Tropical forests are the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. While better understanding of these forests is critical for our collective future, until quite recently efforts to measure and monitor them have been largely disconnected. Networking is essential to discover the answers to questions that transcend borders and the horizons of funding agencies. Here we show how a global community is responding to the challenges of tropical ecosystem research with diverse teams measuring forests tree-by-tree in thousands of long-term plots. We review the major scientific discoveries of this work and show how this process is changing tropical forest science.
MULTIFILE
Business innovation is a multidisciplinary area of expertise that bridges the gap between traditional areas of study such as business administration, organizational studies, marketing, design, engineering and entrepreneurship. Business innovation focuses on creating, accelerating and managing new and sustainable business models through innovation (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010; Keeley, Walters, Pikkel, and Quinn, 2013).
Since the early work on defining and analyzing resilience in domains such as engineering, ecology and psychology, the concept has gained significant traction in many fields of research and practice. It has also become a very powerful justification for various policy goals in the water sector, evident in terms like flood resilience, river resilience, and water resilience. At the same time, a substantial body of literature has developed that questions the resilience concept's systems ontology, natural science roots and alleged conservatism, and criticizes resilience thinking for not addressing power issues. In this study, we review these critiques with the aim to develop a framework for power-sensitive resilience analysis. We build on the three faces of power to conceptualize the power to define resilience. We structure our discussion of the relevant literature into five questions that need to be reflected upon when applying the resilience concept to social–hydrological systems. These questions address: (a) resilience of what, (b) resilience at what scale, (c) resilience to what, (d) resilience for what purpose, and (e) resilience for whom; and the implications of the political choices involved in defining these parameters for resilience building or analysis. Explicitly considering these questions enables making political choices explicit in order to support negotiation or contestation on how resilience is defined and used.
MULTIFILE
‘Dieren in de dijk’ aims to address the issue of animal burrows in earthen levees, which compromise the integrity of flood protection systems in low-lying areas. Earthen levees attract animals that dig tunnels and cause damages, yet there is limited scientific knowledge on the extent of the problem and effective approaches to mitigate the risk. Recent experimental research has demonstrated the severe impact of animal burrows on levee safety, raising concerns among levee management authorities. The consortium's ambition is to provide levee managers with validated action perspectives for managing animal burrows, transitioning from a reactive to a proactive risk-based management approach. The objectives of the project include improving failure probability estimation in levee sections with animal burrows and enhancing risk mitigation capacity. This involves understanding animal behavior and failure processes, reviewing existing and testing new deterrence, detection, and monitoring approaches, and offering action perspectives for levee managers. Results will be integrated into an open-access wiki-platform for guidance of professionals and in education of the next generation. The project's methodology involves focus groups to review the state-of-the-art and set the scene for subsequent steps, fact-finding fieldwork to develop and evaluate risk reduction measures, modeling failure processes, and processing diverse quantitative and qualitative data. Progress workshops and collaboration with stakeholders will ensure relevant and supported solutions. By addressing the knowledge gaps and providing practical guidance, the project aims to enable levee managers to effectively manage animal burrows in levees, both during routine maintenance and high-water emergencies. With the increasing frequency of high river discharges and storm surges due to climate change, early detection and repair of animal burrows become even more crucial. The project's outcomes will contribute to a long-term vision of proactive risk-based management for levees, safeguarding the Netherlands and Belgium against flood risks.
Human kind has a major impact on the state of life on Earth, mainly caused by habitat destruction, fragmentation and pollution related to agricultural land use and industrialization. Biodiversity is dominated by insects (~50%). Insects are vital for ecosystems through ecosystem engineering and controlling properties, such as soil formation and nutrient cycling, pollination, and in food webs as prey or controlling predator or parasite. Reducing insect diversity reduces resilience of ecosystems and increases risks of non-performance in soil fertility, pollination and pest suppression. Insects are under threat. Worldwide 41 % of insect species are in decline, 33% species threatened with extinction, and a co-occurring insect biomass loss of 2.5% per year. In Germany, insect biomass in natural areas surrounded by agriculture was reduced by 76% in 27 years. Nature inclusive agriculture and agri-environmental schemes aim to mitigate these kinds of effects. Protection measures need success indicators. Insects are excellent for biodiversity assessments, even with small landscape adaptations. Measuring insect biodiversity however is not easy. We aim to use new automated recognition techniques by machine learning with neural networks, to produce algorithms for fast and insightful insect diversity indexes. Biodiversity can be measured by indicative species (groups). We use three groups: 1) Carabid beetles (are top predators); 2) Moths (relation with host plants); 3) Flying insects (multiple functions in ecosystems, e.g. parasitism). The project wants to design user-friendly farmer/citizen science biodiversity measurements with machine learning, and use these in comparative research in 3 real life cases as proof of concept: 1) effects of agriculture on insects in hedgerows, 2) effects of different commercial crop production systems on insects, 3) effects of flower richness in crops and grassland on insects, all measured with natural reference situations
De huidige dronetechnologie beperkt zich tot het in lucht brengen van sensoren: ‘ogen en neuzen in de lucht’, ofwel tele-detectie. Partijen in de domeinen: energie (Groningen Seaports, Field Lab Zephyros, AmperaPark), landbouw (Drone4Agro, WUR) en veiligheid (Brandweer Twente, DronExperts) zijn nieuwsgierig naar de volgende doorbaak: ‘handen in de lucht’ ofwel tele-interactie. De UT, Saxion en NHL-Stenden onderschrijven deze ambitieuze doelstelling en gaan onderzoeken of het daadwerkelijk mogelijk is en tot welke ongekende mogelijkheden die nieuwe drone-technologie zal leiden. Het onderzoek richt zich zowel op de vraag of het mogelijk is een prototype van een modulaire en autonome luchtmanipulator (drone + robot-arm) te ontwikkelen die fysiek kan interacteren met een realistische buitenomgeving, als op de vraag welke mogelijkheden dat creëert. In essentie fungeert de luchtmanipulator als ‘armen en handen in de lucht’, die kunnen worden gebruikt voor zowel actieve interactie (onderhoud van offshore windmolen) als passieve interactie (selectieve behandeling van planten en brandbestrijding). In dit project wordt de eerste praktisch toepasbare luchtmanipulator ter wereld ontwikkeld. De consortiumpartners denken dat de doelstellingen zeer ambitieus zijn, maar dat deze door de ervaring van de betrokken partners wel haalbaar zijn. De modulaire luchtmanipulator bestaat uit vier fundamentele bouwstenen: - missie-specifieke interactie-module(s), - intelligente oppervlakteverkenning, - adaptieve interactie control algoritme(s), - geavanceerde on-board perceptie en beslissingsmodule(s). Om onderzoek te doen naar deze bouwstenen zal de “design based research” methodologie worden gebruikt, waardoor meerder iteraties leiden tot nieuwe inzichten en kennis. In dit project zijn de vragen en eisen van de stakeholders het uitgangspunt. Met dit project verrijken Saxion en NHL-Stenden hun kennis op het gebied van autonome systemen, modulaire robotica, manipulatie van de lucht en het gebruik ervan in realistische omgevingen. De project resultaten geven Nederland een voorsprong op nieuwe spin-offs voor inspectie-robotica, agro-robotics en veiligheidssystemen. Bovendien versterkt het project de onderwijsprogramma's door middel van state-of-the-art cases en studentenprojecten.
