1,720,990 research outputs found
Mapping the flows of ecosystem service values in the global land market: The winners and losers of large-scale land acquisitions
No full textEcosystem services support human society at both local and global scale. The globalization of supply chains led to proliferating ecosystem markets around the world. Biocapacity – the provision of biomass-based resources like food, fibers and the CO2 removal from atmosphere – of land-based ecosystems is particularly involved due to the nature of the services it provides. Since large scale-land acquisitions (LSLAs) commonly involve ecosystems or land located in the Global South and investors in the Global North, they may lead to the displacement of the benefits deriving from such ecosystems and their biocapacity. Previous studies investigated the LSLAs’ consequences in terms of ecological degradation. However, more research is needed for measuring the associated inequalities in order to track the global drivers of such degradation. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by measuring net gains and losses of ecosystem service value linked with LSLAs by superseding the common approach and considering the involved countries’ biocapacity. The key novelty consists in backtracking the off-market value chain, which is an aspect so far unexplored among LSLAs studies. By focusing on the biocapacity economic value, we reveal that the growing trend in LSLAs is coupled with loss of benefits for the countries ceding land. The analysis captures the effect of the 2008 crisis which triggered more transactions, as well as the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated the already existing loss. Our analysis reveals that for every hectare of cropland acquired through international land markets in 2021, 15,000 US per hectare. Finally, we reveal that developing countries’ presence is growing among the expanding pool of investors, mostly acquiring from other developing countries. © 202
Effects of antecedent drying events on structure, composition and functional traits of invertebrate assemblages and leaf‐litter breakdown in a former perennial river of Central Apennines (Aterno River, Abruzzo, Central Italy)
Full text linkBecause of global change and increasing anthropogenic pressures, non-perennial rivers
and streams are predicted to drastically increase in the European-Mediterranean
region. Some river basins already subject to reduced levels of available superficial
flow may present a further reduction, with a significant increase in intermittence phenomena
and complete drought of former perennial rivers. In this context, a sound
knowledge of the ecological effects of increasing drying events on these watercourses
may help to better predict impacts of the altered flow regime on structure
and functions of freshwater ecosystems. In this paper, we assessed the long-term
response of invertebrate assemblages and ecosystems processes to antecedent drying
events (drying memory) in a Central Apennine river (Italy). We demonstrated that
compared to the perennial reach, the 7-km downstream intermittent site, after more
than 1 year from a complete superficial flow resumption, still conserved the
‘memory’ of past disturbance with marked differences in structure, composition and
functional traits of assemblages which, in turn, negatively influenced the leaf-litter
breakdown process. Despite total abundance and taxa richness were on average
higher at the intermittent site, antecedent droughts determined a decline of
shredders and scrapers and an increase of collectors. In addition, some more sensible,
semivoltine and rheophile taxa were replaced by generalist, multivoltine and more
resistant taxa. Our findings confirm and extend the ‘drying memory’ hypothesis and
suggest that irregular drying events in former perennial Apennine rivers may have
dramatic long-term effects on both structure and functions of lotic ecosystems
A framework of circular business models for fashion and textiles: the role of business-model, technical, and social innovation
Full text linkThe textiles production and consumption system is a priority product-value chain for the European Commission in its 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan. The Action Plan foresees a European Union strategy for sustainable textiles in a circular economy with the aim of creating markets for sustainable and circular textile products, services, and business models. The European Environment Agency (EEA) and its Topic Center on Waste and Materials in a Green Economy (ETC/WMGE) have shown that consumption of clothing, footwear, and household textiles in Europe is on average the fourth highest category of environmental and climate impacts from a consumption perspective and from a vantage point that considers the entire life cycle. The fashion industry is responsible for more than 60% of total textiles used and clothing is expected to remain the largest application of textiles in the future. To enable a sustainable and circular textiles system, a transformation of fashion production and consumption is needed. This transformation requires innovation in business-model design, technology, and social practices through the adoption of specific policy making, education, and behavioral change enablers. In this Brief Report, we present a framework to map and advance the implementation and scaling of circular business models. This is illustrated by exploring four different circular business-model approaches for fashion and textiles, including models based on product durability; access models based on renting, leasing, and sharing; garment collection and resale; and recycling and reuse of materials. For each business-model type, we discuss enablers based on technical and social innovations and policy, behavioral change, and education
Corrigendum to Accounting for "land-grabbing" from a biocapacity viewpoint [Sci. Total Environ., 539, (2016), 551-559] Doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.09.021
No full textEvaluating dynamics of national economies through cluster analysis within the input-state-output sustainability framework
No full textIn this paper a cluster analysis is applied to an input-state-output indicator framework that represents the interconnection of the three aspects of sustainability, namely environmental, social and economic. This framework is a useful and comprehensive tool for assessing country performances over time and improving guidelines for the classification of countries under a sustainability perspective. The method enables identification of trends and traps that characterize the evolution of countries over time. The analysis is performed for 83 countries in 2000 and 2008 in order to observe system behaviour and development patterns
The needs of sustainability: The overarching contribution of systems approach
No full textThe need to define sustainability and identify meaning and scientific foundations of the concept has been compelling during the last decades. Systems approach has been largely contributing to describe the reality in which we live and understand how to measure the progress of human action towards sustainable development. Professor Sven Erik Jørgensen directly and indirectly stimulated scientific advancements in the field of sustainability definition and evaluation. His work, especially focussing on the wide view of systems sciences, of which he has always been one leading promoter, was also interestingly devoted to study the relationships between human behaviour, society, policy, education and the environment at the global level. Inspired by this view, we present and discuss a list of aspects that can be crucial in the attempt of evaluating the sustainability/unsustainability of our development models, and reflecting the multidimensional and interconnected nature of the concept. In particular, we focus on the global dimension of sustainability; the need of holistic approach, that considers relations within and among different systems at different scales; the use of intensive and/or extensive indicators for investigating sustainability; and, in more practical terms, the need of data and knowledge to feed evaluation tools. The focus on these needs will contribute to a better understanding and diffusion of the concept of sustainability under a systems perspective
Accounting for "land-grabbing" from a biocapacity viewpoint
No full textThe comparison of the Ecological Footprint and its counterpart (i.e. biocapacity) allow for a classification of the world's countries as ecological creditors (Ecological Footprint lower than biocapacity) or debtors (Ecological Footprint higher than biocapacity). This classification is a national scale assessment on an annual time scale that provides a view of the ecological assets appropriated by the local population versus the natural ecological endowment of a country. We show that GDP per capita over a certain threshold is related with the worsening of the footprint balance in countries classified as ecological debtors. On the other hand, this correlation is lost when ecological creditor nations are considered. There is evidence that governments and investors from high GDP countries are playing a crucial role in impacting the environment at the global scale which is significantly affecting the geography of sustainability and preventing equal opportunities for development. In particular, international market dynamics and the concentration of economic power facilitate the transfer of biocapacity related to "land grabbing", i.e. large scale acquisition of agricultural land. This transfer mainly occurs from low to high GDP countries, regardless of the actual need of foreign biocapacity, as expressed by the national footprint balance. A first estimation of the amount of biocapacity involved in this phenomenon is provided in this paper in order to better understand its implications on global sustainability and national and international land use policy
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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