The past week has been very active, geologically speaking. Just this morning we had a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in the neighboring prefecture and last week there was a 6.8 a few prefectures away. They say that we're overdue for 'the big one' so every tremor is taken very seriously. Still not used to the slow and steady shaking of the ground beneath my feet.
As for my project, there has been yet another change in my direction. It has become clear that there was some miscommunication between the my two organizations, NUIG & JIRCAS, but I need to do my best and carry on with what I have and hope that this becomes a learning situation for all. After revamping my methodology section and literature search, things have seem to of fallen into place. However, without ample feedback it's hard to progress.
I've been looking at some GHG calculators and ways that they can be used with LCA. They seem to be pretty helpful in calculating emissions but at a large scale. As I need to focus on a small scale, my investigation has led me to several papers about LCA in Vietnam but not many pertaining to rice. Perhaps I can extrapolation the data from neighboring countries in order to get a clearer picture?
In other news, I like to stay positive so here is an article about Conservation International finding an area in Central America that is a safe harbor for species once thought to be extinct.