Country Scale Research Articles

Regional topsoil organic carbon content in the agricultural soils of Slovakia and its drivers, as revealed by the most recent national soil monitoring data

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a primary constituent of soil organic matter and plays an important role in the regulation of many soil processes, including greenhouse gas emissions. Recently, SOC also became an indicator for monitoring climate change mitigation policies in the agricultural sector. The availability of up-to-date SOC inventories is thus crucial in terms of supporting SOC–related actions at country or sub-country scales. Currently, the National Monitoring System of the Agricultural Soils of Slovakia (CMS-P), whose network of 318 monitoring sites was last surveyed in 2018, is the only available source of up-to-date topsoil SOC data for agricultural land in Slovakia. Although very useful at the national scale, the number of CMS-P observations it contains is too limited for much needed sub-national SOC inventories. We hypothesized that with the aid of well-chosen macro-scale drivers of topsoil SOC accumulation in agricultural land in Slovakia, and by mapping those drivers geographically, we could upscale the CMS-P observations and produce a regional estimate of topsoil SOC. Altitude, land cover, topsoil texture, and soil type were assumed to be the key factors controlling topsoil SOC accumulation in Slovakia, and based on these, the country was classified into 14 macro-scale geographical regions. Typical ranges and mid-class values of 0–30cm topsoil SOC concentrations (%) and stocks (t ha−1) were calculated for each macro-scale region from CMS-P data. The average topsoil SOC content in agricultural land was estimated to be 2.13% (72.9 t ha−1). The highest topsoil SOC stock (> 90 t ha−1) was estimated for the lowlands of Slovakia, and the lowest (< 50 t ha−1) for the shallow and stony soils of mountain regions. When aggregated to 78 administrative regions at LAU1 level, the area-weighted averages ranged between 39.20 t ha−1 and 80.0 t ha−1, with the highest values (> 65 t ha−1) being in LAU1 regions in the south-west, south-east, and north of Slovakia where arable land is most prevalent. Total SOC storage in 0–30cm topsoil of agricultural land in Slovakia was estimated at 118.39 Mt, with two-thirds of this amount stored in arable soils in 33 south-west, south-east, and south LAU1 administrative regions. As there is no alternative and up-to-date dataset on topsoil SOC content in Slovakia, the upscaling algorithm presented in this study is an important step toward utilizing CMS-P data for sub-national SOC inventories. It may also offer a new way of providing inputs to help predict future or alternative regional topsoil SOC accumulation trajectories in Slovakian agricultural land using process-based or statistical models.

Recognition and Spatial Distribution of Rural Buildings in Vietnam

The research on the distribution of rural buildings is one of the fundamental works of urban–rural development in Vietnam. Adopting a Mask R-CNN deep learning framework and collecting sub-meter remote sensing images, this research used a remote sensing interpretation model of rural buildings trained based on East Asian characteristics of rural buildings and successfully recognized about 2.87 million rural buildings in 34 Vietnamese provincial administrative districts with a total area of rural buildings of 2492 million square meters. The reliability of the identification results was verified by manual detection and quantitative statistics, and a multi-scale database of rural buildings in Vietnam based on individual rural buildings was created. Based on the database, this paper analyzes the distribution characteristics of rural buildings and summarizes characteristics of rural building distribution at the country, regional, and provincial scales. The identification results lay the foundation for the next study of urban–rural relations in Southeast Asia and the construction of a basic database on villages.

Flood susceptibility mapping at the country scale using machine learning approaches

AbstractRiver (fluvial), surface water (pluvial) and coastal flooding pose a significant risk to the United Kingdom. Therefore, it is important to assess flood risk particularly as the impacts of flooding are projected to increase due to climate change. Here we present a high resolution combined fluvial and pluvial flood susceptibility map of England. This flood susceptibility model is created by using past flood events and a series of meaningful hydrological parameters to a training machine learning model. We tested the relative performance of different machine learning algorithms, including Classification and Regression Trees, Random Forest and XGBoost and found the XGBoost performed the best, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic ROC Curve (AUC) of 0.93. We also found the model performed well on unseen areas, and we discuss the possibility of extending to regions that has no information on past flood events. Additionally, to aid in understanding what factors may impact flood risk to a particular area, we used Shapley additive explanations which allowed us to investigate the sensitivity of the predicted flood probability to flood factors at a given location.

