Sustainability indicators for tourism destinations: bibliometric analysis and proposed research agenda

Environment, Development and Sustainability - This study aims to provide various maps of the evolution, current situation and future lines of sustainability indicators for tourism destinations...     

A new approach to road accident rescue

Objective: This article develops and validates a new methodology and tool for rescue assistance in traffic accidents, with the aim of improving its efficiency and safety in the evacuation of people, reducing the number of victims in road accidents.

Method: Different tests supported by professionals and experts have been designed under different circumstances and with different categories of damaged vehicles coming from real accidents and simulated trapped victims in order to calibrate and refine the proposed methodology and tool.

Results: To validate this new approach, a tool called App_Rescue has been developed. This tool is based on the use of a computer system that allows an efficient access to the technical information of the vehicle and sanitary information of the common passengers. The time spent during rescue using the standard protocol and the proposed method was compared.

Conclusion: This rescue assistance system allows us to make vital information accessible in posttrauma care services, improving the effectiveness of interventions by the emergency services, reducing the rescue time and therefore minimizing the consequences involved and the number of victims. This could often mean saving lives. In the different simulated rescue operations, the rescue time has been reduced an average of 14%.     

The recovery of the lower montane cloud forest in the Mucujún watershed, Mérida, Venezuela

High deforestation rates in tropical countries continue to reduce forest cover and thereby habitat quantity and quality. However, in some places the forest is recovering and expanding thus offsetting the biodiversity and ecosystem service losses. In order to characterize the forest recovery, land use and land cover (LUC) changes were analyzed using aerial photographs, taken between 1952 and 2009, of a peri-urban watershed in the Andes region of Venezuela. The qualities of the changes were assessed using landscape indices and hemeroby indicators. In that period, the forest cover increased about 18 %, mainly due to abandoned pastures on steep slopes. At the same time, the urban area expanded about 4 % on valley bottoms, while pastures and crop fields were reduced about 20 %. The results also showed that forest patches were aggregating, whereas pastures were fragmenting. A reduction in direct human impacts on forests growing on abandoned pastures resulted in a slight recovery of the lower montane cloud forest structure and plant composition. But non-native species were found in all LUC categories. During the study period, we documented not only forest recovery, but also urban area growth, intensified land use and invasions by non-native species all of which could partially counterbalance the positives of forest recovery.     

Morphology,Chemical Characterization and Sources of Microplastics in a Coastal City in the Equatorial Zone with Diverse Anthropogenic Activities (Fortaleza city,Brazil)

Journal of Polymers and the Environment - The aim of the present study was to perform morphological and chemical characterizations of microplastics (MPs) found in seawater samples from the coast of...     

Importance of the polarity on nanostructured silica materials to optimize the hydrolytic condensation with molecules related to CO2 adsorption

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The present work reports the changes for the mesoporous materials SBA-15 and KIT-6 associated with the structural, textural, and chemical properties...     

Atmospheric pollution assessment using polar graphs and its relationship with the bird community from the Sierra de Guadalupe,Mexico (initial data)

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - One of the most populated areas of the world is the Metropolitan Zone of the Mexican Valley, which has serious atmospheric pollution problems. To the...     

Environmental management and firm performance: a case study

This study has as its aim to help to clarify the relationship between environmental management and economic performance by integrating it into a wider framework that includes the relationship between environmental strategy and firm performance, the latter being understood as the combination of environmental performance, competitive advantage and economic performance. A case study of the COATO farming cooperative showed us that its environmental management, focused on prevention logic, has had a positive net effect on its environmental performance. Besides, the order in which these practices were adopted favoured the development of new organisational capabilities that have contributed to the appearance of advantages derived from the greater accumulated experience of employees in creating new projects that are designed to reduce residues and pollution. COATO has also obtained a competitive advantage in differentiation thanks to an improved brand image and to its increased credibility in business relationships. Finally, a positive correlation exists between the pioneering proactive strategy adopted by this cooperative and the improvement of its firm performance with respect to the other firms in its sector.