scholarly journals Human–nature connectedness and other relational values are negatively affected by landscape simplification: insights from Lower Saxony, Germany

Author(s):  
Maraja Riechers ◽  
Berta Martín-López ◽  
Joern Fischer

AbstractLandscape simplification is a worldwide phenomenon that impacts biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Humans benefit greatly from nature’s contributions to people in both material and immaterial ways, yet landscape simplification can undermine these contributions. Landscape simplification can have negative consequences, for example, for human–nature connectedness and other relational values. Major and rapid land-use change, together with a declining appreciation of nature by individuals and societies, in turn, could cause a downward spiral of disconnections. Our empirical research combined a comprehensive assessment of five dimensions of human–nature connectedness with the lens of relational values to assess how these are influenced by landscape simplification. Focusing on two rural landscapes with differing agricultural development in Lower Saxony (Germany), we conducted 34 problem-centred interviews. We found that landscape simplification, especially if rapid, negatively influenced human–nature connectedness and particular relational values such as social relations, social cohesion or cultural identity. We postulate that human–nature connectedness might have a balancing influence on preserving relational values, buffering negative impacts of landscape simplification. Losing connections to nature could potentially foster conflicts among actors with different values. We conclude that combining the notions of human–nature connectedness and relational values can generate valuable insights and may help to uncover new ways to foster sustainability.

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (11) ◽  
pp. 2601-2612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maraja Riechers ◽  
Ágnes Balázsi ◽  
Lydia Betz ◽  
Tolera S. Jiren ◽  
Joern Fischer

Abstract Context The global trend of landscape simplification for industrial agriculture is known to cause losses in biodiversity and ecosystem service diversity. Despite these problems being widely known, status quo trajectories driven by global economic growth and changing diets continue to lead to further landscape simplification. Objectives In this perspective article, we argue that landscape simplification has negative consequences for a range of relational values, affecting the social-ecological relationships between people and nature, as well as the social relationships among people. A focus on relational values has been proposed to overcome the divide between intrinsic and instrumental values that people gain from nature. Results We use a landscape sustainability science framing to examine the interconnections between ecological and social changes taking place in rural landscapes. We propose that increasingly rapid and extreme landscape simplification erodes human-nature connectedness, social relations, and the sense of agency of inhabitants—potentially to the point of severe erosion of relational values in extreme cases. We illustrate these hypothesized changes through four case studies from across the globe. Leaving the links between ecological, social-ecological and social dimensions of landscape change unattended could exacerbate disconnection from nature. Conclusion A relational values perspective can shed new light on managing and restoring landscapes. Landscape sustainability science is ideally placed as an integrative space that can connect relevant insights from landscape ecology and work on relational values. We see local agency as a likely key ingredient to landscape sustainability that should be actively fostered in conservation and restoration projects.


