Environmental Assets Research Articles

English

Wetlands are particularly important environmental assets whose sustainability requires meaningful participation of the riparian communities in their management. Yala Wetland is an important resource whose key challenges involve land and water resource use for competing interests which prompted Siaya and Busia County regional Governments to initiate preparation, a Land Use Plan (LUP)/Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to resolve these. A LUP/SEA Framework with Yala Project Advisory Committee (YPAC) for local communities guided the planning process and implementation. Concurrently, an action research was conducted to assess the level and effectiveness of Yala Wetland community participation in the SEA/LUP processes and improve the outcomes. Research data was derived from 410 respondents from 60 local community groups, 34 key informant interviews, 187 students and satellite images. The Spectrum of Public Participation Model revealed that wetland communities’ participation was at lower levels (Inform (17%) and Consult (83%) while the measure of effectiveness on 10 indicators were poor (20%) and unsatisfactory (80%) thus not meaningful nor effective. Consequently, Yala Hub Framework was developed, occasioning significant improvements in the final LUP. The study concluded that effective community participation determines and influences effective implementation of decisions made and that increased participation through deliberate intervention will eventually increase the effectiveness of community development and encourage long-term sustainability.   Key words: Yala Hub Framework, community participation, strategic environmental assessment, land use planning, wetland.

Quality of Life of Older People in Botswana

This article discusses social determinants of health that influence quality of life (QOL) of older people in Botswana and suggests appropriate interventions. A cross-sectional study stratified by district was used to collect information on the elderly (N = 378). Data were collected from: demographics, individual factors (e.g., self-esteem), health-related factors (e.g., self-perceived health), clinical variables (e.g., social dysfunction), environmental assets (e.g., leisure) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). The analyses showed that income earned, self-efficacy and self-esteem, access to health services, self-perceived health, and chronic disease condition were associated with QOL. Social dysfunction and environmental assets (leisure, secure and healthy physical environments) were also significantly associated with QOL The results confirm that QOL is compromised by specific key factors. Thus, eradicating poverty, provision of services and a comfortable environment, promoting positive emotions (e.g., self-efficacy), and changing perceptions about self-rated health and self-rated QOL may enhance QOL among older people. The study has implications for policy, practice and further research.

A mixed methods analysis evaluating an alcohol health champion community intervention: How do newly trained champions perceive and understand their training and role?

Globally, alcohol harm is recognised as one of the greatest population risks and reducing alcohol harm is a key priority for the UK Government. The Communities in Charge of Alcohol (CICA) programme took an asset‐based approach in training community members across nine areas to become alcohol health champions (AHCs); trained in how to have informal conversations about alcohol and get involved with alcohol licensing. This paper reports on the experiences of AHCs taking part in the training through the analysis of: questionnaires completed pre‐ and post‐training (n = 93) and semi‐structured interviews with a purposive sample of five AHCs who had started their role. Questionnaires explored: characteristics of AHCs, perceived importance of community action around alcohol and health, and confidence in undertaking their role. Following training AHCs felt more confident to talk about alcohol harms, give brief advice and get involved in licensing decisions. Interviews explored: AHCs’ experiences of the training, barriers and facilitators to the adoption of their role, and how they made sense of their role. Four overarching themes were identified through thematic analysis taking a framework approach: (a) perceptions of AHC training; (b) applying knowledge and skills in the AHC role; (c) barriers and facilitators to undertaking the AHC role; and (d) sustaining the AHC role. Findings highlight the challenges in establishing AHC roles can be overcome by combining the motivation of volunteers with environmental assets in a community setting: the most important personal asset being the confidence to have conversations with people about a sensitive topic, such as alcohol.

