What are the effects of climate change on agriculture in North East Central Europe?

Global and climate changes influence the basic conditions for agriculture and so there is not only a demand for a consequent climate protection but also for an adaptation of agriculture to these global changing conditions. For the whole "Maerkisch-Oderland" district (60x40 km) within the moraine landscape of North-East-Germany mainly used for agriculture water balance, nitrogen and sulphur loads as well as crop yields are calculated for two land use and climate scenarios. The comparison between the Scenario2050 and the Scenario2000 reveals significant changes of the water balance (decrease in percolation water, increase in actual evapotranspiration) as well as the concentration of the examined nitrogen in the percolation water. For the study region the crop yields decrease only slightly if the CO2 fertilizing effect is taken into account. Adaptation measures in reaction to the changing climate conditions for an economically secured and sustainable agriculture are recommended.climate change impact assessment, water balance, nitrogen load, crop yield, moraine landscape, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management,

Agro(Eco)System Services—Supply and Demand from Fields to Society

Land use—with a special focus on agriculture—is increasingly influenced by globalization and external driving forces, causing farmers to seek opportunities to develop efficient, large-scale production systems.[...

Agrosystem Services: An Additional Terminology to Better Understand Ecosystem Services Delivered by Agriculture?

To discriminate between the contributions of ecosystems and the human subsidies to agricultural systems, we propose using an additional terminology to bring clarification into the controversial discussion about i) ecosystems versus agrosystems and ii) ecosystem services versus agrosystem services. A literature review revealed that with the exception of some very recent publications, this has not yet been sufficiently reflected, neither within the scientific nor in the policy discussion. The question remains whether to spoil the discussion with new terms again and again. We reason that it makes sense to underpin the case-specific share of agricultural inputs to the supply of agroecosystem services and to add “agro” to the terminology. We conclude, that there is a need to promote the new terminology of agrosystem services and to strengthen the use of the already established term agroecosystem services within this context. To emphasise the production patterns behind the multiple benefits agricultural systems provide to humans (commodity and non-commodity outputs) and to guarantee a reasonable weighting of related externalities in policy processes, we suggest to introduce the term agrosystem services into the discussion on ecosystem services. Agrosystem services in this context describe the anthropogenic share of agroecosystem services’ generation. Agroecosystem services include multiple provisioning, regulating and cultural services from agricultural ecosystems. The inclusion of agrosystem services might accommodate the ecology-based ecosystem services concept to the specificity of managed agricultural ecosystems and therefore could be better implemented by mostly economy-driven agricultural production systems and agricultural policy

Integrating agronomic factors into energy efficiency assessment ofagro-bioenergy production – A case study of ethanol and biogasproduction from maize feedstock

Previous life cycle assessments for agro-bioenergy production rarely considered some agronomic factorswith local and regional impacts. While many studies have found the environmental and socio-economicimpacts of producing bioenergy on arable land not good enough to be considered sustainable, others con-sider it still as one of the most effective direct emission reduction and fossil fuel replacement measures.This study improved LCA methods in order to examine the individual and combined effects of often over-looked agronomic factors (e.g. alternative farm power, seed sowing, fertilizer, tillage and irrigationoptions) on life-cycle energy indicators (net energy gain-NEG, energy return on energy invested-EROEI), across the three major agro-climatic zones namely tropic, sub-tropic and the temperate land-scapes. From this study, we found that individual as well as combined effects of agronomic factorsmay improve the energy productivity of arable bioenergy sources considerably in terms of the NEG (frombetween 6.8 and 32.9 GJ/ha to between 99.5 and 246.7 GJ/ha for maize ethanol; from between 39.0 and118.4 GJ/ha to between 127.9 and 257.9 GJ/ha for maize biogas) and EROEI (from between 1.2 and 1.8 tobetween 2.1 and 3.0 for maize ethanol, from between 4.3 and 12.1 to between 15.0 and 33.9 for maizebiogas). The agronomic factors considered by this study accounted for an extra 7.5–14.6 times more ofNEG from maize ethanol, an extra 2.2–3.3 times more of NEG from maize biogas, an extra 1.7 to 1.8 times more of EROEI from maize ethanol, and an extra 2.8–3.5 times more of EROEI from maize biogas respec-tively. This therefore underscores the need to factor in local and regional agronomic factors into energyefficiency and sustainability assessments, as well as decision making processes regarding the applicationof energy from products of agro-bioenergy production

Consideraciones pragmáticas sobre la cortesía y su tratamiento en la enseñanza del español como L1

Politeness is a sociopragmatic phenomenon that determines, among others, success or failure in communication. Therefore, we consider necessary to delve into its study from the teaching perspective since it is in educational context where we work consciously on our students. linguistic competence, in general, and on their pragmatic one, in particular. We dedicate this article on the application of politeness in the teaching scenario. We give examples of verbal and non-verbal politeness resources. We also point out its application on cross-curricular topics.La cortesía es un fenómeno sociopragmático que condiciona, entre otros, el éxito o el fracaso de la comunicación. Por consiguiente, conviene profundizar en su estudio y hay que empezar a hacerlo desde la enseñanza, porque es en el ámbito educativo donde trabajamos conscientemente sobre la competencia lingüística en general, y pragmática, en particular, de nuestros alumnos. Repasamos los fundamentos teóricos que representan el punto de partida de este estudio. Profundizamos en la aplicación de la cortesía en la enseñanza, ejemplificando con recursos de la cortesía en el lenguaje verbal y no verbal. Señalamos también la relación con los temas transversales

Supporting Agricultural Ecosystem Services through the Integration of Perennial Polycultures into Crop Rotations

This review analyzes the potential role and long-term effects of field perennial polycultures (mixtures) in agricultural systems, with the aim of reducing the trade-offs between provisioning and regulating ecosystem services. First, crop rotations are identified as a suitable tool for the assessment of the long-term effects of perennial polycultures on ecosystem services, which are not visible at the single-crop level. Second, the ability of perennial polycultures to support ecosystem services when used in crop rotations is quantified through eight agricultural ecosystem services. Legume–grass mixtures and wildflower mixtures are used as examples of perennial polycultures, and compared with silage maize as a typical crop for biomass production. Perennial polycultures enhance soil fertility, soil protection, climate regulation, pollination, pest and weed control, and landscape aesthetics compared with maize. They also score lower for biomass production compared with maize, which confirms the trade-off between provisioning and regulating ecosystem services. However, the additional positive factors provided by perennial polycultures, such as reduced costs for mineral fertilizer, pesticides, and soil tillage, and a significant preceding crop effect that increases the yields of subsequent crops, should be taken into account. However, a full assessment of agricultural ecosystem services requires a more holistic analysis that is beyond the capabilities of current frameworks