Environmental Management最新文献

As populations increase, water quality is increasingly affected by failing septic systems that introduce harmful fecal bacteria (e.g., E. coli) into watersheds. Septic system owners play a vital role in reducing the impact of such bacteria. Therefore, our study aimed to examine factors that influence septic system owners’ decisions to improve septic system maintenance and protect watershed health in the Attoyac Bayou, located in East Texas. Using the theory of planned behavior, we addressed three research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of septic systems within the Attoyac Bayou watershed?; (2) How have septic system owners in the Attoyac Bayou watershed maintained their systems?; and (3) How do attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control predict septic system maintenance behaviors? We sent a questionnaire to septic system owners in the Attoyac Bayou watershed that included questions about septic system characteristics, maintenance histories, and owners’ perceived norms, controls, attitudes, and intentions about septic systems. We found most septic systems in Attoyac Bayou are older conventional models with many owners lacking service contracts and reporting various times since the last pump out or inspection. While septic system owners generally demonstrate positive attitudes and confidence toward maintenance, our results revealed that attitude accounts for the greatest variance in maintenance behavior, with social norms and perceived behavioral control being less influential. Therefore, we recommend targeted messaging and interventions to reinforce positive attitudes, enhance perceived behavioral control, and promote consistent maintenance behaviors.

Groundwater, constituting approximately 30% of global freshwater reserves, is a critical resource for domestic, agricultural, industrial, and environmental needs in the Lower Mekong Region. The transboundary Cambodia-Mekong River Delta Aquifer System (CMRDAS), shared by Cambodia and Vietnam, plays a vital role in sustaining regional livelihoods but faces increasing pressures from urbanization, climate change, and weak governance arrangements. Despite its importance, a comprehensive quantitative framework for assessing groundwater governance in transboundary aquifer systems remains lacking. This study addresses this gap by developing a generic, indicator-based framework for assessing transboundary groundwater governance. The framework integrates four governance dimensions, namely Technical, Legal and Financial, Institutional, and Operational, operationalized through 27 indicators and synthesized into a Transboundary Groundwater Governance Index (TGGI) measured on a standardized scale from 0 to 3. The framework was validated through expert-based assessment and subsequently applied to the CMRDAS using a structured survey of groundwater governance stakeholders from the Lower Mekong Region. The results indicate that groundwater governance in the CMRDAS remains at an incipient stage, with a TGGI score of 0.84, reflecting limited progress in transboundary coordination. Significant governance gaps persist across operational, institutional, legal, and financial dimensions, particularly at the transboundary level compared to national contexts. Governance provisions and institutional capacity were consistently more developed in Vietnam than in Cambodia, highlighting asymmetries in governance maturity and implementation capacity. The study identifies key priorities for strengthening groundwater governance, including reallocating financial resources, enhancing institutional capacity, fostering inclusive and participatory policy frameworks, improving transparency and data sharing, and reinforcing local and transboundary coordination mechanisms. Overall, the framework provides a replicable and policy-relevant tool to support the diagnosis and improvement of groundwater governance in transboundary aquifer systems.

Vast number of migratory bird species rely on wetlands of Punjab Pakistan during tough wintering season. Most spectacular of these winter visitors are waterbirds including Northern pintail(Anas acuta). This study investigates the trends in Northern Pintail abundance and their correlation with wetland habitat conditions focusing on spatial and temporal shifts on longitudinal scale (2015–2025). We examine the complex interplay between rainfall variability, water quality and vegetation health to track habitat changes and their impact on Pintail populations. Northern Pintail populations were monitored through systematic boat-based and point-count surveys conducted across designated wetland sites. Long-term population trends were evaluated using the non-parametric Mann–Kendall trend test, complemented by Sen’s slope estimators to quantify the direction and magnitude of temporal changes in abundance. To assess the influence of environmental variables on Pintail population dynamics, Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) were employed. Availability of water, vegetation pattern(Measured by NDVI) and rainfall pattern in particular region were taken as predictor variables. Population census data collected on yearly basis revealed a sharp decrease of Northern Pintails, with net declines exceeding 99% at both Namal Lake (99.04%) and Uchali Lake (99.19%). Average reduction in Northern Pintail numbers remained 98.34% across all the wetlands under study. Analysis of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) values identified the primary driver of this decline as extensive vegetation loss, which compromises the availability of food and shelter critical to the species’ survival. Results of current study highlights that the presence of water alone is insufficient to sustain viable waterbird populations; instead, the structural quality of vegetative habitat was acting as a limiting factor. The findings point to habitat degradation as a key contributor to the ongoing ecological crisis facing waterbirds in the region. Consequently, effective conservation strategies must go beyond hydrological interventions and focus on restoring and maintaining the ecological integrity of wetland habitats to reduce further biodiversity loss.

