A scoping review of post-disaster social support investigations conducted after disasters that struck the Australia and Oceania continent

This scoping review provides a summary of research findings on social support dynamics in the wake of disasters that occurred on the continent of Australia and Oceania between 1983 and 2013. Forty-one studies, quantitative and qualitative, were summarised, investigating different facets of post-disaster supportive interactions. All inquiries assessed disasters resulting from natural hazards, with the majority of them conducted following events in Australia and New Zealand. The review revealed similar patterns of post-disaster social support dynamics that routinely unfold after disastrous incidents all over the world. Consistent with the disaster mental health literature, the documentation of social support mobilisation and social support deterioration processes was common. Salutary direct effects of supportive behaviours on post-disaster psychological distress were also highly evident. Most studies, however, posed research questions or hypotheses that lacked empirical or theoretical grounding. In conclusion, the review offers several recommendations on how to advance research on post-disaster social support.     

A Rapid Method for Assessing the Environmental Performance of Commercial Farms in the Pampas of Argentina

The generation of reliable updated information is critical to support the harmonization of socio-economic and environmental issues in a context of sustainable development. The agro-environmental assessment and management of agricultural systems often relies on indicators that are necessary to make sound decisions. This work aims to provide an approach to (a) assess the environmental performance of commercial farms in the Pampas of Argentina, and (b) propose a methodological framework to calculate environmental indicators that can rapidly be applied to practical farming. 120 commercial farms scattered across the Pampas were analyzed in this study during 2002 and 2003. Eleven basic indicators were identified and calculation methods described. Such indicators were fossil energy (FE) use, FE use efficiency, nitrogen (N) balance, phosphorus (P) balance, N contamination risk, P contamination risk, pesticide contamination risk, soil erosion risk, habitat intervention, changes in soil carbon stock, and balance of greenhouse gases. A model named Agro-Eco-Index was developed on a Microsoft-Excel support to incorporate on-farm collected data and facilitate the calculation of indicators by users. Different procedures were applied to validate the model and present the results to the users. Regression models (based on linear and non-linear models) were used to validate the comparative performance of the study farms across the Pampas. An environmental dashboard was provided to represent in a graphical way the behavior of farms. The method provides a tool to discriminate environmentally friendly farms from those that do not pay enough attention to environmental issues. Our procedure might be useful for implementing an ecological certification system to reward a good environmental behavior in society (e.g., through tax benefits) and generate a commercial advantage (e.g., through the allocation of green labels) for committed farmers.     

Community-Based Environmental Management in Atlantic Canada: The Impacts and Spheres of Influence of the Atlantic Coastal Action Program

The Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP) is a unique, community-based program initiated by Environment Canada in 1991 to help Atlantic Canadians restore and sustain watersheds and adjacent coastal areas. ACAP is the eastem-most Environment Canada Ecosystem Initiative. The ACAP family is currently made up of 14 ecosystem-based organizations in the four Atlantic provinces. Each one of these non-profit organizations operates independently, but is formally linked under the umbrella of ACAP to represent a force stronger than the individual parts. In Environment Canada's experience, the program consistently demonstrates the value of a community-based approach and produces results on an ecosystem basis. This paper will examine some of the impacts of ACAP in terms of economics, credible community science, and environmental results which most often align with Environment Canada's objectives. It will explore the influences of the community-based approach to environmental management on multiple scales (local, regional, etc.). Through examples, the paper will demonstrate the effectiveness of ACAP in influencing some of the policies, programs and attitudes of various levels of government and industry in the region, as well as describe how the community-based model has been exported internationally. The paper will conclude with a discussion on a planned path forward for ACAP.     

Towards a Paradigmatic Shift in Sustainability Studies: A Systematic Review of Peer Reviewed Literature and Future Agenda Setting to Consider Environmental (Un)sustainability of Digital Communication

The materiality of digital communication inflicts substantial environmental damage: the extraction of resources needed to produce digital devices; the toxicity of e-waste; and the rapidly increasing energy demands required to sustain data generated by digital communication. This damage, however, is paradoxically under-theorized in scholarship on environmental sustainability. Despite the existing critique of the “techno-fix” approach in sustainability studies, digitization – and digital communication in particular – continue to be celebrated as the tool for environmental sustainability; an approach we coin “digital solutionism.” The article presents the first systematic review of the literature to map the implicit assumptions about the relationships between digital communications and environmental sustainability, in order to examine how digital solutionism manifests, and why it persists. We propose a concept matrix that identifies the key blind spots with regards to environmental damages of the digital, and call for a paradigmatic shift in environmental sustainability studies. An agenda for future research is put forward that advocates for the following: (1) a systematic account of material damages of devices, platforms and data systems adopted into sustainability research and practice, resulting in changes in both research framing and methodological foundations; (2) a reconceptualization and denaturalization of the digital itself as a promising solution; (3) a theoretical dialogue between sustainability studies and environmental communication. (4) an expansion of environmental communication as a field, from focusing on the communication aspect of environmental change to include the environmental footprint of communication itself.     

The impact of government subsidy and tax policy on the competitive decision-making of remanufacturing supply chains

In this paper, we consider a two-period competition model of a remanufacturing supply chain consisting of three members: a new product manufacturer, a recycler and a remanufacturer. The manufacturer supplies new products in the first period and the remanufacturer participates in the competition in the second period. We consider three scenarios in the second period: (1) there is no government subsidy in the competition; (2) there is only government subsidy in the competition; (3) there are both government subsidy and tax in the competition. First, we give the optimal decision-making of the manufacturer, the remanufacturer and the government in the three scenarios; second, we analyse changes in the decision-making of the manufacturer and remanufacturer in the three scenarios and compare their results. We analyse the effects of government subsidy and tax and their asymmetric use on manufacturers’ and remanufacturers’ decision-making variables and competitive performance. We also take consumer awareness of environmental protection into account and examine its impact on subjects’ decisions. Lastly, we operate a numerical example to show the results.     

