Water footprint assessment of sheep farming systems based on farm survey data

Water scarcity is among the main challenges making vulnerable the livestock farming systems in drylands. The water footprint (WF) indicator was proposed as a metric to measure the impacts of livestock production on freshwater resources. Therefore, this study aimed to assess water use in five different Tunisian sheep production systems using the Water Footprint Network methodology. The primary data were obtained from 1050 sheep farms located in 13 Tunisian provinces. A multivariate analysis was performed to characterize the different farming systems. A validation step of the WF modeled values of sheep meat was conducted in 12 sheep farms belonging to two different farming systems. This was done through year-round monitoring of on-farm practices using water metres and recording equipment’s taking into account the direct and indirect water use. The typology analysis came up with five sheep farming systems that are the mixed sheep-cereal (MSC), the agro-sylvo-pastoral (ASP), the agro-pastoral (AP), the extensive agro-pastoral (EAP) and the mixed sheep-olive tree farming systems. The WF of sheep meat produced under the target farming systems ranged from 8654 to 13 056 l/kg live weight. The evaluation of WF of five different sheep production systems figured out that sheep raised under the EAP farming system had the greatest WF per ton of live animal. However, the ASP farming system exhibited the lowest WF. Water used to grow feedstuffs for sheep production accounts for 98% of the total WF of sheep. The green WF accounts for more than 92% of the total WF in all farming systems. Results of monitoring water use at farm scale show that the modeled values of WF are overestimated by an average of 23.3% and 24.1% for the selected farms assigned to the MSC and AP farming systems, respectively. Water use for sheep production is high in most of the Tunisian farms. Therefore, the general assumption that ‘meat production is a driver of water scarcity’ is supported and should be considered as an important focal point in agricultural and water policies. Particular attention should be given to forage crops with low WFs and high contribution to dry matter to provide ration with low WF. The efficient use of green water along the meat value chain is essential to minimize the depletion of blue water resources and to reduce the economic dependency on virtual water through the import of feedstuffs.     

Framework for the inter-comparison of ecological footprint of universities

The ecological footprint (EF) method represents the suitability of a given population on the carrying capacity of the total system. It was developed in order to measure the relationship between nature and humans, being supported on the premise that each individual requires a surface area that provides goods and services essential to life. In this article only in EF for universities is studied, but most of the underlying concepts and methods are valid for any other human activity for which EF may be applied.In this study an uncertainty analysis of EF of universities is made. This is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first time such a study is published on the subject. The intention is to demonstrate the usefulness of uncertainty analysis in the evaluation of results, inter-comparability, and on communication of EF outcomes.Results showed that EF model uncertainties have large impact on EF estimates, in particular in what regards the decision about accounting or not the contribution of key parameters. Inclusion or not of very sensitive parameters, for which there is also high uncertainty, in the estimation of EF may have a strong impact on the estimated values and also in the inter-comparability of EF estimates. This is the case of mobility.Uncertainty analysis, by studying model uncertainty, parameter uncertainty and variability, can provide a robust framework for the inter-comparison of ecological footprints of universities. In fact, the method may prove useful for the assessment of ecological footprints of any kind.     

A greenhouse gas indicator for bioenergy: some theoretical issues with practical implications

