition of the core elements of a social-ecological system (SES) that could potentially be altered in a transformation. Second, we drew on insights about transformation from three branches of literature focused on radical change, i.e., social movements, socio-technical transitions, and social innovation, and gave consideration to the similarities and differences with the current studies by resilience scholars. Drawing on these findings, we have proposed a framework that outlines the process and phases of transformative change in an SES. Future research will be able to utilize the framework as a tool for analyzing the alteration of social-ecological feedbacks, identifying critical barriers and leverage points and assessing the outcome of social-ecological transformations

Ecological Health Index: A Short Term Monitoring Method for Land Managers to Assess Grazing Lands Ecological Health

Grazing lands should be monitored to ensure their productivity and the preservation of ecosystem services. The study objective was to investigate the effectiveness of an Ecological Health Index (EHI) for assessing ecosystem ecological health in grazing lands. The EHI was developed by synthesizing existing vegetation and soil cover indicators. We implemented long-term transects at 44 farms from two ecological regions in Patagonia, the Humid Magellan Steppe (HMS) (n = 24) and Subandean Grasslands (SG) (n = 20), to collect data on established quantifiable vegetative and soil measurements and the EHI. Using known quantifiable measures, the HMS had numerically greater species richness compared to SG. Similarly, the average percentage of total live vegetation was more favorable in HMS. Correlating the EHI with these known quantifiable measures demonstrated positive correlations with species richness, the percentage of total live vegetation and carrying capacity and was negatively correlations with bare ground. These results suggest that EHI could be a useful method to detect the ecological health and productivity in grazing lands. Overall, we conclude that EHI is an effective short-term monitoring approach that ranchers could implement annually to monitor grazing lands and determine the impacts of ranch decision-making on important ecosystem indicators

Panarchy theory for convergence

Coping with surprise and uncertainty resulting from the emergence of undesired and unexpected novelty or the sudden reorganization of systems at multiple spatiotemporal scales requires both a scientific process that can incorporate diverse expertise and viewpoints, and a scientific framework that can account for the structure and dynamics of interacting social-ecological systems (SES) and the inherent uncertainty of what might emerge in the future. We argue that combining a convergence scientific process with a panarchy framework provides a pathway for improving our understanding of, and response to, emergence. Emergent phenomena are often unexpected (e.g., pandemics, regime shifts) and can be highly disruptive, so can pose a significant challenge to the development of sustainable and resilient SES. Convergence science is a new approach promoted by the U.S. National Science Foundation for tackling complex problems confronting humanity through the integration of multiple perspectives, expertise, methods, tools, and analytical approaches. Panarchy theory is a framework useful for studying emergence, because it characterizes complex systems of people and nature as dynamically organized and structured within and across scales of space and time. It accounts for the fundamental tenets of complex systems and explicitly grapples with emergence, including the emergence of novelty, and the emergent property of social-ecological resilience. We provide an overview of panarchy, convergence science, and emergence. We discuss the significant data and methodological challenges of using panarchy in a convergence approach to address emergent phenomena, as well as state-of-the-art methods for overcoming them. We present two examples that would benefit from such an approach: climate change and its impacts on social-ecological systems, and the relationships between infectious disease and social-ecological systems