Drivers Of Change Research Articles

Potential effects of the discharge of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents in benthic communities: evidence from three distinct WWTP systems.

Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents can be sources of environmental contamination. In this study, we aimed to understand whether effluents of three different WWTPs may have ecological effects in riverine recipient ecosystems. To achieve this, we assessed benthic phytobenthos and macroinvertebrate communities at three different locations relative to the effluent discharge: immediately upstream, immediately downstream and 500-m downstream the effluent discharge. Two approaches were employed: the ecological status classification as defined in the Water Framework Directive (WFD) based on biological indicators; constrained multivariate analysis to disentangle the environmental drivers (physicochemical variables and contaminants, namely metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products) of ecological changes across the study sites. The results showed inconsistencies between the WFD approach and the multivariate approach, as well as between the responses of macroinvertebrates and diatoms. The WWTP effluents impacted benthic communities in a single case: macroinvertebrates were negatively affected by one of the WWTP effluents, likely by the transported pharmaceuticals (other stressors are essentially homogeneous among sites). Given the findings and the scarcity of consistent evidence on ecological impacts that WWTP effluents may have in recipient ecosystems, further research is needed towards more sustainable regulation and linked environmental protection measures.

From past habitats to present threats: tracing North American weasel distributions through a century of climate and land use change

ContextShifts in climate and land use have dramatically reshaped ecosystems, impacting the distribution and status of wildlife populations. For many species, data gaps limit inference regarding population trends and links to environmental change. This deficiency hinders our ability to enact meaningful conservation measures to protect at risk species.ObjectivesWe investigated historical drivers of environmental niche change for three North American weasel species (American ermine, least weasel, and long-tailed weasel) to understand their response to environmental change.MethodsUsing species occurrence records and corresponding environmental data, we developed species-specific environmental niche models for the contiguous United States (1938–2021). We generated annual hindcasted predictions of the species’ environmental niche, assessing changes in distribution, area, and fragmentation in response to environmental change.ResultsWe identified a 54% decline in suitable habitat alongside high levels of fragmentation for least weasels and region-specific trends for American ermine and long-tailed weasels; declines in the West and increased suitability in the East. Climate and land use were important predictors of the environmental niche for all species. Changes in habitat amount and distribution reflected widespread land use changes over the past century while declines in southern and low-elevation areas are consistent with impacts from climatic change.ConclusionsOur models uncovered land use and climatic change as potential historic drivers of population change for North American weasels and provide a basis for management recommendations and targeted survey efforts. We identified potentially at-risk populations and a need for landscape-level planning to support weasel populations amid ongoing environmental changes.

Analysis of spatial and temporal changes in vegetation cover and its drivers in the Aksu River Basin, China

Exploring vegetation dynamics in arid areas and their responses to different natural and anthropogenic factors is critical for understanding ecosystems. Based on the monthly MOD13Q1 (250 m) remote sensing data from 2000 to 2019, this study analyzed spatio-temporal changes in vegetation cover in the Aksu River Basin and predicted future change trends using one-dimensional linear regression, the Mann–Kendall test, and the Hurst index. Quantitative assessment of the magnitude of anthropogenic and natural drivers was performed using the Geodetector model. Eleven natural and anthropogenic factors were quantified and analyzed within five time periods. The influence of the driving factors on the changes in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in each period was calculated and analyzed. Four main results were found. (1) The overall vegetation cover in the region significantly grew from 2000 to 2019. The vegetation cover changes were dominated by expected future improvements, with a Hurst index average of 0.45. (2) Land use type, soil moisture, surface temperature, and potential vapor dispersion were the main drivers of NDVI changes, with annual average q-values above 0.2. (3) The driving effect of two-factor interactions was significantly greater than that of single factors, especially land use type interacts with other factors to a greater extent on vegetation cover. (4) The magnitude of the interaction between soil moisture and potential vapor dispersion and the magnitude of the interaction between anthropogenic factors and other factors showed an obvious increasing trend. Current soil moisture and human activities had a positive influence on the growth of vegetation in the area. The findings of this study are important for ecological monitoring and security as well as land desertification control.

