Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 24, 2026
10:49
Estimating Virus Production Rates in Aquatic Systems
Published on: September 22, 2010
13.1K
Land and Water Usage in Beef Production Systems
1St Catharine's College and Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ES, UK. dmb16@cam.ac.uk.
Animals : an Open Access Journal From MDPI
|May 31, 2019
Summary
Beef production systems vary significantly in land and water use. Sustainable systems utilizing byproducts are crucial for global resource management, even as overall meat consumption is advised to decrease.
Area of Science:
- Agricultural Science
- Environmental Science
- Animal Science
Background:
- Beef production is a major global industry with significant environmental implications.
- Varying production systems lead to different resource utilization patterns.
- Understanding these differences is key to sustainable agriculture.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare land and conserved water use across four distinct beef production systems.
- To quantify the resource efficiency of different beef farming methods.
- To inform environmental impact assessments of beef production.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of published data on land and conserved water consumption.
- Comparative assessment of feedlot, fertilized irrigated pasture, extensive unmodified pasture, and semi-intensive silvopastoral systems.
- Quantification of resource use ratios between systems.
Main Results:
- Extensive unmodified pasture systems used 13 times more land than semi-intensive silvopastoral systems.
- Feedlot systems consumed 8 times more conserved water than semi-intensive silvopastoral systems.
- Water use varied significantly, with feedlots showing higher consumption even without irrigation.
Conclusions:
- Beef production systems have a substantial impact on land and water resources.
- Semi-intensive silvopastoral systems demonstrate high resource efficiency.
- Sustainable systems, particularly those using non-human-edible feed, are vital for future resource use, alongside a potential reduction in overall meat consumption.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
02:22The Colonization of Land
37.5K
Changes in the environment of the early Earth drove the evolution of organisms. As prokaryotic organisms in the oceans began to photosynthesize, they produced oxygen. Eventually, oxygen saturated the oceans and entered the air, resulting in an increase in atmospheric oxygen concentration, known as the oxygen revolution approximately 2.3 billion years ago. Therefore, organisms that could use oxygen for cellular respiration had an advantage. More than 1.5 years ago, eukaryotic cells and...
37.5K
01:16Solubility Equilibria: Ionic Product of Water
1.5K
Pure water is a weak electrolyte; only a small amount ionizes into hydrogen and hydroxide ions. At any given temperature, the concentration of undissociated water is almost constant, so the ionic product of water is the product of the hydrogen and hydroxide ion concentrations, denoted as Kw. The square root of Kw gives the individual ion concentrations.
The ionic product of water varies with temperature, and its value is 1.0 x 10−14 at standard experimental conditions. Per Le...
The ionic product of water varies with temperature, and its value is 1.0 x 10−14 at standard experimental conditions. Per Le...
1.5K
02:24Comparative Excretory Systems
26.6K
Animals have evolved different strategies for excretion, the removal of waste from the body. Most waste must be dissolved in water to be excreted, so an animal’s excretory strategy directly affects its water balance.
26.6K
01:23States of Water
56.5K
Water exists in any one of the three classical states: solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (steam or water vapor). The state of water depends on i) the intermolecular forces that draw molecules together and ii) the kinetic energy that leads to movements that pull them apart.
Water freezes when the intermolecular forces are greater than the kinetic energy. Unlike most other substances, water is less dense in its solid state than in its liquid state. This is because each water molecule can form...
Water freezes when the intermolecular forces are greater than the kinetic energy. Unlike most other substances, water is less dense in its solid state than in its liquid state. This is because each water molecule can form...
56.5K
01:18Second Order systems II
396
In an underdamped second-order system, where the damping ratio ζ is between 0 and 1, a unit-step input results in a transfer function that, when transformed using the inverse Laplace method, reveals the output response. The output exhibits a damped sinusoidal oscillation, and the difference between the input and output is termed the error signal. This error signal also demonstrates damped oscillatory behavior. Eventually, as the system reaches a steady state, the error diminishes to zero.
396
02:34Water and Mineral Acquisition
35.4K
Specialized tissues in plant roots have evolved to capture water, minerals, and some ions from the soil. Roots exhibit a variety of branching patterns that facilitate this process. The outermost root cells have specialized structures called root hairs that increase the root surface, thus increasing soil contact. Water can passively cross into roots, as the concentration of water in the soil is higher than that of the root tissue. Minerals, in contrast, are actively transported into root cells.
35.4K