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The family milpa system (FMS) is of great importance to food security and the livelihoods of rural families in Mexico. However, the performance of the system can be compromised due to inappropriate agricultural practices. Therefore, a suitable evaluation strategy is required to identify the best management of resources. Nonetheless, at present, there is no holistic understanding around the nature–society interface that allows us to predict the global behavior of the FMS. Thus, this study assesses the global performance of a Poblano FMS through emergy-based indices. The emergy evaluation was carried out by accounting for the available energy of different qualities used in the system, which were subsequently converted to one kind of energy (solar emjoules). The percentage of renewable emergy (%Ren) used in the system was 72.16%. The emergy self-support ratio (ESR) showed that 74% of the emergy used came from free local resources. The emergy investment ratio (EIR) of 0.36 indicated that the emergy use was efficient. The emergy yield ratio (EYR) was 3.78, which in terms of net emergy (NE), was equivalent to a gain of 1.35 × 1016 sej ha−1 y−1. The environmental loading ratio (ELR) was 0.39, which indicated a low potential environmental impact. The emergy sustainability index (ESI) was high (9.80) compared to other agricultural systems. The performance of the FMS is superior compared to other agricultural systems, including ecologic and recycling systems. However, the use of resources is not optimum and needs to be improved to reach maximum empower.
Miguel Angel Avalos-Rangel; Daniel E. Campbell; Delfino Reyes-López; Rolando Rueda-Luna; Ricardo Munguía-Pérez; Manuel Huerta-Lara. The Environmental-Economic Performance of a Poblano Family Milpa System: An Emergy Evaluation. Sustainability 2021, 13, 9425 .
AMA StyleMiguel Angel Avalos-Rangel, Daniel E. Campbell, Delfino Reyes-López, Rolando Rueda-Luna, Ricardo Munguía-Pérez, Manuel Huerta-Lara. The Environmental-Economic Performance of a Poblano Family Milpa System: An Emergy Evaluation. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (16):9425.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMiguel Angel Avalos-Rangel; Daniel E. Campbell; Delfino Reyes-López; Rolando Rueda-Luna; Ricardo Munguía-Pérez; Manuel Huerta-Lara. 2021. "The Environmental-Economic Performance of a Poblano Family Milpa System: An Emergy Evaluation." Sustainability 13, no. 16: 9425.
In addition to achieving of food security in the long-run, the identification and introduction of sustainable ecosystems is associated with the protection of natural resources and the provision of environmental services that flow from those resources. A paradigm for the production of shallots has arisen in the agroecosystems of Iran to prevent the extinction of the shallot plant, on one hand, and to meet the market demand for this valuable medicinal-industrial product, on the other. This study aimed to identify the most sustainable shallot production system by comparing mechanized, traditional, and conservation shallot production systems with the growth of this plant in its natural habitat in Selseleh County, Iran, during 2018–2019. The analysis was done by calculating net emergy of each system and by reviewing 14 different emergy indices. Soil conservation is very important in the sustainability of agroecosystems. In this regard, a positive evaluation of the energy input structures in a conservation system is based on the soil stability of that system. The results showed that the status of a protected system is optimal based on the values of the Unit Emergy Value (UEV = 6.62E+05 sej J−1), Specific emergy (SE = 7.05E+09 sej g−1), Inverse emergy exchange ratio (IEER = 0.942), and Emergy index of product safety (EIPS = 1) indices and, to some extent, on Renewable emergy ratio (R%), Modified version of the environmental sustainability index (ESI∗), Modified version of the environmental loading ratio (ELR∗), and Emergy invested per $ net profit (EINPR). As a result, the most optimal system was found by increasing the amount of the free environmental renewable input flow (R). The optimal EINPR, Economic emergy efficiency (EEE) and IEER values of the natural habitat indicate the risk of overharvesting shallots from this system, which necessitates paying more attention to protecting the ecosystem and preventing overharvesting. Although a number of indices showed the advantage of the mechanized shallot production system over the other two agroecosystems. However, since an important part of the desirability of a mode of production implied by these indices is related to the share of free environmental inputs that are used in a renewable manner, modes of production that rely heavily on the non-renewable use of free environmental flows and result in soil instability are not preferred, thus a mechanized system is not recommended as the first choice for shallot production. The equality of the EIPS index both in conservation and in natural systems showed the high quality of the crop in the conservation system among the studied crop systems.
Zahra Amiri; Mohammad Reza Asgharipour; Daniel E. Campbell; Khosrow Azizi; Ebrahim Kakolvand; Esfandiar Hassani Moghadam. Conservation agriculture, a selective model based on emergy analysis for sustainable production of shallot as a medicinal-industrial plant. Journal of Cleaner Production 2021, 292, 126000 .
AMA StyleZahra Amiri, Mohammad Reza Asgharipour, Daniel E. Campbell, Khosrow Azizi, Ebrahim Kakolvand, Esfandiar Hassani Moghadam. Conservation agriculture, a selective model based on emergy analysis for sustainable production of shallot as a medicinal-industrial plant. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2021; 292 ():126000.