Investigating inequalities in HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa: spatial analysis of cross-sectional population-based surveys in 25 countries

ObjectivesWe aim to explore spatial variations in socioeconomic inequalities in HIV testing uptake in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) at different geographical scales to identify potential geographical hotspots of inequalities. Additionally, to...

Assessing equity in disaster risk governance in Brazil and Colombia

PurposeDisasters continue to be most prevalent and severe for marginalised communities. To reach those furthest behind first, as the global community pledges in the 2030 Agenda, a critical assessment of equity in disaster risk governance is necessary. Yet, the understanding of factors that mediate the capacity of the governance processes to achieve equity ambitions is limited. This paper addresses this gap by proposing and testing a conceptual framework to assess equity in disaster risk governance.Design/methodology/approachThe framework analyses the extent to which institutional relationships and data in risk governance support inclusion and diversity of voice and enable the equitable engagement of communities. The study applied the framework to key risk policies across governance levels in Brazil and Colombia.FindingsThe study finds that institutional awareness of cross-sectoral and -scalar coordination clearly exists. Yet, the engagement of actors further down the governance scale is framed reactively at all scales in both countries. The analysis of the risk data practices indicates that although data integration and sharing are key policy priorities, the policies frame the relations of disaster risk data actors as hierarchical, with data needs determined from the top down.Originality/valueA key contribution of this framework is that its equity view results in a nuanced analysis, thus pointing to the differences between the two countries concerning the factors that mediate these challenges and providing specific entry points for strengthening equity in risk governance policies.

The Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic for the Construction of the Family Affluence Scale: Findings from 16 Countries

The Family Affluence Scale (FAS) is a widely used and validated instrument to measure adolescents’ socioeconomic status (SES). It is plausible that the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting social and economic changes have affected the capacity of the six-item FAS-III to measure adolescent SES, particularly the holiday and computer items. Using data from 247,503 adolescents from 16 European countries participating in the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study before (2013/14 and 2017/18) and during (2021/22) the pandemic, the present study aims to fill this gap. Findings showed that although the internal consistency of the scale decreased during the pandemic, related to the functioning of the computer and especially the holiday item, it was still acceptable in all countries. Furthermore, measurement invariance analysis showed that during the pandemic the item thresholds of the computer and particularly the holiday item deviated from the thresholds of these items before the pandemic. However, all item factor loadings were comparable to the factor loadings before the pandemic. In addition, during the pandemic the computer and holiday item and their correlations with health-related outcomes were mostly still in the expected direction. Removing these items from the scale yielded comparable or decreased scale criterion validity as compared to the original FAS-III scale in most countries. These findings inform future research that although mean differences in family affluence levels before and during the pandemic should be interpreted with caution, it is a suitable tool to study (changes in) socioeconomic health inequalities among adolescents during the pandemic.

Spatiotemporal Variation in Water-Related Ecosystem Services during 2000–2020 and Ecological Management Zoning in the Xiangjiang River Basin, China

Exploring the spatiotemporal distribution and interrelationships among water-related ecosystem services (WESs) and conducting ecological management zoning are crucial for regional sustainable development. Taking the Xiangjiang River Basin (XJRB) as an example, this study first quantified three primary WESs, including water conservation, soil retention, and water purification, from 2000 to 2020. Second, the spatiotemporal variation in the interrelationships among WESs were analyzed using global and local bivariate spatial autocorrelation. Third, a water ecological zoning rule was constructed to divide the watershed into three primary and eight secondary water ecological management zones. The results indicate a strong consistency in the changes in the three WESs throughout the period from 2000 to 2020 in the XJRB. Precipitation patterns and urban expansion were the primary factors affecting alterations in the WESs. Spatial heterogeneity and dependence were evident across these ecosystem services. Both trade-offs and synergies were observed among WESs, with synergies playing a dominant role. Positive synergies occurred primarily in woodlands and grasslands, while negative synergies were observed in cultivated land, water areas, and construction land. Three water ecological management zones, including core water ecological management zones, general management zones, and restoration management zones, were delineated at the grid and country scales according to the aggregation properties of the WESs. Ecological management strategies were proposed for different zones. These findings can offer valuable insights for policy makers in land use planning and water ecological management within the XJRB, and can facilitate similar management endeavors in other regions.

