Environmental and Sustainability Indicators最新文献

With climate change continuously threatening global food production, smallholder farmers are increasingly struggling to adapt to changing climatic conditions, decreasing productivity, and limited access to finance. To examine these challenges, this study used cross-sectional data collected through a multi-stage approach across three plantain-producing states in southwest Nigeria, with 100 farmers randomly selected in 5 local government areas per state to give a total of 300 farmers. A two-step Stochastic Frontier model is used to examine the relationship between climate adaptation strategies and plantain productivity while the Harold-Dorma growth equation and Multivariate Probit regression are used to assess the financing gap and its effect on adaptive capacity. Finally, the Foster Geer-Thorbecke (FGT) equation is used to measure the vulnerability of farmers to climate change. Findings show that as the financing gap of the farmers decreases, their ability to adopt climate adaptation strategies to enhance their productivity increases. However, 80% of the farmers are financially vulnerable to climate change, with 37% facing severe financial constraints. The vulnerability depth for the farmers is 56%, indicating that with $106.55 (56% of the vulnerability line of $190.26), many farmers' adaptive capacity could be enhanced to reduce their vulnerability below the vulnerability line. This study's approach provides a comprehensive approach for assessing smallholder farmers' ability to adopt adaptation strategies that increase productivity and enhance resilience. While other policy measures to enhance smallholder farmers' ability to address the challenges of climate change are important, it is crucial to prioritise actions that improve the financial status of smallholders.

Biological surrogates are valuable for conservation when they are easy and cost-effective to sample, sensitive to anthropogenic change, and show similar assemblage patterns to other taxa. The umbrella index (UI) developed by Fleishman et al. (2000), aims to conserve most species in an ecosystem by focusing on a single or small group of co-occurring species to represent all species present. Here we focus on various lentic aquatic insects (‘aquatic insects’ henceforth refers to aquatic beetles, aquatic bugs, and dragonfly larvae), adult dragonflies, frogs, and aquatic plants as potential surrogates for pond communities in the Midlands, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. There were some cross-taxon correlations, but these were too weak to consider for surrogacy, largely due to dissimilar responses to the same environmental gradients. However, using UI we identified five dragonfly species, nine aquatic insect species, and three frog species as potential umbrella groups for their own taxa. The UI for same-group surrogates was flexible and covered most taxa, ranging from co-occurring habitat generalists to rare specialist species. Furthermore, all four endemic species sampled here were effective surrogate species for other local taxa, with two of them ranking top in their own taxonomic group. The lack of congruence among the different taxa means that one taxon cannot be used to stand in for another. However, the UI allowed efficient site prioritization, so long as a multi-taxon approach is used. We recommend the UI approach when selecting surrogates to represent aquatic fauna within a pondscape of the Midlands of South Africa.

With steady population growth and formidable development issues, understanding Africa is crucial for reaching global sustainability. Through policy support, societies have embraced indicators and their composite indices as tools to create benchmark initiatives, assess current conditions, and help set future development targets. Responding, a paralyzing amount of these metrics are now available for decision-makers, practitioners, and researchers to choose from causing difficulties during their applied use. Further, the number of underlying development dimensions essential for capturing all aspects of sustainability remains undetermined. Building upon other continental studies, this research first condensed and described a set of 44 multi-metric sustainability indices across 52 African nations. A factor analysis uncovered 11 significant sustainable development dimensions (factors) that conveyed over 79% of the total variation of the original 44 indices. Next, the 11 latent dimensions were combined (aggregated) into a mega-index of sustainable development (MISD). Lastly, Ward's cluster analysis was used to create country-bundles of similarity from the 11 factors. The four strongest hidden dimensions expressed: (F1) human well-being synergies; (F2) governance and liberty; (F3) economic stability; (F4) happiness and innovation. The human well-being synergies dimension (F1) explained over one-third of the total variance, and had greatest improved conditions in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. MISD ranked Namibia best, then Ghana, Gabon, Kenya, and Zambia; Seychelles ranked worst, then Eritrea, Burundi, Comoros, and Mauritania. Cluster analysis revealed a six-bundle solution. This cross-country analysis spotlights the underrepresentation of planetary boundaries within existing development indices. Lastly, favorable development dimensions were rarely found spatially concordant.

