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Water management in mountainous regions faces significant challenges due to deep uncertainties arising from data scarcity, knowledge gaps, and the complex interplay of climate and socio-economic changes. While existing approaches focused on uncertainty reduction and water system optimization contribute to managing uncertainties, they often require probability distributions that can be difficult to obtain in data-scarce mountain regions. To address these challenges, we demonstrate the effectiveness of Exploratory Modeling and Analysis (EMA) in assessing water management strategies and identifying operational ranges that avoid future water scarcity. Through a case study in the complex and data-scarce Peruvian Andes, we employed EMA to run 12,000 simulations by 2050, incorporating deep uncertainties from climate and socio-economic scenarios, and hydrological modeling parameters. This analysis identified specific policy combinations demonstrating greater robustness across diverse scenarios and uncertainties. EMA explicitly identifies operational ranges of policies to avoid water scarcity but also highlights the conditions that might trigger policy failure. We also delve into the roles of the different factors used in EMA and their significance in water management applications. Our research illustrates that an exploratory hydrological modeling approach based on robust decision-making can foster a more informed decision-making process for long-term water adaptation in rapidly changing mountain regions under data scarcity and deep uncertainties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits discussions about the pursuit of a singular location for ethnographic research. Citing challenges to the fixity of location, from circulation of people to the impossibility of containing digital worlds, scholars have proposed multi-sited, multi-scalar, multi-modal and multi-sensorial ethnographies, advocating that the researcher 'follow the actor'. Drawing upon these innovations, this paper traces the affects generated in the process of following the actors as well as the consequent blurring of the division between the researcher and the researched so that they together constitute the category of 'actors' who co-produce the field. Using the example of an ethnography with young lower middle class women in Delhi, this paper deploys the researcher's experience of dislocation or unexpected shuttling in the field to develop 'dislocation' as a methodological and analytical strategy for studying marginalisation in the context of socio-economic change by embracing intersubjective relations, affects and partiality of knowledge in ethnographic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to analyse the current levels of women's participation in public social, economic, and political life and their position in decision-making processes in Kosovo. The paper deals with aspects related to the social perspective of women in society and the development of Albanian customary Law in Kosovo. To conduct this analysis, a descriptive analysis was conducted and statistics were presented in percentages. This study highlights the thoughts and evaluations of prominent Albanian anthropology contemporary researchers. focusing on relevant aspects of Albanian ethnocultural life, this study highlights women's importance in building a family, working, and social interaction. Women play a vital role in today's society; they obtain the best education and possess many skills and qualifications through which they provide satisfactory results in many dimensions. In addition, women have managed to occupy prestigious positions, lead, and be part of state institutions despite their challenges due to their lack of representation in decision-making positions. They now do not feel inferior to men, manage to make important decisions, and are even elected, as is the case of Kosovo, as a country's president. Furthermore, this study explores the status of women in society through the lens of codification of customary law, "The Code of Leke Dukagjini", as well as the socio-cultural, economic, and social changes in women's rights today in Kosovo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1821 war between the Palembang Sultanate and The Dutch ended with the transfer of power from Palembang to the Dutch colonial government. The Dutch colonial domination over Palembang resulted in bureaucratic and socio-economic changes. This historical study discusses the condition of Palembang after the Palembang War in the XIX-Early XX Century. Three main questions are addressed in this study: 1) What was the impact of the Menteng War on Palembang?, 2) What were the forms of Dutch Colonial Policy in Palembang in the XIX-Early XX Century?, 3) What changes occurred during the Dutch Colonial period in Palembang in the XIX-Early XX Century ?. The findings of this study show that since the Menteng War, the Sultan and his family had been exiled and some had moved to the interior. In addition, the Sultan gave up his power over the Palembang Sultanate. The handover of power was accompanied by a note that the Sultan would continue to enjoy the right to military honors, the right to his coat of arms and regalia, the right to an annual allowance, and the right to participate in civil and criminal trials. During the Palembang period under the domination of the Dutch colonial rule, there were various economic policies including the formation of an administrative system. The policy has an impact in the field of development and the social sector.