Detecting Natural Hazard-Related Disaster Impacts with Social Media Analytics: The Case of Australian States and Territories

Natural hazard-related disasters are disruptive events with significant impact on people, communities, buildings, infrastructure, animals, agriculture, and environmental assets. The exponentially increasing anthropogenic activities on the planet have aggregated the climate change and consequently increased the frequency and severity of these natural hazard-related disasters, and consequential damages in cities. The digital technological advancements, such as monitoring systems based on fusion of sensors and machine learning, in early detection, warning and disaster response systems are being implemented as part of the disaster management practice in many countries and presented useful results. Along with these promising technologies, crowdsourced social media disaster big data analytics has also started to be utilized. This study aims to form an understanding of how social media analytics can be utilized to assist government authorities in estimating the damages linked to natural hazard-related disaster impacts on urban centers in the age of climate change. To this end, this study analyzes crowdsourced disaster big data from Twitter users in the testbed case study of Australian states and territories. The methodological approach of this study employs the social media analytics method and conducts sentiment and content analyses of location-based Twitter messages (n = 131,673) from Australia. The study informs authorities on an innovative way to analyze the geographic distribution, occurrence frequency of various disasters and their damages based on the geo-tweets analysis.

Stochastic Assessment of Groundwater Contamination Risks From Onshore Gas Development Using Computationally Efficient Analytical and Numerical Transport Models

Regulators require the gas industry to assess the risks of unintentional release of chemicals to the environment and implement measures to mitigate it. Industry standard models for contaminant transport in aquifers do not explicitly model processes in the unsaturated zone and groundwater models often require long run times to complete simulation of complex processes. We propose a stochastic numerical-analytical hybrid model to overcome these two shortcomings and demonstrate its application to assess the risks associated with onshore gas drilling in the Otway Basin, South Australia. The novel approach couples HYDRUS-1D to an analytical solution to model contaminant transport in the aquifer. Groundwater velocities and chemical trajectories were derived from a particle tracking analysis. The most influential parameters controlling solute delivery to the aquifer were the soil chemical degradation constant and the hydraulic conductivity of a throttle soil horizon. Only 18% of the flow paths intercepted environmental receptors within a 1-km radius from the source, 87% of which had concentrations of <1% of the source. The proposed methodology assesses the risk to environmental assets and informs regulators to implement measures that mitigate risk down to an acceptable level.

Economic assessment of land: scientific, legislative and regulatory problems of development

The decision to cancel land economic assessment out of the land valuation works needs scientific substantiation and consideration of the world practice of its application. The research aims to study how the concept of “economic assessment” in used in the world practice, as well as analyzes its essence and performed tasks. The article supplies analysis of the legislative and regulatory problems of development of the economic assessment of land, land resources and land use as an important economic instrument of land relations regulation and territorial spatial development of land use in Ukraine. The research examines the thesaurus framework concerning public requests for the notions of “economic assessment of land”, “economic assessment of land use”, “economic assessment of land resources” and “economic assessment of natural resources”, “land valuation”, “land use valuation” and “land resources valuation”. It is confirmed that the concepts of “economic assessment of land”, “economic assessment of land resources”, “economic assessment of natural resources” are less often used in the world practice as compared to such notion as “economic assessment of land use”. However, in the world practice, the most widely used notion is “land use valuation”, the second position is taken by “land resources valuation”, whereas “land valuation” is rarely used. It is confirmed that the notion of “economic assessment” is up-to-date and is widely used in the developed market economies. In Ukraine, the concept of “economic assessment of land” is not quite correct. To activate scientific researches and to shape the legislative and regulatory supply for development of economic assessment of land and other natural resources, as well as land use, the work clears up the conceptual essence, which should be interpreted as a money expression of economic or social value of both economic and environmental assets, determined by natural peculiarities. Findings of the research confirm that economic assessment determines the value of land, land resources and land use that is estimated by the effect, which the land-holder obtains from using the land or other natural resources within the ecosystem area. The research defines their targeted use. It is identified that the objects of economic assessment include land, land resources, land use, ecosystem services, land and environmental losses. Prospects of the further research involves studying the targeted use for effective employment of the economic assessment objects.