Techno-economic assessment and optimization framework with energy storage for hybrid energy resources in base transceiver stations-based infrastructure across various climatic regions at a country scale

Techno-economic assessment and optimization framework with energy storage for hybrid energy resources in base transceiver stations-based infrastructure across various climatic regions at a country scale

Validation of the Medical Research Council prion disease rating scale in France.

The development of assessment tools other than survival time is necessary to conduct therapeutic trials in prion diseases (also known as subacute transmissible encephalopathies). The Medical Research Council Prion Disease Rating Scale published by Thompson et al. (The Medical Research Council prion disease rating scale: A new outcome measure for prion disease therapeutic trials developed and validated using systematic observational studies. Brain. 2013; 136: 1116-27.) is the first attempt at a specific evaluation of prion diseases to avoid the floor effect seen in other scales. Validation of this scale in other countries is essential because, given the rarity of these diseases, therapeutic trials are likely to be multi-centre and international. After translation into French, we assessed by phone 173 cases classified as sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease out of 852 patients notified to the French national surveillance network between November 2014 and May 2021. Data showed that the natural history of the disease is similar in the UK and France. Patients who have a heterozygous genotype at codon 129 of the prion protein gene have a slower decline than homozygous patients. In rapidly progressing patients, death occurs shortly after reaching a low score or after a 'pre-terminal plateau' at a very low score. The similarities of disease progression profile observed in France and the UK with somewhat different surveillance systems and by distinct procedures highlight the robustness of the Medical Research Council Prion Disease Rating Scale that can be thus used to define primary endpoints of future trials at the international level.

IMDLIB: An open-source library for retrieval, processing and spatiotemporal exploratory assessments of gridded meteorological observation datasets over India

Addressing a pressing need for streamlined access to observed meteorological data in India, we present IMDLIB, an open-source Python library that operates on gridded datasets from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). IMDLIB simplifies the retrieval, management, and processing of IMD's rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature data at varying scales (point, regional, catchment, and country scales). IMDLIB stands out by directly interfacing with IMD's database through robust APIs, streamlining data acquisition. It offers transformation of IMD's binary data into common formats (e.g., NetCDF/GeoTIFF/CSV) and advanced analytics, including trend analysis, spatiotemporal data interpolation, calculation of meteorological indices and extreme characteristics, showcasing superior capabilities compared to traditional meteorological data processing tool available for the region. To underline its robustness, IMDLIB's application was illustrated in two distinct regions: Rajasthan State and the Godavari River Basin. Through IMDLIB, we envision enhanced data accessibility, leading to more insightful hydro-climatic research and analysis.

Japan 2040: Dialectics of Transhumanism and Society of the Future

Analysis of the essence, content and forms of the scenario state of Japan in 2040, reflected in the 11th Scientific and Technical Forecast of NISTEP in 2019, revealed a number of conceptual dialectical contradictions. They narrow down to the question of admissibility and expediency of changing a man’s nature in order to ensure his prosperous, safe, meaningful and happy existence. The author proposes for discussion a conclusion on inevitability of the transhumanization of a mankind on the scale of a single country (Japan) and the whole world, given the nature of the great challenges facing it. The possibility of keeping the historical development in a conditionally humanistic direction is noted, given the emphasis of social reforms in Japan, reflected in the 6th Basic Plan for scientific, technical and innovative development of the country, on building a society for the fullest realization and use of human intellectual potential.

