The CLAG Nitrogen Network: data report

This report aims to provide a summary of the data collected under the DETR critical loads for freshwaters programme at a network of upland freshwater sites in Great Britain, the CLAG Nitrogen Network. No interpretation of the data is provided here: this report is intended to be used for data reference purposes only. Previous and planned applications of the data are detailed below

Battlegrounds of environmental change

The Thames catchment encompasses one of Europe’s largest cities, the UK’s principal aquifer, an extensive zone of coastal interaction and much else. It presents a unique conjunction of geological, hydrogeological, environmental and socio-economic factors that are intrinsically linked by the effects of environmental change and the pressures of developmen

Global environmental change and sustainable development

The UC3M group of “Global environmental change and sustainable development: social trends and emerging policies” offers its experience on the following fields: • Sustainable Development. • Environmental Education. • Agenda 21. • Sustainable Cities and Sustainable Land Planning. • Environmental Impact Evaluation. • Sustainable Transport and Mobility. • Social Management and Saving Policies (energy, waste, water, noise). Within this framework, the work of this research group aims to: 1) The analysis and diagnosis of how Global Environmental Change and Sustainable Development can affect each specific organization. 2) The proposal of solutions. 3) The management of their implementation. 4) Instruction and training. These objectives are tackled from their basic study to their applied development through reports and consultancy services

Compound geohazards : planning for environmental change

This research sets out to determine the potential effects of climate change on geohazards in the UK and focuses on one of the foremost natural hazards affecting the UK — flooding. In addition to the immediate effects of flooding, areas that are prone to flooding could suffer further problems, accentuating factors such as subsidence and heave (due to the shrink-swell of clays) and reactivation of landslides. The geohazards within these potential flood zones will be heightened as a result. With this in mind, this research focuses on the potential effects of surface-water flooding (initially using the BGS Geological Indicators of Flooding dataset) on natural geohazards in the UK (as represented by BGS GeoSure layers)

The gender dimensions of environmental change : an exploration of the experiences and perceptions of rural men and women in Zimbabwe : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand

Processes of environmental change have taken place for centuries both as a result of natural variability and anthropogenic forces. As a concept however, environmental change continues to be used narrowly to refer to environmental changes which are biophysical in nature, and mostly those with global precedence. In recent times incidences of environmental change have become more complex as new patterns of change are threatening the livelihoods of those living in developing countries, undoing many development gains. As such, there is an increasing desire to understand the implications of environmental changes, particularly for those whose livelihoods are natural resource dependent, many of whom live in rural areas, and many of whom are poor. Despite this growing interest, rural people and especially the rural poor are little seen or heard; their environmental change experiences are thus misunderstood, and solutions proposed do not take into consideration the local context or experiences. There remains also a normative perspective which positions women as automatically vulnerable to environmental change, specifically vis-à-vis men. In doing so women’s experiences of environmental change are homogenised and men’s experiences are rendered invisible. Drawing on the case of Zimbabwe this study critically considers the experiences and perceptions of rural men and women to environmental change so as to ascertain gendered impacts and differential vulnerabilities. To capture fully the subjective lived experience of both men and women to environmental change, this study lends itself to qualitative research. Thus research methods such as semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and gender analysis are central to the methodology. In terms of findings, this study argues against looking at environmental change as a technocratic subject accessible only from a global frame and accessed only by a technocratic few, proposing that the people experiencing environmental change at a local level should determine the environmental changes of communal concern. This study also highlights the importance of understanding the vulnerabilities of rural men and women within a well-conceived notion of context, taking into account rural disadvantage resulting from colonialism, and the current Zimbabwean crisis

Environmental Change, Protest, and Havens of Environmental Degradation: Evidence from Asia

