A framework for guiding sustainability assessment and on-farm strategic decision making

Responding to future challenges and societal needs, various actions are taken in agriculture to evolve towards more sustainable farming practices. These actions imply strategic choices and suppose adequate sustainability assessments to identify, measure, evaluate and communicate sustainable development. However, literature is scarce on the link between strategic decision making and sustainability assessment. As questions emerge on how, what and when to measure, the objective of this paper is to construct a framework for guiding sustainability assessment and on-farm strategic decision making. Qualitative research on own experiences from the past and a recent project revealed four categories of actual needs farmers, advisors and experts have regarding sustainability assessment: context, flexibility, focus on farm and farmer and communication. These stakeholders' needs are then incorporated into a two-dimensional framework that marries the intrinsic complexity of sustainability assessment tools and the time frame of strategic decision making. The framework allows a farm-specific and flexible approach leading to harmonized actions towards sustainable farming. As this framework is mainly a procedural instrument to guide the use of sustainability assessment tools within strategic decision making, it fits to incorporate, even guide, future research on sustainability assessment tools themselves and on their adoption on farms.     

Assessment of multifaceted environmental issues and model development of an Indo-Burma hotspot region

The present article provides a multifaceted critical research review on environmental issues intimately related with the socio-economy of North East India (NE), a part of Indo-Burma hotspot. Further, the article addresses the issue of sustainable development of NE India through diverse ecological practices inextricably linked with traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). The biodiversity of NE India comprises endemic floral diversity, particularly medicinal plants of importance to pharmaceutical industry, and unique faunal diversity. Nevertheless, it is very unfortunate that this great land of biodiversity is least explored taxonomically as well as biotechnologically, probably due to geographical and political constraints. Different anthropogenic and socio-economic factors have perturbed the pristine ecology of this region, leading to environmental degradation. Also, the practice of unregulated shifting cultivation (jhooming), bamboo flowering, biological invasions and anthropogenic perturbations to biodiversity exacerbate the gloomy situation. Instead of a plethora of policies, the TEK of NE people may be integrated with modern scientific knowledge in order to conserve the environment which is the strong pillar for socio-economic sector here. The aforesaid approach can be practiced in NE India through the broad implementation and extension of agroforestry practices. Further, case studies on Apatanis, ethnomedicinal plants use by indigenous tribal groups and sacred forests are particularly relevant in the context of conservation of environmental health in totality while addressing the socioeconomic impact as well. In context with the prevailing scenarios in this region, we developed an eco-sustainable model for natural resource management through agroforestry practices in order to uplift the social as well as environmental framework.     

Urban water resource management for sustainable environment planning using artificial intelligence techniques

In the current era, water is a significant resource for socio-economic growth and the protection of healthy environments. Properly controlled water resources are considered a vital part of development, which reduces poverty and equity. Conventional Water system Management maximizes the existing water flows available to satisfy all competing demands, including on-site water and groundwater. Therefore, Climatic change would intensify the specific challenges in water resource management by contributing to uncertainty. Sustainable water resources management is an essential process for ensuring the earth's life and the future. Nonlinear effects, stochastic dynamics, and hydraulic constraints are challenging in ecological planning for sustainable water development. In this paper, Adaptive Intelligent Dynamic Water Resource Planning (AIDWRP) has been proposed to sustain the urban areas' water environment. Here, an adaptive intelligent approach is a subset of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technique in which environmental planning for sustainable water development has been modeled effectively. Artificial intelligence modeling improves water efficiency by transforming information into a leaner process, improving decision-making based on data-driven by combining numeric AI tools and human intellectual skills. In AIDWRP, Markov Decision Process (MDP) discusses the dynamic water resource management issue with annual use and released locational constraints that develop sensitivity-driven methods to optimize several efficient environmental planning and management policies. Consequently, there is a specific relief from the engagement of supply and demand for water resources, and substantial improvements in local economic efficiency have been simulated with numerical outcomes.     

Harvesting Freely Roaming Public Resources: Can Property Owners Harvest Kangaroos Utilizing Their Land Without Impacting Neighbors?

In Australian semiarid rangelands, there have been suggestions that kangaroo harvesting should be given much more serious consideration as a supplement or even replacement to income from domestic stock like cattle and sheep. The possibility of kangaroo harvesting ever being economically viable, however, is often dismissed due to the impossibility of constraining these freely roaming animals to a particular property. In this paper, we explore the extent to which landholders do have control of their harvests regardless of the activities on neighboring land. Three scenarios are investigated: a property with a porous border that is surrounded by a reserve, like a national park, that is much larger and where harvesting is prohibited; a pair of properties with porous borders where harvesting is permitted and landholders act cooperatively; and finally two properties with porous borders where harvesting is permitted and landholders act competitively. The results indicate that despite the freely roaming nature of kangaroos, private property owners can obtain harvests proportional to the extent to which their land and grazing resources are utilized.     