Regional climate change: consensus, discrepancies, and ways forward

Climate change has emerged across many regions. Some observed regional climate changes, such as amplified Arctic warming and land-sea warming contrasts have been predicted by climate models. However, many other observed regional changes, such as changes in tropical sea surface temperature and monsoon rainfall are not well simulated by climate model ensembles even when taking into account natural internal variability and structural uncertainties in the response of models to anthropogenic radiative forcing. This suggests climate model predictions may not fully reflect what our future will look like. The discrepancies between models and observations are not well understood due to several real and apparent puzzles and limitations such as the “signal-to-noise paradox” and real-world record-shattering extremes falling outside of the possible range predicted by models. Addressing these discrepancies, puzzles and limitations is essential, because understanding and reliably predicting regional climate change is necessary in order to communicate effectively about the underlying drivers of change, provide reliable information to stakeholders, enable societies to adapt, and increase resilience and reduce vulnerability. The challenges of achieving this are greater in the Global South, especially because of the lack of observational data over long time periods and a lack of scientific focus on Global South climate change. To address discrepancies between observations and models, it is important to prioritize resources for understanding regional climate predictions and analyzing where and why models and observations disagree via testing hypotheses of drivers of biases using observations and models. Gaps in understanding can be discovered and filled by exploiting new tools, such as artificial intelligence/machine learning, high-resolution models, new modeling experiments in the model hierarchy, better quantification of forcing, and new observations. Conscious efforts are needed toward creating opportunities that allow regional experts, particularly those from the Global South, to take the lead in regional climate research. This includes co-learning in technical aspects of analyzing simulations and in the physics and dynamics of regional climate change. Finally, improved methods of regional climate communication are needed, which account for the underlying uncertainties, in order to provide reliable and actionable information to stakeholders and the media.

Non-structural carbohydrate concentrations in tree organs vary across biomes and leaf habits, but are independent of the fast-slow plant economic spectrum

Carbohydrate reserves play a vital role in plant survival during periods of negative carbon balance. Under a carbon-limited scenario, we expect a trade-offs between carbon allocation to growth, reserves, and defense. A resulting hypothesis is that carbon allocation to reserves exhibits a coordinated variation with functional traits associated with the ‘fast-slow’ plant economics spectrum. We tested the relationship between non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) of tree organs and functional traits using 61 angiosperm tree species from temperate and tropical forests with phylogenetic hierarchical Bayesian models. Our results provide evidence that NSC concentrations in stems and branches are decoupled from plant functional traits. while those in roots are weakly coupled with plant functional traits. In contrast, we found that variation between NSC concentrations in leaves and the fast-slow trait spectrum was coordinated, as species with higher leaf NSC had trait values associated with resource conservative species, such as lower SLA, leaf N, and leaf P. We also detected a small effect of leaf habit on the variation of NSC concentrations in branches and roots. Efforts to predict the response of ecosystems to global change will need to integrate a suite of plant traits, such as NSC concentrations in woody organs, that are independent of the ‘fast-slow’ plant economics spectrum and that capture how species respond to a broad range of global change drivers.

A Framework for Multisector Scenarios of Outcomes for Well‐Being and Resilience

AbstractShared community scenarios of societal and environmental system changes have underpinned a broad range of research and assessment studies over the past several decades. These scenarios have largely aimed to address specific questions within broad issue areas like climate change or biodiversity and generally provided information on the drivers of change. The consequences of those drivers, such as impacts on society and policy responses, have tended to be left to the research community to investigate, using scenarios of drivers as inputs to their studies, producing projections of a disparate set of relevant output metrics. While this approach has had many benefits, it has fallen short of producing a robust, comparable literature describing outcomes across studies in common metrics. We argue that new scenarios are needed that extend current approaches to be organized around common outcome metrics for the well‐being and resilience of society and ecosystems. We propose an approach that would focus on agreed upon outcomes for well‐being and resilience as well as critical drivers of change, cut across issues and scales in multiple sectors, and draw on new systematic methods of scenario generation and discovery to highlight scenarios that are most critical in understanding societal risks and responding to them. Research derived from this outcome‐based scenario development approach would facilitate improved assessment of risks of and responses to a range of stressors and the multi‐sector interactions they generate.

Unveiling the frontiers: Historical expansion and modern implications of agricultural land use in Denmark

This study offers a first-of-its-kind investigation into the spatial and temporal transformation of agricultural land use and expansion in crops and livestock at national scale during the middle and latter half of the 19th century.We introduce an innovative methodological framework that combines historical data with advanced spatial analysis to trace and map the evolution of frontiers of agricultural land use changes, illustrating Denmark’s agricultural evolution towards the modern era.Our research uncovers critical shifts in cropland, grazing land, and livestock density offering unprecedented insights into the mechanisms driving agricultural expansion and intensification. The mechanisms driving this expansion and their potential impact on contemporary agroecological challenges linked to land use intensification are explored. Our results point to a significant broadening and shifting of land use frontiers offering a historical perspective on agricultural land use. This sets the stage for promoting the analysis of drivers of change and gaining insights into how landscape development could be steered into an environmentally and societally more desirable and sustainable direction tackling present-day agroecological challenges.

