Sexually Transmitted Infections in 2000–2018 in a Specialised Centre: Comparison between Pre-Crisis, Crisis, and Post-Crisis Period

Background: Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) are a major public health problem due to their consequences in sexual and reproductive health. There is a close link between the crisis and the increase in communicable diseases. The objective of this study was to analyse the evolution of Sexually Transmitted Infections during the period 2000–2018 in the population attending the Centre for Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Sexual Orientation in Granada (Spain), specifically comparing the pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis periods. (2) Methods: A retrospective, observational, and analytical study was conducted by reviewing medical records. The sample analysed comprised 1666 cases. (3) Results: During the pre-crisis period (2000–2007), the percentage of diagnoses was 41.6% (n = 126) compared to 58.4% (n = 177) of negative results; during the crisis, the percentages were 63.5% (n = 183) and 36.5% (n = 105), respectively; and during the post-crisis period, the percentages were 42.9% (n = 157) and 57.1% (n = 209), respectively. The variables that were significantly associated with STI diagnosis were the time periods analysed, sexual orientation, occupation, and age at first intercourse. The evolution of the number of positive diagnoses during the entire study period showed a trend of progressive increase in Sexually Transmitted Infections from 2000 to 2018. (4) Conclusions: The period of economic crisis presented a higher risk of infection, although this is a finding with certain limitations due to the lack of homogeneity between the periods analyse

Global wheat production with 1.5 and 2.0°C above pre‐industrial warming

Efforts to limit global warming to below 2°C in relation to the pre‐industrial level are under way, in accordance with the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, most impact research on agriculture to date has focused on impacts of warming >2°C on mean crop yields, and many previous studies did not focus sufficiently on extreme events and yield interannual variability. Here, with the latest climate scenarios from the Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts (HAPPI) project, we evaluated the impacts of the 2015 Paris Agreement range of global warming (1.5 and 2.0°C warming above the pre‐industrial period) on global wheat production and local yield variability. A multi‐crop and multi‐climate model ensemble over a global network of sites developed by the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) for Wheat was used to represent major rainfed and irrigated wheat cropping systems. Results show that projected global wheat production will change by −2.3% to 7.0% under the 1.5°C scenario and −2.4% to 10.5% under the 2.0°C scenario, compared to a baseline of 1980–2010, when considering changes in local temperature, rainfall, and global atmospheric CO2 concentration, but no changes in management or wheat cultivars. The projected impact on wheat production varies spatially; a larger increase is projected for temperate high rainfall regions than for moderate hot low rainfall and irrigated regions. Grain yields in warmer regions are more likely to be reduced than in cooler regions. Despite mostly positive impacts on global average grain yields, the frequency of extremely low yields (bottom 5 percentile of baseline distribution) and yield inter‐annual variability will increase under both warming scenarios for some of the hot growing locations, including locations from the second largest global wheat producer—India, which supplies more than 14% of global wheat. The projected global impact of warming <2°C on wheat production is therefore not evenly distributed and will affect regional food security across the globe as well as food prices and trade

Water management in almond orchards: water demand and response to wetted soil volume in young orchards

