Long-term Sustainable Strategy Research Articles

Anthropogenic Changes in a Mediterranean Coastal Wetland during the Last Century—The Case of Gialova Lagoon, Messinia, Greece

Human interventions during the last 70 years have altered the characteristics of the Gialova Lagoon, a coastal wetland that is part of a wider Natura 2000 site. In this study, we explore how human interventions and climate altered the wetland’s hydrological conditions and habitats, leading to changing wetland functions over time. Our interpretations are based on a mixed methodological approach combining conceptual hydrologic models, analysis of aerial photographs, local knowledge, field observations, and GIS (Geographic Information System) analyses. The results show that the combined effects of human interventions and climate have led to increased salinity in the wetland over time. As a result, the fresh and brackish water marshes have gradually been turned into open water or replaced by halophytic vegetation with profound ecological implications. Furthermore, current human activities inside the Natura 2000 area and in the surrounding areas could further impact on the water quantity and quality in the wetland, and on its sensitive ecosystems. We suggest that a more holistic understanding of the broader socio-ecological system is needed to understand the dynamics of the wetland and to achieve sustainable long-term management and conservation strategies.

An Overview of Green Buildings Potential in Palestine

Palestine is a developing country of a different nature from that of the developing countries of the world. It is a state under occupation that does not have many natural resources. It is prohibited from exploiting its natural resources such as water, salt, and natural gas, and even producing or importing electricity, occupation is the total importer of fossil fuels, adding 87% of its electricity needs. The design of green energy-saving buildings, combined with the exploitation of renewable energy resources, especially solar energy, with 3000 sunshine a year and an average of solar radiation of 5.4 kW h/m²/day, may be the only way out of the current situation. The main objective of this work is to provide a review of the green building sector in Palestine in terms of research issued, governmental and non-governmental bodies concerned with the development of this field, in addition to the most important projects implemented as green building in Palestine, and finally discussing the most important obstacles hindering the adoption of green building as a long-term sustainable development strategy. Our urban heritage has an architectural and construction style that meets the requirements of sustainable construction. However, the rapid and dramatic change in the construction sector, in terms of building materials and construction, has increased the energy burden. Throughout Palestine there are seven climatic zones, which in itself is a challenge to the design of green construction, in addition to low public awareness of the concept of sustainable construction. The study concluded that, the absence of legislations and laws binding the minimum requirements of green building are among the most important obstacles to the adoption of sustainable construction as a long-term strategy to achieve the desired independence in the energy sector, in addition to the non-use of financial tools to stimulate investment in the green building sector in Palestine.

Working Time Society consensus statements: A multi-level approach to managing occupational sleep-related fatigue.

A substantial body of literature indicates that shift workers have a significantly higher risk of workplace accidents and injuries, compared to workers in regular daytime schedules. This can be attributed to work during nights which require workers to stay awake during normal sleeping hours and sleep during natural waking hours, leading to circadian desynchronization, sleep disruption and cognitive impairment. A fatigue-risk trajectory model developed by Dawson and McCulloch has been used to describe the series of events which may precede fatigue-related incidents. This includes insufficient sleep opportunities, impaired sleep, fatigue-behavioral symptoms, and fatigue-related errors. The purpose of this paper is to provide examples of control measures along each level of the fatigue-risk trajectory, which include: (i) work scheduling strategies to include breaks for adequate sleep opportunities; (ii) training and educational programs to help workers make best use of recovery times for quality sleep; (iii) fatigue-detection devices to alert workers and safety managers of fatigue-related behaviors and errors. A brief introduction to Fatigue-Risk Management systems is also included as a long-term sustainable strategy to maintain shift worker health and safety. The key statements in this paper represent a consensus among the Working Time Society regarding a multi-level approach to managing occupational sleep-related fatigue.

Urban Characterisation; Expanding Applications for, and New Approaches to Building Attribute Data Capture

ABSTRACTAs cities face increasing pressure to develop long-term sustainability strategies, the need for detailed quantitative data on urban resources, and their behaviour over time, has become critical. Building stocks are a city’s largest socio-cultural and economic resource and account for around 40% of total energy consumption in developed countries. Despite ongoing problems with access to data on stock composition and dynamics, advances are now being made, particularly within sustainability science. Automated approaches to the analysis of historical building attribute data are also allowing long-term patterns of change in cities to be better understood. This is of significance to the conservation sector, and to the development of effective conservation strategies. At the same time, knowledge held by the conservation sector is of growing importance to sustainability science. This paper selects specific advances within this new research landscape, and identifies their importance in developing a more scientific, data-driven approach to the analysis of older stock. It concludes with an introduction to a new type of data collection and visualisation platform being developed for London, as a result of this review.