2021 ◽  
pp. 31-41
Author(s):  
С.А. РОДОМАНСКАЯ

Актуальность данных исследований обусловлена недостаточной проработанностью механизма управления процессами в сфере обеспечения продовольственной безопасности территории, что значительно снижает эффективность их регулирования и приводит к нерациональному использованию ресурсов (природных, трудовых и др.), возникновению негативных последствий и угроз. В рамках данных исследований разработан управленческий цикл продовольственной безопасности территории в виде структурно-функциональной модели, которая, наряду с субъектным и объектным блоками, состоит из комплекса взаимосвязанных подсистем. Оценку регионального уровня продовольственной безопасности предполагается проводить с помощью общепринятых критериев и показателей самообеспеченности, независимости (зависимости), достаточности, доступности и качества продукции. Основу метода моделирования в цикле составляет неотъемлемая его часть – наличие условий проверки, что не только способствует изучению сложившейся ситуации в продовольственной системе, но и позволяет спрогнозировать развитие этой системы при заданных условиях в кратко-, средне- и долгосрочной перспективе. В статье определено основное содержание, смысл и функциональное назначение подсистем, которые в совокупности создают все предпосылки для проведения системного мониторинга, выработки управленческих решений, определения текущей ситуации в обеспечении продовольственной безопасности и возможной координации действий в сфере ее обеспечения. Разработанный цикл имеет практическую значимость при выборе взаимоприемлемых мер и действий по устранению или смягчению критических ситуаций в сфере продовольственной безопасности. В данном цикле для каждой подсистемы определена специфика географических знаний, объединенных пространственным аспектом исследования. В заключение отмечается, что логическая взаимосвязь подсистем в цикле позволила получить целостное представление о потребностях управления продовольственной системой территории в геоэкологических знаниях, которые имеют экспертное и предметное значение. The relevance of these studies is due to the insufficient elaboration of the mechanism for managing food processes in the field of ensuring food security of the territory, which significantly reduces the effectiveness of their regulation and, in turn, leads to the irrational use of resources (natural, labor, etc.) and the emergence of negative consequences and threats. Within the framework of these studies, a management cycle of food security of the territory has been developed in the form of a structural and functional model, which, along with the subject and object blocks, consists of a complex of interconnected subsystems. As a method for assessing conditions, the use of modeling and foresight methods, an integral assessment of the level of food security and methods of strategic planning, in particular the situational method of SWOT analysis, is proposed. The assessment of the level of food security at the regional level is supposed to be carried out using generally accepted criteria and indicators of self-sufficiency, independence (dependence), sufficiency, availability and quality of products. The basis of the modeling method in the cycle is its integral part – the presence of conditions for checking the situation, which contributes not only to the study of the current situation in the food system, but also makes it possible to predict the development of this system under given conditions in the short, medium and long term. The article defines the main content, meaning and functional purpose of the subsystems, which together create all the prerequisites for conducting system monitoring, developing management decisions to enhance food security resulting from the iterative food process, to determine the current situation in ensuring food security and possible coordination of actions in the sphere of ensuring food security. The developed cycle is of practical importance in choosing mutually acceptable measures and actions to eliminate or mitigate critical situations in the field of food security or to enhance food security. In this cycle, for each subsystem, the specificity of geographical knowledge of natural-social relations, united by the spatial aspect of the study, is determined. In conclusion, it is noted that the logical interconnection of subsystems in the cycle made it possible to obtain a holistic idea of ​​the needs of managing the food system of the territory in geoecological knowledge, which have expert and substantive significance.


Author(s):  
Yury Nikolaevich Kalyuzhny

The subject of this research is the legal norms and scientific sources that characterize the ideological grounds of ensuring traffic safety. The object of this research is the social relations that determine the framework for ensuring traffic safety. Examination of the normative legal acts and scientific literature, allows conducting a comprehensive analysis of ideological grounds of ensuring traffic safety. The author indicates certain scientific problems of legislative regulation of the sphere under review, and resumes that the presence of state ideology within the system of legal norms is inevitable. The conclusion is formulated that the ideological grounds of ensuring traffic safety are based on the system of views, ideas, and value orientations from the perspective of personal, social, and state levels. The author claims that the state uses law as the official ideology. The ideological grounds of ensuring traffic safety, associated with implementation of state policy in indicated field of research, represent legal forms of ensuring traffic safety, which contribute to the perception of law by personal and public legal awareness, which positively impacts legal mentality of the society, reducing the risk of traffic accidents and their negative consequences. The novelty of this work consists in the comprehensive analysis of theoretical legal and organizational aspects that characterize the ideological grounds of ensuring traffic safety, determine controversial issues in legislative regulation of the system of views, ideas, and value orientations for ensuring traffic safety from the perspective of personal, social, and state levels.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evi Petersen ◽  
Alan Page Fiske ◽  
Thomas W. Schubert

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 3096
Author(s):  
Gideon Okpoti Tetteh ◽  
Alexander Gocht ◽  
Marcel Schwieder ◽  
Stefan Erasmi ◽  
Christopher Conrad

