The increased recognition of the importance of soil is reflected in the UN Post‐2015 Development Agenda with sustainable development goals that directly and indirectly relate to soil quality and protection. Despite a lack of legally binding legislation for soil protection, the European Commission remains committed to the objective of soil protection. However, the achievement of a legally binding framework for soil protection relies on the implementation of a soil monitoring network (SMN) that can detect changes to soil quality over time. As beneficiaries do not pay for the provision of soil information, the options for soil monitoring are limited. The use of existing data sets should be considered first. Using Ireland as an example, this research explored the opportunities for a SMN for Ireland considering three existing national data sets. The options for a SMN are considered in terms of their spatial and stratified distribution, the parameters to be measured and an economic analysis of the options proposed. This research finds that for Ireland, either a 10 or a 16 km2 grid interval stratified by land use and drainage class offers the best potential in relation to the spatial distribution of existing data sets to reflect local data at a national level. With existing data, the stratified SIS data using the 16 km2 grid offers the best value for money, with baseline costs for analysis, excluding field costs, of between €706 481 and €2.8 million. Acknowledging the impossibility of measuring all parameters with ideal frequency, this study proposes a two‐tier system for optimized monitoring frequency. Parameters must anticipate future policy requirements. Finally, the implementation of a SMN must be accompanied by standardized methods, defined thresholds and action mandates to maintain soil quality within allowable limits. 相似文献
The potential environmental effects of livestock farming are mainly associated with intensification of poultry, pig and dairy cow production systems. The major impacts are mainly caused by housing of livestock, which can lead to air and water pollution associated with nitrogen and phosphorus emissions and losses from manure. European countries regulate the potential for these types of pollution through a number of mechanisms, which have received wide public acceptance. In grazing systems, nitrogen pollution, associated with the use of nitrogen fertilizer, is also the subject of legislation. Perhaps because of this regulatory approach, surveys of the public have found that human food quality and animal welfare are more important issues than effects on air and water quality when considering livestock systems.Variation in stocking rates of grazing ruminants can change the structure and composition of pastures with potential impacts on biodiversity and the production of methane, a greenhouse gas. In European countries, maximum stocking rates have been set to reduce these impacts. Surveys of the European public have suggested that they are willing to pay for the mitigation of these environmental effects but that they also value strongly the cultural component of grazed livestock systems. There are few underlying concepts about how society views the environmental impacts of livestock systems. These are used to conclude that current attitudes are likely to prevail in the next decade. 相似文献
Surprisingly few studies have considered the extent to which the nature of the ownership of land is associated with differences
in biodiversity. We analysed ownership and other landscape-level effects on rare-species richness for both globally- and regionally-rare
biota (including birds, herpetofauna, butterflies, mammals, and plants) in 289 designated natural areas (NAs) in southern
Ontario, Canada. Information about each NA −including area, number of plant communities, ownership status and details of species
diversity were collected from published sources. Length of perimeter of NA, relative isolation, and an estimate of fragmentation
were measured using image analysis and GIS techniques. NAs were in general relatively small, with mean area of 158 ha (median
85 ha, range from 0.9 to 1278 ha) for private NAs; public NAs had mean area of 132 ha (median 16 ha, range from 0.1 to 1481
ha). Mean number of plant communities was 4.6 (median 4, range 1- 13) at private NAs and 3.8 (median 3, range 1-16) at public
NAs. Our results show that, of several landscape-level factors, area had the greatest effects on rare-species richness and
other biotic indices. Effects of area were followed by effects of plant community diversity, however this was itself significantly
affected by area and the extent of perimeter of the NA. Both these factors were followed by effects of ownership of the NA
and by effects of isolation of the NA (represented by minimum distance to nearest NA and by number of NAs in 10 km radius).
Other landscape- level factors did not appear to have overall significant effects. Variation in area accounted for 0.1% to
29% of variation in number of rare species, with lower values for globally-rare, than for regionally-rare taxa. For all biotic
groups, public ownership of NAs was associated with significantly greater rare-species richness compared to private ownership,
even after other factors such as area were controlled. For all globally-rare biota except butterflies, area of NA had greater
effects on rare-species richness than did ownership. Richness of regionally- rare birds was more affected by plant community
diversity than by area of NA. Number of recorded plant communities accounted from 2.1% of variation in number of globally-rare
plant species to as high as 31% of variation in regionally-rare butterflies. The diversity of plant communities was itself
influenced by total site area (accounting for 45% of variation), extent of elongation of the NA, and both external- and interior-
edge perimeters. Public NAs had greatest numbers of rare biota and so should be a significant focus for conservation programs.
Smaller, privately-owned patches of natural area dominate (by number and area) in this densely populated region and their
significance should not be overlooked.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献
1. The aim of this study was to investigate if male-to-female aggression of common pheasants in the course of the breeding season was related to the concentration of plasma testosterone and/or other biochemical plasma indicators in male pheasants housed in breeding cages. The influence of season on the concentration of testosterone and biochemical indicators was also investigated.
2. Males were divided into non-aggressive and aggressive groups during the breeding season based on ethological evaluation. At the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the breeding season, a blood sample was taken from all males on the same day and the concentration of selected biochemical indicators and the total circulating testosterone in the plasma were determined.
3. Male-to-female aggression during the breeding season of pheasants was not influenced by the total plasma testosterone of males.
4. The concentration of total plasma testosterone in males decreased gradually during the breeding season.
5. Male-to-female aggression of pheasants did not have a significant effect on any of the assessed biochemical indicators.
6. The influence of the breeding season affected the activities of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase as well as the concentrations of glucose, magnesium, potassium and chloride in the blood plasma of cage-housed male pheasants. 相似文献
The impact of extreme events (such as prolonged droughts, heat waves, cold shocks and frost) is poorly represented by most of the existing yield forecasting systems. Two new model-based approaches that account for the impact of extreme weather events on crop production are presented as a way to improve yield forecasts, both based on the Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) of the European Commission. A first approach includes simple relations – consistent with the degree of complexity of the most generic crop simulators – to explicitly model the impact of these events on leaf development and yield formation. A second approach is a hybrid system which adds selected agro-climatic indicators (accounting for drought and cold/heat stress) to the previous one. The new proposed methods, together with the CGMS-standard approach and a system exclusively based on selected agro-climatic indicators, were evaluated in a comparative fashion for their forecasting reliability. The four systems were assessed for the main micro- and macro-thermal cereal crops grown in highly productive European countries. The workflow included the statistical post-processing of model outputs aggregated at national level with historical series (1995–2013) of official yields, followed by a cross-validation for forecasting events triggered at flowering, maturity and at an intermediate stage. With the system based on agro-climatic indicators, satisfactory performances were limited to microthermal crops grown in Mediterranean environments (i.e. crop production systems mainly driven by rainfall distribution). Compared to CGMS-standard system, the newly proposed approaches increased the forecasting reliability in 94% of the combinations crop × country × forecasting moment. In particular, the explicit simulation of the impact of extreme events explained a large part of the inter-annual variability (up to +44% for spring barley in Poland), while the addition of agro-climatic indicators to the workflow mostly added accuracy to an already satisfactory forecasting system. 相似文献