Large-scale Environmental Problems Research Articles

Патриотизм как фактор сохранения национальной идентичности

Modern Russian society is experiencing a severe spiritual and moral crisis, during which value attitudes are being destroyed through the denial of traditional Russian values and the introduction of new value paradigms. Spiritual and moral crisis is a result of the crisis state of today’s Russian society, which is caused by many rea-sons: it is the instability of the economic component, and the constantly emerging political cataclysms in the world arena, and large-scale environmental problems, as well as the gaining momentum in the process of de-struction of social ties, and, as a consequence, the apparent destruction of moral foundations. The problem of preserving national identity is outlined at all levels, but its solution is possible only through the formation and strengthening of patriotism as the foundation of Russia’s future. That is precisely why the formation of patriot-ism becomes a priority of the Russian Federation’s state policy and is seen as a factor in preserving national identity.

Chaotropic Polymer Additive with Ion Transport Tunnel Enable Dendrite-Free Zinc Battery.

Zn batteries are considered the new-generation candidate for large-scale energy storage systems, taking both safety and environmental problems into account. They are still restricted by unexpected dendrite/byproducts occurring on the Zn anodes. We hereby screen a powerful polymer type additive, hyaluronic acid (HA), to regulate the typical ZnSO4 electrolyte for obtaining dendrite-free Zn ion batteries. The intrinsically chaotropic property of the HA molecule can efficiently destruct the original hydrogen-bonds from H2O-H2O, thus restricting the common parasitic reactions derived from the large amount of active water molecules. Simultaneously, the abundant functional groups along the long chain from HA additives can construct an effective tunnel for transferring Zn2+ smoothly, enabling an obviously improved Zn ion transference number of 0.62. Owning to the above intriguing mechanism for regulating the solvation structure of electrolyte systems, the HA additives can greatly increase the cycling life of Zn-Zn symmetric cells to 2200 and 800 h under the conditions of 1 mA cm-2/1 mAh cm-2 and 5 mA cm-2/5 mAh cm-2, respectively. Modified performance for both Zn-Ti and Zn-MnO2 can all be realized by this valid additive, elucidating it can be potentially utilized in large-scale Zn based aqueous energy storage devices.

The Promise of Collective Action for Large-Scale Commons Dilemmas: Reflections on Common-Pool-Resource Theory

It has become axiomatic that collective action is core to overcoming commons dilemmas. However, the popularity of the commons dilemma framing has led to its decoupling from canonical common-pool-resource cases. This decoupling is especially problematic for theorizing under what conditions collective action would emerge to solve complex, large-scale environmental problems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, or ocean hypoxia. We argue that there is an over-emphasis on using diagnostic tools (e.g., the design principles), which has come at the expense of theory building for non-canonical cases. Canonical cases, such as fisheries, forests, or irrigation networks, rely on situations where salience of social dilemmas arises from joint costs and benefits actors face from allocating and sustaining a shared pool of livelihood-dependent resources. By expanding the commons definition to more generally mean shared needs or benefits, such as ecosystem services, the consequences of uses in large-scale CPRs, such as pollution, become less obvious. In this paper, we argue that it is particularly urgent to generate a revised theory of collective action for these types of cases, where environmental bads are core to the social dilemma. We contend that Ostrom’s design principles represent a particular set of solutions to several interconnected and foundational aspects of group problem-solving: generating salience, achieving widespread participation, and ensuring compliance over time. We argue that reconceptualizing how particular institutional arrangements address salience, participation, and compliance can expand CPR theory’s applicability to these large-scale problems and help to clarify the role that collective action can play in solving these pressing challenges.

