Comunicación en el ámbito medioambiental: elaboración de una campaña de concienciación

La situación medioambiental del planeta es alarmante. El daño provocado por el ser humano afecta seriamente la biodiversidad de la Tierra, lo que ha originado daños ya irreparables. En nuestra mano está frenar esta catástrofe. España se encuentra entre los seis países más contaminantes de Europa y ostenta la posición del segundo país que más plástico vierte al mar Mediterráneo. Sin embargo, los mensajes alarmantes de algunas organizaciones no parecen calar entre sus habitantes. Nuestra conducta continúa inalterable, generando residuos en grandes cantidades y esquilmando los recursos del planeta por encima de sus posibilidades. Por esta razón, la finalidad de este trabajo es concienciar a los más jóvenes de España, buscando así un cambio de conducta al respecto. A tal fin se ha creado una campaña de comunicación que se ofrecerá a WWF, organización dedicada a la preservación del medio ambiente. Para ello, se ha investigado el papel actual de la comunicación y las herramientas que nos ofrece, al objeto de dotarnos de los elementos con los que idear una campaña. Asimismo, se ha estudiado la forma de actuar de WWF en el ámbito de la comunicación, aportando una descripción del funcionamiento de sus canales actuales.Departamento de Sociología y Trabajo SocialGrado en Publicidad y Relaciones Pública

Drop tower setup to study the diffusion-driven growth of a foam ball in supersaturated liquids in microgravity conditions

The diffusion-driven growth of a foam ball is a phenomenon that appears in many manufacturing process as well as in a variety of geological phenomena. Usually these processes are greatly affected by gravity, as foam is much lighter than the surrounding liquid. However, the growth of the foam free of gravity effects is still very relevant, as it is connected to manufacturing in space and to the forma- tion of rocks in meteorites and other small celestial bodies. The aim of this research is to investigate experimentally the growth of a bubble cloud growing in a gas-supersaturated liquid in microgravity conditions. Here, we describe the ex- periments carried out in the drop tower of the Center of Ap- plied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM). In few words, a foam seed is formed with spark-induced cavitation in carbonated water, whose time evolution is recorded with two high-speed cameras. Our preliminary results shed some light on how the size of the foam ball scales with time, in particular at times much longer than what could be studied in normal conditions, i.e. on the surface of the Earth, where the dynamics of the foam is already dominated by gravity after several milliseconds

La ciencia y nosotros

Science is the most refined cultural element to describe and manage the environment. It is the result of a permanent evolutionary algorithm and represents an adaptive biological advantage for the human species. Science evolves socially through physical records and information media, whose changes influence both science and society. Information professionals have been managing these physical records or knowledge containers. The technodigital revolution grows an industrialized information society where science is a productive workforce, with a neurodigital nature, and develops as a collective enterprise. Science containers are now very changeable, plural, segmented, networking, and take on a business look: they become “specific information platforms”. Information professionals’ position is rather weak, but they have the possibility to turn into information engineers, to participate in some of those platforms and to compete individually as information managers in the science arena

Results of the implementation of the System for the Integrated Assessment of Protected Areas (SIAPA) to the protected areas of the Autonomous Region of Madrid (Spain)

The long-term conservation of biodiversity and related ecosystems goods and services of the Autonomous Region of Madrid is jeopardized by the intensive resource-consuming development model followed by the region in the past few decades. This paper presents the aggregated results of the first integrated assessment of the protected areas of the Autonomous Region of Madrid (Spain) with the System for the Integrated Assessment of Protected Areas (SIAPA). Detailed results are also provided for individual protected areas as supplementary data. The assessment was done during 2009–2010, on ten protected areas differing in their sizes (from 2.5 to 52,796 ha), protection categories (seven categories) and types of ecosystems present. Comparison of results from both assessment models of the SIAPA (the Complete Model and the Simplified Model) is also presented. The results from the Complete Model show that eight out of the ten protected areas of the Autonomous Region of Madrid are currently ineffective. The poorest partial indexes overall were: “State of Conservation” and “Social and Economic Context”. The only indexes significantly correlated with the effectiveness of a protected area were: the “State of Conservation” (r = 0.851**) and the “Social Perception and Valuation” (r = 0.786**). Although not as relevant as was thought, “Management” and the other non-significant factors are likely to influence the effectiveness of protected areas as well. The results for the Simplified Model are slightly better than those for the Complete Model, although this is probably a specific result of this assessment. The two models of the SIAPA were very significantly correlated, although their aggregated results should not be compared directly.Peer reviewe

