| 1. |
- Hong, Bongghi, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluating regional variation of net anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus inputs (NANI/NAPI), major drivers, nutrient retention pattern and management implications in the multinational areas of Baltic Sea basin
- 2012
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Ingår i: Ecological Modelling. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3800 .- 1872-7026. ; 227, s. 117-135
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The NANI/NAPI (net anthropogenic nitrogen/phosphorus input) Calculator Toolbox described in this paper is designed to address the consequences to Baltic Sea nutrient loads of the significant variation in agronomic practices and dietary preferences among European countries whose watersheds comprise the Baltic Sea basin. A primary objective of this work is to develop regional parameters and datasets for this budgeting tool. A previous version of the toolbox was applied to the entire contiguous United States to calculate NANI and its components (atmospheric N deposition, fertilizer N application, agricultural N fixation and N in net food and feed imports). Here, it is modified for application to the Baltic Sea catchments, where coastal watersheds from several countries are draining to international waters. A similar accounting approach is taken for calculating NAPI, which includes fertilizer P application, P in net food and feed imports and non-food use of P by human. Regional variation of NANI/NAPI parameters (agricultural fixation rates, human intake rates and livestock intake and excretion rates) are estimated, and their impact on the regional nutrient budget and the riverine nutrient flux is evaluated. There is a distinct north-to-south gradient in NANI and NAPI across the Baltic Sea catchments, and regional nutrient inputs are strongly related to riverine nutrient fluxes. Analysis of regional nutrient retention pattern indicates that, for some countries, compliance to the Baltic Sea Action Plan would imply enormous changes in the agricultural sector.
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| 2. |
- Hong, Bongghi, et al.
(författare)
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NANI/NAPI Calculator Toolbox Version 2.0 Documentation : Net Anthropogenic Nutrient Inputs in Baltic Sea Catchments
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main objective of this work was to develop regional settings of the NANI budgeting tool that will address the significant variation in agricultural practices and resulting nutrient accountings among European countries. NANI (Net Anthropogenic Nitrogen Inputs), first introduced by Howarth et al. (1996), estimate the human‐induced nitrogen inputs to a watershed and have been shown to be a good predictor of riverine nitrogen export at a large scale, multi‐year average basis. NANI have been calculated as the sum of four major components: atmospheric N deposition, fertilizer N application, agricultural N fixation, and net food and feed imports, which in turn are composed of crop and animal N production (negative fluxes removing N from watersheds) and animal and human N consumption (positive fluxes adding N to watersheds). Assuming approximate steady-state behavior, riverine N export is a fixed proportion of net nitrogen inputs.Similar calculations can be made for phosphorus (P) inputs, though because atmospheric deposition of P is usually considered negligible and there is no analog in P for atmospheric fixation, the calculation of Net Anthropogenic Phosphorus Inputs (NAPI) reduces to accounting for P fertilizer and P in net food/feed terms. While this document is primarily concerned with calculating NANI, we also describe the data sources and assumptions used to make the parallel calculations of NAPI.Version 2.0 of the Toolbox described in this document is an improvement of version 1.0 developed for US watersheds (http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/biogeo/nanc/nani/nani.htm; Hong et al. 2011). Version 1.0 allows the user to calculate NANI in any area within the contiguous United States (e.g., watershed, county, etc.) from nationally available databases downloadable from the Internet. The toolbox consists of a set of tools that:(1) calculate the proportions of various regions (political or gridded) in which data are collected that fall into areas of interest such as watersheds (“NANI‐GIS tools”),(2) extract and organize relevant data downloaded from web‐based datasets to be used by the accounting tools (“NANI‐extraction tools”), and(3) calculate NANI, their components, and other relevant items such as animal excretion (“NANI-.‐accounting tools”).While attempting to apply version 1.0 of the toolbox to Baltic Sea catchments, we found that the calculation of NANI in Baltic Sea catchments is more challenging than in US watersheds, mainly for two reasons:• Watersheds span international boundaries. Significant variation in agricultural practices and resulting nutrient accountings among European countries exist. For example, a substantial gradient in agricultural practices is expected among the former EU countries, new EU member states with transitional economies, and Belarus and Russia.• Gaps and uncertainties in the available data are much greater than those in the US. In general, the problem of missing information is more severe for the transitional countries, Belarus, and Russia, requiring numerous assumptions and guesswork to be made to deal with the insufficient data issue.Version 2.0 of the Toolbox describe in this document has several modules and improvements added to version 1.0 (which assumes spatially uniform agricultural practices, i.e., fixed values for all the NANI parameters, supported by the availability of well‐established and standardized datasets) to address the above difficulties. These improvements include:• Allowing spatial variation of NANI parameters (in this example, country‐specific NANI parameters) (Sections 4, 5.1, and 5.2)• Distribution of regional data (e.g., country-level crop production) into smaller spatial units (e.g., grid cells containing crop area information) (Section 5.3)• Making post‐calculation adjustments and refinements by accepting auxiliary datasets and manual calculations from the user (Section 3) In the following sections we describe the calculation of NANI and their components in the Baltic Sea catchments, with details of data availability, input preparation, and step-by‐step procedure of the use of various tools, and provide some preliminary results. In addition, Appendix 1 described parameter values used to create NAPI estimates following an accounting methodology in parallel to that for NANI.
