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1.
Tanzi Smith 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2011,13(1):1-17
Throughout the development sector, there is increasing recognition of links between the environment and aspects of development
such as poverty alleviation, health, income generation, and agriculture. While furnished with a diverse range of perspectives
and approaches, development practice is in need of ways to better conceptualize the interactions between the social, environmental,
and economic dimensions of sustainability so that opportunities for simultaneous improvement in human and ecological well-being
can be identified more readily. Critical systems thinking is proposed as a way for development practitioners to conceptualize
and act toward the integration of these economic, social, and environmental dimensions and, in so doing, support communities
to nurture both human and ecosystem well-being. Four desirable attributes of a critical systems thinking approach to development
are identified based on development literature, critical systems literature, and the author’s research into sustainability
in semi-rural communities in Vietnam. The four attributes are ‘a systems thinking approach;’ ‘an ethical base to action and
choices;’ ‘critical reflection permeates processes;’ and ‘appreciation of diverse views and application of diverse approaches.’
These attributes are described and then offered as the basis for further discussion of the ways in which simultaneous improvement
of human well-being and ecosystem health can become an integral part of development practice. 相似文献
2.
Conceptualising climate change in rural Australia: community perceptions, attitudes and (in)actions 总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2
Public engagement and support is essential for ensuring adaptation to climate change. The first step in achieving engagement
is documenting how the general public currently perceive and understand climate change issues, specifically the importance
they place on this global problem and identifying any unique challenges for individual communities. For rural communities,
which rely heavily on local agriculture industries, climate change brings both potential impacts and opportunities. Yet, to
date, our knowledge about how rural residents conceptualise climate change is limited. Thus, this research explores how the
broader rural community—not only farmers—conceptualises climate change and responsive activities, focussing on documenting
the understandings and risk perceptions of local residents from two small Australian rural communities. Twenty-three semi-structured
interviews were conducted in communities in the Eden/Gippsland region on the border of New South Wales and Victoria and the
north-east of Tasmania. There are conflicting views on how climate change is conceptualised, the degree of concern and need
for action, the role of local industry, who will ‘win’ and ‘lose’, and the willingness of rural communities to adapt. In particular,
residents who believed in anthropogenic or human-induced factors described the changing climate as evidence of ‘climate change’,
whereas those who were more sceptical termed it ‘weather variability’, suggesting that there is a divide in rural Australia
that, unless urgently addressed, will hinder local and national policy responses to this global issue. Engaging these communities
in the twenty-first-century climate change debate will require a significant change in terminology and communication strategies. 相似文献
3.
A stakeholder dialogue on European vulnerability 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
Anne C. de la Vega-Leinert Dagmar Schröter Rik Leemans Uta Fritsch Jacomijn Pluimers 《Regional Environmental Change》2008,8(3):109-124
A stakeholder dialogue was embedded in the ATEAM project to facilitate the development and dissemination of its European-wide
vulnerability assessment of global change impacts. Participating stakeholders were primarily ecosystem managers and policy
advisers interested in potential impacts on ‘Agriculture’, ‘Forestry’, ‘Water’, ‘Carbon storage’, ‘Biodiversity’ and ‘Mountain
environments’ sectors. First, stakeholder dialogue approaches to integrated assessment are introduced. Methodological considerations
on stakeholder selection and dialogue implementation and evaluation follow. The dialogue content and process are evaluated
from the perspectives of stakeholders and scientists. Its usefulness in the research process and the relevance of outcomes
for stakeholders are particularly considered. The challenging compromises required to perform innovative research, which seeks
to achieve both peer scientific credibility and societal relevance, are emphasized. Effective stakeholder dialogues play a
substantial role in raising the visibility and meaningfulness of vulnerability assessments as critical means to improve awareness
on global change and its potential worrying impacts on society. They further provide scientists with critical information
on ecosystem management and sectoral adaptive capacity. These processes of mutual learning and knowledge exchange moreover
foster a better understanding of the potential and limits of global change modelling and vulnerability assessment for policy
and ecosystem management.
