324 research outputs found

    Natural and Technological Hazards in Urban Areas

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    Natural hazard events and technological accidents are separate causes of environmental impacts. Natural hazards are physical phenomena active in geological times, whereas technological hazards result from actions or facilities created by humans. In our time, combined natural and man-made hazards have been induced. Overpopulation and urban development in areas prone to natural hazards increase the impact of natural disasters worldwide. Additionally, urban areas are frequently characterized by intense industrial activity and rapid, poorly planned growth that threatens the environment and degrades the quality of life. Therefore, proper urban planning is crucial to minimize fatalities and reduce the environmental and economic impacts that accompany both natural and technological hazardous events

    Hands-on Science. Celebrating Science and Science Education

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    The book herein aims to contribute to the improvement of Science Education in our schools and to an effective implementation of a sound widespread scientific literacy at all levels of society

    Colonial and Post-colonial Rangeland Enclosures amid Climate Uncertainty: The Case of Maasai Pastoralists of Kajiado County, Kenya

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    The enclosure of common resources in Kenya's rangelands became more pronounced after Kenya's independence because of adverse land reform policies, which proved ineffective in addressing the prior injustices of the forceful dispossession of Maasai pastoralists by the British colonial authority. The ongoing enclosure of common resources by both state and private capital for economic gain has left the herder community exposed to the adverse effects of climate change. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the adaptive capacity of Maasai to the intersecting stresses of climate change and resource enclosure. It examines the implications of common-resource enclosures for the Maasai livestock economy and the coping mechanisms they have undertaken to build adaptive capacity to changing climate conditions. The analysis employs an ethnographic approach using interviews and participant observation to collect data from field research in Ildamat-Oloyiankalani, Kajiado County, Kenya. The study is embedded in the daily herding and resource foraging practices of Maasai that took place during the prolonged drought period of 2017 and 2018 and in their ongoing experience of the intersecting stresses of climate change and common-resource enclosures. The study unveiled three major insights. First, that a tightening grip over common resources by private property growth has undermined the consensus-based democratic governance of resources, disrupted herders' access rights and exposed them to climate risks. Second, that pastoralists developed collective grazing arrangements and acquired exclusive grazing rights as mechanisms to improve herd mobility and resource access to cope with the intersecting stresses of climate change and the enclosure of grazing commons. Lastly, the study found that the implications of growing resource pressure and climate risk have driven pastoralists to actively assemble to disrupt further enclosure of their commons and to protect their rights. These insights confirm the importance of pastoralists' access rights to rangeland resources. In conclusion, the thesis broadly argues that facilitating extractive capitalism by disrupting pastoralists' access rights through common-resource enclosures adversely affects their ability to cope with the intersecting stresses of climate and environmental change. Therefore, it is critical that resource governing policies facilitate the democratisation of grazing and water resources to protect the commons from further enclosure and to ensure equitable access. This would restore the commons approach and protect the remaining herders' access rights, lowering their vulnerability to the intersecting stresses of climate and environmental change

    Natural or anthropogenic variability? A long-term pattern of the zooplankton communities in an ever-changing transitional ecosystem

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    The Venice Lagoon is an important site belonging to the Italian Long-Term Ecological Research Network (LTER). Alongside with the increasing trend of water temperature and the relevant morphological changes, in recent years, the resident zooplankton populations have also continued to cope with the colonization by alien species, particularly the strong competitor Mnemiopsis leidyi. In this work, we compared the dynamics of the lagoon zooplankton over a period of 20 years. The physical and biological signals are analyzed and compared to evaluate the hypothesis that a slow shift in the environmental balance of the site, such as temperature increase, sea level rise (hereafter called “marinization”), and competition between species, is contributing to trigger a drift in the internal equilibrium of the resident core zooplankton. Though the copepod community does not seem to have changed its state, some important modifications of structure and assembly mechanisms have already been observed. The extension of the marine influence within the lagoon has compressed the spatial gradients of the habitat and created a greater segregation of the niches available to some typically estuarine taxa and broadened and strengthened the interactions between marine species

    A review of commercialisation mechanisms for carbon dioxide removal

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    The deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) needs to be scaled up to achieve net zero emission pledges. In this paper we survey the policy mechanisms currently in place globally to incentivise CDR, together with an estimate of what different mechanisms are paying per tonne of CDR, and how those costs are currently distributed. Incentive structures are grouped into three structures, market-based, public procurement, and fiscal mechanisms. We find the majority of mechanisms currently in operation are underresourced and pay too little to enable a portfolio of CDR that could support achievement of net zero. The majority of mechanisms are concentrated in market-based and fiscal structures, specifically carbon markets and subsidies. While not primarily motivated by CDR, mechanisms tend to support established afforestation and soil carbon sequestration methods. Mechanisms for geological CDR remain largely underdeveloped relative to the requirements of modelled net zero scenarios. Commercialisation pathways for CDR require suitable policies and markets throughout the projects development cycle. Discussion and investment in CDR has tended to focus on technology development. Our findings suggest that an equal or greater emphasis on policy innovation may be required if future requirements for CDR are to be met. This study can further support research and policy on the identification of incentive gaps and realistic potential for CDR globally
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