The Millennium Development Goals: How realistic are they?

Poverty reduction, Hunger, Lagging regions, Social innovation, United Nations, MDGs, Investment needs, infrastructure, health,

Prediction of Agricultural Contaminant Concentrations in Ambient Air

Monitoring ambient air to assess environmental exposure and risk for volatile agricultural chemicals requires extensive resources and logistical effort. The cost and technical limitations of monitoring can be mitigated using a validated air dispersion model to simulate concentrations of volatile organic chemicals in ambient air. The SOil Fumigant Exposure Assessment (SOFEA) model was developed to explore volatile pesticide exposure and bystander risk. SOFEA assembles sources and source strengths, uses weather data from the region of interest, and executes an air dispersion model (AERMOD, ISCST3) to simulate pesticide concentrations at user defined receptors that can be used in exposure and risk assessment. This work highlights SOFEA development from inception and modifications over the last 1.5 decades, to the current delivery within the public domain. Various examples for the soil fumigant 1,3-dichloropropene are provided

Aquaculture induced erosion of tropical coastlines throws coastal communities back into poverty

Shallow tropical coastlines harbour unique mangrove ecosystems, which support livelihoods and provide a natural barrier against coastal flooding. Non-sustainable land-use practices, such as large-scale clear cutting of mangroves for aquaculture, ground water withdrawal and alteration of river flows, result in rapid subsidence. The collapse of aquaculture production, due to pollution and disease, is followed by coastal erosion, damage to infrastructure, intrusion of salt water and coastal flooding. Standard engineered interventions for protection often fail or are extremely expensive in these soft muddy environments. Subsidence and erosion render re-planting of mangroves in front of retreating coastlines impossible. Short-term solutions should focus on restoration of abiotic conditions, such as hydrology and sediment fluxes, to facilitate rapid establishment of protective mangrove belts. However, to ensure long-term sustainability, improved governance frameworks are required that put in place criteria for sustainable aquaculture, guide coastal infrastructure designs and limit ground water extraction

SPARC Europe in the Open Access Movement: a Μaster Plan?

Θα παρουσιαστούν οι τελευταίες τάσεις και εξελίξεις σε κρίσιμα ζητήματα που συνδέονται με τις ευρωπαϊκές και ελληνικές στρατηγικές για την Ανοικτή Πρόσβαση στην επιστημονική έρευνα. Η θεματολογία περιλαμβάνει εισηγήσεις για τις σύγχρονες πρακτικές στην επιστημονική επικοινωνία (scholarly communication), τα εργαλεία και τις υποδομές Ανοικτής Πρόσβασης, τη διαλειτουργικότητα των υποδομών, τη διαχείριση των πνευματικών δικαιωμάτων, την ανάπτυξη "συμμαχιών" για τη συγκέντρωση, ανταλλαγή και περαιτέρω αξιοποίηση πολλαπλών πηγών ψηφιακού επιστημονικού και πολιτιστικού περιεχομένου.Sessions on this topic will focus on the latest developments in crucial aspects of European and Greek strategies on Open Access in research, current practices in scholarly communication, infrastructures and tools that enable modern forms of research dissemination, infrastructure interoperability, alliance-building for the collection and efficient management and exploitation of digital research and cultural resources, relevant IPR issues

Socio-cultural aspects of farmers’ perception of the risk of climate change and variability in Central Ethiopia

There is a dearth of evidence on the socio-cultural aspects of climate change risk perception in developing countries. This study investigates the variation in farmers’ perception of the risks of climate change and variability by their socio-cultural characteristics. Data were collected from 810 randomly selected households in central Ethiopia using a structured questionnaire. Polling, a maximum likelihood prediction method of multivariate analysis that jointly evaluates the combined roles of different variables, allowing for non-parametric interactions, was used to analyse the data. The results show that households with a high risk perception have high accurate knowledge about climate change, experience of climatic events, value both societal and individual responsibilities to reduce the impact of climate change, and reside in the midland agro-ecological settings. On the other hand, a low descriptive norm, low social capital, lack of access to media, low level of education, and valuing autonomy characterize households with a low risk perception. The findings entail that communication strategies focusing on evidence-based knowledge about causes and consequences of and responses to climate change, past experience of climatic events, as well as fostering self-transcendence and openness-to-change values raise risk perception to engage farmers in adaptation actions

The Impact of Climate Change on Water Availability and Recharge of Aquifers in the Jordan River Basin

Climate change can seriously affect the Middle East region by reduced and erratic rainfall. Formulating appropriate coping policies should account for local effects and changing flows interconnecting spatial units. We apply statistical downscaling techniques of coarse global circulation models to predict future rainfall patterns in the Yarmouk Basin, using a linear regression to extrapolate these results to the entire Jordan River Basin (JRB). Using a detailed water economy model for the JRB we predict rainfall patterns to evaluate the impact of climate change on agriculture and groundwater recharge. For the JRB, rainfall in 2050 will be around 10% lower than present precipitation, but with substantial spatial spreading. An overall reduction of net revenue from crop cultivation is estimated at 150 million USD, with major losses in Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank; Syrian revenues will slightly increase. The recharge of groundwater is affected negatively, and outflow to the Dead Sea is substantially lower, leading to further increases in salinization