相似文献
Anne C. de la Vega-LeinertEmail: |
4.
M. S. Suneetha 《Sustainability Science》2010,5(1):79-87
Biodiversity is acknowledged as one of the most important resources that helps to sustain life’s processes. Additionally,
it is also one of the most important sources of livelihood for different kinds of stakeholders at various levels of resource
markets—local, domestic, or international. With globalization and increasing sophistication in the methods of commercial trade
in biological resources, various issues arise related to the sustenance of resources, of ecological balances, and equity in
transactions. All of these are concerns to be addressed to achieve a state of ‘sustainability.’ This paper prescribes to the
definition of ‘sustainability’ as the capacity to maintain a certain process or state for “improving the quality of human
life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting eco-systems” (IUCN/UNEP/WWF, in Caring for the Earth: a strategy
for sustainable living. Gland, Switzerland, 1991). This goes beyond ensuring inter- and intragenerational equity in access
to resources and includes several other parameters, including equity among stakeholders to returns from biological resources,
related knowledge, trade-offs, and ethical business practices related to these resources. Through the prism of an examination
of a simplistic supply route(s) and value addition chain of biodiversity resources for commercial use, this paper reviews
and highlights issues related to ‘sustainability’ at each stage. Evidence points to shortcomings in the sustainable use of
biological resources at each stage of value addition, calling for focused and specific measures to address them. 相似文献
5.
Hide-Fumi Yokoo 《Sustainability Science》2010,5(1):143-150
An economic model of reuse is developed to analyse the effect of reuse activity on the amount of waste in the economy and
the welfare of consumers. The paper adapts the theory of durable goods and second-hand markets. There is only one type of
good, a durable good, which last two periods. A durable good is called ‘new’ in the first period and ‘used’ in the second
period. Following Kim (Int Econ J 3:53–63, 1989), it is assumed that consumers differ in valuing the service rate of used goods. Their valuations are represented by a parameter
θ, with a higher θ denoting consumers with a greater willingness to pay. In this study, high-θ consumers are referred to as reuse-friendly consumers. The new durable good is supplied in a competitive market. After the
purchaser has used the good for one period, (s)he can sell it, keep it or throw it away. If a consumer decides to enter the
second-hand market, (s)he has to pay a transaction cost. In equilibrium, the price of used goods will be determined endogenously
by a second-hand market; it depends on the value of transaction costs. Thus, whether the second-hand market exists or not
also depends on the value of transaction costs. It is shown that the amount of durable goods that is wasted is minimal when
a second-hand market exists. When a second-hand market does not exist, increase in reuse-friendly consumers leads to decrease
in the amount of waste. In the case of the second-hand market, when many consumers begin to reuse, the welfare of consumers
who do not buy used goods will be improved. 相似文献
6.
Frank Eierdanz Joseph Alcamo Lilibeth Acosta-Michlik Dörthe Krömker Dennis Tänzler 《Regional Environmental Change》2008,8(4):197-205
This paper presents the technical aspects of a new methodology for assessing the susceptibility of society to drought. The
methodology consists of a combination of inference modelling and fuzzy logic applications. Four steps are followed: (1) model
input variables are selected—these variables reflect the main factors influencing susceptibility in a social group, population
or region, (2) fuzzification—the uncertainties of the input variables are made explicit by representing them as ‘fuzzy membership
functions’, (3) inference modelling—the input variables are used to construct a model made up of linguistic rules, and (4)
defuzzification—results from the model in linguistic form are translated into numerical form, also through the use of fuzzy
membership functions. The disadvantages and advantages of this methodology became apparent when it was applied to the assessment
of susceptibility from three disciplinary perspectives: Disadvantages include the difficulty in validating results and the
subjectivity involved with specifying fuzzy membership functions and the rules of the inference model. Advantages of the methodology
are its transparency, because all model assumptions have to be made explicit in the form of inference rules; its flexibility,
in that informal and expert knowledge can be incorporated through ‘fuzzy membership functions’ and through the rules in the
inference model; and its versatility, since numerical data can be converted to linguistic statements and vice versa through
the procedures of ‘fuzzification’ and ‘defuzzification’. 相似文献
7.
