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The SmartBay NIAP fund was made available in 2012 through Dublin City University over a two year period to enable researchers to access the SmartBay Ireland National Test and Demonstration Facility in Galway Bay. Research proposals were invited for funding under a number of activity types that are in line with the objectives of the SmartBay PRTLI Cycle 5 programme. This fund provided small awards (typically €2-25K) to research teams through a national competitive process, which was open to all higher education institutions on the island of Ireland. There were both open and biannual calls. The SmartBay NIAP fund was established to enable researchers in academia and industry to access the SmartBay Ireland national test and demonstration infrastructure. Proposals to access the infrastructure were brief and required information on the researcher(s), a description of the proposed research and its potential impact to the research team arising from the access to SmartBay Ireland. Marine Institute

Cholera epidemics have a recorded history in eastern Congo dating to 1971. A study was conducted to find out the linkage between climate variability/change and cholera outbreak and to assess the related economic cost in the management of cholera in Congo.This study integrates historical data (20 years) on temperature and rainfall with the burden of disease from cholera in South-Kivu province, eastern Congo.Analyses of precipitation and temperatures characteristics in South-Kivu provinces showed that cholera epidemics are closely associated with climatic factors variability. Peaks in Cholera new cases were in synchrony with peaks in rainfalls. Cholera infection cases declined significantly (P<0.05) with the rise in the average temperature. The monthly number of new Cholera cases oscillated between 5 and 450. For every rise of the average temperature by 0.35 °C to 0.75 °C degree Celsius, and for every change in the rainfall variability by 10-19%, it is likely cholera infection risks will increase by 17 to 25%. The medical cost of treatment of Cholera case infection was found to be of US$50 to 250 per capita. The total costs of Cholera attributable to climate change were found to fall in the range of 4 to 8% of the per capita in annual income in Bukavu town.It is likely that high rainfall favor multiplication of the bacteria and contamination of water sources by the bacteria (Vibrio cholerae). The consumption of polluted water, promiscuity, population density and lack of hygiene are determinants favoring spread and infection of the bacteria among human beings living in over-crowded environments.

Research in the field of precision agriculture is becoming increasingly important due to the growing world population whilst area for cultivation remains constant or declines. In this context, methods of monitoring in?season plant development with high resolution and accuracy are necessary. Studies show that terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) can be applied to capture small objects like crops. In this contribution, the results of multi-temporal field campaigns with the terrestrial laser scanner Riegl LMS-Z420i are shown. Four surveys were carried out in the growing period 2012 on a field experiment where various barley varieties were cultivated in small-scale plots. In order to measure the plant height above ground, the TLS-derived point clouds are interpolated to generate Crop Surface Models with a very high resolution of 1 cm. For all campaigns, a common reference surface, representing the Digital Elevation Model was used to monitor plant height in the investigated period. Manual plant height measurements were carried out to verify the results. The very high coefficients of determination (R² = 0.89) between both measurement methods show the applicability of the approach presented. Furthermore, destructive biomass sampling was performed to investigate the relation to plant height. Biomass is an important parameter for evaluating the actual crop status, but non-destructive methods of directly measuring crop biomass do not exist. Hence, other parameters like reflectance are considered. The focus of this study is on non-destructive measurements of plant height. The high coefficients of determination between plant height and fresh as well as dry biomass (R² = 0.80, R² = 0.77) support the usability of plant height as a predictor. The study presented here demonstrates the applicability of TLS in monitoring plant height development with a very high spatial resolution. Proceedings of the Workshop on UAV-based Remote Sensing Methods for Monitoring Vegetation Kölner geographische Arbeiten, 94 ISSN:0454-1294

