Green Carbon: Making sustainable agriculture real

The concept of sustainable development has evolved from a mere movement for the protection of the environment, to other multidimensional approaches. Indeed, today it calls for a holistic approach, seeking to preserve and improve not only the environment, but also to achieve social equity and economic sustainability. In Europe, society demands quality and safe products, not only in the industrial sector but also in agriculture. According to FAO, sustainable agriculture development is a key element of the new global challenges to meet human food security needs at 2050. Unsustainable practices based on intensive soil tillage and agro-chemical applications have increased agri-environmental risks. Whereas world’s food needs are expected to increase by 70% by 2050, agricultural land in Europe will also have to face environmental, economic and social challenges related to sustainable agriculture. As a result, in the EU 2020 Strategy, it is expressed that the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is required to contribute to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, enhancing social well-being, providing ecosystem services, managing resources sustainably while avoiding environmental degradation. There is broad consensus within the scientific sector that human actions generate a large portion of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, causing global warming. Certainly, Kyoto Protocol states it. According to the European Environmental Agency (EEA), there has been a decrease of 17% in GHG emissions between 1990 and 2009. However, EEA also stressed the importance of the agricultural contribution to total emissions (10.3%). The fossil fuel used in agricultural field operations, along with increasing CO2 emissions from soil through tillage, are considered to be one of the main direct sources of GHG emissions from agriculture sector. Increased inputs required to sustain conventional agriculture also adds significantly to total GHG emissions. Therefore, intensification of production through tillage, agro-chemicals and heavy machinery, which characterizes conventional agriculture in Europe, strongly contributes to increased net GHG emissions instead of mitigating global warming. Sustainable agricultural soil management is crucial for mitigating climate change, especially for the restoration of lost soil organic carbon. In fact, "Agricultural soils management" is recognized as one of the 15 most promising technology options for reducing GHG emissions in the COM (2005) 35 final "Winning the battle against global climate change." The Green Carbon Conference aims to show sustainable management of agricultural soils can help to agriculture mitigate and adapt to climate change, being compatible with the objectives of environmental protection, enhancing biodiversity and supporting farmers’ welfare along with many other environmental, economic and social benefits. Over the last decade, Conservation Agriculture has become known as a set of interlinked agricultural practices, of no or minimum mechanical soil disturbance, maintenance of soil mulch cover, and diversified cropping system, capable of: (a) overcoming several of the severe sustainability limitations of conventional agriculture; and (b) raising productivity, enhancing resilience, reducing degradation and increasing the flow of ecosystem services. The discussion around both the Soil Thematic Strategy initiated in 2002, and the JRC SoCo (Soil Conservation) project clearly recognized the potential of Conservation Agriculture in mitigating and even reversing the problems of soil erosion, soil organic matter decline, soil compaction, loss of biodiversity, climate change vulnerability, among others. Whereas Conservation Agriculture is now practiced successfully on more than 125 million hectares worldwide, Europe has shown to be reluctant with regard to its adoption, despite many promising results confirming its suitability in Europe. Therefore, this European Conference on Green Carbon provides an opportunity to take a leap forward in terms of sharing farmers experiences on Conservation Agriculture across Europe, reviewing the recent progress made in knowledge generation regarding Conservation Agriculture, and to disseminate the outcomes of the currently running LIFE+ Agricarbon (LIFE08 ENV/E/000129). The slogan of ‘Green Carbon’ chosen for this Conference attempts to clarify and highlight the indivisible yet vital link between soil organic carbon and the role that soil health plays in the sustainability of agricultural production and in the flow of ecosystem services. Nevertheless, the topics addressed by the Green Carbon Conference are not only related to the importance of soil organic carbon for the overall soil quality and health, but also include other sustainability issues intimately related to the role of soil carbon such as landscape scale ecosystem functions and services, climate change mitigation and carbon offset, and economic aspects. This Conference also seeks to alert and inform EU policy stakeholders and technical officers of the urgent need to adopt sustainable soil and production practices of Conservation Agriculture to contribute to the objectives of Europe 2020, the EU's growth strategy for the coming decades

