Geo-Geography and Environment最新文献

Brazil is one of the world's largest consumers and exporters of common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), with production occurring year-round across three distinct harvests in different regions. Considering the high degree of impact beans have on the Brazilian domestic economy and global supply, this study aims to map consolidated bean planting areas and analyse their spatiotemporal evolution from 2011 to 2022. The research comprised four steps: (a) data acquisition on harvested area and quantity produced (2011–2022), (b) identification of agricultural belts using spatiotemporal analysis (Moran's indices and relative frequency), (c) evaluation of production trends (growth and acceleration rates for the three harvest types) and (d) environmental characterisation, considering climate, soil, vegetation and topography. The spatiotemporal analysis identified four primary bean-producing belts: South, Central Brazil, Mato Grosso and Northeast. The Northeast Belt has extensive planted areas but low productivity, dominating family farming and highly vulnerable to climate. The South Bean Belt is Brazil's main producing area, marked by consolidated production with significant contributions from smallholder cooperatives. The Central Brazil and Mato Grosso Bean Belts benefit from agribusiness. The first harvest is widespread and mainly rainfed, whereas the second and third harvests depend more on irrigation, occurring mainly in Central Brazil and the Mato Grosso Bean Belt. Environmental conditions shape productivity, with cold stress affecting the South, water availability and flat terrain favour irrigation and mechanisation in Central Brazil and Mato Grosso Bean Belts, and water scarcity limiting yields in the Northeast Bean Belt. The productive complementarity resulting from regional diversity and the three types of harvest throughout the year guarantee continuous supply and food security. The delimitation and characterisation of bean belts provide a basis for territorial planning strategies and agricultural policies.

Recent developments in energy social science and humanities (SSH) research raise two questions that this Dialogue jointly addresses. How do these fields of enquiry matter? And relatedly, how can we engage across our scholarly praxes and differences to complement and bolster the strengths of each field? These fields include energy anthropology, energy geography, energy science and technology studies, and energy humanities more broadly. We argue that these sub-fields need to interact across their disciplinary homes. Their family resemblances are important to capitalise upon alongside their individual strengths. Within their energy-related sub-fields, we argue that these disciplines can channel mutual engagement towards wider impact. To explain how these sub-fields matter, we articulate what we refer to as impact in energy SSH. We channel our individual vantage points into dialogue within a thematic structure along the lines of how power, justice and politics matter in relation to energy SSH and then offer a synthesis conclusion to argue that for impact in energy SSH, how we matter matters. We take a long view of the importance of energy SSH, attentive to the relevance of the conditions of production for praxis. We argue for bringing energy SSH closer into the folds of disciplinary practice while retaining emphasis on the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration it necessitates (for scholars to make sense of changes in energy systems with all the institutional, sociotechnical, cultural and indeed political complexity these transitions entail) for more engaged and informed energy SSH. Working in close engagement with the exciting, frightening and intellectually fascinating forces shaping the world at the present conjuncture as society faces transformative imperatives is the key to retaining relevance, reinvigorating disciplinary praxes and enabling impactful energy SSH.

This paper examines informal urban gardening practices within a 70-year-old industrial neighbourhood in Zhengzhou, central China, employing the conceptual framework of ‘annexed common space for private green infrastructure’ (ACS-PGI). Through urban morphological and typological analysis, it interrogates how historical institutional legacies, urban land tenure regimes, local governance structures, socio-spatial configurations and cultural-agricultural traditions collectively inform and sustain these grassroots greening practices. Adopting a structural attribution system framework, the study advances a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted structural determinants underpinning informal gardening. Departing from Western-centric interpretations that often frame such practices as acts of political contestation, the Zhengzhou case elucidates a historically embedded, socially legitimised and spatially articulated phenomenon rooted in collective memory, communal land-use rights and tacit state tolerance. This research contributes to urban socio-environmental scholarship by underscoring the necessity of situating informal urban greening within its distinct institutional and cultural-historical context, thereby offering critical insights for the theorisation of sustainable urban green infrastructure and community agency.