As has been made clear by the other contributions to this debate, much of one’s analysis of the question of “pollution havens” depends upon how one frames the question. While I do not wish to repeat the arguments that have been made by the preceeding authors, I would like to suggest that it is useful to characterize the literature in economics on pollution havens in terms of its choices among two independent variables and three dependent variables. In seeking to identify which environmental factors might influence the global economy, scholars have generally focused on either expenditures on pollution abatement or on the relative “dirtiness” of different industries (generally measured in terms of toxic emissions). In order to determine the effects of these causal factors, most authors have examined intercountry differences in industrial structure, trade flows, and foreign direct investment (FDI). It is thus posible to place much of the literature within a 2x3 grid based on the choices made within this menu of independent and dependent variables. Lucas, Wheeler, and Hettige, for instance, have studied the effect of toxic emissions on industrial structure, while Tobey has investigated the effects of environmental compliance costs on patterns of trade.1 It is important to recognize, however, that the questions posed within this grid do not exhaust the research questions that are relevant to the study of pollution havens. A broader framing of the question underlying the debate might go as follows: to what extent do the environmental transformations associated with particular sectors influence their international siting patterns? Posing the question in this way would move the debate away from the questions of intentionality and regulatory costs addressed in this issue by David Wheeler (while still, of course, encompassing them) and towards the consequences, anticipated and otherwise, of environmental degradation. This article attempts to address new aspects of this broader question by departing from the existing literature in two ways. First, I address the consequences for international siting patterns of another aspect of environmental transformations: environmentally-oriented protest. While protest often results in tightened regulatory conditions, it also affects firms by creating non-regulatory difficulties in the actual siting and construction of plants and by generating uncertainty about future regulation. The connections between environmentally-oriented protest and the actual environmental problems caused by different sectors are not, of course, air-tight; it is possible that protesters are in fact mistaken about the environmental degradation that they perceive industry to be causing. In this article, I will not address this question, other than to note that a similar association of protest with environmental damage is made in much of the pollution havens literature in economics.2 Second, while most studies of pollution havens have taken aggregate statistics to be the relevant data in the determination of what drives siting decisions, I take a more phenomenological approach by examining the actual statements of firm representatives. The cases I examine provide examples of firms indicating that headaches over environmental protest are a primary factor in motivating their FDI. I attempt to advance this more political and phenomenological study through an analysis of two cases int he political economy of Japan’s relations with Southeast Asia. The first case takes up the possibility that Japan’s FDI to Southeast Asia during the 1970s was motivated in part by the dsire (on the part of both firms and the Japanese state) to escape from anti-pollution protest in Japan. The second asks whether the siting of overseas industrial tree plantations (particularly plantations of the species Eucalyptus camaldeulensis) supplying the Japanese market for wood chips and paper pulp has been influenced by the environmental problems whose plantations cause. The cases present useful contrasts for the study of pollution export, varying as they do in time (the 1970s for manufacturing FDI, the 1980s and 1990s for plantation forestry), sector (manufacturing vs. forestry), and the location of protest (Japan vs. Southeast Asia). However, they are similar in that each case has seen protest against environmental problems and clear statements by firms that the desire to escape that protest was influencing their siting decisions. While the first case seems to be a fairly straightforward example of firms searching for pollution havens, the second requires more interpretation and indeed presents a somewhat counterintuitive result

Environmental Education in the Public Sphere: Comparing Practice with Psychosocial Determinants of Behavior and Societal Change

Environmental education of the general public is widely practiced by a variety of types of organizations. Dedicated environmental groups, nature centers, zoos, parks, and other entities work on issues ranging from local threats to air, water, and habitat to global problems such as climate change and deforestation. A great deal of those efforts focus largely on providing information and raising awareness. Behavioral research and change models, however, suggest other factors are important in order to effect change on an individual, regional, or societal level. An analysis of environmental education in practice, examining methods and materials in use, showed the degree to which there were alignments between the content and psychosocial determinants of change, as well as how actions related to change theories. This mixed-methods study of groups doing environmental education in the public sphere compared their practices with the factors shown to help predict pro-environmental behavior, why people change their actions and habits. Through this survey research and multiple case study, increased knowledge and understanding can help inform future efforts at change on critical local, national, and world environmental problems. It can also lead to further research into environmental education, using behavior and change theories

Urbanization: A Critical Human Dimension of Global Environmental Change

Urbanization is a global phenomenon that has transformed and continues to alter landscapes and the ways in which societies function and develop. For this issue of UGEC Viewpoints, the editors collected case-studies presented at the Open Meeting that span across regions and themes: from Australia and the United States, as well as the less developed nations in Africa, megacities of Asia such as Dhaka, Bangladesh and Delhi, India, vulnerable coastal areas of the Yucatan Peninsula, and the largest rainforest in the world, the Brazilian Amazon. Currently, more than half of the world's population lives in cities; the United Nations projects that by 2030 the world will advance to the 60% urbanization threshold. Rapid urbanization effects will not only be present within the immediate locations (cities and their metropolitan areas), but will be experienced regionally and globally. The UGEC project seeks to better understand these implications and the complex dynamic systems of urban areas that affect and are affected by global environmental change (e.g., climate change, natural disasters, loss of biodiversity, freshwater ecosystem decline, desertification, and land degradation). Several commonalities are readily identifiable in the authors' research, some of which include an attention to the roles of the governance structures within cities; the functioning of ecosystem services, water, food, and sanitation service provision; as well as the role of research in assisting the successful development of sustainable urban plans and policies

Environmental leaders and pioneers: agents of change?

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article distinguishes between states acting as environmental leaders or pioneers. While leaders usually actively seek to attract followers, this is not normally the case for pioneers. Dependent on their internal and external ambitions, states may take on the position of a laggard, pioneer, pusher or symbolic leader. When doing so, states employ various combinations of types and styles of leadership or pioneership. Four types of leadership/pioneership–structural, entrepreneurial, cognitive and exemplary–and two styles of leadership/pioneership–transactional/humdrum and transformational/heroic–are used to assess leaders and pioneers. The novel analytical framework put forward is intended to generate greater conceptual clarity, which is urgently needed for more meaningful theory-guided cumulative empirical research on leaders and pioneers