Human-environment Relations Research Articles

Earthquake Environmental Effects: The Case of Late Classical-Hellenistic Helike, Gulf of Corinth, Greece

Human habitat is much controlled by the landscape and its ongoing processes overtime. Some of these processes occur instantaneously and are often triggered by seismic events with a major destructive impact on the human-built environment. Helike, on the southwest shore of the Gulf of Corinth, is a characteristic case of an ancient habitation site bearing witness to repetitious natural disasters from the Early Bronze Age to the Late Antiquity. The Late Classical-Hellenistic site, revived in the Helike plain after the 373 BC earthquake, has been systematically investigated thanks to the multidisciplinary research and excavations of the Helike Project in the last 35 years. This work has significantly enriched the historical seismicity of the region and shed light on past human-environment relationships. The study of the architectural remains excavated by the Helike Project, coupled with geological and soil micromorphological analysis on archaeological soils and sediments of the settlement, demonstrates a constant effort of the Helike people to reconcile with the elements of nature. Our results underline the destruction of a flourishing textile dyeworks operated at the settlement, due to a strong earthquake which triggered extensive morphological changes in a broader area. These changes include co-seismic liquefaction and lateral spreading, and post-seismic changes in the gradient of river channels. The former changes attest to an uplift in the headwater area and subsidence in the lowland plain of the ravine flowing near the ancient site.

Exploring symbiotic pathways: Unveiling the evolution and key drivers of China's human-environment relationship

Rapid urbanization increased human demand for natural resources, disrupting the balance between human and environment. This disruption led to regional environmental degradation, frequent natural disasters, and severe challenges in achieving sustainable development goals. In this context, fostering human and environment harmony is essential. However, research on quantifying their relationship and exploring the driving factors and mechanisms at a national fine spatial scale remains insufficient. This study endeavours to address this gap by constructing China's eco-environmental quality index (EQI) and human activity intensity (HAI) evaluation index systems with a 1 km resolution. Furthermore, the study utilizes the four-quadrant model and trend analysis to reveal the human-environment relationship, and employs the Bayesian network model to explore key drivers and underlying mechanisms influencing their relationship, aiming to foster harmonious human-environment interaction. Our results show that: (1) Both EQI and HAI increased over time, with their high values concentrated on the southeast side of the Hu Line but low on the northwest side. (2) The proportions of coordination and running-in areas increased while those of degradation and conflict areas declined, with 36.77% of the regions showing positive synergy during 2000–2020, indicating that China's human-environment relationship tended toward coordination. (3) Bayesian network analysis identified land use intensity, GDP, fraction vegetation coverage, and population density as critical factors affecting human-environment relationship. From a quadrant-based analysis, natural and eco-environmental factors including precipitation, water yield, and net primary productivity mainly influenced the spatial distribution of coordination and running-in intensity, while socioeconomic factors like population density and GDP primarily drove the spatial distribution of degradation and conflict intensity. This study finally proposed tailored management recommendations which would provide scientific support to facilitate the coordination and harmony of regional human-environment relationship.

More Water at Moatra: Archaeology, Geomorphology and Toponymy in the Territory of Sagalassos

While evidence of ancient place names is a crucial element for our understanding of the historical landscape, many of those toponyms, other than those of major urban centres, have often disappeared in the course of history. The traditional localization of one such ancient toponym, Moatra in the territory of Sagalassos, at the present-day village of Bereket in the central district of Burdur Province (SW Türkiye) has recently been questioned. Allegedly, the vicinity of the modern village presents insufficient remains to support an identification of an ancient settlement there during the Roman Imperial period and this caused scholars to look for its location elsewhere in the area. This article presents an overview of the archaeological evidence from the Bereket intramontane basin and combines it with other strands of evidence to contest this new localization and explain why Moatra could not have been situated anywhere else but at Bereket. These arguments are based on the combination of the results of past and ongoing archaeological, geomorphological and paleo-environmental research, as well as toponymic study. These data help to shed light on the long occupation of the area and clarify the somewhat exceptional nature of the settlement of Moatra within the territory of Sagalassos, providing an outstanding example of how different disciplines can contribute to our understanding of the ancient settlement landscape and the human-environment relationship in the Late Holocene.