Eutrophication and environmental policy in the Mediterranean Sea: a review

The Mediterranean Sea is a semienclosed basin connected with the open sea mainly through the Strait of Gibraltar. Due to the circulation pattern and the long residence time ranging between 80 and 100 years, the Mediterranean Sea is a sensitive environment to eutrophication pressures. The main body of water of the Mediterranean is characterized by very low nutrient concentrations, and therefore, the Mediterranean is classified among the most oligotrophic (very poor waters in nutrients) seas of the world's oceans. However, some coastal areas, mainly in the northern part of the basin, receive excessive loads of nutrients from sewage effluents, river fluxes, aquaculture farms, fertilizers, and industrial facilities, showing intense eutrophic phenomena with many adverse effects for the marine ecosystem and humans. Various national and international authorities, in addition to monitoring, have taken legal and administrative measures to mitigate eutrophication trends in the area. The Mediterranean environment is a good paradigm of integration of extensive legal framework, scientific knowledge, and administrative practices. The Barcelona Convention, the Mediterranean Action Plan, and European Union Directives on water quality and coastal management, together with scientific information derived from international research programs in the Mediterranean, provide a sound background for practical actions in eutrophication problems. In the present work, the problem of coastal eutrophication in the Mediterranean is reviewed in connection with public policies of the Mediterranean States based on national and international legislation and scientific knowledge on Mediterranean oceanography-ecology and actions coordinated by international bodies. These common actions and practices on coastal management are also discussed in relation to the need for sustainable development and protection of the coastal zone in the Mediterranean Sea.     

From the 1996 groundwater action programme to the 2006 groundwater directive--what have we done, what have we learnt, what is the way ahead?

The need for action to avoid long term deterioration of fresh water quantity and quality was recognised by the Ministerial Seminar on groundwater held at The Hague in November 1991, which underlined the need to establish a programme of actions to be implemented by the year 2000 at national and Community level, aiming at sustainable management and protection of water resources. These discussions resulted in a communication from the European Commission in 1996 about a "Groundwater Action Programme" (GWAP). In parallel, a wide consultation had started on the need to streamline EU water policies, which led to the adoption of the Water Framework Directive in December 2000, later complemented by a "daughter" groundwater directive adopted in December 2006. This paper recalls the orientations of the GWAP and studies whether and how recommended actions have been tackled by the actual EU regulatory framework.     

Promoting corporate sustainability through sustainable resource management: A hybrid decision-making approach incorporating social media data

Previous studies revealed triple bottom line cannot entirely cover the concept of corporate sustainability. This study thus uses sustainable resource management (SRM) to improve corporate sustainability (CS) performance considering the socio-environmental, socio-economical, and eco-efficiency aspects. In this study, the vague set (VS) theory and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method are integrated as a hybrid decision-making tool by which social media data can be transformed into entropy weights. The results indicate eco-efficiency and society should be prioritized to improve the corporate sustainability performance. Specifically, the aspects should be promoted through encouraging environmental innovation, redesigning consumers' offer, raising support of the institutions and policy measures, and organizing synergetic involvement. The contributions of this study are three-fold: (i) establishing a comprehensive framework for guiding firms make effective improvements; (ii) developing a hybrid VS-TOPSIS method to process the assessment data and social media information and address the interrelationships; (3) identifying the decisive SRM criteria to precisely guide the Chinese automobile industry towards CS under severe resource constraints.     

Monitoring Sustainable Forest Management in Different Jurisdictions

The concept of sustainable forest management (SFM) requires forest resource managers to monitor and collect information pertaining to their environmental, economic and social impact. There are increasing expectations from a variety of publics (government, customers, and other stakeholders) that forests be demonstrably well-managed, creating incentives for forest managers to design credible systems for assessing their management performance. It is against this background that local, national and international approaches to regulating forest practices have been evolving. This article reviews the different dimensions of governance as they relate to monitoring and information reporting in the forest sector. Specifically, it discusses the changing role of sovereignty, the effects of globalization and the emergence of civil society stakeholders in forestry-related decision-making. Concepts such as sovereignty and globalization have important implications for monitoring forest practices and for defining SFM. Whether SFM standard creation and enforcement involves a sovereign, shared-sovereignty or civil society approach will affect the level and nature of SFM monitoring. As a result, we need to better consider the concept of monitoring appropriate to the scale and intensity of operations, how monitoring and information reporting standards differ between jurisdictions, and what this means for independently verifying SFM at an inter-jurisdictional level.     