Almond is greatly expanding in Andalusia due to promising market prospects and also due to the optimal climatic conditions in this region for almond production. New plantations are totally different from the traditional ones that exist in the Iberian Peninsula. New intensive plantations take place on good soils, under irrigated conditions and with new varieties. The main objective of this thesis is to study important aspects of almond orchard irrigation management, to assist in chinguea maximum production or, in the case of water scarcity (usual in our region), maximum water productivity. Improvement of irrigation management requires knowledge of crop water requirements. Thus the first goal was to determine maximum almond water consumption (transpiration) by lysimetry and to establish a relationship with daily canopy intercepted radiation. Such relationship should allow the calculation of almond water requirements at any stage of development. Besides, as the relationship obtained is based on transpiration instead of on evapotranspiration, it can be extrapolated to other orchards differing in pruning systems, variety, tree spacing or irrigation system design. Secondly, we conducted a study aimed at answering the question of whether a limited wetted soil volume might reduce transpiration and thus production under localized irrigation.Durante el trabajo de tesis se han realizado tres ensayos todos ejecutados en un huerto de almendros de la variedad Guara, situado dentro de una finca experimental en el IFAPA Alameda del Obispo en C&oacute;rdoba. En el centro de la plantaci&oacute;n se construy&oacute; un lis&iacute;metro de pesada con un &aacute;rbol creciendo en &eacute;l y que se manej&oacute; de forma id&eacute;ntica al resto de los &aacute;rboles para medir evapotranspiraci&oacute;n (ET) y transpiraci&oacute;n (T) (manteniendo el suelo cubierto con un pl&aacute;stico) representativa para todo el huerto. Estas medidas se han llevado de forma continua desde 2010. Aparte, se dise&ntilde;aron dos experimentos, uno durante el verano de 2012 donde se comparaba un tratamiento con un volumen humedecido s&oacute;lo por los goteros y otro al que inicialmente se humedeci&oacute; un amplio volumen de suelo mediante un riego por microaspersi&oacute;n. Ambos tratamientos continuaron reg&aacute;ndose por goteo con la misma cantidad de agua y suficiente para cubrir las necesidades m&aacute;ximas del cultivo. Y un segundo experimento, que se inici&oacute; en 2013 y con una duraci&oacute;n prevista de 4 a&ntilde;os, en el que se aplican distintos tratamientos de riego, desde un control que recibe agua suficiente para cubrir las m&aacute;ximas demandas hasta un deficitario severo que recibe un 40% del total de las necesidades. Como principales resultados de la tesis se ha determinado, por primera vez&nbsp; mediante lisimetr&iacute;a, el consumo m&aacute;ximo de agua del almendro (transpiraci&oacute;n m&aacute;xima, T) y se ha encontrado una relaci&oacute;n de la T con la radiaci&oacute;n interceptada por la copa que servir&aacute; en el futuro para estimar las dosis de riego en plantaciones de almendros en cualquier estado de desarrollo. Se ha comprobado que estas necesidades m&aacute;ximas son superiores a las que hasta ahora se propon&iacute;an en base a estudios anteriores. Adem&aacute;s, el hecho de que la relaci&oacute;n obtenida est&eacute; basada en transpiraci&oacute;n en lugar de en evapotranspiraci&oacute;n, la hace extrapolable a cualquier huerto de almendros sin importar las diferencias en sistema de poda, variedad, marco de plantaci&oacute;n o sistema de riego. En segundo lugar, se llev&oacute; a cabo un estudio en el que se demostr&oacute; por primera vez que la transpiraci&oacute;n puede verse limitada por el volumen de suelo humedecido en riego localizado. De hecho, cuando el bulbo humedecido por el riego es peque&ntilde;o, a pesar de que las cantidades de agua aportadas no sean limitantes, el estado h&iacute;drico del &aacute;rbol mejora cuando se humedece mayor volumen de suelo. Esto tiene una gran implicaci&oacute;n pr&aacute;ctica en el dise&ntilde;o del sistema de riego siendo recomendables el uso de microaspersi&oacute;n o doble l&iacute;nea de goteros. Los resultados obtenidos en esta tesis pueden ayudar al dise&ntilde;o de un riego que se adapte a las necesidades crecientes de agua a medida que la plantaci&oacute;n va desarroll&aacute;ndose. Por &uacute;ltimo, se ha estudiado la sensibilidad al estr&eacute;s h&iacute;drico moderado de la variedad Guara, com&uacute;nmente utilizada en nuestra regi&oacute;n. Estudios previos relacionaban estado h&iacute;drico del &aacute;rbol con medidas fisiol&oacute;gicas a nivel de hoja. Sin embargo, debido a la gran variabilidad de hojas dentro de una misma copa, resulta problem&aacute;tico extrapolar las conclusiones al nivel de &aacute;rbol y a nivel de parcela.&nbsp; En esta tesis, por primera vez, se ha relacionado el estado h&iacute;drico del almendro con medidas continuas de transpiraci&oacute;n del &aacute;rbol. Se ha observado que la transpiraci&oacute;n de esta variedad empieza a decrecer pronto al iniciarse el estr&eacute;s h&iacute;drico, a pesar de que a nivel de hoja las diferencias entre tratamientos eran todav&iacute;a peque&ntilde;as. Dentro de este an&aacute;lisis del comportamiento fisiol&oacute;gico del almendro ante situaciones de escasez de agua, se ha observado que la eficiencia instant&aacute;nea en la transpiraci&oacute;n no cambia dependiendo del estado h&iacute;drico, y s&oacute;lo var&iacute;a en funci&oacute;n del d&eacute;ficit de presi&oacute;n de vapor de acuerdo a una &uacute;nica relaci&oacute;n com&uacute;n para todos los tratamientos. Por tanto el &eacute;xito de una estrategia de riego deficitario en esta especie recaer&aacute; en el hecho de aprovechar las &eacute;pocas de la estaci&oacute;n donde el DPV es menor para realizar la mayor parte del intercambio gaseoso necesario para generar crecimiento vegetativo y producci&oacute;n, limit&aacute;ndolo en las &eacute;pocas con altos DPV.Universidad de Córdoba. Programa de doctorado: Biociencias y Ciencias Agroalimentarias. Co-dirección: Ignacio Lorite Torres (Investigador Titular IFAPA) y Elias Fereres Castiel (Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible del CSIC) Fecha de Lectura: 23/07/2015

