Environmental Development最新文献

In small developing settings, is it worth building anaerobic digestion (AD) or composting plants? This study explores the economic, management, and environmental dimensions of two small-scale alternatives for organic fraction municipal solid waste (OFMSW) treatment within the context of Lacor Hospital (Uganda): aerated static pile composting (S1) and AD with digestate composting (S2), both designed to manage approximately 347.5 t_OFMSW annually. In the optimistic scenario, S1 achieves a cost savings of about −2.9 USD t_OFMSW⁻¹, while S2 incurs costs of 2.1 USD t_OFMSW⁻¹. In the pessimistic scenario, S1's costs rise to 3.9 USD t_OFMSW⁻¹, while S2 becomes more expensive at 9.5 USD t_OFMSW⁻¹. Management analysis underlines S2's complexity due to AD operations and digestate drying. Total normalized environmental impacts of S1 can be quantified with about 0.125 mPt t_OFMSW⁻¹, whereas S2 is equal to about −6.163 mPt t_OFMSW⁻¹. However, in an optimistic scenario, climate change endpoint category results are similar. On balance, the LCA analysis indicates that AD can be better than standalone composting. However, in developing settings serving approximately 3000 inhabitants, it is crucial to prioritize economic and management sustainability that can be obtained only by small-scale composting plants. These findings provide definite insights for small-scale waste management projects in low-income regions, offering valuable data and references for plant design and their replicability. The study sets the ultimate definition of the most feasible option to treat OFMSW in low-income settings: community composting. Unfortunately, economic barriers remain the main challenge: citizens should pay for the service and landfill management fees should be set by local governments.

The ecological impacts of invasive alien species are well known, as are the large-scale economic losses caused by these species. Less well known are the impacts of these species on human wellbeing. In developing countries, like India, where a large proportion of the population is rural and intricately dependent on natural resources for its sustenance, the impacts of invasive species on people's wellbeing are likely to be as important as their ecological impacts. In this paper, we undertake a qualitative review of the literature on impacts of invasive alien species, specifically plants, on human wellbeing in India. Our results show that impacts are diverse across various aspects of wellbeing and are both positive or negative based on local contexts. This plurality is indicative of the need for a more nuanced approach to impact analysis and stakeholder mapping. We use constituents of human wellbeing as outlined in the Socioeconomic Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (SEICAT) and the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) to analyze invasive plant impacts, identify knowledge gaps, and discuss recommendations for future research on impacts of invasive species. Although the widespread natural resource dependency among rural, tribal, and other marginalized communities of India gives biological invasions a socioeconomic dimension (due to impacts of invasion on these resources), the human and social dimensions of species invasions have been neglected compared to their ecological dimension. We suggest that understanding the pluralities of wellbeing circumstances with invasive species could help improve policies for management of invasive species in India.

Despite the tremendous social development and economic prosperity brought about by technological progress, the environment of our planet is gradually deteriorating. In this context, the peaceful rise of green product consumption offers a practical solution. Consumers are becoming more aware of environmental issues. Among sustainable product studies, we can find that sensory design can impact consumers’ consumption decisions. In this study, we use COOC 13.4 and VOSviewer to map and explore research on sustainable products related to sensory science and consumers. We collected 779 papers as data between 2017 and 2022 from Web of Science, Engineering Village, and Scopus. After literature filtering, the existing studies were divided into four main categories: studies on sustainable design considering visuals with consumption, design studies related to health sustainability, sensory-related sustainable products considering consumer experience design, and design research on fuzzy mathematical methods. In addition, we summarize three elements that represent current research hotspots: the role of the consumer, the focus on sensory-related sustainable design, and the impact of sensory science on sustainable products. Finally, recommendations are offered to inform and enhance this field for future researchers.

Management planning for forests in Turkey has undergone gradual evolution over the last century. Developing and implementing a comprehensive management planning framework present significant challenges. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of various forest management planning approaches implemented across the country over different time periods, with overarching planning principles. It formulates a robust planning framework and proposes improvements grounded in scientific advancements and international standards. The assessment indicated that the management plans were developed using reputable scientific methods and principles aimed at ensuring the sustainable management of forest resources with certain strengths and opportunities presented by SWOT analysis. All management plans shared a common planning concept primarily focused on maximizing wood production through the area-control harvest scheduling method (except for continuous cover forest, which employed the single tree selection method). Each management plan established its unique vision, targets, policies, objectives, and planning guidelines. Forest inventory data were gathered through a combination of ground surveys and remotely sensed data to characterize and stratify the landscape. A robust in-house management authority and governance system with appropriate technical capacity and guidelines were developed and implemented, fostering a sound common working culture and tools. However, some notable drawbacks were identified, including political pressure, biomass/carbon accounting, growth-yield modelling, economic analysis, limited characterization of the full range of ecosystem services, risk and uncertainty analysis, food security and, particularly, long-term sustainability and scenario analysis with the appropriate decision-making tools and methods. Despite a few strengths, these limitations may raise concerns about the far-sighted design and application, potentially jeopardizing the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. Proposed improvement strategies for an efficient forest ecosystem management planning system include characterization of ecosystem services, modelling their productivity, scenario analysis with a decision support system, stakeholder involvement, balancing utilization and conservation targets, conducting risk and uncertainty analysis and economic analysis of management actions.

