Analysis of recent land management initiatives in Nicaragua from the perspective of the "ecosystem approach".

In the world there are approximately 608 million farms, of which 84% are small farms and produce 35% of the food of the world population. Training programs have been promoted by different organizations to achieve a more sustainable and efficient agricultural practice. Within this context, this article has classified a set of smallholders located in central Nicaragua with regard to how they apply Land Use Management Initiatives (LUMI).

Set of indices to assess dune development and dune restoration potential in beach-dune systems on Mediterranean developed coasts.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute with a tool to guide decision makers with some level of understanding of coastal dynamics as to the most appropriate management measures to adopt. A set of indices for assessing beach-dune systems and their potential for dune restoration are presented. The systems analysed are described using variables related to physical and anthropic factors, and the sites are classified according to the intervention actions required.

Assessing the Spatial Distribution of Biodiversity in a Changing Temperature Pattern: The Case of Catalonia, Spain.

The impacts that climate change and land-use dynamics have on biodiversity are already visible in the distribution and behaviour of a large number of species. By using a Bayesian framework, including land-use, meteorological, topography and other variables as explanatory variables, such as distance to roads and urban centres, we modeled a number of species within each cell of a regular lattice for Catalonia, Spain, in the period of 2004 to 2010. We estimated a slight increase in daily maximum temperature and a more significant increase in minimum temperature (a 5-year increase of 0.

[Risk management of soybean-related asthma: monitoring and surveillance].

Objectives: Allergen emissions during soybean unloading operations in the Barcelona harbor have caused asthma epidemics. The present article aimed to describe the surveillance and control measures carried out by the public health services.

Methods: Data were extracted from control systems from 1999 to 2009, with description of the surveillance schemes for allergen emissions, environmental concentrations (with defined reference levels) and for health.

Proposal for an integral quality index for urban and urbanized beaches.

A composite index, based on function analysis and including thirteen sub-indices, was developed to assess the overall quality of urban and urbanized beaches in the Mediterranean area. The aggregation of components and sub-indices was based on two questionnaires completed by beach users and experts. Applying the new Beach Quality Index (BQI) demonstrated that the quality of beaches could be improved.