Protección social de las personas adultas mayores: Inclusión y equidad en Argentina durante el periodo 2003-2014

En este artículo se reflexiona sobre las transformaciones del sistema previsional argentino durante el periodo 2003-2014, para abarcar las políticas de protección de los ingresos implementadas durante los gobiernos Kirchneristas. El objetivo principal es brindar evidencia empírica acerca de cómo las políticas implementadas impactaron en una mejora sustantiva de los niveles de cobertura y distribución del ingreso. El trabajo se desarrolla a partir de los datos de la Encuesta Permanente de Hogares. Entre los principales hallazgos es importante destacar que la estructura social se vio modificada al registrarse una expansión de la cobertura que, además en términos relativos, se concentró en la parte baja de la distribución del ingreso, es decir en los hogares más vulnerables. Asimismo, el mayor incremento relativo en la percepción de ingresos jubilatorios, en la parte baja de la distribución, se tradujo en mejoras distributivas del ingreso. Sin embargo, las políticas que se implementaron y transformaron el funcionamiento de la protección social en el sistema jubilatorio, requieren ser repensadas en una estrategia sustentable de largo plazo.

褐飞虱持续暴发成因——以江西泰和县为例

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 褐飞虱持续暴发成因——以江西泰和县为例 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201703150436 作者: 作者单位: 江苏丘陵地区镇江农业科学研究所,南京农业大学昆虫学系,江苏丘陵地区镇江农业科学研究所,贵阳学院贵州省山地珍稀动物与经济昆虫重点实验室,南京农业大学昆虫学系,全国农业技术推广服务中心,江西省植保植检局,江西省泰和县植保植检站,南京农业大学昆虫学系 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 公益性行业（农业）科研专项（200903051）；国家水稻产业技术体系建设专项（nycytx-01）；江苏省农业科技自主创新资金（CX（15）1055） The continuous outbreaks of Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (Hemiptera: Delphacidae): a case study in Taihe county, Jiangxi Province, China Author: Affiliation: Zhenjiang Institute of Agricultural Science in Hilly Area of Jiangsu Province,,,Guizhou Province Key Laboratory for Rare Animal and Economic Insect of the Mountainous Region，Guiyang University,,,,,Nanjing Agricultural University Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:为了明确泰和县近年来晚稻田褐飞虱Nilaparvata lugens（Stål）连年暴发的规律。通过分析泰和县2008-2013年褐飞虱的田间调查及灯诱数据，并结合气象条件，研究了泰和县晚稻田褐飞虱暴发的主要影响因素。结果表明：（1）危害早稻田的褐飞虱以2、3代为主，其田间种群数量的多少主要受春季迁入虫量的限制，本地早稻收割后的滞留虫源对晚稻种群数量的影响很小。（2）危害晚稻田的褐飞虱以5、6代为主，后期迁入虫量、秋季温度以及晚稻田初期外来迁入虫量是影响晚稻田后期暴发的关键因子。（3）不同年份间晚稻田褐飞虱暴发类型不同。2008和2009年属后期迁入虫量与"暖秋"共同影响类型；2010年是"暖秋"影响类型；2011和2012年是后期迁入虫量影响类型；2013年是晚稻田早期迁入虫量积累影响类型。后期迁入虫量、秋季温度以及晚稻田早期迁入虫量是导致泰和县晚稻田褐飞虱连年暴发的主要原因。这些结果为褐飞虱暴发规律的阐明及可持续治理提供了理论依据和参考价值。 Abstract:The objective of this research was to determine the cause of the continuous outbreaks of brown planthopper (BPH) in Taihe County. We analyzed field and light trap data on BPHs in Taihe County from 2008 to 2013, and combined them with data on meteorological conditions to identify the main reasons for the outbreaks in late-rice fields. The BPHs damaging early-rice fields were the 2nd and 3rd generations whose population sizes were mainly limited by early immigration. After the early-rice harvest, resident populations contributed less to the insect population sizes in late-rice fields. The BPHs in late-rice fields were the 5th and 6th generations. Late period immigration, autumn temperature, and initial insect population size in late-rice fields played an essential role in late-rice field outbreaks. The outbreak types varied over time. In 2008 and 2009, the outbreaks were due to the late period immigration and the "warm autumn", while the "warm autumn" caused the 2010 outbreak. In 2011 and 2012, the late period immigration led to the outbreak, however the initial insect population size was the main diver of the 2013 outbreak. The late period immigration, the autumn temperature, and the initial insect population size were the factors that caused the continuous outbreaks of BPH in Taihe County. These results provide a theoretical basis anda reference for long-term predictions and sustainable insect management strategies. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