Image segmentation is a cost-effective way to obtain information about the sizes and structural composition of agricultural parcels in an area. To accurately obtain such information, the parameters of the segmentation algorithm ought to be optimized using supervised or unsupervised methods. The difficulty in obtaining reference data makes unsupervised methods indispensable. In this study, we evaluated an existing unsupervised evaluation metric that minimizes a global score (GS), which is computed by summing up the intra-segment uniformity and inter-segment dissimilarity within a segmentation output. We modified this metric and proposed a new metric that uses absolute difference to compute the GS. We compared this proposed metric with the existing metric in two optimization approaches based on the Multiresolution Segmentation (MRS) algorithm to optimally delineate agricultural parcels from Sentinel-2 images in Lower Saxony, Germany. The first approach searches for optimal scale while keeping shape and compactness constant, while the second approach uses Bayesian optimization to optimize the three main parameters of the MRS algorithm. Based on a reference data of agricultural parcels, the optimal segmentation result of each optimization approach was evaluated by calculating the quality rate, over-segmentation, and under-segmentation. For both approaches, our proposed metric outperformed the existing metric in different agricultural landscapes. The proposed metric identified optimal segmentations that were less under-segmented compared to the existing metric. A comparison of the optimal segmentation results obtained in this study to existing benchmark results generated via supervised optimization showed that the unsupervised Bayesian optimization approach based on our proposed metric can potentially be used as an alternative to supervised optimization, particularly in geographic regions where reference data is unavailable or an automated evaluation system is sought.


Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 260
Author(s):  
Bingjie Song ◽  
Guy Robinson ◽  
Douglas Bardsley

Multifunctional agriculture (MFA) has attracted increased attention from academics and policymakers in recent years. Academic researchers have utilised various approaches to assess and measure the multifunctionality of agriculture and rural landscapes. This paper outlines the nature of MFA and key supporting policies, before reviewing the applied research approaches, drawing primarily from the European Union and China where specific policies on MFA have been implemented to support rural development and promote sustainable rural communities. Four distinct types of valuation of modern MFA are recognised: economic, biophysical, socio-cultural, and holistic. Following a search of both the recent and older MFA literature, evaluations of the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods applications are provided using examples from a range of recent studies. The review illustrates the diversity of approaches to measure MFA. While noting that many studies operate at a landscape scale, the challenge remains that the lack of commonality in the research approaches applied means it is difficult to provide effective comparisons between studies or to compare findings. A future research agenda will need to emphasise the need for more consideration of the roles of MFA research to support decision-makers, especially policy makers, but also farmers who largely make decisions for individual farms but, if considered collectively, can transform production systems at a landscape scale.


2019 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 104232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ágnes Balázsi ◽  
Maraja Riechers ◽  
Tibor Hartel ◽  
Julia Leventon ◽  
Joern Fischer

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 102-116
Author(s):  
Alexandr V. Shmakov ◽  
◽  

Digital transformation in most cases has a positive impact on the economy. However, there is a possibility of negative consequences that worsen the standard of life of the population. Society wants to avoid a decline in living standards. The state policy to minimize the risks of digitalization should be developed for these purposes. Digital transformation leads to the complication of the technological environment, to the deformation of social relations, to a change in decision-making processes. The complexity of the technogenic environment leads to increased cognitive distortions and irrational behavior. Living standards are declining as a result. Classical approaches to government regulation often do not take into account psychophysiological and sociocultural behavioral factors. As a result, the regulation does not have the expected effect. This is especially evident in situations of uncertainty and longtime intervals. Behavioral economics and nudge can help solve these problems. This article provides a systematization and description of the factors that determine behavior. Decision-making processes are characterized. A systematization and explanation of cognitive distortions is proposed. An overview of approaches to the use of nudges to prevent cognitive distortions is proposed. Cases of using nudges to reduce the risks of digitalization are presented.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document