This report proposes a taxonomy of policy design features for agri-environmental payment schemes, with a focus on those features that are conducive to policy cost-effectiveness. An application of the taxonomy to all agri-environmental payment schemes in six countries (Argentina, Australia, Estonia, Finland, Korea, and Portugal) reveals that more than 70% …
After smart phones and smart cars, here come smart cities. They will generate their own power and not pollute at all. They will use automation intelligently and intensely. Hari Pulakkat reports how smart technologies are drawing the city of tomorrow and redrawing the cities of today An operating system is …
ON A pleasant morning when fifty-four-year-old Australian marine diver David Hannan was gearing to plunge into the deep sea, a bunch of American scientists were ready to set sail for the Arctic Ocean. In another corner of the world at Dona Paula in Goa oceanographers were contemplating plans to measure …
FUNCHAL, Madeira Islands (Portugal): Emergency crews in Madeira continued their search on Monday for at least four people still missing after mud and rockslides killed 42 people on the Portuguese island. More than 400 vehicles, including bulldozers and trucks, worked all night on Sunday in an effort to clear debris, …
It's a hot summer weekend and the parking lots around Lagos marina are filling quickly with the BMWs, Range Rovers and Porsche SUVs of the Portuguese yachting set. The scene is repeated across the sun-splashed Algarve coast, but a new government plan could make the gas-guzzling race to the south …
Urban metabolism studies have been established for only a few cities worldwide, and difficulties obtaining adequate statistical data are universal. Constraints and peculiarities call for innovative methods to quantify the materials entering and leaving city boundaries. Such methods include the extrapolation of data at the country or the region level …
- European Union ministers called on Thursday for urgent action to tighten hunting controls on sharks, which are seriously threatened by chronic overfishing and one of the world's most vulnerable predators. Only two out of dozens of shark species in EU waters have annual catch quotas, instituted about a year …
In the current financial crisis, risk-weary investors worry more about keeping their own boats afloat than in pumping money into a sector noted for high upfront costs, long pay back periods and low rates of return. Add to that an inefficient use of resources, weak regulation and lack of up-to-date …
Pop culture has always influenced language, today it is the Internet IN THE 1950s, purists frowned when American cartoonist Charles Schulz introduced the antithetical phrase
marine sciences Rare corals aplenty According to researchers from James Cook University rare coral species might not be at high risks of extinction due to small population sizes.Their tendency to hybridize saves them. The previous prediction was that small population sizes led to decreased genetic diversity, which in turn decreased …
Here the authors report the first worldwide reconnaissance study of the presence and occurrence of pesticides in fruit-based soft drinks. While there are strict regulations and exhaustive controls for pesticides in fruits, vegetables, and drinking water, scarce attention has been paid to highly consumed derivate products, which may contain these …
Renault sees demand for as many as 50,000 electric vehicles in 2011, the year the carmaker will begin selling such zero emission cars in Denmark, Israel and Portugal, engineering and quality head Jean-Louis Ricaud said on Thursday in an interview with Reuters. Ricaud confirmed the electric car will be based …
Portugal is struggling to contain a new outbreak of nematodes, microscopic worm-like organisms that are killing wild pine trees and threaten to spread abroad despite drastic measures to stop their advance. The government cut a 430 km (265 mile) corridor through Portugal's southern forests last year to contain the Pine …
Outside the white-walled town of Moura in the rolling plans of southern Portugal, more than 240,000 solar panels covering an area equivalent to 150 football pitches are slowly being manoeuvred into position in what will be the world's biggest photovoltaic power plant. A few kilometres away, at Alqueva, the Guadiana …
A string of three red steel tubes, each the size of a railway carriage, lies low in the water off the northern coast of Portugal. As the snub-nosed apparatus rises and dips in the Atlantic waves, it becomes immediately clear why this pioneering energy technology is called Pelamis after a …
Mozambique formally took over the Cahora Bassa dam from its former ruler, Portugal, on November 27. Mozambique had to pay Portugal us $700 million for control of the dam, which is the second largest hydroelectric project in Africa. The dam supplies power not only to Mozambique but exports power to …
The heat wave in Portugal and Spain continues to bring more forest fires. The fires have killed at least 15 people in Portugal and burnt at least 180,000 hectares land. Five per cent of the country's forest cover has been lost. It is believed that while lightning and other environmental …
An analytical method for the determination of OTC and TC residues in honey was developed. Sample treatment involves an extraction in EDTA-McIlvaine buffer, followed by a solid-phase cleanup step. With regard to the cleanup procedure, different SPE cartridges were evaluated and the results presented. The method was validated according to …