Achieving a blue economy will require reconciling the value of emerging ocean uses with their impacts on the seascape and sectors with historical access to marine resources and areas. To meet this challenge, we developed an analytical framework for conducting marine spatial planning through tradeoff analysis, and applied it to prospective offshore wind energy development in the ∼974 km² Morro Bay, California, USA Wind Energy Area (WEA). We generated spatial data layers estimating MW power production and impacts on fisheries value and marine wildlife conservation (seabird and cetacean populations) from wind farm development. We then quantified each sector's response to plans of development across the WEA and inside three leases recently acquired by the energy industry for prospective development. Finally, we integrated the sector response data into an analytical framework for mitigating sector tradeoffs with novel spatial planning solutions (maps of wind farm size, location, and configuration) that optimally maximize value to the emergent energy sector (MW power) while minimizing impacts to historical (fisheries and wildlife) sectors. We found that western sites in the WEA had the highest potential power production concurrent with the lowest impact on the historical sectors, revealing the eastern lease to be less efficient at optimally balancing the sector's objectives relative to the development of the central or western leases or the optimal spatial plans identified in the tradeoff analysis. Within a lease, tradeoff analysis found spatial planning able to generate out-sized savings in fisheries value with only modest losses in MW power – for example, by avoiding development in just 5% of the eastern lease to preserve nearly half its fisheries value and still generate 95% its total power potential. Small-scale development opportunities (e.g., a pilot project) with significant power potential and no fisheries impact were also identified, in this case by placing turbines in an area in the western lease with no fisheries value and high power production potential. These plans would also have a relatively low impact on the wildlife conservation sectors, due to decreases in vulnerability levels of both seabird and cetacean populations to turbines going from east to west across the WEA. Our results can inform site evaluation and permitting processes for wind energy development in the Morro Bay WEA. We also expect the tradeoff analysis framework we developed to provide a simple and actionable analytical tool for supporting marine spatial planning of offshore wind energy and other emerging blue economy activities from a balanced perspective that values emerging uses of marine resources alongside existing socio-economic and conservation interests.

Scholars recommend country (or region) specific energy security indices capable of adequately considering local specificities in the absence of a ‘universal’ index. Such an index is not available for Nepal. Hence, this study is the first to develop the Energy Security Composite Index of Nepal (ESCOIN), applying a comprehensive indicator-based approach to quantify energy security (ES) of Nepal. We build upon the notion that a country is able to trade energy when it is energy secure. We quantify Nepal's energy security and qualitatively assess the prospect for regional power trade in South Asia. A long list of 77 indicators is compiled from an extensive review of international literature. Based on the context, applicability to Nepal, data availability and conditions of multi-collinearity, this list of indicators is narrowed down to 21. Principal Component Analysis is then applied to evaluate the importance of the components for ESCOIN. Our results show that Nepal has consistently held a boundary position between “moderate” to “high” classes of ES in the last decade. We identify key reasons for this. First, the country's domestic sector is over-reliant on traditional fuels (dry-dung, firewood and agricultural residues). Second, Nepal faces a problem of suppressed demand in the absence of energy-intensive development activities in all productive sectors of the economy. Third, the growth in the energy demand is met only marginally by domestic hydropower and other renewables, and largely by increasing imports. Hence, we surmise a ‘pseudo energy secure’ state for Nepal. Although efforts are underway, electricity trade with China, Bangladesh and other South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries is economically difficult and technically challenging. Hence, cross-border electricity trading, particularly with India, can be seen as an opportunity for Nepal provided considerable infrastructural development occurs, institutional capacity is strengthened, and genuine political commitment and trust are sustained. Moreover, Nepal should focus on achieving self-sufficiency in energy through domestic hydropower and renewable sources and aim to stabilize energy consumption rather than being overly ambitious of exports, at least in the near future.