Background, aim, and scope  The expectations with respect to biomass as a resource for sustainable energy are sky-high. Many industrialized countries have adopted ambitious policy targets and have introduced financial measures to stimulate the production or use of bioenergy. Meanwhile, the side-effects and associated risks have been pointed out as well. To be able to make a well-informed decision, the Dutch government has expressed the intention to include sustainability criteria into relevant policy instruments. Main features  Among other criteria, it has been proposed to calculate a so-called life-cycle-based greenhouse gas (GHG) indicator, which expresses the reduction of GHG emissions of a bio-based fuel chain in comparison with a fossil-based fuel chain. Life-cycle-based biofuel studies persistently have problems with the handling of biogenic carbon balances and with the treatment of coproducts and recycling. In life-cycle assessments (LCAs) of agricultural products, a distinction between “negative” and “positive” emissions may be relevant. In particular, carbon dioxide, as a naturally occurring compound or an anthropogenic emission, takes part in the so-called geochemical carbon cycle. The most appropriate way to treat carbon cycles is to view them as genuine cycles and, thus, at the systems level, subtract the fixation of CO₂ during tree growth from the CO₂ emitted during waste treatment of discarded wood and to quantify the CH₄ emitted. In solving the multifunctionality problem, two steps may be distinguished. The first concerns the modeling of the product system studied in the inventory analysis. In this step, system boundaries are set, processes are described, and process flows are quantified. Multifunctionality problems can be identified and the model of the product system is drafted. The second step concerns solving the remaining multifunctionality problems. For this step, various ways of solving the multifunctionality problem have been proposed and applied, on the basis of mass, energy, economic value, avoided burdens, etc. As the GHG indicator may constitute the basis for granting subsidies to stimulate the use of bioenergy, for example, and as the method for the GHG indicator provides no guidelines on the handling of biogenic CO₂ and guidelines for solving multifunctionality problems such as with coproducts and recycling that leave room for various choices, this study analyzed whether the current GHG indicator provides results that are a robust basis for granting such subsidies. Results  For the robustness check, a hypothetical case study on wood residue-based electricity was set up in order to illustrate what the effects of different solutions and choices for the two steps mentioned may be. The case dealt with the production of wood pellets (residues of the wood industry) that are cofired in a coal-fired power plant. The functional unit is 1 kWh of electricity. Three possibilities for the places of the multifunctional process, two possibilities for whether or not to include biogenic CO₂, and four possibilities for the allocation method were distinguished and calculated. Varying the options for these three choices in this way appears to have a huge effect on the GHG indicator, while no clear pattern seems to emerge. Discussion  The results found for this hypothetical case indicate that there are several methodological choices that have not sufficiently been fixed by the presently available standards and guidelines for LCA and GHG assessment of bioenergy systems. In particular, we have focused on issues related to biogenic CO₂ and allocation, two issues that play a prominent role in the assessment of bioenergy systems. Moreover, we have demonstrated with a small hypothetical case study that these are not only issues that might theoretically show up, but that they play a decisive role in practice. Conclusions  The present (Dutch) GHG indicator lacks robustness, which will raise problems for providing a sound basis for granting subsidies. This situation can, however, be improved by reducing the freedom of choices for the handling of biogenic CO₂ and allocation to an absolute minimum. Recommendations and perspectives  Even then, however, differences could appear due to different definitions, data sources, and method interpretations. It thus appears that two kinds of guidance are needed: (1) the LCA methodology itself should be expanded with guidelines for those issues that follow from science, logic, or consensus; (2) in the policy regulation that demands LCA to be the basis of the decision, additional guidelines should be specified that perhaps do not (yet) have the status of being scientifically proven or generally agreed upon, but that serve as a set of temporary extra guidelines.

Water resources stress assessment and risk early warning–a case of Hebei Province China

In most parts of China, water resources development and utilization has reached or exceeded the international warning level, especially in the northern arid and semi-arid regions, the serious water stress have aroused worldwide concerns. Many issues of water resources are closely and some inseparably associated with human activities. In this study, the water footprint (WF) and related indicators were applied as comprehensive indicators to assess real water use by humans from the consumption perspective. A Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Model (FCE) was used for the evaluation in its role to assess water stress. And the index system of water stress assessment including four aspects, namely water supply and demand balance, socio-economy, agricultural production and ecological environment was established. Taking the case of Hebei province of China where there is serious conflict between water supply and demand, water stress assessment of all eleven administrative areas for the period 2000–2013 was analyzed. The findings showed that water stress was denoted by three levels, namely high water stress (red zone), general water stress (yellow zone) and low water stress (blue zone), which lays the foundation of the further research on water risk warning. According to the results of water stress assessment and the socio-economic development trends of Hebei, a Markov Chain Risk Warning model was built to describe the risk state of water system and to predict the transition probability of future states. This was intended to focus on the possibility that water stress levels might change into higher water stress level. The current study aims at extending earlier research by making a first step from water footprint estimation towards water stress assessment and providing reference for scientific management of water resources in arid and semi-arid regions.     

Endogenous U2·U5·U6 snRNA complexes in S. pombe are intron lariat spliceosomes

Excision of introns from pre-mRNAs is mediated by the spliceosome, a multi-megadalton complex consisting of U1, U2, U4/U6, and U5 snRNPs plus scores of associated proteins. Spliceosome assembly and disassembly are highly dynamic processes involving multiple stable intermediates. In this study, we utilized a split TAP-tag approach for large-scale purification of an abundant endogenous U2·U5·U6 complex from Schizosaccharomyces pombe. RNAseq revealed this complex to largely contain excised introns, indicating that it is primarily ILS (intron lariat spliceosome) complexes. These endogenous ILS complexes are remarkably resistant to both high-salt and nuclease digestion. Mass spectrometry analysis identified 68, 45, and 43 proteins in low-salt-, high-salt-, and micrococcal nuclease-treated preps, respectively. The protein content of a S. pombe ILS complex strongly resembles that previously reported for human spliced product (P) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae ILS complexes assembled on single pre-mRNAs in vitro. However, the ATP-dependent RNA helicase Brr2 was either substoichiometric in low-salt preps or completely absent from high-salt and MNase preps. Because Brr2 facilitates spliceosome disassembly, its relative absence may explain why the ILS complex accumulates logarithmically growing cultures and the inability of S. pombe extracts to support in vitro splicing.     

