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Competition among land uses is making it increasingly difficult to set aside adequate space for wildlife and nature conservation, so it is imperative that opportunities that simultaneously achieve commercial and conservation outcomes be identified and seized. Such opportunities exist in the renewable energy industry. It is widely recognized that renewable energy generation benefits the ecosphere through reduced carbon emissions, but currently, further opportunities for realising direct and indirect conservation benefits through the design of solar farms are less well known. Among other opportunities, solar farm designs that deliver environmental credits through carbon sequestration and biodiversity improvements can deliver higher financial returns. Other opportunities to improve local hydrology, pollination, and pest-control services could be available depending on site-specific characteristics where solar farms are built, and the other land use practices that exist, or are possible, in the immediate vicinity. Here, we explore opportunities among renewable energy generation, agriculture, and conservation, through the co-location and innovative design of PV solar energy farms on grazing and croplands. These forms of land sharing can achieve higher land-equivalent ratios (LERs), a quantitative metric of the reduction in land use. We identify opportunities whereby solar farms can be designed to improve biodiversity, land condition, and conservation outcomes, while maintaining or increasing commercial returns. Much work remains, however, to understand the suite of opportunities available for achieving simultaneously the best commercial and conservation outcomes through solar farm designs in agricultural landscapes.

The article highlights the theoretical and methodological approaches to the classification of arable land by the suitability of soils for growing major crops, which are based on environmentally friendly use of agricultural land, which is now considered as the basis for the development of society as a whole. Methodological basis of this doctrine is the demands of plants to environmental factors, the need for various resources (light, heat, humidity, etc.) and their response to their combination of conditions, including the idea of optimum, ecological amplitudes of limiting factors, plasticity or adaptation. The ecological assessment of the territory itself is considered as a suitability for intensive (ie as part of arable soils) use and as an assessment of the fertility factors inherent in this territory. This is an analysis of the territory in terms of compliance of factors with the basic requirements of plants. When the requirements of plants do not meet the external conditions, the question arises about the unsuitability of the territory for the plant or the need to adapt the conditions to plants or, conversely, plants to environmental conditions. Until now, scientific and practical work on this issue was aimed at determining the relationship of indicators-scores or non-cost indicators. In this case, we are talking about the concomitant study of a set of natural conditions, ie the ecosphere, in relation to the agrobiological characteristics of certain plant species, including crops. The solution of this problem is recommended in the following stages: carrying out natural-agricultural zoning of the territory; generalization of agrobiological requirements of plants to the environment; agro-climatic substantiation of placement of agricultural crops and allocation of zones of their cultivation; development of soil assessment scales in accordance with the cultivation of crops; development of tables of classifications of arable lands according to the suitability of soils for growing major crops; determining the suitability of land, analysis of the actual location of crops and opportunities for improvement.

Ecohydrology is a transdisciplinary sustainability science based on an understanding of hydrosphere/ecosphere interactions from the molecular to catchment scale, developed within the framework of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (UNESCO IHP). This paper introduces a broad range of Ecohydrological Nature-Based Solutions (EH-NBS) that have been developed based on dual regulation considering understanding of reciprocal H → B (Hydrogeology → Biocenosis) and B → H interactions. EH-NBS are particularly effective at reducing various dispersed impacts especially non-point source pollution, which generate up to 50% of nutrient pollution load from the catchment. The importance of methodology, integration of ecological and hydrological disciplines which reduces impact and increases landscape water and nutrients retention and freshwater ecosystem resilience which is becoming important element of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) was also presented. Considering the above, implementation of ecohydrology aims to increase catchment sustainability potential, expressed by water, biodiversity, ecosystem services and resilience (WBSR). Due to the specific nature of dispersed impact generated by human factor in the catchment, it is crucial to engage society through culture and education (CE) to ensure the implementation and long-term efficiency.