Assessing the Recreational Resource Value of National Park Based on Visitor Perception—A Case of Three-River-Source National Park in China

National parks serve as critical practical sites for advancing the concept of “harmonious coexistence between humans and nature” and hold a strategic role in establishing global ecological security barriers. Scholars and decision-makers have expressed significant interest in rigorous assessments of the recreational resource value in national parks. This paper focuses on the Three-River-Source National Park, examining the characteristics and components of its recreational resource value through the lens of human–environment relationship theory. Analysis spans dimensions of geological and geomorphological value, ecological service value, historical and cultural value, and aesthetic landscape value. By extracting visitor comments rich in vocabulary related to their perceptions, this study compares variations in resource values and the “resource value–visitor perception” synergy within Three-River-Source National Park, employing text analysis, semantic network analysis, and coordination analysis methods. The findings reveal that (1) Visitor perceptions of recreational resource value display a clear hierarchy, with aesthetic landscape value (43.6%) ranking highest, followed by geological and geomorphological value (26.7%), historical and cultural value (19.3%), and ecological service value (10.4%), showing significant variation among categories; the vocabulary across these value types exhibits a pronounced long-tail distribution. (2) The recreational resource value in the park forms a distinct core centered on prominent attractions, accompanied by patterns of vocabulary aggregation and dispersion. (3) Visitors demonstrate strong synergy in their perception of geological and aesthetic value, weaker perception regarding historical and cultural value, and a relatively narrow understanding of ecological service value. This research enhances public comprehension of the recreational resource value of national parks and provides a scientific foundation for the conservation and sustainable use of recreational resources in national parks, advancing the realization of their recreational functions.

Tolerance as a Founding Value of World Peace

Societies today have a heightened awareness of their unity and the way in which each individual depends on the other in indispensable solidarity; however, within these societies bitter political, social, economic, racial and ideological disputes persist and with them the danger of a war that could jeopardize world peace. It is in this context that tolerance emerges as a fundamental ethical priority for building and maintaining peace in the world. Tolerance, therefore, does not imply neutrality of thought, on the contrary, each group has space to present their points of view and experiences for everyone's co-reflection, and everyone is asked to respect the essential norms to the functioning of pluralism. The advocacy of tolerance represents a project of emancipation and is based on the strength of human reason. The objective of this thematic proposal is to reflect on the mystery of man and the meaning of his social being through the prism of considering the moral value of tolerance in the political-democratic order and in social coexistence. Democracy, whose assumptions are condensed in the production of consensus in relation to the good of political life and the experience of citizenship, must recognize that social pluralism poses challenges to the idea of tolerance based on the ontology of the person. For a proper approach to the topic in question, which involve a triple joint: 1) The problem of intolerant democracies today; 2) Social pluralism and public security, and 3) Tolerance and world peace, priority will be given to the method of reviewing the vast and rich literature that discusses the subject in question. In conclusion, the study puts forward the thesis that in the face of various existential scenarios that negatively mark the recent history of many peoples and nations - such is the case of violent extremism in the world, electoral offenses and, consequently, barbaric demonstrations post-elections, the human-environment relationship - the moral value of tolerance continues to be an important factor in building world peace and must therefore be cultivated by everyone.

