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Using five long-running ground-based atmospheric observatories in Europe, we demonstrate the utility of long-term, stationary, ground-based measurements of atmospheric total columns for verifying annual methane emission inventories. Our results indicate that the methane emissions for the region in Europe between Orléans, Bremen, Białystok, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen are overestimated by the state-of-the-art inventories of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) v4.2 FT2010 and the high-resolution emissions database developed by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) as part of the Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate project (TNO-MACC_III), possibly due to the disaggregation of emissions onto a spatial grid. Uncertainties in the carbon monoxide inventories used to compute the methaneemissionscontributetothediscrepancybetweenour inferred emissions and those from the inventories.

Over the last 20 years, Uganda has emerged as a testing ground for the various modes of carbon forestry used in Africa. Carbon forestry initiatives in Uganda raise questions of justice, given that people with comparatively negligible carbon footprints are affected by land use changes initiated by the desire of wealthy people, firms, and countries to reduce their more extensive carbon footprints. This paper examines the notions of justice local people express in relation to two contrasting carbon forestry projects in Uganda, the Mount Elgon Uganda Wildlife Authority – Forests Absorbing Carbon Emissions (UWA-FACE) project and Trees for Global Benefit (TFGB). UWA-FACE closed down its initial operations at Mount Elgon after 10 years as a result of deep controversies and negative international publicity, whereas TFGB is regarded by many as an exemplary design for smallholder carbon forestry in Africa. Our approach builds upon an emerging strand in the literature, of empirical analyses of local people’s notions of justice related to environmental interventions. The main contribution of the paper is to examine how people’s notions of justice have influenced divergent project outcomes in these cases. In particular, we highlight the relative success of TFGB in the way it meets people’s primarily distributional concerns, apparently without significantly challenging prevalent expectations of recognition or procedural justice. In contrast, we illuminate how controversy across the range of justice dimensions in UWA-FACE at Mount Elgon ultimately led to the project’s decline. This paper therefore explores how attention to notions of justice can contribute to a fuller understanding of the reactions of people to carbon forestry projects, as well as the pathways and ultimate outcomes of such interventions.

Land-use intensification in agrarian landscapes is seen as a key strategy to simultaneously feed humanity and use ecosystems sustainably, but the conditions that support positive social-ecological outcomes remain poorly documented. We address this knowledge gap by synthesizing research that analyses how agricultural intensification affects both ecosystem services and human well-being in low- and middle-income countries. Overall, we find that agricultural intensification is rarely found to lead to simultaneous positive ecosystem service and well-being outcomes. This is particularly the case when ecosystem services other than food provisioning are taken into consideration. © 2018 The Publisher. This paper has been developed as part of the project ‘Landscapes in transition: synthesising knowledge on trade-offs between land use changes, ecosystem services and wellbeing’ (grant no. NE/P008356/1), funded with support from the ESPA programme. The ESPA programme (http://www.espa.ac.uk) is funded by the DFID, the ESRC and NERC. The research contributes to the Global Land Programme (https://glp.earth). E.C. acknowledges the financial support of the UAB-Banco de Santander Talent Retention Programme and notes that this work contributes to ICTA-UAB ‘Unit of Excellence’ (MinECo, MDM2015-0552). We thank T. Dale for assistance during the coding process.

Brain areas exhibiting impaired cerebrovascular reserve are believed to be at higher risk of ischemic tissue injury under circumstances in which cerebral blood flow is insufficient to meet metabolic demand. Other than for acute ischemia, which results in apparent (irreversible) loss of brain tissue and function, the consequences of chronic intermittent hemodynamic failure are not well understood. In these instances, perfusion of brain tissue may be just sufficient to prevent gross ischemia but may fail to respond adequately to increases in demand such as those normally seen during neuronal activation. To date, there are no studies published on the anatomical and clinical consequences of non-ischemic chronic intermittent hypoperfusion in humans. However, experimental animal models simulating a state of non-ischemic chronic hypoperfusion show a decline in neuronal structure and viability. To investigate whether chronic hypoperfusion is present, the integrity of the cerebrovascular flow response system can be assessed by measures of cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), a measure of the change in cerebral blood flow in response to a vasodilatory stimulus. Reductions in CVR can range from a blunted increase in blood flow in response to a stimulus in mild cases, to “paradoxical” reduction in regional blood flow indicating steal physiology, in severe cases. Existing imaging methods for spatially measuring cerebrovascular reserve, such as 133Xe-CT and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), have drawbacks, including cost and limited clinical availability. In this thesis, I extensively use a non-invasive quantitative MR-based method to infer the anatomical and clinical consequences of impaired cerebrovascular reserve. This method employs functional acquisitions of blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) MR contrast with standardized iso-oxic changes in end-tidal PCO2 as the vasoactive stimulus. Specifically, I will investigate the adverse effects of chronically compromised blood flow control on the health of brain tissue to associate this with the onset of clinical symptoms in patients with severe chronic steno-occlusive cerebrovascular disease and brain arteriovenous malformations. Where MRI-CVR measurements require precise changes in end-tidal pCO2, I will also study the translation of the standardized PCO2 stimuli for patients that require mechanical ventilation (i.e. positive inspiratory pressure), using an animal model. This method may open up future research avenues for critically ill patients who may benefit from MRI-CVR studies, such as patients who suffer from traumatic brain injuries or a subarachnoid hemorrhage due to aneurysmal rupture