Organic soils develop under waterlogged conditions, leading to a reduced decomposition of biomass. Over the last millennia this led to the development of a large carbon (C) pool in the global C cycle. Drainage, necessary for agriculture and forestry, triggers rapid decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM). While undisturbed organic soils are C-sinks, drainage transforms them into C-sources. Climate, drainage depth and land-use are considered the main factors controlling SOM decomposition. However, there is still a large variation in decomposition rates among organic soils, even when climate, drainage and land-use conditions are similar. This thesis investigates the role of SOM composition on peat decomposability in a variety of differently managed drained organic soils. Peat samples from 21 organic soils managed as cropland, grassland and forest soils situated in Switzerland were incubated at 10 and 20 °C for more than 6 months. During incubation, we monitored CO2 emissions and related them to soil characteristics, including bulk density, soil pH, soil organic carbon (SOC) content, and elemental ratios (C/N, H/C and O/C). The incubated samples lost between 0.6 to 1.9% of their SOC at 10 °C and between 1.2 to 42% at 20 °C over the course of 10,000 h (>1 yr). This huge variation occurring under controlled conditions suggests that, besides drainage depth, climate and management, SOM composition is an underestimated factor that determines CO2 fluxes measured in field experiments. In contrast, correlations between the investigated soil characteristics and CO2 emissions were weak. Furthermore, there were no land-use effects. Such effects were expected based on the measured SOM characteristics and IPCC data. Temperature sensitivity of decomposition decreased with depth, indicating an enrichment of recalcitrant SOM in topsoils. This finding stands in contrast to findings in studies of undisturbed organic soils and Further it suggests that future C loss from agriculturally managed organic soils will be similar considering warmer climate conditions. Cultivation of organic soils is accompanied by inputs of young organic carbon (YOC) from plant residues. The amount of YOC inputs, their potential to compensate for oxidative peat loss as well as their lability are unknown. Studying the δ13C signatures in the topsoil of a managed organic soil revealed that at least 19 ± 2.4% of the SOC originate from YOC being accumulated recently. Yet, the accumulation rates are substantially smaller than average peat loss rates on the studied soils. Remarkably, the percentage of YOC in decomposing SOC was 53 ± 0.1%, indicating that YOC is more labile than bulk SOC. These findings are supported by the 14C age of emitted CO2 being younger than that of SOC. Inputs of fresh organic matter (FOM) to soil are known to induce priming effects, i.e. an altered decomposition of resident SOM. The effect of FOM addition on peat decomposition of agriculturally used organic soils has seldom been quantified experimentally. Therefore, we incubated soil samples from managed organic soils over three weeks with and without adding corn straw as FOM. The 13C and 14C signatures of SOC and emitted CO2 enabled us to apportion the amount of decomposed corn, as well as to estimate relative effects of corn addition on the decomposition of SOC from old peat and from YOC. FOM addition induced negative, positive and neutral priming of SOC decomposition. Further, the relative contribution of peat SOC to the overall CO2 release consistently decreased after FOM addition, suggesting that young and old C pools in managed organic soils respond differently to the addition of fresh plant residues. A combination of those two findings indicates that FOM addition can effectively reduce the decomposition of old peat. The results of this thesis suggest that agricultural use of organic soils has a tremendous effect on the composition and decomposability of SOC in organic soils. Furthermore, they show that also crop species known for their carbon sequestration potential are not likely to counteract peat losses caused by drainage. Therefore, agricultural management of organic soils without the risk of losing vast amounts of SOC seems unrealistic and thus, CO2 emissions from organic soils are not likely to decrease in the future. This means that they remain a big issue of concern for future generations in order to counteract climate change.

Aimed at deepening the understanding of the effects of climate variability on cocoa pro-duction in West Africa, conditions between 1959 and 2015 are analyzed based on new data sets of meteorological records, soil water content and evapotranspiration. Comparing the relationship of actual and potential evapotranspiration across the region, differences be-tween cocoa producing countries are found and discussed, affirming that cocoa producing regions in Ghana and Nigeria are the most restricted by water availability. Further, us-ing a machine learning approach (Maxent) the optimal climatic conditions for successful cultivation are determined and used in a model to assess climatic suitability. It is shown, that the precipitation during the driest month of the year is the most specific predictor of production suitability. The model overall predicts the area suitable for cocoa production with high accuracy (AUC = 0.983). Applying the model to climatic data from past years the average suitability is calculated for every county and year. Comparing its yearly vari-ability with reported yield commonalities are observed, but farming practices are found to affect the recorded yield more significantly. Further, the suitability time series shows large areas in Nigeria, Liberia and along the northern borders of the cocoa producing area being vulnerable to prolonged poor weather conditions. These areas are expected to profit most from measures aimed at increasing climate resilience.

