Environmental Management最新文献

Mining-induced land degradation (MILD) is unavoidable but it can be sustainably managed when social, economic, political and, environmental imperatives are holistically considered in decision-making processes. Therefore, this study examines MILD in Mhondongori Ward 5 and Mapirimira Ward 6 in Zvishavane District of Zimbabwe, using geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) with conventional methods. This is to provide scientific evidence that supports informed decision-making for sustainable management of the mining industry and its potential to cause MILD. It seeks to determine the extent of biophysical landscape fragmentation and its management to develop a sustainability-oriented framework for effective MILD management. Landsat imagery analysis using the supervised image classification method over a 24-year period (2000–2024) revealed that mining land expanded from 0.2 km² (2000) to 1.8 km² (2024) while natural forests declined from 20.6 km² to 12.6 km², bareland decreased from 31.9 km² to 26.8 km² and communal cultivation increased from 18.7 km² to 29.8 km². The land use structure indicates that local livelihoods are heavily dependent on nature-based resources and ecosystem services necessitating revised land use planning that balances mineral extraction with sustainable land allocation to safeguard food security, biodiversity, and community resilience. Community perceptions attribute land degradation mainly to Chinese operators (97.8%) and artisanal miners (59%). Despite existing legal frameworks, weak institutional coordination, limited community participation, and corruption undermine effective management. The co-developed framework offers multi-stakeholder collaboration, legal reform, geospatial monitoring, environmental education, and engineered rehabilitation for supporting Zimbabwe’s National Development Strategy 1, AU Agenda 2063, and global SDGs.

Environmental conservation efforts on different scales, from species to ecosystems, are mostly centered on regulating human behaviours (activities) through rules governing resource access and use. However, local resource users do not always respond positively to rules. Non-compliance with conservation rules renders them ineffective, which undermines the achievement of ecological and development goals in environmental management. Therefore the factors that determine compliance with conservation rules require thorough consideration in environmental conservation planning. While a substantial literature explores the factors influencing rule compliance in the context of formal protected areas that rely mostly on enforcement of legislation by regulatory authorities, less is known about such dynamics in Community-Based Conservation (CBC) that rely mostly on conformity with local collective decisions. Taking a qualitative case study approach, this paper examines the determinants of compliance with livestock grazing rules for a particular CBC model, namely the community conservancies of Maasai Mara in southwestern Kenya, which continue to struggle with livestock encroachment. The findings highlight the drivers and barriers to compliance with livestock grazing rules by conservancy members (landowners), offering key lessons into how conducive factors can be leveraged for behavioural changes critical for progress towards sustainability of conservancies. Overall, economic benefits, deterrence (enforcement and sanctions), and normative incentives (social and personal norms) came out as key motivating factors, reinforced by high dependence on natural resources. Recommended policy actions include strengthening and diversifying revenue streams, improving conservancy governance structures, enhancing enforcement capacity, and raising conservation awareness.

While many companies have made claims regarding regenerative efforts in recent years, analytical frameworks are sparse that clearly demonstrate how claims of regeneration can be differentiated from claims of sustainability. This study proposes the use of Regenerative Value Networks (RVNs) as a theoretical framework to analyze these claims and refine the descriptive approaches to claims of regenerative efforts, particularly for marine plastics in the global commons. In this exploratory study, five cases of new materials generated from marine plastics were analyzed to understand how value networks were constructed and what types of regenerative value were created. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis was used in a comparative analysis across cases. Preliminary data analysis led to the question “But who is paying whom for what?” and a series of value configuration maps were developed to better understand these relationships. Types of value exchanged in the RVNs were categorized as material, social, ecological, and economic, contributing to a more robust theoretical framework for claims of regeneration in business. Further research should include quantitative measures of the regenerative impact of these value networks in the context of the global commons’ pollution, the role of certifications in regenerative business claims, and additional types of less tangible value created by RVN activities.