MANAGEMENT EFFECTS ON GROUND COVER CLUMPINESS: SCALING FROM FIELD TO SENTINEL-2 COVER ESTIMATES

Abstract. Significant progress has been made in the development of cover data and derived products based on remotely sensed fractional cover information and field data across Australia, and these cover data sets are now used for quantifying and monitoring grazing land condition. The availability of a dense time-series of nearly 30 years of cover data to describe the spatial and temporal patterns in landscape changes over time can help with monitoring the effectiveness of grazing land management practice change. With the advent of higher spatial resolution data, such as that provided by the Copernicus Sentinel 2 series of satellites, we can look beyond reporting purely on cover amount and more closely at the operational monitoring and reporting on spatial arrangement of cover and its links with land condition. We collected high spatial resolution cover transects at 20 cm intervals over the Wambiana grazing trials in the Burdekin catchment in Queensland, Australia. Spatial variance analysis was used to determine the cover autocorrelation at various support intervals. Coincident Sentinel-2 imagery was collected and processed over all the sites providing imagery to link with the field data. We show that the spatial arrangement and temporal dynamics of cover are important indicators of grazing land condition for both productivity and water quality outcomes. The metrics and products derived from this research will assist land managers to prioritize investment and practice change strategies for long term sustainability and improved water quality, particularly in the Great Barrier Reef catchments.

Proposal to Implement the Balanced Scorecard in a Non- profit Organization

In this paper we aim to develop a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) model for a nonprofit organization whose activity focuses on the teaching of chess. In order to answer the research question, we have carried out a qualitative research based on the case study. Our study is characterized by a descriptive analysis. The results allow us to conclude that the BSC is a tool that will allow to define the strategy in a clearer and objective way, allowing a greater awareness of the importance of an internal organization that allows to reach the defined objectives through a set of initiatives. The study presents a contribution to the current state of knowledge, since we seek to provide the organization with a management tool that allows to measure its performance and the value it adds to society and to outline a consistent and sustainable long-term strategy. In addition, a theoretical basis is provided for subsequent research, evidencing the breadth of research on the topic studied.

Multicomponent intervention versus usual care for management of hypertension in rural Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka: study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial

BackgroundHigh blood pressure (BP) is the leading attributable risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). In rural South Asia, hypertension continues to be a significant public health issue with sub-optimal BP control rates. The goal of the trial is to compare a multicomponent intervention (MCI) to usual care to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the MCI for lowering BP among adults with hypertension in rural communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.Methods/designThis study is a stratified, cluster randomized controlled trial with a qualitative component for evaluation of processes and stakeholder feedback. The MCI has five components: (1) home health education by government community health workers (CHWs), (2) BP monitoring and stepped-up referral to a trained general practitioner using a checklist, (3) training public and private providers in management of hypertension and using a checklist, (4) designating hypertension triage counter and hypertension care coordinators in government clinics and (5) a financing model to compensate for additional health services and provide subsidies to low income individuals with poorly controlled hypertension. Usual care will comprise existing services in the community without any additional training.The trial will be conducted on 2550 individuals aged ≥40 years with hypertension (with systolic BP ≥140 mm Hg or diastolic BP ≥90 mm Hg, based on the mean of the last two of three measurements from two separate days, or on antihypertensive therapy) in 30 rural communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The primary outcome is change in systolic BP from baseline to follow-up at 24 months post-randomization. The incremental cost of MCI per CVD disability-adjusted life years averted will be computed.Stakeholders including policy makers, provincial- and district-level coordinators of relevant programmes, physicians, CHWs, key community leaders, hypertensive individuals and family members in the identified clusters will be interviewed.DiscussionThe study will provide evidence of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of MCI strategies for BP control compared to usual care in the rural public health infrastructure in South Asian countries. If shown to be successful, MCI may be a long-term sustainable strategy for tackling the rising rates of CVD in low resourced countries.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02657746. Registered on 14 January 2016.

Supporting Irish traveller entrepreneurship

ABSTRACTIrish Travellers are a minority ethnic group, indigenous to the island of Ireland. Despite the recent historic ethnic recognition by our Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, Traveller participation in the labour market remains exceptionally low, with an overall unemployment rate of 84.3% reported in Census 2011. This article outlines some of the key barriers to Traveller labour market participation and argues that Traveller experiences of the labour market are rooted in and have been shaped by a legacy of racism and discrimination on individual, institutional and structural levels. It argues for a rapid policy response by the State and the development of long-term sustainable strategies to improve Traveller training and employment opportunities.

A Framework for Exploring How Density Dependence Early in the Life History Can Affect Louisiana's Brown Shrimp Fishery

AbstractThe dynamics underlying fisheries stock–recruitment relationships are often obscure, especially with relatively short-lived invertebrate species, such as the brown shrimp Farfantepenaeus aztecus. Nonetheless, disentangling these dynamics can help to reveal optimal management strategies for long-term sustainability. We developed a matrix model to link early shrimp life history with the fishable stock and nested the degree of density-dependent settler (i.e., juvenile) survival in a Beverton–Holt framework. Density dependence in the settler stage was assumed to have an inverse relationship with marsh habitat availability. Thus, we could determine the level of potential compensation in the settler stage and compare how changes in habitat versus fishing pressure could ultimately affect Louisiana’s brown shrimp population. A simplified Bayesian state-space (i.e., hierarchical) model provided a theoretical framework for estimating density dependence and exploring how substantial increases in catch or den...

Sustainable development planning in the USA: understanding resistance and building support

To promote sustainable development in the USA, the Obama Administration's federal interagency partnership awarded 74 regional sustainability planning grants in 2010 and 2011. As part of this initiative, grant recipients provided high levels of public outreach and established new stakeholder partnerships to create long-term sustainability strategies during a three-year planning process. However, a strong opposition emerged in response to this effort, arguing that it threatens individual rights and liberties. To better understand this resistance to planning for sustainable development, the researcher conducted 17 in-depth qualitative interviews with a purposeful sample of key individuals involved in facilitating all phases of the citizen engagement process. While the findings show widespread opposition at the outset of the program, strategies to increase civic education, emphasise local control, change divisive terminology and build a sound business case seemed to have the most influence on garnering public support.

Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention: New Mathematical Models for Strategic Demand Creation Prioritizing Subpopulations by Age and Geography.

Over 11 million voluntary medical male circumcisions (VMMC) have been performed of the projected 20.3 million needed to reach 80% adult male circumcision prevalence in priority sub-Saharan African countries. Striking numbers of adolescent males, outside the 15-49-year-old age target, have been accessing VMMC services. What are the implications of overall progress in scale-up to date? Can mathematical modeling provide further insights on how to efficiently reach the male circumcision coverage levels needed to create and sustain further reductions in HIV incidence to make AIDS no longer a public health threat by 2030? Considering ease of implementation and cultural acceptability, decision makers may also value the estimates that mathematical models can generate of immediacy of impact, cost-effectiveness, and magnitude of impact resulting from different policy choices. This supplement presents the results of mathematical modeling using the Decision Makers’ Program Planning Tool Version 2.0 (DMPPT 2.0), the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA2008) model, and the age structured mathematical (ASM) model. These models are helping countries examine the potential effects on program impact and cost-effectiveness of prioritizing specific subpopulations for VMMC services, for example, by client age, HIV-positive status, risk group, and geographical location. The modeling also examines long-term sustainability strategies, such as adolescent and/or early infant male circumcision, to preserve VMMC coverage gains achieved during rapid scale-up. The 2016–2021 UNAIDS strategy target for VMMC is an additional 27 million VMMC in high HIV-prevalence settings by 2020, as part of access to integrated sexual and reproductive health services for men. To achieve further scale-up, a combination of evidence, analysis, and impact estimates can usefully guide strategic planning and funding of VMMC services and related demand-creation strategies in priority countries. Mid-course corrections now can improve cost-effectiveness and scale to achieve the impact needed to help turn the HIV pandemic on its head within 15 years.