Mass tourism generated urban land expansion in the catchment of Lake Balaton, Hungary – analysis of long-term changes in characteristic socio-political periods

Understanding changes in land use and land cover (LULC) is a prerequisite for the sustainable management of ecosystems, with implications for regulatory policy. In this study, we use a hierarchical approach to quantify long-term changes in LULC in the catchment of the largest Central-European shallow lake (Lake Balaton, Hungary). We evaluate changes over three centuries at the catchment and different spatial levels of the shoreline. Within this framework, we develop a methodology suitable for analysing land use transformations in the shoreline zone, typically affected by LULC changes stemming from mass tourism. Our findings indicate that LULC transformations at the catchment level were relatively minor compared to those observed along the shoreline, where urbanization driven by mass tourism emerged as a drivers of LULC changes. The dynamics of urbanization closely mirrored socio-political shifts and exhibited a strong dependence on distance from the shore. Temporal trajectories of LULC changes revealed that the most significant alterations occurred within the 0–500 m and 500–1000 m shoreline distance zones during the socialist era when the lake served as a focal point for tourism in Central and Eastern Europe. While the process of mass tourism-induced urbanization has declined significantly since the collapse of the socialist regime, the sprawl of urban (built up) areas into rural territories persist. Given the unregulated nature of urbanization at the forefront, we emphasize the importance for policy makers and local stakeholders to control further transformations of semi-natural and natural areas into built up areas along the shoreline. Achieving sustainable LULC management in lakes affected by mass tourism, such as Lake Balaton, necessitates robust legislative and administrative efforts in spatial planning and regulation. This endeavour should be pursued as a shared interest among residents and tourists alike.

Niche conservatism and spread explain introgression between native and invasive fish.

Hybridisation can be an important driver of evolutionary change, but hybridisation with invasive species can have adverse effects on native biodiversity. While hybridisation has been documented across taxa, there is limited understanding of ecological factors promoting patterns of hybridisation and the spatial distribution of hybrid individuals. We combined the results of ecological niche modelling (ENM) and restriction site-associated DNA sequencing to test theories of niche conservatism and biotic resistance on the success of invasion, admixture, and extent of introgression between native and non-native fishes. We related Maxent predictions of habitat suitability based on the native ranges of invasive Eastern Banded Killifish (Fundulus diaphanus diaphanus Lesueur 1817) and native Western Banded Killifish (Fundulus diaphanus menona Jordan and Copeland 1877) to admixture indices of individual Banded Killifish. We found that Eastern Banded Killifish predominated at sites predicted as suitable from their ENM, consistent with niche conservatism. Admixed individuals were more common as Eastern Banded Killifish habitat suitability declined. We also found that Eastern Banded Killifish were most common at sites closest to the presumed source of this invasion, whereas the proportion of admixed individuals increased with distance from the source of invasion. Lastly, we found little evidence that habitat suitability for Western Banded Killifish provides biotic resistance from either displacement by, or admixture with, invasive Eastern Banded Killifish. Our study demonstrates that ENMs can inform conservation-relevant outcomes between native and invasive taxa while emphasising the importance of protecting isolated Western Banded Killifish populations from invasive conspecifics.

Healthcare Spending vs Mortality in CNS Cancer: Has Anything Changed?

Abstract Background The financial implications of central nervous system (CNS) cancers are substantial, not only for the healthcare service and payers, but also for the patients who bear the brunt of direct, indirect, and intangible costs. This study sought to investigate the impact of healthcare spending on CNS cancer survival using recent US data. Methods This study used public data from the Disease Expenditure Project 2016 and the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The primary outcome was the annual healthcare spending trend from 1996 and 2016 on CNS tumors adjusted for disease prevalence, alongside morbidity and mortality. Secondary outcomes included drivers of change in healthcare expenditures for CNS cancers. Subgroup analysis was performed stratified by age group, expenditure type, and care type provided. Results There was a significant increase in total healthcare spending on CNS cancers from $2.72 billion (95% CI, $2.47B to $2.97B) in 1996 to $6.85 billion (95% CI, $5.98B to $7.57B) in 2016. Despite the spending increase, mortality rate per 100,000 people did not change significantly, with 5.30 ± 0.47 in 1996 and 7.02 ± 0.47 in 2016, with an average of 5.78 ± 0.47 deaths per 100,000 over the period. The subgroups with the highest expenditure included patients aged 45 to 64, those with private insurance, and those receiving inpatient care. Conclusions This study highlights a significant rise in healthcare costs for CNS cancers without corresponding improvements in mortality rate, indicating a mismatch of healthcare spending, contemporary advances, and patient outcome as it relates to mortality.

