Herbivorous insects play important roles in agriculture as pests or as weed biological control agents. Predicting the timing of herbivore insect population development can thus be of paramount importance for agricultural planning and sustainable land management. Numerical simulation models driven by temperature are often used to predict insect pest population build-up in agriculture. Such simulation models intend to use station-derived temperatures to drive the development of the target insect, although this temperature may differ substantially from that experienced by the insect on the plant. To improve the estimations, it has been suggested to replace air temperature in the model by land surface temperature (LST) data. Here, we use a numerical simulation model of insect population dynamics driven by either air temperature (combined with atmospheric temperature soundings) or land surface temperature derived from satellites to predict the population trends of the leaf beetle Ophraella communa, a potential biological control agent of Ambrosia artemisiifolia in Europe. For this, we conducted an extensive field experiment that included caged O. communa populations at five sites along an altitudinal gradient (125–1250 m a.s.l.) in Northern Italy during 2015 and 2016. We compared our model predictions using air or land surface temperature with observed beetle population build-up. Model predictions with both air and land surface temperatures predicted a similar phenology to observed populations but overestimated the abundance of the observed populations. When taking into consideration the error of the two measurement methods, the predictions of the model were in overlapping timeframes. Therefore, the current model driven by LST can be used as a proxy for herbivore impact, which is a novel tool for weed biocontrol.

Abstract Afforestation to control soil erosion has been implemented throughout China over the past few decades. The long-term hydrological effects, such as total water yield and baseflow, of this large-scale anthropogenic activity remain unclear. Using six decades of hydrologic observations and remote sensing data, we explore the hydrological responses to forest expansion in four basins with contrasting climates across China. No significant change in runoff was found for the period 1970?2012 for the cold and dry Hailar River Basin in northeastern China. However, both forest expansion and reduced precipitation contributed to the runoff reduction after afforestation since the late 1990s. Similarly, afforestation and drying climate since the mid-1990s induced a significant decrease in runoff for the Weihe River Basin in semi-arid northwestern China. In contrast, the two wet basins in the humid southern China, Ganjiang River Basin and Dongjiang River Basin, showed insignificant changes in total runoff during their study periods. However, the baseflow in the winter dry seasons in these two watersheds significantly increased since the 1950s. Our results highlight the long-term variable effects of forest expansion and local climatic variability on basin hydrology in different climatic regions. This study suggests that landuse change in the humid study watersheds did not cause dramatic change in river flow and that region-specific afforestation policy should be considered to deal with forestation-water quantity trade-off. Conclusions from this study can help improve decision-making for ecological restoration policies and water resource management in China and other countries where intensive afforestation efforts are taking place.

Understanding the risk of armed conflict is essential for promoting peace. Although the relationship between climate variability and armed conflict has been studied by the research community for decades with quantitative and qualitative methods at different spatial and temporal scales, causal linkages at a global scale remain poorly understood. Here we adopt a quantitative modelling framework based on machine learning to infer potential causal linkages from high-frequency time-series data and simulate the risk of armed conflict worldwide from 2000–2015. Our results reveal that the risk of armed conflict is primarily influenced by stable background contexts with complex patterns, followed by climate deviations related covariates. The inferred patterns show that positive temperature deviations or precipitation extremes are associated with increased risk of armed conflict worldwide. Our findings indicate that a better understanding of climate-conflict linkages at the global scale enhances the spatiotemporal modelling capacity for the risk of armed conflict.

Responses of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change have been explored in many regions worldwide. While continued drying and warming may alter process rates and deteriorate the state and performance of ecosystems, it could also lead to more fundamental changes in the mechanisms governing ecosystem functioning. Here we argue that climate change will induce unprecedented shifts in these mechanisms in historically wetter climatic zones, towards mechanisms currently prevalent in dry regions, which we refer to as ‘dryland mechanisms’. We discuss 12 dryland mechanisms affecting multiple processes of ecosystem functioning, including vegetation development, water flow, energy budget, carbon and nutrient cycling, plant production and organic matter decomposition. We then examine mostly rare examples of the operation of these mechanisms in non-dryland regions where they have been considered irrelevant at present. Current and future climate trends could force microclimatic conditions across thresholds and lead to the emergence of dryland mechanisms and their increasing control over ecosystem functioning in many biomes on Earth.

SummaryAlthough numerous studies have examined the effects of climate variability on armed conflict, the complexity of these linkages requires deeper understanding to assess the causes and effects. Here, we assembled an extensive database of armed conflict, climate, and non-climate data for South Asia. We used structural equation modeling to quantify both the direct and indirect impacts of climate variability on armed conflict. We found that precipitation impacts armed conflict via direct and indirect effects which are contradictory in sign. Temperature affects armed conflict only through a direct path, while indirect effects were insignificant. Yet, an in-depth analysis of indirect effects showed that the net impact is weak due to two strong contradictory effects offsetting each other. Our findings illustrate the complex link between climate variability and armed conflict, highlighting the importance of a detailed analysis of South Asia’s underlying mechanisms at the regional scale.

