Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2023
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Monica Ubalde-Lopez Mark Nieuwenhuijsen Giuseppina Spano Giovanni Sanesi Carlo Calfapietra Alice Meyer-Grandbastien Liz O’Brien Giovanna Ottaviani Aalmo Fabio Salbitano Jerylee Wilkes-Allemann Payam DadvandAbstract
The mainstream public health community often treats the natural environment with ambivalence. On one side, there are infectious agents, extreme weather, and catastrophic events such as floods, landslides, wildfires, storms, and earthquakes that directly or indirectly sicken, injure, or kill people (Hartig et al. 2014). On the other hand, human health is positively connected with the characteristics and quality of nature near to where people live. This ambivalence becomes crucial in cities where the living environment has peculiar characteristics both for humans and other living organisms. Indeed, there are many ways in which the urban environment can affect human health, positively or negatively. BioCities develop as dynamic socio-ecological systems hosted by nature. Therefore, addressing the issue of health according to an integrated and holistic approach, which reduces the negative effects of the natural environment and optimises its positive aspects, is a primary pillar in the construction of BioCities.
Abstract
With a view to integration into the European Union, the efficiency and competitiveness of the Kosovo’ different sectors (including agriculture) must be improved. This paper assesses the technical efficiency (TE) of horticultural farms through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) applying output orientation. It was founded that the TE of these farms is positively affected by their size, with large-size farms presenting overall higher technical efficiency. The research findings indicate that the degree of agricultural education does not have a significant impact on TE, whereas public assistance through subsidies and grants has a substantial and negative impact on TE, as confirmed by statistical analysis.
Authors
Helge BerglannAbstract
This article considers the use of convex taxation as an instrument to regulate fisheries, comparing it with linear taxation with regards to economic yields and the risk of resource depletion. Convex taxation is shown to be central in studies with static models but has rarely been explored in the context of dynamic fisheries. Literature shows that a linear tax regime is superior to quantity regulation when the stock estimate is uncertain in terms of economic gains and its ability to prevent resource extinction. Furthermore, when cost uncertainty is involved, a strictly convex tax on landings can prove even more efficient. A numerical example with a single-species demersal fishery having both ecological and economic uncertainty demonstrates the gain in value of moving from a linear to a strictly convex tax.
Authors
Divina Gracia P. RodriguezAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Divina Gracia P. RodriguezAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Michael Salka Vicente Guallart Daniel Ibañez Divina Gracia P. Rodriguez Nicolas Picard Jerylee Wilkes-Allemann Evelyn Coleman Brantschen Stefano Boeri Livia Shamir Lucrezia De Marco Sofia Paoli Maria Chiara Pastore Ivana ŽivojinovićAbstract
The Governing Missions and Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union guidelines promoted by the European Commission (EC) are helpful as a starting place for creating the enabling environment for BioCities which follow the principles of natural ecosystems to promote life (Mazzucato 2018, 2019). The strength of mission-oriented policies, defined as systemic public policies that draw on frontier knowledge to attain specific goals, is the empowerment of emergent solutions achieved by: (1) being bold and inspirational with wide social relevance; (2) having a clear direction with targeted, measurable, and time-bound metrics; (3) being ambitious but realistic; (4) being cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral; and (5) driving multiple bottom-up solutions (Ergas 1987).
Authors
Divina Gracia P. RodriguezAbstract
The world's burgeoning billions have been kept fed thanks to the "Green Revolution" of the 20th century, which featured new hybridized crops with enhanced yields. Often deemed a miracle of science, it was also made possible by energy-intensive industrial fertilizers. Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch were each awarded the Nobel Prize for their contributions to the widely used processes for synthesizing ammonia from nitrogen taken from ambient air and hydrogen derived from fossil fuels. These ammonia-based nitrogen fertilizers, along with mined fertilizers, today help to feed the world, something Thomas Robert Malthus never envisioned in his 18th century writings warning of overpopulation. Today we are concerned with another green revolution that seeks to end the use of fossil fuels, which when burned create emissions that are dangerously warming the atmosphere and creating the need for a second agricultural revolution to ensure the world's billions can still be fed in the face of drastic climatic extremes. So as we look to decarbonize the world's economy and phase out the use of fossil fuels, what is the fertilizer industry doing to green its highly fossil fuel-dependent industrial and mining processes? We talk with Alzbeta Klein, CEO of the International Fertilizer Association, freshly returned from COP28 in Dubai, where for the first time the world's nations agreed to the need to phase out fossil fuels to temper the runaway climate change we are experiencing. "Food is energy, and we need to understand that connection," Klein says. "We need to understand the transition for the energy markets, and we need to understand the transition for the food market because the two go hand-in-hand." We also hear from Hiro Iwanaga of Talus Renewables, a nitrogen fertilizer startup at the forefront of using photovoltaics to crack hydrogen from water, rather than fossil fuels. Also freshly returned from Dubai, Iwanaga talks about his company's demonstration project now under way in Kenya, and the company's next projects here in the United States. "The green hydrogen tax credit that was passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act makes our product cost-competitive," he explains. Also, Brandon Kail of Rocky Mountain BioAg speaks to his company's approach employing soil microbes as the foundation of a non-fossil fuel-based approach to plant nutrition, and Divina Gracia P. Rodriguez of the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research tells us about an EU-funded project in Ethiopia she is spearheading that seeks to address barriers to the adoption of human urine-based fertilizers.
Authors
Divina Gracia P. RodriguezAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Divina Gracia P. RodriguezAbstract
No abstract has been registered