scholarly journals The Potential Impact of Climate Change on Oat Lodging in the UK and Republic of Ireland

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Mohammadi ◽  
John Finnan ◽  
Chris Baker ◽  
Mark Sterling

This paper examines the impact that climate change may have on the lodging of oats in the Republic of Ireland and the UK. Through the consideration of a novel lodging model representing the motion of an oat plant due to the interaction of wind and rain and integrating future predictions of wind and rainfall due to climate change, appropriate conclusions have been made. In order to provide meteorological data for the lodging model, wind and rainfall inputs are analysed using 30 years’ time series corresponding to peak lodging months (June and July) from 38 meteorological stations in the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic, which enables the relevant probability density functions (PDFs) to be established. Moreover, climate data for the next six decades in the British Isles produced by UK climate change projections (UKCP18) are analysed, and future wind and rainfall PDFs are obtained. It is observed that the predicted changes likely to occur during the key growing period (June to July) in the next 30 years are in keeping with variations, which can occur due to different husbandry treatments/plant varieties. In addition, the utility of a double exponential function for representing the rainfall probability has been observed with appropriate values for the constants given.

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. e56026
Author(s):  
Gabriela Leite Neves ◽  
Jorim Sousa das Virgens Filho ◽  
Maysa de Lima Leite ◽  
Frederico Fabio Mauad

Water is an essential natural resource that is being impacted by climate change. Thus, knowledge of future water availability conditions around the globe becomes necessary. Based on that, this study aimed to simulate future climate scenarios and evaluate the impact on water balance in southern Brazil. Daily data of rainfall and air temperature (maximum and minimum) were used. The meteorological data were collected in 28 locations over 30 years (1980-2009). For the data simulation, we used the climate data stochastic generator PGECLIMA_R. It was considered two scenarios of the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a scenario with the historical data trend. The water balance estimates were performed for the current data and the simulated data, through the methodology of Thornthwaite and Mather (1955). The moisture indexes were spatialized by the kriging method. These indexes were chosen as the parameters to represent the water conditions in different situations. The region assessed presented a high variability in water availability among locations; however, it did not present high water deficiency values, even with climate change. Overall, it was observed a reduction of moisture index in most sites and in all scenarios assessed, especially in the northern region when compared to the other regions. The second scenario of the IPCC (the worst situation) promoting higher reductions and dry conditions for the 2099 year. The impacts of climate change on water availability, identified in this study, can affect the general society, therefore, they must be considered in the planning and management of water resources, especially in the regional context


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Wells ◽  
Candice Howarth ◽  
Lina I. Brand-Correa

Abstract In light of increasing pressure to deliver climate action targets, and the growing role of citizens in raising the importance of the issue, deliberative democratic processes (e.g. Citizen Juries and Citizen Assemblies) on climate change are increasingly being used to provide a voice to citizens in climate change decision-making. Through a comparative case study of two processes that ran in the UK in 2019 (the Leeds Climate Change Citizens’ Jury and the Oxford Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change), this paper investigates how far Citizen Assemblies and Juries on climate change are increasing citizen engagement on climate change and creating more citizen-centred climate policy-making. Interviews were conducted with policy-makers, councillors, professional facilitators and others involved in running these processes to assess motivations for conducting these, their structure and the impact and influence they had. The findings suggest the impact of these processes is not uniform: they have an indirect impact on policymaking by creating momentum around climate action and supporting the introduction of pre-planned or pre-existing policies rather than a direct impact by being truly being citizen-centred policymaking processes or conducive to new climate policy. We conclude with reflections on how these processes give elected representatives a public mandate on climate change, that they help to identify more nuanced and in-depth public opinions in a fair and informed way, yet it can be challenging to embed citizen juries and assemblies in wider democratic processes.


Author(s):  
I. D. McGowan

Five libraries in the UK and the Republic of Ireland - the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, the university libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, and Trinity College Dublin Library - can claim material from publishers through the Copyright Libraries' Agency, while deposit with The British Library, which maintains the Legal Deposit Office, is obligatory. In spite of problems caused by diverse sources of funding, there is much incentive and pressure to cooperate, and efforts have been made, particularly since 1988, to coordinate the activities of all six libraries. The Mellon Microfilming Project aims to film important scholarly collections in Britain and Ireland to agreed archival standards, and to improve access to the Register of Preservation Microfilms. A Working Group on Legal Deposit identified as areas for fruitful collaboration the coordination of acquisition of serials and of some types of monograph, and retention policies; some savings have already been made. A third exercise, a pilot project for shared cataloguing, aimed to maximize the utility to all libraries of the BL's National Bibliographic Service and minimize costs in the participating libraries; the Shared Cataloguing Programme itself started in September 1993.


Author(s):  
Gerard M Walls ◽  
Orla A Houlihan ◽  
Ciaran Mooney ◽  
Rebecca Prince ◽  
Katie Spencer ◽  
...  

