Evaluating and expanding the European Union's protected-area network toward potential post-2020 coverage targets

The Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) strategic plan will expire in 2020, but biodiversity loss is ongoing. Scientists call for more ambitious targets in the next agreement. The nature-needs-half movement, for example, has advocated conserving half of Earth to solve the biodiversity crisis, which has been translated to protecting 50 of each ecoregion. We evaluated current protection levels of ecoregions in the territory of one of the CBD's signatories, the European Union (EU). We also explored the possible enlargement of the Natura 2000 network to implement 30 or 50 ecoregion coverage in the EU member states’ protected area (PA) network. Based on the most recent land-use data, we examined whether ecoregions have enough natural area left to reach such high coverage targets. We used a spatially explicit mixed integer programing model to estimate the least-cost expansion of the PA network based on 3 scenarios that put different emphasis on total conservation cost, ecological representation of ecosystems, or emphasize an equal share of the burden among member states. To realize 30 and 50 ecoregion coverage, the EU would need to add 6.6 and 24.2, respectively, of its terrestrial area to its PA network. For all 3 scenarios, the EU would need to designate most recommended new PAs in seminatural forests and other semi- or natural ecosystems. Because 15 ecoregions did not have enough natural area left to implement the ecoregion-coverage targets, some member states would also need to establish new PAs on productive land, allocating the largest share to arable land. Thirty percent ecoregion coverage was met by protecting remaining natural areas in all ecoregions except 3, where productive land would also need to be included. Our results support discussions of higher ecoregions protection targets for post-2020 biodiversity frameworks. © 2020 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology

Costs and benefits of spatial data accuracy on comprehensive conservation planning assessments - A conceptual approach

The planning of protected habitat networks to safeguard global biodiversity requires substantial knowledge on exposure, services, and functions of ecosystems. Spatial-ecological datasets contain important information for the adequate assessment of spatial economic and ecologic interdependencies. However, these data are still lacking in many places. Comprehensive earth observation can play an important role in the provision of such data but it also involves costs. Cost-benefit analyses may answer the question whether the preparation of such comprehensive spatial data is worthwhile and may help to find the appropriate data resolution for conservation planning questions under consideration of costs. We compare several wetland data sets on global, national, and regional scale according to their spatial accuracy of wetland distribution and the costs of data survey, monitoring, and supply. The spatial data are integrated into bioeconomic land use models of different scales to assess benefits and uncertainties of increased data resolution and accuracy

The effects of cropping intensity and cropland expansion of Brazilian soybean production on green water flows

As land use change alters how green water is appropriated, cropland expansion is instrumental in re-allocating green water towards agriculture. Alongside cropland expansion, agricultural intensification practices modify crop water use and land and water productivity. Particularly, one form of agricultural intensification known as multi-cropping (the cultivation of a piece of land sequentially more than once a year) can result in greater agricultural output per unit of land, as well as more productive use of the available water throughout the annual rainfall cycle. We assess the influence of these two processes, cropland expansion and agricultural intensification, in agricultural green water use in Brazilian agriculture. We applied the biophysical crop model Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) to estimate green water use for single and double cropping of soybean (Glycine max) and maize (Zea mays) in Brazil. The first part of our study analyses changes in soybean green water use and virtual water content nationwide between 1990 and 2013, and in a second part we look into the effect of double-cropping on water use for soybean and maize in the Brazilian states of Paraná and Mato Grosso between 2003 and 2013. The results show that cropland expansion plays a more prominent effect in green water use for production of soybean than intensification, and harvested area increase was responsible for the appropriation of an additional 95 km3 of green water in 2013 when compared to 1990, an increase of 155%. We estimate that an additional green water use of around 26 km3 related to second season maize was appropriated through increase of cropping frequency, and without expansion of cropland, in 2013 in the selected states. We discuss the importance of considering multi cropping practices when assessing green water sustainability, and the importance of differentiating green water appropriation through expansion and through cropping frequency changes

Water productivity and footprint of major Brazilian rainfed crops – A spatially explicit analysis of crop management scenarios

Green water is a central resource for global agricultural production. Understanding its role is fundamental to design strategies to increase global food and feed production while avoiding further land conversion, and obtaining more crop per drop. Brazil is a country with high water availability, and a major exporter of agricultural goods and virtual water. We assess here water use and water productivity in Brazil for four major rainfed crops: cotton, maize, soybeans, and wheat. For this, we use the EPIC crop model to perform a spatially explicit assessment of consumptive water use and water productivity under crop management scenarios in Brazil between 1990 and 2013. We investigate four different land-water interactions: (i) water use and productivity for different management scenarios, (ii) the potential of supplemental irrigation for productivity improvement, (iii) changes in green water use throughout the study period, and finally (iv) potential reduction of land and water demand related to agricultural intensification. The results show that, for the studied crops, green water is the main resource for biomass production, and intensification can lead to great improvements in green water productivity. The results also suggest that, despite achieving higher yields, irrigation-based intensification tends to lower overall water productivity, compared to fertilizer-based intensification strategies. This is, however, regionally and crop-specific. Furthermore, due to higher yields and water productivity, producing the same amount of crop output in irrigated or rainfed intensification scenarios would result in the reduction of resource demand, in the order of 34–58 % for cropland, and 29–52 % for water

A Map of Update Constraints in Inductive Inference

We investigate how different learning restrictions reduce learning power and how the different restrictions relate to one another. We give a complete map for nine different restrictions both for the cases of complete information learning and set-driven learning. This completes the picture for these well-studied \emph{delayable} learning restrictions. A further insight is gained by different characterizations of \emph{conservative} learning in terms of variants of \emph{cautious} learning. Our analyses greatly benefit from general theorems we give, for example showing that learners with exclusively delayable restrictions can always be assumed total.Comment: fixed a mistake in Theorem 21, result is the sam

PRORAČUN ČELIČNIH TANKOSTIJENIH NOSAČA PREMA EN 1993-1-3

Osnovni problem čeličnih tankostijenih nosača, lokalni instabilitet dijelova poprečnog presjeka koji se nalaze u tlaku, može se riješiti povoljnim profiliranjem (ukrućivanjem) poprečnog presjeka nosača. Optimizacijom rasporeda ukrućenja u poprečnom presjeku može se u potpunosti spriječiti lokalni instabilitet te time povećati otpornost nosača bez dodatnog utroška materijala.Veliki utjecaj na otpornost ovakvih nosača, osim ukrućenja, može imati i pridržanje pojasnice profiliranim limom. U članku su prikazani normirani postupci kojima se na brz i jednostavan način može proračunati utjecaj ukrućenja i utjecaj pridržanja pojasnice nosača pokrovnim limom. Konkretnim primjerom kvantificiran je utjecaj ukrućenja i pridržanja pojasnice C podrožnice trapeznim limom. Naglašene su mogućnosti suvremene norme EN 1993-1-3, koje uz malo dodatnog projektantskog napora na jednostavan način omogućuju znatnu uštedu koja se može polučiti iz realnog razmatranja tankostijenih profila