Green city—future sustainable development and smart growth

The concept of the green city originally came from Europe and the North American countries, where it is very different from the concept in Asian countries because of climate, the people’s backgrounds, and the culture, goals, and history of city development. A green city is a city that demonstrates high environmental performance compared to established criteria in terms of 1) the quality of environmental assets (air, water, land / soil and biodiversity), 2) the efficient use of resources (water, energy, land and materials) and 3) mitigating risks and adapting to the risks of climate change, while maximizing economic and social co-benefits, taking into account the context of the city (population, socio-economic structure and geographic and climatic characteristics). City greening is one of the ways to pursue a green city. It is aimed at replacing the loss of green spaces that have disappeared in ongoing urban land conversion for housing and transportation. As stated in the definition of the Green City approach, measures to improve the environmental performance of a city should also seek to maximize economic and social benefits. These links between economic, social and environmental goals will provide additional motivation for city leaders to take green city action. Keywords

How to ensure environmental security and functioning of unique environmental assets via examples of the Russian Federation and Rostov Region

Since ancient times, humans have been the most powerful transformers of the natural environment of all living creatures. Since prehistoric times, human activity has changed the boundaries of natural areas and their entire complexes, fundamentally changing the appearance of natural ecosystems and landscapes. But the changes in nature have never been as fast as in the industrial era of the human civilization. Today, the natural environment is changing so rapidly under human impact that a large proportion of species and ecosystems do not have time to adapt to these changes in any way and, as a result, find themselves under threat of extinction. It is the fear of permanently losing natural ecosystems and landscapes that has led to the emergence of specially protected areas, where any economic activities that threaten the nature are banned or restricted. Anthropogenic impacts and human activities have had a negative impact on the environment not only in RF subjects, but also in Rostov region. The principles of environmental safety and functioning of specially protected natural areas are based on basic provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation as well as on the norms of environmental law. The situation in Rostov region forces us to pay close attention to the problem of conservation and restoration of biodiversity and wildlife resources. At the moment, the development of environmentally sensitive areas on the Don is one of the most effective ways of conserving and restoring the nature world of the Rostov region.

Marine spatial planning and ocean accounting: Synergistic tools enhancing integration in ocean governance

Ocean decision-makers are tasked with balancing social, economic, and environmental considerations when addressing complex policy challenges and achieving strategic objectives, such as conservation targets, or sustainable and ocean-based economic development agendas. Like many common environmental assets, oceans have been impacted by a history of imperfect governance resulting in substantial negative consequences for these important socio-ecological systems. Aligning and managing multiple trade-offs between policy targets for the management of human activities in the marine domain has been increasingly attempted using Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). More recently, Ocean Accounting (OA) has appeared as a framework that extends national, environmental, and ecosystem accounting, and provides a structure to integrate the information describing ocean ecosystems and their changing relationships with society and the economy. Globally, MSP is therefore employed to prioritise actions towards strategic objectives, while OA is being developed to centralise, standardise, and integrate ocean information. As awareness of human dependence on healthy ocean ecosystems has increased, the use of both MSP and OA has grown rapidly across the world, and intersections between the two frameworks, both geographically and theoretically are emerging. To inform both MSP and OA communities of practice, this paper explores their role in strategic ocean governance, and how synergies may be enhanced to further an understanding of complex ocean systems. Thoughtfully aligned, the two frameworks might work together with OA providing dynamic inputs to an adaptive MSP process. The early recognition of synergies between the two frameworks, and their potential for co-development, is considered imperative to advance effective ocean governance.

Asset-Based Community Development in Kampung Mina Mangrove, East Wonorejo, Surabaya as a Community Economic Strengthening Effort

The goal of this study is to use the Asset-Based Community Development approach to identify the assets of Kampung Mina Mangrove in Wonorejo. One of the research methods employed is action research using a qualitative approach. Document studies, field surveys, and in-depth interviews are used to collect data, which is then examined inductively and qualitatively. According to research findings, Kampung Mina Mangrove has a relatively high productive age based on human capital with the help of social assets. Mangrove fruit processing is a viable enterprise for the growth of the East Wonorejo area, thanks to strong population and a strategic position. In terms of material assets, the state of the current infrastructure must be considered. From the standpoint of economic assets, SME players will not only wait for financial or capital aid from the government in the future, but will also take the initiative to offer a collaboration or partnership with other business actors who can support each other. From the standpoint of environmental assets, they should pay closer attention to the environmental conditions around eco-tourism sites. East Wonorejo, the village's only access route, must have suitable waste disposal sites and sewers to prevent flooding during the rainy season. Based on the identification of all assets, future expectations are supported, in addition to assistance from different linked parties, so that current SMEs may expand more generally, not just in mangrove regions.