Transpiration of young almond trees in relation to intercepted radiation

Increased water scarcity demands more efficient use of water in the agricultural sector which is the primary consumer of water. Precise determination of irrigation requirements based on specific crop parameters is needed for accurate water applications. We conducted a 4-year study on almond evapotranspiration using a large weighing lysimeter. Tree canopies changed from 3 to 48 % ground cover during the course of the study. Sap flow measurements made on the lysimeter tree provided a continuous record of tree transpiration. We propose to use the daily fraction of photosynthetically active radiation intercepted by the canopy (fIRd) as a predictor of almond orchard maximum transpiration. The transpiration coefficient (T/ETo or KT) was related to the fIRd of the last two years, and the ratio between fIRd and KT stayed more or less constant around a value of 1.2. Such value extrapolated to the size of a mature orchard with 85 % intercepted radiation gives a KT of around 1.0, a number above the standard recommendations, but fully compatible with the maximum Kc values of 1.1–1.15 recently reported.M Espadafor is a recipient of research fellowship BES-2010-033883 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (AGL2009-07350) is also acknowledged.Peer reviewe

Water relations in almond trees under moderate water deficits

VIII International Symposium on Irrigation of Horticultural Crops.The responses of almond trees 'Guara' to different levels of water deficits were investigated. Three irrigation treatments as well as a rainfed treatment were applied in the field to 5-year-old trees during the summer of 2013. Plant water status was monitored by measurement of stem water potential at midday (Ψx), leaf gas-exchange was measured with a photosynthesis analyzer (IRGA) and stomatal conductance with a steady-state leaf porometer. Ψx of well-watered trees was near -0.9 MPa and always higher than -1.0 MPa. In the case of trees irrigated with amounts of water below full crop requirements, Ψx decreased down to -1.5 MPa, and simultaneously, a gradual decrease in stomatal conductance was observed. The close correlation between stomatal conductance (gs) and CO2 assimilation (A) pointed toward the stomatal limitation of CO2 assimilation in almond. Then although the stomatal closure will reduce photosynthesis, the fact that that closure occurs gradually as stress progresses will permit some rate of CO2 assimilation by the plant. The value of -1.0 MPa could be considered a reference threshold in full irrigation programming to ensure maximum stomatal conductance of 'Guara' almond trees. That high value showed the sensibility of this cultivar to water stress.Peer reviewe

Responses of transpiration and transpiration efficiency of almond trees to moderate water deficits

The majority of world almond acreage is grown under rainfed conditions but most of the production is obtained under irrigation. Increased water scarcity is reducing water availability for irrigation thus the need to characterize the responses of almond to water deficits. Several works have defined well the stomatal closure in almond leaves under water deficits, but the behavior at the canopy level is not well understood. A field experiment was conducted in an almond (cv. Guara) orchard in Córdoba (Spain) under four different levels of irrigation supply to investigate the responses of almond tree transpiration (T) and transpiration efficiency (TE) to water stress. Stem water potential (Ψx), whole tree transpiration (T) and leaf gas-exchange were periodically measured throughout the 2013 growing season. Tree T decreased linearly as midday Ψx decreased below a threshold value of about −1.1 MPa, and declined to about 50% of the Control value when midday Ψx reached −1.6 MPa. The quick decline in T in response to the lowering of ψx suggests a high sensitivity of almond T to water deficits. The instantaneous transpiration efficiency (TE) of almond leaves was unaffected by water and varied essentially with vapor pressure deficits. On a daily scale, the leaf TE of stressed trees followed the same pattern as in the non-stressed trees. Then, contrary to the behavior observed in olive and citrus, there were no instantaneous or daily TE increments in almond trees in response to water deficits.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Competitiveness [project AGL2012-35196 and project AGL2015-66141-R] and of Junta de Andalucia [project P12-AGR-2521].Peer reviewe

