Towards an ecology of medieval mining towns: linking social and environmental changes

Global environmental changes driven by human behavior challenge sustainability, requiring environmental literacy (EL), ecological literacy (EcL), and science for sustainability (SfS) to foster awareness and evidence-based decisions, though their interconnections remain poorly understood. This study aimed to identify global research trends on EL, EcL, and SfS and explore their relationships in terms of subject areas, keyword distribution, thematic evolution, research instruments, sample populations, and materials. A systematic literature review (SLR) approach was applied, analyzing 11 articles retrieved from Scopus. Data visualization and analysis were conducted using VOSviewer, Rstudio/Biblioshiny, and the Scopus system. The findings highlight the dominance of social sciences, emphasizing the importance of social dimensions in sustainability research, followed by environmental sciences, which focus on ecological aspects. Contributions from agriculture, humanities, business, and engineering reinforce the need for a multidisciplinary approach. EL and sustainability emerge as central nodes, with key terms such as environmental education, learning, and ecology strengthening their link to education. Ecology education, domestic waste, critical theory, and action research indicate broader applications beyond formal education. Research in this domain is evolving, integrating education, technology, and behavioral sciences to develop innovative sustainability solutions.

Preface. 1. The Challenge of Human-Environment Interactions Research. The Evolution of Social Ecological Systems. Characterization of Contemporary Global Environmental Changes. History of the Development of the Human Dimensions Agenda. Characteristics of the Research on the Human Dimensions. The Way Forward: Integrative Science. 2. Theories and Concepts from the Social Sciences. Population, Technology and Central Place Theories . Population and Environment Theories. Agency and History. Decision-theoretic Approaches. Political Economy and Political Ecology. Cultural Ecology. 3. Theories and Concepts from the Biological Sciences. Evolution by Natural Selection. Species respond individualistically, not as communities, to environmental change. Interactions with other species help determine if a particular species will persist in a particular place (Niche and Neutral Theories). Top-down vs. bottom-up control in ecosystems. Succession. Island Biogeography. Equilibrium/non-equilibrium theories of competition, coexistence, community composition Biodiversity and ecosystem processes/services. The Ecosystem Concept in Biology and the Social Sciences. 4. Spatially-Explicit Approaches. Remote Sensing and GIS. A Case Study using GIS/ Remote Sensing to study Amazonian Deforestation. Urban-rural spatial dynamics. Modeling and GIS. 5. Multi-Scale and Multi-temporal Analysis. An approach to multi-disciplinary, multi-scale research. Scale. Local level of analysis. Regional Level of Analysis. Global Level of Analysis. Future Directions. 6. Bio-complexity in Ecological Systems. Spatially-explicit Processes in Ecological and Social Systems. Agent-Based Modeling of Complex Systems. Hierarchical Modeling. Conclusions. 7. Environmental Decision-Making. Institutional Analysis. Individual Behavior and Environmental Decisions. Decisions and Social Context. Conclusions. 8. Towards Sustainability Science. Sustainability Science Research Priorities. Scales of Sustainability. Cities and Sustainability Science. Climate Change and Sustainability. Conclusions. Bibliography.

Although globalization is a term usually restricted to economics and the social sciences, there are aspects of the phenomenon that are intimately linked to the practice and purpose of the physical and environmental sciences and exemplified through Physical Geography. At a fundamental level, Physical Geography has always sought to describe and understand the multiple subsystems of the environment and their connections with human activity: it is global and globalizing at its very roots. Globalization may be seen historically in the global export of western science, including Physical Geography, that underpinned colonial resource exploitation, and which subsequently laid the foundations for the worldwide conservation movement, and for critiques of environment-development relations, such as Political Ecology. Globalization is evident today in the burgeoning productivity and increasing organization of science as well as in the growing accessibility of scientific information. It is also at work in setting contemporary scientific agendas that are focused on larger-scale issues of environment and development and environmental change, particularly in an emergent Earth System Science, and also in Sustainability Science. These global agendas are not simply shared with but also co-produced by the public, politicians and commercial interests, providing both opportunities and challenges for traditional disciplines and traditional disciplinary practices such as Physical Geography.

