Introduction: The dynamics of coupled human and natural systems

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN G. McPEAK ◽  
DAVID R. LEE ◽  
CHRISTOPHER B. BARRETT
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Natural Systems

This essay introduces a special section of this issue containing a set of papers on the dynamics of coupled human and natural systems. We frame this introduction by setting out some of the major issues confronting researchers who wish to incorporate both economic and biophysical dynamics in their analysis. We contrast the three papers contained in this section in terms of how they respond to these different issues. We conclude that these papers provide important new insights on both how to model and analyze dynamic coupled human and natural systems and how to define policies that will lead to improved human well being and environmental conditions.

Determinants of Resident Autonomy in Assisted Living Facilities: A Review of the Literature

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 187-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elzbieta Sikorska-Simmons ◽  
James D. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Living ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Assisted Living Facilities ◽  
Supportive Services ◽  
Natural Systems

Assisted living (AL) stresses the importance of resident autonomy in the provision of good quality care. Resident autonomy has been linked to better resident well-being, less reliance on supportive services, and greater participation in social activities. Little is known, however, about factors that foster resident autonomy in AL. This article reviews what is currently known about organizational determinants of resident autonomy in AL. The open-natural systems approach to organizational effectiveness, which views organizations in relation to their environment, provides a broad conceptual framework for this analysis. Factors that influence resident autonomy in AL are classified into two categories: (a) external environmental conditions (e.g., ownership status, chain membership, regulatory environment) and (b) internal organizational structures and processes (e.g., facility size, residents’ functional ability, resident social resources, and staff work environment). Environmental conditions represent the most antecedent set of factors that influence resident autonomy, indirectly through their effects on internal organizational structures and processes. Internal organizational factors influence resident autonomy through their impact on policies that enable resident choice and control in the facility. More research is needed to better understand the complex mechanism(s) through which organizational factors influence resident autonomy.

scholarly journals Health and Environmental Sustainability:Public health issues for present and future

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (Number 1) ◽  
pp. 26-30
Author(s):  
Monowar Ahmad Tarafdar
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
National Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Healthy Population ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Natural Systems

The medical definition of environmental causes of diseases would be all those factors that are not genetic. Environmental factors include all those factors those affect human health mediated by social conditions and individual choice or environment. ‘Sustainable’ includes the environmental issues and ‘development’ includes the economic issues. Climate change alters or disrupts natural systems, making it possible for vector, water, and food-borne diseases to spread or emerge. Climate change can affect the incidence of diseases associated with air pollutants and aeroallergens. Clean air is considered to be a basic requirement of human health and well-being. Poverty increases vulnerability to climatesensitive health outcomes directly by reducing the capacity to adapt to changing conditions. For countries in the early stages of development the major environmental hazards to health are associated with widespread poverty and severe lack of public infrastructure, such as access to drinking water, sanitation, and lack of health care as well as emerging problems of industrial pollution and also urban waste based pollution. A healthy population is a prerequisite for a productive and creative society, which in turn is needed to sustain national development. Social determinants affect the environmental conditions of an individual and may contribute to the fact that specific individuals or population groups more often experience less adequate or potentially harmful environmental conditions; may directly affect exposure beyond and in addition to the exposure. Enhancing environmental sustainability, through reducing carbon emissions, curtailing waste, and managing resources efficiently, will deliver healthy outcome, and provide broader social and economic benefits.

Special section on well-being in academic employees.

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Kinman ◽  
Sheena Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
Well Being

Protected Areas: offering security to whom, when and where?

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALICE B. KELLY ◽  
A. CLARE GUPTA
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Protected Area ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
Term Management ◽  
Over Time

SUMMARYThis study considers the issue of security in the context of protected areas in Cameroon and Botswana. Though the literature on issues of security and well-being in relation to protected areas is extensive, there has been less discussion of how and in what ways these impacts and relationships can change over time, vary with space and differ across spatial scales. Looking at two very different historical trajectories, this study considers the heterogeneity of the security landscapes created by Waza and Chobe protected areas over time and space. This study finds that conservation measures that various subsets of the local population once considered to be ‘bad’ (e.g. violent, exclusionary protected area creation) may be construed as ‘good’ at different historical moments and geographical areas. Similarly, complacency or resignation to the presence of a park can be reversed by changing environmental conditions. Changes in the ways security (material and otherwise) has fluctuated within these two protected areas has implications for the long-term management and funding strategies of newly created and already existing protected areas today. This study suggests that parks must be adaptively managed not only for changing ecological conditions, but also for shifts in a protected area's social, political and economic context.

Chromium(iii) oxidation by biogenic manganese oxides with varying structural ripening

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 2127-2136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanzhi Tang ◽  
Samuel M. Webb ◽  
Emily R. Estes ◽  
Colleen M. Hansel
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Manganese Oxides ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Mn Oxides

Manganese (Mn) oxides, which are generally considered biogenic in origin within natural systems, are the only oxidants of Cr(iii) under typical environmental conditions.

scholarly journals Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) antler characteristics reflecting the local environmental conditions

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-23
Author(s):  
Jan Kavan ◽  
Veronika Anděrová
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Rangifer Tarandus ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
High Mountain ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Individual Subject ◽  
Svalbard Reindeer ◽  
Invasive Method ◽  
Antler Size

