1. Bio-solution for global sand crisis and sustainable organic agriculture in desert statesDarina Štyriaková, Iveta Štyriakova, Jaroslav Šuba, Felix Föhre, 2022, published scientific conference contribution Abstract: Sand is an important component of many everyday items, and currently sand is the second most extracted resource on earth after water, but it is not sustainable: we are running out of sand! The black market is booming, and the sand mafia is mining sand at any price. Desert sand is unusable, even Dubai must import it. The smooth surface and iron impurities prevent its industrial use. In this study, bacteria in the bioleaching test attacked the surface of the mineral grains and dissolved impurities including iron through organic acids. Furthermore, the liquid residue containing dissolved iron, organic acids and bacteria stimulated the growth plant what can be a valuable biofertilizer and biostimulant for organic agriculture. Desert states have fertility problems. Despite this, Qatar, for example, is aiming for self-sufficiency in vegetables “in five years”. Results showed that bioleaching combined with magnetic separation resulted in iron removal of 73.23%. The sand after treatment can be suitable to produce clear flat glass, coloured container glass, insulating glass fibres or ceramics. The integrated technology based ecological study revealed overall as utilization potential of the desert sand and the liquid residue could support glass and food production in desert states.
Keywords: materials, sand, bioleaching, sustainable organic agriculture, desert states
Published in DiRROS: 31.01.2024; Views: 179; Downloads: 103
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2. Repository of drought event impacts across the danube catchment countries between 1981 and 2016 using publicly available sourcesJiří Jakubínský, Monika Bláhová, Lenka Bartošová, Klára Steinerová, Jan Balek, Petra Dížková, Daniela Semerádová, Daniel Alexandru, Galia Bardarska, Sabina Bokal, Gregor Gregorič, Gal Oblišar, Andreja Sušnik, 2019, original scientific article Abstract: Drought directly and indirectly affects human society in a number of ways. In many regions of the world climate change will exasperate the effects of droughts, affect national economies more intensely. The main aim of this article was to catalogue and analyze the drought impacts in the 11 Central and South Eastern European states located in the Danube river basin. The identification of dry episodes was based on information from publicly available sources, namely, newspaper and journal articles that reported drought impacts. Information on drought impact occurrences was classified into one of five defined categories in which the drought impact report was most clearly manifested (i.e., agriculture, forestry, soil systems, wildfires and hydrology). In terms of the spatial distribution of drought impacts, individual recorded events were analyzed at the level of EU NUTS regions (or their equivalent in non-EU countries). The analysis highlights country-specific vulnerability to drought. Furthermore, gradual increases in drought events and the number of reported impacts were identified, which was particularly evident in the agricultural sector.
Keywords: drought impact, Danube basin, agriculture, climate change, water stress
Published in DiRROS: 21.04.2022; Views: 816; Downloads: 368
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3. Farmers' preferences for result-based schemes for grassland conservation in SloveniaTanja Šumrada, Anže Japelj, Miroslav Verbič, Emil Erjavec, 2022, original scientific article Abstract: Government-funded payments for ecosystem services (PES) have increasingly been used to facilitate transactions between users of environmental services and their providers. In order to improve the link between payments and the service provided, some countries in the EU have promoted result-based schemes (RBS), which remunerate farmers for ecological results, as part of their agricultural policy. Since PES programs are voluntary, it is important to understand farmers’ responses before more large-scale implementations of RBS are initiated. Using a choice experiment and a mixed logit model, we elicited the preferences of farmers in two Natura 2000 sites in Slovenia for different design elements of a hypothetical scheme for dry grassland conservation. We found that the majority of farmers preferred the result-based approach over the management-based scheme both in terms of payment conditions and monitoring; one group of farmers preferred the RBS very strongly (average WTA of more than 500 EUR/ha/yr) and another group less strongly (average WTA about 200 EUR/ha/yr). Farmers also showed a higher preference for on-farm advise and training in small groups than for lectures, which would be offered to a larger audience. A collective bonus, which would incentivise coordination and could potentially increase participation rates in the scheme, significantly influenced the farmers’ willingness to adopt the scheme. However, the estimated average WTA was comparable or lower than the 40 EUR/ha annual bonus payment. Older farmers and those who managed small and semi-subsistent farms were significantly more likely to be highly resistant to scheme adoption no matter its design.
Keywords: agrarna politika, kmetijstvo, subvencije, ekosistemske storitve, plačilo za ekosistemske storitve, agricultural policy, agriculture, subsidies, payments for ecosystem services, abiodiversity conservation
Published in DiRROS: 04.02.2022; Views: 842; Downloads: 647
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