Purpose The purpose of this study/paper Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017) is to show the author’s non-site intervention of authoritarian – undemocratic maneuvering of both women’s and earth’s “golden” wombs. The burning fossil fuels in myriads of flame colors, signal the power and distress of Earth’s wounded womb, memories of war, environmental destruction and human fatality, and descend to decline as extinguished Oil Drops (2017), creating a void. Global warming poses a problem for fossil fuel systems and those who profit from them. Design/methodology/approach The title of this paper has been inspired by Cara New Dagget’s book, The Birth of Energy (2019), posited in the nascent realm of energy “mortalities.” Now, confronting a world warmed by sweltering fossil fuels, the book provides us with a direction to thinking energy beyond the “Calvinist view” of everlasting work. Spellbound by Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017), the audience canter around the outer surface of the centrally positioned, circulating luminous “acrylic” oil drops highlighted by hundreds of mono-frequency lamps impregnated with desert biodiversity. A closer look takes spectators through a fiery desert, across the fossil fuel fields into the depths of its scorching oil wells, its womb, as they sense the “real-time” catastrophe that had occurred beyond the gallery wall. Findings These artists’ objective with their interventions is to “root it to the contour of the […] land, so that it’s permanently there and subject to the weathering,” so the audience is “sort of curious to see what will happen to this” (Schmidt, 1996, 225) through the course of time. The works resists the resistance of nature and social culture, as well as of body and intellect by emphasizing the intransience, however complex, of human beings with the ecosphere in which they survive (Novak 2002, 23). The surfacing of the under-surface of the land and ocean life triggers the idea of the private space, which involves role-play, gender norms and the control over women's lives in the capitalist and Gulf societies. Authoritarianism, fossil fuel capital, high-energy use and militarism make the climate politics critical to planetary security. This combustible convergence gave birth to Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017). Research limitations/implications Ganz reminds us that devouring less energy appears to be almost unharmonious with the current politics of being “Modern.” Sacrificing energy resonances with abstinence at best, and widespread death and injustice at worst. But, consuming an overload of energy is incompatible with a multispecies existence on Earth. Scientists caution “a cascade of feedbacks could push the Earth System irreversibly onto a ‘Hothouse Earth’ pathway,” the consequence of which could be an uninhabitable, unsafe globe for beings (Steffen et al., 2018). Even though it sounds vivid, it is hard to overstate the crisis in the midst of what environmentalists and biologists term as a sixth extinction event (Kolbert, 2014), in line with a “biological annihilation” that paints “a dismal picture of the future of life, including human life” (Ceballos et al., 2017). Practical implications It is not only the land’s womb that we have hurt; we have miffed the hearts of the water network, and “Othered” and the wombs of many women and most surfaces of the Earth have been penetrated, unconsented! To sustain a biodiverse sphere, to pause the deaths of the planet’s flora and fauna and to thrive on Earth, we need to work on renewable sources of energy based on “new collectively shared values, principles, and frameworks” (Steffen et al., 2018). We need to stop Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017). Are we ready to accept the challenge? (Lau and Traulsen, 2016) Social implications Petro-masculinity has multiple global dimensions and manifests in multiple and locally specific ways (Dagget, 2018). This encourages the geographically diverse artists discussed in this paper to embrace alternative visions, to make bold and explicit statements on gender and global diversity, equity and rights. Through history, women, in specific, embodied the entirety of the Ecocene and its life cycle and explored it in the context of their own relationships, health, sexuality, fertility, reproduction, childbirth, illness and inescapably death. The artists’ interventions’ visual physiognomies and intentions point toward a comprehensive agenda of action that leads to remedial courses toward reinstating the biome to a healthy condition. Originality/value Manipulating Golden Wombs’ (2017) enacts the historic all-consuming fires, penetrating the “shared environment,” burning the fossilized fuels exuding from Earth’s penetrated womb. The higher cone-shaped oil drops irradiate the intense dazzling images of oil wells in flames and the desert flora and fauna nestled within the scorching inner arena. This aligns with the private space provided to women. The wombs are smothered in the fuming fires of the Gulf war. The darker, narrower lower oil drops, iconic of the remnants of fossil fuel, are the residual sludge within which the land and water species are enmeshed and ensnared to death. The potency of the enactment of the drops “enables the viewer to see [him/]herself seeing, to become aware of how she perceives the world around [him/]her and in doing so participates in shaping it” (Eliasson, 2009, p. 25) as a form of engagement, which involves an “attention to time, movement and changeability” (pp. 18–21).

Environmental protection is a complex ecological and economic problem, including the need to develop and implement a number of environmental protection measures to mitigate the negative impact of mining waste on all natural environment components and human health. In this regard, the study purpose was to assess the impact of Pb, Cd, Cr, and As compounds on the environment and health of the population of the Solnechny miner’s village. Based on the purpose, the following tasks were set: 1) review and systematization of literature data on the problem of technogenic dust pollution; 2) assessment of the mining industrial system as a source of ecosystem pollution with toxic elements within the closed mining enterprises impact areas; 3) development of proposals for mitigating the impact of mining activities on ecosystems and human health. The paper presents the findings of the study of the elemental status of children and adolescents living within the closed town-forming enterprise JSC Solnechny GOK impact area. The relationship between the level of technogenic pollution of the natural environment and the changes in the elemental status of the children was shown. A feature of the elemental status of the children in the study group was high content of heavy metals, including Pb, Cr, and As. Our research confirmed the data that a growing child’s body actively adsorbs compounds of toxic chemical elements. Deficiency and imbalance of microelements in the body can cause ecologically-related diseases in the child population. Individual and population carcinogenic risks (CR) caused by the As, Pb, and Cr pollution were calculated. In accordance with the acceptance criteria for the risk caused by exposure to the pollutants, the individual carcinogenic risk CR (Cr) = 1,05 · 10–3 belongs to the fourth range and is unacceptable neither for the population, nor for occupational groups. This is De manifestis risk, and when it is reached, it is necessary to carry out emergency curative measures to mitigate it. The individual risks CR (As) = 7,05 · 10–4 also exceed the acceptable level for the population. This level of pollution is subject to permanent monitoring, requires development and implementation of planned curative measures to improve the indicators of the human environment, one of which is the organization of the environmental monitoring system in the study area.

