Climate change and the agricultural sector in Ireland: examining farmer awareness and willingness to adopt new advisory mitigation tools

Agriculture is responsible for the bulk of Ireland’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the potential to mitigate some of these emissions through the adoption of more efficient farm management practices may be hampered by farmers’ awareness and attitude towards climate change and agriculture’s role in contributing to GHG emissions. This paper presents results from a survey of 746 Irish farmers in 2014, with a view to understanding farmers’ awareness of, and attitudes to, climate change and GHG emissions. Survey results show that there was a general uncertainty towards a number of questions related to agricultural GHG emissions, e.g. if tilling of land causes GHG emissions, and that farmers were reluctant to take action to reduce GHG emissions on their farm. To further explore farmers’ attitudes towards climate change, a multinomial logit model was used to examine the socio-economic factors that affect farmers’ willingness to adopt an advisory tool that would show the potential reduction in GHG emissions from the adoption of new technologies. Results show that farmers’ awareness of human-induced global climate change was positively related to the tool’s adoption.

Key policy insights

• Irish farmers are generally not sufficiently aware of the impact of their activities on climate change.

• A quarter of farmers believed that climate change will only impact on their business in the long-term; such an attitude may lead to a reluctance amongst these farmers to adopt management practices that reduce GHG emissions.

• Awareness of climate change affects positively the adoption of new tools to reduce GHG emissions on farmers’ farms.

• IT literacy affects willingness to adopt new tools to address GHG emissions.

• Reception of agri-environmental advice can have a positive influence on farmers’ willingness to adopt new GHG emission abatement tools.

• Farmers in receipt of environmental subsidies are more likely to adopt new abatement tools, either because they are more environmentally conscious or because the subsidy raised their environmentally consciousness.

• Willingness to adopt differs between different farm enterprises; operating dairy enterprise increases the willingness to adopt new advisory mitigation tools.

     

Understanding the Past and Present and Predicting the Future: Farmers’ Use of Multiple Nutrient Best Management Practices in the Upper Midwest

Understanding what drives farmers’ voluntary adoption of nutrient and soil best management practices has important consequences for many environmental outcomes including water quality. We build on research revealing the need for simultaneous use of multiple nitrogen best management practices to achieve water quality improvement goals. Using social, economic and attitudinal variables we predict the use of multiple nitrogen best management practices at three time points: current use (2013), past use (before 2013), and likelihood of use on their largest field in the next three years. Our empirical analysis uses structural equation modeling with latent variables and 2014 farmer survey data from three Midwestern US states. Most farmers in our sample used at least one of the six best management practices. Our results reveal that farmers’ attitudes, use of information sources, and conservation program participation affect the number of nitrogen best management practices concurrently in use at multiple time points.     

Self-perceived Roles in Life and Achieving Sustainability on Family Farms in North-eastern Australia

Rural production landscapes in Australia are experiencing a rapid rate of change as a result of, among other factors, climate change, biodiversity loss and changing societal values. Consequently, there is increasing pressure on producers to increase their sustainability. Understanding how producers perceive themselves in the context of this changing landscape is limited but important for the design of policy effective for achieving sustainability. This paper is based on a case study in the north-eastern Australian rangelands that included face-to-face interviews with 28 beef producers and a telephone survey with another 91 producers. The study investigated male and female beef producers' self-perceived roles in life through a lens of different farming discourses and the relationship between these roles and beliefs aligned with sustainability. Results revealed that although producers' self-percieved roles in life were being constructed through a mix of more or less ‘traditional’ discourses, tradition was still a strong influence. Producers who strongly identified with roles linked to ‘less traditional’ discourses were more likely than those who strongly identified with production-orientated roles to agree with beliefs that favoured nature conservation, learning and adapting to change. Increased opportunities for producers to participate in alternative discourses would appear important for fostering a self-identity that is open to learning, difference and change.     

SPATIAL VARIATION OF HILLSLOPE PROFILES IN THE CUMBERLAND PLATEAU,KENTUCKY

Contemporary Metropolitan America. John S. Adams (ed.)

The Climate of the Great American Desert: Reconstruction of the Climate of Western Interior United States, 1800–1850. Merlin P. Lawson.

Geomorphology from the Earth. Karl W. Butzer.

Glaciers and Landscape: A Geomorphological Approach. David E. Sugden and Brian S. John.

Experiencing the Environment. Seymour Wapner, Saul B. Cohen and Bernard Kaplan (eds.).

Folk Housing in Middle Virginia. Henry Glassie.

Place and Placelessness. Edward Relph.

The Changing Face of Tibet: The Impact of Chinese Communist Ideology on the Landscape. Pradyumna P. Karan.

Imperial Russia in Frontier America. James R. Gibson.

Immigrants in the Ozarks: A Study in Ethnic Geography. Russel L. Gerlach.

Urban Social Segregation. Ceri Peach (ed.).

Urban Modelling: Algorithms, Calibrations, Predictions. Michael Batty.

Strategies for Human Settlements: Habitat and Environment. Gwen Bell (ed.).

Spatial Components of Manufacturing Change. Yehoshua S. Cohen and Brian J. L. Berry.

Income Distribution in Latin America. Alejandro Foxley (ed.).

The Netherlands. David Pinder.

Social Issues in Regional Policy and Regional Planning. Antoni Kuklinski (ed.).

Periodic Markets, Urbanization, and Regional Planning: A Case Study from Western Kenya. Robert A. Obudho and Peter P. Waller.

Atlas of Oregon. William G. Loy (director and cartographer), Stuart Allan, Clyde P. Patton and Robert D. Plank.

