Supporting the vulnerable: Increasing adaptive capacities of agropastoralists to climate change in West and southern Africa using a transdisciplinary research approach

The world’s climate is changing rapidly and Africa will be severely affected by this, not only because of the effects on ecosystems but also because of the low adaptive capacity of communities due to poverty and lack of infrastructure, services, and appropriate policies to support adaptation strategies. A large share of Africa’s poor are dependent on livestock for some part of their livelihoods, most of these living in smallholder, rainfed mixed systems and pastoral systems, where livestock play a key role as assets providing multiple economic, social, and risk management functions. The goal of this transdisciplinary project is to increase the adaptive capacity of agropastoralists, who are one of the most vulnerable groups in Africa, to climate change and variability. The purpose of this project is to co-generate methods, information and solutions between local communities, local and international scientists, policymakers and other actors involved in climate change and adaptation programs, for coping mechanisms and adapting strategies to climate change and variability in West and Southern Africa, and more particularly in Mali and Mozambique. To quantify the magnitudes of the effects of climate variability and change on the productivity of rangelands, crops and livestock and how these changes affect agropastoralists, spatial data layers were created, collated and documented related to climate variability and change, production systems, primary production, vulnerability and feed resources. First a generalized downscaling and data generation method was used to take the outputs of a General Circulation Models (GCM) to describe some future climatology and to allow the stochastic generation of daily weather data that are to some extent characteristic of this future climatology, that can then be used to drive impact models that require daily (or otherwise aggregated) weather data. Secondly a global livestock production system classification scheme that integrates the notions of crop and livestock interactions with agro-ecological zones was extended by including indicators of the major crops grown in the mixed crop–livestock areas. Next a dynamic global vegetation crop model was used for simulating crop and rangeland yields, water and carbon fluxes and water productivities under different climate and land use scenarios. Areas of reduced primary productivity were identified and characterized and overlaid with information on poverty and livelihoods, to identify hotspots where productivity reductions may have serious repercussions on smallholders’ wellbeing. Communities have been adapting to change and variability for centuries. Household surveys and in-depth narrative analyses were conducted with agropastoral communities to document, synthesise and help disseminate their past and present coping mechanisms and adaptation strategies, particularly those related to livestock, for which there is relatively little information. Several institutions are already working on promoting adaptation strategies in West and Southern Africa. We collated and documented the strategies promoted, and together with the indigenous information provided by agropastoralist communities we initiated dialogues between the different stakeholders to jointly prioritize adaptation strategies, to select a few for pilot testing. By doing this we can provide active learning opportunities and promote the co-creation of adaptation options between different stakeholders. Implementation and dissemination of technical adaptation options often fails due to the lack of support from the policy environment. Together with key policymaking institutions and regional policymaking bodies we identified and promoted policy entry points to support the implementation of priority adaptation strategies, and we identified policy mechanisms that in themselves are an appropriate intervention to allow agropastoralists to buffer the effects of climate variability and change

Revisiting Reader Privacy in the Age of the E-Book, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. 175 (2011)

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Antimicrobial Resistance, Class 1 Integrons, and Genomic Island 1 in Salmonella Isolates from Vietnam

BACKGROUND: The objective was to investigate the phenotypic and genotypic resistance and the horizontal transfer of resistance determinants from Salmonella isolates from humans and animals in Vietnam. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The susceptibility of 297 epidemiologically unrelated non-typhoid Salmonella isolates was investigated by disk diffusion assay. The isolates were screened for the presence of class 1 integrons and Salmonella genomic island 1 by PCR. The potential for the transfer of resistance determinants was investigated by conjugation experiments. Resistance to gentamicin, kanamycin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, trimethoprim, ampicillin, nalidixic acid, sulphonamides, and tetracycline was found in 13 to 50% of the isolates. Nine distinct integron types were detected in 28% of the isolates belonging to 11 Salmonella serovars including S. Tallahassee. Gene cassettes identified were aadA1, aadA2, aadA5, bla(PSE-1), bla(OXA-30), dfrA1, dfrA12, dfrA17, and sat, as well as open reading frames with unknown functions. Most integrons were located on conjugative plasmids, which can transfer their antimicrobial resistance determinants to Escherichia coli or Salmonella Enteritidis, or with Salmonella Genomic Island 1 or its variants. The resistance gene cluster in serovar Emek identified by PCR mapping and nucleotide sequencing contained SGI1-J3 which is integrated in SGI1 at another position than the majority of SGI1. This is the second report on the insertion of SGI1 at this position. High-level resistance to fluoroquinolones was found in 3 multiresistant S. Typhimurium isolates and was associated with mutations in the gyrA gene leading to the amino acid changes Ser83Phe and Asp87Asn. CONCLUSIONS: Resistance was common among Vietnamese Salmonella isolates from different sources. Legislation to enforce a more prudent use of antibiotics in both human and veterinary medicine should be implemented by the authorities in Vietnam

Investigation into metal contamination of the Berg River, Western Cape, South Africa