An Australian Multi‐Regional Waste Supply‐Use Framework

The production of waste creates both direct and indirect environmental impacts. A range of strategies are available to reduce the generation of waste by industry and households, and to select waste treatment approaches that minimize environmental harm. However, evaluating these strategies requires reliable and detailed data on waste production and treatment. Unfortunately, published Australian waste data are typically highly aggregated, published by a variety of entities in different formats, and do not form a complete time‐series. We demonstrate a technique for constructing a multi‐regional waste supply‐use (MRWSU) framework for Australia using information from numerous waste data sources. This is the first MRWSU framework to be constructed (to the authors' knowledge) and the first sub‐national waste input‐output framework to be constructed for Australia. We construct the framework using the Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory (IELab), a cloud‐hosted computational platform for building Australian multi‐regional input‐output tables. The structure of the framework complies with the System of Environmental‐Economic Accounting (SEEA). We demonstrate the use of the MRWSU framework by calculating waste footprints that enumerate the full supply chain waste production for Australian consumers.     

Net greenhouse gas fluxes in Brazilian ethanol production systems

Biofuels are both a promising solution to global warming mitigation and a potential contributor to the problem. Several life cycle assessments of bioethanol have been conducted to address these questions. We performed a synthesis of the available data on Brazilian ethanol production focusing on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon (C) sinks in the agricultural and industrial phases. Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from fossil fuels, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) from sources commonly included in C footprints, such as fossil fuel usage, biomass burning, nitrogen fertilizer application, liming and litter decomposition were accounted for. In addition, black carbon (BC) emissions from burning biomass and soil C sequestration were included in the balance. Most of the annual emissions per hectare are in the agricultural phase, both in the burned system (2209 out of a total of 2398 kg C_eq), and in the unburned system (559 out of 748 kg C_eq). Although nitrogen fertilizer emissions are large, 111 kg C_eq ha^?1 yr^?1, the largest single source of emissions is biomass burning in the manual harvest system, with a large amount of both GHG (196 kg C_eq ha^?1 yr^?1). and BC (1536 kg C_eq ha^?1 yr^?1). Besides avoiding emissions from biomass burning, harvesting sugarcane mechanically without burning tends to increase soil C stocks, providing a C sink of 1500 kg C ha^?1 yr^?1 in the 30 cm layer. The data show a C output: input ratio of 1.4 for ethanol produced under the conventionally burned and manual harvest compared with 6.5 for the mechanized harvest without burning, signifying the importance of conservation agricultural systems in bioethanol feedstock production.     

城市发展指数和生态足迹在直辖市可持续发展评估中的应用

综合应用城市发展指数(CDI)和生态足迹(EF)指标,分析各直辖市1978—2012年的可持续发展情况,衡量发展方式由资源消耗型向环境友好型转变的程度。研究表明:各直辖市的CDI不断增长,至2012年均达到80左右,基本处于同一层次水平,城市经济社会发展状况总体良好。EF的动态变化呈现阶段性发展的特点,各直辖市间也存在显著差异,除上海市,其他3个直辖市的EF呈现增长态势,至2012年,北京EF最高(2.60 hm2/人),重庆最低(1.79 hm~2/人),是唯一一个低于全国平均EF的直辖市。综合分析CDI和EF,在相似的社会经济发展水平下,重庆市的资源消耗较低,可持续发展潜力较大;天津市一直处于资源消耗型发展中,亟待转型;近十年来,上海和北京的城市建设模式出现了一定转变,由以消耗环境资源为代价的发展模式转变为环境友好型的发展模式。     

我国水资源生态足迹分析与预测

生态足迹模型的提出为水资源可持续利用的定量评价提供了新思路.通过构建水资源生态足迹和水资源生态承载力的计算模型,对我国1949～2007年水资源的可持续利用状况作出了客观的评价,并运用ARIMA模型对我国水资源生态足迹变动趋势作出深入的研究.结果表明,1949～2007年,我国人均水资源生态承载力总体上呈下降态势,而人均水资源生态足迹则逐年上升,从而造成人均水资源生态赤字逐渐增大,我国水资源处于一种不安全状态.运用ARIMA(2,1,3)模型的预测结果表明,2008～2012年,我国人均水资源生态足迹将继续呈上升态势,水危机形势将日益严峻.在此基础上,针对我国水资源的可持续利用问题提出了一组政策建议.