Multi-Criteria and Multi-Perspective Analysis of Contaminated Land Management Methods

Errors in environmental resource management over the years have created pollution problems in some areas which are difficult to handle, regardless of the development of knowledge and technologies. This is particularly true in the case of soil pollution. The negative effects of persistent pollutants have been observed for a long time. For instance, lead and cadmium remain in the soil for centuries, during which time they are absorbed by plants and simultaneously cause secondary air pollution. The authors made an attempt to describe and assess the possible options of dealing with the problem of contaminated land in Katowice District. Considering the necessity of a multilateral approach, a pairwise comparison technique has been chosen as the most suitable to show the complexity of the problem. The different variants of actions aimed at preventing the pollutants from getting into the food chain were analyzed against a set of criteria, consisting of the following issues: time, cost, effectiveness, social acceptance, feasibility. The relative importance of actions were judged by the team of experts using the Saaty method. Also, a two-perspective assessment (the two different stakeholders), which involves considering the perspective of an owner of a piece of contaminated land and an ecologist has been performed. The results of comparative, multicriteria and multi-perspective assessment indicate the following:- the best method for contaminated agricultural land management is willful and controlled cultivation,- other recommended actions are deep ploughing and phytoremediation,- there is not much acceptance for the other methods.     

淮北市水资源保护与规划

系统论述了淮北市水资源现状和存在问题,提出了保护水资源环境、促进可持续发展而采取的有效工程措施。     

Project risk and appeals in U.S. Forest Service planning

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires U.S. Forest Service planning processes to be conducted by interdisciplinary teams of resource specialists to analyze and disclose the likely environmental impacts of proposed natural resource management actions on Forest Service lands. Multiple challenges associated with these processes have been a source of frustration for the agency. One of these challenges involves administrative appeals through which public entities can challenge a Forest Service decision following a NEPA process. These appeals instigate an internal review process and can result in an affirmation of the Forest Service decision, a reversal of that decision, or additional work that re-initiates all or part of the NEPA process. We examine the best predictors of appeals and their outcomes on a representative sample of 489 Forest Service NEPA processes that were decided between 2007 and 2009. While certain factors associated with pre-existing social contexts (such as a history of controversy) or pre-determined elements of a proposed action (such as the extraction of forest products) predispose certain processes to a higher risk of appeals, other practices and process-related strategies within the control of the agency also appear to bear meaningful influence on the occurrence of appeals and their outcomes. Appeals and their outcomes were most strongly related to programmatic, structural (turnover of personnel in particular), and relationship risks (both internal and external) within the processes, suggesting the need for greater focus within the agency on cultivating positive internal and external relationships to manage the risk of appeals.     

The Poverty-Environment Trap in a Modified Romer Model with Dirtiness

The model presented in this paper describes an economy with endogenous technical change and polluting production techniques. The main question we want to address is whether the adoption of “dirty” production processes might lead to a sustainable unique steady state, or guarantee the emergence of multiple equilibria. The application of the original Bogdanov–Takens theorem allows us to characterize the regions of the parametric space where the model exhibits either a global indeterminate equilibrium or a poverty-environment trap.     

Economic perspective-based analysis on urban infrastructures carrying capacity — A China study

Urban Infrastructure Economic Capacity (UIEC) is one of the most important capacities of urban infrastructure carrying capacity, which is an essential determinant of sustainable urban development. However, it appears that UIEC is not properly investigated during the urban development process, for which establishing an appropriate method is imperative to examine whether the urban infrastructure has achieved ideal economic capacity. This paper introduces an instrumental approach named UIEC model to investigate urban infrastructure economic capacity. The UIEC model adopts Coupling-Coordination Degree Model, Mean-Variance Analysis Method, Support-Pressure Model, and Super-efficiency Slack-based-measure Window model jointly. By employing the UIEC model, the economic capacity of urban infrastructure carrying capacity is appreciated by investigating the economic carrying efficiency of urban infrastructures. A China study is conducted during 2008–2017 for demonstrating the application of the introduced UIEC model. The research findings suggest that: 1) Economic location and self-governance authority have significant impact on UIEC; 2) the overall economic carrying efficiency of urban infrastructure in surveyed cities is decreasing; 3) there lies in an exponential relationship between economic carrying efficiency of urban infrastructure and GDP value in surveyed cities. High utilization efficiency of urban infrastructures is an essential prerequisite for carrying large volume of urban economic development.     