Fiji is expected to come under increasing pressure and risk from various threats resulting from climate change and sea-level
rise (SLR). Fiji consists of 332 islands and thus has a predominant and large coastline. Viti Levu is the largest and most
important of the islands, harboring Fiji’s capital city and most of the major towns concentrated around its coast. The objectives
of this study were to evaluate the extent of possible sea-level rise using GIS, and to identify high-risk locations. Potential
sea level rise was shown graphically as an output to determine where inundation or flooding would take place. This analysis
allowed important areas facing risk to be highlighted for future action. Flooding/inundation can be classified into two kinds:
‘permanent inundation’, which is the result of sea-level rise with tide; and ‘temporary flooding’, also including occasional
storm surge events. The inundated area was displayed under different projections and quantified. The results produced output
maps showing the distribution of inundation/flooding around the island of Viti Levu as well as the extent of flooding. Six
scenarios for sea-level rise were used (0.09, 0.18, 0.48, 0.50, 0.59, 0.88 m). Six scenarios for storm surge were used with
return intervals of 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 years. High risk and priority locations are identified as Fiji’s capital Suva, the
major tourist center and arrival port of Nadi, and Fiji’s second city Lautoka. Future action, adaptation and response strategies
in these identified locations must occur to reduce risk from climate change. 相似文献
8.
As the societal benefits associated with transitioning to more sustainable, less fossil fuel-reliant energy systems are increasingly recognized by communities throughout the world, the potential of creating ‘green jobs’ within a ‘green economy’ is attracting much attention. Green energy clusters are increasingly promoted throughout the world as a strategy to simultaneously promote economic vitality and stimulate a sustainable energy transition. In spite of their emerging role in regional-scale sustainability planning efforts, such initiatives have not been considered within the sustainability transitions literature. This paper explores the development of one such regional sustainable energy cluster initiative in Central Massachusetts in Northeastern USA to consider the potential for such cluster initiatives to contribute to socio-technical transition in the energy system. Since 2008, a diverse set of stakeholders in Central Massachusetts, including politicians, universities, businesses, local citizens, and activists, have been working toward facilitating the emergence of an integrated cluster of activity focused on sustainable energy. Through interviews with key actors, participant observation, and document review, this research assesses the potential of this cluster initiative to contribute to a regional socio-technical transition. The empirical details of this case demonstrate that sustainable energy cluster initiatives can potentially accelerate change in entrenched energy regimes by promoting institutional thickness, generating regional ‘buzz’ around sustainable energy activities, and building trust between multiple and diverse stakeholders in the region. This research also contributes to emerging efforts to better ground socio-technical transitions in geographic space. 相似文献
9.
The need for environmental and urban planning reached a critical point in the year 2007, when one-half of the world's population
could be defined as living in cities. Urbanisation in India is also increasing at a fast rate. Urban chaos in India, emanating
from the continuous ignorance of fragile ecosystems, calls for the reshaping of existing cities as ‘eco-cities’. The ‘eco-city’—a
well-known concept in the western world—is new to the Indian context. While western connotations of eco-cities should not
be discarded outright in the context of India, core concerns vary significantly for obvious reasons. Recognising two facts—firstly,
eco-city development is altogether a fresh approach to human settlement development in India, and, secondly, the manifold
increase in the vulnerability of cities—this paper discusses documented good practice, reinforcing evolution towards the eco-city
vision. Lessons drawn from the examples cited are further deconstructed in the light of their contribution to urban risk reduction,
which provides direction to appreciating the ‘disaster-resilient eco-community’ concept in Puri, a coastal city in India.
