Future socio-political scenarios for aquatic resources in Europe: An operationalized framework for aquaculture projections

Climate-driven changes in aquatic environments have already started to affect the European aquaculture sector’s most commercially important finfish and shellfish species. In addition to changes in water quality and temperature that can directly influence fish production by altering health status, growth performance and/or feed conversion, the aquaculture sector also faces an uncertain future in terms of production costs and returns. For example, the availability of key ingredients for fish feeds (proteins, omega-3 fatty acids) will not only depend on future changes in climate, but also on social and political factors, thereby influencing feed costs. The future cost of energy, another main expenditure for fish farms, will also depend on various factors. Finally, marketing options and subsidies will have major impacts on future aquaculture profitability. Based on the framework of four socio-political scenarios developed in the EU H2020 project climate change and European aquatic resources (CERES), we defined how these key factors for the aquaculture sector could change in the future. We then apply these scenarios to make projections of how climate change and societal and economic trends influence the mid-century (2050) profitability of European aquaculture. We used an established benchmarking approach to contrast present-day and future economic performance of “typical farms” in selected European production regions under each of the scenarios termed “World Markets,” “National Enterprise,” “Global Sustainability” and “Local Stewardship.” These scenarios were based partly on the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios framework and their representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and the widely used shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs). Together, these scenarios contrast local versus international emphasis on decision making, more versus less severe environmental change, and different consequences for producers due to future commodity prices, cash returns, and costs. The mid-century profitability of the typical farms was most sensitive to the future development of feed costs, price trends of returns, and marketing options as opposed to the direct effect of climate-driven changes in the environment. These results can inform adaptation planning by the European aquaculture sector. Moreover, applying consistent scenarios including societal and economic dimensions, facilitates regional to global comparisons of adaptation advice both within and across Blue Growth sectors

Динамические тенденции в становлении предмета лингвоэкологии

Экологизация всех сфер общественной жизни и самого человека широко обсуждается во многих наука, а также и в области языка. Во многих работах лингвистов экология языка определяется как наука о взаимоотношениях между языком и его окружением, так как язык существует не только в сознании говорящих на нем и функционирует только при взаимоотношениях с другими коммуникантами и с их социальным и природным окружением. В этом контексте понятие «языковое сознание» представляет собой специфическую картину взаимосвязи культуры и общественной жизни социума, которая определяет его психологическое своеобразие и специфические черты данного языка

The shared socioeconomic pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview

This paper presents the overview of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and their energy, land use, and emissions implications. The SSPs are part of a new scenario framework, established by the climate change research community in order to facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The pathways were developed over the last years as a joint community effort and describe plausible major global developments that together would lead in the future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The SSPs are based on five narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments, including sustainable development, regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and a middle-of-the-road development. The long-term demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with the scenario literature. A multi-model approach was used for the elaboration of the energy, land-use and the emissions trajectories of SSP-based scenarios. The baseline scenarios lead to global energy consumption of 500-1100 EJ in 2100, and feature vastly different land-use dynamics, ranging from a possible reduction in cropland area up to a massive expansion by more than 700 million hectares by 2100. The associated annual CO2 emissions of the baseline scenarios range from about 25 GtCO2 to more than 120 GtCO2 per year by 2100. With respect to mitigation, we find that associated costs strongly depend on three factors: 1) the policy assumptions, 2) the socio-economic narrative, and 3) the stringency of the target. The carbon price for reaching the target of 2.6 W/m2 differs in our analysis thus by about a factor of three across the SSP scenarios. Moreover, many models could not reach this target from the SSPs with high mitigation challenges. While the SSPs were designed to represent different mitigation and adaptation challenges, the resulting narratives and quantifications span a wide range of different futures broadly representative of the current literature. This allows their subsequent use and development in new assessments and research projects. Critical next steps for the community scenario process will, among others, involve regional and sectorial extensions, further elaboration of the adaptation and impacts dimension, as well as employing the SSP scenarios with the new generation of earth system models as part of the 6th climate model intercomparison project (CMIP6)

Hotspots of uncertainty in land-use and land-cover change projections: a global-scale model comparison

Model-based global projections of future land use and land cover (LULC) change are frequently used in environmental assessments to study the impact of LULC change on environmental services and to provide decision support for policy. These projections are characterized by a high uncertainty in terms of quantity and allocation of projected changes, which can severely impact the results of environmental assessments. In this study, we identify hotspots of uncertainty, based on 43 simulations from 11 global-scale LULC change models representing a wide range of assumptions of future biophysical and socio-economic conditions. We attribute components of uncertainty to input data, model structure, scenario storyline and a residual term, based on a regression analysis and analysis of variance. From this diverse set of models and scenarios we find that the uncertainty varies, depending on the region and the LULC type under consideration. Hotspots of uncertainty appear mainly at the edges of globally important biomes (e.g. boreal and tropical forests). Our results indicate that an important source of uncertainty in forest and pasture areas originates from different input data applied in the models. Cropland, in contrast, is more consistent among the starting conditions, while variation in the projections gradually increases over time due to diverse scenario assumptions and different modeling approaches. Comparisons at the grid cell level indicate that disagreement is mainly related to LULC type definitions and the individual model allocation schemes. We conclude that improving the quality and consistency of observational data utilized in the modeling process as well as improving the allocation mechanisms of LULC change models remain important challenges. Current LULC representation in environmental assessments might miss the uncertainty arising from the diversity of LULC change modeling approaches and many studies ignore the uncertainty in LULC projections in assessments of LULC change impacts on climate, water resources or biodiversity

Short- and long-term warming effects of methane may affect the cost-effectiveness of mitigation policies and benefits of low-meat diets

Methane’s short atmospheric life has important implications for the design of global climate change mitigation policies in agriculture. Three different agricultural economic models are used to explore how short- and long-term warming effects of methane can affect the cost-effectiveness of mitigation policies and dietary transitions. Results show that the choice of a particular metric for methane’s warming potential is key to determine optimal mitigation options, with metrics based on shorter-term impacts leading to greater overall emission reduction. Also, the promotion of low-meat diets is more effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to carbon pricing when mitigation policies are based on metrics that reflect methane’s long-term behaviour. A combination of stringent mitigation measures and dietary changes could achieve substantial emission reduction levels, helping reverse the contribution of agriculture to global warming

Effects of changing weather patterns on the trade of major food crops

The paper examines the economic effects of expected changes in temperatures and precipitation on the trade of ten major food crops. The relative effects for developing versus developed countries are emphasized. A series of econometric models using panel data and autoregressive integrated moving average models are used to estimate and forecast relationships between yields and weather data, the results of which are used as input into MAGNET, a global computerized general equilibrium modeling framework. Econometric results show that average temperatures have increased across all areas growing major food crops. Results for precipitation are ambiguous, however, there is statistical evidence of two distinct periods, a first in which, on average, precipitation fell, followed by a second in which it increased. Results for crops with statistically significant estimates show that increasing temperatures have negatively affected yields.These results hold for both poor and rich countries, however, the degree to which yields are reduced is crop specific and sensitive to a country’s level of wealth. MAGNET results show that changes in weather are likely to have significant effects on the production, trade, and, in some cases, the consumption of major food crops

Including shy children in Contextmapping research

Student research report documenting explorative research in the possibilities to include shy children in Contextmapping research, directed at mapping user's experiences.Industrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin