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Purpose In Italy, composting olive mill waste has become a common practice, since it mitigates the environmental problems associated with spreading the waste on land. Compost can be used to prepare growth media for plant nursery cultivation as a substitute for peat, a non-renewable resource whose extraction has long raised environmental concerns. Here, we investigate two common composting procedures--open windrow and static-pile in gas-permeable bags--and compare them to evaluate their environmental impact. Methods We perform a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) in accordance with ISO 14040 and 14044. The LCA considers carbon storage in the soil after 100 years, fugitive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the impacts avoided by substituting for peat. We use cumulative energy demand, global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential, and eutrophication potential indicators in a contribution analysis and explore how the re-use of olive pits for energy production and reduction of commercial fertilizers improves the environmental balance. We also present a scenario analysis that indicates how parameter fluctuations affect the results. Results and discussion Our study shows that peat's impacts can be significantly reduced from 1162.3 to 96.3 kg CO2-eq/Mg for open windrow compost or 43.1 kg CO2-eq/Mg for static-pile compost in gas-permeable bags. For static-pile composting, the lack of volatile organic compound and ammonia emissions and the detection of oxygen concentrations above 12% vol. suggest fully aerobic conditions. Fugitive greenhouse gas emissions were the most important contributions to the GWP. In the contribution analysis for static-pile composting, the avoidance of compost spreading and the carbon storage effect (due to compost usage) contributed 54% of the overall impacts to GWP and between 21 and 45% to the other indicators. Conclusions This LCA study illustrates how horticulturists can improve their resource management practices by recycling olive mill waste materials. Proper management of composting unit aeration can reduce fugitive GHG emissions.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) plays a key role in Sustainable Development. In low-income countries like Madagascar, this key role is particularly relevant to primary education. However, the curricula lack a comprehensive ESD approach that incorporates regional issues. In Madagascar, sustainable land-use practices (Sustainable Development Goals 12, 15) and health prevention (SDGs 2, 3, 6) are educational challenges. Procedural knowledge allows problem-solving regarding unsustainable developments. We adapted and further developed a measure of ESD-relevant procedural knowledge. Considering curricula, sustainability standards, research, and a two-round Delphi study (n = 34 experts), we identified regionally relevant land-use practices and health-protective behavior. After the experts rated the effectiveness and possibility of implementation of courses of actions, we calculated an index of what to teach under given Malagasy (regional) conditions. Combined with qualitative expert comments, the study offers insights into expert views on land-use and health topics: For example, when teaching ESD in Northeast Madagascar, sustainable management of cultivation and soil is suitable, particularly when linked to vanilla production. Health-protective behavior is ultimately more difficult to implement in rural than in urban areas. These results are important for further curricula development, for ESD during primary education, and because they give insights into the topics teacher education should address.

The European Green Deal is a political milestone aiming to promote a carbon-neutral economy in the European Union. Decarbonizing the complex food sector requires the unified interaction among effective climate policies, economic instruments, and initiatives involving multiple stakeholders. Despite increasing efforts to highlight the importance of innovations and finance to achieve sustainable food supply chains (FSC), comprehensive information about related opportunities and barriers to mitigating emissions in the food sector is still under-explored. To cover this gap, this paper applies an existing industrial policy framework under the lens of the EU FSC to identify potential strategies that should help achieve the needed financial means and innovation actions, as well as to gauge political alignment across FSC stages. Methodologically, the pillars proposed in the framework are linked to multi-stakeholders’ initiatives engaged in achieving net-zero emissions. The paper highlights three main implications of the identified interlinkages. First, political directionality related to the food sector should be more comprehensively tailored to account for the specificities of all stages of the FSC. Second, research and development projects shall likewise cover all stages, instead of emphasizing only food production and agricultural systems. Finally, multiple stakeholders are crucial as promoters of technology and innovation towards a green economy. Nevertheless, initiatives should be integrated into political discussions in order to promote civil awareness, sustainable food and services demand, aligned to political guidelines.

Abstract. In low-rainfall cropping systems, understanding the water balance, and in particular the storage of soil water in the rooting zone for use by crops, is considered critical for devising risk management strategies for grain-based farming. Crop-soil modeling remains a cost-effective option for understanding the interactions between rainfall, soil, and crop growth, from which management options can be derived. The objective of this study was to assess the error in the prediction of soil water content at key decision points in the season against continuous, multi-layer soil water measurements made with frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) probes in long-term experiments in the Mallee region of South Australia and New South Wales. Field estimates of the crop lower limit or drained upper limit were found to be more reliable than laboratory-based estimates, despite the fact that plant-available water capacity (PAWC) did not substantially differ between the methods. Using the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) to simulate plant-available water over three-year rotations, predicted soil water was within 7 mm (PAWC 64 to 99 mm) of the measured data across all sowing events and rotations. Simulated (n = 46) wheat grain production resulted in a root mean square error (RMSE) of 492 kg ha-1, which is only marginally smaller than that of other field studies that derived soil water limits with less detailed methods. This study shows that using field-derived data of soil water limits and soil-specific settings for parameterization of other properties that determine soil evaporation and water redistribution enables APSIM to be widely applied for managing climate risk in low-rainfall environments. Keywords: APSIM, Climate risk management, Crop models, Decision support, Soil moisture.