The current Ukraine War underlines the importance of grain self-sufficiency. After the adoption of the Paris Agreement, two major challenges developing countries are facing in the coming decades are increasing agricultural production to ensure food security and reducing carbon emissions (CE). The key to such an “environment-development dilemma” is to improve agricultural carbon emission efficiency (CEE). Using China as the study site, we systematically analyze the impacts of agricultural management activities on agricultural CEE from 1997 to 2019. Global and local Moran's I index tests provide evidence of a positive spatial dependence of agricultural CEE. Using the LISA cluster map, we observe that high CEE regions tend to be distributed together, dominated by environmental conditions. However, with the promotion of agricultural management activities, such a clustering pattern vanished. Our spatial Durbin model (SDM) estimation results indicate that there are significant nonlinear relationships between agricultural practices and agricultural CEE. While the consumption of fertilizers and pesticides has economies of scale effects, the deployment of agricultural machinery and irrigation have diseconomies of scale effects on local CEE. Based on the SDM results, the direct and indirect effect estimation results suggest that the significant direct and spillover effects of many practices on agricultural CEE have opposite nonlinear shapes, implying a more complicated situation in promoting these activities, as the positive regional effect of an agricultural activity might have a negative impact on adjacent regions. All the results indicate that local policymakers should carefully tailor agricultural development policies based on local environmental conditions.

New policy solutions are necessary to make cities more liveable in a future that will be hampered by climate change, urbanization, landscape fragmentation and overall overexploitation of limited resources and space. There is an aspiration to continue to integrate Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) into global agendas to cope with climate change and urbanization due to their multiple benefits and co-benefits. Nevertheless, socio-economic and especially negative impacts of NBS are rarely considered and integrated into policy literature. Hence, the objective of this study is to address this gap by simulating three different policy instruments to mitigate green gentrification and enhance the impact of co-designed NBS in Genova. For that purpose, the spatially explicit hedonic pricing simulation model SULD (Sustainable Urbanizing Landscape Development) was used to simulate a linearly decreasing property tax to high-income households, a property tax subsidy provided to low and middle-income households and a zoning buffer policy around the NBS implementation area. Results show that all policy instruments have the ability to curb green gentrification, however the property tax subsidy led to added urban expansion, fostering urban sprawl. Both the zoning buffer and the property tax had better overall socio-economic and land use impacts by curbing green gentrification, posing little impact on low-income households and maintaining urban contraction, even though this contraction was smaller for the property tax instrument. Hence, it can be concluded that a policy mix including information, planning and economic instruments may be most effective to enhance the impact and mitigate green gentrification of NBS.

In this study we investigated the persistent problem of modern slave labor (MSL) in the cattle industry in the state of Pará, Brazil. We identified key characteristics of cattle ranches implicated in MSL and evaluated the efficacy of Zero-Deforestation Agreements in preventing MSL in supply chains. We found properties on the “Dirty List” for MSL tend to be larger, more forested, and faster at deforesting than other ranches. Additionally, we discovered degrading conditions and debt bondage are the predominant MSL types in the cattle sector. Our results show slaughterhouses avoid buying directly from properties with MSL. However, cattle from Dirty List properties continue to enter slaughterhouse supply chains through indirect suppliers, even those committed to Zero-Deforestation Agreements. Overall, our findings reveal the complexity of addressing labor exploitation in opaque cattle supply chains. Expanding monitoring and traceability systems, improving transparency, and providing alternative livelihoods for at-risk workers are urgently needed. Public-private collaborations show promise for strengthening enforcement and improving working conditions in the cattle industry.

This study highlights the significance of comprehending the region's caste system and cultural norms and their influence on implementing compensation and resettlement programs in hydropower projects to gain social sustainability. By leveraging Social Justice Theory, we examine how systemic inequalities affect tribal women, particularly in the context of large-scale hydropower projects. Tribal women's social and cultural identities expose them to vulnerabilities, leading to negative consequences concerning large-scale hydropower projects. The lack of access to justice and limited participation in decision-making poses social justice challenges, undermining their fundamental rights, such as basic needs, healthcare, and education. Consequently, their well-being and quality of life suffer, impeding support for such projects. The extent of these adverse effects may vary depending on whether women belong to local (Indigenous) or non-local tribes (non-Indigenous). Our analysis reveals the critical role of tribal affiliation in moderating the relationship between social justice dimensions—such as distributive, procedural, substantive, and recognition justice—and social sustainability, offering new insights into Social Justice Theory. This study explores the potential of careful planning that prioritises the needs of tribal women regardless of tribal affiliation to mitigate these negative social consequences. The study employs a social justice framework to address these challenges. Through the analysis of 511 questionnaires using PLS-SEM, the study revealed that tribal affiliation moderates the relationship between social justice and sustainability. This contribution enriches Social Justice Theory by providing empirical evidence of the intersectionality of social justice issues in the context of development projects. The study further identified that social sustainability and community satisfaction mediate the relationship between social justice and support for hydropower projects, while tribal affiliation moderates this relationship.