ABSTRACTThis special issue presents findings and reflections of scholars who participated in the European Network of Political Ecology (ENTITLE). By mobilising conceptual frameworks from several strands of Marxist and post-structuralist theory—and empirically engaging with a range of historico-geographical processes—the articles in this issue contribute to debates in political ecology in two main ways. First, they critically analyse the political economy and ecology of contemporary capitalism, with an emphasis on accumulation strategies associated with the uneven expansion and crisis of neoliberalism. Specifically, they unpack and critically extend the frameworks of “accumulation by dispossession” and “nature's neoliberalisation” to engage with, among other cases, the political ecology of “austerity” in Southern Europe; historical and contemporary cases of “capital-driven disasters”; and political ecological dynamics taking place around relationships of “rent”. Second, the authors of this special issue analyse new and re-emerging forms of socio-ecological resistance and contestation, including both distributional struggles and movements against “commons' enclosures”. Moreover, they focus on how struggles can (and do) move from contesting capitalist forms of dispossession towards creating alternative “hegemonic” projects and blocs, by critiquing received “common sense” and constructing and performing alternative political ecological imaginaries informed by principles of solidarity and “commoning”. Taken together, the articles in this special issue present new ways of thinking and enacting political and ecological struggles outside established scholarly traditions and conventional disciplines.

The 5th International Conference on Agricultural Technology and Engineering, and Environmental Sciences (ICATES 2023) “Building Agricultural Innovation in a Changing Environment” September 20, 2023 It gives us great pleasure to introduce to you this companion report for the 5th International Conference on Agricultural Technology and Engineering, and Environmental Science (The 5th ICATES) 2023, an event that continues to serve as a prestigious platform for global researchers and experts. Built around our conference theme, “Building Agricultural Innovation in a Changing Environment”, a drive to be champions of innovation and resilience in the face of environmental shifts has underpinned our discussions. We believe that the intricate interplay of agricultural technology, engineering, and environmental science is crucial in addressing pervasive issues, such as climate change, that threaten the sustainability of agricultural practices. This conference is an arena for pioneering thinkers from field scientists to tech developers to discuss, debate and exchange ideas about meeting these challenges head-on.This 5th iteration of the conference witnessed enormous participation, illustrating the immense importance the global scientific community places on our collective mission. Out of the numerous accomplished works we received, we were pleased to accept 72 papers for publication from the total 112 submissions. These papers were rigorously reviewed by our esteemed panel and were selected for the richness of their insights, their strong empirical underpinning and their commitment to advancing our understanding of agriculture and environment in the context of a changing world. This report presents analytical summaries of these well-researched papers, detailing their methodologies, findings, and implications. It serves as a testament to the ongoing commitment of our participants to further new and emerging research within this sector.The pioneering research showcased in this report, we hope, will foster an evolving dialogue around sustainable agriculture and technological development. More importantly, it paves the way for transformative innovations that can face the challenging needs of our changing environment head-on. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to all the researchers and participants who have contributed to the conference and this report. Your work pushes the frontier of our understanding and catalyzes the global drive for innovation in agricultural technology, engineering, and environmental science. In essence, this report, and by extension the conference, illustrates our mandate to bring forth inventive thoughts, practical realities, scientific developments, and prospective models to navigate the complexities of modern agriculture in a changing environment. We hope that our readers engage with these materials with an open mind, and we look forward to collaborative learning, policy discourse, and the practical adoption of these innovative ideas to catalyze change in our world.Cordially yours,Dr. Muhammad DhafirChairperson ICATES 2023List of International Scientific Committees, International Editorial Boards, Steering Committees, Organizing Committees, Keynote Speaker , Ergonomic Researches For Safety, Productivity And Sustainability In Agricultural Work Systems In Indonesia: A Brief Overview, Double-Porosity In The Subsurface, Evaluation Of Water Quality Used Image-Based For Land And Water Management are available in the pdf.

Wang, Y.P.; Jiang, R.G.; Xie, J.C.; Zhao, Y., and Li, F.W., 2020. Water resources management under changing environment: A systematic review. In: Guido Aldana, P.A. and Kantamaneni, K. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Coastal Management, and Marine Science Technology. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 104, pp. 29–41. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Under the influences of climate change, human activities and socioeconomic development, the water resources management (WRM) has become more complex and uncertain. The paper visualizes and quantifies the knowledge base, domain and structure of the WRM using the bibliometric analysis and knowledge map. The visualized knowledge maps are used to investigate the development trend, scientific collaboration, subject categories, core research topics and the newest research fronts of the WRM. 9028 publications on the WRM were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection databases for the period of 1990-2018. Results indicated that the research on the WRM maintained an increasing trend for the past 29 years. China contributed the most publication, and Germany cooperated the most with other countries/regions, which were two active contributors of the WRM research. The co-word analysis and burst detective analysis of keywords showed that climate change and ecosystem were the research hotspot of the WRM knowledge base. The co-occurrence analysis and burst detective analysis of subject categories found that the Environmental Sciences & Ecology and Green & Sustainable Science & Technology were the core direction of the WRM knowledge domain. Solving the practical problems through model simulation was the core of the WRM knowledge structure under the changing environment using the cluster analysis and document co-citation analysis. It is suggested that the WRM managers should take the sustainable and adaptive development as goal, ensure the health and integrity of the ecosystem, integrate stakeholders into the WRM, which should help to make the WRM more adaptable under changing environment.

