Evaluation of Multi-level Social Learning for Sustainable Landscapes: Perspective of a Development Initiative in Bergslagen, Sweden

To implement policies about sustainable landscapes and rural development necessitates social learning about states and trends of sustainability indicators, norms that define sustainability, and adaptive multi-level governance. We evaluate the extent to which social learning at multiple governance levels for sustainable landscapes occur in 18 local development initiatives in the network of Sustainable Bergslagen in Sweden. We mapped activities over time, and interviewed key actors in the network about social learning. While activities resulted in exchange of experiences and some local solutions, a major challenge was to secure systematic social learning and make new knowledge explicit at multiple levels. None of the development initiatives used a systematic approach to secure social learning, and sustainability assessments were not made systematically. We discuss how social learning can be improved, and how a learning network of development initiatives could be realized.     

Balancing Water Resources Development and Environmental Sustainability in Africa: A Review of Recent Research Findings and Applications

Sustainable development in Africa is dependent on increasing use of the continent’s water resources without significantly degrading ecosystem services that are also fundamental to human wellbeing. This is particularly challenging in Africa because of high spatial and temporal variability in the availability of water resources and limited amounts of total water availability across expansive semi-arid portions of the continent. The challenge is compounded by ambitious targets for increased water use and a rush of international funding to finance development activities. Balancing development with environmental sustainability requires (i) understanding the boundary conditions imposed by the continent’s climate and hydrology today and into the future, (ii) estimating the magnitude and spatial distribution of water use needed to meet development goals, and (iii) understanding the environmental water requirements of affected ecosystems, their current status and potential consequences of increased water use. This article reviews recent advancements in each of these topics and highlights innovative approaches and tools available to support sustainable development. While much remains to be learned, scientific understanding and technology should not be viewed as impediments to sustainable development on the continent.     

Measurement, Collaborative Learning and Research for Sustainable Use of Ecosystem Services: Landscape Concepts and Europe as Laboratory

Policies at multiple levels pronounce the need to encompass both social and ecological systems in governance and management of natural capital in terms of resources and ecosystems. One approach to knowledge production and learning about landscapes as social–ecological systems is to compare multiple case studies consisting of large spaces and places. We first review the landscape concepts’ biophysical, anthropogenic, and intangible dimensions. Second, we exemplify how the different landscape concepts can be used to derive measurable variables for different sustainability indicators. Third, we review gradients in the three dimensions of the term landscape on the European continent, and propose to use them for the stratification of multiple case studies of social–ecological systems. We stress the benefits of the landscape concepts to measure sustainability, and how this can improve collaborative learning about development toward sustainability in social–ecological systems. Finally, analyses of multiple landscapes improve the understanding of context for governance and management.     

On the decline of ground lichen forests in the Swedish boreal landscape: Implications for reindeer husbandry and sustainable forest management

Lichens are a bottleneck resource for circumpolar populations of reindeer, and as such, for reindeer husbandry as an indigenous Sami land-use tradition in northern Sweden. This study uses ground lichen data and forest information collected within the Swedish National Forest Inventory since 1953, on the scale of northern Sweden. We found a 71 % decline in the area of lichen-abundant forests over the last 60 years. A decline was observed in all regions and age classes and especially coincided with a decrease of >60 year old, open pine forests, which was the primary explanatory factor in our model. The effects of reindeer numbers were inconclusive in explaining the decrease in lichen-abundant forest. The role that forestry has played in causing this decline can be debated, but forestry can have a significant role in reversing the trend and improving ground lichen conditions.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0759-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Deforestation and the Limited Contribution of Forests to Rural Livelihoods in West Africa: Evidence from Burkina Faso and Ghana

Forest degradation in West Africa is generally thought to have negative consequences on rural livelihoods but there is little overview of its effects in the region because the importance of forests to rural livelihoods has never been adequately quantified. Based on data from 1014 rural households across Burkina Faso and Ghana this paper attempts to fill this knowledge gap. We demonstrate that agricultural lands and the non-forest environment including parklands are considerably more valuable to poor as well as more well-off rural households than forests. Furthermore, product types supplied by the non-forest environment are almost identical with those from forests. Accordingly, forest clearance/degradation is profitable for and, hence, probably performed by rural people at large. We attribute rural people's high reliance on non-forest versus forest resources to the two countries' restrictive and inequitable forest policies which must be reformed to promote effective forest conservation, e.g., to mitigate climate change.     

Long series relationships between global interannual CO2 increment and climate: evidence for stability and change in role of the tropical and boreal-temperate zones

