Nitrogen effect on carbon-water coupling in forests, grasslands, and shrublands in the arid western United States

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): G03023, doi:10.1029/2010JG001621.As greenhouse gases, including CO2, accumulate in the atmosphere, the western United States is predicted to undergo large-scale climate warming and reduced summer precipitation in the coming decades. In this study we explore the role of these climate changes with elevated CO2 to determine the plant physiological response on primary productivity and associated feedbacks on evapotranspiration (ET) and runoff using a biogeochemistry model, TEM-Hydro, with downscaled climate data for the western United States from the NCAR CCSM3 A2 scenario. Net primary productivity increases by 32% in forests due to feedbacks between warmer temperatures and enhanced nitrogen mineralization but decreases in shrublands by 24% due to excessive drying and reduced nitrogen mineralization. Warming directly increases nitrogen mineralization rates but indirectly decreases them by reducing soil moisture, so the net effect is highly dependent on climatic conditions within each biome. Increased soil moisture resulting from larger water use efficiency from the elevated CO2 leads to more net nitrogen mineralization in forests, which reduces N-limiting conditions. The effect of CO2 on stomatal conductance is therefore enhanced because of its effect on reducing nitrogen limiting conditions. Runoff decreases over the 21st century by 22% in forests, 58% in grasslands, and 67% in shrublands due to the reduced precipitation in each region but is modulated by the plant-induced changes in ET. The role of moisture limitation is therefore a crucial regulator of nitrogen limitation, which determines the future productivity and water availability in the West.This study was funded by the Department of Energy, Basic Research and Modeling to Support Integrated Assessment, DE‐FG02‐08ERG64648

Caesarean Section rates in South Asian cities: Can midwifery help stem the rise?

Introduction: Caesarean section (CS) is a life-saving surgical intervention for delivering a baby when complications arisein childbirth. World Health Organization recommends a rate of CS from 10% to 15%. However, CS rates increased steadily in recent decades and have almost doubled from 12.1% in 2000 to 21.1% in 2015. Therefore, this has become a global public health problem. The main purpose of the scoping review article is to give an overview and analysis of the rising CS use in four South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. Methods: A scoping review was carried-out using several bibliographic electronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, SCOPUS, CINAHL and Web of Science), organizational websites and open access journal databases. Literature was searched from December 2011 to December 2018 for articles reporting hospital-based CS rates.Inclusion criteria were primary studies conducted ininstitutional setting in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan and published in the English language. Results: We have included 43 studies. Together these studies show that the rate of CS is increasing in all four countries: Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. However, this isuneven with very low rates in rural and very high rates in urban settings, theco-existence of ‘Too Little Too Late & Too Much Too Soon’. Hospital based studies have shown that the CS rate is higher in urban and private hospitals. Age, education andsocio-economic status of women, urban residence and distance from health facility are associated with CSs. CS is higher among highlyeducated affluent urban women in private hospitals in South Asian Countries. Conclusion: Rising CS rates in South Asian cities, particularly in specific groups of women, present a challenge to hospital staff and managers and policy-makers. The challenge is to avoid ‘Too Much Too Soon’ in otherwise healthy urban women and avoid ‘Too Little Too Late’ in women living in remote and rural area and in poor urban women

A Healthy Food Supplementation Programme: A Pilot Study in Nepal

Poster based on pilot study by Bournemouth University PhD student Jib Achary

Impact of Healthy Snacks on Children’s Health: An Overview of Pilot Study

Background: Preschool-aged children of disadvantaged households in Nepal have a higher prevalence rate of undernutrition. The major contributing reasons are the inadequate maternal knowledge, existing taboos, and unscientific food recommendation practices. Objective: This pilot study aimed: • to evaluates the impact of the rice pudding feeding programme on child health. • to calculate the costs of the preparation. Methods: The study recruited children aged under-five who attended a day-care centre in the remote area of Nepal. Child weight, height, and MUAC (Mid-Upper Arm Circumference) were recorded before and after the rice pudding programme which lasted for 54 days. Data were analysed using SPSS software version 22.0. Results: Of the 42 children, 18 were boys (43%) and 24 were girls (57%), 90% gained the weight whilst the weight of the remaining 10% of children stayed constant. Similarly, 55% of the children had grown in height and 78% had increased MUAC while 12% of children had slight increment. The estimated cost was USD 0.34 per day per child. Conclusions: Regular healthy diet fulfils children’s nutritional need. It is important to consider the right dietary practice, including portion sizes, and community awareness about healthy diet and its impact on children’s health as well as sustainability of the provisions. The study was inexpensive and likely to be cost-effective