Мировой опыт в области рекультивации посттехногенных ландшафтов

Introduction. Anthropogenic activities cause large-scale environmental problems. The growing volumes of toxic emissions contribute to soil, water, and air pollution, thus posing a serious threat to all living systems and the global ecosystem. New reclamation methods are a relevant research topic as they help to restore and preserve ecosystems. 
 Study objects and methods. The research covered sixteen years of scientific publications from PubMed of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (USA), Elsevier (Scopus, ScienceDirect), Web of Science, and the national electronic library service eLibrary.ru.
 Results and discussion. The authors reviewed various scientific publications to define the main technogenic objects that have a toxic effect on biota. Soil is more vulnerable to destructive effects, and mining wastes are responsible for the largest share of technogenically disturbed objects. Pollutants include many compounds, such as heavy metals, hydrocarbons, sulfur compounds, acids, etc. Reclamation technologies reduce the man-induced impact on the environment, e.g. pollutants can be completely or partially destroyed, processed into non-toxic products, completely removed, stabilized into less toxic forms, etc. This review provides information on the main methods of reclamation of disturbed soils and substantiates the prospect of developing integrated reclamation technologies.
 Conclusion. The present review featured the main pollutants of anthropogenic origin and the traditional soil reclamation methods. The most prospective new technologies of soil reclamation appeared to be a combination of such biological methods as phytoremediation, bioaugmentation, and biostimulation.

Green Values in Crowdfunding Projects

The green projects and initiatives are an important source to harmonize the relationships between society and nature. We define green projects as eco-friendly activities. Due to large-scale environmental problems for the last seventy years, it is relevant to develop the conditions for implementing these projects and transferring them to new spheres and regions. However, green projects are not often financed by traditional ways i.e. budget and bank financing. Therefore, an alternative way of financing such as crowdfunding is widely used regarding social and green projects. Nowadays, there are a lot of studies concerning the impact of various factors on the success of crowdfunding projects. However, there are not enough investigations about the values underlying the green crowdfunding projects. The purpose of the article is to investigate the values underlying the green projects and their impact on the attraction of funding from people living around the world. We identified seven values associated with the concept of sustainable development. According to these values, we studied the abstracts of 390 green projects on the crowdfunding platforms using the hermeneutical analysis. Additional we studied the relationship between the values and the project localization. Our findings allow enhancing the project attractiveness for backers. Besides, this research allows the project authors and the owners of crowdfunding platforms to predict the project development.

Impact of Armed Conflicts on the State of Ecological Security

Abstract Contemporary armed conflicts, although not as global in scope as the two world wars in the 20th century, create serious threats in many dimensions. One of the areas of their influence is the natural environment. In fact every armed conflict, also one that takes place in a relatively small territory, causes a number of negative consequences in the natural environment. These, in turn, may have further consequences. Apart from the damage caused by military operations, accompanying phenomena appear on a large scale. In recent years, a series of armed conflicts in Africa and West Asia resulted in huge migrations of millions of people. In addition to the resulting humanitarian crises, large-scale environmental problems are observed. Thus, it clearly shows that even potentially minor military conflicts can lead to serious disturbances of the natural environment. The author shows the various consequences of armed conflicts for the natural environment over the last half century.

Trends of disturbance of Volga-Ural steppe landscapes in oil-and-gas production and approaches to land use optimisation solutions

We study the factors and tendencies for a technogenic disturbance of Volga-Ural steppe region landscapes exposed to the influence of oil-and-gas production. The study area is 1500km2, including landscapes of more than 25 oil-and-gas fields with a various time of development and different alternatives and scales of technogenic impact. Survey of landscapes is as a part of the regional geo-ecological analysis, which incorporates the analysis of a group of natural factors that specify the attributes of the steppe zone, and classification and identification of the most large-scale and widespread environmental problems. We present the recommended algorithm for making a regional geo-ecological analysis which incorporates the ways, methods, and approaches to achieving ecological-subsoil-user balance in oil-and-gas production areas We show that such environmental problems as haphazard expansion of disturbed lands, fragmentation of landscapes, change in conditions of water reservoirs, intensification of exogenic processes, creation of temperature anomaly areas, reduction of the number of mammals are most likely to occur within oil-and-gas fields. So-called Technogenic geosystems of oil-and-gas fields form in the landscapes. Knowledge about the specific aspects and regularities in the functioning of these geosystems should be used to create prognostic scenarios of disturbed lands development and target-focused optimisation measures.