Further, this paper attempts to unravel existing community-based practices in Puri, which are boon to the local environment
and invariably reduce disaster risk. These seemingly modest neighbourhood initiatives symbolise immense societal wealth, which
can be calibrated appropriately for reducing urban environmental risk as well. This paper also illustrates how a ‘disaster
resilient eco-community’ approach is inevitable in the present and future contexts not only to preserve sustainable development
gains but also to secure human well-being. 相似文献
10.
Although stewardship has been widely defined and used in environmental management and planning, there is a dearth of studies
that describe how the lay public perceives this concept. A national sample of residents in 14 states who live near DOE nuclear
facilities were interviewed to delineate public understanding and awareness of the stewardship program of the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE). This study discusses the findings of the survey and discusses how institutional trust influences public participation
and resident’s choices of potential stewards. Almost 40% of the respondents could not define stewardship; those who did, believed
that ‘responsibility,’ ‘management,’ and ‘accountability’ are key elements of stewardship. In addition, about a third of the
respondents identified Federal groups and the DOE as potential stewards.
Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue 相似文献
11.
Vinish Kathuria 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2009,11(5):955-970
The failure of formal regulation and market-based approaches to control pollution has highlighted the significance of informal
regulation in the form of ‘public disclosure’ and ‘rating’ for achieving environmental goals in the nineties. In developing
countries where pollution information is often scarce, disclosure can make a firm’s emissions more costly. This is because
it increases penalties from regulators, local communities, consumer organizations and factor markets. Public or information
disclosure combines conventional environmental monitoring, self-regulation and public pressure using environmental ratings
to promote better environmental management. Thus, it forms an effective tool to control pollution in developing countries
like India, China or Kenya and countries-in-transition like Poland, Russia, etc. The different examples given in the paper
indicate that effective public disclosure requires a credible scheme with scrutiny at different checkpoints similar to the
one used for PROPER in Indonesia or GRP in India. 相似文献
12.
In this article, we analyse how the Internet is used to bring visibility to water affairs. We focus on the way different organisations
exploit the Web in order to participate in the debates about water policy in Spain and to define the topics concerned. To
do this, we have drawn up an issue network articulated around an alternative and sustainable water policy called ‘New Water
Culture’. We examine the composition of this web structure, its hyperlinking styles, key nodes and political trajectories.
The outcomes indicate that the ‘New Water Culture’ has become a main frame in Spanish environmental policy. Supported both
by governmental and non-governmental players, the ‘New Water Culture’ struggles between two opposing trends: its expulsion
from the public sphere and efforts to open it up to scrutiny from political outsiders. 相似文献
13.
J. A. Dearing R. W. Battarbee R. Dikau I. Larocque F. Oldfield 《Regional Environmental Change》2006,6(1-2):1-16
The analysis of palaeoenvironmental archives—sediments, archaeological remains, tree-rings, documents and instrumental records—is
presented as a key element in the global scientific endeavour aimed at understanding human–environment interactions at the
present day and in the future. The paper explains the need for the focus on palaeoenvironmental studies as a means of ‘learning
from the past’, and presents the rationale and structure of the IGBP-PAGES Focus 5 programme ‘Past Ecosystem Processes and
Human–Environment Interactions’. The past, as described through palaeoenvironmental studies, can yield information about pre-impact
states, trajectories of recent change, causation, complex system behaviour, and provide the basis for developing and testing
simulation models. Learning from the past in each of these epistemological categories is exemplified with published case-studies. 相似文献
14.
Sustainable development (SD) is generally recognised as having three dimensions, ecological, economic and social. Yet, its
implementation is burdened with resistance and conflict rooted in the short-term ‘business as usual’ development model, opposed
to the long-term sustainable benefit of local communities. Hence, the development of strategies to implement SD projects may
require further differentiation of these dimensions in relation to the contextual situation in which the project resides.
