1,720,955 research outputs found
Impact of Nature-Based Solutions on soil erosion and water resources management: perspectives from farmers
No full textIn agricultural lands, soil erosion can undermine soil fertility, leading to a decline in yield. Sustainable water resource management emerges as a crucial element to prevent erosion issues and nutrient transport in agricultural soils.
Nature Based Solutions (NBSs) play a fundamental role in optimizing water resource utilization and contributing to soil quality conservation.
In semiarid climates, such as Southern Italy, agriculture stands as a major consumer of global water resources. Projections indicate a surge in agricultural water usage by 2050, potentially aggravating water scarcity in diverse regions.
Integrating NBSs into agricultural practices offers a promising strategy to alleviate environmental pressures and sustain production amid changing climatic conditions. Addressing these challenges necessitates a comprehensive and integrated approach, tailored to the unique characteristics of the territory and the engagement needs of local communities and stakeholders.
To fulfill this objective, a thorough assessment identified 13 suitable NBSs for the context. Subsequently, a questionnaire was disseminated across various farms, resulting in 53 collected responses.
The analyzed responses showed that 17% of respondents highlighted soil erosion while 12% pointed to drought-related water management problems, indeed NBSs generating the most interest focused on increasing water resources and combating erosive processes and pollutant transport.
Stakeholders pointed out the importance of the application of most of the 13 proposed NBSs focusing on a few of them (retention ponds, cover crops, creop residue management and vegetated buffer strips). Their choices were mainly based on the dual challenge of ensuring tangible economic gains while effectively managing cost amortization. Thus, integrating NBSs into agricultural practices requires not only environmental consideration but also a keen understanding of the economic dynamics and challenges faced by the farming community
Assessment of nature-based solutions for water resource management in agricultural environments: a stakeholders’ perspective in Southern Italy
Full text linkThis paper explores the potential implementation of Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) in agriculture, specifically focusing on soil and water management in Southern Italy, particularly in the Apulia and Basilicata regions. Through a tailored questionnaire, it investigates farmers' perceptions of the utility of NBSs, addressing key issues in the region and evaluating their role in addressing soil and water management challenges. Findings reveal primary challenges such as drought, floods, and water pollution, with soil erosion being a major concern. Several NBSs, including wetlands and bioswales, demonstrate consistent utility and performance, while disparities exist for agroforestry and strip cropping. The study underscores a significant gap in the economic valuation of NBSs, emphasizing the need for comprehensive assessments that incorporate livability improvements, water quality enhancement, and socio-cultural benefits. Additionally, an analysis of NBS implementation across Italian agriculture reveals limited case studies, suggesting the need for strategic expansions to meet Sustainable Development Goals. This research offers critical insights into the effectiveness and challenges of NBSs in agricultural soil and water management, advocating for enhanced stakeholder engagement and the development of multidimensional evaluation frameworks to support sustainable practices
Suspended sediment load estimation using sediment rating curves in two intermittent rivers
No full textThe determination of suspended sediment (SS) load is essential for understanding
soil erosion magnitude. This study quantifies SS loads in two mountainous river
basins in Apulia (S-E, Italy): the Carapelle (506 km2) and the Celone (72 km2).
Continuous and discrete sampling strategies were used to monitor streamflow (Q)
and SS concentrations (SSC) across diverse hydrological conditions. Sediment
rating curves were developed to rectify lacks in daily observed SSC time series.
For the Carapelle River, continuous SSC and Q monitoring was conducted from
2007 to 2011 using an optical probe and an ultrasonic stage recorder. In the Celone
River, a comprehensive dataset of continuous Q measurements and discrete
SSC measurements was collected from 2010 to 2011. Sediment rating curves
were tailored for three subsets of data representing high, normal, and low flow
conditions, while addressing missing SSC data. Annual specific sediment load
ranged from 2.4 to 6.06 t ha-1 yr-1 for the Celone River and 0.9 to 7.45 t ha-1 yr-1
for the Carapelle River. Over 80% of the SS load was transported during highflow
conditions, while less than 1% occurred during low-flow conditions. The
findings highlight the importance of the hydrological regime in regulating sediment
transport in hilly Mediterranean rivers and show that the length and characteristics
of the sample period can significantly impact the accurate estimation
of sediment load
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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