For over three decades, air pollution has been a major environmental challenge in many of the fast-growing cities of the world, including Beijing, China. Given that any long-term exposure to high levels of air pollution has devastating health consequences, accurately monitoring and reporting air pollution information to the public is critical for ensuring public health and safety, while facilitating

Mediterranean islands face significant environmental challenges due to their high population density, reliance on imports, and water scarcity, exacerbated by increasing risks from climate change. Nature-based solutions (NbS) could address these challenges sustainably and with multiple benefits, but their uptake in policy and planning is limited, and stakeholder perspectives are conspicuously lacking

This paper considers the apparent confluence of three policy developments: the Sustainable Development Goals, as the latest international commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment; the growing push to formalize the artisanal and small-scale mining sector; and the call to address environmental concerns of ASM through increased regulation, including formalization. Informed by feminist political

In recent years, governments, donors and policy makers across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have increasingly realised the potential of formalizing and supporting artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) – low tech, labour-intensive mineral processing and extracting. A significant body of evidence suggests that ASM has become the most important rural non-farm activity across SSA, and by making it the centrepiece

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) plays a central role in scenario pathways that limit global warming in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Yet deliberate policy efforts to incentivise BECCS—whether through amending existing climate policies or introducing entirely new ones—remain rare. In this paper, we contend that BECCS must be incentivised responsibly, through policy-making

In 2019, a heatwave – an unusual extended period of hot weather – broke the UK’s highest recorded temperature of 38.7 °C set in 2003. Of concern is that for summer 2019, this resulted in 892 excess deaths. With the intensity and frequency of UK heatwaves projected to increase, and summer temperatures predicted to be 5 °C hotter by 2070, urgent action is needed to prepare for, and adapt to, the changes

Recent high-profile analyses of trajectories and prognoses of ecosystem decline around the world have called for a renewed focus on embedding the values of the natural world across all areas of public policy. This paper reports the results of a UK-based deliberative process involving experts from a wide range of policy domains and across societal sectors: government departments, associated agencies

Biodiversity underpins the supply of ecosystem services essential for well-being and economic development, yet biodiversity loss continues at a substantial rate. Linking biodiversity indicators with national economic accounts provides a means of mainstreaming biodiversity into economic planning and monitoring processes. Here we examine the various strategies for biodiversity indicators to be linked

Wellbeing has become important in regional development policy as decision-makers grapple with delivering public goods from industry exploitation of resource commons. We asked how these differently constituted concepts–‘regional development’ and ‘wellbeing’ – are handled in the literature. We identified four findings: i) an increasing focus on holistic sustainable development in regional development;

Responding to climate change, the most vexing environmental challenge of today, encompasses the use of measures enhancing adaptation to its current and future consequences and those aimed at mitigating further warming. This study addresses the latter response category. In particular, it examines the extent to which political partisanship influences states’ energy efficiency policies. For context, energy

Achieving sustainable development while avoiding further environmental degradation is a crucial challenge faced by society today. The African countries in this study have shown considerable growth, but still face various barriers to comply with international environmental agreements. This paper analyses the effect of globalisation and corruption on the environmental performance of 23 African countries

Multiple sustainability initiatives have emerged in response to the environmental impacts of soy production, especially deforestation and climate change. But company commitments to reduce deforestation in their supply chains are not leading to outcomes on the ground. Achieving concerted action by supply chain actors requires consideration of their diverse perspectives. We investigate the mental models

Manoomin, the Ojibwe word for wild rice, grows in shallow lakes and streams and provides physical, spiritual, and cultural sustenance as a sacred food and relative for Indigenous peoples across the Great Lakes region of North America. Unfortunately, Manoomin has been declining due to multiple environmental stressors. In 2018, an interdisciplinary group from the University of Minnesota came together

Societal efforts towards greening the economy are typically accompanied by controversy over whether voluntary initiatives by firms or government regulation are more effective to that end. Recent research argues that public opinion plays an important role in this regard because citizens’ preferences are crucial when democratic policy-makers decide. We investigate whether and how citizens’ general attitudes