Objectives: Radiotherapy is a key cancer treatment modality but is poorly understood by doctors. We sought to evaluate radiation oncology (RO) teaching in medical schools within the United Kingdom (UK) and Republic of Ireland (RoI), as well as any impacts on RO teaching delivery from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods: A bespoke online survey instrument was developed, piloted and distributed to oncology teaching leads at all UK and RoI medical schools. Questions were designed to capture information on the structure, format, content and faculty for RO teaching, as well as both the actual and the predicted short- and long-term impacts of COVID-19. Results: Responses were received from 29/41 (71%) UK and 5/6 (83%) RoI medical schools. Pre-clinical and clinical oncology teaching was delivered over a median of 2 weeks (IQR 1–6), although only 9 (27%) of 34 responding medical schools had a standalone RO module. RO teaching was most commonly delivered in clinics or wards (n = 26 and 25 respectively). Few medical schools provided teaching on the biological basis for radiotherapy (n = 11) or the RO career pathway (n = 8), and few provide teaching delivered by non-medical RO multidisciplinary team members. There was evidence of short- and long-term disruption to RO teaching from COVID-19. Conclusions: RO teaching in the UK and RoI is limited with minimal coverage of relevant theoretical principles and little exposure to radiotherapy departments and their non-medical team members. The COVID-19 pandemic risks exacerbating trainee doctors’ already constrained exposure to radiotherapy. Advances in knowledge: This study provides the first analysis of radiotherapy-related teaching in the UK and RoI, and the first to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on radiationoncology teaching.


Crisis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 386-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Marzano ◽  
Lorna Fraser ◽  
Mia Scally ◽  
Stuart Farley ◽  
Keith Hawton

Abstract. Background: Media reporting of suicide has been associated with imitative acts. Internationally, this has led to the development of guidelines to promote responsible reporting of suicide. Aims: To examine the nature and quality of news coverage of suicidal behavior in the United Kingdom (UK) and Republic of Ireland (ROI). Method: UK and ROI press clippings relating to suicide over 12 months (N = 8,101) were coded for content and assessed for quality against existing guidelines. We examined variability in relation to key characteristics (e.g., type of publication) and compared newspaper portrayal of suicide against official statistics. Results: Reports were biased toward young, female, and relatively unusual suicides (including those involving a celebrity, more than one individual, and violent methods). Almost a third of reports had inappropriate headlines, but only a minority were of poor overall quality, and editors appear to be responsive to feedback. There was considerable variability in the quality of reports for different suicide methods. Limitations: This work cannot account for the impact of reporting on suicidal behavior. The speed of change in media trends also limits its conclusions. Conclusion: Our findings underscore the need for sustained efforts to promote responsible reporting of suicide.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Yaqiong Zang ◽  
Junhu Dai ◽  
Zexing Tao ◽  
Huanjiong Wang ◽  
Quansheng Ge

Climate change could affect botanical tourism by altering the plant phenology (e.g., flowering and leaf coloring date) and the physical comfort of tourists. To date, few studies have simultaneously considered the influence of plant phenology and physical comfort on the travel suitability of botanical tourism. Taking Beijing as an example, this study used phenological data of 73 species from 1963 to 2017 to construct a phenological ornamental index (POI) according to the flowering and leaf coloring date of ornamental plant. The climate comfort index (CCI) of tourism was calculated by using meteorological data of the corresponding periods. Finally, the travel suitability index (TSI) was constructed by integrating the two indices (POI and CCI). The POI showed that the best period for spring flower viewing was from April 4 to May 10, while the best period for autumn leaves viewing was from October 11 to November 6 on average. According to the variation of the CCI within the year, the most comfortable period for spring tourism was matched with the best period for spring flower viewing (April 4 to June 1), but the most comfortable period for autumn tourism (September 4 to October 19) was earlier than the best period for autumn leaves viewing. The TSI indicated that the best periods for spring and autumn botanical tourism were April 7 to May 10 and October 10 to November 7, respectively. Based on the climate data under different scenarios (representative concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5), we simulated the climate and phenological suitability for botanical tourism in the next thirty years. The results showed that the best period for spring botanical tourism during 2040–2050 was earlier and the period for autumn botanical tourism was later than that in the past 55 years. Meanwhile, the duration would shorten by 2–7 days for both seasons. This study provided a reference for assessing the impact of global climate change on the best season of botanical tourism.


2020 ◽  
Vol Volume 14 ◽  
pp. 707-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orla Galvin ◽  
Gloria Chi ◽  
Laura Brady ◽  
Claire Hippert ◽  
Marta Del Valle Rubido ◽  
...  

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. e0246339
Author(s):  
Richard P. Bentall ◽  
Alex Lloyd ◽  
Kate Bennett ◽  
Ryan McKay ◽  
Liam Mason ◽  
...  