Japan 2040: Dialectics of Transhumanism and Society of the Future

Analysis of the essence, content and forms of the scenario state of Japan in 2040, reflected in the 11th Scientific and Technical Forecast of NISTEP in 2019, revealed a number of conceptual dialectical contradictions. They narrow down to the question of admissibility and expediency of changing a man’s nature in order to ensure his prosperous, safe, meaningful and happy existence. The author proposes for discussion a conclusion on inevitability of the transhumanization of a mankind on the scale of a single country (Japan) and the whole world, given the nature of the great challenges facing it. The possibility of keeping the historical development in a conditionally humanistic direction is noted, given the emphasis of social reforms in Japan, reflected in the 6th Basic Plan for scientific, technical and innovative development of the country, on building a society for the fullest realization and use of human intellectual potential.

Geographical quantification of the seasonality of transmission of COVID-19 in human populations as a function of the variability of temperatures

The occurrence of cases of COVID-19 suggests that it will likely become seasonally endemic in human populations. We seek to provide a quantification of the seasonality of the occurrence and severity of COVID-19 cases in human populations. Using global data, we show that the spatiotemporal distribution of COVID-19 cases is a function of distinct seasons and climates. We investigated this at the county and the country scale using a comparison of seasonal means, correlation analyses using ambient air temperatures and dew point temperatures, and multiple linear regression techniques. We found that most locations had the highest incidence of COVID-19 during winter compared to other seasons. Regions closer to the equator had a higher incidence of COVID-19 during the summer than regions further from the equator. Regions close to the equator, where mean annual temperatures have less variance compared to those further from the equator, had smaller differences between seasonal COVID-19 incidence. Correlation and regression analyses showed that ambient air and dew point temperatures were significantly associated with COVID-19 incidence. Our results suggest that temperature and the environment are influential factors to understand the transmission of COVID-19 within the human population. This research provides empirical evidence that temperature changes are a strong indicator of seasonal COVID-19 outbreaks, and as such it will aid in planning for future outbreaks and for mitigating their impacts.

Assessment of Obsessive Thoughts About COVID-19 in 7 Latin American Countries: Structure and Measurement Invariance of the Obsession With COVID-19 Scale.

The present study aimed to evaluate the measurement invariance of the Obsession with COVID-19 Scale (OCS) among seven Latin American countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Although the OCS has been used in several countries and languages, there is a need for approaches that better integrate the cross-cultural equivalence of the scale. A total of 3185 people participated in the study. The results indicated the presence of a unidimensional structure and good reliability indices for the OCS in each country. The alignment method indicated that the OCS is an invariant measure of COVID-19 obsession among the populations of seven Latin American countries. The findings based on IRT analysis indicated that all OCS items had adequate discrimination and difficulty parameters. The findings contribute to the understanding of the internal structure of the scale in different countries at the same time, something that has been pending evaluation.

Irradiated and radioactively contaminated foods: Analysis of EU RASFF notifications from 1997 to 2022

Food irradiation technique is an authorized tool used on a commercial scale in many countries to preserve different types of foodstuffs from deterioration caused by microorganisms, insects, and metabolic activity to prolong their shelf life without leaving any residual effect on processed foods, unlike preservatives and pesticides. This study was carried out to analyse the EU Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) notifications on food radiation from 1997 to 2022 in order to identify the most frequently reported products, their origin countries and associated reasons for notification, as well as the most notifying countries, product categories, notification classification, risk decisions, and actions taken. A total of 488 notifications were recorded during this time period. China was the most frequently notified origin country, accounting for 19.88% of all notifications, followed by the United States (11.68%), Russia (7.99%), Vietnam (7.17%), and Poland (5.53%). The top notified product categories were “dietetic foods, food supplements, and fortified foods” (37.09%), followed by fruits and vegetables (23.16%), herbs and spices (8.81%), and prepared dishes and snacks (5.53%). The top 5 notified products were food supplements (25.00%), mushrooms (20.70%), noodles (7.58%), tea (4.51%), and spices (3.69%). The four main reasons for food radiation notifications were unauthorized irradiation (57.58%), too high levels of radioactivity (22.34%), unlabeled irradiation (19.47%), and unauthorized facilities (14.96%). Too many notifications included more than one reason for the notification. Out of 109 notifications related to too-high levels of radioactivity (up to 10755 Bq/kg), 101 were due to the presence of 137Cs, 134Cs, 60Co, and 48Cd in mushrooms, mainly originating from Poland (25), Bulgaria (24), Ukraine (15), and Belarus (12). Such studies provide the necessary data to ensure food safety and encourage countries to implement comprehensive procedures to protect consumers health.