Riskscapes: A framework for risk assessment in colonial contexts

Risk assessment is a critical aspect of coping with environmental changes. The identification of values at risk — entities, attributes, and ideas that are important to a community — is a key component of a population's ability to resist or adapt to hazards. In colonial contexts, risk assessment must take into account the distinct relationality to the land of Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups and the historicized power relations. Most risk assessment frameworks ignore or oversimplify the cultural heterogeneity of human–environment relationships by using generalized value concepts. The few context-dependent frameworks that have been proposed do not account for different sociocultural groups living on the same land. We propose a spatial-based risk assessment approach inspired by the concept of riskscape, acknowledging diverse perceptions of risk and landscape among different sociocultural groups. We present a risk assessment method eliciting values for different sociocultural groups in their specific contexts using separate valuation methods, and then aggregating them into a joint geospatial interface to highlight convergent and competing interests. Illustrated with the boreal region of northwestern Quebec (Canada), we discuss how the riskscape framework balances Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives in a non-hierarchical assessment of values at risk.

SIA Criteria Compliance of Third Bosphorus Bridge(Yavuz Sultan Selim) Social Impact Assistment

Social, economic, cultural conditions and living systematics that differ according to these, deepen the human-environment relationship. This relationship brings along human’s tendency to the environment through positive or negative activities. Therefore; determining the impact of politics, law, planning and the implementation conditions of these on the environment and human’s health has become crucial. When the environmental impact of the activities in point are determined, it brings forth the possibility to prevent potential damage on the environment. Various impact evaluation systems exist around the world. In our country, Environmental Impact Assestment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Impact Assestment(SEA), Cumulative Environmental Impact Assestment(CIA) and Social Impact Evaluation (SIA) systems are implemented. In the process of project permits in our country, there exists legal regulations which enforce EIA, SEA, CIA. However, there is an absence of social impact evaluation enforcement in the project permission process in Turkey. Even though EIA, SEA and CIA are mandatory in legislation and execution, the social impact of these projects are not stressed adequately. Consequently, even in the existence of mandatory EIA, SEA and CIA by Turkish legislation, foreign investors reinforcing credit on politics, programs, plans and projects do not consider these as sufficient and enforce SIA to be included. There is a lack of standard implementation model to evaluate social impact which could be applied to every project. Due to the weakness and non-existing basic criteria in Turkish legislation on SIA in plans and projects, in this study, the SIA reporting has been prepared by benefiting the social approval criteria and comprehensive studies conducted by certain institutions such as UN, OECD and the World Bank. The sample project bridge, which is the widest bridge in the world with its 52 metre width and “Worlds topmost bridge” in the leaning sling bridge classification with its 322 meter tower height, unites the Asian and European continents to each other. The project with such importance, do not hold EIA, SEA, and CIA reports which evaluates environmental and social impact. The project only holds the SIA report which was conducted in 2013 by international finance institutions and the report was evaluated according to the criteria for social approval. Along with the evaluations on the sample field, suggestions has been set forth for the SIA implementations in Turkey.

The Territorial Human-Environment Relationship System: Exploring the Spatial Development of the “Three Spaces” in Mountain Outdoor Tourism Destinations

The Territorial Human-Environment Relationship System: Exploring the Spatial Development of the “Three Spaces” in Mountain Outdoor Tourism Destinations

Strategic Management of Eco-Innovation and Emerging Technologies for Sustainability in Agro-Based Industries

Eco-innovation and emerging technologies are increasingly central to driving sustainability in agro-based industries. This study examines the impact of technological advancements on sustainable agricultural practices, focusing on innovations that reduce environmental impacts while enhancing productivity. According to the USDA, precision agriculture systems implemented in the Midwest show a 15-20% reduction in fertilizer use and a 10-15% increase in crop yields. Furthermore, the adoption of renewable energy solutions, such as solar-powered irrigation in India, has led to a 30% decrease in energy costs and a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), as reported by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Biotechnology applications, such as genetically modified drought-resistant crops, have reduced pesticide use by up to 37% while increasing crop resilience, according to a study published in Nature. This paper also explores the socio-environmental implications of these technologies, emphasizing the need for balanced development that integrates technological progress with ecological sustainability. Case studies from Brazil, India, and Kenya provide further insights into the successful implementation of these innovations. The findings suggest that leveraging emerging technologies in agro-based industries can significantly enhance sustainability, contributing to a more resilient and equitable human-environment relationship.