Chicago/Turabian StyleZahra Amiri; Mohammad Reza Asgharipour; Daniel E. Campbell; Khosrow Azizi; Ebrahim Kakolvand; Esfandiar Hassani Moghadam. 2021. "Conservation agriculture, a selective model based on emergy analysis for sustainable production of shallot as a medicinal-industrial plant." Journal of Cleaner Production 292, no. : 126000.
The use of emergy to evaluate the sustainability of greenhouse systems leads to management recommendations to increase the sustainability of production in these systems. In this study, four greenhouse systems for cucumber, tomato, bell pepper, and eggplant production, located in Jiroft city, Iran, were evaluated using emergy sustainability indices. To accomplish this study, 56, 31, 19, and 12 greenhouses were selected for cucumber, tomato, bell pepper, and eggplant production, respectively. Analysis of twelve emergy indices and a study of the social characteristics of the producers using Analytic Hierarchy Analysis showed that the sustainability of the cucumber production system was greater than that of the other three systems. The calculated unit emergy values for economic yield (UEVE) generally indicated that greenhouse systems were at least 100 times more sustainable than open farm systems for the production of different products, primarily because of drastically reduced soil erosion. The highest (5.10E+04 sej J−1 [4.96E+04, 5.25E+04]) and lowest (7.27E+03 sej J−1 [7.09E+03, 7.45E+03]) UEVE values were calculated for the bell pepper and cucumber systems, respectively. Also, cucumber producers had greenhouses with larger areas compared to the greenhouses used for the other crops examined in this study. The physiological characteristics of cucumber plants resulted in greater sustainability of this system, because the plants were able to capture more of the free renewable energy, had a higher production potential, and this production system made more efficient use of the workforce. In contrast, the highest proportion of purchased non-renewable resources reduced the sustainability of the eggplant production system compared to the other systems studied. Therefore, selection of a plant with more potential to use free local environmental energy, higher yield, and more efficient use of labor will lead to greater sustainability of greenhouse vegetable production systems. Sustainability can also be increased by paying attention to the socio-technical characteristics of the producers, the use of technologies to reduce non-renewable inputs to the greenhouse building, and by reducing the proportion of non-renewable inputs used overall.
Mohammad Reza Asgharipour; Zahra Amiri; Daniel E. Campbell. Evaluation of the sustainability of four greenhouse vegetable production ecosystems based on an analysis of emergy and social characteristics”. Ecological Modelling 2020, 424, 109021 .
AMA StyleMohammad Reza Asgharipour, Zahra Amiri, Daniel E. Campbell. Evaluation of the sustainability of four greenhouse vegetable production ecosystems based on an analysis of emergy and social characteristics”. Ecological Modelling. 2020; 424 ():109021.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMohammad Reza Asgharipour; Zahra Amiri; Daniel E. Campbell. 2020. "Evaluation of the sustainability of four greenhouse vegetable production ecosystems based on an analysis of emergy and social characteristics”." Ecological Modelling 424, no. : 109021.
Estimation of the production function is among the techniques applied to gain knowledge on the production sustainability status of agricultural systems. However, variations in the units of crop measurement and of the inputs to the model function used for estimation are considered as drawbacks, when investigating the stability of ecosystems. The present research is to calculate all inputs and outputs of the econometric model using the emergy technique, which expresses all terms in the model in the same unit, solar emjoules. It is important to bring up free environmental inputs in the production function and consider them as economic inputs affecting sustainability. Align the unit of measurement of all inputs and outputs, estimation of the input production function in uniform and powerful unit of solar emjouls (sej), considering free energy of solar radiation and the amount of soil organic matter and minerals indicates the comprehensiveness of the method compared to conventional production estimation methods. In this study, the sustainabilities of mechanized and traditional rapeseed production systems were compared with parameters derived from the estimation of the production function in Lorestan, Iran. Data were collected through questionnaires and continuous communication with 40 producers of rapeseed by mechanized methods (i.e., the producers using the highest level of mechanization) and 40 traditional rapeseed farmers (i.e., the producers using the lowest level of mechanization) among a total sample of 1489 rapeseed farmers active in 2018. Results showed elasticity values for soil organic matter reduction and erosion input in mechanized systems was −1.58 and for water, workforce, nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers, and chemical pesticide inputs in traditional systems were −1.31, −3.53, −0.36, −2.30 and −1.51, respectively. These negative elasticities suggest that sustainability is threatened due to the excess consumption of these inputs. Application of policies to 1) integrate small land holdings into the total production function for rapeseed, 2) increase the knowledge and skills of the workforce in the agricultural sector, and 3) implement conservation measures to prevent soil organic matter reduction and erosion are practical approaches are suggested to improve the productivity and sustainability of these agricultural systems.
Zahra Amiri; Mohammad Reza Asgharipour; Daniel E. Campbell; Mohammad Aghapoor Sabaghi. Comparison of the sustainability of mechanized and traditional rapeseed production systems using an emergy-based production function: A case study in Lorestan Province, Iran. Journal of Cleaner Production 2020, 258, 120891 .