Ecosystems integrity and services are threatened by anthropogenic global changes. Mitigating and adapting to these changes require knowledge of ecosystem functioning in the expected novel environments, informed in large part through experimentation and modelling. This paper describes 13 advanced controlled environment facilities for experimental ecosystem studies, herein termed ecotrons, open to the international community. Ecotrons enable simulation of a wide range of natural environmental conditions in replicated and independent experimental units while measuring various ecosystem processes. This capacity to realistically control ecosystem environments is used to emulate a variety of climatic scenarios and soil conditions, in natural sunlight or through broad‐spectrum lighting. The use of large ecosystem samples, intact or reconstructed, minimizes border effects and increases biological and physical complexity. Measurements of concentrations of greenhouse trace gases as well as their net exchange between the ecosystem and the atmosphere are performed in most ecotrons, often quasi continuously. The flow of matter is often tracked with the use of stable isotope tracers of carbon and other elements. Equipment is available for measurements of soil water status as well as root and canopy growth. The experiments ran so far emphasize the diversity of the hosted research. Half of them concern global changes, often with a manipulation of more than one driver. About a quarter deal with the impact of biodiversity loss on ecosystem functioning and one quarter with ecosystem or plant physiology. We discuss how the methodology for environmental simulation and process measurements, especially in soil, can be improved and stress the need to establish stronger links with modelling in future projects. These developments will enable further improvements in mechanistic understanding and predictive capacity of ecotron research which will play, in complementarity with field experimentation and monitoring, a crucial role in exploring the ecosystem consequences of environmental changes.

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Environmental history in the Mediterranean world: cross-disciplinary investigation of cause-and-effect for degradation and soil erosion

This chapter reports on empirical work (Perrings and Stern 2000; Stern 1994) that uses the Kalman filter to estimate stochastic trends in the context of resource use models. This modelling approach treats changes in the environment and changes in the production possibilities of the economy as similar processes, which in both cases can be seen as changes in either capital stocks or changes in technology. The two case studies are a model of production and technological change in the US macroeconomy in the post-war period, and a model of rangeland utilization and degradation in Botswana in the 30 years to the mid-1990s. Perrings (1987) presents a vision of a dynamic, evolving economy that receives inputs from its environment and returns surplus outputs to its environment. These surplus outputs substantively change the nature of the resource base on which the economy depends and the changing nature of the resource structure precipitates technological change within the controlled economy itself. Technological change and controlled capital accumulation within the economy forces uncontrolled capital accumulation and technological change in the environment (OOConnor 1993). Perrings modelled this system using a von Neumann-type technology and the mass balance principle as key features. This vision was extended and refined by OOConnor (1991) to include energy flows and thermodynamic considerations regarding energy. The framework presented in this chapter is nowhere near as complete or encompassing. However, it does incorporate some aspects of such a system. Its primary advantage is that it is an empirical approach utilizing advanced econometric techniques to describe the state and evolution of technology. Unlike the Perrings and OOConnor models, the models in this chapter utilize neoclassical principles of optimization. Additionally, the US model embodies a neoclassical production function that allows continuous substitution of factor inputs within a given state of technology. The technology in the rangeland model consists of a group of logistic growth functions.