Sustainable banking: conceptualization and implementation practice

The article explores the actively developing and little-investigated phenomenon of a modern financial system termed “sustainable banking.” The relevance of the study is due to a number of circumstances: first, awareness of the growing importance of sustainable (responsible) fi-nancing as key driver of sustainable development for solving large-scale economic, social, and environmental problems; second, the lack of a generally accepted holistic system of views on sustainable banking, the content of relevant concepts, which indicates that its conceptualiza-tion is incomplete; third, scholarly and public interest in foreign banks’ modern practices of sustainable development, which opens up broad opportunities for Russian banks to use their experience. This article determines the direction of sustainable banking, reveals the content of its conceptualization, and identifies features of the formation of this phenomenon in Rus-sia. By sustainable banking, the authors understand processes of theoretical comprehension and generalization of the practice of banks that declare a commitment to ideas of sustainable development, leading to the formation of ideas about this phenomenon and formation of a relevant system of concepts. The article describes current approaches to sustainable banking; shows the most important international initiatives for incorporating ideas and principles of sustainable development into activities of financial institutions, as well as practical steps taken by various financial institutions (development banks, traditional banks and so-called non-traditional banks, known as sustainable banks) for integrating principles of sustainable devel-opment into strategies and bank operations. The authors conclude that this integration and the development of sustainable banks allows us to speak of the formation of a special business model of responsible business conduct — a sustainable banking model. A separate section is devoted to an analysis of the situation in the area in question and identification of measures to enhance the role of banks in ensuring responsible financing in Russia.

The important role of submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) to derive nutrient fluxes into River dominated Ocean Margins – The East China Sea

Abstract Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), which has been recognized as an important pathway for the transport of terrestrial chemical components (i.e., nutrients, trace elements and other contaminants) to the ocean, plays an important role on the biogeochemical cycling in marine environment, especially coastal/marginal seas. In the present work, the initial results on the amount of SGD into the continental shelf of the East China Sea (ECS), one of the marginal seas with large riverine input from the Changjiang River (Yangtze River) are evaluated. According to the locations and features of water masses in the ECS, radium (Ra) isotopes mass balance model was built and the conservative and non-conservative (excess) components of Ra were evaluated. Using the inventories of excess 228Ra and 226Ra, the residence time of water in the ECS was estimated as 1.30 ± 0.27 years. Then the SGD flux was estimated to be (5.42 ± 0.14) × 1011 m3 yr−1, which were 47 ± 1% of the total river discharge into the ECS along the coast. Nutrient fluxes driven by SGD were estimated to be (7.32 ± 0.19) × 1010, (1.79 ± 0.05) × 109 and (1.59 ± 0.04) × 1011 mol yr−1 for dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) and dissolved inorganic silicate (DSi), respectively, which were about 0.7, 2.2 and 1.4 times, respectively, of the riverine inputs. Furthermore, SGD-driven nutrient had obviously high DIN/DIP ratios, which could lead to a number of large-scale environmental problems to the ECS, such as the frequent harmful algal blooms and hypoxia especially in the estuary and coastal area.

Individual Behavior and Global Environmental Problems

Global environmental problems are often the aggregated effect of behavior by individuals, but is persuading people individually to change their behavior useful for addressing these problems? Understanding why it is that people behave individually in ways that have collectively problematic environmental effects is key to understanding what works—and doesn’t work—to change this individual behavior. This article argues that because of the problem characteristics and social structures that underpin large-scale environmental problems, a focus on trying to persuade people to behave in ways that are less environmentally problematic is ineffective at best and possibly even counterproductive. Instead we should focus on changing systems and structures to provide incentives, routines, and contexts in which we can simultaneously change the behavior of large groups of people, whether or not their behavior change is undertaken intentionally for environmental benefit.

