Environmental Management最新文献

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is a promising tool for restoring ecological functionality and improving human well-being in degraded landscapes. The success of FLR efforts depends on the interests, perceptions, and actions of local communities, extension services, Non-Governmental Organizations, and policymakers. While much research focuses on the direct ecological and economic impacts of FLR, limited attention has been given to how stakeholder perceptions influence the design and implementation of restoration efforts. Understanding these perspectives is crucial for shaping effective policy interventions and ensuring long-term FLR success. This study uses Q methodology to examine stakeholder viewpoints on key considerations and priorities for designing and implementing FLR in Tchamba Prefecture, Togo. The analysis reveals three distinct perspectives: (1) Incentive-Driven Restoration, emphasizing financial incentives and private-sector partnerships as essential for FLR success; (2) Comprehensive and Collaborative Restoration, advocating for an inclusive, multidisciplinary approach that integrates community participation and long-term monitoring; and (3) Incentive-Driven Community Restoration, highlighting the importance of economic incentives in fostering local engagement. Across all perspectives, stakeholders strongly agreed on the importance of biodiversity conservation, stakeholder involvement, and conflict resolution in land use. The findings underscore the need to tailor FLR policies to local contexts and stakeholder preferences, suggesting that flexible, participatory approaches can enhance sustainability and effectiveness. This study contributes to developing inclusive, adaptive restoration policies and highlights the need to integrate behavioural insights into policy-making to foster long-term stakeholder engagement.

Climate information is important for agricultural decision-makings. On the supply-side, provision of climate information is crucial as it enhances information availability. However, decisions from the demand-side are equally important. If farmers do not make use of available climate information, its benefits may be limited. In the extant literature, level of use of climate information has been largely overlooked. In this paper, we examine the impact of not only access but also level of use of climate information on adoption intensity of sustainable practices. Based on a large sample data, we used double-hurdle model to account for not only the hurdle farmers need to grapple with to access climate information but also decisions on the actual use (level) of information to probe into the determinants of adoption. Using dose-response function moreover, we consider both access and intensity of use of climate information to estimate the impact on adoption intensity of adaptation and CSA practices. We found the presence of significant differences in the determinants of adoption intensity when accounting for not only access but also actual use of climate information. Specifically, labor endowments such as education and physical labor and sources of information and learning (extension and community groups) were positively correlated with higher adoption. Dose-response function results indicate that intensity of use of climate information increased adoption of CSA practices. Results imply that while interventions to improve access are useful, those that enhance farmers' level of use of climate information are vital for increasing adoption of sustainable practices.

Customary ownership over trees on forested public lands is a traditional practice that grants individuals or groups rights and duties to access, use, and manage trees. This unique ownership model, where the Indian Government owns the forested land, but trees on that land are customarily owned by the households or community, plays a critical role in community participation in Participatory Forest Management (PFM). No study has yet quantitatively analyzed the relationship between customary ownership over trees and participation in PFM activities. Therefore, this study fills this gap by analyzing the relationship between households' participation in PFM, the number of trees under customary ownership on forested public lands, and socioeconomic variables in Jharkhand, India. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and participatory rural appraisal. Factor analysis and multivariate linear regression were employed to analyze this relationship. We found that households' customary ownership over a higher number of trees enabled them to earn a higher income and motivated them to relocate for better education and healthcare access, resulting in reduced PFM participation. Households with larger forest landholdings participated more regularly in PFM activities, motivated to legalize ownership of their long-used forestlands. Displaced households experienced reduced PFM participation. Higher caste and wealth groups were associated with greater PFM participation due to better resource access and stronger decision-making power. The study findings inform policymakers to improve inclusive participation in PFM activities and provide a pathway for achieving India's environmental commitments by reducing socioeconomic disparities, improving tribal livelihoods, and promoting sustainable management of forestry resources.