Environmental Themes in Michael Punke's The Revenant: An Ecocritical Analysis of Human-Nature Interaction

The objective of this research is to explore the environmental themes shown in Michael Punke's novel, titled The Revenant, with a focus on the complex relationship between the protagonist, Hugh Glass, the surrounding environment, and interaction. This descriptive research uses the ecocriticism theory to analyze the data and address the related questions. The novel vividly depicts nature as the surrounding forest and the diverse array of animals as the central character. As a frontiersman, Glass perceives nature as a realm to be conquered, which resorts to actions such as felling trees and hunting animals. However, the consequences of these actions significantly impact the natural world. The research findings underscored the disadvantageous and imbalanced nature of the human-environment relationship driven by humans’ exploitative tendencies with little consideration for environmental preservation. The consequences of this one-sided relationship are evident in the ecological degradation and the personal suffering experienced by Hugh Glass, hence the novel's critique of this complex interaction between humans and the environment.

Determinants of pro-environmental innovative behaviour: A comparison of three generations

The undeniable mutual relationship between the environment and the individual begins with the onset of human life. This human–environment relationship imposes, on every generation, the task of leaving behind a clean and sustainable environment. This study aims to investigate the determinants of pro-environmental innovative behaviours in a generational context. The study's findings provide valuable insights into the complex interplay of environmental awareness, creativity, risk-taking propensity, proactive coping and pro-environmental innovative behaviours of three generations (X, Y, Z). The results reveal substantial generational differences in the correlations between determinants such as environmental awareness, risk-taking, creativity and proactive coping. This implies that a tailored approach to encouraging innovative behaviours and environmental awareness may be required for each generation.

Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain: A Tale of Green Imperialism

Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain: A Fable for Our Times (2022) is a kind of ecotopian speculative fiction that posits a cryptic study of human-environment relationship in the form of a fable. This novella offers a critical insight into the harsh reality of the present anthropological capitalism and its pernicious impacts on ecology as a whole. It criticizes the growing insensitivity of human towards nature in the clamour for material advancement. Ghosh envisions a caveat against the eco-colonial hegemony. Flummoxed by the injustices meted out to the nature by men, Ghosh implores the human race to get aware of the repercussions of environmental degradation and eco-colonialism. The novella, in a form of a dream tale, tells about how the predator nations expropriate the land and loot the bountiful resources of the prey nations. In the process of gaining upper-hand, they force the native people to disclose their mystic knowledge of their ancestors making it easier for them to encroach their land and natural resources. Obliged by a pressing need to awaken the entire human race from the delusions of grandeur and its aftermath, Ghosh pens down the narrative as a commentary on the rapidly growing exploitation of nature’s treasures on an unprecedented scale and its dire consequences. Ghosh has masterfully mingled history, myth, and fiction to unmask the hegemony and hierarchy percolating through the human society and how the malice of human has disturbed harmonious cohabitation of the natives and their environment. The paper aims at exploring the detrimental effects on the environment of the land of the colonised by the colonisers. At its root, it examines how the colonizers abuse not only the natives, their land, resources but even devalue their traditional knowledge. The anthropomorphic view of the colonizers has endangered the natural resources, and if not cured, may invite an ecological crash.

