Future climate change, yield variation, and impacts on farm management: a case study at a pilot regions in Finland

Crop production in northern regions such as in Finland is projected to benefit from longergrowing seasons brought by future climate change. However, production is also facing multiplechallenges under more frequent and extreme weather. More frequent drought stress, heat stressand other environment-related constraints may lead to higher yield variability in different regionsand increase the yield risks faced by farmers. Changes in yield potential and relative profitabilitybetween crops caused by climate change is likely to be different in different regions. The purposeof this paper is to develop a method to evaluate the impacts of adaptation and mitigation optionson farms with different socio-economic characteristics. Both socio-economic and biophysicalfactors affect rational decision-making process at a farm level and production decisions. Based onthe results from carefully chosen climate models under three SRES scenarios, together withdifferent market price scenarios, we attempt to identify how future changes in mean yields andyield variation caused by climate change in two regions in Finland may affect local farm landallocation and farming management practice. We study how management choices such as cropchoice, crop rotation, fertilization, crop protection and liming are affected and if these changesare in synergy or in conflict with mitigation. This study contributes to the development ofintegrated modelling methods needed to assess impacts of global changes on farming systems

Sosiaalipolitiikan kilpailevien ideologioiden vertailua : Hyvinvointivaltion eurooppalainen malli ja uusliberalismi vaihtoehtoisina esikuvina

Julkaisu esittelee ja vertailee eri näkökulmista ns. hyvinvointivaltion eurooppalaista mallia ja uusliberalismia sosiaalipolitiikan vaihtoehtoisina esikuvina. Raportti kuvaa näiden kahden mallin ideaalityyppisiä ominaispiirteitä ja eroja. Tarkastelu kohdistuu ajattelumallien pääpiirteisiin, sosiaalipolitiikan toimintaperiaatteisiin, toimeenpanijoihin, instituutioihin ja keinoihin kansallisvaltioiden tasolla sekä toimintaperiaatteisiin ja toiminnan seurauksiin yleismaailmallisella tasolla. Esitetty vertailu ei vastaa itse ideologian paremmuutta koskeviin kysymyksiin, mutta on hyödyllinen työkalu jokaiselle, joka haluaa tutkia tai suunnitella sosiaalipolitiikkaa tai ymmärtää sen kehittämistä.5,55 euro

The role of geodiversity in providing ecosystem services at broad scales

Abstract Mapping of ecosystem services (ESs) provide valuable information on the geographical variation of ESs and their relation to overall diversity. Although the relationship between biodiversity and ESs has been intensively explored, little is known how geodiversity (i.e., variety of geological, geomorphological and soil features) is associated with different ESs. We studied 1) the spatial variation of geodiversity and biodiversity in relation to six ESs (i.e., forest carbon budget, potential supply of groundwater, milk and meat production, crop production, amount of free-time residences and nationally valuable landscapes) using variation partitioning (VP), and 2) the spatial overlap between geodiversity and biodiversity and ESs using generalized additive models (GAM) in 1006 intensively surveyed grid cells of 100 km² located across Finland. In the VP, biodiversity independently explained more of the variation than geodiversity for majority of the ESs. However, shared explanation ability of biodiversity and geodiversity was considerable for majority of ESs (forest carbon budget: 41.3%, crop production: 15.0%, free-time residences: 15.2% and valuable landscapes: 7.3%), often exceeding that of both independent contributions. GAMs indicated that increase in both biodiversity and geodiversity enhances forest carbon budget (D2 = 66.8% and 12.4%, respectively), potential production of groundwater (8.3% and 0.1%), crop production (35.7% and 8.9%), free-time residences (40.0% and 7.9%) and valuable landscapes (11.6% and 6.9%). However, the positive relationship between diversity and ESs levelled off for many of the ESs. Our findings suggest that geodiversity is an important complementing factor in explaining spatial variation of the ESs in high-latitude regions. We also found dominantly synergic effects between abiotic diversity and ESs. Thus, our study results highlight the need to more deeply incorporate abiotic diversity into ESs research. Environmental conservation and management would benefit from the more comprehensive integration of geodiversity to ESs research along with the changing environmental conditions of future decades