A recent decline in water quality of the Berg River, Western Cape, South Africa, has led to the investigation into the degree of metal pollution in the river system. This study was conducted over a period of one year, from May 2004 to May 2005. The nitric acid digestion technique was used to extract metals from water, sediment and biofilm samples collected at various points (Site A . agricultural area, Site B . informal settlement and Site C . Newton pumping station) along the Berg River. Metal concentrations were determined using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). The highest mean metal concentrations recorded were as follows; water samples, 6 mgE.-1 for Al, 14.6 mgE.-1 for Fe and 18.8 mg..-1 for Mn; sediment samples, 17 448.8 mgEkg-1 for Al and 26 473.3 mgEkg-1 for Fe; biofilm samples, 876.8 mgE.-1 for Al and 1 017.5 mgE.-1 for Fe. The increased availability, or noteworthy incidence of Al and Fe, could be due to the leaching of metals into the river water from waste and household products associated with the informal settlement and the subsequent settling on sediment. No guidelines were available for metals in biofilms. The highest recorded concentrations in water were for Site C (agricultural area). Recorded concentrations in water fluctuated throughout the study period for most of the metals analysed, but Al and Fe were consistently above the recommended guidelines as stipulated by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment

The livestock-climate-poverty nexus: A discussion paper on ILRI research in relation to climate change

Climate change will have severe impacts in many parts of the tropics and subtropics. Despite the importance of livestock to poor people and the magnitude of the changes that are likely to befall livestock systems, the intersection of climate change and livestock is a relatively neglected research area. Little is known about the interactions of climate and increasing climate variability with other drivers of change in livestock systems and in broader development trends. Evidence is being assembled that the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of household responses may be very large. While opportunities may exist for some households to take advantage of more conducive rangeland and cropping conditions, for example, the changes projected will pose very serious problems for many other households. Furthermore, ruminant livestock themselves have important impacts on climate, through the emission of methane and through the land-use change that may be brought about by livestock keepers. Given that climate change is now being seen as a key development challenge, and that a very large global community is already working on climate-change-related issues, the CGIAR in general, and ILRI in particular, need to consider carefully how the research agenda might be adjusted to respond. While the global environmental change community is very large, ILRI as a small institute can still contribute effectively to the climate change / development debate by focusing on a few key niches, through alliances with carefully chosen collaborators. This discussion paper is an attempt to assemble and summarise relevant information concerning climate change, livestock and development, and to identify what these key niches might be. The report briefly summarises what is known about climate change and its effects on agroecosystems, and summarises the current limits to prediction. It reviews the literature on climate change impacts on livestock and livestock impacts on climate, and thus sets out to answer the question, what do we know? Knowledge and data gaps are then identified, and a synthesis presented in relation to our clients and stakeholders and to alternative providers of knowledge and information. The paper ends by looking at the questions, what do we not know, and what should we do about it, with a discussion of recommendations for ILRI activities in the area, and the strategic alliances needed, some of which already exist

Climate change: do we know how it will affect smallholder livestock farmers?

What is known about the likely impacts of climate change on resource-poor livestock keepers in the developing world? Relatively little, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) are working to improve this knowledge. This Brief outlines how a group of scientists at ILRI reviewed some elements of the complex relationship between livestock and climate change in developing countries with a forward-looking approach. The objective was to help set research priorities: to inform the debate as to what research for development organizations such as ILRI could and should be doing in the area of climate change work that could add value to the large amounts of work already being carried out by the Global Change community on cropping systems and natural resources management. Originally designed to guide ILRI’s research on climate change, this work has had a broader impact by informing the investment strategies of several other research-for-development organizations, including donors

First-principles study of phase stability of Gd-doped EuO and EuS

Phase diagrams of isoelectronic Eu$_{1-x}$Gd$_x$O and Eu$_{1-x}$Gd$_{x}$S quasi-binary alloy systems are constructed using first-principles calculations combined with the standard cluster expansion approach and Monte-Carlo simulations. The oxide system has a wide miscibility gap on the Gd-rich side but forms ordered compounds on the Eu-rich side, exhibiting a deep asymmetric convex hull in the formation enthalpy diagram. The sulfide system has no stable compounds. The large difference in the formation enthalpies of the oxide and sulfide compounds is due to the contribution of local lattice relaxation, which is sensitive to the anion size. The solubility of Gd in both EuO and EuS is in the range of 10-20% at room temperature and quickly increases at higher temperatures, indicating that highly doped disordered solid solutions can be produced without the precipitation of secondary phases. We also predict that rocksalt GdO can be stabilized under appropriate experimental conditions.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures (some with multiple panels), revtex4 with embedded ep

An approach to computing downward closures

The downward closure of a word language is the set of all (not necessarily contiguous) subwords of its members. It is well-known that the downward closure of any language is regular. While the downward closure appears to be a powerful abstraction, algorithms for computing a finite automaton for the downward closure of a given language have been established only for few language classes. This work presents a simple general method for computing downward closures. For language classes that are closed under rational transductions, it is shown that the computation of downward closures can be reduced to checking a certain unboundedness property. This result is used to prove that downward closures are computable for (i) every language class with effectively semilinear Parikh images that are closed under rational transductions, (ii) matrix languages, and (iii) indexed languages (equivalently, languages accepted by higher-order pushdown automata of order 2).Comment: Full version of contribution to ICALP 2015. Comments welcom