A review of studies applying environmental impact assessment methods on fruit production systems

Although many aspects of environmental accounting methodologies in food production have already been investigated, the application of environmental indicators in the fruit sector is still rare and no consensus can be found on the preferred method. On the contrary, widely diverging approaches have been taken to several aspects of the analyses, such as data collection, handling of scaling issues, and goal and scope definition. This paper reviews studies assessing the sustainability or environmental impacts of fruit production under different conditions and identifies aspects of fruit production that are of environmental importance. Four environmental assessment methods which may be applied to assess fruit production systems are evaluated, namely Life Cycle Assessment, Ecological Footprint Analysis, Emergy Analysis and Energy Balance. In the 22 peer-reviewed journal articles and two conference articles applying one of these methods in the fruit sector that were included in this review, a total of 26 applications of environmental impact assessment methods are described. These applications differ concerning e.g. overall objective, set of environmental issues considered, definition of system boundaries and calculation algorithms. Due to the relatively high variability in study cases and approaches, it was not possible to identify any one method as being better than the others. However, remarks on methodologies and suggestions for standardisation are given and the environmental burdens of fruit systems are highlighted.     

A comprehensive set of resource use indicators from the micro to the macro level

Many of today's most urgent environmental problems arise from increasing volumes of worldwide production and consumption and the associated use of natural resources, including renewable and non-renewable raw materials, energy, water and land. Solid indicators to measure different dimensions of anthropogenic resource use are essential for designing appropriate policy measures for a sustainable management of these resources. Based on a brief review of the current state of the art of resource use indicators, this paper suggests a new set of complementary resource use indicators, combining existing measures for resource use. The suggested indicator set covers the core resource input categories of materials, water and land area and includes the output category of greenhouse gas emissions. This set can be applied consistently from the micro level of products and companies up to the macro level of countries and world regions. All suggested indicators take a life-cycle wide perspective on production and consumption activities. This set of indicators deals with the issue of the overall scale of the human production and consumption system. It can be regarded as the general indicator framework, based on which more specific indicators, for example, on different environmental impacts related to natural resource use, can be calculated.     

An evaluation of environmental factors affecting species distributions

Many different models can be built to explain the distributions of species. Often there is no single model that is clearly better than the alternatives, and this leads to uncertainty over which environmental factors are limiting species’ distributions. We investigated the support for different environmental factors by determining the drop in model performance when selected predictors were excluded from the model building process. We used a paired t-test over 37 plant species so that an environmental factor was only deemed significant if it consistently improved the results for multiple species. Geology and winter minimum temperatures were found to be the environmental factors with the most support, with a significant drop in model performance when either of these factors was excluded. However, there was less support for summer maximum temperature, as other environmental factors could combine to produce similar model performance. Our method of evaluating environmental factors using multiple species will not be capable of detecting predictors that are only important for one or two species, but it is difficult to distinguish these from spurious correlations. The strength of the method is that it increases inference for factors that consistently affect the distributions of many species. We discourage the assessment of models against predefined benchmarks, such as an area under the curve (AUC) of more than 0.7, as many alternative models for the same species produce similar results. Therefore, the benchmarks do not provide any indication of how the performance of the selected model compares to alternative models, and they provide weak inference to accept any selected model.     

Model-based analysis of the influence of ecological processes on forest point pattern formation—A case study

Many different spatio-temporal individual-based models (IBM) for forests have been developed for studying the development of trees in space and time. Such models typically depend on various numerical parameters that represent the ecological processes of growth (G), inter-plant competition (C) and birth-and-death (B&D; also called regeneration and mortality). Until now little work has been done to systematically trace the influence of these processes and their model parameters on the spatial structure of forest ecosystems.This paper attempts to fill this gap by addressing an important aspect of forest structure, spatial variability, characterised by the mark variogram as a summary characteristic. The model used was inspired by components of various well-established IBMs including a shot-noise competition field. Time series data from monospecies forests in three different countries of the northern hemisphere provided ecological reference scenarios. Though a case study, the paper's methodology is rather general and can be applied to any model and forest ecosystem.Methods of sensitivity analysis revealed that only a small number of model parameters is crucial for forming spatial variability. Particularly important is the range of competition between trees; with increasing range the variability increases. Growth processes have considerable importance particularly with short observation periods and in young forests, whereas mortality processes become more influential in the long-term. Naturally, these statements depend upon the initial structure and on the length of the observation period.     