Secondary level education in Ireland is going through a major transition with the introduction of the new Junior Cycle programme. For the first time sustainability is being embedded into every subject and teachers have been given the opportunity, and flexibility to create their own curriculum. Addressing this, 8 teachers at Castletroy College worked collaboratively on the “E-Mining@School” project to incorporate sustainability into their subjects’ curriculum using an ambitious multidisciplinary approach. This approach attempted to connect sustainability to the student’s everyday lives through the product that teenagers covet the most; their smartphones.The project developed a collaborative cross- curriculum pilot that explored the common theme of ‘urban mining of e-waste for Critical Raw Materials (CRMs)’ and the teachers integrated this common theme into the curriculum of 5 subjects that included Science, Geography, Business, Technology, and Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE) that would be delivered concurrently. The pilot ran for 4 weeks, beginning at the end of January 2019. A cohort of 220 2nd year students attended 60 lessons over all 5 subjects. 24 teachers delivered these lessons and each student received, on average, over 38 hours of lessons. The project culminated in a public WEEE collection event that recovered over 11 tonnes of WEEE that was sent for recycling. The second running took place in the Spring of 2020 and it is planned to continue it as an annual endeavour. The pilot demonstrated to students the value of the resources used in their electronic products and the challenges of finite resource scarcity. It showed them not only where their stuff came from but also where it goes when they thought it thrown it away. Through the project students became familiar with and champions of the Circular Economy which was very evident in the WEEE collection event. The project was also the first occasion for the teachers to collaborate on a cross-curricular approach to secondary education and the paper includes findings on this topic.

This thesis is aimed at contributing to an overarching research question of what new interventions are required in agriculture to adapt to climate change. In a similar manner to most previous studies, the thesis attempted to answer this question by examining how farmers are currently responding to climate change and the factors influencing the process or its determinants. Earlier studies have produced a long list of farm-level adaptations to climate change and their socio-economic determinants. However, the adjustments identified by the studies along with their determinants are not unique to climate change, and therefore do not indicate the importance of new interventions. For example, the commonly identified adjustments such as soil conservation and irrigation are already at the center of existing policies in agriculture. Like wise the importance of determinants such as access to credit and education which are singled out by the studies as key variables for adaptation are already at the hub of the literature on agricultural development. Studies in the past have failed in suggesting distinct interventions, which are necessitated by climate change. I attribute this shortcoming to weak methodological approach in disentangling adjustments strongly motivated by climate change and to lack of appropriate typologies with implications on resource needs. Studies in the past often used an enquiry method that directly asks farmers to list their adaptation strategies. Such approach is susceptible to response biases, and does not also put non-climatic drivers in perspective. Farmers normally make adjustments simultaneously addressing multiple drivers. Therefore for an adjustment to be identified as an adaptation strategy, it should be shown that it is strongly liked to climate change than other drivers. This is particularly true for contemporary farmers who are responding for a number of drivers including market and technological dynamics. Previous studies also treated all farm-level adaptations as one homogenous group of adjustments that are influenced by one set of determinants. This study, however, argues that adaptations that use traditionally used inputs, here called non-technological adaptation, should be separately examined, as they are likely to have distinctive resource needs. Examples could be changing planting date and crop diversification. While technological adaptations can benefit from the extensive literature on agricultural technology adoption in the last decades, non-technological adaptations can greatly benefit from further study as one distinct group of adjustments. In this Doctoral study, I employed a household survey of farm households in a district in central Ethiopia and attempted to address the existing flaws in the literature on farm-level adaptation in agriculture. The first paper was aimed at identifying farm adjustments that are primarily motivated by climate change. A new methodological approach that puts non-climatic drivers in perspective while reducing the likelihood of response biases was applied along commonly used methods. It was shown that in the study area three adjustments are strongly associated to climate change: changing planting date, crop switching (changing crop type) and crop diversification. In the second paper, a second-round survey was carried out to closely examine crop switching as an adaptation strategy. I examined the permanent adoption and abandonment of crops by farmers in the last two decades. It was found that crop adoption is primarily induced by price changes while crop abandonment is strongly motivated by climate change. The trend of crop abandonment is also inline with predictions by studies on ecological change in climate change. In the third paper, I showed that non-technological adaptations are likely to be more dependent on accumulated farm experience than level of schooling and availability of finance. The major implication of this study, for our study area, is that non-technological adaptations such as changing planting date and crop switching are adjustments that are primarily induced by climate change. The broader implication of my findings is that non-technological adaptations should be the primary focus of adaptation policies in agriculture. The findings implied that adaptation in agriculture is essentially the reallocation of resources accessible to a community. For which reason, accumulated experience of farmers on the broader community context like farming conditions could be instrumental. Since climate change just contracts or expands existing agro-ecologies without creating unique conditions, it is unlikely that new technological adoptions are necessitated by climate change. Therefore, mechanisms that facilitate non-technological adaptations such as experience-sharing sessions composed of farmers from diverse agro-ecologies and farming conditions can be vital for adaptation in agriculture. Our study also highlighted that mainstreaming climate change in farm adjustments primarily induced by non-climatic drivers can be crucial.