To cope with the impacts of shifts in food consumption patterns required to reduce environmental problems, farmers will have to adapt at farm level. We explore farmers’ intentions and preferred options to adapt in the metropolitan region of Vienna, Austria, in response to changed food demand among the Viennese population. In doing so, we consider changed food consumption patterns for (1) regional food, (2) organic food, and (3) meat in several scenarios. By applying the contingent behavior method to farmers in a survey, we assess farm adaptations with respect to production orientation (crop and livestock production patterns) and production mode (conventional or organic). The results show that, depending on the farm type, farmers tend to make specific contextual adaptations in production orientation. Accordingly, less specialized farmers are more likely to employ transformative adaptations. Most farmers who adapt production orientation, however, tend to employ incremental adaptations, i.e., extensions of what is already done. A logit model indicates that, among changed food consumption patterns, increasing regional food consumption is the most influential factor in farmers’ decision to adapt production orientation. Different adaptation paths were generated demonstrating the need for coordinated policy measures that consider the diversity of the different farm types to further encourage farm adaptations and reduce environmental risks associated with modern farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the existing body of scholarship and draws on original qualitative research that compares the party organizations of four major Turkish parties. By doing so, it highlights the causal relationships -mediated by political agency– between socioeconomic structures and party politics. Clientelism remained part and parcel of Turkish party politics and state-society relations since the transition to multi-party system in mid-20th century through AKP governments. However, important changes occurred in terms of who effectively supplied it, how, and to whom on the basis of broader socioeconomic transformations of Turkey. Political parties did not equally or homologously adjust and respond to social change. The AKP’s successful organizational responses to socioeconomic transformations had important implications for Turkey’s political regime. In pre-AKP clientelism, the state and powerful local notables within parties were key to the supply and distribution of clientelistic benefits. We argue that this contributed to the emergence of electoral democracy under tutelage of military-bureaucratic state actors who faced weak resistance from a fragmented civilian political class. In turn, during AKP governments, the locus of patronage shifted from state to party and from local notables to the AKP party machine: national machine politics. This helped the party to pacify military-bureaucratic tutelage and achieve dominance in party politics, but, the lack of a categorically pro-democratic party ideology and the paradoxes of national machine politics together led the party to transform Turkey to an electoral autocracy instead of developing democracy. Further, the AKP reshaped the Turkish state, which on the surface began to look like a party-state. By revising and providing nuance to this observation, we discuss the emergence of a popular broker-state mediating between national and local state institutions and local communities through its control over resources. We maintain that all these changes facilitated also the party’s internal decay. This generates important opportunities for opposition parties, who however continue to rely heavily on pre-AKP forms of clientelistic politics. Without refashioning their party organizations and party-voter linkages, they may not be able to defeat the AKP electorally, and even if they are, they may not be able to secure successful democratization. They also face difficulties of altering how they form clientelistic linkages with society without controlling state resources at national level.

The archipelago of Svalbard is a good example of an Arctic locale undergoing rapid changes on multiple levels. This contribution is a joint effort of three anthropologists with up-to-date ethnographic data from Svalbard (mostly Longyearbyen and Barentsburg) to frame and interpret interconnected changes. The processes impacting Svalbard are related to issues such as geopolitical interests, and increasing pressure by the Norwegian government to exercise presence and control over the territory. Our interpretations are based on a bottom-up approach, drawing on experiences living in the field. We identify three great ruptures in recent years – the avalanche of 2015, the gradual phasing out of mining enterprises and the COVID-19 pandemic – and show how they further impact, accelerate or highlight preexisting vulnerabilities in terms of socio-economic development, and environmental and climate change. We discuss the shift from coal mining to the industries of tourism, education, and research and development, and the resulting changed social and demographic structure of the settlements. Another facet is the complexity of environmental drivers of change and how they relate to the socio-economic ones. This article serves as an introductory text to the collection of articles published in Polar Record in 2021/2022 with the overarching theme "changing Svalbard". Issues discussed range from socio-economic change and its implications for local populations including identity of place, through tourism (value creation, mediation, human–environment relations, environmental dilemmas, balancing contradictory trends), to security and risk perception, and environmental and climate change issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the socio-economic and cultural transitions of Bozcaada, a small Turkish island in northern Aegean Sea, with a focus on seasonal changes. The local economy of the island has shifted from small-scale viniculture to domestic tourism over the last three decades. Currently, the local economy became dominated by domestic tourism businesses. Alongside this major change, the socio-cultural structure of the island has started to change with in-migration of middle-class urbanites. Although tourism enabled the local population to remain in the location in the light of the downfall of small-scale agricultural practices, it also brought about an unusual pattern of seasonal migration: temporary out migration of the static residents. Almost three quarter of the registered population on Bozcaada move to city centres in winter which is off-season for the local tourism. This not on only interrupts the socio-economic and socio-cultural life of the island but also put the local services in danger.

