A review of economic assessments of drought risk reduction approaches in agriculture.

Due to climate change, the frequency and intensity of droughts are expected to increase. To improve resilience to droughts, proactive drought management is essential. Economic assessments are typically included to decide on the drought risk-reducing investments to make. The choice of both methods and scope of economic assessments influences the outcome, and thus the investment choice. This paper aims to identify how comprehensively economic assessments are applied in practice. Through a systematic literature review, 14 actual economic assessments are identified and their methods are evaluated based on seven criteria for economic assessments as derived from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The results show that in practice, economic assessments rarely address all criteria. Applying a limited number of criteria reduces the scope and narrows the approach, possibly leading to the underestimation of drought risk reduction approaches' related benefits. Applying the seven criteria in practice will improve the results of economic assessments of drought risk reduction measures, allowing for optimal investment selection. Based on the different criteria, a Framework for Economic Assessments of Drought Risk-Reducing Applications (FEADRRA) is proposed. Applying the criteria of the framework can support decision-makers in drought risk management and in carrying out the most fitting drought interventions.

Soybean Trade: Balancing Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts of an Intercontinental Market.

The trade in soybean, an important animal feed product, exemplifies the environmental and socio-economic impact of global markets and global agricultural policy. This paper analyses the impact of increasing production of soybean in the exporting countries (deforestation and grassland conversion) as well as in importing regions (decrease in permanent grassland by substitution of grass as feed). Ecosystem services monetary values were used to calculate the environmental and socio-economic impact of observed land use changes. This is balanced against the economic value of the global soybean trade. The results prove that consumption choices in one region have real effects on the supply of ecosystem services at a large spatial scale. Conclusively, solutions to make this global market more sustainable are discussed.

Broad-scale determinants of non-native fish species richness are context-dependent.

Identifying the factors determining the non-native species richness (NNSR) in a given area is essential for preventing species invasions. The relative importance of human-related and natural factors considered for explaining NNSR might depend upon both the spatial scale (i.e. the extent of the gradients sampled) and the historical context of the area surveyed. Here, using a worldwide database of freshwater fish occurrences, we tested whether the relative influence of human and ecological determinants of non-native fish species establishment at the scale of the biogeographic realm was consistent (i) with that observed worldwide, and (ii) among the different biogeographical realms. The prominent role of human activity in shaping the global (i.e. worldwide) pattern of NNSR cannot be directly extrapolated to the biogeographic realms. Furthermore, the relationships between human and ecological determinants and NNSR vary strikingly across biogeographic realms, revealing a strong context dependency of the determinants of NNSR. In particular, the human-related factors play a predominant role in explaining the establishment of non-native species in economically developed realms, while in the other realms environmental characteristics of the river basins best explained geographical patterns of NNSR. In the face of future biological invasions, considering both the spatial scale and the historical context of the surveyed area is crucial to adopt effective conservation strategies.