Search results for "source"
showing 10 items of 6139 documents
Assessment of ecosystem integrity and service gradients across Europe using the LTER Europe network
2015
Better integration of knowledge from ecological, social and economic science is necessary to advance the understanding and modelling of socio-ecological systems. To model ecosystem integrity (EI) and ecosystem services (ES) at the landscape scale, assessment matrices are commonly used. These matrices assign capacities to provide different services to different land cover types. We revised such an existing matrix and examined the regional heterogeneity in EI and ES provision in Europe and searched for spatial gradients in their provision to elucidate their suitability for large-scale EI and ES mapping in Europe. Overall, 28 sites belonging to the Long-Term Ecological Research network in Euro…
Green and Greenback
2003
The low-cost hypothesis predicts that the strength of effects of environmental concern on environmental behavior diminishes with increasing behavioral costs. Thus, environmental concern influences environmental behavior primarily in situations and under conditions connected with low costs and little inconvenience for individual actors. In a first step, we develop and specify this hypothesis. Referring to two procedures, we then test it on the basis of an environmental survey of a random sample of 2307 respondents from the German population. The empirical evidence is positive. The low-cost hypothesis is not confined to the area of environmental research. It points to general limits of attit…
Consumption and Production Patterns for Agricultural Sustainable Development
2021
Agriculture has always played a key role in feeding the world population and ensuring the development of sustainable food production systems. However, over recent decades, many farmers have over-exploited agricultural ecosystems in order to increase their production and incomes. This has caused a reduction or degradation of environmental sustainability, reducing farmers’ profitability and leading many producers to abandon rural areas. Moreover, currently, over 820 million people in the world are hungry, while a third of the food produced is lost or wasted, with negative implications on economic, social and environmental conditions at a global level, highlighting how different production, ed…
Monitoring resource consumption and anthropogenic substances in the EU and Latvia
2011
PurposeThe aim of this paper is to assess how the indicator sets presently used to monitor sustainable development in the European Union (EU) and Latvia reflect resource consumption and the production and use of anthropogenic substances.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted by analyzing different sources as well as statistical information on development character in Latvia and human impact at first in respect to use of chemicals.FindingsMany of the analyzed sustainable development indicators related to resource consumption interpret a reduction in consumption as a negative phenomena and thus contradictory to sustainability. The only relevant EU and Latvian indicator related to …
Demand and Supply Model for the Natural Gas Supply Chain in Colombia
2018
Natural gas is considered the transitional fuel for excellence between fossil and renewable sources, considering its low cost, greater efficiency and lesser effects on the environment. This has led to increased demand levels worldwide, requiring the intervention of public and private actors to meet such demand. In this research, we study the natural gas supply chain in Colombia using system dynamics modelling. The results allow to contrast both the behaviour of the production and transport levels and the behaviour of the demand from the consumption sectors, allowing to identify capacity levels to be developed considering implementation times and percentages of coverage in the supply.
Innovation for the Italian agricultural and food industry sector
2020
The food industry is one of the largest energy consumers in the world, with 95 EJ/year. In this context, in Europe the amount of energy needed to cultivate, process, package and bring food to the homes of citizens reached 285 Mtoe in 2015, of which 14 Mtoe due to the Italian agricultural and food system. With the aim of favoring a drastic reduction in energy consumption, the European Commission, and the main international agencies, ie: FAO, OECD, UN over the last decade have aligned on the need to develop policies to support energy efficiency, renewable energies and sustainable technologies in order to minimize the use of fossil fuels and to reduce the final energy consumption, especially i…
COVID-19 Drives Consumer Behaviour and Agro-Food Markets towards Healthier and More Sustainable Patterns
2020
This study examines the extant state of research into our understanding of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in its early stages on food-purchasing behaviour. As such, it includes a summary and categorisation of the findings, extending to consumption preferences worldwide. After the indiscriminate stockpiling of food, which was witnessed in many countries following the implementation of the lockdown, the impact of COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease-2019) on consumer habits has inversely varied in function of personal attitudes, individual and household experiences, and characteristics. Specific contexts, and the financial, economic, and logistic nature of these contexts, have also been foun…
A holistic approach to the management of human consumption towards an economics of well-being
2014
The goal of this conceptual paper is to draw attention to the problems caused by the rapid growth of the global economy, coupled with high population growth and excessive exploitation of natural resources. It is necessary to be aware that the global economy will not be able to grow at the actual speed in the long term. A paradigm shift in production and consumption is therefore necessary to avoid the collapse of ecosystems and the concurrent reduction of stocks of natural resources. This is the reason why capitalism has to take a new direction towards a sustainable and naturally harmonized development model.
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN MARITIME CONTAINER TERMINALS: OPTIMISATION METHODS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
2014
In the competitive environment of container transport, Container Terminals (CT) have to plan carefully the management of their resources and services in order to satisfy shipping companies’ requirements. Failure to do so may lead vessel operators to re-schedule their routes calling at new promising terminals. In particular, the optimal management of human resources is a major issue in port systems having low automation and high labour costs. This thesis aims at providing a large overview of current practices and issues concerning the management of dockworkers in the CT area, in order to suggest the analytical methods and policies for its improvement. The focus is on the operational plan (24…
La evaluación de los materiales didácticos digitales
2017
Este artículo presenta los resultados más relevantes obtenidos a partir de un estudio centrado en analizar las características pedagógicas y tecnológicas de una muestra de materiales de repositorios y plataformas de contenidos educativos digitales actualmente existentes en España destinados a la Educación Primaria tanto de plataformas de contenidos educativos comerciales como de repositorios institucionales públicos. El artículo presenta inicialmente algunas refexiones sobre algunos de los principales aspectos que, en nuestra opinión, deben caracterizar la evaluación de los materiales didácticos en el contexto de la sociedad digital. La metodología empleada en el estudio consistió en el aná…