Global burden of oral diseases: emerging concepts, management and interplay with systemic health.

This study presents the global burden of major oral diseases with an exegetical commentary on their current profiles, the critical issues in oral healthcare and future perspectives. A narrative overview of current literature was undertaken to synthesise the contexts with critical elaboration and commentary. Oral disease is one of the most common public health issues worldwide with significant socio-economic impacts, and yet it is frequently neglected in public health policy. The oral data extracted from the Global Burden of Disease Study in 2010 (Murray etal, 2012) show that caries, periodontal disease, edentulism, oral cancer and cleft lip/palate collectively accounted for 18814000 disability-adjusted life-years; and the global burden of periodontal disease, oral cancer and caries increased markedly by an average of 45.6% from 1990 to 2010 in parallel with the major non-communicable diseases like diabetes by 69.0%. Oral diseases and non-communicable diseases are closely interlinked through sharing common risk factors (e.g. excess sugar consumption and tobacco use) and underlying infection/inflammatory pathways. Oral disease remains a major public health burden worldwide. It is of great importance to integrate oral health into global health agenda via the common risk factor approach. The long-term sustainable strategy for global oral health should focus on health promotion and disease prevention through effective multidisciplinary teamwork.

Food-Based Interventions to Modify Diet Quality and Diversity to Address Multiple Micronutrient Deficiency.

Global data indicate a high prevalence of hidden hunger among population. Deficiencies of certain micronutrients such as folic acid, iodine, iron, and vitamin A have long lasting effects on growth and development and therefore have been a National priority from many decades. The strategy implemented so far limits to the use of supplemental sources or fortified foods in alleviating the burden of deficiencies. These approaches however undermine the food-based strategies involving dietary diversification as the long-term sustainable strategy. There is lack of understanding on the level of evidence needed to implement such strategies and the level of monitoring required for impact evaluation. Dietary diversity concerns how to ensure access for each individual to a quality and safe diet with adequate macro- and micronutrients. The key to success in using dietary diversity as a strategy to tackle hidden hunger is in integrating it with the principles of bioavailability, translated to efficient food synergies with due emphasis on food accessibility, affordability, and outdoor physical activity/life style modifications. Promoting enabling environment and sustainable agriculture is crucial for practicing dietary diversification with behavior change communication as an integral segment. It can be concluded that food-based strategies require careful understanding of the factors associated with it and moderate it to form an effective strategy for controlling multiple micronutrient deficiencies.

Researcher-library collaborations: Data repositories as a service for researchers.

New interest has arisen in organizing, preserving, and sharing the raw materials-the data and metadata-that undergird the published products of research. Library and information scientists have valuable expertise to bring to bear in the effort to create larger, more diverse, and more widely used data repositories. However, for libraries to be maximally successful in providing the research data management and preservation services required of a successful data repository, librarians must work closely with researchers and learn about their data management workflows. Databrary is a data repository that is closely linked to the needs of a specific scholarly community-researchers who use video as a main source of data to study child development and learning. The project's success to date is a result of its focus on community outreach and providing services for scholarly communication, engaging institutional partners, offering services for data curation with the guidance of closely involved information professionals, and the creation of a strong technical infrastructure. Databrary plans to improve its curation tools that allow researchers to deposit their own data, enhance the user-facing feature set, increase integration with library systems, and implement strategies for long-term sustainability.

Key strategic factors for stakeholders in the current global biosimilar market

What are the strategies of success in the global biosimilar market? In general, originators have short-term options available, such as patent litigation, but should focus on sustainable long-term strategies such as development of biobetters or incorporating biosimilars as complements to existing products. For new entrants to the market, the learning curve will be steep and only biosimilars developed to compete with the best-selling biologics will be successful over the next decade. The attitudes of physicians, patients and payers will be crucial to the reception future biosimilars will receive and it will be essential that other players contribute to this debate.

