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Model projections show that production of high-value products from microalgae could be profitable nowadays and commodities will become profitable within 10 years.

Local development is a subject that arouses significant interest in the international scientific community in general, and in the Ibero-American one, in particular. The process of globalization has transformed the management of local development, altering the role that is played by local and regional entities, and it is the object of an important follow-up and analysis by academia. This research uses a bibliometric methodology and a fractional counting method, reviewing the 738 articles from the Scopus database in order to understand the state of Ibero-American research on local development, and analyze the scientific literature on the topic. The results show a significant increase in the number of publications in the 21st century, with Spain and Brazil leading the way. In addition, this research provides interesting results regarding the most influential authors on this topic, the most relevant journals, and the most important institutions and funding organizations. There are several areas of knowledge involved since local development is a transversal field, such as Social Science, environment, business, economics, and agriculture. A deep analysis of authors’ keywords identified new trends, linking local development with tourism, education, geotourism, climate change, local sustainable development, social innovation, and creativity, which provides academia with potential new lines of research.

Despite the great number of models developed in research projects, only a small percentage have been successfully transferred to the productive sector. The PRIMA programme supported by Horizon 2020, the European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, aims to reverse this situation. The SUPROMED project funded by PRIMA sought to develop an online platform composed of several models adapted to the requirements of end users for increasing the economic and environmental sustainability of Mediterranean agricultural systems. MOPECO, in its research version, was designed to maximize the profitability of irrigated farms in water-scarce regions. A simplified version of this model (MOPECO irrigation scheduling) was included in the SUPROMED platform for improving irrigation efficiency, providing farmers with a useful irrigation scheduling software. This paper shows the approach to adapt and transfer MOPECO to the productive sector. The tool was validated in three different demosite areas across the Mediterranean, involving local stakeholders in the design, validation, and dissemination of the software. The simplified tool reached similar or higher yields than farmers using less water. Thus, the average water saved was around 16%, while the average yield increased around 10% in the plots located in the three demosites of the project (Eastern Mancha in Spain, Bekaa valley in Lebanon, and Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia). This fact decreased the water footprint and increased the profitability of farms. The high applicability of the tool has generated interest among many technicians, farmers, and advisory enterprises. Furthermore, regional and national governmental extension services have shown interest in spreading the use of the tool across their territories, validating the methodology used for adapting and transferring a scientific model to the productive sector.

The increasing depletion of natural resources, combined with a wider set of pressures on the environment, has, in recent years, highlighted the need for a more efficient use of energy and a development process that involves alternative energy sources. Energy efficiency has received much attention as a solution, implying both monetary and emissions savings. However, the latter may be partially offset by the income and demand effects of the former, both in more efficient sectors and in spreading to the wider economy. This is the problem of rebound effects. Taking Spain as a case study, and introducing an energy-related CGE model that develops the inclusion of renewables, this paper evaluates a combination of efficiency initiatives to deliver both reduced energy use by households and a more sustainable supply of energy. Our findings suggest that a package aimed at improving efficiency in household electricity and petroleum use, combined with a more competitive supply of energy from renewable sources, may be the only way to get reductions in all energy use, and thus benefit the economy. Specifically, we consider how this package may lead to positive economic impacts and associated rebound effects, where the latter are focused on a greener energy supply.