This study investigated the impacts of climate and socio-economic changes on water resources in the Beas-Sutlej river basin, Himalaya. Multiple-model ensembles of five climate models forced with the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario and the Shared Socio-economic Pathway SSP 1 were used. A validated Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) model of the basin was used for assessing the resulting sectoral water allocations. The results showed increasing runoff during the pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons, principally as the respective consequences of increased glaciers melting and higher rainfall. The finding also indicates that ensemble mean annual irrigation water demand will decrease by between 8 and 13% in Punjab due to the conversion of agricultural land to urban centres but will increase in Rajasthan by about 14%. These outcomes will be useful for the Bhakra and Beas Management Board in developing adaptation strategies to cope with any future water shortages that may occur in the basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biodiversity of wood-pastures depends on a balance between human interference and natural vegetation succession, which however is undergoing changes driven by socio-economic factors and climate change. Widely spread throughout Europe, wood-pastures were subject to either intensification or abandonment, leading to habitat segregation and loss. This is currently the fate of large Romanian remnant wood-pastures and climate warming further complicates management adaptation. In a series of simulation experiments, we compared the long-term effects of different land use and climate change scenarios on the habitat diversity of a wood-pasture in the Southern Carpathians (Fundata village, Romania). We tested livestock densities according to management guidelines, complemented with shrub-cutting in order to maintain a structurally-diverse landscape with high habitat values in the light of climate change. We found that significant losses of open pastureland and inclusion into forest, as well as landscape structural simplification and loss of complex habitats can be expected from climate warming, with more severe consequences in a hotter climate perspective. We argue for the re-establishment of the traditional multi-use of wood-pastures at optimum livestock densities in combination with low-intensity shrub-cutting, because our study demonstrated that traditional practices offer a balanced compromise between agricultural use and maintaining habitat mosaics that are robust to climate change.

Lake Ziway, the only freshwater lake in Ethiopia’s Central Rift Valley basin, has been the source for irrigation, floriculture, fish farming and domestic water supply in the region for the last few decades. This study examined the impacts of the planned future agricultural developments and climate change on the lake water balance by an integrated application of the Soil Water Assessment Tool and Water Evaluation and Planning models. The future projections of precipitation and temperature from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment, CORDEX-AFRICA, under the Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5 were used for the climate change impact assessment. Nine irrigation development and climate change scenarios were developed and simulated to examine the separate and combined impacts on the lake water balance and supply coverages. The study showed that the planned future agricultural developments could result in a mean annual lake water level decline by about 0.15 m, with a considerable reduction (27% to 32%) in the outflow to the downstream Bulbula River. Climate change could increase evaporation losses from the shallow lake resulting in a drastic decrease in the lake water level, especially during the dry season. It could also significantly reduce (by about 74%) the amount of water flowing out of the lake. The combined impacts of future development and climate change are likely to reduce the supply coverages of most of the competing demands. Approaches need to be studied to minimize the lake water evaporation losses and explore water demand/supply management options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Fast socio‐economic development in agriculture and urbanization resulted in increasing nutrient export by rivers, causing coastal eutrophication in China. In addition, climate change may affect hydrology, and as a result, nutrient flows from land to sea. This study aims at a better understanding of how future socio‐economic and climatic changes may affect coastal eutrophication in China. We modeled river export of total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) and phosphorus (TDP) in 2050 for six scenarios combining socio‐economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). We used the newly developed MARINA 2.0 (Model to Assess River Inputs of Nutrients to seAs) model. We found that global change can make coastal eutrophication control in China more difficult. In 2050 coastal waters may be considerably more polluted or considerably cleaner than today depending on the SSP‐RCP scenarios. By 2050, river export of TDN and TDP is 52% and 56% higher than in 2012, respectively, in SSP3‐RCP8.5 (assuming large challenges for sustainable socio‐economic development, and severe climate change). In contrast, river export of nutrients could be 56% (TDN) and 85% (TDP) lower in 2050 than in 2012 in SSP1‐RCP2.6 (assuming sustainable socio‐economic development, and low climate change). Climate change alone may increase river export of nutrients considerably through hydrology: We calculate 24% higher river export of TDN and 16% higher TDP for the SSP2 scenario assuming severe climate change compared to the same scenario with low climate change (SSP2‐RCP8.5 vs. SSP2‐RCP2.6). Policies and relevant technologies combining improved nutrient management and climate mitigation may help to improve water quality in rivers and coastal waters of China.

