Search results for "ECOSYSTEM"
showing 10 items of 1752 documents
Paradigms on landfill mining: From dump site scavenging to ecosystem services revitalization
2017
For the next century to come, one of the biggest challenges is to provide the mankind with relevant and sufficient resources. Recovery of secondary resources plays a significant role. Industrial processes developed to regain minerals for commodity production in a circular economy become ever more important in the European Union and worldwide. Landfill mining (LFM) constitutes an important technological toolset of processes that regain resources and redistribute them with an accompanying reduction of hazardous influence of environmental contamination and other threats for human health hidden in former dump sites and landfills. This review paper is devoted to LFM problems, historical developm…
Social and solidarity economy and the need for its entrepreneuring ecosystem: Current challenges in Brazil
2020
Made available in DSpace on 2020-12-12T02:05:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2020-01-01 This articles purpose is to discuss the state of the art of the constitution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem for SSE and its application in Brazil. One of the major challenges for the creation, continuity and strengthening of Solidarity Economy Enterprises (SEE) is the effective establishment of an entrepreneurial ecosystem for Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE). The construction of the solidary entrepreneurial ecosystem is a complex task, full of challenges, especially when this construction is associated to structural weaknesses inherent to its modus operandi. Case studies of sev…
Intention of coastal communities to support climate change mitigation policies for fish and marine ecosystem preservation
2021
Purpose This paper aims to assess the willingness of individuals living in coastal communities affected by climate change to financially support mitigation policies towards the preservation of marine ecosystems and fish resources and to identify the key drivers of their behaviour. Design/methodology/approach A survey was carried out involving 994 people living in three main Italian coastal communities. To investigate the main factors affecting Italian coastal communities’ willingness to pay (WTP) to support climate change mitigation measures to protect the marine ecosystem and fishery resources, a Tobit regression model was implemented. Findings The results show that these communities are …
Sectoral policies cause incoherence in forest management and ecosystem service provisioning
2022
Various national policies guide forest use, but often with competing policy objectives leading to divergent management paradigms. Incoherent policies may negatively impact the sustainable provision of forest ecosystem services (FES), and forest multifunctionality. There is uncertainty among policymakers about the impacts of policies on the real world. We translated the policy documents of Finland into scenarios including the quantitative demands for FES, representing: the national forest strategy (NFS), the biodiversity strategy (BDS), and the bioeconomy strategy (BES). We simulated a Finland-wide systematic sample of forest stands with alternative management regimes and climate change. Fin…
Developing business networking opportunities for SMEs through business ecosystem and ICT
2010
Globalisation is a new challenge for European small and medium enterprises; indeed, on one hand, it represents a threat, since new emerging companies are entering their domestic market, but on the other hand, it represents the opportunity to enter new emerging and growing markets. In order to win this challenge, European SMEs need to play the networking card; in fact, it is well acknowledged that networking can improve SMEs effectiveness and efficiency which is absolutely necessary to win the globalisation battle. Many public regional institutions are thinking about how to improve the networking capacity of their SMEs through specific programs and investments. This paper reports the results…
Solar UV-B radiation affects leaf quality and insect herbivory in the southern beech tree Nothofagus antarctica
2004
We examined the effects of solar ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation on plant-insect interactions in Tierra del Fuego (55°S), Argentina, an area strongly affected by ozone depletion because of its proximity to Antarctica. Solar UV-B under Nothofagus antarctica branches was manipulated using a polyester plastic film to attenuate UV-B (uvb-) and an Aclar film to provide near-ambient UV-B (uvb+). The plastic films were placed on both north-facing (i.e., high solar radiation in the Southern Hemisphere) and south-facing branches. Insects consumed 40% less leaf area from north- than from south-facing branches, and at least 30% less area from uvb+ branches than from uvb-branches. The reduced herbivory …
Chapter 4: Direct and indirect drivers of change in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people.
2018
The aim of this chapter is to assess evidence of the status and trends of the drivers that affect biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. There are three wider categories of nature’s contributions to people: regulating, material and non-material contributions, that are similar to, but not identical to classifications of ecosystem services (see Chapter 1). Ecosystems are dynamic interacting networks of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms, above and below ground and water-surfaces. These biodiverse networks of interacting organisms respond to a set of environmental factors such as climate, soil, or water conditions. Social-ecological systems also include human activities (di…
The relevance of ecological status to ecosystem functions and services in a large boreal lake
2014
Summary Environmental conventions aim to protect ecosystem structures and functions to provide goods and services for mankind. The degree of aquatic ecosystem naturalness, or ecological status as it is defined in the Water Framework Directive (WFD) of the European Union, is notionally linked to supplies of ecosystem services. In practice, these links have rarely been documented or even investigated, and to justify conservation and management objectives based on the status indicators, it is essential to demonstrate their relationships to ecosystem functions and services. The WFD requires member states to classify their surface waters aiming to achieve good ecological status of water bodies. …
ECOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT AS A FIRST STEP IN THE EVALUATION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES PROVIDED BY LOTIC ECOSYSTEMS
2013
ABSTRACT The ecosystems offer to the socio-economic system a series of goods and services derived from their processes and biodiversity. Ecosystem services offered by a river are at their highest potential when the river status is close to the natural one. Once the river is affected by human impact due to resources exploitation, hydro technical works, water abstraction or improper land use, the ecological status declines and the ecosystem services become scarce. This is why an ecological assessment is necessary in order to establish the connection between the ecosystem services and the human impact. In this paper, the ecological assessment of Timiș River was done, allowing the classificatio…
Drought Monitoring In The Mediterranean Basin Using The Seviri/Msg Gpp Product (Mgpp)
2020
Recently, the Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF) has just released a new product that helps to characterize ecosystem processes, the 10-day LSA SAF GPP product from SEVIRI/MSG data (MGPP LSA-411). The GPP product is based on Monteith's concept, which models GPP as the product of the incoming photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), the fractional absorption of that flux $(\mathrm{f}_{APAR})$ and a light-use efficiency factor $(\varepsilon)$. Preliminary results on the use of the MGPP product in the assessment of ecosystem response to drought events are presented in this work for a short period of three years. A few sites located in the Mediterranean basin a…