Environmental Management

The military-industrial complex, military operations, and wars are major contributors to exacerbating both climate change and biodiversity crises. However, their environmental impacts are often shadowed due to national security reasons. The current paper aims to go through the devastating impacts of military operations and wars on climate change and biodiversity loss and challenges that hinder the inclusion of military-related activities into environmental crisis mitigation efforts. The information blind spot induced by concerns about national security reasons jeopardizes the efforts to involve the military-industrial complex and military operations in the global climate and biodiversity agendas...

Coping with complex landscape situations in the Anthropocene increasingly demands innovative governance practices that can be facilitated by investment in new epistemological and methodological approaches and capacities. This paper explores the use of a multimethodological research approach organized as a systemic co-inquiry to assist in the design of systemic governance for Agroextractivist Settlement Projects (PAEs) in the municipality of Abaetetuba, Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon. In the PAEs, the systemic co-inquiry was conducted alongside interested and influential stakeholders through the combined use of the Soft Systems Methodology and Strategic Options Development and Analysis problem structuring methods...

Water governance demands multi-sector participation beyond the state; and, appropriate laws, policies, regulations, and institutions need to be developed and put in place for sustainable use of water resources. A good water policy, a critical and integral instrument of water governance, guides water use schemes and ensures equitable water distribution among users. The Ethiopian Central Rift Valley (CRV) is rich in water resources, but these water resources are currently under severe strain owing to an imbalance in human-water interactions...

Geospatial online participatory tools, or geo-OPTs, are increasingly used worldwide for engaging the public in planning. Yet, despite growth in the adoption and use of geo-OPTs, and the growing scholarship to accompany it, our understanding of their ability to support public participation in environmental planning is still underdeveloped. In this paper, we investigate the application of a geo-OPT by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), a leading water management agency in the United States, in three contextually and geographically diverse cases...

The potential of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process to respond to climate change impacts of development projects can only be realized with the support of policies, regulations, and actors' engagement. While considering climate change in EIA has become partly mandatory through the EU revised Directive in Europe, African countries are still lagging. This paper assesses Tanzanian policies, laws, regulations, and EIA reports to uncover consideration of climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation measures, drawing from the transformational role of EIA...

One of the paramount challenges in natural resource management revolves around the delicate equilibrium between the demand for and the supply of diverse Ecosystem Services (ESs) within a cultural landscape. Recognizing the centrality of cultural landscapes to human well-being, the sustainability of these landscapes hinges upon the health and stability of ecosystems that can effectively provide the required ESs. Over the long term, the sustainable supply of ESs is constrained by the potential supply of ESs. Understanding the potential supply of ESs is crucial for averting compromises to the ecosystems within a landscape...

Human activities are a significant threat to the health of river ecosystems, especially in developing countries. In Thailand, benthic macroinvertebrates have been widely used for bioassessment for aquatic ecosystem evaluation. However, most of them focuses on streams, which may not be applicable to large rivers. This study aimed to fill this gap by developing a macroinvertebrate multimetric index for Thailand's large rivers. Sampling was conducted in 15 rivers, and 41 sites across Thailand. Physico-chemical parameters, habitat characteristics, and macroinvertebrates were analyzed...

This study designs a double-bounded dichotomous questionnaire, and uses the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to estimate residents' willingness to pay(WTP) for water pollution control along the Taihu Lake Basin. The results of the returned questionnaire show that 82.76% of the residents are willing to pay. CVM estimation results show that the average WTP of residents for water pollution control is 138.86 yuan/year. In addition, the influencing factors of WTP are explored using a Logistic regression model, and the heterogeneity of WTP among residents of different genders is analyzed...

As representative of the water-energy-food nexus, fossil fuel development and industrial agriculture are rural industries that continue to expand and increasingly occur in the same areas. Being a top agricultural export county and the fossil fuel capital of California while ranking among the worst in the US for industrial pollution, Kern County is a poster child of rural nexus development and, thus, an essential place for initiating sustainability transitions. Such transitions rely on policy support and the adoption of methods by individuals and communities who may disagree with such changes...

Artisanal mining is intensely carried out in developing countries, including Brazil and especially in the Amazon. This method of mineral exploration generally does not employ mitigation techniques for potential damages and can lead to various environmental problems and risks to human health. The objectives of this study were to quantify the concentrations of rare earth elements (REEs) and estimate the environmental and human health risks in cassiterite and monazite artisanal mining areas in the southeastern Amazon, as well as to understand the dynamics of this risk over time after exploitation...