Potential for biochar carbon sequestration from crop residues: A global spatially explicit assessment

AbstractGlobal warming necessitates urgent action to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Biochar, a type of carbonized biomass which can be produced from crop residues (CRs), offers a promising solution for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) when it is used to sequester photosynthetically fixed carbon that would otherwise have been returned to atmospheric CO2 through respiration or combustion. However, high‐resolution spatially explicit maps of CR resources and their capacity for climate change mitigation through biochar production are currently lacking, with previous global studies relying on coarse (mostly country scale) aggregated statistics. By developing a comprehensive high spatial resolution global dataset of CR production, we show that, globally, CRs generate around 2.4 Pg C annually. If 100% of these residues were utilized, the maximum theoretical technical potential for biochar production from CRs amounts to 1.0 Pg C year−1 (3.7 Pg CO2e year−1). The permanence of biochar differs across regions, with the fraction of initial carbon that remains after 100 years ranging from 60% in warm climates to nearly 100% in cryosols. Assuming that biochar is sequestered in soils close to point of production, approximately 0.72 Pg C year−1 (2.6 Pg CO2e year−1) of the technical potential would remain sequestered after 100 years. However, when considering limitations on sustainable residue harvesting and competing livestock usage, the global biochar production potential decreases to 0.51 Pg C year−1 (1.9 Pg CO2e year−1), with 0.36 Pg C year−1 (1.3 Pg CO2e year−1) remaining sequestered after a century. Twelve countries have the technical potential to sequester over one fifth of their current emissions as biochar from CRs, with Bhutan (68%) and India (53%) having the largest ratios. The high‐resolution maps of CR production and biochar sequestration potential provided here will provide valuable insights and support decision‐making related to biochar production and investment in biochar production capacity.

The return of the "Mistigri" (virus adaptative gain by gene loss) through the SARS-CoV-2 XBB.1.5 chimera that predominated in 2023.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 XBB.1.5 is the first recombinant lineage to predominate at the country and global scales. Very interestingly, like the Marseille-4B subvariant (or B.1.160) and the pandemic variant B.1.1.7 (or Alpha) previously, it has its ORF8 gene inactivated by a stop codon. We aimed here to study the distribution of stop codons in ORF8 of XBB.1.5 and non-XBB.1.5 genomes. We identified that a stop codon was present at 89 (74%) ORF8 codons in ≥1 of 15 222 404 genomes available in GISAID. The mean proportion of genomes with a stop codon per codon was 0.11% (range, 0%-7.8%). In addition, a stop codon was detected at 15 (12%) codons in at least 1000 genomes. These 15 codons are notably located on seven stem-loop hairpin regions and in the signal peptide region for the case of the XBB.1.5 lineage (codon 8). Thus, it is very likely that stop codons in ORF8 gene contributed on at least three occasions and independently during the pandemic to the evolutionary success of a lineage that became transiently predominant. Such association of gene loss with evolutionary success, which suits the recently described Mistigri rule, is an important biological phenomenon very unknown in virology while largely described in cellular organisms.