Almond tree response to a change in wetted soil volume under drip irrigation

Under localized irrigation, even when applying non-limiting amounts of water, there could be transpiration (T) limitations due to a limited wetted soil volume. To study under field conditions how drip-irrigated almond trees responded to a change in wetted soil volume, two treatments were established in summer 2012 in a drip irrigated almond orchard in Cordoba, Spain. One treatment (“Large volume”) was initially irrigated with micro-sprinklers (MS) to wet the entire ground surface, and then reverted to drip irrigation, while other was always kept under drip irrigation (“Small volume”). Continuous monitoring of T and measurements of soil moisture content, tree water status and trunk growth were carried out. Even though trees in both treatments were supplied with sufficient water, the MS application induced an increase in T and an improvement in water status in “Large volume” relative to “Small volume”. A reduction in the hydraulic resistance of the tree was also detected in “Large volume”, as well as an enhancement in canopy conductance and tree growth. We concluded that there are situations in the field where almond tree transpiration is limited by an insufficient wetted soil volume, even when supplied with adequate water, due to a high hydraulic resistance during times of high evaporative demand.This study has been financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO) projects ALWAT (AGL2009-07350), RIPAO (AGL2012-35196) and SORIAL (AGL2015-66141-R), by project P12-AGR2521 funded by Junta de Andalucia, and by project INNOVA-NUTS (AVA.AVA201601.18) funded by the European Regional Develpment Fund (FEDER). M Espadafor was a recipient of research fellowship BES-2010-033883 from MINECO.Peer reviewe

Assessment of canopy transpiration from temperature: applications for almond orchards

Trabajo presentado en el IX International Symposium On Irrigation Of Horticultural Crops, celebrado en Matera (Italia) del 17 al 20 de junio de 2019.Almond growing is increasing throughout the Mediterranean area, and especially in Spain, because of the high prices fetched by this commodity in recent years. This has led to the establishment of new, intensive almond orchards in many Spanish irrigation schemes, even though traditionally, almonds have been grown in Spain in marginal soils under low-input conditions. The expansion of irrigated almonds has increased irrigation demand, which for Western Andalusia has been quantified in recent research as high as 7,000 m3/ha. Considering the societal requirements to decrease the share of fresh water diverted in agriculture, it remains essential to optimize almond water productivity in irrigated schemes which may be achieved through precision irrigation. To do so, we need an accurate estimation of the spatial distribution of water requirements within irrigated orchards. This work proposes a methodology to map water use by almond trees based on their canopy temperature and its relationship with crop transpiration. For this purpose, we have developed the Non-water Stress Baseline for the crop and implemented a methodology to obtain the Crop Water Stress Index using information acquired with infrared thermometers installed over selected trees. After that, this information was combined with high-resolution airborne thermal imagery acquired over the whole experimental area to derive a transpiration map. This new approach enables the segmentation of the area according to their needs, providing relevant information for precision irrigation management and system re-engineering.Peer reviewe

Transpiration from canopy temperature: Implications for the assessment of crop yield in almond orchards

This paper evaluates the usefulness of the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) for monitoring transpiration and water status in almond trees, and proposes a methodology for assessing crop yield derived from the relation between canopy temperature and transpiration. For this purpose, a Non-Water Stress Baseline (NWSB) was developed from canopy temperature measurements taken with Infrared Thermometers (IRT) installed permanently over well-watered trees for three years. Tree transpiration was measured continuously with sap flow probes installed in the same trees than the IRT sensors. The calculated CWSI was closely related to water potential and stomatal conductance measured during kernel filling, as well as with transpiration and the ratio kT/GC (the transpiration coefficient over the ground cover). Taking into consideration this relation and the water production function recently published, the seasonal CWSI was compared to final yield and the regression yielded good results (R2 = 0.80). An empirical relationship between the CWSI acquired remotely from two flights performed during the kernel filling stage and crop yield was determined for this orchard. The estimated yield from the proposed methodology was compared to ground-truth measurements of crop yield measured in 80 trees during 2014 and 2015. The result obtained a RMSE that yielded 1.54 kg/tree. This study thus demonstrates that CWSI is closely related to the transpiration and the ratio kT/GC. This relation settles the basis for the development of methodologies for estimating water-limited crop yield from thermal derived information.Financial support for this work was provided by Junta de Andalucia (P12-AGR-2521), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (AGL2015-66141-R)), by IRIDA project financed under the ERA-NET Cofund WaterWorks 2014 and by project INNOVA-NUTS (AVA.AVA201601.18) funded by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).Peer reviewe