Accurate detection of individual animals is integral to the management of vulnerable wildlife species, but often difficult and costly to achieve for species that occur over wide or inaccessible areas or engage in cryptic behaviours. There is a growing acceptance of the use of drones (also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs and remotely piloted aircraft systems, RPAS) to detect wildlife, largely because of the capacity for drones to rapidly cover large areas compared to ground survey methods. While drones can aid the capture of large amounts of imagery, detection requires either manual evaluation of the imagery or automated detection using machine learning algorithms. While manual evaluation of drone-acquired imagery is possible and sometimes necessary, the powerful combination of drones with automated detection of wildlife in this imagery is much faster and, in some cases, more accurate than using human observers. Despite the great potential of this emerging approach, most attention to date has been paid to the development of algorithms, and little is known about the constraints around successful detection (P. W. J. Baxter, and G. Hamilton, 2018, Ecosphere, 9, e02194). We reviewed studies that were conducted over the last 5 years in which wildlife species were detected automatically in drone-acquired imagery to understand how technological constraints, environmental conditions and ecological traits of target species impact detection with automated methods. From this review, we found that automated detection could be achieved for a wider range of species and under a greater variety of environmental conditions than reported in previous reviews of automated and manual detection in drone-acquired imagery. A high probability of automated detection could be achieved efficiently using fixed-wing platforms and RGB sensors for species that were large and occurred in open and homogeneous environments with little vegetation or variation in topography while infrared sensors and multirotor platforms were necessary to successfully detect small, elusive species in complex habitats. The insight gained in this review could allow conservation managers to use drones and machine learning algorithms more accurately and efficiently to conduct abundance data on vulnerable populations that is critical to their conservation.

The Python Earth Engine application programming interface (API) provides a new open-source ecosphere for testing hydrocarbon detection algorithms on large volumes of images curated with the Google Earth Engine. We specifically demonstrate the Python Earth Engine API by calculating three hydrocarbon indices: fluorescence, rotation absorption, and normalized fluorescence. The Python Earth Engine API provides an ideal environment for testing these indices with varied oil seeps and spills by (1) removing barriers of proprietary software formats and (2) providing an extensive library of data analysis tools (e.g., Pandas and Seaborn) and classification algorithms (e.g., Scikit-learn and TensorFlow). Our results demonstrate end-member cases in which fluorescence and normalized fluorescence indices of seawater and oil are statistically similar and different. As expected, predictive classification is more effective and the calculated probability of oil is more accurate for scenarios in which seawater and oil are well separated in the fluorescence space.

Reviewing completed research studies aids research ecosphere to provide a conclusive and reliable bibliography; and it confirms a comprehensive generalization on the conducted researches along mathematics education. It aimed to systematically review the completed graduate mathematics education researches in SUCs in Region I to see the complete picture of the conducted researches in the region. Specifically, the researcher classified and characterized the graduate mathematics education researches in the region and identified the effect sizes of the researches. The researcher made used of the descriptive-quantitative method of research to systematically review the completed theses and dissertations in mathematics education. Specifically, a meta-analysis was done in some portions of the review. The following are the findings of the study: (1) the determinants of mathematics achievement of students have the greatest number of researches conducted by graduate mathematics students from the years 2007 to 2016. (2) Most of the conducted researches used correlation method of research and had a small to very small effect size index. (3) As consequence of the findings, a research mapping and a proposed research direction were crafted by the researcher for mathematics education future researchers. The results of the study tell that every university in the country should comprehensively choose research topics, monitor and guide their students who are enrolled in the graduate programs to avoid over saturation to research topics especially in mathematics education. In the light of the findings and conclusions, the researcher recommended that the constructed proposed research mappings and directions should be used as guide in thinking what research area/s will be undertaken by future mathematics education researchers.