Who plans for health improvement? SEA,HIA and the separation of spatial planning and health planning

This study examines whether there is active planning for health improvement in the English spatial planning system and how this varies across two regions using a combination of telephone surveys and focus group interviews in 2005 and 2010. The spatial planning profession was found to be ill-equipped to consider the health and well-being implications of its actions, whilst health professionals are rarely engaged and have limited understanding and aspirations when it comes to influencing spatial planning. Strategic Environmental Assessment was not considered to be successful in integrating health into spatial plans, given it was the responsibility of planners lacking the capacity to do so. For their part, health professionals have insufficient knowledge and understanding of planning and how to engage with it to be able to plan for health gains rather than simply respond to health impacts. HIA practice is patchy and generally undertaken by health professionals outside the statutory planning framework. Thus, whilst appropriate assessment tools exist, they currently lack a coherent context within which they can function effectively and the implementation of the Kiev protocol requiring the engagement of health professionals in SEA is not to likely improve the consideration of health in planning while there continues to be separation of functions between professions and lack of understanding of the other profession.     

Land User Participation in Developing a Computerised Decision Support System for Combating Desertification

Combating desertification in natural rangelands has recently become a priority in large parts of southern Africa. Rangeland managers, farmers, scientists, conservationists and land users have been applying a variety of restoration technologies to address this problem. Bush encroachment, as part of the desertification process, involves the natural replacement of the herbaceous plant cover by undesirable problem woody species. The active and passive restoration technologies that are applied, are mainly based on indigenous knowledge and include the chemical, mechanical or manual reclamation of unproductive rangelands, as well as the combating of woody and alien species encroachment. Indigenous practices and knowledge play a major role in the effectiveness and success rate of these technologies. This project faces the challenge of bringing together both local and scientific knowledge in a single user-friendly, computerised Decision Support System (DSS) which is directly accessible by land users to support them in the process of decision making, concerning the combating of desertification. Case studies from central and northern Namibia were used to combine qualitative and quantitative data to develop this Decision Support System. The DSS currently consists of two databases and an expert system, which evaluates the results of land users’ management practices, and provides easily accessible information and advice for participants in the system, based on the incorporated data. The DSS is also linked to national and international web sites and databases to offer a wider range of information on technologies concerning agricultural and conservation practices.     

Sustainable building assessment tool for project decision makers and its development process

The primary purpose of Sustainable Building Assessment (SBA) tools is for behavioral changes in public building practice. In the Web 3.0 era, even non-experts may have the capacity to select and use Information & Communication Technology (ICT) tools to solve complicated problems in sustainable building decision making without any expert help. It is clear that the R&D of these tools which directly target project decision makers is a significant project for researchers and policy makers who are tasked with the challenge of changing individual building practice for regional sustainability. The purpose of the study is to suggest a tool and its development process for sustainable building assessment by project decision makers, especially targeting non-expert groups. This study defines an SBA tool for project decision makers based on a typology and suggests a “3-layer development process framework”. For the theoretical Background, we integrate interdisciplinary methods and principles such as cognitive problem-solving and sustainable building delivery, including long-term community benefits in a region and an information system development process. This framework is based on Boehem's spiral model for information system development processes and especially emphasizes the first cycle to develop a core set of indicators fit for the non-expert user's problem solving process. This presents an iterative and gradual process with the aim of approaching the tool type from passive tools such as checklists and guidelines, to interactive software, especially interactive DSS (Decision Support Systems) online ICT platforms. The development process is comprised of 8 stages: This includes the use of mixed-method sequential design, including interviews, workshops, the Delphi survey technique, FD-AHP weight analysis, and scenario analysis. In addition, the study presents a case study of the application of the first cycle to develop a core set of indicators and discusses its effectiveness. This study may help researchers by providing a clear and effective method to understand interdisciplinary approaches to develop appropriate tools for sustainable building practice in a regional context.     

