Disparate history of transgressing planetary boundaries for nutrients

| openaire: EC/H2020/819202/EU//SOS.aquaterra Funding Information: VS and MP received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 819202), VS from the Academy of Finland funded project TREFORM (grant no. 339834) and MP from the Erling Persson Family Foundation. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The AuthorsThe activation of nitrogen and phosphorus for food production has caused the transgression of the safe operating space of the Earth system. However, countries differ in the use of their fair share of global nutrient activation, causing a disparity that has severe implications for the environment, land degradation and food security. Both the impact on Earth system processes as well as productivity gains and losses and the consequent socio-economic impacts depend on past use. Therefore, in this study, we examined how the activation of nitrogen and phosphorus for food production in relation to countries’ fair shares has evolved globally. The first transgressions of the planetary boundaries occurred in 1970 and 1964 for nitrogen and phosphorus, respectively. Since then, activation has increased 160% and 200%, respectively. Further, notable differences were observed between countries, in which high-income regions such as western Europe and North America had the highest cumulative transgression and sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania had the greatest deficit relative to their fair shares. The main driver for transgression was economic growth rather than population growth or the relatively recent fertiliser subsidies. Although the use of fertilisers has decreased in areas with previous high use, past usage will slow down the effects of fertiliser reductions on ecosystem recovery and maintain a legacy of inequality. Consequently, in addition to reductions in nitrogen and phosphorus activation, recycling accumulated nutrients to regions operating below their fair shares should be explored and economically enabled in order to secure Earth system functioning while eradicating hunger.Peer reviewe

A Comparative Analysis of Temporal Changes in Urban Land Use Resorting to Advanced Remote Sensing and GIS in Karaj, Iran and Luxor, Egypt

As many developing countries, Iranian and Egyptian cities are growing in population and physically expanding at a high rate. The uncontrolled scattered construction causes loss of orchards, agricultural lands as well as spatial chaos, traffic congestion and increasing costs of municipal services. As a consequence, this also induces a loss of identity and social characteristics of neighborhoods, poor quality of life and degradation of natural landscapes, etc. To face with these issues, it is important to quantify trend and the rate of land cover conversion in order to support plan for a rational land use policy. The main purpose of this research is to set up low cost and reliable tools useful for the monitoring of the urban growth. In this paper, multi-temporal satellite data (Landsat TM 1984, Landsat TM 1998 and L8 2016) have been analyzed for investigating and assessing the effects of the urban expansion in Karaj (Iran) and Luxor (Egypt). According to the results obtained from change detection analysis, both of the investigated sites clearly exhibit an increasing trend in urban expansion much more evident in the case of Luxor than Karaj area. The integration between remote sensing and GIS and the joint use of analytical methods for quantitative-qualitative assessment enable the identification of changes and the mapping of new planned and unplanned urban construction. The availability of timely information free available from NASA web site and the data processing herein adopted provide useful information for supporting planning and sustainable developing policies

Analyzing effective factors on urban growth management focusing on remote sensing indices in Karaj, Iran

Although the growth of cities is a positive phenomenon, but the problem is an uncontrolled and unbalanced growth of cities. In order to control this growth, different policies in different countries have suggested. These policies donâ\u80\u99t always have the same content and they can have different effects on the city and its surroundings. Like many developing countries, Iranian cities rapidly growing in terms of population and physically expanding at a high rate. This research investigates the factors that account for urban growth management in Iranian cities. Karaj metropolis has been studied as a case. Karaj has been experiencing significantly higher rates in the total area of urban environments mostly due to its socioeconomic attractions over four decades ago. To evaluate the dimensions of urban growth management in Karaj city, Factor analysis was used in form of classified sampling. Furthermore, in order to describe the variables in the districts of Karaj city, the COPRAS method is used. Finally, differences between urban area and indices of built-up area were analyzed. Results show that five factors effect on urban growth management in Iranian cities; policies and rules factor, physical, economic, social and environmental factors