Socio-economic and Environmental Assets Sustainability by Agroforestry Systems: A Review

Socio-economic and Environmental Assets Sustainability by Agroforestry Systems: A Review

Microbial genetic resources in food security to face COVID-19 pandemic

<p>COVID-19 has had an impact on the regional and worldwide agricultural value chain, jeopardizing food security. It is time to reassess the approach of the agri-food sector and to consider that the food supply and plant health, as agrosystemic services, must depend on strategies with a low impact on productive and environmental assets. One strategy is the use and optimization of microbial genetic resources (MGR) related to agroecosystems as a source of balance, functionality, productivity, inhibition of the impact of pests and pathogens, and contribution to the profitability of agri-food activity. It is necessary to strengthen and develop regional agricultural systems that are dynamic, that mitigate damages to the environment and produce nutritional and nutraceutical foods that ensure human health. Agricultural sciences are undergoing changes in scientific paradigms that will benefit the agri-food sector if we are able to learn from the impacts of an extensive technological agriculture. Approaching agriculture from an agro-systemic point of view in which the crop-community is the functional biological unit of study and to preserve the MGR diversity are the greatest challenges to create sustainable and resilient strategies and technologies that contribute towards human health and help prevent risks during health crises such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.</p>

Groundwater Impacts and Management under a Drying Climate in Southern Australia

The trend to a hotter and drier climate, with more extended droughts, has been observed in recent decades in southern Australia and is projected to continue under climate change. This paper reviews studies on the projected impacts of climate change on groundwater and associated environmental assets in southern Australia, and describes groundwater planning frameworks and management responses. High-risk areas are spatially patchy due to highly saline groundwater or low-transmissivity aquifers. The proportional reduction in rainfall is amplified in the groundwater recharge and some groundwater discharge fluxes. This leads to issues of deteriorating groundwater-dependent ecosystems, streamflow depletion, reduced submarine discharge, groundwater inundation and intrusion in coastal regions and reduced groundwater supply for extraction. Recent water reforms in Australia support the mitigation of these impacts, but groundwater adaptation is still at its infancy. Risk management is being incorporated in regional water and groundwater management plans to support a shift to a more sustainable level of use and more climate-resilient water resources in affected areas. The emerging strategies of groundwater trade and managed aquifer recharge are described, as is the need for a national water-focused climate change planning process.

The Economic Valuation of Urban Green Parks: The Application of Contingent Valuation Method

This study analyzes the total economic values of urban green areas conserved at Bahir Dar city. Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was employed to obtain estimates of Willingness to Pay (WTP) for improving the endangered and overlooked environmental assets, urban green areas to sustain them & generate benefits to current and future generations. In this contingent valuation survey, the researcher adopted a dichotomous choice with follow-up debriefing questions and scenario description, as well as open-ended follow-up question to model individual’s WTP. The study used purposive sampling method to select the parks under study followed by simple random sampling to select 200 sample respondents. The study result revealed that almost all the respondents have a positive attitude towards the conservation of urban green parks but uncertain about the sustainability of the area’s that leads them not to take care of the areas. Besides, the study results show that the mean monthly WTP of the individuals was between 0.047 -0.16 USD and the Total Economic Value (TEV) of improved urban green areas per month was about 4656.75- 15,704.14 USD calculated from the double bounded elicitation format and open ended elicitation format respectively. Keywords: Bahir Dar , CVM, Logistic Regression, Urban Green Parks, WTP. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-23-01 Publication date: December 31 st 2021

Art, Nature, and Culinary as Leverage of Village Branding at the Foot of the Mountain