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| 3. |
- Lundberg, Ulf, et al.
(författare)
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Arbetsmiljöns betydelse för ryggproblem : En systematisk litteraturöversikt
- 2014
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment (SBU) conducted a systematic literature review of research on the association between occupational exposures and back disorders. In this review, we use back disorders as an umbrella term to include the more specific terms back trouble (a subjective experience of pain, ache or discomfort in the back), symptoms of sciatica, intervertebral disc changes and diseases of the back. The report is focused on disorders of the thoracic and lumbar spine. A wide range of occupational exposures were investigated, including: physical work load, vibration, organizational and psychosocial factors, chemical and biological factors, noise, environmental factors and contagious substances.Background: Since 2011 SBU has had a mandate from the Swedish government to systematically assess the evidence associating occupational exposures to health issues. The objective of this review was to assess the scientific basis describing the influence of occupational exposures on back disorders. Back disorders are common. Between 60 and 70 percent of the general population world-wide suffer from back pain at least once in their life. For affected individuals, back disorders are the source of both suffering and decreased functioning. The costs to society are also considerable in terms of direct health care costs, financial support to individuals with work disability, as well as costs due to loss of production.Method: A systematic review was undertaken following the PRISMA statement and standard methods used by SBU adapted to an occupational context. A literature search covering years 1980 to January 2014 was conducted in international medical and occupational data bases. The review assessed almost 8 000 abstracts. Studies that fulfilled strict inclusion criteria were assessed for relevance and quality, using pre-set protocols. Relevance and quality assessments were conducted by two experts, working in an evaluation pair. After conducting independent assessments, the two experts had to agree on a mutual relevance and quality classification. Some articles required that all exporters participated in discussion and made a collective assessment. A total of 109 studies were classified as moderate or high quality, representing more than 150 000 study participants. The strength of the scientific evidence was assessed with the GRADE system.Results: There is an association between occupational exposure and back disorders. This result is based on investigations of a large variety of work environments, mainly in Europe and North America. In most studies passing the quality criteria, researchers investigated occupational exposure and back disorders in populations consisting of both women and men with at least one year of follow up.Conclusions: People in the following groups develop more back trouble over time than those who are not subjected to the specified exposure at work:– Those who work with manual handling (e.g. lift) or in a posture where the back is bent or rotated– Those who work in a kneeling or squatting posture, or have physically demanding work tasks– Those exposed to whole body vibration– Those who experience work as mentally stressful; or those who find their work demanding, but lack decision latitude (personal control of their own working situation); or those who have insufficient opportunities for personal development– Those who work outside standard office hours.In some work environments, people have less back trouble. Those who experience high influence over work-related decisions, those who get social support at work and those with high job satisfaction develop less back trouble than others.Women and men with similar occupational exposures develop back troubles to the same extent.Those who work in forward bent postures or are exposed to whole body vibration in their work develop more symptoms of sciatica than others, while those with high job satisfaction develop less such symptoms. Those whose work entails manual handling develop more intervertebral disc changes than others.This systematic literature review has uncovered a substantial body of knowledge concerning occupational exposures and back disorders. Future research should include intervention studies, i.e. studies that scientifically test the effect of well defined interventions on back disorders over extended periods of time in authentic work situations.Project groupExperts: Karin Harms-Ringdahl (Chair), Sven Ove Hanson (Ethics), Olle Hägg, Ulf Lundberg, Svend Erik Mathiasen, Gunnevi Sundelin, Magnus Svartengren, and Hans Tropp.SBU: Charlotte Hall (Project Director), Karin Stenström (Assistant Project Director), Agneta Brolund (Information Specialist), Therese Kedebring (Project Administrator), Laura Lintamo (Investigator), Maria Skogholm (Project Administrator), Lena Wallgren (Scientific Writer)Scientific reviewers: Eva Denison, Mats Hagberg, Gunnar Nemeth, Esa-Pekka Takala.