Vertical green living walls (VGWs)—growing plants on vertical walls inside or outside buildings—have been suggested as a nature-based solution to improve air quality and comfort in modern cities. However, as with other greenery systems (e.g., agriculture), managing VGW systems requires adequate temporal and spatial monitoring of the plants as well as the surrounding environment. Remote sensing cameras and small, low-cost sensors have become increasingly valuable for conventional vegetation monitoring; nevertheless, they have rarely been used in VGWs. In this descriptive paper, we present a first-of-its-kind remote sensing high-throughput monitoring system in a VGW workplace. The system includes low- and high-cost sensors, thermal and hyperspectral remote sensing cameras, and in situ gas-exchange measurements. In addition, air temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide concentrations are constantly monitored in the operating workplace room (scientific computer lab) where the VGW is established, while data are continuously streamed online to an analytical and visualization web application. Artificial Intelligence is used to automatically monitor changes across the living wall. Preliminary results of our unique monitoring system are presented under actual working room conditions while discussing future directions and potential applications of such a high-throughput remote sensing VGW system.

Future atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration ([CO2]) rise is expected to increase the grain yield of C3 crops like wheat even higher under drought. This expectation is based on small-scale experiments and model simulations based on such observations. However, this combined effect has never been confirmed through actual observations at the nationwide or regional scale. We present the first evidence that warming and drought in the world’s leading wheat-producing countries offset the benefits of increasing [CO2] to wheat yield in the last six decades. Using country-level wheat yield census observations, [CO2] records, and gridded climate data in a statistical model based on a well-established methodology, we show that a [CO2] rise of ~ 98 μmol mol−1 increased the yield by 7% in the area of the top-twelve wheat-producing countries, while warming of 1.2 °C and water depletion of ~ 29 mm m−2 reduced the wheat grain yield by ~ 3% and ~ 1%, respectively, in the last six decades (1961–2019). Our statistical model corroborated the beneficial effect of [CO2] but contrasted the expected increase of grain yield under drought. Moreover, the increase in [CO2] barely offsets the adverse impacts of warming and drought in countries like Germany and France, with a net yield loss of 3.1% and no gain, respectively, at the end of the sampling period relative to the 1961–1965 baseline. In China and the wheat-growing areas of the former Soviet Union—two of the three largest wheat-producing regions—yields were ~ 5.5% less than expected from current [CO2] levels. Our results suggest shifting our efforts towards more experimental studies set in currently warm and dry areas and combining these with statistical and numerical modeling to improve our understanding of future impacts of a warmer and drier world with higher [CO2].

Abstract The combination of a future rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) and drought will significantly impact wheat production and quality. Genotype phenology is likely to play an essential role in such an effect. Yet, its response to elevated [CO2] and drought has not been studied before. Here we conducted a temperature-controlled glasshouse [CO2] enrichment experiment in which two wheat cultivars with differing maturity timings and life cycle lengths were grown under ambient (aCO2 approximately 400??mol?mol?1) and elevated (eCO2 approximately 550??mol?mol?1) [CO2]. The two cultivars, bred under dry and warm Mediterranean conditions, were well-watered or exposed to drought at 40% pot holding capacity. We aimed to explore water???[CO2]???genotype interaction in terms of phenology, physiology, and agronomic trait response. Our results show that eCO2 had a significant effect on plants grown under drought. eCO2 boosted the booting stage of the late-maturing genotype (cv. Ruta), thereby prolonging its booting-to-anthesis period by approximately 3 days (p?<?0.05) while unaffecting the phenological timing of the early-maturing genotype (cv. Zahir). The prolonged period resulted in a much higher carbon assimilation rate, particularly during pre-anthesis (+87% for Ruta vs. +22% for Zahir under eCO2). Surprisingly, there was no eCO2 effect on transpiration rate and grain protein content in both cultivars and under both water conditions. The higher photosynthesis (and transpiration efficiency) of Ruta was not translated into higher aboveground biomass or grain yield, whereas both cultivars showed a similar increase of approximately 20% in these two traits at eCO2 under drought. Overall, Zahir, the cultivar that responded the least to eCO2, had a more efficient source-to-sink balance with a lower sink limitation than Ruta. The complex water???[CO2]???genotype interaction found in this study implies that future projections should account for multifactor interactive effects in modeling wheat response to future climate.

Global climate change, expected to be one of the most severe challenges that human beings have ever encountered, has had far-reaching impacts on ecosystems and humans, among which the potentially increasing chance of violent conflict has raised attention recently. However, several years of research have produced no consensus regarding whether climate variability affects the risk of armed conflict and how it may affect conflict. In this study, we built a geographically disaggregated method to explore the relationship between climate variability from normal climate conditions and armed conflicts both on a local and regional scale. With the 10,993 conflict records acquired in 25 African countries over 16 years from 2000 to 2015, we estimated the effects of temperature and wet day variability on conflicts in agricultural and non-agricultural areas, respectively, on gridded 1° resolution. The results showed that deviations from the normal climate have a systematical impact on the risk of conflict: The risk of violence rises with increasing deviations from the temperature norms in both non-agricultural and agricultural areas. Regarding the rainfall variability, in non-agricultural areas, the risk of violence grows with increasing anomalous wet days, either more or fewer days than the annual average, while in agricultural areas, increases in violence risk only exhibit under the impact of fewer wet days than the annual average. We expect these findings would provide empirical support for policymakers and relevant organizations who need to prepare additional law enforcement and/or peacekeeping resources when climatic anomalies are detected.