Peatlands play a key role in the circulation of the main greenhouse gases (GHG) - methane (CH4 ), carbon dioxide (CO2 ), and nitrous oxide (N2 O). Therefore, detecting the spatial pattern of GHG sinks and sources in peatlands is pivotal for guiding effective climate change mitigation in the land use sector. While geospatial environmental data, which provide detailed spatial information on ecosystems and land use, offer valuable insights into GHG sinks and sources, the potential of directly using remote sensing data from satellites remains largely unexplored...

As human activity accelerates the global crisis facing wildlife populations, private land conservation provides an example of wildlife management challenges in social-ecological systems. This study reports on the research phase of 'WildTracker' - a co-created citizen science project, involving 160 landholders across three Tasmanian regions. This was a transdisciplinary collaboration between an environmental organisation, university researchers, and local landholders. Focusing on mammal and bird species, the project integrated diverse data types and technologies: social surveys, quantitative ecology, motion sensor cameras, acoustic recorders, and advanced machine-learning analytics...

Farmers can counteract global warming by drawing carbon dioxide from the air into agricultural soils by building up humus. Humus programs were developed to motivate farmers for even more humus formation (= carbon sequestration) through an additional financial incentive. These programs are still at an early stage of development, which is why the number of participating farmers and research work is still low. This study is the first to analyze the willingness of German farmers to participate in hypothetical humus programs...

This study was aimed at examining the contribution of forest products to rural livelihoods and the socio-economic factors that influence household forest dependence in the Luki Biosphere Reserve. A structured questionnaire poll of 193 households randomly chosen from two enclaves in the Luki Biosphere Reserve, and focus group discussions were used to gather the data. For data analysis, a binary logistic regression model was used. The study revealed a substantial contribution of forest products to household livelihood based on household wealth strata and the gender of the household head...

The scientific community has reached a consensus on humans' important role as causative agents of climate change; however, branches of society are still sceptical about this. Climate change is a key issue for humanity and only the commitment to change human attitudes and lifestyles, at the global level, can be effective in its mitigation. With this purpose, it is important to convey the right message and prevent misinformation to manipulate people's minds. The present study aims to understand the factors shaping European citizens' thoughts on the causes of climate change...

Global climate change has seriously threatened agriculture and connected sectors, especially in developing countries like India. The Brahmaputra Valley in Assam, Northeast India, is vulnerable to climate change due to its agrarian economy, fragile geo-ecological setting, recurrent floods and droughts, and poor socioeconomic conditions of the farmers. The climate-induced hindrances faced by the rice farming community of this region and the local adaptation practices they employ have not been adequately studied...

Wild ungulates can influence various trophic levels, regulating carnivore abundance and affecting habitat structure. Conservation problems can arise when high ungulate densities threaten species or habitats with conservation concern. Assessing factors influencing the intensity of their impact is important to identify appropriate measures enhancing habitat conservation. We assessed factors influencing wild boar Sus scrofa pressure on EU protected grasslands in three protected areas of central Italy, by modelling the effects of environmental variables and wild boar density on rooting activity...

In urbanized areas, rivers and riparian ecosystems are often the only ecological corridors available for wildlife movement. There, riverbanks are often stabilised by civil engineering structures (dykes, riprap). This can lead to habitat degradation and loss of landscape connectivity. Fascines (willow bundles tied together) could be an alternative to riprap, since they maintain the quality of the natural ecosystems by using native vegetal species instead of rocks, but their potential positive impact needs to be assessed...

Successful management of invasive species often requires working across public and private landownerships. A prime example of an invasive species that commonly occurs on privately and publicly owned and managed lands is the wild pig (Sus scrofa). Because of the multitude of negative impacts associated with wild pigs, management must occur across both private and public lands to achieve widespread control and sustained success. However, managing wild pigs across property boundaries is challenging as we know very little about differing management practices and landowner perspectives...

Deforestation is one of the most relevant transformations characterizing global environmental change in the tropics at present. There is wide consensus in pointing the context-dependent nature of tropical deforestation. In this sense, a better characterization of the phenomenon considering the social context could provide a more accurate picture of tropical deforestation. With this aim, a Q-methodology discourse analysis was conducted to characterise the different discourses that coexist in the particular region of the Paraguayan Chaco concerning the development of cattle ranching and derived deforestation...