Mobilizing Greater Crop and Land Potentials Sustainably

The supply side of the food security engine is the way we farm. The current engine of conventional tillage farming is faltering and needs to be replaced. This presentation will address supply side issues of agriculture to meet future agricultural demands for food and industry using the alternate no-till Conservation Agriculture (CA) paradigm (involving no-till farming with mulch soil cover and diversified cropping) that is able to raise productivity sustainably and efficiently, reduce inputs, regenerate degraded land, minimise soil erosion, and harness the flow of ecosystem services. CA is an ecosystems approach to farming capable of enhancing not only the economic and environmental performance of crop production and land management, but also promotes a mindset change for producing ‘more from less’, the key attitude towards sustainable production intensification. CA is now spreading globally in all continents at an annual rate of 10 Mha and covers some 157 Mha of cropland. Today global agriculture produces enough food to feed three times the current population of 7.21 billion. In 1976, when the world population was 4.15 billion, world food production far exceeded the amount necessary to feed that population. However, our urban and industrialised lifestyle leads to wastage of food of some 30%-40%, as well as waste of enormous amount of energy and protein while transforming crop-based food into animal-derived food; we have a higher proportion of people than ever before who are obese; we continue to degrade our ecosystems including much of our agricultural land of which some 400 Mha is reported to be abandoned due to severe soil and land degradation; and yields of staple cereals appear to have stagnated. These are signs of unsustainability at the structural level in the society, and it is at the structural level, for both supply side and demand side, that we need transformed mind sets about production, consumption and distribution. CA not only provides the possibility of increased crop yields for the low input smallholder farmer, it also provides a pro-poor rural and agricultural development model to support agricultural intensification in an affordable manner. For the high output farmer, it offers greater efficiency (productivity) and profit, resilience and stewardship. For farming anywhere, it addresses the root causes of agricultural land degradation, sub-optimal ecological crop and land potentials or yield ceilings, and poor crop phenotypic expressions or yield gaps. As national economies expand and diversify, more people become integrated into the economy and are able to access food. However, for those whose livelihoods continue to depend on agriculture to feed themselves and the rest of the world population, the challenge is for agriculture to produce the needed food and raw material for industry with minimum harm to the environment and the society, and to produce it with maximum efficiency and resilience against abiotic and biotic stresses, including those arising from climate change. There is growing empirical and scientific evidence worldwide that the future global supplies of food and agricultural raw materials can be assured sustainably at much lower environmental and economic cost by shifting away from conventional tillage-based food and agriculture systems to no-till CA-based food and agriculture systems. To achieve this goal will require effective national and global policy and institutional support (including research and education)

Implications of BREEAM Sustainability Assessment on the Design of Hotels

This original research paper analyses the actual and important topic of the implications of BREEAM sustainability assessment on the design of hotels and it is a personal response to “The Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development” and its influence on the Tourism and Hospitality Industry. The paper aims to examine the influence of the sustainable assessment method BREEAM on the design of hotels by using seven case studies and studying the changes that were implemented in order to achieve their targets. Qualitative data were obtained by conducting in-depth interviews and analyzing the supplied documentation. The authors notice that the results revealed that a BREEAM approach might limit the design of the hotels but, including the right measures at the early design stage of the project, the target can be easily achieved

Promoting the Sustainable Recovery of Hospitality in the Post-Pandemic Era: A Comparative Study to Optimize the Servicescapes

As COVID-19 spread throughout the world, the hospitality and tourism sectors were hard hit as no other industry. For this reason, the UNWTO developed the One Planet Vision as a response to a sustainable recovery of the tourism sector. At present, when people are starting to travel and stay at hotels again, it is important to analyze what their expectations are of hotels to move forward in the post-pandemic era. For instance, empirical research has been developed to examine people’s sentiments toward servicescapes, and a comparative study is presented between 2020 and 2022. Findings contribute to the research by identifying new servicescape attributes during a health crisis. These also lead to practical implications by proposing a scale to evaluate customers’ perceptions and to increase their wellbeing and resilience. The current research is one of the first studies to collaborate with the One Planet Vision by empirically proposing improvements in the servicescapes of hotels for a responsible recovery

Conservation Agriculture and its contribution to the achievement of agri-environmental and economic challenges in Europe

Conservation Agriculture is an ecosystem approach to farming capable of providing solutions for numerous of the agri-environmental concerns in Europe. Certainly, most of the challenges addressed in the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) could be tackled through Conservation Agriculture (CA). Not only the agri-environmental ones, but also those concerning farmer and rural communities’ prosperity. The optimisation of inputs and similar yields than conventional tillage, make Conservation Agriculture a profitable system compared to the tillage based agriculture. Whereas this sustainable agricultural system was conceived for protecting agrarian soils from its degradation, the numerous collateral benefits that emanate from soil conservation, i.e., climate change mitigation and adaptation, have raised Conservation Agriculture as one of the global emerging agrosciences, being adopted by an increasing number of farmers worldwide, including Europe