Malaria is largely neglected in the South-East Asia Region (SEAR), although it has the highest number of people susceptible to the disease. Malaria in the SEAR exhibits special epidemiological characteristics such as "forest malaria" and malaria due to migration across international borders. The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) has been a focal-point for the emergence of drug resistant malaria. With the recent emergence of artemisinin resistance, coupled with the limited availability of insecticides, malaria control efforts in the SEAR face a steep challenge. Indirect man-made factors such as climate change, as well as direct man-made factors such as the circulation of counterfeit drugs have added to the problem. Increased monitoring, surveillance, pharmacovigilance as well as cross-border collaboration are required to address these problems. Regional networking and data-sharing will keep all stakeholders updated about the status of various malaria control programmes in the SEAR. Cutting-edge technologies such as GIS/GPS (geographical information system/global positioning system) systems and mobile phones can provide information in "real-time". A holistic and sustained approach to malaria control by integrated vector management (IVM) is suggested, in which all the stakeholder countries work collaboratively as a consortium. This approach will address the malaria problem in a collective manner so that malaria control can be sustained over time.

Climate change is expected to affect crop production worldwide, particularly in rain-fed agricultural regions. It is still unknown how irrigation water needs will change in a warmer planet and where freshwater will be locally available to expand irrigation without depleting freshwater resources. Here, we identify the rain-fed cropping systems that hold the greatest potential for investment in irrigation expansion because water will likely be available to suffice irrigation water demand. Using projections of renewable water availability and irrigation water demand under warming scenarios, we identify target regions where irrigation expansion may sustain crop production under climate change. Our results also show that global rain-fed croplands hold significant potential for sustainable irrigation expansion and that different irrigation strategies have different irrigation expansion potentials. Under a 3 °C warming, we find that a soft-path irrigation expansion with small monthly water storage and deficit irrigation has the potential to expand irrigated land by 70 million hectares and feed 300 million more people globally. We also find that a hard-path irrigation expansion with large annual water storage can sustainably expand irrigation up to 350 million hectares, while producing food for 1.4 billion more people globally. By identifying where irrigation can be expanded under a warmer climate, this work may serve as a starting point for investigating socioeconomic factors of irrigation expansion andmay guide future research and resources toward those agricultural communities and water management institutions that will most need to adapt to climate change. © 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117 (47) ISSN:0027-8424 ISSN:1091-6490