Tool for Drought Monitoring in the Danube Region: – Methods and Preliminary Developments

Drought is a naturally recurring phenomenon of the climate system that affects virtually all regions of the world. During the past decades extreme droughts with extensive negative effects on ecosystems became evident also in the Danube region. At the moment regional capacity to monitor drought is still very diverse and not synchronised among different countries. In this is paper, we present a recently developed drought monitoring tool – the Drought User Service (DUS) for the Danube region using remote-sensing products which aims at offering a more accurate and in near-real-time monitoring via different drought indices. The DUS was created as the monitoring tool of the risk-based paradigm, which seeks to give information in near real-time about the location and severity of droughts throughout the Danube region. Satellite remote sensing products meet the requirements for operational monitoring because they are able to offer continuous and consistent measurements of variables, which can be used to assess the severity, spatial extent and impacts of drought. In the DUS three different variables – vegetation, soil moisture and precipitation – are monitored with earth observation products. The condition of vegetation and soil moisture is tracked with two simple indicators computed as long-term anomalies of the NDVI and SWI products made available through EU’s Copernicus Global Land Service. The importance of DUS and of the developed methods for faster detection of drought onset as useful foundation for establishing a better pro-active drought management in order to mitigate the negative effects of drought in the region is discussed

Research of educational structure in wood processing and furniture production sector

Sve se više sužava vremenski obzor u kojemu se pojedinac sa svojim obrazovanjem može osjećati „sigurnim“ na tržištu rada, a globalizacija, multikulturalno zajedništvo te brz ekonomski rast i tehnološki razvoj postaju veliki izazovi, pri čemu znanje i ljudska kreativnost postaju osnovni resursi razvoja i opstanka na svjetskom tržištu. Cilj rada je utvrditi obrazovnu strukturu zaposlenih na području prerade drva i proizvodnje namještaja, pri čemu je naglasak stavljen na zastupljenost visokoobrazovanih stručnjaka. Analiza obrazovne strukture obuhvatila je, prema Nacionalnoj klasifikaciji djelatnosti (NKD), područje DD 20 – Prerada drva i proizvodnja proizvoda od drva i pluta te područje DN 36 – Proizvodnja namještaja i ostala prerađivačka industrija. Istraživanje pokazuje da s 50% ispitanih poslovnih subjekata upravlja visokoobrazovani kadar, dok je među ukupno zaposlenima u preradi drva i proizvodnji namještaja samo 3,77% visokoobrazovanih.The labour market is becoming less and less safe for individuals with their education, while globalisation, multicultural unification, and fast economic growth/technological development present great challenges – with knowledge and creativity being basic resources of development and survival on the world market. The aim of this study is to establish the educational structure of the employed in the field of wood processing and furniture manufacture. The emphasis is upon the proportion of high professional qualification. The analysis of educational structure includes – according to the National classification of activities - the DD 20 area of Wood processing and production of wood and cork, and the DN36 area of Furniture manufacture and other processing industries. The research has revealed that 50% of the surveyed companies are managed by highly qualified staff, while only 3.77% of the employed in wood processing and furniture manufacture have high qualifications

Repository of drought event impacts across the danube catchment countries between 1981 and 2016 using publicly available sources

Drought directly and indirectly affects human society in a number of ways. In many regions of the world climate change will exasperate the effects of droughts, affect national economies more intensely. The main aim of this article was to catalogue and analyze the drought impacts in the 11 Central and South Eastern European states located in the Danube river basin. The identification of dry episodes was based on information from publicly available sources, namely, newspaper and journal articles that reported drought impacts. Information on drought impact occurrences was classified into one of five defined categories in which the drought impact report was most clearly manifested (i.e., agriculture, forestry, soil systems, wildfires and hydrology). In terms of the spatial distribution of drought impacts, individual recorded events were analyzed at the level of EU NUTS regions (or their equivalent in non-EU countries). The analysis highlights country-specific vulnerability to drought. Furthermore, gradual increases in drought events and the number of reported impacts were identified, which was particularly evident in the agricultural sector

How Can We Advance Integrative Biology Research in Animal Science in 21st Century?:Experience at University of Ljubljana from 2002 to 2022

In this perspective analysis, we strive to answer the following question: how can we advance integrative biology research in the 21st century with lessons from animal science? At the University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Department of Animal Science, we share here our three lessons learned in the two decades from 2002 to 2022 that we believe could inform integrative biology, systems science, and animal science scholarship in other countries and geographies. Cultivating multiomics knowledge through a conceptual lens of integrative biology is crucial for life sciences research that can stand the test of diverse biological, clinical, and ecological contexts. Moreover, in an era of the current COVID-19 pandemic, animal nutrition and animal science, and the study of their interactions with human health (and vice versa) through integrative biology approaches hold enormous prospects and significance for systems medicine and ecosystem health