Unsealed roads and their construction and maintenance are a direct anthropogenic source of sediment in river catchments. Maintenance practices use graders to form the road crown, add gravel material, reshape table and diversion drains, and remove vegetation from batters. Repeat high-resolution terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) was used to quantify unsealed road erosion at six road segments (2.5 ha) over two years each with average rainfall to assess (1) baseline erosion from status quo maintenance, and (2) changes in erosion by applying Best Management Practices (BMPs) to reduce fine sediment delivered to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Baseline erosion rates were 132 t/ha/yr locally of all size classes and 38 t/ha/yr < 20 µm to GBR, higher than natural catchment rates (<2 t/ha/yr). Suspended sediment concentrations (<20 µm) were 10 times higher downstream of the road crossings compared to upstream. BMPs implemented in the second year included no grading disturbance of drains and batters for grass recovery, woody vegetation control with herbicide, drain rock lining or grade control structures, rock mulching steep batters, rock chutes at gully heads, and rock mattress floodways. Normalised by a control segment, vegetation recovery on batters and drains resulted in the lowest reduction in erosion (22%), compared to the addition of rock mulch and check dams (42–43%) and more frequent water diversion (69%). Wholistic management funding for road condition and safety; vegetation and weed spread; sheet, rill and gully erosion; and GBR pollution should be treated as a complete package by Federal, State, and Local governments.

Although coastal ecosystems are impacted by climate change and sea-level rise, many ecological and hydrological models do not yet incorporate sea-level rise projections in their modeling outputs. Therefore, this research examined the various challenges that may prevent sea-level rise from being effectively incorporated in modeling and decision-support tools. We conducted semi-structured interviews with twenty-six professionals involved in Florida’s Everglades restoration. We applied the Diffusions of Innovations Theory to better understand factors that can impact practitioners’ adoption of newly designed decision-support tools that examine sea-level rise in the freshwater Everglades. The Diffusions of Innovations Theory provided insights into practitioners’ perceptions of these tools. We found that these practitioners have a strong interest in using dynamic decision-support tools to plan for sea-level rise impacts on Everglades restoration, particularly when they receive information at appropriate geographic and temporal scales and are given hands-on tools and training. However, challenges that prevent developing these tools include outdated data, limited organizational capacity and funding, limited use of long-term indicators, uncertainty about climate change impacts on local ecosystems, and lack of integration between hydrological and ecological models. Our research also highlights that greater availability of different types of tools can help to meet the needs of the scientific and non-scientific audiences involved in Everglades restoration.

Land resource conflicts in Africa, often manifesting as social dramas driven by competing stakeholders, have been widely studied in contexts like Nigeria’s Niger Delta. However, the recent emergence of petroleum-related conflicts in the adjacent Anambra River Basin a region now grappling with oil politics, exclusionary governance, and resistance movements presents a critical yet underexplored case. This paper examines how land resource conflicts, framed as social dramas, shape the development trajectories of communities in the Anambra River Basin, addressing the research question: How do oil well conflicts and associated social dramas influence socioeconomic development in this region? Employing Victor Turner’s Social Drama and James C. Scott’s State Spatialization frameworks and analyzing published and gray literature through qualitative thematic analysis, the study reveals that conflicts are fueled by the politics of inclusion/exclusion, the pursuit of ‘Oil-Producing State Status,’ and evolving resistance strategies, all of which disrupt development. By shifting the focus from the Niger Delta to the Anambra Basin, this study uncovers novel dynamics of resource conflicts in Nigeria, demonstrating how they mutate in form and strategy, rendering conventional conflict resolution approaches ineffective. The findings contribute to international scholarship by highlighting the fluidity of resource-based conflicts in Africa and the need for adaptive, context-specific solutions to mitigate their developmental consequences.