Evaluating middle to late Holocene climate variability from δ18O of aquatic invertebrate remains in southwestern Greenland

Holocene paleotemperature records from ice-free margins of Greenland suggest spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the timing of key climate transitions following retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet. However, the paucity of high-resolution climate records from this region limits our understanding of the timing, spatial variation, and drivers of Holocene climate variability. Here, we present a middle to late Holocene climate reconstruction based on δ18O of aquatic invertebrate (chironomid and cladoceran) remains and sediment geochemistry from lake sediments to elucidate millennial to submillennial-scale drivers of climate in southwestern Greenland. We establish that our site, Arrowhead Lake, is a through-flowing basin with an integrated signal of annual meteoric water with no evidence of significant evaporative enrichment. Core sediment geochemistry captures the transition from minerogenic-dominated to organic-rich sediments ∼8 cal ka BP. Chitin-based δ18O measurements of both chironomid head capsules and ephippia exhibit similar temporal variability through the record, broadly decreasing from 8.2 cal ka BP to present, concurrent with decreasing summer insolation and regional Neoglacial cooling. A simplified assumption that temperature is the sole driver of changes in isotopes of precipitation yields an estimated average temperature change from the middle to late Holocene at Arrowhead Lake of 2.1–3.0 °C, comparable to existing estimates of middle to late Holocene temperature decline in western Greenland. Depleted δ18O values after 3.3 cal ka BP correspond to the onset of Neoglacial cooling and independent evidence for a slowdown of the West Greenland Current, and suggests that both temperature and sea-ice variability were important controls on isotopic variability at this site. Highly depleted isotopic values at 8.2 cal ka BP followed by high isotopic variability in the early part of the middle Holocene suggests that our record may capture regional 8.2 ka cooling. This new isotope record provides insight into climate influences during the middle and late Holocene along the western Greenland margin that are important for understanding how ongoing melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet and amplified warming in the Arctic may impact the climate system.

End of the Cretaceous

Abstract The Cretaceous ended when the Chicxulub asteroid struck the Yucatán platform, and all deposits and landforms generated are earliest Paleocene in age. Drill core from the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary sequence deposited on top of the Chicxulub impact structure's peak ring paired with geophysical data within the crater and other well-preserved marine and terrestrial K-Pg boundary sites provide insight into impact processes and effects on Earth's ecosystems, in terms of extinction and recovery. Key findings as reviewed here: 1) confirmation of acoustic fluidization as a physical principle to explain impact structure formation, 2) importance of the target rock properties and marine setting for impactite depositional processes and drivers of climate change, 3) state of understanding of extinction mechanisms and ecological recovery, and 4) implications for impact generated hydrothermal habitat creation. Areas highlighted for next stages of discovery include: 1) physics and chemistry of impact vapor plumes and ejecta processes, 2) sampling of the K-Pg boundary deposit and impact melt sheet within the central basin of the impact structure, 3) examination of ecosystem recovery in an “Early Ocean” scenario at a range of K-Pg boundary sites, and 4) experiments and observations of impact hydrothermal systems as habitats on Earth and other worlds.

Wind‐Driven Seasonal Variability of Deep‐Water Overflow From the Pacific Ocean to the South China Sea

AbstractThe South China Sea (SCS) is a semi‐enclosed marginal sea linked to the broader oceans via various geographically constrained channels. Beneath the main thermocline depth, Luzon Strait is the only conduit for water‐mass exchanges. Observations indicate a substantial seasonal variability in the inflow transport of deep water from the Pacific Ocean. This study aims to identify and examine key drivers for such seasonal changes. It is found that seasonal variability of the deep‐water transport into the SCS is primarily driven by surface wind stress. An imbalance in wind‐driven exchanges of surface water between the SCS and external seas demands compensational transports in subsurface layers so that the net volume transport into the SCS is conserved, resulting in seasonal variations in deep‐water overflow. Changes in Karimata Strait exert a particularly influential impact on deep‐water inflow, likely due to its unique position as the sole connecting channel across the Equator.