In two studies of SD projects on the Croatian islands, we identify five interlocking spheres of importance, Spiritual, Political,
Economic, Educational and Health, in addition to Ecological. Each of these spheres is accessible through gate-keepers, individuals
or a group of people who have the authority over the sector and as such, significantly influence public opinion. We suggest
that in this particular island context the sustainability of these projects may lie with those gate-keepers. Hence, initiating
and maintaining SD projects in these contexts requires a structured and targeted lobbying of these gate-keepers. 相似文献
15.
Using diatoms to assess the impacts of prehistoric, pre-industrial and modern land-use on Danish lakes 总被引:2,自引:1,他引:1
Emily G. Bradshaw Anne Birgitte Nielsen N. John Anderson 《Regional Environmental Change》2006,6(1-2):17-24
The impact of contemporary agriculture on Danish lakes is acknowledged to be extreme. In particular, high loading of nutrients
from agricultural soils contributes to the eutrophic conditions found in many of Denmark’s lakes. Palaeolimnological studies
have shown that human disturbance of the Danish landscape since the introduction of agriculture around 6,000 years ago has
had a major impact on lake ecosystems. The European Union’s Water Framework Directive requires an evaluation of reference
conditions for lakes, the conditions expected with only minimal human impact. Monitoring data and palaeolimnological studies
of Danish lakes demonstrate that many of the most detrimental effects of eutrophication have been experienced in recent decades.
A new study has suggested that the reference status for Danish lakes may be set to the status in ad 1850–1900, probably providing attainable, realistic restoration targets for many sites. The aims of this study were to explore
the impacts of past and contemporary land-use on Danish lakes, and to consider how appropriate the use of 1850 as a date to
define reference status is for these sites. Catchment land-cover data for ad 1800, taken from historical maps, and sedimentary diatom assemblages of the same age, from dated sediment cores, were used
to assess the impact of pre-industrial land-use on 20 Danish lakes. Analysis of contemporary land-cover data and surface-sediment
diatom assemblages for the 20 sites was also made. In-lake total phosphorus (TP) concentrations were estimated using the sedimentary
diatom assemblages and an existing calibration dataset for Danish lakes. The percentage of the lake catchment that was agricultural
land in ad 1800 explained 8.8% of the total variation in the diatom data. The land-cover variables ‘built-up areas’ and ‘plantations’,
together explained 16.9% of the variation in the diatom data for the modern samples. Diatom-inferred TP concentrations were
high for both ad 1800 (mean 112 μg TP L−1) and the present (mean 122 μg TP L−1), the latter estimates reflecting efforts in recent decades to reduce nutrient loading to Danish lakes following very high
levels of nutrient enrichment post-1950. The data presented highlight the impact that human activities 200 years ago, particularly
agriculture, had on Danish lake systems. The long cultural history and major anthropogenic disturbance of the Danish landscape
mean that true reference conditions for lakes (or ‘baseline’ conditions, those found prior to human impacts) can be found
only by considering century to millennial timescales. 相似文献
16.
This study aims to determine the trade-off between river pollution and the growth of the economy in the context of India using
the concept of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). According to EKC theory, environmental pressure tends to rise faster than
income growth in the early stages of economic development and then declines in the later stages with further economic growth.
The present study has used the cross-sectional time series data for river pollutants of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and
Dissolved Hydrogen Ions (PH) across various states of India for the period 1990–1991 to 2005–2006. This study shows why the
conventional EKC model is not sufficient to ascertain the declining path of pollution as the economy grows in the second stage.
The paper uses the modified EKC theory where the EKC curve is proposed to have 2 turning points. Our results indicated ‘tilted-S
shaped’ relationship which contradicts EKC in the early stages. Most of the regions that were studied have crossed the first
turning point but are still to cross the second turning point, which means that there will be an ascent in the pollution level
in the future. This calls for more stringent environment policies complementing the desired growth path. 相似文献
17.