Atlantic salmon populations in Maine remain critically low despite extensive hatchery supplementation and habitat improvement efforts. In 2000, the Gulf of Maine Distinct Population Segment was listed as Endangered under the ESA with joint listing authority shared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Because, regulators

An exemplar of nature-based solutions (NBS) is natural flood management (NFM), for which interest is growing worldwide. As with many NBS, implementing NFM requires the participation of support of multiple stakeholders. However, we lack understanding about the views and expectations of the many stakeholders who might be expected to enable or implement it. Understanding such views may offer insights

There is currently no consensual definition of deforestation. Given its importance in several research topics ranging from biodiversity to climate change, conservation, restoration, and emerging diseases as well as in comparative studies, it is necessary to provide an integrated framework towards a harmonized definition of deforestation. Here, we analyze and compare international and national reports

Flooding is a common and costly natural hazard, causing huge amounts of damages and loss of human life across the world. In the United States, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) constitutes the major driver for floodplain management. NFIP, a federal program, incentivizes state and local participation by offering subsidized flood insurance to residents of localities that participate. However

The common pool resource (CPR) theory has made invaluable contributions to the governance of natural resources in the past decades, but few literatures have specifically paid attention to the different property right arrangements of resource system and resource units, and their relationship. In this paper, we take two types of grassland property right system on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) in

Freshwater scarcity has increased in the cities of the global South due to rapid urban agglomeration and changing climate. Alternative water resources such as treated wastewater can play a significant role to reduce the water supply-demand gap. In the recent past, wastewater has been used solely for irrigation and other allied agriculture purposes, with limited focus on reuse for other purposes within

Rapid socio-economic development and urbanization have resulted in serious deterioration in air-quality in many world cities, including Beijing, China. This study attempts to examine the effectiveness of air pollution control regulations implemented in Beijing during 2008–2019 through a data-driven regulatory intervention analysis. Our proposed Bayesian deep learning model utilizes proxy data including

Effective policies that integrate climate change considerations are crucial for successful adaptation to increasing climate risks. While there is an abundant normative literature proposing potential effective ways to adapt, there is a lack of empirical literature on current risk and adaptation policy and its potential effectiveness. Studying existing policies can help to reveal existing constraints

As the volume of ecosystem services modeling and valuation studies grows, decision-makers have access to more information than ever before on how human activities affect the provision and value of ecosystem services. However, few studies aim to understand how value information in different formats is interpreted and used by decision makers. Motivated by a desire to better understand how private, non-profit

During the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. environmental organizations and U.S. chapters of international environmental organizations grappled with a broad set of challenges, including when and what to communicate to supporters. In the winter and early spring of 2020, environmental organizations became crisis communicators, confronted by time pressures and the limited attention spans of

The linear model of science-policy interaction presents scientific knowledge as a necessary and straightforward requirement for rational decision-making. While the practices related to the linear model have been criticized by science policy actors and research funders, who promote more participatory arrangements, the linear model persists in both research policy and practice. This study investigates

Agricultural intensification continues to threaten habitat and biological diversity in farmland. In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has established several measures to support biodiversity-fostering elements such as landscape features, semi-natural habitats and extensive land uses, together referred to as Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI). However, CAP measures’ effectiveness to support

Climate change is imposing substantial consequences across physical and social infrastructures. The extent of social disruption and risk to human health are, however, potentially much broader than these general consequences, taken individually, would suggest. To address this gap, we assess the distribution of contaminated sites in the United States (US) and then estimate the impact that flood hazards

Recent policy developments in Europe consider the importance of water ecosystems to human wellbeing and the detrimental effects that multiple pressures may have on them. Several directives and measures which culminated with the design and the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, have attempted to address the issue of sustainable water management while aligning with targets of economic development

Climate change adaptation measures and practices may induce fundamental changes i.e. transformations in socio-ecological systems. Adaptation that intentionally aims for transformation is often intended to increase benefits and synergies with other broader societal development goals such as sustainability. Adaptation measures also have possible unintended negative effects that, in the case of system