A comprehensive Earth system model (AWI-ESM2.1) with interactive icebergs: effects on surface and deep-ocean characteristics

Abstract. The explicit representation of cryospheric components in Earth system models has become more and more important over the last years. However, there are few advanced coupled Earth system models that employ interactive icebergs, and most iceberg model studies focus on iceberg trajectories or ocean surface conditions. Here, we present multi-centennial simulations with a fully coupled Earth system model including interactive icebergs to assess the effects of heat and freshwater fluxes by iceberg melting on deep-ocean characteristics. The icebergs are modeled as Lagrangian point particles and exchange heat and freshwater fluxes with the ocean. They are seeded in the Southern Ocean, following a realistic present-day size distribution. Total calving fluxes and the locations of discharge are derived from an ice sheet model output which allows for implementation in coupled climate–ice sheet models. The simulations show a cooling of up to 0.2 K of deep-ocean water masses in all ocean basins that propagates from the southern high latitudes northward. We also find enhanced deep-water formation in the continental shelf area of the Ross Sea, a process commonly underestimated by current climate models. The vertical stratification is weakened by enhanced sea ice formation and duration due to the cooling effect of iceberg melting, leading to a 10 % reduction of the buoyancy frequency in the Ross Sea. The deep-water formation in this region is increased by up to 10 %. By assessing the effects of heat and freshwater fluxes individually, we find latent heat flux to be the main driver of these water mass changes. The altered freshwater distribution by freshwater fluxes and synergetic effects play only a minor role. Our results emphasize the importance of realistically representing both heat and freshwater fluxes in the high southern latitudes.

Dynamic Estimation of Mangrove Carbon Storage in Hainan Island Based on the InVEST-PLUS Model

Mangrove ecosystems are pivotal to the global carbon budget. However, there is still a dearth of research addressing the impact of regional mangrove land use and land cover change (LUCC) on carbon sequestration and its associated spatial distribution patterns. To investigate the impact of different development scenarios on the carbon storage capacity of mangrove ecosystems, we focused on Hainan Island. We used LUCC data from 2010 to 2020 from mangrove-inhabited regions. The Markov-PLUS model was applied to predict the spatiotemporal dynamics of mangrove coverage under the natural increase scenario (NIS) and the mangrove protection scenario (MPS) over the next 40 years. Carbon storage was estimated using the InVEST model based on field-measured carbon density data. The outcomes show the following: (1) The Markov-PLUS model, with an overall accuracy of 0.88 and a Kappa coefficient of 0.82, is suitable for predicting mangrove distribution patterns on Hainan Island. (2) Environmental factors were the main drivers of historical mangrove changes on Hainan Island, explaining 54% of the variance, with elevation, temperature, and precipitation each contributing over 13%. (3) From 2025 to 2065, the mangrove area on Hainan Island is projected to increase by approximately 12,505.68 ha, mainly through conversions from forest land (12.73% under NIS and 12.37% under MPS) and agricultural land (39.72% under NIS and 34.53% under MPS). (4) The carbon storage increment within Hainan Island’s mangroves is projected at 2.71 TgC over the whole island, with notable increases expected in the eastern, northern, and northwestern regions, and modest gains in other areas. In this study, we comprehensively investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics and future trends of carbon storage in the mangroves of Hainan Island, offering invaluable guidance for the long-term management of mangrove ecosystems and the realization of carbon neutrality goals by 2060.

Drivers of socio-spatial change in Istanbul: Historical and longitudinal analysis of 5 cases from Bakırköy