Sewage sludge (SS) has been connected to a variety of global environmental problems. Assessing the risk of various disposal techniques can be quite useful in recommending appropriate management. The preparation of sewage sludge biochar (SSB) and its impacts on soil characteristics, plant health, nutrient leaching, and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) are critically reviewed in this study. Comparing the features of SSB obtained at various pyrolysis temperatures revealed changes in its elemental content. Lower hydrogen/carbon ratios in SSB generated at higher pyrolysis temperatures point to the existence of more aromatic carbon molecules. Additionally, the preparation of SSB has an increased ash content, a lower yield, and a higher surface area as a result of the rise in pyrolysis temperature. The worldwide potential of SS output and CO2-equivalent emissions in 2050 were predicted as factors of global population and common disposal management in order to create a futuristic strategy and cope with the quantity of abundant global SS. According to estimations, the worldwide SS output and associated CO2-eq emissions were around 115 million tons dry solid (Mt DS) and 14,139 teragrams (Tg), respectively, in 2020. This quantity will rise to about 138 Mt DS sewage sludge and 16985 Tg CO2-eq emissions in 2050, a 20% increase. In this regard, developing and populous countries may support economic growth by utilizing low-cost methods for producing biochar and employing it in local agriculture. To completely comprehend the benefits and drawbacks of SSB as a soil supplement, further study on long-term field applications of SSB is required.

Climate and human activities change spatial and temporal distribution of water and land use. The Tarim River, the largest inland river in China, faced a long-term exploitation of land and water over a rapid economic development. We analyzed land and water use from 1997 to 2019 in Tarim River Basin by Landsat images, and data on hydrology, climate, population, economy and PM2.5 (air particulate matter ≤2.5 μm). Agricultural land expanded the fastest (4–11%), followed by natural vegetation (15–16%) and water area (4–5%) with population and economic increase. Air quality (PM2.5 μg m−3) improved in upper (62–27) and middle (48–17) reaches. The water area in lower increase 5% because of ecological water delivery since 2000. Land use in the lower reach was dominated by agriculture, where the downstream runoff consumption increased by 6.8 times. The average annual air temperature and precipitation gradually increased by 0.5 °C and 51 mm in source and 0.9 °C and 30 mm in main reaches. The average annual water consumption in upper and middle reaches was 4 × 109 m3, accounting for 87% of input runoff in the main reach. Water consumption in middle reach increased by 33 times in 2009–2017. The industry structure was changing from primary to secondary and tertiary industry. To sum up, implementation of water saving strategies and ecological water delivery restored local ecology. Sustainable strategies should be applied facing industrialization. Furthermore, changing the industry structure and restoring the degraded farmlands to grasslands or forests would keep sustainability of Tarim River Basin.

Abstract While the causal relationship between different types of oil shocks and food prices in the US and other developed countries has been extensively studied, the inter-dynamics between global oil market turmoils and food prices in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remain unclear. This gap in the literature is particularly striking as populations in developing countries are much more vulnerable to food crises than those in developed countries. In this paper we use structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) models to investigate the impacts of global oil market shocks on local corn prices in several SSA countries. We estimate the structural shocks through independent component analysis, which allows for a more agnostic identification compared with conventional methods. Our key findings are that unlike US or global corn markets, African corn markets are much less sensitive to the impacts of oil-specific demand shocks, instead, disruptions in global oil supply can lead to an increase in food prices in several markets. Countries suffering from oil-supply shocks have neither strategic or natural oil reserves to buffer import shortages, nor efficient oil distribution systems that translate into food prices through higher transport costs. We show that a large share of corn price surges in 2011 and 2012 can be attributed to oil-supply shortages caused by the Libyan revolution and the oil embargo against Iran. Conversely, the shale oil boom in the US and the oil production expansion in the Middle East exerted downward pressures on corn prices in three African countries in 2014/15. Finally, political events related to the oil market, e.g. the tensions between the US and Iran or the recent oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, have the potential to raise or lower corn prices by up to 25%.