Assessing progress in MRV capacity development: experience with a scorecard approach

This article reports experiences gathered in 12 developing countries in Latin America and Africa with capacity development for national GHG inventory systems. The national systems and their ability to deliver on measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements is assessed using a scorecard that covers the transparency, accuracy, completeness, consistency, and comparability of the GHG inventory as well as its institutional set-up and management aspects. The analysis shows that a quantitative assessment of GHG inventory systems with a scorecard is feasible and useful, and could commonly be used for tracking progress in MRV capacity development.

Policy relevance

A large number of capacity development initiatives are underway to advance national GHG inventory systems in developing countries, particularly in the land-use sector. These aim to promote the reliable MRV of GHG emissions and removals, which is expected to underpin developing countries’ contributions to global mitigation efforts, including through results-based payments. Although MRV is a cornerstone of climate change policy and despite widespread capacity gaps, there is little conclusive evidence about the effectiveness of such capacity development. This article relates the positive experience from one initiative, the Capacity Development for REDD+ project, which employed a novel, scorecard-based approach to results monitoring. Considerable progress is observed and provides reassurance regarding the soundness of development agencies’ significant investments in MRV. Disaggregating scores by countries and by underlying criteria also provides insights to prioritize further investments.     

Finding a Way: Modeling Landscape Prerequisites for Roman and Early‐Medieval Routes in the Netherlands

This study focuses on reconstructing landscape prerequisites for Roman and early‐medieval routes in the Netherlands. We applied spatial modeling to modern and paleogeographical landscape data in order to determine geographical obstacles for possible translocation in ca. A.D. 100 and 800 via land and water. Network‐friction values were calculated to produce a spatial model of possible movement corridors and to enable the integration of archaeological data. Results show that in geographically dynamic lowland regions such as the current Netherlands, landscape units such as water, peat, and levees must have had a high impact on route orientation. The lower parts of the western Netherlands were almost inaccessible by land, implying that its inhabitants largely must have depended on rivers and streams for transportation. In Dutch coastal and river areas, the landscape changed drastically between A.D. 100 and 800, the largest changes occurring along the coast.     

Petrology and geochemistry of the 2014–2015 Holuhraun eruption,central Iceland: compositional and mineralogical characteristics,temporal variability and magma storage

The 2014–2015 Holuhraun fissure eruption provided a rare opportunity to study in detail the magmatic processes and magma plumbing system dynamics during a 6-month-long, moderate- to large-volume basaltic fissure eruption. In this contribution, we present a comprehensive dataset, including major and trace elements of whole-rock and glassy tephra samples, mineral chemistry, and radiogenic and oxygen isotope analyses from an extensive set of samples (n?=?62) that were collected systematically in several field campaigns throughout the entire eruptive period. We also present the first detailed chemical and isotopic characterization of magmatic sulfides from Iceland. In conjunction with a unique set of geophysical data, our approach provides a detailed temporal and spatial resolution of magmatic processes before and during this eruption. The 2014–2015 Holuhraun magma is compositionally indistinguishable from recent basalts erupted from the Bárðarbunga volcanic system, consistent with seismic observations for magma ascent close to the Bárðarbunga central volcano, followed by dyke propagation to the Holuhraun eruption site. Whole-rock elemental and isotopic compositions are remarkably constant throughout the eruption. Moreover, the inferred depth of the magma reservoir tapped during the eruption is consistently 8?±?5 km, in agreement with geodetic observations and melt inclusion entrapment pressures, but inconsistent with vertically extensive multi-tiered magma storage prior to eruption. The near constancy in the chemical and isotopic composition of the lava is consistent with the efficient homogenization of mantle-derived compositional variability. In contrast, occurrence of different mineral populations, including sulfide globules, which display significant compositional variability, requires a more complex earlier magmatic history. This may include sampling of heterogeneous mantle melts that mixed, crystallized and finally homogenized at mid- to lower-crustal conditions.     

Living conditions and social determinants of healthcare inequities affecting female migrants in Ghana

This paper is concerned with the living situation of female migrants in Ghana. We draw on the available research literature to examine the living conditions of female migrants paying special attention to the underlying interrelated factors impacting on their accessibility and utilization of orthodox healthcare. While a plethora of interconnected economic, social, cultural and institutional elements are key factors influencing the living conditions particularly, healthcare access and utilization, policy efforts undertaken to address the situation seem to focus only on the economic dimension. Three broad initiatives requiring active participation of multi-sectoral actors are outlined in efforts towards improving the situation.     