This article aims to reveal the social and spatial change in Bakırköy through time and to identify the drivers behind this transformation. Bakırköy has been chosen as it hosted the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires, leading to its multicultural and layered structure. It has been influenced by the dominant features of each era, shaping socio-economic changes, spatial transformations, and urban planning practices over the historical process. The interaction of these socio-spatial elements within Bakırköy encompasses broad themes such as social differentiation, economic change, and urban governance, thereby presenting case studies to examine the dynamics of urban areas in Istanbul. The research has been conducted at two levels. First, spatial changes were examined through relevant documents, literature, and historical maps. The periods were determined as the state-led development period (1923-1950), liberalization period (1950-1980), neoliberal transformation period (1980-2000), and globalization period (post-2000), with the pre-1923 period being considered separately. Subsequently, five case studies were selected to represent different functional land use at the local level. The first case study involves an area known as the İskender Çelebi Farm in the 17th century, which was chosen to represent the transformation from a food production area to industrial production in the 18th century and has become a mass housing area in the 20th century, now known as the Ataköy districts. The second and third case studies represent the transformation from industrial production areas in the 19th and early 20th centuries to residential, tourism, and shopping areas. The fourth case study focuses on the coastal strip, which was used as a public space for ‘sea baths’ in the 19th century and today exists as luxury housing projects under private ownership. The fifth case study involves an area that served as an airport in the early 20th century and is currently planned for a hospital and green spaces, although it remains a public service.Through these cases, which demonstrate the shift from the productional use of space to consumption, the study seeks to answer the following questions: First, how do demographic and economic changes play a significant role in the differentiation of urban space, and in a related context, what is the local-scale impact of changing policies on the functional change of the selected cases? The findings reveal that industrial investments, supported by transportation investments, choose their locations in the changing/transforming economic order. The decentralization of industry and the privatization or transformation of public investments into consumption-focused urban areas through public-private partnerships have also been observed. The study aims to prove that this change in space lays the groundwork for social differentiation.

The luxury effect in urban aquatic ecosystems: exploring drivers of change

The luxury effect in urban aquatic ecosystems: exploring drivers of change

Benthos as a key driver of morphological change in coastal regions

Abstract. Benthos has long been recognized as an important factor influencing local sediment stability, deposition, and erosion rates. However, its role in long-term (annual to decadal scale) and large-scale coastal morphological change remains largely speculative. This study aims to derive a quantitative understanding of the importance of benthos in the morphological development of a tidal embayment (Jade Bay) as representative of tidal coastal regions. To achieve this, we first applied a machine-learning-aided species abundance model to derive a complete map of benthos (functional groups, abundance, and biomass) in the study area, based on abundance and biomass measurements. The derived data were used to parameterize the benthos effect on sediment stability, erosion rates and deposition rates, erosion and hydrodynamics in a 3-dimensional hydro-eco-morphodynamic model, which was then applied to Jade Bay to hindcast the morphological and sediment change for 2000–2009. Simulation results indicate significantly improved performance with the benthos effect included. Simulations including benthos show consistency with measurements regarding morphological and sediment changes, while abiotic drivers (tides, storm surges) alone result in a reversed pattern in terms of erosion and deposition contrary to measurement. Based on comparisons among scenarios with various combinations of abiotic and biotic factors, we further investigated the level of complexity of the hydro-eco-morphodynamic models that is needed to capture long-term and large-scale coastal morphological development. The accuracy in the parameterization data was crucial for increasing model complexity. When the parameterization uncertainties were high, the increased model complexity decreased the model performance.

Boosting Sustainable Consumption Behaviour Through Consumer Education in the Fashion Retail and Service Environment

Due to the growing environmental impact of the fashion industry, the demand for sustainable consumption is currently an urgent issue. The exponential increase of textile waste and the progressive reduction of product lifespan call for a shift to circular models, and in this context, consumer awareness has also become crucial. The retail environment, driven by an increasing shift towards a servitisation of the consumer experience, with its associated Product-Service Systems (PSSs), can provide a compelling opportunity to nurture consumer awareness, thus acting as a proactive mechanism to induce more responsible and sustainable behaviour. Within this framework, retail design is emerging as a key driver for sustainable behavioural changes in fashion consumption. This article, therefore, reflects on how fashion brands are actively orchestrating strategies within retail, defining dedicated PPSs to promote responsible consumption practices involving informative content, empowerment tools and co-creation initiatives that, going beyond awareness, can evolve into advocacy.

Capable but Not Empowered? How Emancipative Values Affect Protest Participation Across Different Contexts

Political protest and citizen participation are important drivers of democratic change. While previous research has identified both micro-level attitudes such as emancipative values and macro-level factors as drivers of protest behavior, we know little about how citizens’ value-driven motivations interact with the political context. We argue that the effect of emancipative values on protest participation depends on both democratic institutions and the capacity of civil society mobilizations. Specifically, we expect the positive effect of emancipative values to be stronger in countries with higher democratic quality and more pro-democratic mass mobilizations, and weaker in countries with more pro-autocratic mass mobilizations. By combining survey and macro data for 88 democratic and autocratic regimes, we find that citizens’ value orientations interact with democratic quality and the prevalence of pro-autocratic mass mobilizations in shaping protest participation. These results contribute to a better understanding of the structural and societal preconditions for democratic change.