The impact of population change on social-ecological systems’ vulnerability: A case of the Qinling-Daba Mountains of Southern Shaanxi in China

Human activities have exacerbated the contradiction between ecosystem functionality and social-economic growth. Understanding and managing social-ecological systems' changes under the dual drivers of intensive human activities and rapid global environmental changes are crucial for achieving coordinated and sustainable development. While the vulnerability framework provides a new perspective for human-environment relationship studies, limited research has focused on the impact mechanisms of population change on social-ecological systems' vulnerability (SESV). Therefore, this study selects the Qinling-Daba Mountains of Southern Shaanxi in China (QMSSC), one of the areas with the most prominent human-environment contradictions in China, as a case study. Using the Vulnerability Scoping Diagram (VSD) assessment framework and the Spatially Explicit Resilience-Vulnerability (SERV) model, we divide SESV into three dimensions: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. We select indicators, calculate weights, and quantitatively assess the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics, evolution trends, and spatial correlation features of SESV in the QMSSC from 2000 to 2020. Furthermore, we reveal the impact mechanisms of population change on SESV. The results indicate that the impact of population outflow on SESV depends on the spatiotemporal distribution of SESV. Gender ratio's impact on SESV is closely linked to land use and economic development. The proportion of elderly population affects SESV through adaptive capacity. In other words, population change often indirectly drives SESV by affecting different dimensions or elements of SESV. This necessitates policymakers to deploy population strategies across dimensions and elements. This study aims to provide reference for population development policies and spatial governance directions in globally underdeveloped mountainous regions through a typical case analysis of China's mountainous areas.

The joy of eating: how eating experiences enhance the well-being of older adults.

The active aging strategy has as its policy implications the health, security, and participation of older people. The joy of eating is the main goal of establishing community-based service facilities for older people, as well as a source of health and well-being and a sense of meaning in the lives of older people. Based on the theory of human-environment relations and cognitive-emotional personality systems (CAPS), the study constructed a structural equation model of the eating experience, nostalgia, place attachment, and the well-being of the older adults in the community canteens as an interactive situation, and explored the relationship between the eating experience and the well-being of older people in the community canteens through the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results of the study show that the older adults' eating experience has a significant positive effect on their well-being, and "eating" can make older adults feel happy. Older adults' eating experience has a significant effect on nostalgia, place attachment, and well-being, but nostalgia does not have a significant effect on older adults' well-being, and place attachment in the community canteens can enhance older adults' well-being. Meanwhile, the study further confirmed that place attachment plays a mediating role in the effect of eating experience on older adults' well-being. The findings of the study promote the development of the fields of healthy eating, quality of life assessment, and dietary memory management for older people to a certain extent and provide an important reference for promoting the balanced layout and effective spatial design of community service facilities for older people.

Relational landscapes: environmental discourse and identity of the Sengwer community in Kenya

This article explores the intersection between landscape, worldview, African spiritualities and human-environment relations among the Sengwer ethnic community in Kenya. Documenting a range of indigenous knowledge expressions, the article examines narratives of landscape within the broader spectrum of environmental discourses and identity claims. It shows that among the Sengwer, cosmology and lifeworld are deeply intertwined, which recognises a multiplicity of sentient beings, only some of which are perceptible. The central figure bridging the seen and unseen worlds is the thunder deity Iilat, who shapes the moral code for the community. The Sengwer landscape not only provides them with food, medicine, water, honey, and shelter but also embodies their identity, history, memory, cultural and religious significance. Overall, the Sengwer identity is conceptualised as based on a relational knowledge that is a socially constructed process centring around the spiritual attachment to the landscape. This article therefore argues that the consideration of indigenous religious and spiritual knowledge sheds critical theoretical and practical light on African ecologies and human-environment relations. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘African ecologies: the value and politics of indigenous knowledges’ edited by Adriaan van Klinken, Simon Manda, Damaris Parsitau and Abel Ugba .)

People-environment relations following COVID-19 pandemic lifestyle restrictions: a multinational, explorative analysis of intended biophilic design changes

The study analyzes the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions for the human–environment relations through the lenses of biophilic design. The mixed-method quantitative and qualitative explanatory research combines contextual and personal variables, such as, among others, country, age group, gender, overcrowding, time spent outside, access to nature/food and the exposure to biophilic elements, during and after the lockdown. The results indicate that psychological pressure on individuals caused by pandemic restrictions imposed early 2020, triggered changes in human-environmental relation. More precisely, our comparative analysis of six European countries (Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, Denmark and Sweden) indicates that people-environment relations do not depend on the objective severity of country-wise restrictions, but rather on the individual perceptions of these restrictions. The results complement the lack of the research for the role of biophilic design in understanding and enhancing human–environment relations during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and thereafter.