Petrochemical industry often faces widespread public opposition in many developing countries. A growing research focuses on alleviating such opposition through improving the knowledge of the relationships between local-context, risk communication, and petrochemical pollution risk perception. A novel methodology that integrated an expected-based utility theory with risk perception mapping approach,

Best practice for environmental modelling generally aims to increase the accuracy, utility and rigour of models when used as decision-support tools. Despite the wide-spread documentation of best practice, models are frequently and easily challenged during environmental decision-making processes, at least partly because of poor implementation of best practice guidance. We postulate that there is a two-sided

Aquaculture, including marine aquaculture (mariculture), is the fastest growing food production sector globally and is expected to play a key role in delivering future food security. A potential factor limiting growth of the aquaculture industry, however, is the maintenance of good water quality, on which all forms of aquaculture depend. This is particularly challenging in ‘open’ coastal and estuarine

The active participation of local stakeholders in governing protected areas is increasingly recognized in biodiversity conservation. While progress has been made in countries to facilitate inclusivity in conservation decision-making, there is limited practical guidance of participatory mechanisms enabling stakeholder engagement. Disentangling formal and informal governance arrangements within protected

Visualizations are influential in the interaction between environmental science and policy. Research on framing in environmental visualizations (visual framing) is expanding. These studies typically focus on ‘static’ images; the visualizations themselves. However, framing already occurs during their production through the choices made by their producers, and visualizations may be reframed while traveling

Regression to the mean is nice and reliable. Regression to the tail is reliably scary. We live in the age of regression to the tail. It is only a matter of time until a pandemic worse than covid-19 will hit us, and climate more extreme than any we have seen. What are the basic principles that generate such extreme risk, and for navigating it, for government, business, and the public?

Gold has been mined in the area surrounding the small town of Las Juntas de Abangares in Northwestern Costa Rica for over 100 years. Originally through large-scale foreign-based industrial mining operations, now gold is exclusively mined and processed by local, artisanal small-scale gold miners. With the increasing price of gold and the lack of alternative income generating activities over the past

Climate change adaptation literature on pastoralists often embraces a systems approach that uses aggregate analysis, giving a false assumption of community homogeneity. It assumes that a pastoral community is a coherent unit, an assumption that does not adequately capture the increasingly differentiated adaptation pathways. Analyzing key adaptation practices among Maasai (agro-) pastoralists’ of Laikipia

Improving human wellbeing is a major focus of international environmental and sustainable development policy. However, clearly defined measures of wellbeing are needed as an empirical base for the formulation and evaluation of policies. Despite conceptual progress towards agreement of universally relevant dimensions of wellbeing, consensus is still lacking on how to translate these dimensions into

This paper introduces a novel triple bottom line sustainability assessment to evaluate the water-energy-food nexus of desalination for agriculture. Falling technology costs and rising water scarcity worldwide make desalination an increasingly attractive proposition, and agriculture is one of the main sectors grappling with its potential impacts. To explore this issue, we combine a wide range of primary

Adaptive co-management (ACM) is an emerging approach to the governance of social-ecological systems, but there are few long-term assessments of its efficacy. This is especially true in conservation conflicts, where ACM can mitigate disputes between polarised stakeholders. We evaluated ACM that emerged in 2005 to address conflict between seal conservation and fisheries interests in the Moray Firth,

The paper deals with the definition of the territorial partitions within which a specific sub-service of the waste cycle should be entrusted to a monopolistic provider—service-specific optimal territorial areas (SOTAs). In fact, the Italian legislation requires SOTAs to be of an appropriate size (presumed to be at least as large as a province) to ensure the maximum attainable efficiency level, but

To transition to a more sustainable and low-carbon economy, a series of local governments in British Columbia, Canada, are implementing climate action and innovation. This is largely in response to a need for societal changes in current development paths. However, there has been a lack of studies assessing the effectiveness of these actions and whether these municipalities are on track to meet their