Photovoltaic (PV) installations and intensive aquaculture (AC), are increasingly common practices within subsidence lakes, potentially exacerbating aquatic environmental pollution and posing significant challenges for regional environmental management. However, their ecological consequences on bacterial communities remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated bacterial diversity, taxonomic composition, and ecological stability across three different habitats (REF, PV and AC) in subsidence lakes by high-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing. Our study elucidates significant habitat-specific shifts, with bacterial diversity and ecological complexity markedly reduced in PV habitats compared to reference subsidence lakes (REF), whereas ecological stability was enhanced. In contrast, AC habitats exhibited the lowest bacterial diversity and stability but the highest ecological complexity. Lower diversity in PV habitats primarily resulted from reduced dissolved oxygen, and stabilized environmental conditions. Conversely, nutrient enrichment (TN and TP) driven by aquaculture activities intensifying ecological network complexity but weakening stability due to over-dependence on dissolved organic matter (DOM). Our results highlight the critical ecological trade-offs induced by anthropogenic activities, providing important implications for managing microbial biodiversity and ecosystem functions in anthropogenically impacted lake environments.

Graphical Abstract

Characterizing the variation of pollutants in lake sediment and clarifying their release into overlying water are essential for remediating contaminated sediment. In this study, the total carbon in urban lake sediments significantly decreased with increasing depth, indicating a gradual reduction in carbon burial capacity. Initially, carbon and nitrogen were sequestered by the lake sediments, but they gradually diffused into the water or escaped into the atmosphere over time. The C/N ratios and carbon isotope ratios indicated a shift from algae to C₄ or crassulacean acid metabolism plants as the major organic matter with decreasing sediment depth, revealing a reduction in lake water eutrophication over the past decades. Stronger pollution and higher temperatures promoted the release of pollutants, with nitrogen primarily existing in the form of NH₄⁺-N. The maximum release concentration of COD and total phosphorus (TP) occurred 8 h later than NH₄⁺-N and NO₃^--N, indicating differing affinities for the solid phase due to disturbance. Aeration facilitated pollutants release, but organic compounds diffusing from solid sediment to pore water and then releasing into the overlying water lagged behind that of TP. The addition of biochar was effective in limiting the release of NH₄⁺-N but did not significantly inhibit the release of COD and NO₃^--N. These findings contribute to a better understanding of pollutants variations, the mechanisms of carbon burial, and the release of pollutants into overlying water from urban lake sediment, in addition to providing new insight for understanding pollutants characteristics in urban lakes sediments.

In recent years, studies on fire governance have gained momentum, stressing that, besides technical fire management solutions, it is necessary to consider the array of stakeholders involved in this issue, including local communities. Some recent studies have suggested the need to go beyond superficial stakeholder classifications, considering nuances within stakeholder groups. The present paper adds to this discussion, highlighting the diversity of approaches, their spatial differences and temporal changes among stakeholders involved in fire governance of the La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve, a major wildfire hotspot in southern Mexico. It considers previous research alongside new information from 34 semi-structured expert interviews and fieldwork using ethnographic methods. The data are analysed within an environmental governance framework, considering qualitative social network analysis and inputs from political ecology studies. The results present a complex structure of differences in approaches and objectives that lie beyond established boundaries between stakeholder groups and classical dualities, such as between local communities and governmental agencies. The study also documents obstacles to effective stakeholder cooperation and provides some evidence on how these can be overcome. The framework developed here is relevant to other areas with similar wildfire challenges to enable a systematic revision of stakeholder roles in fire governance.

Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, significantly contributes to climate change, with agriculture accounting for ~50% of anthropogenic emissions. This study investigates the impact of agriculture on methane emissions and surface temperature variation in the Loiret region, France, a mixed urban-rural landscape dominated by crops like Wheat, Maize, Barley and Rapeseed. Globally, it addresses how methane emissions from agricultural and urban sources interact to influence local temperature dynamics in mixed landscapes, and whether high-resolution data can enhance these insights. Using Sentinel-5P TROPOMI XCH₄ data statistically downscaled from its native ~7 km footprint (resampled to 1 km in Google Earth Engine) to 100 m grids via Random Forest machine learning. XCH₄ integrated with Landsat-derived indices (Land Surface Temperature, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Built-up Index, Land Use Land Cover), methane dynamics were analyzed from 2019 to 2024. Results reveal seasonal peaks of 1900.1 ppb in Autumn (post-harvest) and 1899.8 ppb in Winter (manure management), with a diffuse production pattern confirmed by wind back-trajectory analysis. A strong methane-temperature correlation (R² = 0.81) and urban-rural feedback loop highlight temperature-driven methanogenesis, amplified by agricultural and urban sources. Annual analysis shows a yearly increase in the concentration of methane between 2019 and 2024. Validation against field data yielded an R² of 0.85 and RMSE of 9.3 ppb, affirming the downscaled data’s reliability. The study demonstrates that machine learning enhances methane mapping resolution, urban and peri-urban emissions interact with agriculture to shape local temperatures. These findings provide a high-resolution, replicable, and relatively simple framework for monitoring methane-temperature interactions, offering insights for sustainable land management in temperate regions.