Stimulating student’s pro-environmental behavior in higher education institutions: an ability–motivation–opportunity perspective

Environment, Development and Sustainability - The slow and inadequate environmental performance of higher education institutions is attracting the consideration of researchers toward a behavioral...     

Transdisciplinarity as a real-world challenge: a case study on a North–South collaboration

Transdisciplinarity (TD) has become a buzzword, promoted as a suitable approach to address today’s urgent challenges in human-environment interactions. Looking at its practical implementation, however, challenges still remain to be met. Despite the concept’s popularity, it seems difficult to reconcile the idea of knowledge co-production with research realities. Taking a TD research project dealing with sustainable land management in Southern Africa (Angola, Botswana, and Namibia) as a case study, we aim to provide empirically based insights into the real-world application of this collaborative research approach to improve the general understanding of TD research in the making. Based on semi-structured interviews with project partners and stakeholders, we reveal the underlying interests, mismatching institutions and structures of power shaping the TD research process in this North–South collaboration. We identified TD as falling victim to a kind of “tragedy of the commons”, paralysed between existing power structures and conflicting interests, and being considered as extra work instead of an integral task with an inherent value in itself. By demonstrating some of the underlying causes of the challenging practice of TD, we reveal starting points for changes and provide recommendations that aim to set the base for a more reflexive and fruitful TD knowledge co-production.     

Using a functional approach to wetland valuation: the case of Zazari–Cheimaditida

This study proposes the valuation of wetland functions as an alternative to the conventional approach to wetland valuation, in order to derive indicators for decision-making in wetland management. It is illustrated that these functions can be valuated in terms of the goods and services they provide to society. Using a functional approach, the functions are identified and the goods and services they provide are explicitly allocated among them; then, the latter are valuated with the Contingent Valuation method. Statistical analysis of the data provides welfare measures that reflect the value of these functions. It is argued that the values of separate functions are more useful in policy-making than their aggregated value.

‘Eco-city’ to ‘disaster-resilient eco-community’: a concerted approach in the coastal city of Puri, India

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.     

Understanding the entrepreneurs’ behavioural intentions towards sustainable tourism: a case study from Greece

This study’s aim is mainly to provide insights into the factors that affect sustainable tourism entrepreneurs’ behavioural intentions, employing data from Greece. Given that intention is a powerful predictor of actual behaviour, to stimulate sustainable entrepreneurial activity in the tourism sector and achieve sustainable development, it is important to study the factors that affect entrepreneur’s behavioural intentions towards sustainability. Findings through this empirical analysis support that entrepreneur’s demographics parameters and firm characteristics have distinctive effects in explaining respondents’ behaviour towards sustainable entrepreneurship and acknowledgement of sustainability options of a community. In particular, results suggest that younger entrepreneurs are probably more informed about the potential of the sustainability for the regions and are more likely to favour sustainable tourism practices. Entrepreneur’s income is also a statistical significant parameter towards sustainable entrepreneurship intentions within the tourism sector. Finally, entrepreneurs reported as important for the promotion of tourism sustainability the creation of knowledge networks and websites to focus on sustainable business and the promotion of environmental labels and certified management systems in tourism businesses.     

Valorisation of crude earth as sustainable building material: a case of international cooperation in the Logone Valley (Chad–Cameroon)

Deforestation is one of the most dramatic threats to environmental equilibrium and food safety in many regions of the world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It is enhanced by many kinds of human activities, among which is the earth brick-firing process that needs large amounts of wood for attaining and maintaining temperatures required during this process. In order to reduce deforestation, the present study investigated from different points of view the potential of crude earth to be used as building material, taking as a case study the Logone Valley located at the border between Chad and Cameroon. First, an on-site investigation was made to verify the state-of-the-art of brick production technologies and to evaluate their impact on the environment. Subsequently, morphological and geotechnical analyses on soil samples collected from different sites of the Logone Valley were carried out, to evaluate their suitability to brick production. Finally, a pilot plant for crude earthen brick production was set, particularly based on a new press designed for this purpose.     

Sustainable place-making for sustainability science: the contested case of agri-food and urban–rural relations

The paper explores the concept of ‘sustainable place-making’ and its necessary relationships and opportunities with the emerging, broader and interdisciplinary field of sustainability science. This implies a reconsideration of the new and emerging interrelationships between economy, community and ecology as a basis for active place-making. The paper then examines the new dynamics of place-making with regard to the contested emergence of the bio-economy and the eco-economy, and the principles and place framings that lie behind these competing paradigms of spatial development. The reference point here is agri-food and urban–rural relations; and it is argued that research in these fields is in need of being contextualised critically and normatively within this dynamic, highly contested and place-making context. The analysis also holds important implications for a more critical and engaging sustainability science.     

Sustainable development in a natural resource rich economy: the case of Chile in 1985–2004

Searching for practical means to assessing economic growth’s sustainability, we extend a standard theoretical model to calculate “true” income measures for Chile, during the 1985–2004 period, and use estimates of natural capital depreciation to obtain genuine national saving measures. We found that, for the period, Chile’s economic growth was sustainable, even when approximately 2.5% of the income recorded by national accounts corresponded to depreciation of natural resources plus costs of atmospheric pollution. This performance can be partially explained by policies implemented to force fiscal responsibility and to assure wise public investment and expending during a natural resource driven growth. This evidence reinforces recent findings contradicting the natural resource curse, and the indirect negative effect of resource abundance over growth that would operate through the quality of institutions.     