Proposal of a system for the integrated and comparative assessment of protected areas

Appendix A: Supplementary data http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.05.009Protected areas’ overall goal is to achieve the long-term conservation of natural and associated cultural goods and services. However, effective long-term conservation of natural and associated cultural resources cannot always be guaranteed by a protection regime or even by effective management, as it is usually assumed. The ultimate goal of assessing protected areas is therefore concerned less with management effectiveness than with their overall long-term effectiveness. This paper describes the methodology underpinning the System for the Integrated Assessment of Protected Areas (SIAPA). The aim of SIAPA is to make the concept of ‘effectiveness’ operational when applied to protected areas. It is an innovative, horizontal site-level assessment system for evaluating integrally and comparably the effectiveness of terrestrial protected areas, as the assessment is based on the same parameters. Indicators are the basic assessment units. They were weighted by an expert panel and integrated into six categories (indexes) defining the effectiveness of protected areas: state of conservation, planning, management, social and economic context, social perception and valuation, and threats to conservation. These indexes were subsequently integrated into a single super-index: an effectiveness index for the protected area. Two alternative models of the SIAPA were developed: the complete model, containing 43 indicators, in order to maximize the amount of information on each protected area; and the simplified model, containing 28 indicators, in order to maximize the cost-effectiveness of the assessment.Peer reviewe

A Centennial Path Towards Sustainability in Spanish National Parks: Biodiversity Conservation and Socioeconomic Development (1918-2018)

National Parks (NPs) were the first protected areas (PAs) designated in Spain one century ago. NPs are PAs of exceptional natural and cultural value that are representative of the Spanish natural heritage. Currently, there are 15 NPs in Spain covering almost 400,000 ha, although new site designations are being considered. Spanish NPs’ main objectives are closely linked to the sustainability concept: conserving natural and cultural assets in the long term and promoting public use, environmental awareness, research and socioeconomic development. Here, the history of modern nature conservation in Spain is summarized, with special focus on NPs. Moreover, the main monitoring and assessment initiatives in Spanish National Parks are reviewed. Finally, the major results of two current research projects focusing on the sustainability of Spanish NPs, DISESGLOB and SOSTPARK, are provided

Protected Area Effectiveness in the Scientific Literature: A Decade-Long Bibliometric Analysis

Protected areas (PAs) aim to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem services in the long term. Despite remarkable growth in the area covered by PAs in recent years, biodiversity trends still show worrisome outcomes. Here, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of scientific articles focusing on the ecological effectiveness of PAs that were published in the 2010–2019 decade using Scopus in order to show the latest publication trends in that research field. After three consecutive screenings, we analyzed a final census sample of 76 articles that used semiexperimental research designs. We assessed 3 thematic variables (i.e., related to ecological effectiveness) and 13 bibliometric variables through descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation tests, and Kruskal–Wallis difference tests. Our results demonstrate the growing size of research teams working on this topic, broader international collaboration, and greater length of the articles published on this subject. During that decade, the number of normalized citations (+28%) and the mean field-weighted citation impact (FWCI) of the set of reviewed articles (33% higher than expected) increased. We also observed an increase in open access publications (+13%). However, this mode of publication did not ensure more citations. Finally, we observed a positive correlation between the number of normalized citations and the inclusion of Supplementary Data in the articles.Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

Elastic properties of woven bone: effect of mineral content and collagen fibrils orientation

Woven bone is a type of tissue that forms mainly during fracture healing or fetal bone development. Its microstructure can be modeled as a composite with a matrix of mineral (hydroxyapatite) and inclusions of collagen fibrils with a more or less random orientation. In the present study, its elastic properties were estimated as a function of composition (degree of mineralization) and fibril orientation. A self-consistent homogenization scheme considering randomness of inclusions’ orientation was used for this purpose. Lacuno-canalicular porosity in the form of periodically distributed void inclusions was also considered. Assuming collagen fibrils to be uniformly oriented in all directions led to an isotropic tissue with a Young’s modulus E= 1.90 GPa, which is of the same order of magnitude as that of woven bone in fracture calluses. By contrast, assuming fibrils to have a preferential orientation resulted in a Young’s modulus in the preferential direction of 9–16 GPa depending on the mineral content of the tissue. These results are consistent with experimental evidence for woven bone in foetuses, where collagen fibrils are aligned to a certain extent