Malleability of Abortion Attitudes

Although abortion attitudes have been thoroughly investigated and population-level attitudes have not changed much over the past half-century, polls and research inquiring about abortion attitudes tend to ask isolated questions about if, and in what circumstances, abortion should be legal. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which abortion attitudes both varied and changed according to several contextual factors. A multiple-segment factorial vignette was conducted with 530 respondents in the state of Kentucky. Overall, most respondents held strong attitudes on access to abortion, both before the rationale was provided and regardless of the rationale provided. However, attitudes tended to soften or change as more context is provided, specifically for those respondents who were initially unsupportive of abortion access and heard that the pregnancy was a result of rape. Additionally, for those who opposed abortion access, parental support for a minor wanting to abort seemed to particularly influential in softening or flipping attitudes. More nuanced approaches are needed for opinion polling and attitudinal research that take into account context

Quantitative Quality Assessment of the Greenhouse Gas Inventory for Agriculture in Europe

The greenhouse gas inventory of the European Communities and its estimation of the uncertainty is build from 15 individual and independent greenhouse gas inventories. This presents a particular challenge and is possible only if homogeneous information is available for all Member States and if a proper evaluation of correlation between Member States is performed. To this purpose, we present a methodology that estimates a quantitative measure for the aggregated Tier-level as well as the uncertainty for the main categories in the agriculture sector. In contrast to the approach suggested in the IPCC guidelines, that uses uncertainty estimates for activity data and emissions factors for each source category, the presented method uses quantitative information from individual parameters used in the inventory calculations, in combination with a well defined procedure to aggregate the information. Not surprisingly, N2O emissions from agricultural soils are found to be dominating the uncertainty and also the importance of correlation if uncertainties are combined for the whole of Europe. The biggest challenge seems to be to conceptually harmonize the uncertainty estimates for the activity data (which tend to be underestimated) and emission factors (which tend to be overestimated).JRC.DDG.H.2-Climate chang

Long-range transport and multimedia partitioning of semivolatile organic compounds: A case study on two modern agrochemicals

The global environmental fate of two modern pesticides was studied using a multimedia model based on a three- dimensional atmosphere general circulation model. The emissions are predicted dynamically based on agricultural application inventories. The insecticide methyl parathion, when assuming properties at the high mobility end of the respective data uncertainties, was found to be distributed on continental and even global scales. This finding implies that based on present knowledge one cannot exclude that methyl parathion reaches regions as far from the sources as e.g. the Arctic. Two scenarios of the environmental cycling of the herbicide atrazine were studied which reflect a lower and an upper estimate of the substance’ mobility. Atrazine largely remains in the source (application) regions and the neighbouring seas. But also atrazine seems to have an albeit limited potential for long-range transport. The findings on substance mobilities are quantified by indicators which address spatial range in the zonal direction in individual media. The seasonal variability of the total environmental burden of both pesticides is governed by the degradation in soil and vegetation which together host 73 % of methyl parathion and 90-99 % of atrazine. Also, the cycling between compartments was studied. Methyl parathion undergoes more deposition and re-emission cycles than atrazine, a characteristics of the environmental fate of semivolatile substances. Persistence is addressed by determination of global total environmental decay times during periods without introduction of new substance into the environment. These are in the range 4-7 months. It is found that the seasonal variability of persistence is pronounced

Geographical variation in terrestrial nitrogen budgets across Europe

Nitrogen (N) budgets of agricultural systems give important information for assessing the impact of N inputs on the environment, and identify levers for action

Mitigation measures in the Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector. Quantifying mitigation effects at the farm level and in national greenhouse gas inventories

This document analyses potential greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation measures in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU) sector, looking at their reportability with the IPCC methods. The main conclusions that can be drawn from this analysis are: • Mitigation strategies target either ‘observation’ or ‘parameter’ • Data changes usually have an effect on more than one emission category • All mitigation measures impact farmer’s income • Mitigation measures can be grouped in mitigation mechanism groups • Measures using the mitigation strategy ‘observation’ are relatively straight-forward to be traced in GHG inventories, some with additional data collection required • Measures using the mitigation strategy ‘parameter’ often require research programs to develop (national) differentiated emission factors • Assessing mitigation measures at the farm level is easier at the level of mitigation mechanism groups than at the level of individual mitigation measures • A modular GHG calculator tool would provide highest flexibility for farm level GHG monitoringJRC.D.5-Food Securit

A Comparison of Three Learning Methods to Predict N2O Fluxes and N Leaching

The environmental costs of intensive farming activities are often under-estimated or not included into the rural development plans, even though they play an important role in addressing future society¿s needs. This paper focus on the use of statistical learning methods to predict the N2O emissions and N leaching under several conservative scenarios, in order to provide an alternative approach to deterministic models at macro-scale. To that aim, three learning methods, namely neural networks (multilayer perceptrons), SVM and random forests, are compared and provide accurate solutions.JRC.DDG.H.2-Climate chang

A comparison of three learning methods to predict N2O fluxes and N leaching

International audienceThe environmental costs of intensive farming activities are often under-estimated or not included into rural development plans, even though they play an important role in addressing future society's needs. This paper focuses on the use of statistical learning methods to predict N2O emissions and N leaching under several conservative scenarios, in order to provide an alternative approach to deterministic models on a macro-scale. To that aim, three learning methods, namely neural networks (multilayer perceptrons), SVM and random forests, are compared and provide accurate solutions

The role of nitrogen in achieving sustainable food systems for healthy diets

The ‘food system’ urgently needs a sustainable transformation. Two major challenges have to be solved: the food system has to provide food security with healthy, accessible, affordable, safe and diverse food for all, and it has to do so within the safe operating space of the planetary boundaries, where the pollution from reactive nitrogen turned out to be the largest bottleneck. Here we argue that thinking strategically about how to balance nitrogen flows throughout the food system will make current food systems more resilient and robust. Looking from a material and a governance perspective on the food system, we highlight major nitrogen losses and policy blind spots originating from a compartmentalization of food system spheres. We conclude that a participatory and integrated approach to manage nitrogen flows throughout the food system is necessary to stay within regional and global nitrogen boundaries, and will additionally provide synergies with a sustainable and healthy diet for all. © 2020 The Author

Evaluation of the Livestock Sector's Contribution to the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Phase 1 (GGELS)

This interim report constitutes the third and final deliverable of the study "Evaluation of the livestock sector's contribution to the EU greenhouse gas emissions - Phase 1 (GGELS)", in accordance with the terms of reference of the Administrative Arrangement (AA) No. AGRI-2008-0245. It reports on Work Packages 2, 3 and 4. A report on Work package 1 constituted the project¿s first deliverable, which was accepted in October 2008. It is thus not covered in this report. This report aims to provide DG AGRI, as well as other possible users of the GGELS project results, with a clear though exhaustive insight in the work preformed during GGELS Phase 1 and the intermediate results produced. GGELS being a multi-disciplinary research project spanning across three JRC institutes and 5 actions, this GGELS Phase 1 report is largely a collection of output produced by the different partners. Each of these contributions constitutes a separate section in this report.JRC.G.3-Monitoring agricultural resource