Forests serve as crucial carbon sinks, yet quantifying carbon cycle processes within forested watersheds is challenging due to inherent complexities, including multiple carbon pools and variability. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) transport from forests significantly impacts drinking water quality since it interacts with chlorine to form disinfection byproducts. Although the Soil and Water Assessment Tool-Carbon (SWAT-C) has been widely used to understand carbon fluxes at the watershed scale, the model has been primarily evaluated in non-forested watersheds and loading to aquatic systems, often overlooking terrestrial carbon fluxes from forested regions within watersheds of interests. This study assessed the applicability of SWAT-C in simulating carbon fluxes in both terrestrial and aquatic systems in the forested Big Creek watershed located in the south-central United States (U.S.), which also serves as a drinking water source, and analyzed dominant pathways of DOC transport across the landscape. Additionally, three management scenarios (i.e., forest conversion, raking in forests, and adjusting biomass harvest in croplands) aimed at reducing DOC transport were evaluated. Calibration efforts using remotely sensed as well as datasets demonstrated the proficiency of SWAT-C in simulating both terrestrial and aquatic carbon fluxes in forest-dominated regions. Results emphasize the importance of initializing and calibrating the parameters of dominant land use/cover types to enhance model performance in simulating carbon fluxes. The study found that all evaluated management scenarios can reduce DOC transport into streams, with the conversion of the dominant loblolly pine forests to restored longleaf pine forests achieving a 40% reduction in forest-derived DOC yields. These findings offer valuable insights for watershed-scale carbon cycling modeling and inform management strategies in forest-dominant watersheds to mitigate DOC yields.

Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are key to infrastructure development globally, and serve to evaluate impacts and guide approval. Importantly, the EIAs typically include mitigation measures through which projects - if allowed to advance - will reduce and mitigate the most negative social and environmental impacts. There are mounting demands to ensure EIA assessments and procedures meaningfully address these impacts, particularly for large-scale, high-risk and long-lived projects such as hydropower infrastructure. We explore these challenges in Nepal, where more than 450 EIAs have been approved since 1997. However, existing EIA evaluations and procedures are widely recognized as failing to deliver on-the-ground. We provide the first public dataset of hydropower projects with approved EIA's, as a basis for characterizing the state of EIA implementation in Nepal. Based on a purposive sample of hydropower EIA reports, we highlight 26 commonly-proposed mitigation measures, and examine the thoroughness of these reports as written. We then also evaluate whether and how these proposed mitigation measures were implemented, based on independent, field-based evaluations of 9 projects, including interviews with field staff and local residents. The results show strong patterns of incomplete and non-compliance EIA reports, particularly as relates to mitigation measures. In the field, we document low levels of implementation of proposed mitigation measures, as well as blatant violations of best practices, and very low rates of government monitoring (~15% of approved projects). We leverage these insights to propose practical advice to strengthen EIAs implementation in Nepal, with broader implications for assessing and mitigating long-lived, high-impact infrastructure projects.

Mining policy reforms in Ethiopia have led to increased investments in mineral-rich regions. However, there has been inadequate evaluation of environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) practices related to these mining projects, particularly in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region (BGR). This study aims to assess the ESIA practices for mining investments in the BGR by examining public participation in the ESIA process, the mechanisms for ESIA implementation and monitoring, and the strategies employed by mining companies for environmental and social mitigation and enhancement plans (ESMEP). Utilizing a cross-sectional research design, we collected primary data from 162 households affected by mining activities through systematic random sampling. Additionally, qualitative data were gathered through four focus group discussions (FGDs) and twelve key informant interviews (KIIs). Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while qualitative data underwent narrative analysis. The findings indicate low levels of public involvement in land allocation, ESIA processes, and decision-making related to mining investments. Furthermore, weak institutional monitoring has hindered effective implementation of ESMEP by mining companies. Consequently, affected communities face significant risks of adverse social and environmental impacts that threaten their sustainable development. To address these issues, the study recommends that the regional government establish robust institutions for monitoring and evaluating ESIA and ESMEP implementation, thereby ensuring accountability among mining companies and fostering sustainable development within host communities.