Growing energy and material throughput, climate change targets and political economic evolution have spurred rapid deployment of lower-carbon energy infrastructures. Many of these developments have relied on ‘cheap nature’, often covering agropastoral and indigenous lands, which raises questions about the implications of energy transitions for non-industrial lifeways. This article explores the onto-epistemological foundations that comprise the emergent energy transitions paradigm. Anchored in ethnographic findings from fieldwork in Rajasthan (India), we identify naturalism as the dominant ontological basis of knowledge production in global energy policies and examine its imaginaries and practices. We draw on Philippe Descola's ontological modes of identification to question universalism and demonstrate its perpetuation through energy transition practices. These approaches overlook socioecological complexity, a gap starkly showcased by the solar energy rollout in agropastoral Rajasthan, with Jaisalmer district as its epicentre. To overcome these limitations, we propose and empirically test the Situated Energy Ecologies principles, which combine (a) a post-productivist approach based on a commitment to energy sufficiency; (b) a commitment to ontological and epistemic recognition, to better capture place-based ways of knowing and being; and (c) autonomous practices based on prefigurative politics and agonism. By integrating a wider array of human experiences, this tripartite heuristic fosters a pluralistic understanding of energy-society relations towards emancipatory engagement.

State of the Marine Environment (SoME) reporting provides an effective mechanism for countries to collate available evidence to highlight pressures and identify indicators of current and changing conditions in marine environments. Expert elicitation (EE) (or expert knowledge elicitation) techniques have been used to ensure a consultative and comprehensive process for achieving these broad seascape assessments, especially in data-poor environments. EE is a consensus methodology that draws on the collective wisdom of known field experts to assist in filling data and knowledge gaps to inform policy decision-making in the absence of other supporting evidence. To date, EE methods for SoME reporting have been limited in their ability to capture and represent data on spatially variable phenomena. The absence of geographic information instils biases and inaccuracies in EE data by aggregating experts' contributions to broad spatial scales, limiting their usefulness in formulating spatially targeted policies operative at scales appropriate for the phenomena of interest. In this paper, a participatory mapping methodology to enhance EE data and processes through inclusion of spatially explicit contributions from experts is described. Paper-based participatory mapping was introduced into an EE workshop for SoME assessment of the archipelagic province of Palawan, Philippines. Analysis of the participatory mapping method was based on observations of the workshop activities in practice, participant feedback, and the authors' appraisal and analysis of the spatial information provided. Integrating participatory mapping within EE techniques enables the representation of expert knowledge and perspectives in a geographic context. In mapping localised pressures and identifying spatial trends expressed in the condition scores across different assessment parameters, participatory mapping can facilitate prioritising locations for further ground-truthing, finer-scale scientific investigation, and conservation effort. An integrated participatory mapping approach has the potential to extend the outcomes of marine environment assessments and better reflect place-based issues within SoME reporting.

High magnitude storms have impacted coastal maritime communities, instigating national government responses. Storm catastrophes can open a ‘window of opportunity’ that enables the implementation of new long-term disaster risk reduction measures. Analysis of historical storm events using written newspaper records identified the Royal Charter storm of 1859 as a catastrophe that opened a window of opportunity. The resulting actions prompted the first national (UK) storm early warning systems which continue today as the Meteorological Office forecasts. This historical case study demonstrates how the effective use of the window of opportunity can instigate beneficial long-term change that decreases vulnerability. However, policies emerging from such windows of opportunity must consider the diverse cause of catastrophe and avoid overreliance on top-down technocracy, instead promoting community engagement and autonomy for sustained success. Environmental history can contribute to improving the understanding of the limitations of technocracy and the importance of community agency in enhancing hazard understanding and effective early warning systems.

The production of oil on a commercial scale has led to a ban on fishing in areas close to oilfields in Ghana. This paper uses econometric analysis to examine the effect of the fishing ban on the livelihoods of rural fishing households in offshore oilfields. It contributes to environmental and economic geography by empirically testing how spatial governance of natural resources (marine resource exclusions due to oil extraction) reshapes local livelihoods and exacerbates poverty. We examined poverty status and income diversification measures as key indicators of livelihood. The findings revealed a negative association between poverty status and the degree of income diversification, suggesting a high prevalence of poverty within undiversified fishing households. Socioeconomic and environmental factors, including the number of extension visits, savings, assets, access to credit and a fishing ban (restrictions), have a positive and significant influence on income diversification. We recommend policy interventions aimed at raising awareness and developing skills that encourage participation in multiple income-generating activities as a potential means of helping fishermen displaced by oil production. These policies are important for reducing poverty in rural fishing communities and preventing potential conflicts arising from changes in the use of common resources.