Interannual variability in global CO₂ increment (averaged from the Mauna Loa and South Pole Stations) shows certain strong spatial relationships to both tropical and temperate temperatures. There is a fairly strong positive year-round correlation between tropical mean annual temperatures (leading by 4 months) and annual CO₂ throughout the time series since 1960, agreeing with the generally held view that the tropics play a major role in determining inter-annual variability in CO₂ increment, with a major CO₂ pulse following a warm year in the tropics. This ‘almost no lag’ climatic response is very strong during winter and relatively stable in time. However, the correlation with tropical temperature appears to have weakened in the first years of the 1990s in correspondence of the Pinatubo eruption and the positive phase of the AO/NAO. A secondary concurrent temperature signal is linked to summer variations of north temperate belt. Northern summer temperatures in the region 30–60 °N—and especially in the land area corresponding to the central east USA—have become relatively more closely correlated with CO₂ increment. This trend has become increasingly stronger in recent years, suggesting an increasing role for growing season processes in the northern midlatitudes in affecting global CO₂ increment. Once non-lagged annual tropical temperature variations are accounted for, terrestrial ecosystems, especially the temperate-boreal biomes, also show a coherent large scale lagged response. This involves an inverse response to annual temperature of preceding years centered at around 2 years before. This lagged response is most likely linked to internal biogeochemical cycles, in particular N cycling. During the study period north boreal ecosystems show a strengthening of the lagged correlation with temperature in recent years, while the lagged correlation with areas of tropical ecosystems has weakened. Residuals from a multiple correlations based on these climatic signals are directly correlated with SO, confirming an additional important role of upwelling in interannual variability of CO₂ increment. Cooler summers following the Pinatubo eruption and the possible influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO/AO) are discussed as factors responsible for the shift in the relative importance of different regions over time during the series of data.     

A History of the Production and Use of Carbon Tetrachloride,Tetrachloroethylene, Trichloroethylene and 1,1,1-Trichloroethane in the United States: Part 2--Trichloroethylene and 1,1,1-Trichloroethane

Carbon tetrachloride (CTC), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE) and 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA) were four of the most widely used cleaning and degreasing solvents in the United States. Part 2 of this article describes the history of TCE and TCA. TCE production in the United States began in the early 1920s. TCE was used as a replacement for petroleum distillates in the dry-cleaning industry, and became the solvent of choice for vapor degreasing in the 1930s. TCE's use as a degreaser decreased in the 1960s due to toxicity concerns and the increasing popularity of TCA. Significant TCA use began in the 1950s with the development of suitable stabilizer formulations. In the 1990s, TCA was phased out under the Montreal Protocol due to its role in stratospheric ozone depletion.     

A History of the Production and Use of Carbon Tetrachloride,Tetrachloroethylene, Trichloroethylene and 1,1,1-Trichloroethane in the United States: Part 1--Historical Background; Carbon Tetrachloride and Tetrachloroethylene

Carbon tetrachloride (CTC), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE) and 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA) were four of the most widely used cleaning and degreasing solvents in the United States. These compounds were also used in a wide variety of other applications. The history of the production and use of these four compounds is linked to the development and growth of the United States' synthetic organic chemical industry, and historical events that affected the development and use of chlorinated solvents in general. Part 1 of this article includes a discussion of the historical background common to each of the four solvents, followed by discussion on the history of CTC and PCE. In the early years of the 20th century, CTC became the first of the four solvents to come into widespread use. CTC was used as a replacement for petroleum distillates in the dry-cleaning industry, but was later replaced by PCE. In the 1990s, CTC was phased out under the Montreal Protocol due to its role in stratospheric ozone depletion.     

Assessing the transformation of chlorinated ethenes in aquifers with limited potential for natural attenuation: added values of compound-specific carbon isotope analysis and groundwater dating

The evaluation of biotransformation of chlorinated ethenes (CEs) in contaminated aquifers is challenging when variable redox conditions and groundwater flow regime are limiting factors. By using compound-specific stable carbon isotope analysis (C-CSIA) and ³H-³He based groundwater dating, we assessed three CE-contaminated field sites that differed in groundwater flow velocities, redox conditions, and level of contamination. CE isotopic signatures and carbon isotopic mass balances were applied to quantify CE transformation, whereas groundwater dating allowed determining degradation timescales and assessing hydrodynamic regimes. The combination of these techniques enabled at all field sites to indicate zones within the aquifers where CE dechlorination preferably occurred, sometimes even to metabolites of no toxic concern. However, the natural transformation processes were insufficient to mitigate the entire CE contamination at the studied sites. Such situations of limited transformation are worldwide far more common than sites where optimal natural (mainly redox) conditions are enabling complete CEs degradation. Despite such constraints for natural transformation, this study showed that even under non-favorable biogeochemical CEs degradation, the combination of CSIA and groundwater dating provide valuable information to the understanding of the fate of the CEs, thus, being an important contribution in the definition of efficient remediation measures at any given biogeochemical conditions.     

Historical alteration in the nitrogen concentration and N natural abundance of mosses in Germany: Indication for regionally varying changes in atmospheric nitrogen deposition within the last 140 years

Historical alterations of nitrogen deposition in the western part of Germany were investigated by comparing nitrogen concentrations and ¹⁵N natural abundance of historical and recent samples of the two pleurocarpous mosses Pleurozium schreberi and Scleropodium purum. Pooling of the data revealed only slight tissue N increases over the past 140 years which were significant nevertheless. At closer examination on the single site level historical increases of N concentrations were found particularly for some sites in regions where agricultural activities were considerably intensified during the second half of the 20th century. The comparison of δ¹⁵N values showed a strong depletion of ¹⁵N natural abundance in areas currently heavily influenced by livestock management. This indicates an increased impact of NH_y compounds. However, the almost unchanged δ¹⁵N values in some low mountain range areas with only moderate intensification of agriculture point to a more or less constant ratio of NH_y/NO_x input over time. Significant correlations of both tissue N concentrations and ¹⁵N natural abundance between the two species justify the assumption that they use the same nitrogen source, probably atmospheric deposition.