This study was conducted based on the socio-economic changes among South Malang’s residents due to the recognition of a new job opportunity, namely the role of migrant worker. The objective of this study is to describe the socio-economic changes in South Malang from a historical standpoint from the 1980s to 2015. In the 1980s, being a migrant worker as a job opportunity was popular, but in 2015, the number of migrant workers started to decrease drastically due to the changing of the economic direction. This study was conducted in eleven sub-districts in South Malang, which is known as the origin place of migrants, and where many of the residents have worked as migrant workers. The data used in this study was collected by interviewing and tracking the archives of the social economic development of the Malang District by way of various institutions. The results of this study indicate that the South Malang residents chose to work as migrant workers based on three main factors. First, are the internal factors that consist of the economic and infrastructure limitations. The external factor consist of the Oil Boom and Asian Miracle’s impact. Second, are the unproductive and costly environmental conditions which forced the residents to move out and find better life prospects. Third, is the socio-cultural context, where the society has only known about monetisation since the colonial era. The combination of these factors motivates the rural community of South Malang to work as migrant workers and this changed the socio-economic landscape of the region from plantations and subsistence agriculture to having a capitalist focus in the period 1980 to 2015. The positive impacts brought about by the presence of migrant workers in South Malang include economic progress, socio-economic welfare, and area improvement. On the other hand, the negative impacts include the increasing number of divorce cases, the cases of child abandonment, and the increase in the number of juvenile delinquency cases.

This article explores narratives of boredom among young lower middle class women employed in the bourgeoning services sector in India, across cafes, call centres, malls and offices. These young women cite boredom from 'sitting at home' as a reason to seek employment. Adopting Bourdieu's understanding of temporal relations as informed by 'subjective expectations' and 'objective chances', I place young women's temporal narratives in the context of post-1990 socio-economic change in India. I show that there is a shift in young lower middle class women's expectations, particularly on the basis of acquisition of higher education. By rendering the space of home – characterised by compulsion to participate in housework, pressure to get married and restrictions on mobility and friendships – as temporally insignificant, young women resist gender norms. Their narratives contribute to gendering scholarship on temporal disruptions in the context of socio-economic change, which is currently overdetermined by young men's experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, how a change occurred over time in the socio-economic structure and the information resources of the farmers living in the same region have been determined. To this end, as a continuation of a study conducted in 1989 with 78 farmers in 11 villages, in 2019 a survey study was carried out with the same 66 reachable farmers or their relatives in the same villages. In order to determine the change in the research area, a survey study was also conducted with 87 farmers. Cross-tables and one-way variance analysis ANOVA test were used in the analysis process of the data obtained from the surveys. Within the 30 years, it was determined that there was an increase in non-agricultural income of the farmers; in production patterns, they turned from industrial plants to grain production; the centers where the farmers resided had a tendency from village to county or provincial centers; livestock farming enterprises had declined; the aging of those engaged in agriculture and information resources became diversified with the improving technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast socio‐economic development in agriculture and urbanization resulted in increasing nutrient export by rivers, causing coastal eutrophication in China. In addition, climate change may affect hydrology, and as a result, nutrient flows from land to sea. This study aims at a better understanding of how future socio‐economic and climatic changes may affect coastal eutrophication in China. We modeled river export of total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) and phosphorus (TDP) in 2050 for six scenarios combining socio‐economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). We used the newly developed MARINA 2.0 (Model to Assess River Inputs of Nutrients to seAs) model. We found that global change can make coastal eutrophication control in China more difficult. In 2050 coastal waters may be considerably more polluted