Sectoral water use responses to droughts and heatwaves: analyses from local to global scales for 1990–2019

Water use for various sectors (e.g. irrigation, livestock, domestic, energy and manufacturing) is increasing due to a growing global population and economic development. Additionally, increases in frequency and severity of droughts, heatwaves and compound drought-heatwave events, also lead to responses in sectoral water use and a reduction in water availability, intensifying water scarcity. However, limited knowledge exists on the responses in sectoral water use during these hydroclimatic extremes. In this study we quantify the impacts of droughts, heatwaves and compound events on water use of irrigation, livestock, domestic, energy and manufacturing sectors at global, country and local scales. To achieve this, datasets of reported and downscaled sectoral water use (i.e. withdrawal and consumption) were evaluated during these hydroclimatic extremes and compared to normal (non-extreme) periods for 1990–2019. Our analysis shows that these hydroclimatic extremes affect water use patterns differently per sector and region. Reported data show that domestic and irrigation water use increases during heatwaves in Eastern Europe and central continental United States, while water use decreases for thermoelectric sector, particularly in Europe while it increases in north and Eastern Asia. Additionally, global water use response patterns reveal that irrigation and domestic sectors are mostly prioritized over livestock, thermoelectric and manufacturing. Reported local-scale data reveal that for most sectors and regions/locations, stronger water use responses are found for heatwaves and compound events compared to impacts during hydrological droughts. Our outcomes provide improved understanding of sectoral water use behaviour under hydroclimatic extremes. Nonetheless, given the future threats to water availability and the limited accessible information of water use, there is an urgency to collect more monitored-driven data of sectoral water use for improved assessments of water scarcity under these extremes. Consequently, this research reveals the necessity of more realistic water use models to better represent the sectoral responses to hydroclimatic extremes.

Atmospheric drivers affect crop yields in Mozambique

Climate change has been inducing variations in the statistics of both the large-scale weather patterns and the local weather in many regions of the world, and these variations have been affecting several human activities, including agriculture. In this study, we look at the links between large-scale weather patterns and local weather as well as agriculture, with a specific regional focus on Mozambique between 1981 and 2019. First, we investigated linear trends and links between large-scale weather patterns and local weather in the region using the ERA5 dataset. We used the same data to investigate how climate change has been affecting the statistics of large-scale weather patterns. Then, we derived Mozambique country-level cereal yield data from FAO and linked it up with climate and weather data to assess what is the relationship between large-scale patterns and local agronomic outputs using a multiple linear regression (MLR) model with crop yield as the response variable and climate drivers as predictors. The results indicate that in Mozambique, the crop season warmed substantially and consistently with climate change-induced global warming, and the rainy season had become drier and shorter, with precipitation concentrated in fewer, more intense events. These changes in the local weather have been linked to variations in the statistics of large-scale weather patterns that characterize the (large-scale) atmospheric flow over the region. Our results indicate a negative impact on yield associated with climate change, with average yield losses of 20% for rice and 8% for maize over the analyzed period (1981–2019). This negative impact suggests that, at the country scale, further future warming during the growing season may offset some of the cereal yield gains from technological advances.

Industrial hydrogen hub planning and operation with multi-scale optimisation

Hydrogen is a chemical product and energy carrier that, if used in the right way, could help decarbonise many sectors such as transportation, electricity production, the steel industry or petroleum refining. However, hydrogen’s versatility, which a strength in terms of energy transition, makes its deployment more complex to plan. This study provides a methodology aiming to understand the evolution of a local energy system including different coupled energy vectors: natural gas, biomethane, hydrogen and electricity. A bottom-up multi-vector linear optimisation provides some elements regarding the planning and hourly operation of hydrogen production and storage infrastructures. The methodology consists in three steps. First, hydrogen demand and the technical context is modelled by defining different evolution scenarios. Then, a first optimisation at the country scale is conducted in order to define the boundary conditions for the third step, where the local hydrogen ecosystem evolution is optimised. This methodology was used to study the evolution of the industrial harbour of Fos-sur-mer in south of France. The results show that electrolysis is expected to grow, replacing existing technologies such as conventional steam methane reforming (SMR). However, depending on the context, keeping the SMR as peak production capacities can bring more flexibility into the local system and thus; improve the competitiveness of hydrogen. For the studied industrial cluster in south of France, we found an average levelised cost of hydrogen of 2.9 €/kgH2 in a reference scenario. This value can decrease to 2.5 €/kgH2 in the most flexible case with large underground storage and go up to 4 €/kgH2 in the case where SMR are banned from 2030. If space is available on a local level, then the development of dedicated renewables together with electrolysis seems to be the optimal trajectory.