Parameterisation and Optimisation of a Hand-Rake Sweeper: Application in Olive Picking

Olive picking is one of the most common social agricultural activities in many regions of Andalusia where the predominant crop is the traditional olive grove. The machinery used includes shakers, blowers and essential, low-cost hand-rake sweepers. The latter are generally used by the women of the squads to sweep the olives that fall from the trees. This article is focused on the design and optimisation of a hand-rake sweeper, in terms of durability and cost, for the picking of olives and other fruits, such as almonds, which are currently the main alternative to nonperennial crops in Andalusia. A parametric design of a hand-rake sweeper was created for this application using the design software CATIA, and its most vulnerable points were analysed in terms of effectiveness with varying design parameters, conducting usage simulations with ANSYS for a light material such as polypropylene. The maximum von Mises stress of the whole structure was 155.81 MPa. Using ANSYS, the dimension parameters of the hand-rake sweeper structure were optimised. The modified design was analysed again, showing a reduction of maximum tensions of 10.06%, as well as a decrease in its maximum elongations (0.0181 mm)

How the Implementation of BREEAM in Hotels Could Help to Achieve the SDGs

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was approved in 2015 by the United Nations. It is a call of action to protect our planet, end poverty and improve the lives and prospects of all. Sustainable development has been fundamental in the tourism and construction sectors in the past few decades. Nowadays, developing countries are leaders in green engineering procedures, and progressively, hotels are including sustainable standards in their designs, architecture and management. In places where tourism is the main contributor to the Gross Domestic Product, the incorporation of energy certifications is crucial. In this context, this article explores the positive implications of the application of the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) on hotels in relation to the achievement of SDGs. The study analyses the influence of BREEAM on hotel design using six case studies and examines the sustainable modifications incorporated. Qualitative data were obtained through in-depth interviews and by the analysis of the documentation provided. The results revealed that a BREEAM approach in the initial stage of a project will optimize the sustainability of the hotel and can help with the achievement of several of the SDGs

Digital technology to locate the water catchment system of the Cuadrado Fountain in Montilla (Cordoba, Spain) in the 19th century