or considerably cleaner than today depending on the SSP‐RCP scenarios. By 2050, river export of TDN and TDP is 52% and 56% higher than in 2012, respectively, in SSP3‐RCP8.5 (assuming large challenges for sustainable socio‐economic development, and severe climate change). In contrast, river export of nutrients could be 56% (TDN) and 85% (TDP) lower in 2050 than in 2012 in SSP1‐RCP2.6 (assuming sustainable socio‐economic development, and low climate change). Climate change alone may increase river export of nutrients considerably through hydrology: We calculate 24% higher river export of TDN and 16% higher TDP for the SSP2 scenario assuming severe climate change compared to the same scenario with low climate change (SSP2‐RCP8.5 vs. SSP2‐RCP2.6). Policies and relevant technologies combining improved nutrient management and climate mitigation may help to improve water quality in rivers and coastal waters of China. Plain Language Summary: Fast socio‐economic development has resulted in increasing nutrient export by rivers, causing coastal eutrophication in China. In addition, climate change may affect river discharge, and as a result, nutrient flows from land to sea. We explored how future socio‐economic and climatic changes may affect coastal eutrophication in China. We found that in 2050 coastal waters may be considerably more polluted or considerably cleaner than today depending on the socio‐economic development and climate change. By 2050, river export of total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) and phosphorus (TDP) is 52% and 56% higher than in 2012, respectively, in a scenario assuming large challenges for sustainable socio‐economic development and severe climate change. In contrast, river export of nutrients could be 56% (TDN) and 85% (TDP) lower in 2050 than in 2012 in the scenario assuming sustainable socio‐economic development and low climate change. Climate change alone may increase river export of nutrients considerably: we calculate 24% higher river export of TDN and 16% higher TDP for a scenario assuming severe climate change compared to the same scenario with low climate change. Policies combining improved nutrient management and climate mitigation may help to improve water quality in rivers and coastal waters of China. Key Points: In 2050, rivers in China may be more polluted or cleaner, depending on socio‐economic and climatic changesClimate change may increase nutrient pollution in rivers and coastal eutrophication in ChinaCoastal eutrophication can be reduced by nutrient management and climate mitigation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biodiversity of wood-pastures depends on a balance between human interference and natural vegetation succession, which however is undergoing changes driven by socio-economic factors and climate change. Widely spread throughout Europe, wood-pastures were subject to either intensification or abandonment, leading to habitat segregation and loss. This is currently the fate of large Romanian remnant woodpastures and climate warming further complicates management adaptation. In a series of simulation experiments, we compared the long-term effects of different land use and climate change scenarios on the habitat diversity of a wood-pasture in the Southern Carpathians (Fundata village, Romania). We tested livestock densities according to management guidelines, complemented with shrub-cutting in order to maintain a structurally-diverse landscape with high habitat values in the light of climate change. We found that significant losses of open pastureland and inclusion into forest, as well as landscape structural simplification and loss of complex habitats can be expected from climate warming, with more severe consequences in a hotter climate perspective. We argue for the re-establishment of the traditional multi-use of wood-pastures at optimum livestock densities in combination with low-intensity shrubcutting, because our study demonstrated that traditional practices offer a balanced compromise between agricultural use and maintaining habitat mosaics that are robust to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to systematize issues related to recognizing and measuring the gentrification process using quantitative methods. The article discusses the definition of gentrification, its phases and types, factors influencing the creation and development of the process, as well as gentrification indicators, and it briefly reviews existing research of their use. Although there are Polish publications on the process of gentrification, there is a perceptible lack of comparison of gentrification indicators and the conditions in which they are used. Thanks to the selection of indicators that are appropriate for gentrification analysis in Polish cities and their testing in a case study of the gentrification process in Kraków, Poland, this article may help to create a methodology for empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Holistic water management approaches are