Discover Sustainability最新文献

Waste picking is a pivotal in achieving sustainable waste management, environment health and economic development in the era of sustainable development. The study assessed the practices, knowledge, perception and health risk protection behaviours of waste scavengers in the Gbalahi landfill site. A total of 60 scavengers were conveniently sampled and interviewed. The study revealed that 93% of the waste scavengers sort waste using hooks and their bare hands. The study also showed 62% of the respondents have ever been physically abused by other scavengers. A good number of scavengers believed they have been fortified against "dirt diseases" during their childhood and have developed natural immunity against diseases. The knowledge of scavengers was skewed towards economic benefits as they viewed waste picking as a survival strategy. Discrimination and physical abuse posed a seemingly significant psychological health risk to majority of them. Safety and protection practices are limited to the use of pieces of clothes to cover the nose, wearing of multiple clothes and worn-out boots recovered from the landfill. Most of the respondents risk being exposed to the virus and pathogens. It is recommended that education and increased sensitisation should be encouraged and implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ghana Health Service and other allied institutions in order to regularise and ensure the health and safety of waste scavengers.

The implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is a global priority, but one whose full implementation is vulnerable to the high costs associated with it. This raises the question: does the implementation of the SDGs make financial sense? This article addresses this question and outlines the need to raise awareness of the economic benefits of implementing the global goals. Further, it presents and discusses the main financial gaps to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

While the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war threatens global nutrition security, the magnitude and extent of its impact remain underexamined. Here we show that, with the lowest level of war duration, severity, sanction, and countries involved, the direct and indirect impacts of the war and sanctions could newly place 67.3 million people (roughly equals the total population of France) in undernourishment and 316.7 million people (roughly equals the total population of Bangladesh and Russia) suffering from extreme national food insecurity. Approximately 95% of the affected population are from developing countries, highlighting the vulnerability of food supply in these countries. Both the undernourished population and its inequality across countries will substantially grow, if war duration and severity increase. If the war is prolonged to early 2024, future agricultural growth cannot fully offset the negative impacts, and global hunger will still very likely exacerbate. We conclude that targeted measures should be placed in developing countries and their vulnerable populations to reconstruct a just, healthy, and environmentally sustainable food system.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43621-022-00112-8.

Covid-19, one of the most critical and widespread global pandemics, has resulted in extraordinary risk corollaries engulfing millions of people's lives and has caused an unprecedented economic downturn while amplifying food insecurity. A systematic review of 132 scientific communications was performed over a 15-year period, using articles from the ScienceDirect and Web of Science databases (2006-2021). In addition, 24 policy briefs, country papers, and publications from the UN, WHO, FAO, and OECD were cited. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of existing literature on the adverse effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on agricultural food systems, as well as potential strategies for building robust, resilient, and sustainable food systems to ensure global food security, safety, and endeavors regarding future global emergencies, as well as new research policies while achieving SDG targets. This would fill a research gap while also having long-term implications for health, agricultural, and food resilience policy development in a rapidly changing world. Covid-19 demonstrates how human, animal, and environmental health are all interconnected, emphasizing the need for one health legislation and a paradigm shift in planetary health. Furthermore, it identifies potential mechanisms for rebuilding better systems by shifting priorities toward policy coherence, innovative food system governance, re-engineering market access, and nexus thinking in the food system approach. According to our findings, the COVID-19 posed unavoidable impediments to achieving SDG targets for food security and household poverty.

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Rural regions in Europe are often structurally weaker than urban areas and are subject to strong socio-economic development. At the same time, they offer opportunities for a high quality of life and sustainability. The key question of this article is how quality of life in high-income countries can be achieved more sustainably. Little is known about the perception of the rural population itself on the reconciling of high quality of life with sustainability. Thus, based on a concept of sustainable quality of life, qualitative interviews with 90 rural residents were conducted to ask them which factors benefit sustainable quality of life. In the perception of the interview participants, a change in attitudes and values would be a starting point for shaping many other areas to enhance sustainable quality of life; social and legal norms should provide reference points for individuals and economic actors; infrastructure should support individuals in their ecological behaviour; and the economy should serve the common good. We derive four strands of recommendations for decision-makers from these results: the enhancement of education on applicable environmental behaviours, equal access to renewable energies and local productions and services.

Climate change, rising temperatures, snow melts and more frequent droughts and floods are disproportionately affecting food and water security, habitat health, and agricultural productivity in the Himalayan region. These climatic changes are negatively impacting productivity of staple crops including wheat, maize, and rice at lower altitudes, but may provide opportunities to utilize Climate Change Driven Agricultural Frontiers [CCDAFs] at higher altitudes. Agricultural expansion into CCDAFs paired with behavioural shifts such as replacing traditional crop systems with commercial crops will predominantly affect forests, water resources, and soil health, which are already negatively affected by climate change unless adaptation options are directed to just and sustainable agroecological transitions. By trading regulating, supporting, and cultural services for food and water provisioning services, as are evident in land sparing strategy, the utilization of CCDAFs will have long-term implications for the sustainability of mountain farming systems. Climate change is affecting Himalayan agriculture, food security, and ecosystem services, and scientific literature predominantly focus on one of these topics in isolation, occasionally connecting results to another topic. By classifying literature as predominantly agriculture, food security, or ecosystem service themed, this scoping review identifies sources with multiple dominant themes and explores how the relationships between these topics are represented in literature to provide research based evidence to promote the future expansion of agriculture that is low-carbon, just and sustainable. Gaps in the literature reveal that research is needed on the extent of CCDAFs in the Himalayas and the potential trade-offs on utilizing the frontier areas.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43621-022-00103-9.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a worldwide lockdown, and this restriction on human movements and activities has significantly affected society and the environment. Some effects might be quantitative, but some might be qualitative, and some effects could prolong immediately and/or persistently. This study examined the consequences of global lockdown for human movement and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) emissions using an air pollution index and dataset and satellite image analyses. We also evaluated the immediate (during lockdown) and persistent (after lockdown) effects of lockdown on achieving the SDGs. Our analysis revealed a drastic reduction in human movement and NO₂ emissions and showed that many SDGs were influenced both immediately and persistently due to the global lockdown. We observed the immediate negative impacts on four goals and positive impacts on five goals, especially those concerning economic issues and ecosystem conservation, respectively. The persistent effects of lockdown were likely to be predominantly reversed from their immediate impacts due to economic recovery. The global lockdown has influenced the global community's ability to meet the SDGs, and our analysis provides powerful insights into the status of the internationally agreed-upon SDGs both during and after the COVID-19-induced global lockdown.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43621-021-00067-2.