This essay offers a critique of the ontological turn in digital media theory, focusing on the presence the voice is presumed to confer on sound, even in digital media. The voice is not understood b...

Das wissenschaftliche Begleitvorhaben »WiTraBau« verfolgt das Ziel, forschende Stellen bei der Entwicklung von Strategien zur Verwertung ihrer Forschungsergebnisse zu unterstützen. Die neu entwickelten Dämmstoffe SULFOAM, EcoSphere, THELMA, AeroBasalt und AeroPutz werden durch WiTraBau begleitet und exemplarisch vorgestellt.

The entire world become village and whatever affects a country will ultimately affect the neighbouring ones. Since the environment is being constantly polluted by man through its various activities such an acts constitutes hazard to man and its ecological being and a threat to public health. An environmental hazard is a substance, state or event which has the potential to threaten the surrounding natural environment and / or adversely affect people's health. This term incorporates topics like pollution and natural disasters such as storms and earthquakes. Human-made hazards while not immediately health-threatening may turn out detrimental to man's well-being eventually, because deterioration in the environment can produce secondary, unwanted negative effects on the human ecosphere. The effects of water pollution may not be immediately visible because of a sewage system that helps drain off toxic substances. If those substances turn out to be persistent (e.g. persistent organic pollutant), however, they will literally be fed back to their producers via the food chain: plankton -> edible fish -> humans. In that respect, a considerable number of environmental hazards are man-made (anthropogenic) hazards. This necessitate to this study of investigating, the sources, effects and controls of environment hazards. Data were gathered from Primary Health Care (P.H.C) department and from environment department through oral interview method. The findings from the data collected revealed that’s the people in the study area have negative attitude towards environmental hazards which make them to mismanage environmental resources such as land, water and air. Investigation also shows that, there were poor and inadequate system of refuse disposition and that the system most of the houses in the area are without adequate toilet facilities. Health education should be given to the people on the sources and effects of environmental hazards. It is therefore hoped that, if the recommendation made in this study is staffs strictly adhered to, it would go a long way in improving the environmental condition.

This essay questions whether current formulations of environmental literacy as an outcome of environmental education (EE) require revision in the context of the emergence and implementation...

As the most populous continent, and its dominant role in the global economy, Asia is arguably the most important region for understanding global change. To evaluate and guide humanity’s growth toward a more sustainable future, indicators and their composite indices have been adopted as key tools resulting in a paralyzing amount for decision-makers, practitioners, and researchers to choose from. Although research has improved understanding of development metrics for evaluating and monitoring global change, making progress toward sustainability remains as open as ever. Building from previous work, 44 Asian nations were studied using four guiding research questions: (i) What are the hidden dimensions within a collection of known sustainable development indices, and what differentiates winning locations from losing ones? (ii) Are the three major divisions of sustainability (economic growth, social equity, environmental integrity) equally supported by these development measuring initiatives? (iii) How do common global change indicators statistically respond to the canonical development dimensions? (iv) Do recent population growth and urbanization trends move humanity closer to planetary sustainability? Those questions were explored using four amassing methodological stages. First, six hidden development dimensions (factor axes) were revealed while maintaining over 80% of 35 known sustainable development indices’ variation. The dimensions expressed: (F1) human well-being synergies; (F2) environmentally efficient happiness; (F3) ecological integrity to economic performance trade-off; (F4) peace, prosperity, and natural resources protection; (F5) economic and political liberty; and (F6) generosity. Second, a mega-index of sustainable development (MISD) was created by combining the six latent dimensions. Third, spatial patterns of the hidden development axes, MISD, and nine common global change metrics were explored. Fourth, using global and local inferential tests, associations between the canonical development dimensions, MISD, and global change indicators were made. The human well-being synergies dimension (F1) explained over one-third of the total variance, and positively clustered in northern Asia and negatively in southern Asia. The MISD ranked Singapore best, followed by Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Malaysia; Afghanistan ranked worst, then China, Syria, Russia, Turkmenistan, and India. Overall, improved sustainable development position came through increased population density, decreased country area, lower latitude, and a greater proportion of urban land cover. This cross-country analysis reiterates an underrepresentation of biogeochemical (ecosphere) conditions across development indices; moreover, spatial patterns of favorable development were rarely found simultaneous. Trade-offs and the lack of spatial concordance will make achieving sustainability a very difficult task in an urbanizing world without limits.

