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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Nitrous oxide emissions from winter oilseed rape cultivation
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2017) Ruser, Reiner; Fuß, Roland; Andres, Monique; Hegewald, Hannes; Kesenheimer, Katharina; Köbke, Sarah; Räbiger, Thomas; Quinones, Teresa Suarez; Augustin, Jürgen; Christen, Olaf; Dittert, Klaus; Kage, Henning; Lewandowski, Iris; Prochnow, Annette; Stichnothe, Heinz; Flessa, Heinz
    Winter oilseed rape (Brassica napus L., WOSR) is the major oil crop cultivated in Europe. Rapeseed oil is predominantly used for production of biodiesel. The framework of the European Renewable Energy Directive requires that use of biofuels achieves GHG savings of at least 50% compared to use of fossil fuel starting in 2018. However, N2O field emissions are estimated using emission factors that are not specific for the crop and associated with strong uncertainty. N2O field emissions are controlled by N fertilization and dominate the GHG balance of WOSR cropping due to the high global warming potential of N2O. Thus, field experiments were conducted to increase the data basis and subsequently derive a new WOSR-specific emission factor. N2O emissions and crop yields were monitored for three years over a range of N fertilization intensities at five study sites representative of German WOSR production. N2O fluxes exhibited the typical high spatial and temporal variability in dependence on soil texture, weather and nitrogen availability. The annual N2O emissions ranged between 0.24 kg and 5.48 kg N2O-N ha−1 a−1. N fertilization increased N2O emissions, particularly with the highest N treatment (240 kg N ha−1). Oil yield increased up to a fertilizer amount of 120 kg N ha−1, higher N-doses increased grain yield but decreased oil concentrations in the seeds. Consequently oil yield remained constant at higher N fertilization. Since, yield-related emission also increased exponentially with N surpluses, there is potential for reduction of the N fertilizer rate, which offers perspectives for the mitigation of GHG emissions. Our measurements double the published data basis of annual N2O flux measurements in WOSR. Based on this extended dataset we modeled the relationship between N2O emissions and fertilizer N input using an exponential model. The corresponding new N2O emission factor was 0.6% of applied fertilizer N for a common N fertilizer amount under best management practice in WOSR production (200 kg N ha−1 a−1). This factor is substantially lower than the linear IPCC Tier 1 factor (EF1) of 1.0% and other models that have been proposed. © 2017
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    A network of networks perspective on global trade
    (San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2015) Maluck, J.; Donner, R.V.
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    The invariant distribution of wealth and employment status in a small open economy with precautionary savings
    (Amsterdam : North-Holland, 2019) Bayer, Christian; Rendall, Alan D.; Wälde, Klaus
    We study optimal savings in continuous time with exogenous transitions between employment and unemployment as the only source of uncertainty in a small open economy. We prove the existence of an optimal consumption path. We exploit that the dynamics of consumption and wealth between jumps can be expressed as a Fuchsian system. We derive conditions under which an invariant joint distribution for the state variables, i.e., wealth and labour market status, exists and is unique. We also provide conditions under which the distribution of these variables converges to the invariant distribution. Our analysis relies on the notion of T-processes and applies results on the stability of Markovian processes from Meyn and Tweedie (1993a, b,c). © 2019 The Author(s)
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    Comparison of ammonia emissions related to nitrogen use efficiency of livestock production in Europe
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier Science, 2019) Groenestein, C.M.; Hutchings, N.J.; Haenel, H.D.; Amon, B.; Menzi, H.; Mikkelsen, M.H.; Misselbrook, T.H.; van Bruggen, C.; Kupper, T.; Webb, J.
    The increasing global demand for food and the environmental effects of reactive nitrogen losses in the food production chain, increase the need for efficient use of nitrogen (N). Of N harvested in agricultural plant products, 80% is used to feed livestock. Because the largest atmospheric loss of reactive nitrogen from livestock production systems is ammonia (NH3), the focus of this paper is on N lost as NH3 during the production of animal protein. The focus of this paper is to understand the key factors explaining differences in Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) of animal production among various European countries. Therefore we developed a conceptual framework to describe the NUE defined as the amount of animal-protein N per N in feed and NH3–N losses in the production of milk, beef, pork, chicken meat and eggs in The Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and Denmark. The framework describes how manure management and animal-related parameters (feed, metabolism) relate to NH3 emissions and NUE. The results showed that the animal product with the lowest NUE had the largest NH3 emissions and vice versa, which agrees with the reciprocal relationship between NUE and NH3 within the conceptual framework. Across animal products for the countries considered, about 20% of the N in feed is lost as NH3. The significant smallest proportion (12%) of NH3–N per unit of Nfeed is from chicken production. The proportions for other products are 17%, 19%, 20% and 22% for milk, pork, eggs and beef respectively. These differences were not significantly different due to the differences among countries. For all countries, NUE was lowest for beef and highest for chicken. The production of 1 kg N in beef required about 5 kg N in feed, of which 1 kg N was lost as NH3–N. For the production of 1 kg N in chicken meat, 2 kg N in feed was required and 0.2 kg was lost as NH3. The production of 1 kg N in milk required 4 kg N in feed with 0.6 kg NH3–N loss, the same as pork and eggs, but those needed 3 and 3.5 kg N in feed per kg N in product respectively. Except for beef, the differences among these European countries were mainly caused by differences in manure management practices and their emission factors, rather than by animal-related factors including feed and digestibility influencing the excreted amount of ammoniacal N (TAN). For beef, both aspects caused important differences. Based on the results, we encourage the expression of N losses as per N in feed or per N in product, in addition to per animal place, when comparing production efficiency and NUE. We consider that disaggregating emission factors into a diet/animal effect and a manure management effect would improve the basis for comparing national NH3 emission inventories. © 2018 The Authors