Papua New Guinea Resource Atlus. Edgar Ford (ed.) and John S. Feodoroff

Landmarks of Mapmaking: An Illustrated Survey of Maps and Mapmakers. Text by Charles Bricker and maps selected by R. V. Tooley.     

The Cost(s) of Geospatial Open Data

The provision of open data by governments at all levels has rapidly increased over recent years. Given that one of the dominant motivations for the provision of open data is to generate ‘value’, both economic and civic, there are valid concerns over the costs incurred in this pursuit. Typically, costs of open data are framed as internal to the data providing government. Building on the strong history of GIScience research on data provision via spatial data infrastructures, this article considers both the direct and indirect costs of open data provision, framing four main areas of indirect costs: citizen participation challenges, uneven provision across geography and user types, subsidy of private sector activities, and the creation of inroads for corporate influence on government. These areas of indirect cost lead to the development of critical questions, including constituency, purpose, enablement, protection, and priorities. These questions are posed as a guide to governments that provide open data in addressing the indirect costs of open data.     

THE EFFECT OF LOCATION ON THE ADOPTION OF HAZARD MITIGATION MEASURES

The adoption of hazard mitigation measures by those in vulnerable areas is the result of a complex process involving many variables. This study investigates the potential impact one variable, location, has on adoption. The findings suggest that adoption of measures that require little planning and are highly visible are related to location.     

新世纪以来中外儿童贩运研究热点与趋势

以“Web of Science^TM核心合集”和CNKI期刊文献为数据源,运用CiteSpace软件进行文献计量分析,梳理总结了2000年以来国内外儿童贩运的研究热点与趋势。结果发现：1）中外儿童贩运研究的发文量整体呈波动增长态势,美国的发文量位居世界首位,国外研究集中在社会学、心理学、儿科医学、家庭研究与犯罪学等5大领域。国内研究进程相对缓慢,早期研究集中在法学、犯罪学与社会学3大领域,近年来地理学领域快速兴起。2）由于区域环境与国情存在差异,国外儿童贩运包含在人口贩运研究中,更关注以剥削为目的跨国贩运,包括直接剥削与间接剥削2种方式,涉及商业性贩运、童工贩运、人体器官贩运和童婚贩运等多种贩运类型,商业性贩运与性剥削是儿童贩运的主要研究热点;国内拐卖儿童犯罪通常与拐卖妇女合并讨论,聚焦于以收养为目的的省域拐卖,诱骗养子型和家庭操控型是最常见的2种类型,拐卖儿童犯罪的法律政策与社会原因是热点关注话题。3）随着多学科交叉融合的发展,国外儿童贩运的研究主题从贩运类型向儿童被解救后的自杀风险与福祉评估、康复回归与重返社会、儿童保护与贩运防控对策持续拓展;国内拐卖儿童犯罪的研究主题从法律政策与社会原因向时空格局、影响因素、安置回归与社会融入延伸。未来如何将儿童贩运的相关主体（犯罪人、受害人或监护人与其他社会人）与时空环境（社会环境、建成环境及周围人流环境）进行综合贯穿,从犯罪地理学视角探究儿童贩运的地理环境因素与时空活动轨迹的演变,深入解析“时-空-人”三维视角下儿童贩运的发生机制至关重要,以及在实践中如何充分利用现代科技手段追踪和打击儿童贩运,为中外儿童贩运防治与管理贡献力量。     

地质科技论文的撰写与投稿

地质科技论文是地质科研工作成果的重要表达方式。地质科技论文如何撰写,论文撰写的格式与要求有哪些?论文在投稿时,如何有针对性地向期刊投稿,提高地质科技论文被采用的概率?这是作者们非常关心的问题。文章介绍了地质科技论文的特点和类型,阐述了地质科技论文结构要素、写作要求和注意事项,如何向专业期刊投稿,以增加稿件被期刊录用的机会。     

Conservation of vaquita marina in the Northern Gulf of California

Vaquita marina, a small species of porpoise endemic to the Northern Gulf of California in Mexico, is the world's most endangered cetacean species. With the purpose of preserving vaquita, the Mexican government launched PACE-Vaquita in 2008. This voluntary program offers an innovative schedule of compensations: as in a payment-for-conservation program, PACE-Vaquita compensates for temporary reductions in fishing effort; as in a program to accelerate technology adoption, PACE-Vaquita compensates for switching to vaquita-safe fishing methods; and as in a buyback program, PACE-Vaquita compensates fishermen for a permanent exit from fisheries. This paper seeks the factors explaining fishermen's participation in PACE-Vaquita during its first year of operation. Analysis is carried out through a multinomial logit specification on a data set collected one week after the enrollment deadline. This paper shows that fishermen with skills in alternative economic activities more likely quit fishing, and fishermen with relatively less productive vessels more likely switched to vaquita-safe fishing methods. Discussion of public policy implications is provided.     

Toward a Synthesis: Lessons from Thirteen Cropland Watershed-Scale Studies

To integrate lessons from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Institute of Food and Agriculture–Conservation Effects Assessment Project (NIFA CEAP) program, key informant (KI) interviews were conducted in all 13 project areas. The purpose of these interviews was to supplement technical information about watersheds, their contaminants, modeling, economics, and key findings. We interviewed a wide range of people to develop a systematic look at individual project results, synthesize meanings, and derive principles useful in guiding future watershed management. Findings revealed common themes, which tended to align with KI categories, regardless of location. For instance, farmers and ranchers often understood water quality problems as well as federal and state personnel and university employees do. Conservation adoption by farmers was related to perceived need, cost, and convenience of the practice, as well as practice specifics and individual situations. Possible implications of these findings are advanced.