Environmental Policies Can Buttress Conservation Norms

ABSTRACTIn an attempt to solve large-scale environmental problems, government agencies often resort to formal sanctioning systems: market-based incentives or command-and-control regulations, to promote cooperation. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the presence of these formal sanctioning systems impacts informal sanctioning systems for environmental protection. Study 1 used an experimental game to explore the influence of market-based and regulatory programs on informal sanctioning in a laboratory setting. Study 2 was a quasi-experimental field survey that compared informal sanctioning among Massachusetts residents living in towns with voluntary, mandatory, and pay-as-you-throw recycling programs. Results showed that in the presence of a formal sanctioning system, individuals felt guiltier for not engaging in the cooperative behavior and expressed more disapproval for non-cooperators. Combined, these results show that environmental policies can buttress conservation norms.

Incorporating global and inter-disciplinary elements into physical geography

‘‘At a fundamental level, Physical Geography has always sought to describe and understand the multiple subsystems of the environment and their connections with human activity: it is global and globalizing at its very roots’’ (Clifford, 2009: 5). This quote is from our managing editor, Professor Nicholas J. Clifford. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss how it has shaped my view in serving as the new Asian editor of this journal. The first point is about the global nature of physical geography. Environmental systems are intimately linked. At the same time, many large-scale environmental problems are transboundary in nature (e.g. air pollution, water pollution, global warming, etc.). To better understand their intricacies, it is not only necessary to examine the interactions among different environmental systems, but also to collect empirical data and generate research findings across the world. This is about globalizing knowledge creation in physical geography. On the other hand, when large-scale environmental problems are downscaled to regional or lower geographical levels, regional contextual information becomes critically important. To this end, apart from globalizing knowledge production, globalizing author profiles seems to be equally important, as scholars from different continents may have different place-specific knowledge and wisdom. In 1986 Professor D.R. Stoddart gave me his famous book, On Geography, when I was a Chinese student in Nanjing University. I was very surprised by his viewpoint that geography is a European science supported by Americans and Africans (Stoddart, 1986). Nearly 30 years have since elapsed, and Asia has become important in the world in the political and economic domains. However, contributions of Asian researchers to many geography journals are still relatively few. Perhaps globalizing the author profile is one of the key directions that I should follow. The second point is about the inter-disciplinary nature of physical geography. Subject to global warming and various environmental issues, in recent years scholars have tended to focus on how human activities affect environmental systems. Yet, it is still very much a taboo to talk about how the environmental systems shape the well-being of human societies because it smacks of environmental determinism, which has been regarded in some quarters as an anachronistic if not superseded paradigm. As a

Trends and Characteristics of Tourism Development in Slovenia

The paper discusses geographical characteristics of Slovenia from the perspective of tourism development and presents main processes that have marked it in the last decades. Tourism has significantly affected the appearance as well as economic and social structure of many Slovenian regions. The paper focuses on the role of various factors, which influenced tourist attraction of Slovenia and its regions, as well as on changes in tourism supply and demand in the last decades and their relation to some of the political and economic events. Recently, Slovenia has experienced an above-average rate of tourism growth. Several of the nation-state’s geopolitical decisions impacted the growth of the tourism economy: Slovenia became a member of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) (2004), introduced the Euro as the national currency (2007) and became a full member of the Schengen Space (2009). However, impacts of these changes were not comparable to the impacts of political and economic disruptions, related to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, which caused drastic decline in foreign tourists’ numbers at the beginning of the 1990s. Despite long-term growth trends, tourism in Slovenia is already facing many challenges (e.g., unreliable snow cover in the winter season in Alpine resorts as a result of the climate change impacts). Moreover, the growth of tourism has caused some environmental and social problems (or at least contributed to them) in those areas where tourism development has been the most intensive. Nevertheless, impacts of tourism have been rather limited. One of the important reasons why, so far, tourism has not caused any large-scale environmental or social problems is the fact that Slovenia has not developed real mass tourism. In the European context, Slovenia remains an only moderately developed tourist destination. Due to the growing competition on the global tourism market a continuous adaptation to the changing tourism demand is of crucial importance, taking into account not just short-term gains, but especially tourism sector’s long-term viability. From this perspective, also sustainable tourism principles should be considered more relevant.