The aim of this study was to quantify direct and indirect relationships between soil microbial community properties (potential basal respiration, microbial biomass) and abiotic factors (soil, climate) in three major land-cover types. Location: Europe Time period: 2018 Major taxa studied: Microbial community (fungi and bacteria) We collected 881 soil samples from across Europe in the framework of the Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS). We measured potential soil basal respiration at 20ºC and microbial biomass (substrate-induced respiration) using an O2-microcompensation apparatus. Climate and soil data were obtained from previous LUCAS surveys and online databases. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to quantify relationships between variables, and equations extracted from SEMs were used to create predictive maps. Fatty acid methyl esters were measured in a subset of samples to distinguish fungal from bacterial biomass. Soil microbial properties in croplands were more heavily affected by climate variables than those in forests. Potential soil basal respiration and microbial biomass were correlated in forests but decoupled in grasslands and croplands, where microbial biomass depended on soil carbon. Forests had a higher ratio of fungi to bacteria than grasslands or croplands. Soil microbial communities in grasslands and croplands are likely carbon-limited in comparison with those in forests, and forests have a higher dominance of fungi indicating differences in microbial community composition. Notably, the often already-degraded soils of croplands could be more vulnerable to climate change than more natural soils. The provided maps show potentially vulnerable areas that should be explicitly accounted for in coming management plans to protect soil carbon and slow the increasing vulnerability of European soils to climate change. [Methods] Soil samples were collected during the 2018 LUCAS soil sampling campaign. Soil chemical and physical properties were measured at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy (Orgiazzi et al., 2018). Soil microbial respiration and biomass, as well as water content and water holding capacity, were measured in the Eisenhauer lab of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. Fungi/Bacteria was measured by fatty acid analysis by Felipe Bastida at CEBAS CSIC. Climate and geographical data were harvested from various databases, which are listed in Appendix 1 (data sources) of the associated paper. For more details on the soil sampling and physical and chemical properties, see: Orgiazzi, A., Ballabio, C., Panagos, P., Jones, A., & Fernández-Ugalde, O. (2018). LUCAS Soil, the largest expandable soil dataset for Europe: a review. European Journal of Soil Science, 69(1), 140-153. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.12499 For more details on the measurements of soil microbial respiration and biomass, fatty acids, and water holding capacity, see the supplementary methods of the associated paper (Appendix 2). [Usage Notes] Fatty acid analysis was performed for a subset of 267 samples. Water holding capacity and associated measurements of basal respiration was analyzed in a subset of 100 samples. The samples that were not in these subsets have NA values for the columns associated with these measurements. In order to protect the precise locations of the LUCAS sampling sites, latitude and longitude values could not be given. The approximate location of each sampling site is instead described by the NUTS3 region. If you wish to replicate the structural equation modeling described in the paper, for which latitude is required, please get in touch. A description of each column is available in the associated metadata file. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Award: FZT 118-202548816. European Research Council, Award: 694368. European Commission. Directorate-General for the Environment. Direction Générale Opérationnelle Agriculture, Ressources Naturelles et Environnement du Service Public de Wallonie. Eurostat. Peer reviewed

This research studied the impacts of the environmental Kuznets curve and the determinants of economic growth for Visegrad countries from 1990 to 2018. This paper reflects on the effects of renewable and non-renewable energy, urban population, foreign direct investment, economic growth, and carbon dioxide emissions. According to our results, the panel of unit root tests showed that the variables under study are integrated into the first differences. Considering the empirical results for the environmental Kuznets curve, we observe that economic growth is positively correlated with pollution emissions; nevertheless, the squared income per capita is negatively impacted by carbon dioxide emissions. Energy consumption increases carbon emissions, and foreign direct investment confirms the pollution halo hypothesis. Therefore, the econometric results showed that renewable energy consumption promotes regional growth. Consequently, urban population and foreign direct investment positively correlate with economic growth.

The prevailing need for a more sustainable management of natural resources depends not only on the decisions made by governments and the will of the population, but also on the knowledge of the role of energy in our society and the relevance of preserving natural resources. In this sense, critical work is being done to instill key concepts—such as the circular economy and sustainable energy—in higher education institutions. In this way, it is expected that future professionals and managers will be aware of the importance of energy optimization, and will learn a series of computational methods that can support the decision-making process. In the context of higher education, this paper reviews the main trends and challenges related to the concepts of circular economy and sustainable energy. Besides, we analyze the role of simulation and serious games as a learning tool for the aforementioned concepts. Finally, the paper provides insights and discusses open research opportunities regarding the use of these computational tools to incorporate circular economy concepts in higher education degrees. Our findings show that, while efforts are being made to include these concepts in current programs, there is still much work to be done, especially from the point of view of university management. In addition, the analysis of the teaching methodologies analyzed shows that, although their implementation has been successful in favoring the active learning of students, their use (especially that of serious games) is not yet widespread.