essential under future climate and socio-economic changes, especially while trying to achieve inter-disciplinary societal goals such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of clean water, hunger eradication, clean energy and life on land. Assessing water resources within a water-food-energy-environment nexus approach enables the relationships between water-related sectors to be untangled while incorporating impacts of societal changes. We use a systems modelling approach to explore global change impacts on the nexus in the mid-21st century in a complex western Himalayan water resource system in India, considering a range of climate change and alternative socio-economic development scenarios. Results show that future socio-economic changes will have a much stronger impact on the nexus compared to climate change. Hydropower generation and environmental protection represent the major opportunities and limitations for adaptation in the studied system and should, thereby, be the focus for actions and systemic transformations in pursue of the SDGs. The emergence of scenario-specific synergies and trade-offs between nexus component indicators demonstrates the benefits that water resource systems models can make to designing better responses to the complex nexus challenges associated with future global change. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Water resource systems model is combined with nexus analysis. • Socio-economic impacts on nexus components are greater than climate change. • Complex scenario-specific synergies & trade-offs stress benefits of systems models • Achieving balanced nexus components supports multiple SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is not yet on track to meet the Paris Agreement climate change target of keeping global average temperature rise within 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Current greenhouse gas emission trends point to much more substantial warming, with possible increases of 4 °C or more in the long-term. This Special Issue describes findings from the IMPRESSIONS project which advanced the understanding of impacts of high-end climate change (defined as global mean temperatures > 2 °C above pre-industrial levels) and potential solutions for reducing these impacts through adaptation, mitigation and transformative actions. With stakeholders, the project developed a set of integrated climate and socio-economic scenarios and applied these to multi-sectoral impact models in five case studies: Hungary, Scotland, Iberia, Europe as a whole and Central Asia. This showed that benefits in some regions and sectors, such as increasing forest productivity in northern Europe, are offset by detrimental effects in others, such as severe water scarcity, heat stress and loss of productivity in southern Europe and parts of central and eastern Europe, and widespread flood damage. Adaptation and mitigation pathways were generated with stakeholders to address these impacts and identify integrated and transformative solutions. These highlighted the importance of shifting to sustainable lifestyles, good governance for sustainability and climate resilience, and new forms of integrated and sustainable resource management. The stakeholder-led approach of IMPRESSIONS ensured that the research was driven by the priorities of decision-makers, enabling significant co-learning and the identification of robust, innovative and effective solutions for addressing high-end climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Devolution is a promising tool to enhance forest management. The literature has discussed many factors that affect the outcomes of forest devolution policies; however, insufficient attention has been paid to the role of exogenous socio-economic changes. Using the longitudinal case study method, we focus on how socio-economic changes affect the effectiveness of forest devolution policies using a case from Southeast China. We find that in this case, although forest devolution succeeded in granting farmers sufficient forest rights, it failed to incentivize farmers to contribute to managing forests because of the dramatic changes in socio-economic contexts. Economic development and outmigration reduced farmers’ dependence on forest income, elevated the costs of silvicultural operations, and posed market risks, thereby reducing farmers’ enthusiasm about managing forests; outmigration also weakened community leadership and impeded the collective action of making forest investments. Eventually, socio-economic changes compromised the positive stimulus caused by forest devolution and contributed to the collective action dilemma of managing forests after the reform. We argue that operationalizing forest devolution in developing countries needs to consider the exogenous socio-economic changes that may enhance or counteract the effects of devolution policies, and that more autonomy should be granted to communities to make policies adaptative to their local socio-economic dynamics.