Beach tourism and seaside settlements are perennially popular. Nature's potential as well as the coast's characteristic hybrid art may always entice visitors. The settlements at the foot of the mountain, on the other hand, have their own unique environmental, gastronomic, and cultural identities. Bedugul village (Indonesia), Albarracin village (Spain), Reine village (Norway), Wengen village (Switzerland), Panglipuran village (Indonesia), Hallstatt village (Austria), Patiangan village (Indonesia), and Ora village (Indonesia) are some of the names given to the villages in Indonesia (Greece). They're all mountain communities that have successfully marketed themselves as tourist destinations at the foot of the mountain. The goal of this research is to come up with a viable approach for village branding at the foot of the mountain. This study is a hybrid of action research and development research, with a focus on tourism village acceleration. The Benjor village residents, Benjor village administrators, and a sample of potential visitors were polled for information. The community around Benjor village, the Malang Regency community, and persons outside the Malang Regency were all surveyed for potential visitors. Individual interviews or focus groups, environmental observations, and archives of village office records and Malang Regency government documents were used to gather data. The purpose of this study is to understand the tourism village process before and after therapy. Mining potential excavation yields eleven environmental assets in the form of waterfalls, five culinary assets in the form of chilli sauce, grilled rice, and other similar dishes, and three cultural assets in the form of hadrah, jaranan, and dancing. The development research yielded seven goods that Benjor villagers found to be the most effective in terms of branding. For mountain slope communities, the greatest method is to combine branded items that showcase their artistic, natural, and gastronomic potential.

Energy Integration of Vertical Farms for Higher Efficiency and Sustainability

As a result of the increasing human population, the availability of resources per capita has been vastly diminished in the last decades. Naturally, the depletion of valuable environmental assets such as water and arable land, poses a threat to mankind’s sustainable development. In this regard, various novel ideas have been proposed for processing agricultural products ecologically and sustainably; one of such ideas is vertical farming (VF). VF is a novel production technology that aims at enhancing both the yield and the product quality, by growing them in highly packed, high energy-density systems with high mass-flow rates and in a controlled environment. The technologies required for VF have been developed and successfully tested, thereby producing crops that meet the requirements of food safety, adequate nutrient content, and maximum yield. However, the extremely high biomass densities and high turnover rates employed to give rise to challenges regarding to energy efficiency and homogeneity patterns.In this work, a P-graph model is presented for the integration of VF systems. The algorithmic approach is employed to evaluate options for process integration and intensification of VF with plausible synergetic production processes into a dense urban environment. As a result, 115 integrated process alternatives are identified for the base case, with the best structure exhibiting a total cost of 41,920 EUR/y, thereby yielding reductions up to 11% for the total cost of the integrated network. The pareto front of economic performance and CO2 emission is presented to illustrate the potential benefits of integration, and the capability of the methodology to evaluate alternative designs.

Natural capital evaluation in the FutureCity of Shimokawa, Northern Japan, based on forest economics.

We have pragmatically but accurately evaluated the natural capital of a small northern town, Shimokawa, Hokkaido, Japan. The key industries are forestry, wood manufacturing, and agriculture. From an environmental perspective, Shimokawa was nominated as a Japanese FutureCity. Consequently, the total natural capital value (NCV) of the forest and agricultural lands was calculated to be 1.326 billion USD/year (or 24,161 USD/ha/year) and 44 million USD/year (or 19,692 USD/ha/year), respectively, in 2012. The sum of these NCVs was more than 7 times greater than the yearly gross production of the town, although the forest had a higher NCV because of the larger area (54,862ha for forest area), compared with 2953ha for agricultural area. This substantial NCV is mainly generated by sustainable forest management. The timber account showed that the annual tree growth was greater than the annual harvest of trees. The CO2 account derived from a one-year calculation showed that the town served as a CO2 sink at 107,249 t-CO2/year due to the large amount of annual tree growth and CO2 storage in the harvested wood products even if CO2 was emitted from industries and households. The forestry and wood manufacturing industries, as well as agriculture, created socioeconomic effects for the townspeople, ranging from job creation, study tours, and social welfare. This NCV accounting for Shimokawa town ensures the sustainable use of valuable environmental assets and will help other communities recognize their own NCV accounts.