Increased nitrogen enrichment and shifted patterns in the world's grassland: 1860–2016

Production and application to soils of manure excreta from livestock farming significantly perturb the global nutrient balance and result in significant greenhouse gas emissions that warm the earth's climate. Despite much attention paid to synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizer and manure N applications to croplands, spatially explicit, continuous time-series datasets of manure and fertilizer N inputs on pastures and rangelands are lacking. We developed three global gridded datasets at a resolution of 0.5∘&thinsp;×&thinsp;0.5∘ for the period 1860–2016 (i.e., annual manure N deposition (by grazing animals) rate, synthetic N fertilizer and N manure application rates), by combining annual and 5&thinsp;arcmin spatial data on pastures and rangelands with country-level statistics on livestock manure, mineral and chemical fertilizers, and land use information for cropland and permanent meadows and pastures. Based on the new data products, we estimated that total N inputs, the sum of manure N deposition, manure N application and fertilizer N application to pastures and rangelands, increased globally from 15 to 101&thinsp;Tg&thinsp;N&thinsp;yr−1 during 1860–2016. In particular during the period 2000–2016, livestock manure N deposition accounted for 83&thinsp;% of the total N inputs, whereas manure and fertilizer N application accounted 9&thinsp;% and 8&thinsp;%, respectively. At the regional scale, hotspots of manure N deposition remained largely similar during the period 1860–2016 (i.e., southern Asia, Africa and South America); however, hotspots of manure and fertilizer N application shifted from Europe to southern Asia in the early 21st century. The new three global datasets contribute to the filling of the previous data gaps of global and regional N inputs in pastures and rangelands, improving the abilities of ecosystem and earth system models to investigate the global impacts of N enrichment due to agriculture, in terms of associated greenhouse gas emissions and environmental sustainability issues. Datasets are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.892940.</p

Towards active utilisation of community forestry: silvo-institutional model for sustainable forest management in Nepal

This paper explains what we term the ‘silvo-institutional model’ for a more productive, sustainable and equitable management of community forests in Nepal. The paper draws on four years of action research in six research sites of Kavre and Lamjung districts, complemented by the review of silviculture-based forest management by Government of Nepal in various parts of the country. The findings indicate that first, early silviculture-based forest management initiatives have failed because they did not adequately consider the policy and institutional dimensions. Second, current initiatives, while looked promising for the active utilisation of community forests, have faced with complex regulatory and institutional barriers. We argue that a new ‘silvoinstitutional model’, which combines technological and institutional dimensions, has a potential to increase the prospect of successful implementation of silviculture-based forest management.N. S. Paudel, H. Ojha, K. Shrestha, E. Cedamon, R. Karki, G. Paudel, M. Basyal, I. Nuberg and S. Danga

Timing of singleton births by onset of labour and mode of birth in NHS maternity units in England, 2005-2014: A study of linked birth registration, birth notification, and hospital episode data

BACKGROUND: Maternity care has to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is known that obstetric intervention can influence the time of birth, but no previous analysis at a national level in England has yet investigated in detail the ways in which the day and time of birth varies by onset of labour and mode of giving birth. METHOD: We linked data from birth registration, birth notification, and Maternity Hospital Episode Statistics and analysed 5,093,615 singleton births in NHS maternity units in England from 2005 to 2014. We used descriptive statistics and negative binomial regression models with harmonic terms to establish how patterns of timing of birth vary by onset of labour, mode of giving birth and gestational age. RESULTS: The timing of birth by time of day and day of the week varies considerably by onset of labour and mode of birth. Spontaneous births after spontaneous onset are more likely to occur between midnight and 6am than at other times of day, and are also slightly more likely on weekdays than at weekends and on public holidays. Elective caesarean births are concentrated onto weekday mornings. Births after induced labours are more likely to occur at hours around midnight on Tuesdays to Saturdays and on days before a public holiday period, than on Sundays, Mondays and during or just after a public holiday. CONCLUSION: The timing of births varies by onset of labour and mode of birth and these patterns have implications for midwifery and medical staffing. Further research is needed to understand the processes behind these findings