The number of black and ethnic minority journalists is also low compared to their white counterparts. As Wiske and Horky acknowledge in their contribution, social media platforms have undermined the traditional gatekeeping role of legacy media and it is clear that it does enable traditionally marginalised groups to bypass legacy media and forge their own identities and discourse in the digital ecosphere. The tools of digital journalism, and in particular the various social media platforms now available, have increased both the immediacy and intimacy of the professional environment which sports journalists inhabit. The increased access to technical knowledge and equipment through which content can be shared has created space for amateur journalists of the type discussed by McEnnis. McEnnis has attempted to bring greater clarity to the comparison of the journalism skills possessed, and content produced, by bloggers and journalists through an analytical framework of the blogosphere.

Problematic harmful algal bloom is wide and tenacious, upsetting estuaries, coasts, and freshwaters system throughout the ecosphere, alongside disturbing human health, social life as well as national economy. Particular environmental factors supports growth of algal blooms, temperature always is significant when speaking about water-ecosystem. Disparity in temperature also found to affect the interaction of physical, chemical and biological parameters so it is equally imperative to consider effects of climate change, as change in climatic conditions supports unwanted growth of algae. Also inconsistency in climate equally contributes to the apparent increases of HAB, therefore effects of climate change needs to be totally comprehended along with development of the risk assessments and effective management of HABs. Increased HAB activities have a direct negative effect on ecosystems and they can frequently have a direct commercial impact on aquaculture, depending on the type of HAB. Causing economic impact also, as there is still insufficient evidence to resolve this problem. Therefore this chapter considers the effects of past, present and future climatic variability on HABs along with impacts of toxins release by them, on marine organism as well as human beings correspondingly, mitigation of HAB with help of suitable biological agents recognized.

The human-scape regarding earth, ecology, the environment, wilderness, or nature has changed substantially since the publication of Kevin DeLuca's Image Politics in 1999.1 The election to the Unite...

The concept of sharing economy has received rich attention in recent years. As a typical type of business model in the sharing economy, online short rent has been paid attention by both industry and academia. In this study, we find trust to be a critical determinant to the success of online short rent platforms. Based on three dimensions of trust theory, i.e., ability, benevolence and integrity, we investigate the factors influencing tenant’ willingness to participate in online short rent. We further examine the extent to which trust can influence the number of sales and comments of rooms listed at online short-term rent platforms, which can represent tenant’ willingness to participate in the sharing economy. The results show that the trust dimensions represented by a landlord’s personal characteristics have significant positive correlations with the number of sales and comments. For example, the real name authentication and the sesame score can represent the trust integrity; online replay ratio and the average confirmation time representing the trust sincerity, and the order acceptance ratio representing the trust ability. On this basis, we proposed some recommendations for both platforms and landlords. For example, the landlords can improve the tenants’ trust by authenticating his/her real name, replying actively and timely. For platforms, when they make housing list ranking rules, they can take the landlord’s personal attributes that may affect trust into consideration. Moreover, platforms can also allow landlords to supply value-added services to improve service quality and ultimately promote the virtuous circle of the platform ecosphere. Through conducting the empirical research on a particular application of the sharing economy, we aim to fill the research gap of this field in China and provide theoretical and practical contributions to the future development of online short rent.

Healthcare services and management plays an essential role in human society. Nevertheless, there is little attention to the issues of healthcare services, concerning multiple stakeholders involved, complicated relationships, and high management difficulty. This paper aims to explore the approach to optimize management of stakeholders, from the perspective of the service ecosystem. Based on the construction of stakeholders’ map in the healthcare service ecosystem, potential stakeholders are identified preliminarily. Moreover, drawing on Mitchell score-based approach, the stakeholders are classified. Eventually, with the distinguishing of leading, core and supporting populations based upon the classification results, the healthcare service ecosphere in the Chinese context is developed. This research provides a research framework for the positioning of stakeholder, formulation of management strategies and formation of interest balance mechanism in the healthcare service ecosystem. In addition, it also provides theoretical support and practical guidance for the optimization of healthcare services.

Dr. Mark Fellowes studied Zoology at Imperial College London (1995) and moved to Imperial’s Silwood Park campus to complete a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology (1998), followed by a brief post-doctoral position at the NERC Centre for Population Biology. He joined the University of Reading as a lecturer in Zoology (2000). Dr. Fellowes’ group work on human-wildlife interactions (People and Wildlife Research Group), asking how the choices people make have unforeseen consequences for species. Current projects include work on red kites, urban greening, cats and conservation, leopard ecology and urban butterfly population dynamics, and how the presence of mutualists affects plant-herbivore-enemy interactions in an urban context. The work of Dr. Fellowes’ research group has featured widely in national and international print and broadcast media, won a silver medal at the Chelsea Flower Show, and he has published two science books aimed at the general public