Rural migrants’ participation in old-age insurance: a case study of the inter-provincial migrant workers from Sichuan,China

Old-age pension, a fundamental part of the Chinese social security system, is perceived by the Chinese government as the last support for rural-to-urban migrant workers upon retreating from the labor market. Using survey data collected by the authors, this paper examines a host of factors which influence migrant workers’ participation in the old-age scheme. The result shows that individual characteristics, employment status, attitudes toward old-age support and perception of the old-age pension system significantly differentiate two groups of migrant workers between those that have participated in and their counterparts who have not participated in the old-age pension schemes. Among a number of factors, age, educational attainment, holding labor contract, etc. are found to be significant factors influencing migrants’ behavior participating (or not participating) the available age-pension schemes. Policy implications for how to improve the rate of participation in existing old-age pension schemes among migrant workers are drawn from the findings.     

Indicators as ‘circular argumentation constructs’? An input–output analysis of the variable structure of five environmental sustainability country rankings

This paper is concerned with the normative underpinnings of popular sustainability indicators and country rankings. Attempts to quantify national sustainability in the form of composite indicators and rankings have increased rapidly over past decades. However, questions regarding validity and interpretability remain. This article combines theoretical and statistical tools to explore how input variables in five popular sustainability indicators can be related to different theoretical paradigms: weak and strong sustainability. It is shown that differences in theoretical interpretations affect input variable selection, which in turn affects indicator output. This points towards the risk of indicators becoming a sort of ‘circular argumentation construct’. The article argues that sustainability indicators and country rankings must be treated as theoretical just as much as statistical instruments. It is proposed that making underlying normative assumptions explicit, and making input variable selection more clear in a theoretical sense, can enhance indicator validity and usability for policy makers and researchers alike.     

Beyond ‘just’ flood risk management: the potential for—and limits to—alleviating flood disadvantage

Regional Environmental Change - The threat of flooding poses a considerable challenge for justice. Not only are more citizens becoming exposed to risk, but they are expected to play increasingly...     

A conceptual framework for analyzing deltas as coupled social–ecological systems: an example from the Amazon River Delta

At the nexus of watersheds, land, coastal areas, oceans, and human settlements, river delta regions pose specific challenges to environmental governance and sustainability. Using the Amazon Estuary-Delta region (AD) as our focus, we reflect on the challenges created by the high degree of functional interdependencies shaping social–ecological dynamics of delta regions. The article introduces the initial design of a conceptual framework to analyze delta regions as coupled social–ecological systems (SES). The first part of the framework is used to define a delta SES according to a problem and/or collective action dilemma. Five components can be used to define a delta SES: social–economic systems, governance systems, ecosystems-resource systems, topographic-hydrological systems, and oceanic-climate systems. These components are used in association with six types of telecoupling conditions: socio-demographic, economic, governance, ecological, material, and climatic-hydrological. The second part of the framework presents a strategy for the analysis of collective action problems in delta regions, from sub-delta/local to delta to basin levels. This framework is intended to support both case studies and comparative analysis. The article provides illustrative applications of the framework to the AD. First, we apply the framework to define and characterize the AD as coupled SES. We then utilize the framework to diagnose an example of collective action problem related to the impacts of urban growth, and urban and industrial pollution on small-scale fishing resources. We argue that the functional interdependencies characteristic of delta regions require new approaches to understand, diagnose, and evaluate the current and future impacts of social–ecological changes and potential solutions to the sustainability dilemmas of delta regions.     

Spatiotemporal changes of geomorphic environment in the Muriganga–Saptamukhi estuarine interfluve of Indian Sundarban in the context of climate change: a case study

The surface of the earth has been continuously sculptured by the exogenetic processes primarily by the climatic hydrological attributes. Over the sequential phases of evolution of earth, the climatic attributes have altered. The alternative processes such as glaciation and declaciation, fluctuations of sea level and variability in rainfall pattern have changed the surface configuration through maneuvering the operations of the geographical processes. The issue of climate change has become a matter of scientific concern all over the world as the human communities are facing severe problems manifested in the form of flood, drought and submergence of low-lying coastal regions, estuaries and deltas. The present study is an attempt to understand the nature and extent of climate change (1890–2012) and related sea level rise (1970s–2010) in the deltaic Sundarban region of India since the last century and how far they are impacting the erosion–depositional processes (1925, 1926–2014). The changing trend of mean annual temperature, rainfall pattern and frequencies of tropical cyclones has been studied in detail, and spatiotemporal changes of geomorphic environment in different reaches of the study area have also been monitored with available multi-temporal geospatial data. The observation reveals that the flat sandy coastal belt and low-lying island in the extreme southern part have been severely affected by wave dash and seasonal storm surges which are mostly responsible for vigorous erosion. On the other hand, high tidal velocity is observed along the exposed concave bank in the upper–middle reaches of the Muriganga estuary and exposed outer bank in lower–middle reaches of Saptamukhi estuary. The thalweg line, which is very close to the river bank in those reaches of estuary, intensifies the hydraulic pressure along marginal parts of river bank which leads to erosion. Depositional activities are mostly observed along the sheltered inner reaches and convex river banks of the estuaries due to less effective tidal rushes, shallow channel depth, marginal flow velocity and gentle channel slope. Therefore, erosional and depositional processes cannot be explain by the relative mean sea level rise, because increasing mean sea level will affect the erosional processes uniformly in the entire estuary. In this present study area, both the erosional and depositional processes are simultaneously active depending on geographical exposure, sinuous channel pattern, channel depth and lithological compositions.