Copyright of Çankırı Karatekin University Journal of the Faculty of Economics & Administrative Sciences is the property of Cankiri Karatekin University, Faculty of Economics & Administrative Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Traditional farming landscapes in the temperate zone that have persisted for millennia can be exceptionally species-rich and are therefore key conservation targets. In contrast to Europe's West, Eastern Europe harbours widespread traditional farming landscapes, but drastic socio-economic and political changes in the twentieth century are likely to have impacted these landscapes profoundly. We reconstructed long-term land-use/cover and biodiversity changes over the last 150 years in a traditional farming landscape of outstanding species diversity in Transylvania. We used the Regional Estimates of Vegetation Abundance from Large Sites model applied to a pollen record from the Transylvanian Plain and a suite of historical and satellite-based maps. We documented widespread changes in the extent and location of grassland and cropland, a loss of wood pastures as well as a gradual increase in forest extent. Land management in the socialist period (1947-1989) led to grassland expansion, but grassland diversity decreased due to intensive production. Land-use intensity has declined since the collapse of socialism in 1989, resulting in widespread cropland abandonment and conversion to grassland. However, these trends may be temporary due to both ongoing woody encroachment as well as grassland management intensification in productive areas. Remarkably, only 8% of all grasslands existed throughout the entire time period (1860-2010), highlighting the importance of land-use history when identifying target areas for conservation, given that old-growth grasslands are most valuable in terms of biodiversity. Combining datasets from different disciplines can yield important additional insights into dynamic landscape and biodiversity changes, informing conservation actions to maintain these species-rich landscapes in the longer term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Higher Education & Science / Yüksekögretim ve Bilim Dergisi is the property of Zonguldak Bulent Ecevit Universitesi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the last two decades, socio-economic changes in Europe have had a significant effect on land cover changes, but it is unclear how this has affected mountain areas. We focus on two mountain areas: the eastern Italian Alps and the Romanian Curvature Carpathians. We classified land cover from Earth observation data after 1989 by using applied remote sensing techniques. We also analyzed socio-economic data and conducted semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders. In Italy, most of the land conversion processes followed long-term trends. In Romania, they took off with the sudden political changes after 1989. In both areas, forest expansion was the biggest, but potentially not the most consequential change. More consequential changes were urbanization in Italy and small-scale deforestation in Romania, since both increased the risk of hydro-meteorological hazards. Stakeholders’ views were an added value to the spatial analysis and vice versa. For example, stakeholders’ explanations resolved the seeming contradiction of decreased economic activity and increased urbanization (Italian site), as a consequence of secondary home building. Furthermore, spatial analysis revealed that urbanization in Romania was less significant with regard to consequences for the wider human-environment system than many stakeholders thought.

Global change is expected to have a strong impact in the Himalayan region. The climatic and orographic conditions result in unique modelling challenges and requirements. This paper critically appraises recent hydrological modelling applications in Himalayan river basins, focusing on their utility to analyse the impacts of future climate and socio-economic changes on water resource availability in the region. Results show that the latter are only represented by land use change. Distributed, process-based hydrological models coupled with temperature-index melt models are predominant. The choice of spatial discretisation is critical for model performance due to the strong influence of elevation on meteorological variables and snow/ice accumulation and melt. However, the sparsity and limited reliability of point weather data, and the biases and low resolution of gridded datasets, hinder the representation of the meteorological complexity. These data limitations often limit the selection of models and the quality of the outputs by forcing the exclusion of processes that are significant to the local hydrology. The absence of observations for water stores and fluxes other than river flows prevents multi-variable calibration and increases the risk of equifinality. The uncertainties arising from these limitations are amplified in climate change analyses and, thus, systematic assessment of uncertainty propagation is required. Based on these insights, transferable recommendations are made on directions for future data collection and model applications that may enhance realism within models and advance the ability of global change impact assessments to inform adaptation planning in this globally important region.

This study examines whether the medium-term impact of rail transit on development near the transit stations differs if it is built in areas which are largely undeveloped (greenfield sites) as opposed to areas which have a certain level of development (infill sites) after a period of five to ten years. Hong Kong, a metropolitan city committed to rail-based transit-oriented development (RTOD), has been chosen to examine this main research question. Data related to changes in the population and employment size, development intensity, detailed land use pattern, and travel behavior of people living around transit stations along two railway lines (one primarily running through greenfield sites and the other running through infill sites), with both having an alignment running from the city’s urban core to the periphery and built in the mid-2000s, were collected and compared. The analysis provides some useful evidence about the actual impact of RTOD under different urban settings. Infill site development has indeed been more successful in re-generating employment growth, housing new population, or both and also has a more healthy mix of land uses. In greenfield sites where the establishment of transit infrastructure preceded urban development, RTOD provided the opportunity to reshape the built environment and introduce more innovative