Privileged Knowledge and Social Change: Effects on Different Participants of Using Geographic Information Systems Technology in Natural Resource Management

The use of geographic information systems (GIS) technology in natural resource management has expanded rapidly: It is the preferred tool of spatial data analysis addressing large landscapes and is typically the presentation medium for conveying landscape-scale scientific findings to all kinds of audiences. In a case study using the Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study in western Oregon, it was found that the use of GIS to analyze and display natural resource data in that project produced a variety of responses among different participants and participant groups. The findings offer insights into the workings of groups attempting public involvement in natural resource management.     

Learning about Environments: The Significance of Primal Landscapes

The way we learn about our environments—be they farms, forests, or tribal lands—has implications for the formulation of environmental policy. This article presents the findings of how residents learned about their environments in two rural case studies conducted in northern Queensland and relates these to the concept of “primal landscapes,” which is concerned with the interaction that occurs between children and the environments in which they mature. Rather than focusing specifically on built environments or natural environments, the article draws on an approach that conceptualizes environment as meaning-laden places in which we live and work, which integrate social, cultural, biological, physical, and economic dimensions. In drawing insights for environmental policy, the article draws attention to the timing of policy interventions, the significance of experiential environmental education, the potential to learn from place-based festivals, and the importance of learning from extreme events such as fires and floods.     

Coastal resource complexes of South India: options for sustainable management

India's coastal resource complexes were traditionally characterized by a continuum of 'common property resources' or 'commons' that stretched from the shores to the seas. The continuum aided the existence of sustainable livelihood systems for local communities. Today, fragmented policy approaches and economic welfare schemes have caused the disintegration of community control over the continuum. As a consequence, livelihood systems of local communities have declined. The introduction of coastal management guidelines in the 1990s has exacerbated the situation. With reference to a coastal village located in the State of Kerala in South West India, the paper describes the trajectory of unsustainable change that has taken place in the coastal area resource complexes of the country. The paper argues for restoring the continuum of commons in the study area through community driven systems of natural resource management that are based on networks of nested institutions.     

Between uncertainty and hope: Young leaders as agents of change in sustainable small-scale fisheries

The path to sustainable small-scale fisheries (SSF) is based on multiple learning processes that must transcend generational changes. To understand young leaders from communities with sustainable SSF management practices in Mexico, we used in-depth interviews to identify their shared motivations and perceptions for accepting their fishing heritage. These possible future decision-makers act as agents of change due to their organizational and technological abilities. However, young people are currently at a crossroads. Many inherited a passion for the sea and want to improve and diversify the fishing sector, yet young leaders do not want to accept a legacy of complicated socioenvironmental conditions that can limit their futures. These future leaders are especially concerned by the uncertainty caused by climate change. If fishing and generational change are not valued in planning processes, the continuity of fisheries, the success of conservation actions, and the lifestyles of young fishers will remain uncertain.Graphical abstract Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01639-2.     

Windows, view, and office characteristics predict physical and psychological discomfort

Office employees spend a lot of time inside buildings, where the physical conditions influence their well-being and indirectly influence their employers' business performance. With data from a field study conducted in the Netherlands in April to May 2003, we used path analysis to further elucidate the relationship between personal (gender and seasonality of mood shifts), building (view type, view quality, window distance, and social density), and perceived environmental conditions (light quality, and office impression) and physical and psychological discomfort, sleep quality, and environmental utility. The results show that window views, which that are rated as being more attractive, are beneficial to building occupants by reducing discomfort. However, being close to a window and rating the lighting as being of lower quality can result in thermal and glare problems (environmental utility). Reduced discomfort at work can improve sleep quality, indicating that physical conditions at work influence home life.     

