Ambio最新文献

Co-production of knowledge in science-policy interfaces has received increased attention as a way of addressing grand societal challenges with the hope that it will create a base for enacting transformative change. We explore the development and outputs of projects funded by the Strategic Research Council of Finland, which has had the aim of generating strategic knowledge through interactions with stakeholders. We examine how producers and users of knowledge understand co-production as revealed by a researcher survey and stakeholder interviews in relation to different domains in the institutionalisation process. Our results show advanced, emerging and explorative levels of institutionalisation of knowledge co-production practices and highlight the differences between needs-based and transformative approaches to co-production. We conclude that to succeed, efforts to institutionalise knowledge co-production should recognise several societal domains from governance to resources and culture. Advanced institutionalisation for the co-production of transformative knowledge can significantly strengthen the potential of sustainability research.

Collaborative governance is essential to address complex Arctic issues beyond the capacity of any single country. The strategic environment analysis is critical to promote collaborative governance. This study quantitatively analyzes the strategic environment for Arctic collaborative governance using a data-driven approach from a triple bottom line perspective. Nineteen evaluation indicators were determined, covering economic, environmental, and social aspects. The Arctic Council members and affiliates (21 countries) collected data associated with these indicators during 2012-2021 and analyzed by the Euclidean distance and grey correlation-based technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution model to obtain the performance values of these countries. Results indicate the correlations among the three aspects are weak, suggesting room for integrative development. In addition, the high correlation coefficients of performance across these aspects among the countries indicate the great potential for Arctic collaborative governance, which may be limited by geopolitical factors.

Effective watershed management is essential for biodiversity conservation and mitigating environmental impacts like deforestation and ecosystem disruptions, especially in the context of climate change. The Tocantins/Araguaia Basin (TOAR), Brazil's second-largest watershed, faces significant challenges due to unsustainable land use practices. To address this, we modeled future land use and cover changes (2015-2045) using the CLUE model under three scenarios: Business-as-usual (BAUS), Conservation-based (CONS), and Production-based (PROD). Key drivers included soil type, average temperature, and yearly precipitation. Projections indicate persistent deforestation and habitat fragmentation, particularly under PROD, while CONS still projects notable losses in forests, savannas, and grasslands. These results highlight the urgent need for proactive conservation measures, stricter environmental regulations, and sustainable land use planning to protect TOAR's ecosystems and biodiversity. Addressing these issues is critical for preserving this vulnerable and understudied region amidst growing environmental pressures.

Despite the numerous benefits we derive from ecosystems as ecosystem services (ES), negative impacts on human health and well-being also occur as ecosystem disservices (ED). To study ED, researchers box them into classes and create conceptual frameworks to support their identification, assessment, and communication. It is unclear what classes and frameworks now exist for ED, their relative uptake in the literature, and their potential application across socio-ecological contexts. We conduct a systematic literature review of ED classification systems and frameworks to take stock and synthesize this growing but scattered body of research. We find strong uptake of several influential articles but persisting inconsistency of classifications and oversimplification of ED processes within frameworks. Aggregating existing classifications and frameworks, we draw on lessons learned to propose the Composite Ecosystem Disservices (CED) framework. We call for increased ED research, greater comparability and replicability allowing for transdisciplinarity, and conceptual underpinnings that recognize social-ecological interconnections.

To respond to global sustainability challenges with transformative solutions, there is a need to pinpoint the necessary and sufficient conditions that enhance the transformative potential of sustainability innovations. To this end, we examined 129 sustainability innovations in two European Biosphere Reserves, and analysed (1) their transformative potential, assessed based on a leverage points perspective, and (2) their supportive conditions (i.e. decision contexts, or constellations of values, rules and knowledge). Specifically, we used social network analyses to characterise different rules, or governance arrangements in the two Biosphere Reserves. By comparing the decision contexts of transformative and incremental innovations, we provide empirical evidence that plural values, coproduction and networks that are diverse, collaborative and influential, enable transformative innovations. Shallow leverage points seem insufficient but necessary to operationalise transformative change. Future research should explore the co-evolution of decision contexts and transformative potential, to better understand how to shift incremental to transformative innovations.

Addressing the global biodiversity crisis requires conservation engagement across generations. However, generational amnesia and extinction of experience probably threaten this effort, reflecting declines in nature knowledge, experience and engagement among younger generations. We examined urban green area visit frequency, nature-relatedness, identification skills and familiarity with species (plants, birds and butterflies) and pro-conservation behaviour intentions in adolescents (15-17 years, mean = 15.97), young adults (18-29 years, mean = 23.72) and older adults (> 30 years, mean = 40.54) in Germany. With a path analysis, we explored relationships between concepts across all age groups. Although all age groups visited green areas similarly, identification skills, nature-relatedness and intentions declined progressively from older to younger groups. Nature-relatedness predicted intentions and identification skills predicted nature-relatedness across all groups. Our findings support the importance of fostering nature-relatedness and species knowledge through age-sensitive access to urban green areas with opportunities to connect with and learn about nature.

Human behavioral adaptation to climate change has gained increasing attention from multiple disciplines; behavioral literature, for instance, has studied people's responses to climate change when physically experiencing a specific climate event. Our research builds on that literature and incorporates a multidimensional approach to experiences and adaptation: rather than studying one physical manifestation and a particular response, we test whether different climate events relate to different forms of adaptation. Based on a national environmental survey, we employ Bayesian regression modeling to comprehend whether adaptation actions (changes in clothing, diet, occupation, house infrastructure, and water and energy consumption) relate to various reported experiences (droughts, floods, rains, heatwaves, forest fires, problems in food supply, biodiversity loss, and rise in sea level). Our results highlight the heterogeneous nature of behavioral responses to perceived climate change events: not all climate change manifestations relate to adaptation actions, thereby providing a multidimensional view of the action-experience relation.

Economic sectors that drive nature decline are heavily subsidized and produce large environmental externalities. Calls are increasing to reform or eliminate subsidies and internalize the environmental costs of these sectors. We compile data on subsidies and externalities across six sectors driving biodiversity loss-agriculture, fossil fuels, forestry, infrastructure, fisheries and aquaculture, and mining. The most updated estimates suggest that subsidies to these sectors total between US$1.7 and US$3.2 trillion annually, while environmental externalities range between US$10.5 and US$22.6 trillion annually. Moreover, data gaps suggest that these figures underestimate the global magnitude of subsidies and externalities. We discuss the need and opportunities of building a baseline to account for the costs of subsidies and externalities of economic activities driving nature decline. A better understanding of the complexity, size, design, and effects of subsidies and externalities of such economic sectors could facilitate and expedite discussions to strengthen multilateral rules for their reform.

The continuity of traditional extensive livestock farming is being challenged by rapid socioeconomic and environmental changes, threatening livelihoods and ecosystem services critical to food security and sustainability. We conducted a large-scale assessment involving 255 livestock farmers across six extensive livestock farming systems in Spain to understand their perceptions of vulnerabilities. Using the Coupled Infrastructure Systems framework, we identified 24 different vulnerabilities, mainly caused by external socioeconomic and biophysical disturbances, such as resource costs, low profitability of livestock products, climate variability, and conflicts with wildlife. The main factors explaining these vulnerabilities were primary productivity, farm location, presence of large predators, and climatic conditions. The findings highlight the complex interplay of these factors and provide important insights for the maintenance of extensive livestock farming systems in Europe. This information is crucial for informing policy decisions aimed at supporting these farming systems and ensuring their contribution to food security, sustainability and biodiversity conservation.