AMA StyleZahra Amiri, Mohammad Reza Asgharipour, Daniel E. Campbell, Mohammad Aghapoor Sabaghi. Comparison of the sustainability of mechanized and traditional rapeseed production systems using an emergy-based production function: A case study in Lorestan Province, Iran. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2020; 258 ():120891.
Chicago/Turabian StyleZahra Amiri; Mohammad Reza Asgharipour; Daniel E. Campbell; Mohammad Aghapoor Sabaghi. 2020. "Comparison of the sustainability of mechanized and traditional rapeseed production systems using an emergy-based production function: A case study in Lorestan Province, Iran." Journal of Cleaner Production 258, no. : 120891.
An emergy-based index system was proposed to handle the incomparability problem that occurs when quantities of different kinds must be compared in decision-making. Our results indicate that China's energy security improved over the last five decades from resource availability, resource affordability, economic efficiency, and environmental impacts perspectives. After quality adjusting of the energy it consumes, China was not yet the largest energy consumer in the world before 2016, with the emergy of its primary energy consumption increased to 99.68% that of the U.S. in 2015. The emissions of CH4 had the largest environmental impact, followed by SO2 and N2O, while the CO2 emissions is one order of magnitude lower. Speeding up the development and utilization of domestic coal bed methane (CBM) as an energy source will improve the quality and diversity of China's primary energy mix, as well as reduce CH4 emissions. China benefited from its energy imports, which accounted for about 5% of GDP over the past two decades. Increasing the fraction and diversity of coal imports can further improve the benefit ratio of energy imports to China. The emergy indices proposed here are general and can be applied to evaluate the energy security of other national systems.
Hongfang Lu; Fengying Xu; Hongxiao Liu; Jun Wang; Daniel E. Campbell; Hai Ren. Emergy-based analysis of the energy security of China. Energy 2019, 181, 123 -135.
AMA StyleHongfang Lu, Fengying Xu, Hongxiao Liu, Jun Wang, Daniel E. Campbell, Hai Ren. Emergy-based analysis of the energy security of China. Energy. 2019; 181 ():123-135.
Chicago/Turabian StyleHongfang Lu; Fengying Xu; Hongxiao Liu; Jun Wang; Daniel E. Campbell; Hai Ren. 2019. "Emergy-based analysis of the energy security of China." Energy 181, no. : 123-135.
It has been hypothesized that ecosystem health describes the state in which all processes operating within an ecosystem are functioning at a level of optimum efficiency to maximize system empower. In this study, systems analysis of networks and information flows is used within this definition of ecosystem health to assess the condition of the benthic ecosystems in three coastal bays in northern Chile. These highly productive ecosystems are characterized by the inflow of cold, nutrient-rich waters of low oxygen concentration derived from coastal upwelling of deep waters and the interruption of upwelling flow during El Niño events when warmer waters with higher oxygen and lower nutrient concentrations enter these coastal systems. Also, these ecosystems support important artisanal benthic fisheries and are affected by industrial activities in the coastal zone. Energy Systems Theory (EST) and Emergy Analysis (EA) (Emergy is defined as the sum of the available energy (i.e., energy with the potential to do work) of one kind, e.g., solar joules, which is used-up, directly and indirectly, within an ecosystem for the production of goods and services were applied to quantify the health of these benthic ecosystems and evaluate differences in their structure, organization and functional capacities, which are related to their emergy signatures. The marked dominance of these benthic ecosystems by nitrate from upwelling resulted in unbalanced emergy signatures, suggesting less development and system diversity compared to other coastal ecosystems with more balanced emergy signatures. Macro-descriptors and network properties, such as emergy-based ascendency and the quality-adjusted Shannon diversity index (the proportion of total system emergy flow allocated to each component) were highest for Mejillones Bay, followed by Antofagasta and then Tongoy Bay. The Average Mutual Information (AMI) index adjusted for energy quality (the number and diversity of emergy-weighted interactions among the system components) and the emergy-based A/C (ascendency to capacity) ratio (this index has been suggested as a maturity index), were higher for Tongoy Bay, suggesting functional differences in health among the three ecosystems. Thus, the emergy-based macro descriptors and other indicators used in our analysis indicate that the benthic networks examined have different structural and functional characteristics that lead to different characterizations of their states of health. As a result of this complexity, management policies should be implemented within a systemic context for analysis that considers all the factors determining the relative health of each ecosystem.
Fernando Berrios; Daniel Campbell; Marco Ortiz. Emergy-based indicators for evaluating ecosystem health: A case study of three benthic ecosystem networks influenced by coastal upwelling in northern Chile (SE Pacific coast). Ecological Indicators 2018, 95, 379 -393.
AMA StyleFernando Berrios, Daniel Campbell, Marco Ortiz. Emergy-based indicators for evaluating ecosystem health: A case study of three benthic ecosystem networks influenced by coastal upwelling in northern Chile (SE Pacific coast). Ecological Indicators. 2018; 95 ():379-393.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFernando Berrios; Daniel Campbell; Marco Ortiz. 2018. "Emergy-based indicators for evaluating ecosystem health: A case study of three benthic ecosystem networks influenced by coastal upwelling in northern Chile (SE Pacific coast)." Ecological Indicators 95, no. : 379-393.