The over-purchasing and hoarding of necessities is a common response to crises, especially in developed economies where there is normally an expectation of plentiful supply. This behaviour was observed internationally during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the absence of actual scarcity, this behaviour can be described as ‘panic buying’ and can lead to temporary shortages. However, there have been few psychological studies of this phenomenon. Here we propose a psychological model of over-purchasing informed by animal foraging theory and make predictions about variables that predict over-purchasing by either exacerbating or mitigating the anticipation of future scarcity. These variables include additional scarcity cues (e.g. loss of income), distress (e.g. depression), psychological factors that draw attention to these cues (e.g. neuroticism) or to reassuring messages (eg. analytical reasoning) or which facilitate over-purchasing (e.g. income). We tested our model in parallel nationally representative internet surveys of the adult general population conducted in the United Kingdom (UK: N = 2025) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI: N = 1041) 52 and 31 days after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 were detected in the UK and RoI, respectively. About three quarters of participants reported minimal over-purchasing. There was more over-purchasing in RoI vs UK and in urban vs rural areas. When over-purchasing occurred, in both countries it was observed across a wide range of product categories and was accounted for by a single latent factor. It was positively predicted by household income, the presence of children at home, psychological distress (depression, death anxiety), threat sensitivity (right wing authoritarianism) and mistrust of others (paranoia). Analytic reasoning ability had an inhibitory effect. Predictor variables accounted for 36% and 34% of the variance in over-purchasing in the UK and RoI respectively. With some caveats, the data supported our model and points to strategies to mitigate over-purchasing in future crises.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bentall ◽  
Alex Lloyd ◽  
Kate Mary Bennett ◽  
Ryan McKay ◽  
Liam Mason ◽  
...  

Over-purchasing and hoarding of necessities is a common response to crises, especially in developed economies where there is normally an expectation of plentiful supply. This behaviour was observed internationally early on in the COVID-19 pandemic. In the absence of actual scarcity, this behaviour can be described as ‘panic buying’ and can lead to temporary shortages. However, there have been few psychological studies of this phenomenon. We propose a psychological model of over-purchasing informed by animal foraging theory and make predictions about variables that predict over-purchasing by either exacerbating or mitigating the anticipation of future scarcity. These variables include additional scarcity cues (e.g. loss of income), distress (e.g. depression), psychological factors that draw attention to these cues (e.g. neuroticism) or to reassuring messages (eg. analytical reasoning) or which facilitate over-purchasing (e.g. income).We tested our model in parallel nationally representative internet surveys of the adult general population conducted in the United Kingdom (UK: N = 2025) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI: N = 1041) 52 and 31 days after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 were detected in the UK and RoI, respectively.About three quarters of participants reported no or very little over-purchasing. More over-purchasing in RoI may have reflected different government messaging or historical factors. When over-purchasing occurred, it was observed across a wide range of product categories and was accounted for by a single latent factor. It was positively predicted by household income, the presence of children at home, psychological distress (depression, death anxiety), threat sensitivity (right wing authoritarianism) and mistrust of others (paranoia). Analytic reasoning ability had an inhibitory effect. Predictor variables accounted for 36% and 34% of the variance in over-purchasing in the UK and RoI respectively. With some caveats, the data supported our model and point to strategies to mitigate over-purchasing in future crises.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1548
Author(s):  
Suresh Marahatta ◽  
Deepak Aryal ◽  
Laxmi Prasad Devkota ◽  
Utsav Bhattarai ◽  
Dibesh Shrestha

This study aims at analysing the impact of climate change (CC) on the river hydrology of a complex mountainous river basin—the Budhigandaki River Basin (BRB)—using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model that was calibrated and validated in Part I of this research. A relatively new approach of selecting global climate models (GCMs) for each of the two selected RCPs, 4.5 (stabilization scenario) and 8.5 (high emission scenario), representing four extreme cases (warm-wet, cold-wet, warm-dry, and cold-dry conditions), was applied. Future climate data was bias corrected using a quantile mapping method. The bias-corrected GCM data were forced into the SWAT model one at a time to simulate the future flows of BRB for three 30-year time windows: Immediate Future (2021–2050), Mid Future (2046–2075), and Far Future (2070–2099). The projected flows were compared with the corresponding monthly, seasonal, annual, and fractional differences of extreme flows of the simulated baseline period (1983–2012). The results showed that future long-term average annual flows are expected to increase in all climatic conditions for both RCPs compared to the baseline. The range of predicted changes in future monthly, seasonal, and annual flows shows high uncertainty. The comparative frequency analysis of the annual one-day-maximum and -minimum flows shows increased high flows and decreased low flows in the future. These results imply the necessity for design modifications in hydraulic structures as well as the preference of storage over run-of-river water resources development projects in the study basin from the perspective of climate resilience.


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