In 2005, Israel began using desalination to augment limited natural water supplies. While desalination has helped Israel overcome chronic water shortages, high-population growth may test this approach. We examine how three population growth scenarios (low, medium, high) could affect water demand and supply by 2065. Our projections show that Israel will need to desalinate as much as 3.7 billion m3 annually, compared to 0.5 billion m3 in 2020. Meeting this demand could require the construction of 30 new desalination units. The effects of population growth on Israel’s water supply are likely to dwarf those of climate change. Increased desalination would, however, increase electricity demand, requiring over 11 TWh electricity annually. Population growth is also likely to challenge Israel’s wastewater management policies, producing more effluent than farmers will have the capacity to consume. The Israeli experience will provide important lessons for regions facing similar pressures.

Irrigation with reclaimed wastewater is a growing practice aimed at conserving freshwater sources, especially in arid and semiarid regions. Despite the apparent advantages to water management, the practice of irrigation with reclaimed wastewater exposes the agroenvironment to contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). In this report, we estimated the unintentional dietary exposure of the Israeli population (2808 participants) to CECs from consumption of produce irrigated with reclaimed wastewater using detailed dietary data obtained from a National Health and Nutrition Survey (Rav Mabat adults; 2014–2016). Human health risk analyses were conducted based on acceptable daily intake (ADI) and threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) approaches. The highest unintentional exposure to wastewater-borne CECs was found to occur through the consumption of leafy vegetables. All analyzed CECs exhibited hazard quotients <1 for the mean- and high-exposure scenarios, indicating no human health concerns. However, for the extreme exposure scenario, the anticonvulsant agents lamotrigine and carbamazepine, and the carbamazepine metabolite epoxide-carbamazepine exhibited the highest exposure levels of 29,100, 27,200, and 19,500 ng/person (70 kg) per day, respectively. These exposure levels exceeded the TTC of lamotrigine and the metabolite epoxide-carbamazepine, and the ADI of carbamazepine, resulting in hazard quotients of 2.8, 1.1, and 1.9, respectively. According to the extreme estimated scenario, consumption of produce irrigated with reclaimed wastewater (leafy vegetables in particular) may pose a threat to human health. Minimizing irrigation of leafy vegetables using reclaimed wastewater and/or improving the quality of the reclaimed wastewater using an advanced treatment would significantly reduce human dietary exposure to CECs.

The exposure of plants to pharmaceuticals via treated wastewater irrigation and biosolid application presents an important route of chronic exposure of crops to a wide variety of bioactive pollutants. This paper presents a novel approach which aims to improve our understanding of the interactions of bioactive pollutants with plants through the concept of plant pharmacology and two main sub-divisions: (i) plant pharmacokinetics which describes the fate of exogenous xenobiotics in the plant based on the processes of absorption, distribution, metabolism and accumulation (ADMA), processes that are analogous to pharmacokinetics in animals; and (ii) plant pharmacodynamics that proposes that exogenous xenobiotics interact with plant enzymes and biochemical pathways, establishing a relationship with pharmacological concepts and emphasizing the importance of exposure-response interactions. The concept of plant pharmacology and its two subdivisions provide a foundation for the development of in-depth knowledge regarding the fate of xenobiotics in plants and establishing plant pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic models that include both the ADMA processes and time-dependent response of the plant to these compounds. This concept provides a new perspective on pharmacovigilance, focusing on plant-xenobiotic compound interactions, and a conceptual framework for understanding the fate and interactions of these bioactive molecules in agricultural systems, to enable more accurate risks assessments of environmental and human health.

Reliable iodine determination in drinking water samples has gained importance in the last few decades, mostly due to intensive use of both desalinized water that lacks several important nutritional elements, and bottled mineral water. ICP-MS is a sensitive method for iodine determination that must be performed under alkaline conditions because of the volatile nature of some iodine species. However, in water samples with high pH (>10), slow precipitation of calcium (Ca) and/or magnesium (Mg) carbonates leads to clogging of the ICP-MS nebulizer. We propose preventing this precipitation by adding the chelating agent ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) at 0.1% to a 2% ammonium hydroxide matrix. This concentration of EDTA sufficed for most drinking water samples studied, as long as a 1:1 molar ratio of EDTA to Ca+Mg concentration in the water was maintained. The limit of quantitation of the developed method for iodine was < 0.1 µg L−1. The average iodine concentration in various brands of bottled mineral water sold in Israel was relatively low (average value of seven brands ± standard deviation was 7.67 ± 6.38 µg I L−1). . Regular consumption of either desalinated water or bottled mineral water probably does not supply enough iodine to eliminate iodine deficiency in Israeli consumers. Therefore, continuous follow-up of the iodine status in both tap and bottled water is strongly recommended.