1. Approaching Political Ecology: Society, Nature, and Scale in Human--Environment Studies, Karl S. Zimmerer & Thomas J. Bassett Part I. Protected Areas and Conservation 2. Balancing Conservation with Development in Marine-Dependent Communities: Is Ecotourism an Empty Promise?, Emily H. Young 3. Strategies for Authenticity and Space in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Peten, Guatemala, Juanita Sundberg Part II. Urban and Industrial Environments 4. Toward a Political Ecology of Urban Environmental Risk: The Case of Guyana, Mark Pelling 5. Modernity and the Production of the Spanish Waterscape, 1890--1930, Erik Swyngedouw Part III. Ecological Analysis and Theory in Resource Management and Conservation 6. The Ivorian Savannah: Global Narratives and Local Knowledge of Environmental Change, Thomas J. Bassett & Koli Bi Zueli 7. Environmental Zonation and Mountain Agriculture in Peru and Bolivia: Socioenvironmental Dynamics of Overlapping Patchworks and Agrobiodiversity Conservation, Karl S. Zimmerer 8. Environmental Science and Social Causation in the Analysis of Sahelian Pastoralism, Matthew Turner Part IV. Geospatial Technologies and Knowledges 9. Fixed Categories in a Portable Landscape: The Causes and Consequences of Land Cover Categorization, Paul Robbins 10. GIS Representations of Nature, Political Ecology, and the Study of Land Use and Cover Change in South Africa, Brent McCusker & Daniel Weiner Part V. North--South Environmental Histories 11. Material--Conceptual Landscape Transformation and the Emergence of the Pristine Myth in Early Colonial Mexico, Andrew Sluyter 12. The Production of Nature: Colonial Recasting of African Landscape in Serengeti National Park, Roderick P. Neumann 13. Agroenvironments and Slave Strategies in the Diffusion of Rice Culture to the Americas, Judith Carney 14. Future Directions in Political Ecology: Nature--Society Fusions and Scales of Interaction, Karl S. Zimmerer & Thomas J. Bassett Index

Environmental analysts increasingly utilize remote sensing (RS) and geographic information science (GIS) techniques to study the relationship between human societies and their biophysical environment. This paper considers the influence these techniques have had on environmental research. Using the case of the Sahel, the paper first relates contemporary applications of RS/GIS to the history of the environmental scientific practice in the region. While facilitating an expansion of spatiotemporal scales, applications of these new techniques continue the methodological failings of the past by relying on visual measures of environmental change and problematic indicators of human land-use pressures. The human ecology fields (human, cultural, and political ecologies), by emphasizing the causal connections between local management and environmental change, can address the problems inherent with the spatial analytical turn in environmental science. Using the author's experience with the use of GIS in a political ecology study of grazing management in western Niger, ways of more closely integrating RS/GIS techniques into human ecological research are discussed.

Abstract‘Regime shift’ has emerged as a key concept in the environmental sciences. The concept has roots in complexity science and its ecological applications, and is increasingly applied to intertwined social and ecological phenomena. Yet what exactly is a regime shift? We explore this question at three nested levels. First, we propose a broad, contingent, multi‐perspective epistemological basis for the concept, seeking to build bridges between its complexity theory origins and critiques from science studies, political ecology, and environmental history. Second, we define the concept in a way that is consistent with this epistemology, building on previous work on speed, scale, stickiness, and interrelationships, but also emphasising human perceptions and rhetorical uses of the notion. Third, we propose a novel typology of the ways in which the regime shift concept is used in analysing social–environmental phenomena in geography and beyond. These uses are categorised along two axes. On the one side, we distinguish between description of past or present changes and normative prescriptions for the future. On the other side, we distinguish between whether the focus is on material shifts (social and ecological) or conceptual shifts (discourses and ideas). We illustrate the typology with reference to social–environmental changes in landscapes around the world that are dominated by plantations or the widespread naturalisation of AustralianAcaciaspecies. We conclude that the regime shift concept is a boundary object with value as both an analytical and communicative tool in addressing social–environmental challenges.

The Organizing Committee of the Business, Economics and Sustainability Science conference would like to inform that the first edition of the Proceedings will be published on the sciendo.com very soon! The second edition of the Conference Proceedings will be also released on the Sciendo platform. The conference Business, Economics and Sustainability Science (BESS) brings together leading researchers and scientists from the domains of economics, business and the environmental sciences and here worldwide to formulate a green outline for crisis recovery. The combination of public and business policies with technological innovation could be a scenario to mitigate the negative impact of economic activities on sustainable development. Green recovery can address the climate crisis through encouraging all stakeholders to act environmentally responsibly. Green stimulus should be seen as a long-term response to the pandemic because it is a tool for reshaping the economy rather than simply restarting it. The topics of interest to be covered by BESS 2021 include, but are not limited to: Business in the context of sustainable development Business environment dynamics E-business and E-commerce, Sustainable entrepreneurship SMEs and entrepreneurship Ethical and environmental issues Human resources practices and