Evaluation of the budget for silicic acid in Cascadia Basin deep water

Between 2 and 3 km depth, North Pacific deep waters contain a plume of water with high silicic acid concentrations. The plume extends outward from Cascadia Basin (the Washington Margin), where waters can contain in excess of 200 μM off the coast of Oregon and Washington. To identify the source of the high Si concentrations in Cascadia Basin, we measured silicic acid and germanium concentrations in deep waters, and their fluxes from sediments using incubated cores. The mean flux of silicic acid into bottom waters is 0.81±0.05 mmol/m²-day, and the Ge/Si ratio of this flux is 0.7±0.1 μmol/mol. A box model, incorporating these results with hydrographic data, indicates that (1) no more than 5% of the silicic acid added to Basin deep waters can have a hydrothermal source (either hot or warm seeps), and (2) the total input of silicic acid to Basin deep waters is 0.06±0.02 Tmol/y. This input is nearly all from remineralized biogenic debris and should contribute about 0.5% of the 14 Tmol/y that are estimated to be necessary to maintain the North Pacific plume.     

Women's participation in forest management: A cross-country analysis

The role of women's participation in community forestry has recently been investigated in a number of theoretical and empirical papers. This paper takes an existing theoretical framework developed by Agarwal (2001) and applies it to examine two questions: (1) What determines women's participation in forestry institutions? and (2) What effect does women's participation have on institutional outcomes (such as levels of conflict and rule fairness)? To answer these questions data is used from two sources: (1) a detailed household survey conducted with 1.433 households in Bolivia, Kenya, Mexico, and Uganda and (2) a more aggregated dataset from forest associations investigated by the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) program in 10 countries. The analyses suggest that women's participation is likely when institutions exist that are less exclusionary, when households have more education, and when there is small economic inequality in general and across genders in particular. A history of women's participation, especially when women are seated on forest councils or attain leadership positions, is highly correlated with less disruptive conflict.     

Revised age estimate of the Mjáuvøtn tephra A on the Faroe Islands based on Bayesian modelling of 14C dates from two lake sequences

Tephra horizons are potentially perfect time markers for dating and cross‐correlation among diverse Holocene palaeoenvironmental records such as ice cores and marine and terrestrial sequences, but we need to trust their age. Here we present a new age estimate of the Holocene Mjáuvøtn tephra A using accelerator mass spectrometry ¹⁴C dates from two lakes on the Faroe Islands. With Bayesian age modelling it is dated to 6668–6533 cal. a BP (68.2% confidence interval) – significantly older and better constrained than the previous age. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modeling of space–time infectious disease spread under conditions of uncertainty

A theoretical model for the spread of infectious diseases in a composite space–time domain is developed. The model has a general form that enables it to account for the basic mechanisms of disease distribution and to incorporate the considerable multisourced uncertainty (caused by physiographic features, disease variability, meteorological conditions, etc.). Starting from the general model formulation regarding the specification of transmission and recovery rates, as well as the population migration dynamics, several subsequent assumptions are introduced that simplify analytical tractability and practical implementation. In particular, linearization involving a deterministic functional representation for the average evolution of the fraction of susceptible individuals allows the formulation of an extended Kalman filter approach for estimation based on the time series observed at a finite set of locations. Different aspects of interest derived from the epidemic space–time model proposed, as well as the performance of the extended Kalman filter procedure, are illustrated through simulations.     

Correlating Bedrock Folds to Higher Rates of Arsenic Detection in Groundwater,Southeast Wisconsin,USA

Arsenic in private drinking water wells is a significant problem across much of eastern Wisconsin, USA. The release mechanism and stratigraphic distribution of sulfide and iron (hydr)oxide sources of arsenic in bedrock aquifers are well understood for northeastern Wisconsin. However, recent geologic mapping has identified numerous small bedrock folds to the south, and the impact of these geologic structures on local groundwater flow and well contamination has been little studied. This paper examines the hydrologic and structural effects of the Beaver Dam anticline, southeast Wisconsin, on arsenic in groundwater in the region. Multivariate logistic regression shows wells near the Beaver Dam anticline are statistically more likely to detect arsenic in groundwater compared to wells farther away. Structural and hydrologic changes related to folding are interpreted to be the cause. Core drilled near the fold axis is heavily fractured, and many fractures are filled with sulfides. Elevated hydraulic conductivity estimates are also recorded near the fold axis, which may reflect a higher concentration of vertical fractures. These structural and hydrologic changes may have led to systematic changes in the distribution and concentration of arsenic-bearing mineral hosts, resulting in the observed detection pattern. For areas with similar underlying geology, this approach may improve prediction of arsenic risk down to the local level.     

Modelling diurnal cycles in point rainfall properties

A hybrid model for point rainfall has been explored to model the diurnal cycles in rainfall properties. The hybrid model is a product of two random processes: an occurrence process and an intensity process. Two occurrence process models, first‐order Markov chain and periodic discrete autoregressive, were compared initially. Fourier series was fitted to the properties of the occurrence and intensity processes of the observed data in order to reduce the number of model parameters. The Bayesian and Akaike information criteria were used to identify the optimum number of harmonics of the Fourier series. Simulation results of the two hybrid models were similar, if not identical, and compared well with the observed. In the average sense, the introduction of diurnal cycles in the model parameters did not improve the reproduction of the observed aggregation properties of the occurrence process. However, the diurnal distributions of the aggregation statistics were significantly improved by increasing the order of the Markov chain model. Also the information criteria tend to favour higher than first‐order Markov chain models. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.