While climate change is widely recognised to threaten livelihoods and sustainable development, communities at high altitudes are some of the most vulnerable because of their low adaptive capacity and fragile environment. The Pamir has already experienced climate uncertainties given that this is the poorest, most marginalised and least developed region of Tajikistan. Changes in weather patterns and hydrological cycles create challenges for local farmers who depend on a high level of subsidised agriculture. Due to sparse instrumental data, as well as the low accuracy of climate models in this mountainous area, current local climate trends are poorly understood. To address these challenges, a combination of local knowledge with scientific data is a viable option. Here we analysed 84 years of air temperature and precipitation data and conducted semi-structured interviews with local farmers. Average annual air temperature increased significantly during this period, with winter and spring temperatures significantly increasing; insignificant increasing trends were observed during summer and autumn. During winter and spring, only May did not experience significant temperature increases. Precipitation exhibited a gradual (but insignificant) decline of about 46 mm during the 84-year period in a region where annual precipitation is about 250–300 mm. Precipitation decreased in winter and spring and increased in summer and autumn. This shift affects the ratio between solid and liquid precipitation and reflects a decrease in snow-pack accumulation in the mountains, which decreases water availability. The shift of the rainy season to summertime decreased the local thermal regime and affected crop maturation. Local farmers' perceptions correlated well with the mean and seasonal precipitation changes and mean and winter air temperature changes. Discrepancies between perceptions and actual data occurred related to summer temperature change; 46% of respondents perceived a change in annual temperature, 56% perceived an increase in winter and 71% a decrease in summer temperature. For precipitation, 77% reported a change in annual precipitation, 80% a decrease in winter precipitation and 54% an increase in summer precipitation. Changes in annual air temperature and precipitation affect the growing season and plant maturation time and therefore bring uncertainties to local cropping systems.

This study explores the spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation cover in West Darfur, Sudan, a region severely affected by the compounded effects of climate change and socio-environmental crises. Using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data spanning 2000–2023 and the Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), we assessed vegetation dynamics in relation to drought conditions. Data processing and analysis were conducted using Google Earth Engine (GEE), QGIS, and R-Software. An Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model was utilised to forecast future climate scenarios, thereby enhancing the predictive understanding of precipitation trends. The results revealed vegetation loss during the drought periods of 2005 and 2010, with decreases of 646.23 km² (2.83%) and 275.21 km² (1.21%), respectively. In contrast, substantial vegetation recovery was observed in 2015 (0.54%, 122.25 km²), 2020 (7.87%, 1794.70 km²), and 2023 (8.78%, 2001 km²), aligning with increased annual precipitation and reduced drought intensity. Historical SPEI analysis underscores prolonged drought events between 1980 and 2010, followed by a notable reduction in drought frequency and severity in subsequent years. Precipitation projections suggest a continuing trend of increasing precipitation, likely fostering further vegetation regeneration in the study area. This study underscores the intricate interplay between vegetation cover, precipitation variability, and drought conditions in West Darfur, highlighting both the region's vulnerability to climate-induced stressors and its potential for ecological recovery under favourable climatic conditions. The findings contribute to informed policymaking aimed at mitigating climate impacts and promoting sustainable land-use practices in vulnerable arid and semi-arid regions.

The Pacific Islands find themselves at the crossroads of the polycrisis of environmental injustices. From dramatic changes in their food system and livelihoods to environmental degradation and climate change, Pacific Islanders are navigating both slow and rapid socio-ecological shifts which impact people in uneven ways. Building on critiques of environmental justice and its reliance on a universalist Western framework, this paper points to the need to expand the recognition dimension of environmental justice to bring forth haptic and sensorial dimensions of justice. Critical island and indigenous scholarship on dimensions of knowing with/through the body, alongside insights from political ecology of the body, help theoretically frame what we can learn from feeling for justice. Moving beyond simplistic victimisation or hero narratives, in this paper I draw from ethnographic vignettes on emotional, haptic and embodied experiences of environmental change as experienced by women gleaning for food in mangrove forests in the Solomon Islands. Through these vignettes, I showcase multi-scalar and temporal dimensions of environmental (in)justices, particularly highlighting what a bodily orientation can illuminate about ongoing and uneven legacies of environmental change. Through re-centering recognition of the body and also the dimension of pleasure which emerges through/with the mangroves, the article foregrounds how feelings for justice can point to which environmental futures are desired. Importantly, I argue that knowing through the body is a type of knowing differently that muddies questions about not only who is recognised in environmental justice struggles, but also which values and practices should be taken into account.