Air pollution is one of the most persistent environmental issues in South America, with exposure to air pollutants being associated with increased mortality and morbidity. According to estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2016, 91 % of the global population lived in cities that exceeded the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline (10 μg/m3). In Latin America and the Caribbean, other studies affirm

This article analyzes the European regulation REACH as a co-management policy tool for chemical risks. Whilst the existing literature on the topic either highlights the strong capacity of authorities to force the industry to produce the data needed for decision making, or criticizes the former’s subordination to economic interests, this article takes a new approach showing how regulators and the industry

The Guarani Aquifer System (GAS) covers 1,088,000 km2, 68% of which is in Brazil, 21% in Argentina, 8% in Paraguay, and 3% in Uruguay. It is one of the most important aquifers on the continent and one of the largest transboundary aquifers in the world. More than 15 million people share this resource. Extensive analysis of existing documentation, supported by research questions, resulted in classification

Human economic activities and following carbon emissions have been recognized to be a real threat to the environment. The current levels of consumption-based carbon footprints in all developed economies grossly exceed the sustainable level. Scientists have concluded that in addition to technological solutions, downscaling of consumption and far-reaching changes in lifestyles will be needed to achieve

Efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks (REDD+) have evolved over the past decade. Early REDD+ programs and local/subnational projects used various interventions (i.e. enabling measures, disincentives and incentives), implemented by government, the commercial and non-commercial private sector, but are currently understudied vis-à-vis

In this paper we assess the sustainability of Variable Rate Technology (VRT) application for different wheat intensive agricultural areas in Europe. Within the H2020 FATIMA project we developed an analytical framework to assess the environmental and economic sustainability of nutrient management in two Case Studies in Greek and Czech Republic, implemented with different fertilization strategies in

Conservation projects are likely to fail if plans to preserve important wildlife habitats and species are not co-developed between conservation organisations and local communities to reflect the needs and diverse values of the latter. Tropical peatland conservation represents a case in point: local community livelihoods have only recently come into focus, particularly within academic literature. Instead

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) provides a source of livelihood for millions of mostly poor people across the globe. At the same time, however, the sector is predominantly informal and associated with a range of persistent social and environmental challenges, including chronic poverty, deforestation, land degradation, mercury pollution and river siltation. The ASM sector is connected to all

In 2019 floods made up 49 % of disasters and 43 % of disaster related deaths globally. Flooding is also the costliest natural disaster, with yearly estimated losses of $36.3 billion. In order to counter these challenges, the flood risk management (FRM) narrative is evolving towards integration of blue/green infrastructure (BGI), using projects that harness nature and mimic natural processes. However

Power asymmetries affect the governance of natural resources but are rarely considered explicitly in ecosystem services research, which often overlooks the diversity of actors and their interactions. In this paper, we propose an innovative and easily replicable method to analyze two types of power asymmetries, using social network analysis and a power typology which distinguishes between influence

The present contribution argues for taking power in hydrodiplomacy seriously and claims that the hydrodiplomacy literature is too focused on the ‘puzzling’ of diplomacy at the expense of the ‘powering’. Legitimate rule needs a combination of hard (coercion) and soft power (consent). We posit that different styles can be distinguished in negotiation by focusing on the use of power resources. With this

To alleviate grassland degradation, top-down command-and-control environmental regulation measures such as grazing bans and balance grazing have been implemented to control herders’ animal-stocking rates in the pastoral areas of northern China. However, previous literature has generally acknowledged that grazing restrictions have been ineffective in controlling overgrazing, as herders continue to graze

The market of bottled water is projected to become the largest beverage category by volume worldwide. Consumption data are already impressive in many countries, with Italy leading the path in the European Union. Such market expansion will come with environmental costs, due to increasing plastics production and increasing bottle leakage in the environment. To tackle the problem consumer purchasing decision

In the US alone, there are over 200 tools that support climate adaptation planning, along with a large number of case studies documenting their use. Case studies frequently document positive results. Systematic assessment of processes can provide important benefits, including justification for action and expenditures, promotion of learning and adaptive management, accountability, and ensuring “fit”