planning concepts like “comprehensive development”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud unveiled Saudi Vision 2030 (The National Transformation Programme, 25 April 2016) a great deal of analysis has focused on the potential impact of Vision 2030 at the national level. Significantly, Saudi Vision 2030, which promises a better future and better governance, is raising hopes and expectations amongst young well-educated Saudis. Nevertheless, how has Saudi Vision 2030 been interpreted by young educated male Saudis many of whom are struggling to enter the labour market at a time of austerity and economic uncertainty? This paper discusses young male perceptions of Saudi Vision 2030 including their expectations and hopes for the Vision. In fact, an understanding of how young Saudis perceive Vision 2030 is not only pertinent in the Saudi national context (or indeed multiple Saudi domestic contexts), but also has wider regional relevance considering oil-market developments and economic policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global land system is facing unprecedented pressures from growing human populations and climatic change. Understanding the effects these pressures may have is necessary to designing land management strategies that ensure food security, ecosystem service provision and successful climate mitigation and adaptation. However, the number of complex, interacting effects involved makes any complete understanding very difficult to achieve. Nevertheless, the recent development of integrated modelling frameworks allows for the exploration of the co-development of human and natural systems under scenarios of global change, potentially illuminating the main drivers and processes in future land system change. Here, we use one such integrated modelling framework (the CLIMSAVE Integrated Assessment Platform) to investigate the range of projected outcomes in the European land system across climatic and socio-economic scenarios for the 2050s. We find substantial consistency in locations and types of change even under the most divergent conditions, with results suggesting that climate change alone will lead to a contraction in the agricultural and forest area within Europe, particularly in southern Europe. This is partly offset by the introduction of socioeconomic changes that change both the demand for agricultural production, through changing food demand and net imports, and the efficiency of agricultural production. Simulated extensification and abandonment in the Mediterranean region is driven by future decreases in the relative profitability of the agricultural sector in southern Europe, owing to decreased productivity as a consequence of increased heat and drought stress and reduced irrigation water availability. The very low likelihood (< 33% probability) that current land use proportions in many parts of Europe will remain unchanged suggests that future policy should seek to promote and support the multifunctional role of agriculture and forests in different European regions, rather than focusing on increased productivity as a route to agricultural and forestry viability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mobile phone has spread recently in rural Benin as one of the new technologies most widely adopted by Fulani pastoralists, who have generally been regarded as hostile to novelty. This article analyses the logic and forms of appropriation of mobile phones in connection with the socio-economic transformation that accompany it. An ethnographic approach was used, involving individual interviews with participant observation in various settings where mobile phones are used by Fulani pastoralists to meet challenges they face in their daily lives. It appears from the study that the mobile phone, while bringing significant changes in the livelihood strategies of pastoralists, especially in terms of social connectedness, has at the moment limited economic impacts due to various factors including accessibility and ease of use. With regard to the mass adoption of mobile phones by pastoralists, we argue that socio-economic continuity and change are to be regarded not as opposites but as interconnected realities, and this needs to be taken into account to improve development policies in connection with pastoral communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was conducted in Tonk district of Rajasthan in order to ascertain the profile characteristics of livestock farmers. A total of 120 livestock farmers were selected as respondents from 8 selected villages of 4 tehsils of the district. The study revealed that majority of the farmers were middle aged, literate, having medium sized family and medium level of possessing material with agriculture as primary and animal husbandry as subsidiary occupation. Majority were having small herd strength with 25 years of farming experience, Rs. 4600-8000 monthly income from livestock and medium level of extension contact, mass media exposure, economic and achievement motivation. Findings indicated that majority of the livestock farmers had low to medium profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was conducted following exploratory research design to ascertain the profile characteristics of livestock farmers. Findings indicated that majority of the farmers had low to medium profile. Hence efforts should be undertaken by the Government, Veterinary Universities and other extension agencies in providing information on livestock farming practices so that they could bring about change in their living and improve the socio-economic status of livestock farmers. [Vet. World 2010; 3(5.000): 215-218]

The recent financial and economic crisis had substantial but spatially differentiated impacts on growth. However, there is still a lot left to be understood about the local aspects of the crisis. One of these aspects is its socio-economic consequences. This paper investigates local socio-economic change to Danish towns from 2008 to 2013, with a focus on the impact of local labour market (LLM) structures on change. Socio-economic change in towns is measured both directly as mean income and employment growth, and indirectly as population and human capital growth. The paper relies on micro-data and uses robust regression to generate results. Several findings are presented, but the two main conclusions are: first, the LLM structures of towns still influence local socio-economic development; and, second, towns experience better socio-economic development if they are in close proximity to a larger labour market and/or have a large ratio of commuters in the working population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]