RETHINKING POOR PEOPLE AND POOR NATIONS: EXPLORING LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS STRATEGIES TO REDUCE WORLD POVERTY AND IMPROVE U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY

ABSTRACT The global economy started recovering from stagnation but growth remains anemic. Twentieth and Twenty-First Century globalization has left the world economically polarized between countries that enjoy heretofore unimaginable wealth and countries that are crippled by poverty. Both the gap between rich and poor continues and terrorism remains a constant threat, diverting significant public and private resources to address security concerns. Over the past decades, business has begun reacting to growing societal pressures by broadening its focus from profit maximization alone to the “triple bottom line” of people, planet and profit. Efforts to reduce world poverty have improved living conditions for billions of people around world, but the results are very uneven and deteriorating conditions in some parts of the world have offset the gains in others. What are we doing about the poorest people around the world? Although NGOs work tirelessly to promote local solutions and local entrepreneurship, the idea of large-scale entrepreneurship as a possible solution to poverty has not taken root (Prahalad, 2010). What can U.S. companies do about poor people and poor nations to reduce world poverty and improve U.S. national security? The purpose of this research is to explore long-term sustainable business strategies to reduce world poverty and improve U.S. national security. Keywords Agriculture, Conflicts, Economic Integration, Eradication, Global Threats, Globalization, Migrations, National Security, NGOs, Poor Nations, Poverty, Primary Industries, Sustainability, Tensions, Violence.

Evolution, ecology and tree health: finding ways to prepare Britain's forests for future threats

Evolution, ecology and tree health: finding ways to prepare Britain's forests for future threats

Special issue: analysis and modelling of sediment transfer in Mediterranean river basins

The characteristic conditions found in most Mediterranean and many other semiarid regions are those situations where current water use already equals and often exceeds water availability and where the hydro-meteorological regime shows a strong variability. In addition, water demand is commonly out-of-phase in relation to water resources, especially at the seasonal scale. If those areas rely on surface water resources to a large extent, they are particularly vulnerable to severe erosion (because of scarce vegetation cover of the soil and high rainfall intensity/energy), loss of fertile soils and subsequent sedimentation of reservoirs that are designed for water supply. As a consequence, this loss of reservoir retention volume may lead to a significant reduction of water availability within a period of a few years or decades. Therefore, erosion and sedimentation issues have to be taken into account when analysing and implementing long-term sustainable strategies to secure future water supply through water management and to sustain soil productivity through land-use management in upstream catchments. In this context, it is necessary to focus research and innovative management issues on “typical” scales in time and space. From a scientific perspective, the adequate spatial process scales range from the plot to field or river-reach scale. The model scale also ranges from plot scale but expands to the meso-scale of river basins up to several thousands of square kilometres. From a management perspective, the spatial scale of interest is the meso-scale (or intermediate to large catchments scale) because this is the scale most relevant for management of water and land resources. Furthermore, it is important to account for the relevant landscape components (and their driving processes), such as hillslopes (runoff and erosion processes on the soil surface), channel network (transfer from sources i.e. connectivity and sediment transport in river systems) and lakes or reservoirs (deposition of sediments). The scientifically sound assessment of generation, transfer and storage processes of water and sediment fluxes can be conducted in a dynamic and quantitative way by field monitoring, on the one hand, and the application and adaptation of adequate hydrological and sediment-transport models, on the other. Due to upstream–downstream relationships, connectivity factors that influence runoff generation, sediment production and water resources, as well as the effects of water management measures, usually affect the entire area of river basins and thus need to be included in this assessment. This special issue of the Journal of Soils and Sediments deals with the research questions identified above. It comprises 11 articles with different methodological backgrounds (monitoring/measurement techniques, methods of data analysis and process-oriented modelling); from different Mediterranean regions, in particular from the Iberian Peninsula, Europe, and from northeast Brazil; different spatial scales (from micro-catchments covering a few hectares up to the large catchments of the Lower Ebro and the Upper Jaguaribe, i.e. the scale of 10 km); and different time scales (from the event scale, i.e. a few hours, up to several decades). Most of the articles are based on selected presentations given at the 6th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research that was convened at Koblenz (Germany) from 3 to 7 June 2013. The focus of the conference was to foster an integrative understanding of water and the J. C. de Araujo (*) Department of Agricultural Engineering, Federal University of Ceara, Fortaleza, CE 60356-000, Brazil e-mail: jcaraujo@ufc.br