The promotion of climate-resilient practices (CRPs) requires the development of the capacity of farmers to adopt these practices owing to the knowledge-intensive nature of technologies. Extension services serve as a conduit for facilitating the conceptualization of CRPs and are instrumental in improving the resiliency and mitigation of climate change. We used a social-ecological framework and a multivariate probit model to analyze the drivers of the CRP uptake in moisture-stressed areas in Ethiopia, with a particular focus on extension services. Unlike previous studies that investigated a single technology, we considered a bundle of technologies. We focused on the use of two capital-intensive CRPs (drought-resistant seed and inorganic fertilizer) and four knowledge-intensive CRPs (minimum tillage, farmyard manure, water-saving technology, and crop residue retention). The role of extension services in promoting other CRPs beyond input and capital-intensive technologies was insignificant. Heterogeneity analysis revealed that the correlation between extension services and the adoption of other knowledge-intensive natural resource management practices holds irrespective of the proximity to the extension service providers. This finding highlights the need for targeted and tailored interventions that support farmers to address the challenges faced by them in moisture-stressed areas. Accordingly, we propose continuously improving the ability of the extension service providers to promote climate-change adaptation knowledge and practices. This should be accompanied by efforts to strengthen a pluralistic extension system, improve land tenure security, and decrease transaction costs for farmers through output market linkages.

Urban green spaces, particularly street trees and greenways, are increasingly recognized as tools for mitigating air pollution. However, their effectiveness can vary depending on their configuration and urban canyon geometry. This study, aimed at providing practical solutions, assessed the impact of different green space configurations, including street trees, green lanes, green walls, and hedges, on particulate matter (PM) concentrations within urban canyons of varying aspect ratios by employing environmental simulations and wind tunnel tests performed in ENVI-met software.

Results demonstrate that green walls significantly outperform street trees in reducing PM concentrations by up to 43%, attributing this to reduced air flow disruption. Green walls also create a more uniform PM distribution within canyons, decreasing concentration differences by 31% compared to green (tree) lanes. Conversely, dense tree lanes exacerbate PM deposition due to wind flow interference.

These findings suggest that incorporating green walls into urban design can be a highly effective strategy for improving air quality within densely built environments.

During the acute phase of the Chornobyl accident the biota of the contaminated area was exposed to high doses of ionising radiation. Although these doses decreased significantly over the years, the exposure persisted over a prolonged period. This long-term exposure can be considered as a direct cause of genetic modifications occurring in organisms, and the search for correlative changes in the state of biota under the impact of radioactive contamination is an extremely urgent task. The aquatic macrophyte Glyceria maxima is the most common coenosis-forming plant of the littoral vegetation of the floodplain water bodies in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, and is capable of concentrating radionuclides in significant quantities. In this study, we aim to determine whether long-term radiation exposure has affected organs of reproductive structure (flower, pollen, seed) and, consequently, the viability of local populations of this species. All the traits analysed showed an inverse relationship with the absorbed dose rate of the maternal plants. It was determined that with an increase in the absorbed dose rate, the pollen size decreases, and the range of individual grains in the sample begins to vary more: small, heterogeneous in shape and size pollen grains are formed. Additionally, a decrease in pollen grain size correlates with a decrease in the proportion of fertile pollen. Pollen grains viability (fertility) decreases by 20–40% with increasing radiation dose rate. The response of reproductive structures to radiation exposure is non-linear: already at low doses (>2 μGy/h), negative changes in functional and morphological traits are observed, while at higher doses (9–13 μGy/h), the changes slow down. It is assumed that the radiation exposure mainly affects the early reproductive stages (pollen grains and partially flowers), while the main nutrients in water, that determine the trophic status of the reservoir, affects the late stages (seeds).

The Himalayan forests are vulnerable to climate change leading to disturb the current flow of critical ecosystem services to the dependent population. Present study attempts to evaluate the current vulnerability status of major forest types in Nagaland, India due to climate change along with identifying the hot spots for mitigating the vulnerability of the forests. Vulnerability of mixed moist deciduous, pine, wet hill and wet temperate forests were evaluated using the IPCC framework. Local Moran's I analysis, hot spot analysis and a histogram analysis of the vulnerability were made in QGIS. Field data such as Shannon-Wiener Index and Importance Value Index along with secondary data such as edaphic factors, vegetation factors and climatic variables were used for vulnerability analysis. Analysis results that mixed moist deciduous forests had the highest area in under high-high clusters, hot spots and was highly vulnerable. The result suggests that very dense or moderately dense forest cover were less vulnerable than low density forests in the region. The study provides baseline information along with identification of vulnerable hot spot forests for future climate change policy and management of resources at the division level. The study suggests strengthening the less dense forests along with increasing the biodiversity through suitable strategy for mitigating the vulnerability.