Waseem Ahmad Colin L. Soskolne Tanvir Ahmed 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2012,14(1):67-83
This paper focuses on identified challenges for sustainable development across various sectors and the actions needed by different
institutions and individuals for the achievement of a sustainable path. For finding solutions that impede sustainable development,
emphasis is given to collaborative, inter- and trans-disciplinary problem-solving approaches. The ‘ecological modernization’
view is based on the belief that science and technology will result in continuous improvement in human welfare, while the
emerging postmodern ‘ecological paradigm’ also emphasizes harmony with nature and other actors. Global societies are in the
midst of a number of challenges: (1) implementation of existing and new hard- and soft-law instruments, (2) the degradation
of natural resources, (3) an inadequate global mechanism for handling environmental and social responsibilities by the international
community, (4) an unbalanced distribution of wealth, locally and internationally, (5) unethical and unsustainable business
practices, (6) consequent unethical and unsustainable consumer practices, (7) selective application of ethical principles
by rich countries and (8) the absence of norms of good conduct by powerful and wealthy peoples pertaining to sustainable development.
Governments, civil societies, academicians, indigenous peoples, communities, businesses and international organizations need
to become engaged in the formulation and enforcement of environmentally and ecologically sound development policies along
with relevant research, education, training, awareness and a change in social values as provided in the Earth Charter to support
actions for sustainable development. 相似文献
18.
A. J. Plater J. F. Boyle C. Mayers S. D. Turner R. W. Stroud 《Regional Environmental Change》2006,6(1-2):71-85
The limnological record of human impact on catchment land cover and on lake sedimentation during the historical period has
been established for Pinto Lake in Central Coastal California. In addition, the sedimentary record of the ‘pre-impact’ condition
preserves evidence of a climatic control on the nature of lake sedimentation. Chronological marker horizons have been determined
using pollen data in combination with the documented land-use history and introductions of exotic species. Further chronological
data have been determined using 14C and 137Cs. The impact of Mexican and Euro-American immigrants and their ‘imported’ land-use practices is clearly reflected in an
order of magnitude increase in the rate of lake sedimentation to c. 9 kg m−2 year−1 (c. 2 cm year−1) between 1770 and 1850. Here, the occurrence of exotic plant species indicates disturbance as early as c. 1769–1797, whilst
redwood deforestation between 1844 and 1860 represents the most significant human impact. Changes in the nature of sedimentation
prior to this reveal a high degree of sensitivity to changes in precipitation where subtle decreases in lake level and the
supply of runoff-derived mineral matter have resulted in two periods of organic lake sedimentation c. 650–900 and 1275–1750. Set against this background condition of high sensitivity, the dramatic impacts of Euro-American settlement
are unsurprising.
An erratum to this article can be found at 相似文献
19.
Marco Keiner 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2005,6(4):379-392
The principle of sustainable development is now 15-year-old. There are a lot of definitions and models for its explanation — ranging from triangles and prisms to eggs — but still its sense is diffuse. Moreover, important aspects like equity are not sufficiently taken into account.The following article takes a critical look on sustainable development. It shows logical, systemic, philosophic and ethic reasons for the re-development of substantial parts of the principle of sustainability. Based on the proposed Principle of Good Heritage it provides a rough outline of a future Concept of Evolutionability, comprising a first tentative for a definition of evolutionable development, aiming at achieving a more appropriate and more workable mainstream view of sustainability.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue. 相似文献
20.
A ‘forest–hydrology–poverty nexus’ hypothesis asserts that deforestation in poor upland areas simultaneously threatens biodiversity
and increases the incidence of flooding, sedimentation and other damaging hydrological processes. This paper uses rough heuristics
to assess the applicability of this hypothesis to two montane forested countries in Central America: Guatemala and Honduras.
We do so by using simple rules of thumb to identify watersheds at greater risk of hydrologically significant land use change,
using information about land cover, slope, and watershed size. The location of these watersheds is compared to spatial maps
of poverty and forests. We find plausible evidence for a forest–biodiversity–poverty connection in Guatemala, and to a lesser
extent in Honduras. 相似文献