[EN] The fortuitous discovery of part of the pipeline system that supplied the town of Montilla (Spain) in the late 19th century, which was made in September 2017 by the city s fire service, originated an academic study in this regard. The engineer José Marí­a Sánchez-Molero y Lleguet designed this canalization, from the fountain of the Cuadrado to some tanks located in the water s house (Montilla) in 1868. There are no remains of these constructions, except those found by the firefighters. The aim of this study is to collect, analyse and interpret all the existing graphic and documentary evidence in this regard, perform a 3D modelling of the catchment system at the fountain based on the compiled documentation and determine the terrain s topography. Indeed, the virtual location on the digital model of the terrain based on the plans of Sánchez-Molero can help archaeologists to discover the true location, highlighting the suitability and usefulness of this research work.The catchment system designed and executed by Sánchez-Molero is a system of ditches. These are made up of a series of ditches filled with gravel, arranged according to the slope in the shape of a herringbone, surrounding the fountain of Cuadrado (perfectly represented in the plan of Sánchez-Molero). Moreover, there is another main ditch attached to the wall of the dam. The system was designed to capture the waters of the fountains or runoff water from the adjoining orchards. It is a system based on gravel-filled trenches with no drainage pipes at the bottom, which could have led to its depletion, due to the possible cementation of spaces between gravels. For this reason, in 1902, other sources were sought, as the water of the Cuadrado was scarce. The system, in addition to the drains and the dam wall, consists of a container or collector, from which the water comes out through the fountain, and through a pipe located on one side of said container.The catchment system is arranged along with a road system that is also indicated in the map of Sánchez-Molero. This distribution of roads still exists today. Therefore, the modelled system on the real scale can be oriented in the digital terrain model (DTM) of the corresponding plot. The location of the Cuadrado coincides with a well that currently exists. The study of the slopes and the runoff water flow lines coming from the fountains suggests that, in this arrangement of the catchment system, the drains intercept the course of water coming from all the upwelling areas, where the slope is steep (8-12%), i.e. twice as steep as in the high areas and orchards, where the average slope is 3-6%.The location in the plan and on the terrain profile of the pipe that carried the water from the outlet of the Cuadrado reservoir to the water house was analysed. The water rise was found to be produced by the communicating vessels effect, due to the coincidence of the heights of the terrain. From there, the water was pumped to the water house. There was the register, located at the lowest point of elevation in the stream, currently called Cuadrado, and the stopcock, where the Flauta Fountain is located today. The pipeline follows the route of the Manantiales (which means water springs in Spanish).The obtained results can help archaeologists to know the true location of the Cuadrado fountain, and disseminate the cultural hydric heritage of Montilla, promoting touristic routes. Water resource tourism is already a reality in many cities, including Montilla. The cultural dissemination of water resources is supported by various institutions, through the routes and the many sources and watering holes that the town owns. Among these routes, we can mention the long route of the fountains of Montilla. This route runs along the path of the Manantiales, following the pipeline map of Sánchez-Molero, which passes through the water house, the Flauta Fountain is located today. The pipeline follows the route of the “Manantiales” (which means “water springs” in Spanish).[ES] El hallazgo fortuito de parte de la canalización que abastecía a la población de Montilla (España) desde finales del s. XIX, y que tuvo lugar en septiembre de 2017 por el servicio de bomberos de la ciudad, originó un estudio académico al respecto. El ingeniero José María Sánchez-Molero y Lleguet proyectó dicha canalización, desde el manantial Fuente del Cuadrado hasta unos depósitos situados en la Casa de las Aguas (Montilla) en 1868. De dichas construcciones no quedan restos, excepto los encontrados por los bomberos y Ayuntamiento. Los objetivos de la investigación consisten en la recogida, análisis e interpretación de toda la documentación gráfica y documental existente al respecto; la modelización del sistema de captación en la Fuente del Cuadrado y del terreno circundante; y su ubicación virtual sobre el modelo digital del terreno (MDT) en base a los planos de Sánchez-Molero y a las características de la superficie topográfica (cotas, pendientes, disposición de las líneas de talud). El análisis de estos datos justifica el sitio y orientación de todo el sistema de captación en la zona de los manantiales; el discurrir de la tubería, así como la ubicación de la casa de las bombas, ya que el agua descendía por gravedad desde su salida en el depósito del sistema de captación hasta el arroyo del Cuadrado, para subir por vasos comunicantes hasta los 334 m donde se situaban las bombas para impulsar el agua hasta los depósitos de suministro. La ubicación propuesta ayudaría a los arqueólogos a su hallazgo real y a su difusión cultural entre el público general; máxime cuando por dicha ubicación pasa la ruta larga de las fuentes de Montilla. El uso del modelo generado permitiría al senderista conocer in situ, mediante tecnologías de realidad virtual y aumentada, el sistema de captación diseñado por el ilustre ingeniero, impulsando el turismo cultural del agua.Carranza-Cañadas, P.; Baena-Sánchez, M.; Hidalgo Fernández, R.; Triviño-Tarradas, P. (2022). Tecnología digital en la localización del sistema de captación de agua de la fuente del Cuadrado en Montilla (Córdoba, España) en el siglo XIX. Virtual Archaeology Review. 13(27):100-116. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2022.15937OJS100116132

Graphic Engineering in the Sustainable Preservation of the Municipal Heritage of Montilla (Cordoba, Spain) from the 18th Century: Master Builder Vicente López Cardera in Montilla

The change of territorial organisation in the 18th century in Spain was strongly related to the preservation of the local heritage. Academic architects, military engineers, and master builders coexisted to carry out the design and management of municipal construction works. The evolution of the figure of the master builder and the confrontation with architects and the guilds since the creation of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando posed an inflection point in this aspect. The first aim of the present study was to highlight the figure of Vicente López Cardera, master builder in the Council and Diocese of Córdoba between the late 18th century and the early 19th century, through his work on the municipal interventions in the maintenance of the construction works and infrastructures in Montilla (Córdoba, Spain) around the year 1794. The second aim of the study was to emphasise the role of graphic engineering in the conservation of municipal heritage in the Modern Age through the study of drawings and plans provided by him in the analysed documentation. His thinking in the approach to these works fits with the ideas of social hygienic improvements that began with the Enlightenment as well as with the concept of sustainable development in culture; hence, his work is relevant in the sustainable development planning of cities in the present. With this study, missing heritage elements are also revealed, opening future lines of research that lead to their virtual reconstruction and the promotion of tourism in rural areas