Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

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Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.

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Economics of natural resources and the environment

This article proposes contemporary best-practice recommendations for stated preference (SP) studies used to inform decision making, grounded in the accumulated body of peer-reviewed literature. These recommendations consider the use of SP methods to estimate both use and non-use (passive-use) values, and cover the broad SP domain, including contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments. We focus on applications to public goods in the context of the environment and human health but also consider ways in which the proposed recommendations might apply to other common areas of application. The recommendations recognize that SP results may be used and reused (benefit transfers) by governmental agencies and nongovernmental organizations, and that all such applications must be considered. The intended result is a set of guidelines for SP studies that is more comprehensive than that of the original National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Blue Ribbon Panel on contingent valuation, is more germane to contemporary applications, and reflects the two decades of research since that time. We also distinguish between practices for which accumulated research is sufficient to support recommendations and those for which greater uncertainty remains. The goal of this article is to raise the quality of SP studies used to support decision making and promote research that will further enhance the practice of these studies worldwide.

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Contemporary Guidance for Stated Preference Studies

In this paper recent developments in the estimation of frontier functions and the measurement of efficiency are surveyed, and the potential applicability of these methods in agricultural economics is discussed. Frontier production, cost and profit functions are discussed, along with the construction of technical, allocative, scale and overall efficiency measures relative to these estimated frontiers. The two primary methods of frontier estimation, econometric and linear programming, are compared. A survey of recent applications of frontier methods in agriculture is also provided. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Recent Developments in Frontier Modelling and Efficiency Measurement

Drought is a complex natural hazard that impacts ecosystems and society in many ways. Many of these impacts are associated with hydrological drought (drought in rivers, lakes, and groundwater). It is, therefore, crucial to understand the development and recovery of hydrological drought. In this review an overview is given of the current state of scientific knowledge of definitions, processes, and quantification of hydrological drought. Special attention is given to the influence of climate and terrestrial properties (geology, land use) on hydrological drought characteristics and the role of storage. Furthermore, the current debate about the use and usefulness of different drought indicators is highlighted and recent advances in drought monitoring and prediction are mentioned. Research on projections of hydrological drought for the future is summarized. This review also briefly touches upon the link of hydrological drought characteristics with impacts and the issues related to drought management. Finally, four challenges for future research on hydrological drought are defined that relate international initiatives such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the ‘Panta Rhei’ decade of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS). WIREs Water 2015, 2:359–392. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1085

For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

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Hydrological drought explained

https://sites.uclouvain.be/afepa/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/An-MCDM-approach-to-production-analysis-.pdf

An MCDM approach to production analysis : An application to irrigated farms in Southern Spain

Bt corn in Spain--the performance of the EU's first GM crop.

Irrigated agriculture is directly influenced by various EU policies, especially the CAP andmore recently the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The demand for water by agricultureis largely determined by CAP policy. On the other hand, the objective of the WFD is toregulate the supply (cost, quality, quantity) of water to agriculture. This work examinesthe relationships between these two policy instruments and applies a scenario analysis to acase study in central Spain using a multi-criteria model of farmer behaviour. The resultsshow that the two instruments must be co-ordinated in order to meet socio-economic goals(farmers’ income and labour demand) and environmental protection (water-use efficiency).

http://www.uco.es/~es1bevej/articulos/JofAGricEcon.pdf

Conflicting Implementation of Agricultural and Water Policies in Irrigated Areas in the EU

This paper presents an application of residual value techniques to the economic analysis of irrigation water at the basin level for the Guadalquivir River (Southern Spain). The methodology is simple; the results are robust and consistent with alternative method findings. The average residual value in the basin is 0.31 €/m3 and according to the to Residual Value Method, the distribution of total Gross Value Added (GVA) of irrigated land is distributed between the different factors of production as follows: (i) water, 62% of GVA; (ii) land, 20% GVA (from rain-fed productivity), (iii) return to man-made capital, 5% GVA; and finally (iv) the pair ‘management + family-labour’ gets 13% of total irrigation GVA. The paper illustrates the use of this method for the whole basin and it shows that it may offer promise for supporting sustainable water management at the basin (or the local) scale. It may be used for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive.

Value of Irrigation Water in Guadalquivir Basin (Spain) by Residual Value Method

Biodiesel is a biofuel obtained from vegetable oils or animal fats by transesterification with methanol, so that it offers a very promising alternative respect to diesel fuel, since it is able to provide a suitable substitute for the fossil diesel in unmodified internal combustion engines, pure or in blends. However, a major barrier exists to consolidate this conventional biodiesel, as the more suitable biofuel for the replacement of fossil fuel. This drawback is related to the significant amount of glycerol obtained as a byproduct in the transesterification process, which exceeds at least 10% by weight of oil used as raw material. Thus, future widespread use of biofuels depends on developing new process technologies to produce high quality transportation fuels from biologically derived feedstocks, which avoid this key handicap. These new biofuels, like the biodiesel, need to be also compatible with the fossil fuel as well as with existing transportation infrastructures to be economically feasible. In this respect, various alternative methods are currently under development to convert vegetable oils into a high quality diesel fuel, fully compatible with petroleum derived diesel fuel but avoiding the existing glycerol glut. The present review aims to explore the current state of available technologies and recent information in research, production practices and engineering developed to produce alternative high-quality diesel fuel from vegetable oils, by hydrotreating of triglycerides in conventional oil refineries (green diesel) as well as those novel biofuels that integrate glycerol into their composition ( Gliperol®, DMC-Biod® and Ecodiesel®) and the respective technologies for their productions. These very recent biofuels obtained from oils and fats, seek to achieve greater atom efficiency (ideally 100%) because nor glycerol neither other byproduct is generated, avoiding any purification treatment, so that the overall production process of the biofuel is in large extension simplified.

Julio Berbel

Papers

An MCDM approach to production analysis : An application to irrigated farms in Southern Spain

Bt corn in Spain--the performance of the EU's first GM crop.

Conflicting Implementation of Agricultural and Water Policies in Irrigated Areas in the EU

Value of Irrigation Water in Guadalquivir Basin (Spain) by Residual Value Method

An overview on glycerol-free processes for the production of renewable liquid biofuels, applicable in diesel engines