The Economic Monetary Valuation (EMV) of Ecosystem Services (ESs) and Natural Capital (NC) has been proposed and pursued by several scholars as an effective way to make the vital role of Nature evident and appropriately accounted for in our complex relationship with Her. Other scholars have negatively reacted to this approach, considering it an unethical commodification of Nature that can only lead to a “shopping mall” view of Her, meaningless and even dangerous. It has been said that by following this same line of thought, the next step might be estimating even God's value. In this sense, the EMV of ESs&NC would resemble some “laical blasphemy.” We argue that “God,” when viewed as synonymous with the “willingness to pay” to perpetuate religious faith and as an attractor of religious tourism and pilgrimages, is a terrific economic asset whose value can be estimated in monetary terms. We assessed “God” ‘s EMV (in the previously specified sense), showing that this more mundane appraisal is neither necessarily unethical nor diminishes the sacred and immaterial relevance of religions and beliefs. Thus, we consider by analogy that although the value of Nature, like that of “God,” can never be entirely accounted for by monetary estimation, the EMV of ESs&NC is ethically acceptable. Moreover, the successful application of EMV to NC&ESs supports its usefulness and effectiveness in showing, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Nature counts by making us healthier, wealthier, and, last but not least, happier through both material and immaterial goods, services, and experiences.

Global crop production is significantly reduced by rapid changes in the climate, either by natural or manmade activities. The frequent application of various fertilizers, has resulted in soil pollution, which is further exacerbated by water scarcity. The indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers has led to devastating consequences such as reduction of soil fertility, environmental contamination, increased insect resistance, destroyed biodiversity, and ultimately resulted in heavy economic losses. Another approach being investigated and explored is the use of biofertilizers, which is a better supplement to improve crop yields without harming the environment. However, a significant challenge lies in the fact that plants cannot utilize whole biofertilizer intact, as much of the portion remained unabsorbed or became part of the soil instead of reaching the targeted site. This problem can be solved by nanotechnology; nano-biofertilizers increase tolerance against abiotic stresses. They improve plant morphology, biochemistry and yield, as well as soil composition. Thus, in comparison to conventional chemical fertilizers, nano-biofertilizer produce eco-friendly, sustainable and longer-lasting outcomes. This paper discusses a review of biofertilizer formulations based on nanotechnology for sustainable agriculture development. The invention and application of nano-biofertilizer on various plant species is highlighted in this paper, along with how it improves the growth and development of plants.

Cooperative fisheries are increasingly recognized as a promising approach for small-scale fisheries management. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the key elements that drive sustainability within these cooperatives. This survey study aims to develop a sustainability performance checklist tailored for fisheries cooperatives throughout their lifecycle. Initially, a preliminary list of five-point Likert scale sustainability factors was created and reviewed through interviews with experts from both fisheries academic and executive sectors. Their feedback contributed to refining the checklist, ensuring its relevance, clarity, and simplicity. Experts from both the academic and executive sectors of fisheries cooperatives have confirmed the content validity of the economic, social, and environmental criteria included in the checklist. The data collected across 61 cooperatives. To identify the key factors influencing the sustainability performance of fisheries cooperatives throughout their lifecycle, a factor analysis was performed, employing the Varimax rotation method. The findings indicate that economic considerations are the primary focus during the initial establishment of fisheries cooperatives. As these cooperatives evolve through the growth and consolidation phases, social factors become increasingly significant. Additionally, the study highlights the essential role of environmental aspects in maintaining the stability and balance of these cooperatives. The research underscores the interdependence of economic, social, and environmental elements in fostering the sustainability of fisheries cooperatives. These insights are particularly relevant for policymakers, managers, and stakeholders in fisheries management. Furthermore, the developed sustainability performance checklist and weighting system can effectively assist in assessing and enhancing the sustainability of fisheries cooperatives.