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| 4. |
- Omstedt, Anders, 1949, et al.
(författare)
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Future changes in the Baltic Sea acid-base (pH) and oxygen balances
- 2012
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Ingår i: Tellus. Series B, Chemical and physical meteorology. - : Stockholm University Press. - 0280-6509 .- 1600-0889. ; 64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Possible future changes in Baltic Sea acid–base (pH) and oxygen balances were studied using a catchment–sea coupled model system and numerical experiments based on meteorological and hydrological forcing datasets and scenarios. By using objective statistical methods, climate runs for present climate conditions were examined and evaluated using Baltic Sea modelling. The results indicate that increased nutrient loads will not inhibit future Baltic Sea acidification; instead, the seasonal pH cycle will be amplified by increased biological production and mineralization. All examined scenarios indicate future acidification of the whole Baltic Sea that is insensitive to the chosen global climate model. The main factor controlling the direction and magnitude of future pH changes is atmospheric CO2 concentration (i.e. emissions). Climate change and land-derived changes (e.g. nutrient loads) affect acidification mainly by altering the seasonal cycle and deep-water conditions. Apart from decreasing pH, we also project a decreased saturation state of calcium carbonate, decreased respiration index, and increasing hypoxic area – all factors that will threaten the marine ecosystem. We demonstrate that substantial reductions in fossil-fuel burning are needed to minimize the coming pH decrease and substantial reductions in nutrient loads are needed to reduce the coming increase in hypoxic and anoxic waters.
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| 5. |
- Stalnacke, P., et al.
(författare)
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Nitrogen surface water retention in the Baltic Sea drainage basin
- 2015
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Ingår i: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1027-5606 .- 1607-7938. ; 19:2, s. 981-996
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we estimate the surface water retention of nitrogen (N) in all the 117 drainage basins to the Baltic Sea with the use of a statistical model (MESAW) for source apportionment of riverine loads of pollutants. Our results show that the MESAW model was able to estimate the N load at the river mouth of 88 Baltic Sea rivers, for which we had observed data, with a sufficient degree of precision and accuracy. The estimated retention parameters were also statistically significant. Our results show that around 380 000 t of N are annually retained in surface waters draining to the Baltic Sea. The total annual riverine load from the 117 basins to the Baltic Sea was estimated at 570 000 t of N, giving a total surface water N retention of around 40 %. In terms of absolute retention values, three major river basins account for 50% of the total retention in the 117 basins; i.e. around 104 000 t of N are retained in Neva, 55 000 t in Vistula and 32 000 t in Oder. The largest retention was found in river basins with a high percentage of lakes as indicated by a strong relationship between N retention (%) and share of lake area in the river drainage areas. For example in Gota alv, we estimated a total N retention of 72 %, whereof 67% of the retention occurred in the lakes of that drainage area (Lake Vanern primarily). The obtained results will hopefully enable the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) to refine the nutrient load targets in the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP), as well as to better identify cost-efficient measures to reduce nutrient loadings to the Baltic Sea.
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