Assessment of carbon in woody plants and soil across a vineyard-woodland landscape

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Quantification of ecosystem services, such as carbon (C) storage, can demonstrate the benefits of managing for both production and habitat conservation in agricultural landscapes. In this study, we evaluated C stocks and woody plant diversity across vineyard blocks and adjoining woodland ecosystems (wildlands) for an organic vineyard in northern California. Carbon was measured in soil from 44 one m deep pits, and in aboveground woody biomass from 93 vegetation plots. These data were combined with physical landscape variables to model C stocks using a geographic information system and multivariate linear regression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Field data showed wildlands to be heterogeneous in both C stocks and woody tree diversity, reflecting the mosaic of several different vegetation types, and storing on average 36.8 Mg C/ha in aboveground woody biomass and 89.3 Mg C/ha in soil. Not surprisingly, vineyard blocks showed less variation in above- and belowground C, with an average of 3.0 and 84.1 Mg C/ha, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This research demonstrates that vineyards managed with practices that conserve some fraction of adjoining wildlands yield benefits for increasing overall C stocks and species and habitat diversity in integrated agricultural landscapes. For such complex landscapes, high resolution spatial modeling is challenging and requires accurate characterization of the landscape by vegetation type, physical structure, sufficient sampling, and allometric equations that relate tree species to each landscape. Geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques are useful for integrating the above variables into an analysis platform to estimate C stocks in these working landscapes, thereby helping land managers qualify for greenhouse gas mitigation credits. Carbon policy in California, however, shows a lack of focus on C stocks compared to emissions, and on agriculture compared to other sectors. Correcting these policy shortcomings could create incentives for ecosystem service provision, including C storage, as well as encourage better farm stewardship and habitat conservation.</p

Reading and Ownership

First paragraph: ‘It is as easy to make sweeping statements about reading tastes as to indict a nation, and as pointless.’ This jocular remark by a librarian made in the Times in 1952 sums up the dangers and difficulties of writing the history of reading. As a field of study in the humanities it is still in its infancy and encompasses a range of different methodologies and theoretical approaches. Historians of reading are not solely interested in what people read, but also turn their attention to the why, where and how of the reading experience. Reading can be solitary, silent, secret, surreptitious; it can be oral, educative, enforced, or assertive of a collective identity. For what purposes are individuals reading? How do they actually use books and other textual material? What are the physical environments and spaces of reading? What social, educational, technological, commercial, legal, or ideological contexts underpin reading practices? Finding answers to these questions is compounded by the difficulty of locating and interpreting evidence. As Mary Hammond points out, ‘most reading acts in history remain unrecorded, unmarked or forgotten’. Available sources are wide but inchoate: diaries, letters and autobiographies; personal and oral testimonies; marginalia; and records of societies and reading groups all lend themselves more to the case-study approach than the historical survey. Statistics offer analysable data but have the effect of producing identikits rather than actual human beings. The twenty-first century affords further possibilities, and challenges, with its traces of digital reader activity, but the map is ever-changing

Schoolbooks and textbook publishing.

In this chapter the author looks at the history of schoolbooks and textbook publishing. The nineteenth century saw a rise in the school book market in Britain due to the rise of formal schooling and public examinations. Although the 1870 Education and 1872 (Scotland) Education Acts made elementary education compulsory for childern between 5-13 years old, it was not until the end of the First World War that some sort form of secondary education became compulsory for all children

Leading and managing for high performance

This paper explores some of the changing perceptions of leadership in education. It focuses in particular on the issue of \u27performance\u27, which is at the heart of much educational reform

Rethinking Educational Leadership: From Improvement To Transformation

John West-Burnham offers a radical critique of prevailing models of leadership in education, particularly models of school leadership, notably the British view of headship. For almost a generation, school leadership has been focused on the concept of improvement, within a policy context of improvement and a prevailing culture rooted in incremental adjustment rather than a fundamental reappraisal. Transformation is a particularly evocative concept; it is one of those words that it is almost impossible to raise objections to. However, as is so often the case with such words, its power is often proportionate to the ambiguity with which it is used. In the context of a discussion about transforming schools three broad categories of usage might be identified: transformation as improved performance, transformation as the achievement of optimum effectiveness and transformation as profound change. It is in this latter respect that the book will offer an alternative model of leadership. Transformation is not about improving output or efficiency; it is not about incremental improvement or optimising organizational effectiveness. Transformation is rather about the profound change of every component of the organization following a fundamental reconceptualisation of its purpose and nature. Transformation is a process that ensures that an organization is appropriate to the context in which it operates. Transformation is about questioning the very nature of the school as an organization and the nature of organizations. The distinctive nature of this book is that it will focus on leadership attitudes, values and personal qualities (the elusive and intangible elements of leadership) rather than simply reworking the traditional blend of knowledge, skills and experience. Central to the book will be the notion of the personal 'mind map' - the model of leadership that determines personal behaviour. The book will focus on helping leade