Violence and Illegal Deforestation: The Crimes of “Environmental Militias” in the Amazon Forest

ABSTRACT This article presents a conceptual definition of the “environmental militias,” which are criminal networks responsible for the rampant increase of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. We demonstrate how they combine violence and technology to reinforce the economic interests of agribusiness, illegal mining and logging sectors, providing all the logistic chain that interconnects such illegal activities and the global market. We argue that since the election of Jair Bolsonaro “environmental militias” have not only been supported by the president’s discourse, but also by federal institutions and government programs negatively impacting the Brazilian environmental legislation, reducing monitoring, control and surveillance of environmental assets and the power of institutions responsible for demarcating Indigenous Lands. This article demonstrates the struggle of the Brazilian federal government against scientific data related to deforestation and the increase in human caused fires in the Amazon region. Environmental concern based on scientific criteria has been redefined as “leftist ideology” and the government replaced specialized technicians by military members with no expertise in environmental monitoring or oversight institutions. Finally, we critically analyze market discourses on sustainability by understanding them as corporative reputational strategies rather than effective commitment with the preservation of the Amazon Forest.

Development of Urban Community Through Creative Business Groups Towards Independent Village in Menteng Village Jekan Raya District Palangka Raya City

The purpose of this research is to find a strategy in developing Creative Business Groups in Menteng Village, precisely in the RT 05/RW XII environment and its surroundings. The group's efforts have been to recycle used tires into useful items, for example making flower pots and others, focusing on the environmental theme. Furthermore, mentoring is carried out because the group understands that they have potential in the field of business for the development of their group. They mobilize the community to join together in managing the business and its environment in collaboration with stakeholders (RT). The strategy used is to analyze pentagonal assets and determine asset advantages using the Orid Technique, which is then described in the program strategy analysis table (related to program potential, expectations, and plans). The summary of the agreed program is to strengthen group management and design development efforts for infrastructure development before the business is realized. The Asset Based Community-Driven Development (ABCD) approach is used as the method of this action research, namely community development carried out based on the assets owned, namely human, social, and supportive environmental assets. Community development process with independent participation (self-mobilization) through Appreciative Inquiry. The discovery of data is covered in the FGD process, interviews, observation and documentation, and the evaluation techniques used are before-after and historical plots. Program changes can be analyzed by looking at the development of a more structured group management and realizing the development of a business development plan. So that if the business starts operating, in the future it can have an impact on strengthening the economy, social and environment of the community.

Slope Matters: Anti-Sprawl and Construction of Urban Nature in Yongin, South Korea

Nature in urban areas is defined, recognised, and used by various actors, such as residents, politicians, construction industries, public officials, civic activists, and tourists. These actors engage in alliances and confrontations to construct urban nature as they imagine and want it. Existing research has shown the role of actors and the relationship between them. However, the position and the role of actors can change over the course of urban development as well. The history of development in Yongin shows the process of the political construction of urban nature by illustrating the conflict between development and the environment. From the late 1980s, large-scale apartment complexes have been built. Development ordinances have supported this incessant expansion of the city by easing regulations on the conversion of forest into residential areas. The result of accelerated expansion of the city without comprehensive urban planning of the city is called ‘the epitome of urban sprawl’. From the late 2010s, the orientation of city development began to change. The relaxed slope ordinance was restored to curb further development. This study explores the background of this amendment from the perspectives of urban political ecology. In order to examine how Yongin’s ‘nature’ was imagined and reconceptualised, we explore how the perception of nature is differentially constructed among various urban actors, especially residents from different districts. Next, we focus on the political strategies of urban actors who developed environmental conservation and public asset discourses from individualised and fragmented complaints. Through this process, this study explored how ‘unchecked urban sprawl’ is imagined, recognised, defined, and, more importantly, prevented. Additionally, the public support for the anti-sprawl shows that actors in urban politics change in the process of urban sprawl.