“Hey Friend,Buy Green”: Social Media Use to Influence Eco-Purchasing Involvement

This study addresses the use of message carriers to convey corporate social responsibility information to promote eco-purchasing involvement. The work tests various media formats transmitted via social media. The effects of corporate vs. peer communication in a corporate social responsibility campaign in stimulating self-reported eco-purchasing involvement are indicated. The research varies communication dimensions of a fictional corporate social responsibility campaign sent through social media. Multiple media formats; new release; article; and advertisement were tested, as was the inclusion of social media persuasive sentiment. The analysis of source/format combinations and source/format/sentiment combinations found statistically significant differences for consumer-to-consumer communication in stimulating eco-purchasing involvement in certain circumstances. This research suggests an emerging role for the consumer communicator as a content co-creator and validates the effective use of articles and news releases instead of advertising on social media, yielding managerial and scholarly implications.     

重庆市特大旱灾的自然与社会机制分析

文章针对2006年的特大旱灾探讨了2006年的特大旱灾的特征,分析了2006年特大旱灾的形成自然机制和社会机制,并提出了今后重庆市抗御旱灾的策略。认为2006年的特大旱灾是自然因素与社会因素叠加的结果,是人类社会经济系统自身易损性的体现。     

城市生态系统复合下垫面碳通量特征——以上海市奉贤大学城为例

随着城市化进程的加速和城市人口规模的增加,城市已成为最大的碳源,研究城市生态系统对大气二氧化碳的贡献成为碳循环研究的焦点问题之一。基于研究区域内土地利用现状和一年的涡动观测系统观测数据,结合地理信息技术(Arc GIS)和通量计算工具(Eddypro及ART Footprint Tool)以及碳通量足迹模型分析了上海奉贤大学城碳通量足迹特征,基于此探讨不同下垫面类型,包括以草本和木本等透水层为主的下垫面(称为自然系统),以建筑物、道路等不透水层为主的下垫面(称为社会系统)碳通量的变化特征。研究结果表明:1)在不同风向上,碳通量贡献区范围随着大气稳定度的增加而扩大。大气处于稳定条件下,非主风向上的碳通量贡献区范围(最大范围1 100 m)比主风向上的碳通量贡献区范围(最大范围780m)要大;当大气处于不稳定条件下时主风向和非主风向下的碳通量贡献区范围相差不大(最大范围分别为321和351m)。2)不同下垫面其源汇特征不同,以绿色植物为主的自然系统年碳通量均值为–4.1μmol/m~2/s,表现为碳汇;社会系统的年碳通量均值为8.6μmol/m~2/s,表现为碳源。3)自然系统的碳通量日变化具有较明显的季节分异,变化特征大致呈"U"型;社会系统的碳通量日变化没有明显的季节分异,变化特征大致呈"M"型。绿色植物对城市生态系统的大气二氧化碳有降低作用,结合自然和社会系统的碳通量变化特征可以为以后合理规划城市布局,建立低碳城市提供服务。     

中国企业社会责任财务绩效评价模型研究

2003年,英国政府出台了<我们能源的未来-创建低碳经济>能源白皮书,其中首次引入了"低碳经济"的概念,随后越来越多的学者开始探讨这种经济发展模式及其技术和政策的可行性,并展开了一系列实证研究.而在这种新的经济发展趋势下,作为经济主体的企业所要承担的社会责任也就被赋予了新的内窖.那么在向低碳经济转型的过程中,如何对企业的社会责任进行客观、有效的评价将对于企业更好履行其社会责任起到重要作用.基于我国国情,本文通过对低碳经济发展模式下中国企业社会责任财务绩效进行模型研究,提出了在传统指标分析模型基础上进行数据包络分析(DEA)和可持续计量的双重模型修正,以期弥补传统财务绩效模型在企业有效投入分析和动态性评价方面的缺陷和不足.     

Footprints for Sustainability: The Next Steps

The concept of an ecological footprint is based on the understanding that every individual human appropriates a share of the productive and assimilative capacity of the biosphere. An ecological footprint corresponds to this exclusive biologically productive area that a defined population uses for all its resource requirements and wastes, and is expressed in terms of bioproductive space, with world-average productivity. Humanity's footprint or its aggregate ecological demand can only temporarily exceed the productive and assimilative capacity of the biosphere without liquidating and weakening the natural capital on which humanity depends fundamentally. Therefore, accounting tools for quantifying humanity's use of nature are essential for overall assessments of human impact as well as for planning specific steps towards a sustainable future.This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the ecological footprint as an ecological accounting method, points out research needs for improvement of the analysis, and suggests potential new applications. The paper identifies ten new applications of the tool to make it applicable at various geographic scales and for a number of analytical and didactic purposes. Then nine methodological improvements are suggested that could refine the currently applied method, making assessments more sensitive to a larger number of ecological impacts. It concludes that many crucial questions pertinent to building a sustainable society can be addressed by current ecological footprint research. By making the method more complete, this tool could evolve from being largely of pedagogical use to become a strategic tool for policy analysis.