Search results for "Environmental resource management"
showing 10 items of 459 documents
Facilitating climate change adaptation through communication:Insights from the development of a visualization tool
2015
Climate change communication on anticipated impacts and adaptive responses is frequently presented as an effective means to facilitate implementation of adaptation to mitigate risks to residential buildings. However, it requires that communication is developed in a way that resonates with the context of the target audience, provides intelligible information and addresses perceived barriers to adaptation. In this paper we reflect upon criteria for useful climate change communication gained over a three year development process of a web-based tool – VisAdapt™ – aimed at increasing the adaptive capacity among Nordic homeowners. Based on the results from continuous user-testing and focus group …
Stakeholders’ Attitudes about the Transplantations of the Mediterranean Seagrass Posidonia oceanica as a Habitat Restoration Measure after Anthropoge…
2021
Anthropogenic impacts on Posidonia oceanica meadows have led to a decline of this ecosystem throughout the Mediterranean. Transplantations have often been prescribed as a compensation measure to mitigate the impacts caused by coastal maritime works. Here a Q methodology approach was used to investigate the stakeholders’ attitudes in four case studies of P. oceanica transplants realized in Italian waters. Twenty-two respondents were asked to score 37 statements, and the resultant Q-sorting was analyzed via an inverse PCA using the KADE software. Four discourses, corresponding to the significant axes in the factorial analysis were identified: science and conservation (F1), oriented at a rigor…
Developing scoring functions to assess soil quality at a regional scale in rangelands of SW Spain
2020
ABSTRACT The drawing of maps of soil quality at a large scale is increasingly being more useful to land planners and stakeholders. Nevertheless, it involves different methodological steps from the description of soil profiles in the field until the regional mapping of integrative soil quality index (IQI) values. The development of proper scoring functions is a paramount task for the calculation of these IQI values since every parameter needs to be standardized accordingly and weighting factors are usually estimated by multivariate techniques. The main goal of this study was to map soil quality in the Spanish region of Extremadura (commonly known by its rangelands called dehesas). To do that…
A generic model of reinforcement learning combined with macroscopic cellular automata to simulate land use change
2019
Better understanding the evolution of land cover is a priority concern in the field of land use change study. This evolution can be the result of interactions between major factors. The study of land use change is included in territorial planning to inform planners and policy makers of possible developments they will face. Land use models are useful for reasonable land use management to optimize future land management decisions. In this paper we present an original theoretical model of reinforcement learning combined with macroscopic cellular automata to simulate land use change.
Unfolding the relationship between resilient firms and the region
2017
ABSTRACTThis research explores organizational resilience in four manufacturing firms in four different regions of Norway. While regional resilience has gained attention in research, there have been few studies with a micro-level focus, investigating firms and their distinctive features of resilience. We chose a qualitative multiple-case study approach and employed a critical incident technique to study resilience in selected firms that had experienced external shocks and shifts in regard to changing markets, globalization and advances in technology. Each, however, had managed to continually develop resilience capacity over time. Our framework considered three dimensions of organizational re…
Applying a framework for landscape planning under climate change for the conservation of biodiversity in the Finnish boreal forest
2015
Conservation strategies are often established without consideration of the impact of climate change. However, this impact is expected to threaten species and ecosystem persistence and to have dramatic effects towards the end of the 21st century. Landscape suitability for species under climate change is determined by several interacting factors including dispersal and human land use. Designing effective conservation strategies at regional scales to improve landscape suitability requires measuring the vulnerabilities of specific regions to climate change and determining their conservation capacities. Although methods for defining vulnerability categories are available, methods for doing this …
The superior effect of nature based solutions in land management for enhancing ecosystem services
2017
The rehabilitation and restoration of land is a key strategy to recover services -goods and resources- ecosystems offer to the humankind. This paper reviews key examples to understand the superior effect of nature based solutions to enhance the sustainabilit y of catchment systems by promoting desirable soil and landscape functions. The use of concepts such as connectivity and the theory of system thinking framework allowed to review coastal and river management as a guide to evaluate other strategies to achieve sustainability. In land management NBSs are not mainstream management. Through a set of case studies: organic farming in Spain; rewilding in Slovenia; land restoration in Iceland, s…
Economic valuation of environmental benefits from wastewater treatment processes: An empirical approach for Spain
2009
Economic research into the design and implementation of policies for the efficient management of water resources has been emphasized by the European Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC). The efficient implementation of policies to prevent the degradation and depletion of water resources requires determining their value in social and economic terms and incorporating this information into the decision-making process. A process of wastewater treatment has many associated environmental benefits. However, these benefits are often not calculated because they are not set by the market, due to inadequate property rights, the presence of externalities, and the lack of perfect information…
A statistical-dynamical downscaling for the urban heat island and building energy consumption - Analysis of Its uncertainties.
2020
AbstractHigh-resolution maps of the urban heat island (UHI) and building energy consumption are relevant for urban planning in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation. A statistical–dynamical downscaling for these parameters is proposed in the present study. It combines a statistical local weather type approach with dynamical simulations using the mesoscale atmospheric model Meso-NH coupled to the urban canopy model Town Energy Balance. The downscaling is subject to uncertainties related to the weather type approach (statistical uncertainty) and to the numerical models (dynamical uncertainty). These uncertainties are quantified for two French cities (Toulouse and Dijon) for …
The Southern African Power Pool: An Electrifying Project with Untapped Potential
2017
This chapter turns to infrastructure and gives an outstanding analysis of regional electricity cooperation in the SADC within the framework of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). The author illustrates the regional power imbalances in terms of national electricity generation and consumption which fuel the SADC countries’ demand for a regional electricity market and an interconnected regional power grid. It becomes clear that the SAPP’s institutional design is strongly influenced by South Africa as the hub of the existing power network and largest electricity producer. Influence by external actors is supportive of regional electricity cooperation since the EU provides funding for the SAP…