Growing concern over long-term particulate matter (PM) exposure in coastal industrial complexes highlights limitations in addressing stakeholders’ perceptions of acceptability and feasibility (A&F) for targeted gardening for particulate matter alleviation (TGPMA) as a participatory governance strategy towards long-term management. A perception-based survey conducted in the Yeosu National Industrial Complex, South Korea, used statistical and network analyses to examine these perceptions. Results indicate strong awareness of TGPMA’s necessity and benefits, with high acceptability but limited feasibility—especially regarding community participation and fundraising. Positive perceptions increased willingness to engage, and prior community experience strengthened acceptability, feasibility, and sustained involvement. Five governance challenges emerged: low voluntary participation, weak fundraising, perceptual gaps in monitoring, limited stakeholder responsibility, and uncertain maintenance commitments. A governance-centered framework towards long-term management is proposed, integrating self-governance, business-sector stewardship, multi-sector fundraising, adaptive monitoring, and shared maintenance. The framework underscores the business sector’s dual role as financial contributor and governance partner, enhancing A&F through collaborative responsibility and inclusive decision-making. Although conceptually valuable, this single-site study’s generalizability is limited by self-reported survey data, and the lack of deeper exploration of the business sector in light of the study’s findings. Future research should test the framework across diverse industrial contexts and assess business sector perceptions to advance co-governance for sustainable air quality management.

Biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes requires frameworks that move beyond species richness to address compositional dynamics and community structure. In this study, we apply a zeta diversity approach to explore the patterns of bird compositional turnover across five traditional agricultural systems in the Eastern Himalaya—agropastoral system (AP), farm-based agroforestry system (FAS), large cardamom-based agroforestry system (LCAS), terrace rice cultivation (TRC), and tea cultivation system (TCS). Zeta diversity, which quantifies species shared across multiple sites, enables a deeper understanding of the roles of both common and rare species in shaping community composition. Common, widespread species predominantly influenced compositional turnover within sites of FAS and LCAS, as indicated by higher retention rates across increasing zeta orders. In contrast, AP, TRC, and TCS exhibited greater turnover due to rare or site-specific species, reflected in lower retention rates across sites of the same system. Insectivores emerged as the dominant feeding guild across all systems, with turnover patterns varying significantly among landscapes. Key habitat and environmental drivers of turnover included shrub density, NDVI, temperature seasonality, precipitation seasonality, and elevation. Our findings highlight the critical role of traditional agricultural landscapes in maintaining avian biodiversity and underscore the importance of conserving habitat heterogeneity within agricultural matrices. By leveraging the zeta diversity framework, this study offers valuable insights for integrating biodiversity conservation into agricultural planning and land-use policy. As pressures from land-use change and climate variability intensify, such multidimensional biodiversity assessments are essential for designing resilient agroecosystems that support both ecological integrity, spatial connectivity and local livelihoods in mountain biodiversity hotspots.

The analysis of the Polish environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports (EIARs) for natural gas (NG) projects, preceded by a legislation survey, with regards to the consideration of major accidents and disasters (MADs), showed that although reports prepared after January 1, 2017 contain more detailed information on MADs, none of the reports introduced the concept of risk, understood as the probability of hazards//impacts in combination with their consequences//effects, nor did they present the assessment results of such defined risk. The quality of the EIARs can be improved. It would be valuable, in addition to the arbitrary, minimum distances from the NG pipeline to other structures used in Poland (DMINs), to include assessment results of such defined risk. It is therefore recommended that sector-specific guidelines for assessing the risk of MADs on pipelines be developed in Poland to support LUP decisions, as well as general guidelines for integrating the risk assessment of MADs within the EIA. Although Polish EIA practitioners and proponents recognize the importance of public participation and consideration of social factors in the EIA practice, in the context of mitigating social conflicts fuelled by concerns about hazards posed by MADs, there is still room for improvement in this regard. It relates directly to the recommendations concerning the presentation of the results of the risk assessment of MADs in the EIARs. In addition, it is suggested that the Polish EIA legislation be modified and a set of man-made disasters analyzed in the EIA be expanded to include consideration of “technical disasters” in place of “construction disasters”.