Integrating community perceptions and cultural diversity in social impact assessment in Nigeria

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act of 1992 aimed to make the environment a central theme in development in Nigeria. Nevertheless, the extent of engagement with local cultures in the Nigerian EIA process is not statutorily guaranteed. While most EIAs in Nigeria have been for oil and gas projects in the Niger Delta, and have focused strongly on the biophysical environment, socio-economic and cultural aspects have remained marginal. The palpable neglect of community perceptions and cultural diversity in social impact assessment (SIA) in this region prone to conflict has tended to alienate the people in the decision-making process. Thus, despite claims to compliance with regulatory requirements for EIAs, and numerous purported sustainable development initiatives by international oil companies (IOCs), the region continues to face multiple sustainability challenges. This paper situates local perceptions and cultural diversity in participatory development and canvasses the integration of community perceptions and cultural diversity into SIA in the Niger Delta region. It is argued that doing this would be critical to ensuring acceptance and success of development actions within the context of local culture while also contributing to sustainable development policy in the region.     

Assessment of Flood Losses with Household Responses: Agent-Based Simulation in an Urban Catchment Area

Densely populated coastal urban areas are often exposed to multiple hazards, in particular floods and storms. Flood defenses and other engineering measures contribute to the mitigation of flood hazards, but a holistic approach to flood risk management should consider other interventions from the human side, including warning information, adaptive behavior, people/property evacuation, and the multilateral relief in local communities. There are few simulation approaches to consider these factors, and these typically focus on collective human actions. This paper presents an agent-based model that simulates flood response preferences and actions taken within individual households to reduce flood losses. The model implements a human response framework in which agents assess different flood scenarios according to warning information and decide whether and how much they invest in response measures to reduce potential inundation damages. A case study has been carried out in the Ng Tung River basin, an urbanized watershed in northern Hong Kong. Adopting a digital elevation model (DEM) as the modeling environment and a building map of household locations in the case area, the model considers the characteristics of households and the flood response behavior of their occupants. We found that property value, warning information, and storm conditions all influence household losses, with downstream and high density areas being particularly vulnerable. Results further indicate (i) that a flood warning system, which provides timely, accurate, and broad coverage rainstorm warning, can reduce flood losses by 30–40%; and (ii) to reduce losses, it is more effective and cheaper to invest early in response measures than late actions. This dynamic agent-based modeling approach is an innovative attempt to quantify and model the role of human responses in flood loss assessments. The model is demonstrated being useful for analyzing household scale flood losses and responses and it has the potential to contribute to flood emergency planning resource allocation in pluvial flood incidents.     

The mutualism of strategic environmental assessment and sustainable development goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set a universal agenda intended to stimulate social, economic and environmental action. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has the potential to assist in the implementation of actions supporting the SDGs by providing a systematic framework to incorporate them into policies, plans and programmes; and the SDGs in turn, could substantiate SEA's contribution to sustainable development. Therefore, the partnering of both policy instruments fosters a mutualistic relationship, benefiting both. In this paper, we review current engagement of SEA with the SDGs both in the academic literature and in practice. The findings reveal a recognisable subtle shift towards the adoption of a new paradigm in plan-making, particularly supported by governments' growingly proactive embracement of SDGs, albeit through different approaches, initiatives and commitments. This sets a robust foundation for spatial planning and, by extension, a reference framework for SEA. Nevertheless, operationalising the SDGs is difficult. The extent to which SDG objectives and targets are embedded in SEA and, indeed, integrated into plans/programmes seems to be hampered by the broad scope of both sustainability and SEA, and a general lack of awareness and know-how. This suggest a need to clarify SEA's mandate for engaging with the SDGs, as well as to provide training for a more proactive integration of the objectives and targets. Through initiatives such as these, there are opportunities to optimise mutual gains for both policy instruments.     

Hare or Tortoise? Trade-offs in Recovering Sustainable Bioeconomic Systems

In this paper, we develop a framework for (a) the study of sustainability of dynamic bioeconomic systems and (b) the definition of recovery paths from unsustainable situations. We assume that the system follows a sustainable trajectory if it evolves over time within a set of multidimensional constraints. We use the mathematical concept of viability to characterize sustainability. Recovery paths are studied with regards to their duration and their acceptability. This general framework is applied to the issue of recovering sustainable fisheries. We define sustainability in a fishery as the requirement that a set of economic, ecological, and social constraints is satisfied at all times. Recovery paths are characterized by the time required to obtain sustainable exploitation conditions in the fishery and by the acceptable recovery costs for fishermen. In particular, we identify the recovery path which minimizes the time of crisis under a minimum transition profit constraint. We then describe the trade-off between speed and accepted costs of recovery paths, by comparing “Hare”-like high-speed–high-cost strategies to “Tortoise”-like low-speed–low-cost strategies. We illustrate our results by means of a numerical analysis of the Bay of Biscay Nephrops fishery.