In Defence of Environmental Anthropocentrism

The critique of anthropocentrism has accompanied environmental thinking since its inception. However, we lack a deeper analysis of anthropocentrism and its forms. The authors of this study concentrate on analysing selected forms of anthropocentrism that were prominent in different periods of the history of European culture. They offer a basic typology of anthropocentrism and characterize philosophical, religious, philosophical-theological and philosophical-scientific anthropocentrism. They also include a fifth form of anthropocentrism, which they call environmental anthropocentrism. The authors consider changes that are important from a philosophical, ethical and axiological perspective and analyse the potential of anthropocentrism in comparison with some of environmental anthropocentrism its alternative forms, such as biocentrism and cosmocentrism. They also attempt to assess the significance of environmental anthropocentrism and the potential for its implementation in human-environmental relations. The environmental anthropocentrism proposed here is a potential solution with applicability to the search for a moderate, humble, non-arrogant, respectful and responsible human approach to relations with nature.

Braiding frameworks for collaborative stewardship scholarship

Human-environment relationships are most frequently viewed from evolutionary perspectives, despite the vast body of literature which highlights how many Indigenous peoples engage with and understand place, plants, and animals as kinship relations. My goals in this essay are twofold: first, to suggest we adopt the phrase stewardship to recognize and uphold notions of respect, reciprocity, and relationships that are common within many Indigenous worldviews, and secondly, to advocate for the use of pluralistic approaches to our collaborative scholarship. I offer examples from my own experiences in reconstructing stewardship histories across people, plants, and places in the Pacific Northwest.

Climate change, community well-being, and consumption: Reconsidering human-environment relationships in Greenland under global change

We reassess the research on the impact of climate change on society and propose examining the social dimensions of climate change from a perspective of community well-being. We argue that to better understand community dynamics in the Arctic, it is helpful to shift the research focus from the environment and view the environment and climate change as a backdrop to social phenomena. Specifically, we consider the increasing living standards and expanding basic needs that fall under consumption, one of the three domains of economic activity. This represents a shift from the conventional anthropological perspective, which focuses solely on production (food procurement, subsistence) and distribution, to a more balanced consideration of the three economic domains and their intricate relations. This shift also involves moving away from the conventional anthropological theory, which posits that the relationship to the environment influences, organizes, and shapes people's lives, to the reverse: people's increasing needs reshape, rearrange, or alter the human–environment relationship. The perspective of community well-being considers the interplay between the environment, social (local assets), and economic domains (consumption and increasing needs) of community dynamics. To illustrate this perspective in Arctic studies, we draw on two examples from our experience in Greenland: sheep farming in South Greenland and Greenland halibut fisheries in North Greenland.

Development of Character Education Based on Tri Hita Karana with a Contextual Approach in Accounting Education: A Literature Review

The prevalence of unethical practices and the erosion of ethical values in the accounting profession underscore the need for integrating character education into accounting curricula. High-profile accounting scandals like Enron and WorldCom highlight the critical importance of fostering ethical behavior and social responsibility among future professionals. This literature review explores the integration of Tri Hita Karana, a Balinese philosophy promoting harmony among human-God, human-human, and human-environment relationships, with contextual learning in accounting education. The study suggests that incorporating Tri Hita Karana into the curriculum through community-based projects and real-world ethical scenarios enhances students' ethical and professional competencies. Empirical evidence from various studies supports the effectiveness of this integrated approach in developing students' ethical judgment, social and environmental awareness, and spiritual well-being. This holistic educational model not only prepares students for professional challenges but also promotes broader cultural shifts towards ethical integrity in professional practices.