AbstractA new non-invasive method based on picture analysis was used to estimate the conditions in Svalbard reindeer populations. The well-being of an individual subject is often expressed through visual indices. Two distinct reindeer populations were compared based on their antler parameters. Relative antler size and number of tines are variables supposed to reflect correspondingly the environmental conditions of sedentary populations within the growing season. The occurrence areas of two studied populations are distinctly isolated – separated with high mountain ridges, glaciers and fjords. The population in Petuniabukta occupies a sparsely vegetated region with harsh climatic conditions, whereas Skansbukta represents an area with continuous tundra vegetation cover, milder climatic conditions and, consequently, also a longer vegetation season. These environmental factors probably caused significant differences in the relative antler size and number of tines in the studied species. The Skansbukta population exhibited a larger relative antler size and higher number of tines than the population in Petuniabukta (both parameters differed significantly, p < 0.01). This difference reflects concisely the different environmental conditions of both locations. A comparison of Skansbukta population antler characteristics between years 2017 and 2018 did not reveal significant changes, most probably due to very similar atmospheric conditions in these two years (in terms of air temperature).

scholarly journals Vaccination of cattle in the system of antiepizootic measures in Buryatia

2021 ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
O. B. Badmaeva
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Far East ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Entire Region ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Natural Foci ◽  
Epizootic Process ◽  
The Republic

On the territory of the Republic of Buryatia, six nosological forms of infectious diseases have epizootic significance among cattle. The most widespread are leptospirosis, rabies, and isolated cases of pasteurellosis. Natural foci of rabies were formed, confined to the environmental conditions of the neighboring territories of Mongolia and the TRANS-Baikal territory. Epizootic process tends to polyhostal manifestation with the threat of expanding the focus and complicating the epidemic situation in the entire region of Siberia and the Far East. In 2018 169 heads of cattle were identified with a positive reaction to leptospirosis in 13 administrative districts. Preventive immunization of animals with the control of immunity tension in areas with a high risk of introduction of infectious diseases is the basis for maintaining epizootic well-being throughout the region.

scholarly journals The effects of population synchrony, life history, and access constraints on benefits from fishing portfolios

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiva L. Oken ◽  
André E Punt ◽  
Daniel S. Holland
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Oncorhynchus Tshawytscha ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Population Synchrony ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Interannual Fluctuations ◽  
Short Time

Natural resources often exhibit large interannual fluctuations in productivity driven by shifting environmental conditions, and this translates to high variability in the revenue resource users can earn. However, users can dampen this variability by harvesting a portfolio of resources. In the context of fisheries, this means targeting multiple populations, though the ability to actually build diverse fishing portfolios is often constrained by the costs and availability of fishing permits. These constraints are generally intended to prevent overcapitalization of the fleet and ensure populations are fished sustainably. As linked human-natural systems, both ecological and fishing dynamics influence the specific advantages and disadvantages of increasing the diversity of fishing portfolios. Specifically, a portfolio of synchronous populations with similar responses to environmental drivers should reduce revenue variability less than a portfolio of asynchronous populations with opposite responses. We built a bioeconomic model characterized by the Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister), Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and groundfish fisheries in the California Current, and used it to explore the influence of population synchrony and permit access on revenue patterns. As expected, synchronous populations reduced revenue variability less than asynchronous populations, but only for portfolios including crab and salmon. Synchrony with longer-lived groundfish populations was not important because environmentally-driven changes in groundfish early life survival were mediated by growth and natural mortality over the full population age structure, and overall biomass was relatively stable across years. Thus, building a portfolio of diverse life histories can buffer against the impacts of extremely poor environmental conditions over short time scales, though not for long-term declines. Increasing access to all permits generally led to increased revenue stability and decreased inequality of the fleet, but also resulted in less revenue earned by an individual from a given portfolio because more vessels shared the available biomass. This means managers are faced with a tradeoff between the average revenue individuals earn and the risk those individuals accept. These results illustrate the importance of considering connections between social and ecological dynamics when evaluating management options that constrain or facilitate fishers’ ability to diversify their fishing.

Sustainability in Arid Grasslands: New Technology Applications for Management

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas K. Budge ◽  
Arian Pregenzer
Keyword(s):  
Human Impacts ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Resource Sustainability ◽  
Technology Applications ◽  
Species Abundances ◽  
Ecosystem Studies ◽  
Grazing Systems ◽  
Arid Grasslands

As biodiversity, ecosystem function, and ecosystem services become more closely linked with human well-being at all scales, the study of ecology takes on increasing social, economic, and political importance. However, when compared with other disciplines long linked with human well-being, such as medicine, chemistry, and physics, the technical tools and instruments of the ecologist have generally lagged behind those of the others. This disparity is beginning to be overcome with the increasing use of biotelemetric techniques, microtechnologies, satellite and airborne imagery, geographic information systems (GIS), and both regional and global data networks. We believe that the value and efficiency of ecosystem studies can advance significantly with more widespread use of existing technologies, and with the adaptation of technologies currently used in other disciplines to ecosystem studies. More importantly, the broader use of these technologies is critical for contributing to the preservation of biodiversity and the development of sustainable natural resource use by humans. The concept of human management of biodiversity and natural systems is a contentious one. However, we assert that as human population and resource consumption continue to increase, biodiversity and resource sustainability will only be preserved by increasing management efforts—if not of the biodiversity and resources themselves, then of human impacts on them. The technologies described in this chapter will help enable better management efforts. In this context, biodiversity refers not only to numbers of species (i.e., richness) in an arbitrarily defined area, but also to species abundances within that area. Sustainability refers to the maintenance of natural systems, biodiversity, and resources for the benefit of future generations. Arid-land grazing systems support human social systems and economies in regions all over the world, and can be expected to play increasingly critical roles as human populations increase. Further, grazing systems represent a nexus of natural and domesticated systems. In these systems, native biodiversity exists side by side with introduced species and populations, and in fact can benefit from them.

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