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    Assessing the economic profitability of fodder legume production for Green Biorefineries – A cost-benefit analysis to evaluate farmers profitability
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier Science, 2016) Papendiek, Franka; Tartiu, Valentina E.; Morone, Piergiuseppe; Venus, Joachim; Hönig, Anne
    Fodder legumes play a major role in developing sustainable agricultural production systems and contain a range of compounds, which can be utilized to produce a wide spectrum of materials currently manufactured from petroleum-based sources. Hence, if associated with Green Biorefinery technology, the use of fodder legumes brings about significant advantages in terms of overall environmental sustainability. Since fodder legume production in Europe is currently very low, the objective of this study is to assess if a new value chain generated by Green Biorefineries can make fodder legume production profitable for farmers, and therewith increase cultivation numbers. We conducted a financial cost-benefit analysis of producing biomass from agricultural land in the federal state of Brandenburg (Germany) in three different production scenarios at two farm size levels. Costs, benefits, expected profits and risks between the scenarios were quantified. Fodder legume production for traditional fodder production was already able to increase the internal rate of return, while the production of feedstocks for Green Biorefineries, depending on prices paid for the legume juice showed an even higher profit potential. Therefore, in future agricultural production systems, fodder legumes should be part of crop rotations again.
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    Opportunities and constraints of adopting market governance in protected areas in Central and Eastern Europe
    (Utrecht : Igitur, Utrecht Publishing and Archiving Services, 2013) Otto, I.M.; Chobotová, V.
    This article analyses the transition from the traditional hierarchical governance of natural resources in Central and Eastern Europe towards the new forms of market governance of protected areas, including the introduction of fees and compensation. Our conceptual framework suggests that markets can be effective in governing transactions that involve low asset specificity and low frequency of disturbances. However, the introduction of markets should be accompanied by appropriate rules of market organization that particularly regulate their monitoring and impose sanctions in cases of mismanagement. The analysis of market governance in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia reveals that in the face of decreasing funding for biodiversity protection and state budgetary problems, markets are more a necessity than a means to improve resource management. Although markets should complement rather than substitute traditional forms of governance, for certain types of transactions, markets are useful. They can be effectively implemented, provided that property rights are recognized and legal settings that regulate the monitoring and enforcement of market rules are set up.
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    A regularity structure for rough volatility
    (Oxford [u.a.] : Wiley-Blackwell, 2019) Bayer, Christian; Friz, Peter K.; Gassiat, Paul; Martin, Jorg; Stemper, Benjamin
    A new paradigm has emerged recently in financial modeling: rough (stochastic) volatility. First observed by Gatheral et al. in high-frequency data, subsequently derived within market microstructure models, rough volatility captures parsimoniously key-stylized facts of the entire implied volatility surface, including extreme skews (as observed earlier by Alòs et al.) that were thought to be outside the scope of stochastic volatility models. On the mathematical side, Markovianity and, partially, semimartingality are lost. In this paper, we show that Hairer's regularity structures, a major extension of rough path theory, which caused a revolution in the field of stochastic partial differential equations, also provide a new and powerful tool to analyze rough volatility models.
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    Option pricing in the moderate deviations regime
    (Oxford [u.a.] : Wiley-Blackwell, 2017) Friz, Peter; Gerhold, Stefan; Pinter, Arpad
    We consider call option prices close to expiry in diffusion models, in an asymptotic regime (“moderately out of the money”) that interpolates between the well-studied cases of at-the-money and out-of-the-money regimes. First and higher order small-time moderate deviation estimates of call prices and implied volatilities are obtained. The expansions involve only simple expressions of the model parameters, and we show how to calculate them for generic local and stochastic volatility models. Some numerical computations for the Heston model illustrate the accuracy of our results.
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    Short-time near-the-money skew in rough fractional volatility models
    (London : Taylor & Francis, 2018) Bayer, C.; Friz, P.K.; Gulisashvili, A.; Horvath, B.; Stemper, B.
    We consider rough stochastic volatility models where the driving noise of volatility has fractional scaling, in the ‘rough’ regime of Hurst parameter H<1/2. This regime recently attracted a lot of attention both from the statistical and option pricing point of view. With focus on the latter, we sharpen the large deviation results of Forde-Zhang [Asymptotics for rough stochastic volatility models. SIAM J. Financ. Math., 2017, 8(1), 114–145] in a way that allows us to zoom-in around the money while maintaining full analytical tractability. More precisely, this amounts to proving higher order moderate deviation estimates, only recently introduced in the option pricing context. This in turn allows us to push the applicability range of known at-the-money skew approximation formulae from CLT type log-moneyness deviations of order t1/2 (works of Alòs, León & Vives and Fukasawa) to the wider moderate deviations regime.