Ecological niche similarities of Peponapis bees and non-domesticated Cucurbita species

Peponapis bees are considered specialized pollinators of Cucurbita flowers, a genus that presents several species of economic value (squashes and pumpkins). Both genera originated in the Americas, and their diversity dispersion center is in Mexico. Ten species of Peponapis and ten species of Cucurbita (only non-domesticated species) were analyzed considering the similarity of their ecological niche characteristics with respect to climatic conditions of their occurrence areas (abiotic variables) and interactions between species (biotic variables). The similarity of climatic conditions (temperature and precipitation) was estimated through cluster analyses. The areas of potential occurrence of the most similar species were obtained through ecological niche modeling and summed with geographic information system tools. Three main clusters were obtained: one with species that shared potential occurrence areas mainly in deserts (P. pruinosa, P. timberlakei, C. digitata, C. palmata, C. foetidissima), another in moist forests (P. limitaris, P. atrata, C. lundelliana, C. o. martinezii) and a third mainly in dry forests (C. a. sororia, C. radicans, C. pedatifolia, P. azteca, P. smithi, P. crassidentata, P. utahensis). Some species with similar ecological niche presented potential shared areas that are also similar to their geographical distribution, like those occurring predominantly on deserts. However, some clustered species presented larger geographical areas, such as P. pruinosa and C. foetidissima suggesting other drivers than climatic conditions to shape their distributions. The domestication of Cucurbita and also the natural history of both genera were considered also as important factors.     

Experimental rewilding may restore abandoned wood-pastures if policy allows

Large herbivores play key roles in terrestrial ecosystems. Continuous defaunation processes have produced cascade effects on plant community composition, vegetation structure, and even climate. Wood-pastures were created by traditional management practices that have maintained open structures and biodiversity for millennia. In Europe, despite the broad recognition of their biological importance, such landscapes are declining due to land-use changes. This calls for finding urgent solutions for wood-pasture conservation. To test whether introducing an ecological replacement of an extinct wild horse could have positive effects on wood-pasture restoration, we designed a 3-year rewilding experiment. Horses created a more open wood-pasture structure by browsing on seedlings and saplings, affected tree composition via selective browsing and controlled the colonization of woody vegetation in grassland-dominated areas. Thus, rewilding could be a potential avenue for wood-pasture restoration and biodiversity conservation. However, such benefits may not materialize without a necessary paradigm and political shift.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01320-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Typologies of collaborative governance for scaling nature-based solutions in two strategic South African river systems

Scaled up planning and implementation of nature-based solutions requires better understanding of broad characteristics (typologies) of the current governance and financing landscape, collaborative approaches amidst local complexities, and factors of scalability. An inventory was compiled of water-related ecological infrastructure intervention projects in two river systems in South Africa, incorporating actor, environmental, social, and financial dimensions and benefits. Qualitative participatory analysis revealed eight typologies. Post-hoc classification analysis determined similarities and/or unique characteristics of seven quantitative typologies. Key characterising factors included the complexity/size of financial flows, complexity of partnership/governance arrangements, mandates/goals of actors, type of ecological infrastructure, trade-offs in investment in ecological/built infrastructure, and the model used for social benefits. Identified scalable typologies offer structures suited to increased investment, with other typologies offering specialised local value. A range of ecological infrastructure intervention typologies with differing biophysical and socioeconomic outcomes provide choices for investors with specific goals, and benefits to landscape actors.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01531-z.     

矿山项目生态环境影响评价研究

以矿山项目生态环境影响评价特点为基点,对矿山项目生态环境影响评价的因子等进行简要论述,重点阐述了生态环境状况指数法、潜在生态危害指数法和景观指数法。     

我国露天煤矿开采区生态恢复研究存在的问题探讨

露天煤矿的开采在带来巨大经济效益的同时,也产生了生态破坏和环境污染等一系列问题。矿区的生态恢复已经在社会上引起了广泛关注,成为当前研究的热点之一。本文概述了我国露天煤矿开采区的生态环境问题、生态恢复研究现状及实践,探讨性地提出了目前露天煤矿开采区生态恢复研究存在的问题及建议。