The hotel comment card: A motivator of guest satisfaction

This paper explores the traditional pen and paper hotel comment card (HCC) from the guests’ perspective to gain an insight and to improve its effectiveness. The HCC has long been the predominant method of soliciting guest feedback. Although electronic methods of collection are now available the HCC has a sense of familiarity, has general acceptance, and is widely employed. Initially, a literature review of the hotel comment card is provided. Then, the study explores how frequent guests categorize HCC attributes. These attributes are then extended to include evaluation criteria identified in the literature and desired by hotel managers. The extended evaluation criterion is then used to explore how frequent hotel guests believe that future HCCs may motivate guests to provide feedback and assist in the co-­‐‑creation of value. The overall finding is that the HCCs design and execution can be improved

From research to policy: optimizing the design of a national monitoring system to mitigate soil nitrous oxide emissions

Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from agricultural soils are a key source of greenhouse gas emissions in most countries. In order for governments to effectively reduce N2O emissions, a national inventory system is needed for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions that provides unbiased estimates with the highest precision feasible. Inventory frameworks could be advanced by incorporating experimental research networks targeting key gaps in process understanding and drivers of emissions, with a multi-stage survey to collect data on agricultural management and N2O fluxes that allow for development, parameterization and application of models to estimate national-scale emissions. Verification can be accomplished with independent estimation of fluxes from atmospheric N2O concentration data. A robust monitoring system would provide accurate emission estimates, and allow policymakers to develop programs to more sustainably manage reactive N and target mitigation measures for reducing N2O emissions from agricultural soils

Evaluating land cover influences on model uncertainties—A case study of cropland carbon dynamics in the Mid-Continent Intensive Campaign region

tQuantifying spatial and temporal patterns of carbon sources and sinks and their uncertainties acrossagriculture-dominated areas remains challenging for understanding regional carbon cycles. Character-istics of local land cover inputs could impact the regional carbon estimates but the effect has not beenfully evaluated in the past. Within the North American Carbon Program Mid-Continent Intensive (MCI)Campaign, three models were developed to estimate carbon fluxes on croplands: an inventory-basedmodel, the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model, and the General Ensemble biogeo-chemical Modeling System (GEMS) model. They all provided estimates of three major carbon fluxes oncropland: net primary production (NPP), net ecosystem production (NEP), and soil organic carbon (SOC)change. Using data mining and spatial statistics, we studied the spatial distribution of the carbon fluxesuncertainties and the relationships between the uncertainties and the land cover characteristics. Resultsindicated that uncertainties for all three carbon fluxes were not randomly distributed, but instead formedmultiple clusters within the MCI region. We investigated the impacts of three land cover characteristicson the fluxes uncertainties: cropland percentage, cropland richness and cropland diversity. The resultsindicated that cropland percentage significantly influenced the uncertainties of NPP and NEP, but noton the uncertainties of SOC change. Greater uncertainties of NPP and NEP were found in counties withsmall cropland percentage than the counties with large cropland percentage. Cropland species richnessand diversity also showed negative correlations with the model uncertainties. Our study demonstratedthat the land cover characteristics contributed to the uncertainties of regional carbon fluxes estimates.The approaches we used in this study can be applied to other ecosystem models to identify the areaswith high uncertainties and where models can be improved to reduce overall uncertainties for regionalcarbon flux estimates

Definition, Capabilities, and Components of a Terrestrial Carbon Monitoring System

Research efforts for effectively and consistently monitoring terrestrial carbon are increasing in number. As such, there is a need to define carbon monitoring and how it relates to carbon cycle science and carbon management. There is also a need to identify capabilities of a carbon monitoring system and the system components needed to develop the capabilities. Capabilities that enable the effective application of a carbon monitoring system for monitoring and management purposes may include: reconciling carbon stocks and fluxes, developing consistency across spatial and temporal scales, tracking horizontal movement of carbon, attribution of emissions to originating sources, cross-sectoral accounting, uncertainty quantification, redundancy and policy relevance. Focused research is needed to integrate these capabilities for sustained estimates of carbon stocks and fluxes. Additionally, if monitoring is intended to inform management decisions, management priorities should be considered prior to development of a monitoring system

Climate and Soil Characteristics Determine Where No-Till Management Can Store Carbon in Soils and Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Article number: 11665 (2019)201

Advancing national greenhouse gas inventories for agriculture in developing countries : improving activity data, emission factors and software technology

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Quantifying nitrous oxide emissions in the U.S. Midwest: a top‐down study using high resolution airborne in‐situ observations

The densely farmed U.S. Midwest is a prominent source of nitrous oxide (N2O) but top‐down and bottom‐up N2O emission estimates differ significantly. We quantify Midwest N2O emissions by combining observations from the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport‐America campaign with model simulations to scale the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR). In October 2017 we scaled agricultural EDGAR v4.3.2 and v5.0 emissions by factors of 6.3 and 3.5, respectively, resulting in 0.42 nmol m−2 s−1 Midwest N2O emissions. In June/July 2019, a period when extreme flooding was occurring in the Midwest, agricultural scaling factors were 11.4 (v4.3.2) and 9.9 (v5.0), resulting in 1.06 nmol m−2 s−1 Midwest emissions. Uncertainties are on the order of 50 %. Agricultural emissions estimated with the process‐based model DayCent (Daily version of the CENTURY ecosystem model) were larger than in EDGAR but still substantially smaller than our estimates. The complexity of N2O emissions demands further studies to fully characterize Midwest emissions

Climate and soil characteristics determine where no-till management can store carbon in soils and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions

Adoption of no-till management on croplands has become a controversial approach for storing carbon in soil due to conflicting findings. Yet, no-till is still promoted as a management practice to stabilize the global climate system from additional change due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, including the 4 per mille initiative promoted through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. We evaluated the body of literature surrounding this practice, and found that SOC storage can be higher under no-till management in some soil types and climatic conditions even with redistribution of SOC, and contribute to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. However, uncertainties tend to be large, which may make this approach less attractive as a contributor to stabilize the climate system compared to other options. Consequently, no-till may be better viewed as a method for reducing soil erosion, adapting to climate change, and ensuring food security, while any increase in SOC storage is a co-benefit for society in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale