Unsustainable Economic Development Research Articles

Strategi Pemerintah Menuju Pariwisata Berkelanjutan di Kawasan Telaga Sarangan

This research aims to analyze the government's strategy for realizing sustainable tourism in the Telaga Sarangan area. The main focus of the research is on the role of government as a facilitator, regulator and motivator in supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the region. The main problem identified is the unsustainable economic development of the surrounding community and the non-optimal use of the Sarangan Lake area as a tourist destination. The research method used is qualitative, which is done by collecting secondary data from various sources such as books, journals, articles, report documents, and statutory regulations. The research results show that the government has a crucial role as a facilitator in improving supporting facilities and infrastructure for tourists in the Telaga Sarangan area. As a regulator, the government also has the responsibility to design regulations and policies that support sustainable tourism management. However, the government's role as a motivator is still not optimal, requiring outreach efforts, training and allocation of stimulant funds to develop tourism management in the area. The conclusion of this research confirms that the government has a strategic role in achieving the SDGs in the Telaga Sarangan area through the development of sustainable tourism. Positive contributions to the economy, ecology, as well as social and cultural aspects are expected to be realized through the implementation of strategies that suit the needs and potential of the area.

Estimation of the distribution patterns of heavy metal in soil from airborne hyperspectral imagery based on spectral absorption characteristics

Though soil is widely known as one of the most valuable resources for the world, its quality is going to be lower because of unsustainable economic development and social progress. Therefore, it is important for us to monitor and evaluate the quality of soil, especially its heavy metal contents which is too scarce to identify in soil spectra easily but poisonous enough to affect human health in a long run. Most of the existing estimation methods have based the characteristic bands on statistical analysis to a large extent, which is hard to accurately explain the retrieval mechanism. In this paper, the absorption characteristics of heavy metal are studied based on the soil spectra, and the distribution pattern is mapped in a large-scale continuous space, for environmental monitoring and further decision support. Taking Yitong County, China as the study area. After spectra continuum removal, the heavy metal contents were estimated by 11 features including the absorption depth, absorption area, and band ratio around 2200 nm, which showed the best performance. For arsenic (As), the best model yields Rp2 value of 0.8474, and the RMSEP value is 36.1542 (mg/kg). It is concluded that As is adsorbed by organic matter, clay minerals, and iron/manganese oxides in soil, and the adsorption of As by first two components is greater than that of the last. For airborne spectra after continuum removal, combining the spectral absorption characteristic parameters and the highly correlated bands is more accurate than using the spectral absorption characteristic parameters or bands alone. AdaBoost is presented for the heavy metal estimation, and the fitting ability of the method is found to be stronger than that of the traditional classical methods, with the Rp2 values of 0.6242 and the RMSEP value of 43.6481 (mg/kg). In summary, these results will provide a prospective basis for the rapid estimation of soil heavy metals, the risk assessment of soil heavy metals and soil environmental monitoring in a large scale.

Identifying drivers affecting air quality in metropolitan areas of developing countries: evidence from Tehran metropolitan area.

Environmental issues and the significant reduction of air quality in the metropolitan areas of developing countries have become chronic challenges. While the impacts of many reasons such as the rapid trend of urbanization, lacking sustainable thinking in urban planning approaches, and urban sprawl have been explored in previous literature, the role of political economy, especially the structure based on the rentier economy, in the change of air quality as an environmental challenge in the metropolitan areas of developing countries has received little attention. To fill this gap, this study focuses on the role of the rentier economy and identifies the drivers based on it that have a tremendous impact on the air quality in Tehran metropolitan area, Iran. To this end, using the Grounded Theory (GT) foundation database and two-round Delphi survey, the opinions of 19 experts were used to identify and explain major drivers that impact air quality in Tehran. Our findings revealed that nine major drivers have an increasing impact on the air quality in the metropolitan area of Tehran. These drivers considering the dominance of the rentier economy are interpreted as the lack of powerful local governance, the rental economy, centralized structure of government, unsustainable economic development, institutional conflicts, a faulty planning system, financial unsustainability of municipalities, unfair distribution of power, and inefficient urban development policies. Among the drivers, the impacts of institutional conflicts and lack of powerful local governance on air quality are more considerable. This study highlights the role of the rentier economy as a major obstacle to resilient responses and constructive actions against chronic environmental challenges such as drastic changes in air quality in metropolitan areas of developing countries.

Aging Population Spatial Distribution Discrepancy and Impacting Factor

The phenomenon of population aging is gradually spreading around the world. Consequently, it is leading to unsustainable economic development due to the decline of the labor force. Therefore, many people identify the aging population from national and intercontinental levels, as it would not be possible to recognize specific population spatial distribution characteristics and impacting factors in a province or state because of the spatial and temporal differences. In this paper, Jiangsu Province was selected as the study area to represent its aging population’s spatial characteristics and to identify the spatial heterogeneity with impacting factor by Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), as well as to determine the impacting situation by marginal effect. The results show the following: (1) The impact factor’s spatial heterogeneity from the cities in Jiangsu Province is small but occurs in the city groups, while the impacting situation is the same in the north, central and south city groups, showing a disparity among them. (2) There is a significant change in the impact factor’s influence from 2010 to 2020. (3) The social–economic factor negatively relates to the aging population in 2020, with an interval value of [−1.0585, −1.0632]. This finding indicates that the spatial heterogeneity of the aging population at the province level is not the same as that at the national level. Therefore, we need to consider the local situation more. These findings further provide an empirical basis for the province-level study of the aging population, which differs from the national level.

Evaluation and Analysis of High Quality Economic Development Indicators by the Analytic Hierarchy Process Model

The extensive and unsustainable economic development has seriously hindered the friendly development of the economy. The economy pays more attention to the quality and quality of development and needs a way to evaluate economic development objectively. The study puts forward four first-level indicators and 12 second-level indicators for high-quality economic development, which can be evaluated from the essence of economic development. The initial stage is to construct the model structure, with high-quality economic development as the higher level and economic structure and green development as the middle levels of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP); to construct the matrix and introduce secondary indicators; to calculate the maximum eigenvalue; and to analyze and evaluate. In the example, the economic development quality of a region is evaluated, and the corresponding quality membership degree is higher, which belongs to the better development quality. The hierarchical development model proposed in this paper can better evaluate the lack of development power due to the imbalance of economic development and environmental factors and fundamentally realize the fair and just evaluation of the process of economic development.

Consequences of terminating mangrove’s protection in Brazil

The Brazilian government agenda for downgrading and degazettement of protected ecosystems has seen an unprecedented move with the revocation of the mangrove’s protection act in the country. As the second largest country in mangrove extent, with over 11,000 km2 of forests that have been conserved for decades, mangroves may now be open for unsustainable economic development. Shrimp aquaculture and urban development are likely the highest threats to mangrove forests in Brazil. When built over mangrove land, shrimp ponds release greenhouse gases at a rate up to 10-fold larger than cattle pasture conversion on dryland forests. In a scenario of low rates of mangrove loss of 0.1% per year (2-fold current rates), emissions from land use would be close to 1.6 Tg CO2e per year, which is equivalent to 0.01% of emissions from deforestation in the Amazon over an area 1500 times smaller. Urban development and removal of mangroves to human infrastructure also have strong negative effects on pollutant retention, which could further decrease water quality and increase coastal vulnerability near urban centers. The loss of mangroves have also expected negative effects on food provision, which allied to other key ecosystem services provided by mangroves, will be key to a sustainable ocean under a changing climate during the next century.

Sustainability assessment of urban ecological-economic systems based on emergy analysis: A case study in Simao, China

The sustainable development of urban systems requires an understanding of interactions between the economic, social, and ecological systems within and beyond the urban systems. In this paper, emergy-based indicators in consideration of ecosystem services were built for evaluating urban systems’ sustainability performance through a case study of Simao, China. The emergy analysis results of Simao implied an unsustainable economic development pattern in the long term. Although the emergy of ecosystem services and the environmental performance indicators both showed a well-protected ecological environment, the low economic efficiency was a drag on Simao, resulting in a low emergy sustainability index (ESI). It is urgent for Simao that effective measures should be taken to achieve a more sustainable development pattern. Thus, policy recommendations including promoting green economy, optimizing local energy structure, developing ecological origin products and strengthen cultural ecosystem service were provided in order to improve the regional sustainability of Simao. This work provides valuable insight into urban systems' social, environmental, and economic performances, helping decision makers with urban development, especially when the decisions need to be made regarding sustainability.

Ecological sustainability assessment of the carbon footprint in Fujian Province, southeast China

China’s rapid economic development has initiated the deterioration of its ecological environment, posing a threat to the sustainable development of human society. As a result, an assessment of regional sustainability is critical. This paper researches China’s most forested province, Fujian Province, as the study area. We proposed a grid-based approach to assess the regional carbon footprint in accordance with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) carbon emission guidelines. Our method of assessment also introduced carbon emission indicators with our improved and published Net Primary Production (NPP) based on process simulation. The carbon footprint in Fujian Province from 2005–2017 was calculated and examined from a spatiotemporal perspective. Ecological indicators were used in the sustainability assessment. The research draws the following conclusions: 1) the carbon footprint in the eastern regions of Fujian Province was higher due to rapid economic development; 2) that of the western regions was lower; 3) an uptrend in the carbon footprint of Fujian Province was observed. All five ecological indicators based on carbon emissions and economic and social data showed an ecologically unsustainable trend over 13 years in the research area due to unsustainable economic development. Therefore, it is urgent to balance the relationship between economic development and environmental protection. Our research provides scientific references for achieving ecological civilization and sustainability in a similar region.

The impact of globalization on ecological footprint: empirical evidence from the South Asian countries.

This study aims to investigate the effect of economic globalization and technological changes on the environmental degradation of the South Asian countries over the time span of 1975-2017. Westerlund (Oxf Bull Econ Stat 69:709-748, 2007) cointegration test is employed to estimate the presence of long-run relationship between globalization, technological changes, and environmental degradation. To determine the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, this study employs panel autoregressive distributional lag (ARDL) model. Empirical findings of this study yield the inverted U-shaped association between globalization, technological changes, and environmental degradation which validate that EKC holds in the South Asian countries. The results indicate that the measures of globalization such as FDI, trade openness, and KOF index have positive and statistically significant effect on ecological footprint. However, technological changes measured as patents registered by residents have an insignificant impact on environmental quality. This study infers that the globalization has increased environmental degradation through unsustainable economic development in South Asian countries. These countries should shift to renewable energy resources to protect the environment and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Risks of unsustainable economic deve-lopment in Vietnam

Risks of unsustainable economic deve-lopment in Vietnam

Sustainable Financing for Sustainable Development: Agent-Based Modeling of Alternative Financing Models for Clean Energy Investments

Renewable energy investments require a substantial amount of capital to provide affordable and accessible energy for everyone in the world, and finding the required capital is one of the greatest challenges faced by governments and private entities. In a macroeconomic perspective, national budget deficits and inadequate policy designs hinder public and private investments in renewable projects. These problems lead governments to borrow a considerable amount of money for sustainable development, although such excessive debt-based financing pushes them to unsustainable economic development. This substantial amount of borrowing makes a negative contribution to the high global debt concentration, putting countries’ economic and social development at risk. In line with this, excessive debt-based financing causes an increase in wealth inequality, and when wealth inequality reaches a dramatic level, wars and many other social problems are triggered to correct the course of wealth inequality. In this regard, the motivation behind the study is to develop a set of policy guidelines for sustainable financing models as a solution for these intertwined problems, which are: 1) a financial gap in energy investments; 2) an excessive global debt concentration; and 3) a dramatic increase in wealth inequality. To this end, this study presents a quantitative and comparative proof of concept analysis of alternative financing models in a solar farm investment simulation to investigate the change in wealth inequality and social welfare by reducing debt-based financing and increasing public participation. There are many studies in the literature investigating the evolution of wealth inequality throughout history. However, there is a gap in the literature, and investigating the effects of various policy rules on the evolution of wealth inequality in a future time frame needs to be explored in order to discuss possible policy implications beforehand. In this respect, this paper contributes to the literature by developing simulation models for conventional and alternative financing systems. This enables investigating the changes in wealth inequality and social welfare as a result of various policy implications throughout the simulation time.

Right to the city and human mobility transition: The case of São Paulo

This paper discusses the question about the right to the city and the influences of the dispute for the city on urban mobility, using São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, as a study case. We present the concept of the human mobility transition, which relates to the idea of large shifts in human mobility dynamics that have affected the constitution and development of urban settlements, the structure of the urban form, and social networks. We then argue that the latest stage of this transition is heavily influenced by the fact that cities have become both the arena for and the object of the political struggle between unsustainable economic growth and sustainable human development. Health consequences of the dispute for the city in the context of urban mobility are discussed. Final section uses the case of São Paulo to illustrate these arguments, focusing on changes that occurred from the end of the 19th century onwards.

THE ECONOMIC RISE AND FALL OF THE SILESIAN ÚNĔTICE CULTURAL POPULATION: A CASE OF ECOLOGICALLY UNSUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?

After a long period of substantial economic growth and population increase in the Early Bronze Age, the reason(s) for the relatively rapid disappearance of Unĕtice cultural populations in Silesia and the subsequent lack of population in much of their former territory for around 200 years remains unclear. Various theories have been proposed for these developments, such as changed long distance trade routes or the depletion of materials for bronze-making. However, these fail to explain why large areas formerly occupied by the Unĕtice cultural population remained unoccupied (or virtually so) for so long after their abandonment. We argue, on the basis of demographic and other scientific evidence, that the collapse of this population was primarily the result of unsustainable ecological development. Human-induced changes to ecosystems eventually reduced agropastoral productivity, substantially reduced the standard of living of the populations involved and resulted in the abandonment of their settlements. The extent and nature of ecological damage was such that it took a considerable amount of time for natural ecosystems to recover sufficiently before the affected areas were economically suitable for resettlement. The possibility that resource shortages for bronze-making and changed trade routes contributed to the unsustainable economic development of Silesian Unĕtice cultural groups is also considered.

Meeting the Challenges of ESD Competency – Based Curriculum in a Vocational School Setting

Abstract Sustainability is becoming an integral part of vocational schools since schools are called to respond to the environmental crises and unsustainability issues in the community as well as to an unsustainable economic development. Vocational schools have to play a significant role is re-orienting students’ frames of reference towards sustainability for a well-being of the Earth. The aim of the article is to explore teachers’ views on their gains of integrating sustainability and the use of sustainability pedagogies as a result of participation in three years long international project. The article reflects on teachers’ efforts of reorienting the curriculum of a vocational school towards sustainability within the framework of the international Erasmus+ project “Methods for ESD – competencies and curricula” (MetESD), led by Vechta University.

Not So Cool Britannia

This article provides a brief overview of current UK policy and practice in the area of the creative industries and economic development and aims to raise concerns about what I see as the problems arising in the implementation of these policies. It argues that the desire to use ‘creative industries’ as a single weapon with which to turn around economically depressed regions risks creating polarized and unsustainable economic development. Creative industries developments, if they are to succeed, cannot be disconnected from the cultural policies that nurtured them and the social policies that can help to sustain them.