Current Research in Environmental Sustainability最新文献

Nature conservation and sustainable development goals are challenged by powerful economic incentives to exploit natural resources, particularly in many tropical countries. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) projects have been encouraged worldwide for over 40 years to improve the sustainability of nature-based livelihoods and facilitate natural resource governance in accordance with cultural and spiritual traditions. CBNRM has been implemented in Ghana, West Africa, for over 20 years in the form of Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs), but their success in supporting conservation and sustainable development goals remains the subject of debate. We evaluated participant views of 33 conservation, economic, and sociocultural outcomes through 881 interviews with people from 89 communities associated with eight CREMAs. Participants reported highest expectations and performance for outcomes including conservation awareness, increased food and honey production, and collective community action and unity. However, perceived performance failed to meet participant expectations for all 33 outcomes and particularly for conservation and economic outcomes. Expectation-performance gaps were largest for conservation outcomes such as reduced illegal logging, economic outcomes including increased income, financial assistance, and employment, and sociocultural outcomes such as the constancy of children's school attendance. Successfully addressing these gaps will depend largely on external factors, such as government effectiveness in controlling illegal logging and investments in credit and education. While this and other CBNRM approaches cannot stand alone to achieve conservation goals, with sufficient external support they can provide substantial benefits to participants and play a supporting role in conservation and as buffers to successful protected areas.

Food security has been challenging in many countries due to climate change, population growth, water scarcity, and bio-energy development. This work quantifies the impact of water-energy-food (WEF) nexus coupling coordination on food security in China through a multidimensional approach to promote food security and resource sustainability. We first quantify the coupling coordination degree of the WEF nexus using the entropy weight TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method. And then Ordinary Least Squares Multiple Linear Regression model is employed to explore the impact of the WEF nexus coupling coordination degree on food security. The findings show that an improvement of 1% in the coupling coordination degree of the WEF increases the total grain yield, per capita grain yield, grain yield per unit by 2.69%, 1.12% and 2.77%, respectively. It is also found that improvement of WEF coupling coordination is conducive to enhancing food self-sufficiency rate and stabilizing food price. And the increment in grain yield is achieved by increasing the effective irrigated area and agricultural machinery inputs. Furthermore, the heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect of the WEF nexus on the total grain yield and per capita yield is more significant in the central region, and the improvement of grain yield per unit is more effective in the west. Meanwhile, the interaction term analysis demonstrates that cropping structure, agricultural subsidies, and water-saving technologies all strengthen the positive contribution of the WEF nexus to food security.

Biochar amendment to soils is regarded as the potential practice to mitigate climate change while also increasing yields. However, geographical differences in the effects of biochar on cereal production and greenhouse gas emissions are not well understood at the global scale. Random forest, a classic machine learning algorithm, was employed to reveal the drivers of geographical differences in the effects of biochar on cereals yield and greenhouse gas emissions. The potential for yield increases and greenhouse gas emission reduction was predicted in this study. The results indicate that nitrogen fertilizer rate is the most important factor determining the impact of biochar on cereal yield, while biochar application rate strongly affected greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, the maximum increase in cereal crop yields under biochar application was 14.1%. To achieve the largest increment globally, recommended values of biochar application, mineral nitrogen application rate and pyrolysis temperature were predicted to be around 36.3 t ha⁻¹, 193.7 kg N ha⁻¹ and 420 °C, respectively. The maximum reductions of methane and nitrous oxide emissions from paddy fields around the world were 21.6% and 31.0%, and from maize and wheat fields 35.7% and 36.1%, respectively. Although biochar can potentially improve yields while reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide under proper management, the performance of biochar showed great heterogeneity.

Rapid urbanization has emerged as a defining global phenomenon, reshaping landscapes, economies, and societies. Understanding the implications of urbanization trends and effectively managing associated risks has become critical imperatives for sustainable development. In this study, we investigate the dynamic nature of land use changes in urban areas and their profound implications for policy applications and flood risk management strategies. To accurately estimate hydrologic parameters and project future trends, the study places a strong emphasis on the need to base assessments on historical and current development states. Furthermore, the study acknowledges that localized land use intensity can surpass generalized comprehensive plans, potentially leading to underestimated hydrological variables and flood risk. To address these challenges, the study introduces an innovative methodology. It utilizes a geospatial raster-based algorithm that incorporates existing land use trends and comprehensive plan zoning districts. This approach enhances the accuracy of runoff curve numbers for the ultimate development conditions. The algorithm is applied to assess hydrology and hydraulics in 30 designated watersheds within Fairfax County, Virginia, revealing substantial changes. Notably, there is an average increase in runoff volume, ranging from 14% for the 1-year storm event to 5% for the 100-year design storms. Additionally, the study applies this methodology to investigate structure flooding within the Pimmit Run watershed, effectively addressing the issue of underestimated flooded structures. By acknowledging the diverse aspects of urbanization, this study not only contributes to the field of hydrology but also provides valuable insights for urban policy development, land use planning, and flood risk management.