In Canada, clean growth has been viewed as an essential strategy for achieving net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050. However, clean growth initiatives can create cumulative effects. Moreover, such initiatives are evolving rapidly and it is unclear if conventional environmental assessments are sufficient. The assessment of cumulative effects of clean growth remains a relatively novel activity, yet is seemingly important given that some of the emerging actions and technologies could themselves yield a variety of unanticipated environment impacts. To support evidence-based policy development for clean growth, we conducted a policy scan at subnational and national levels in Canada supported by targeted scans in other jurisdictions to assess the scope at which cumulative effects are assessed for renewable clean growth projects, and to identify best practices, approaches, and/or methods for assessing the cumulative effects of clean growth. Our policy scan revealed that approaches for assessing cumulative effects of renewable clean growth activities are inadequately developed across Canada. Though we confirmed few existing cumulative effects frameworks in practice, we found a diverse set of cases where cumulative effects have been effectively identified and managed (in Canada and afar) for projects predominately in the natural resource sector. Four policy insights were generated for assessing cumulative effects of renewable clean growth in Canada; (1) adopt a regional approach that considers local context, (2) support the development of valued ecosystem components, (3) conduct rigorous and comprehensive baseline monitoring, and (4) prioritize collaborative governance including with Indigenous governments and communities. Failure to consider cumulative effects during the early phases of renewable clean growth could impede the ability to meet targets and yield the environmental and socio-economic benefits that are promised by the clean growth movement.

The Nature Futures Framework (NFF) is a novel approach for the development of positive scenarios centered on the relationship of nature and people, emphasizing biodiversity as part of the solution to environmental challenges across various spatial and temporal scales, explicitly addressing a plurality of values for nature. In this work, we describe the process that has led to the formulation of continental-scale positive narratives for conservation in Europe based on the NFF and its value perspectives (Nature for Nature; Nature for Society; Nature as Culture), through an expert group elicitation. We focused on 6 topics in the narratives: Nature Protection and Restoration; Forest Ecosystems; Freshwater Ecosystems; Urban Systems; Agriculture, and Energy. We analyze differences and similarities among the narratives across these topics. We develop three novel Nature Futures narratives for Europe with contrasting perspectives and priorities for the six topics. Within the EU socioeconomic trends and policy framework, common solutions that simultaneously tackle biodiversity conservation and instrumental and cultural Nature's Contributions to People (NCP) provision emerged. This set of narratives may integrate preferences concerning EU-level conservation targets and plausible socio-ecological development pathways, supporting the modeling of positive scenarios for nature that can be crucial in guiding policy decisions towards recovery of nature.

Previous work showed that animals have demonstrated remarkable adaptability by actively integrating into urban environments. However, there is no essential difference between urban and rural areas but food availability. The behavioral mechanisms and processes by which animals adapt to cities still require further experimental validation. In this study, field surveys of the flight initiation distance (FID) of black-headed gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) were performed at three scenic sites in Kunming City, Yunnan, southwest China. Our results showed that, within the same area, the FID of black-headed gulls was significantly shorter in areas with increased human activity. Moreover, in areas with earlier human contact, black-headed gulls showed shorter FID. The FID data were further analyzed by a multilayer perceptron regression model with a neural network (ANN-MLP) approach to delineate FID thresholds for black-headed gulls in different human disturbance spots. The analysis revealed that black-headed gulls exhibit a high degree of behavioral flexibility in cities, with food availability playing a key role in increasing the birds' tolerance to humans. These findings highlight the significant impact of human behaviors, such as feeding, on wildlife behavior patterns. Understanding this mechanism is essential for understanding the coexistence of humans and wildlife. The establishment of FID models for black-headed gulls will provide new possibilities and tools for animal behavior research.

Clear limits for cumulative effects are needed to safeguard the ecological structures, functions, and processes on which society depends in a rapidly changing world. However, ecological thresholds are difficult to discern and even more challenging to integrate meaningfully into cumulative effects assessments (CEA). It has been suggested that establishing a safe operating space for cumulative effects could move the dial forward in this respect. Yet, there remains little guidance on how to achieve this. Here, we propose a schema for measuring cumulative effects relative to a safe operating space grounded in ecological resilience. We then explore practical considerations for implementing this schema in CEA based on six attributes of a resilient ecosystem: diversity, connectivity, modularity, memory, openness, and feedbacks. We posit that a safe operating space may serve as a powerful tool to understand how our collective footprint may be undermining the ability of ecosystems to adapt and respond to future disturbances. By assessing cumulative effects against a safe operating space, society can better understand when systems are pushed to the edge of their safe zone and manage our interactions so as to avoid a catastrophic shift in the conditions needed for ecological and societal prosperity.