Towards an integrative model of place identification: Dimensionality and predictors of intrapersonal-level place preferences

Research on place identity has been hampered by confusion in defining the concept and lacks an integrated account of social and motivational processes underlying people's identification with places. We used multilevel modelling (N = 141) to investigate the dimensionality and predictors of intrapersonal variance in place identification, drawing on psychological and anthropological literatures. Confirmatory factor analysis distinguished three dimensions of place identification (attachment/self-extension, environmental fit, and place-self congruity), and each was predicted by a somewhat different combination of needs and motives (e.g., self-esteem, continuity, distinctiveness, belonging, meaning, security, control, aesthetic pleasure) and social/symbolic links to places (e.g., genealogy, economics, loss, narrative, spiritual significance, special events). Satisfaction of needs and motives partially accounted for effects of social/symbolic links.     

The relationship between environmental activism,pro-environmental behaviour and social identity

Research on environmental activism remains poorly integrated and ill-defined and to date, there has been little examination of the relationship of environmental activism, pro-environmental behaviour and social identity. 131 students from an Australian University (M = 25.04 years old, SD = 8.17) voluntarily participated by returning an anonymous questionnaire containing an environmental activism scale, a pro-environmental behaviour scale and a social identity scale. The results revealed that while there was a significant relationship between social identity and environmental behaviour, only the citizenship component of environmental behaviour significantly predicted environmental activism. In other words, the relationship between social identity and environmental activism was indirect. This research presents the opportunity for further exploration of these relationships and to further investigate their relationship to inter-group processes.     

基于“3S”技术的村镇住宅洪灾脆弱性曲线研究

脆弱性曲线常用来表示各类承灾体的洪灾损失率与洪水特征之间的关系,是洪灾风险评价方法中的关键部分。为了构建村镇住宅洪灾脆弱性曲线,以2010年永吉县口前镇洪灾为案例,根据抽样理论运用GPS技术开展了村镇住宅洪灾损失的实地调查;运用RS技术和GIS技术提取出洪水淹没水深用以补充未调查房屋的淹没水深数据;采用回归分析方法建立了各类平房住宅水深-损失率之间的关系,用以表征脆弱性曲线。结果表明:居民住宅的洪灾损失率与水深高度相关,且在同一淹没水深下,平房住宅的使用时间越长损失率越大。脆弱性曲线的建立为计算洪灾潜在损失和区域防灾减灾提供了依据。     

Organic olive orchards on sloping land: More than a specialty niche production system?

Five organic Sloping and Mountainous Olive Plantation Production Systems (SMOPS) have been studied in four olive-producing areas in four European countries (Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal). Results indicate that these SMOPS provide ecological, economic and social benefits to the regions in which they are located, although most of these benefits are not strictly limited to the organic production systems. Erosion control and organic matter balance remain significant issues in four of the SMOPS and we suggest that subsidy support should be conditional on the implementation of additional soil and water conservation measures that should be provided with specific funding. Most of the SMOPS will remain dependent on a similar level of support in order for olive production to remain economically feasible. The lower profitability compared to non-organic olive production systems suggests that there is limited scope for expansion of organic olive production, although in the study areas where there is little such production, such as Western Crete (Greece) and Basilicata-Salerno (Italy) the scope remains great. The analysis of the reasons for the beneficial effects of olive cultivation in the areas studied indicates that in most cases soil management techniques adopted in or recommended for organic production systems could provide similar benefits in other production systems as well.     

Contemporary Environmental Art in China: Portraying Progress,Politics, and Ecosystems

Art has long been an important force in environmental movements. In China, environmental art is a fast-growing sector of the art scene. This new area of emphasis is expanding the function of art and aiding in China’s environmental movement by challenging both imported Western practices and Maoist era philosophy, thereby opening up new ways of considering the relationship between human “progress,” political systems, economic practices, and their repercussions on existing ecosystems. I turn to artist Xu Xiaoyan’s paintings to explore how the notion of “progress” can be challenged through art. I use Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of deterritorialization and reterritorialization to map how Xu’s art offers viewers space to think outside dominant paradigms, creates the potential for changes in human consciousness, considers the environment as a composition of relationships and interactions, and provokes discussion concerning the impact of linear notions of time on human conceptions of nature.