Deterioration and Degradation of Aquatic Systems Due to Brick Kiln Industries – A Study in Cachar District, Assam.

Brick industries are unorganised, rural, small scale industries in Cachar district of Assam which play an important role in economic development of the entire region. It has been observed during the study that these brick industries are responsible for large scale environmental problems like land degradation, air pollution, water quality degradation and loss of biodiversity. The present study deals with the quality of water in the selected brick kilns in Cachar district and its degradation during Jan-Dec 2014. The existing water bodies are contaminated with different compounds and continuous siltation from the brick kilns. The research focuses on the variation of various physico-chemical parameters such as water temperature, pH, conductivity, Total alkalinity, Dissolved oxygen, Carbondioxide, Nitrate, Phosphate, Transparency in the selected water bodies. The studied ponds were found to be in degrading state with less productivity. Moreover, the result obtained showed the need and urgency to restore the physical, chemical and biological management tactics to conserve and preserve the ecological imbalance and disturbance in the hydro-geo-chemical and hydro-biological cycles that adversely affect the food chain and food web in the brick kiln affected aquatic bodies.

Effect of thematic map misclassification on landscape multi-metric assessment.

Advancements in remote sensing and computational tools have increased our awareness of large-scale environmental problems, thereby creating a need for monitoring, assessment, and management at these scales. Over the last decade, several watershed and regional multi-metric indices have been developed to assist decision-makers with planning actions of these scales. However, these tools use remote-sensing products that are subject to land-cover misclassification, and these errors are rarely incorporated in the assessment results. Here, we examined the sensitivity of a landscape-scale multi-metric index (MMI) to error from thematic land-cover misclassification and the implications of this uncertainty for resource management decisions. Through a case study, we used a simplified floodplain MMI assessment tool, whose metrics were derived from Landsat thematic maps, to initially provide results that were naive to thematic misclassification error. Using a Monte Carlo simulation model, we then incorporated map misclassification error into our MMI, resulting in four important conclusions: (1) each metric had a different sensitivity to error; (2) within each metric, the bias between the error-naive metric scores and simulated scores that incorporate potential error varied in magnitude and direction depending on the underlying land cover at each assessment site; (3) collectively, when the metrics were combined into a multi-metric index, the effects were attenuated; and (4) the index bias indicated that our naive assessment model may overestimate floodplain condition of sites with limited human impacts and, to a lesser extent, either over- or underestimated floodplain condition of sites with mixed land use.

Observation and ecology: broadening the scope of science to understand a complex world

The need to understand and address large-scale environmental problems that are difficult to study in controlled environments - issues ranging from climate change to overfishing to invasive species - is driving the field of ecology in new and important directions. Observation and Ecology documents that transformation, exploring how scientists and researchers are expanding their methodological toolbox to incorporate an array of new and re-examined observational approaches - from traditional ecological knowledge to animal-borne sensors to genomic and remote-sensing technologies - to track, study, and understand current environmental problems and their implications. The authors paint a clear picture of what observational approaches to ecology are and where they fit in the context of ecological science. They consider the full range of observational abilities we have available to us and explore the challenges and practical difficulties of using a primarily observational approach to achieve scientific understanding. They also show how observations can be a bridge from ecological science to education, environmental policy, and resource management. Observations in ecology can play a key role in understanding our changing planet and the consequences of human activities on ecological processes. This book will serve as an important resource for future scientists and conservation leaders who are seeking a more holistic and applicable approach to ecological science.

Of Coase and Carbon: The Coase Theorem in Environmental Economics, 1960-1979

The diffusion of the Coase theorem into the economics literature has many facets, one of which lies in its use and treatment by environmental economists. This paper examines the first two decades of this history, a period during which the theorem’s validity was widely acknowledged but its relevance for the economic analysis of the environment was almost universally dismissed, generally on the grounds of the theorem’s perceived irrelevance for dealing with the large-scale environmental issues - e.g., air and water pollution - that loomed large in the social conscience and preoccupied environmental economists during this period. The strident critiques of the theorem that we observe in the 1970s environmental economics literature evidence a measure of hostility toward the theorem and the suggestions by some (generally outside of environmental economics proper) that it offered a prescription for dealing with large-scale environmental problems. This attitude is shown to be grounded in concerns about normative factors such as equity and qualms about leaving solutions to environmental issues to the market. The repeated claims of the theorem’s irrelevance and the attendant dismissive treatment of it in this literature raises the question of why it was that environmental economists were so interested in the Coase theorem, and several possible explanations are offered, including the roots of environmental economic theory in the theory of externalities, the fascination of economists with interesting theoretical puzzles such as that posed by the theorem, and the normative and ideological aura that permeated discussions of the theorem inside and outside of environmental economics.

Does belief matter in climate change action?

We studied environmental action and its predictors in a multi-scalar context of climate change politics. We asked how belief in climate change, post-materialist values, trust and knowledge predict people's engagement in environmental action by testing two alternative structural equation models (SEM). In one of these models all these factors directly predicted climate-friendly action, and in the other the effect of political trust, post-materialist values and climate change knowledge on climate-friendly action was mediated by belief in climate change. The models were tested with Eurobarometer 69.2 survey data of adult people living in Finland (N = 1,004). The SEM revealed that belief in climate change mediates the effect of post-material values, trust and knowledge on climate-friendly action. It is therefore important to recognize the role of belief in the public understanding of large-scale environmental problems. These results help political authorities to develop policies to encourage people's engagement in climate-friendly action.

Intercontinental Transport of Dust: Science and Policy, pre-1800s to 1967

Abstract I begin with this paper a history of science and policy related to intercontinental transport of air pollution, starting with long-range atmospheric transport of dust from the pre-1800s to 1967. Dust is spotlighted because it was the first trace substance ('pollutant') recognised to travel intercontinental and global distances and because long-range transport in some locations of the world was eventually seen to be associated with large-scale environmental problems. Based on data gathered from primary and secondary written source materials, I conclude that, relative to sustainability, the outstanding achievement between 1800 and 1967 was development of an Earth-spanning conceptual structure that fused scientific knowledge, environmental ethics and options for political action, what I call a dust-related 'Earth system problem-framework'. Specifically, scientists outlined a world dust-system framework with a land ethic at its core. The arduous path to this accomplishment highlights the large-scale, long-term, multidisciplinary effort required to create holistic, whole-Earth conceptual structures for global environment governance.

Investigating on possible use of Diyarbakir basalt waste in Stone Mastic Asphalt

Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA) improved for road construction which has been utilized in Europe and America for 40 years is a rather new process in Turkey. SMA basically consists of 93–94% aggregate and mineral fillers, 6–7% bitumen and additives. Road and construction industry consume stone in large amounts. Stone used are obtained from nearby quarries and carried to the location where they are to be used, destroying the nature and causing large costs. The constantly increasing demand on quarries harms the general structure of the earth thus causing the emergence of large scale environmental problems. The use of basalt waste from stone processing plants as aggregates and mineral filler in SMA might help to meet this increasing demand thus solving environmental problems. In this study, primarily some important material properties of fine and coarse basalt waste, taken from basalt processing plants in Diyarbakir, such as sieve analysis, chemical analysis, specific gravity, water absorption, Los Angeles abrasion loss value, soundness of aggregate by Na 2SO 4, flakiness index and stripping strength were determined. Then by using this waste material, a SMA was designed according to Turkish Highway Technical Specifications. Marshall stability and flow tests have been carried out on designed SMA specimens. Test results indicate that properties of the basalt waste and the SMA produced were within the specified limits and that these waste materials can be used as aggregates and mineral filler in SMA.