Research Note Sustainable Management: An Accounting Issue?

There is an ongoing debate in the worldwide scholarly society regarding the causes of noted climate change on the planet Earth. It is a concern also frequently debated in the non-scholarly societies. Principally, it is about whether or not the causes of noted climate change are the result of natural or human-related factors. The objective of this research note is to raise the question whether sustainable management is an accounting issue. It intends to pinpoint the need to visualize sustainable aspects of management approaches.

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Sustainable management of populations impacted by harvesting and climate change

Climate Research ◽

10.3354/cr01688 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 86 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

NC Stenseth ◽

RA Ims ◽

BE Sæther ◽

L Cadahía ◽

I Herfindal ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Sustainable Management ◽

Large Scale ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Sustainable Use ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

Freshwater Ecosystems ◽

Original Research ◽

Integrative Research ◽

Management Approaches

The sustainable use of natural resources is critical for addressing the global challenges of today. Strategies for sustainable harvesting need to consider not only harvested species, but also other non-harvested species interacting with them in the same ecosystem. In addition, environmental variation needs to be considered, with climate change currently being one of the main sources of this variation. Understanding the consequences of complex interactions between different drivers and processes affecting dynamics of species and ecosystems across spatial scales requires large-scale integrative research projects. The Norwegian research initiative “Sustainable management of renewable resources in a changing environment: an integrated approach across ecosystems” (SUSTAIN) was launched to fill knowledge gaps related to the sustainable management of populations and ecosystems experiencing climate change. SUSTAIN investigated terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems in boreal and Arctic regions, using both theoretical developments and empirical analyses of long-term data. This Climate Research Special contains both synthesis articles and original research exemplifying some of the approaches used in SUSTAIN. In this introduction we highlight 4 key topics addressed by SUSTAIN: (i) population structure, (ii) interactions between species, (iii) spatial processes, and (iv) adaptive management. These topics are fundamental to the understanding of harvested species from an ecosystem perspective, and to ecosystem-based management approaches, which we are striving to work towards.

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What Affects Chinese Residents’ Perceptions of Climate Change?

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10124712 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 4712 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jinjia Wu ◽

Jiansheng Qu ◽

Hengji Li ◽

Li Xu ◽

Hongfen Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Public Awareness ◽

Public Understanding ◽

Related Factors ◽

Climate Change Risk ◽

Climate Governance ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

National Education ◽

The Public ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation

The theme of global sustainable development has changed from environmental management to climate governance, and relevant policies on climate governance urgently need to be implemented by the public. The public understanding of climate change has become the prerequisite and basis for implementing various climate change policies. In order to explore the affected factors of climate change perception among Chinese residents, this study was conducted across 31 provinces and regions of China through field household surveys and interviews. Combined with the residents’ perception of climate change with the possible affected factors, the related factors affecting Chinese residents’ perception of climate change were explored. The results show that the perceptive level of climate change of Chinese residents is related to the education level and the household size of residents. Improving public awareness of climate change risk in the context of climate change through multiple channels will also help to improve residents’ awareness of climate change. On the premise of improving the level of national education, improving education on climate change in school education and raising awareness of climate change risk among dependents will help to improve the level of Chinese residents’ awareness of climate change, which could be instrumental in promoting public participation in climate change mitigation and adaptation actions.

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Relative Contribution of the Xiaolangdi Dam to Runoff Changes in the Lower Yellow River

Land ◽

10.3390/land10050521 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 521

Author(s):

Qinghe Zhao ◽

Shengyan Ding ◽

Xiaoyu Ji ◽

Zhendong Hong ◽

Mengwen Lu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Human Activities ◽

Sustainable Management ◽

Yellow River ◽

Dam Construction ◽

Regulated Rivers ◽

Flood Season ◽

Abrupt Changes ◽

Runoff Changes ◽

Seasonal Runoff

Human activities are increasingly recognized as having a critical influence on hydrological processes under the warming of the climate, particularly for dam-regulated rivers. To ensure the sustainable management of water resources, it is important to evaluate how dam construction may affect surface runoff. In this study, using Mann–Kendall tests, the double mass curve method, and the Budyko-based elasticity method, the effects of climate change and human activities on annual and seasonal runoff were quantified for the Yellow River basin from 1961–2018; additionally, effects on runoff were assessed after the construction of the Xiaolangdi Dam (XLD, started operation in 2001) on the Yellow River. Both annual and seasonal runoff decreased over time (p < 0.01), due to the combined effects of climate change and human activities. Abrupt changes in annual, flood season, and non-flood season runoff occurred in 1986, 1989, and 1986, respectively. However, no abrupt changes were seen after the construction of the XLD. Human activities accounted for much of the reduction in runoff, approximately 75–72% annually, 81–86% for the flood season, and 86–90% for the non-flood season. Climate change approximately accounted for the remainder: 18–25% (annually), 14–19% (flood season), and 10–14% (non-flood season). The XLD construction mitigated runoff increases induced by heightened precipitation and reduced potential evapotranspiration during the post-dam period; the XLD accounted for approximately 52% of the runoff reduction both annually and in the non-flood season, and accounted for approximately −32% of the runoff increase in the flood season. In conclusion, this study provides a basic understanding of how dam construction contributes to runoff changes in the context of climate change; this information will be beneficial for the sustainable management of water resources in regulated rivers.

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Áhrif loftlagsbreytinga á vatnsveitur og vatnsgæði á Íslandi – áhættuþættir og aðgerðir

10.33112/ije.25.5 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 25 ◽

pp. 5-19

Author(s):

María J. Gunnarsdóttir ◽

Sigurður Magnús Garðarsson ◽

Hrund Ólöf Andradóttir ◽

Alfreð Schiöth

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Risk Factors ◽

Water Quality ◽

Risk Assessment ◽

Drinking Water ◽

Arctic Region ◽

The Arctic ◽

Related Factors ◽

Surveillance Area ◽

The Arctic Region

Climate change is expected to have impact on water supply and drinking water quality in Iceland. Foremost there are three influential weather-related factors; increase in temperature; rise in sea level; and seasonal and regional change in precipitation in both quantity and intensity. In this study international and local reports and articles were analyzed for expected impact on the water resource with emphasis on the northern and the arctic region. Water quality risk factors were analyzed based on surveillance data of the water supplies from the Local Competent Authorities. Preliminary risk assessment of landslides and flooding was performed in one surveillance area in northern Iceland.

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Projecting conflict risk following the Shared Socioeconomic pathways: what role for water stress and climate?

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-101 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sophie de Bruin ◽

Jannis Hoch ◽

Nina von Uexkull ◽

Halvard Buhaug ◽

Nico Wanders

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

At Risk ◽

Machine Learning Techniques ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Related Factors ◽

Socioeconomic Impacts ◽

Learning Techniques ◽

The Future ◽

Conflict Risk

The socioeconomic impacts of&#160;changes in climate-related&#160;and&#160;hydrology-related factors&#160;are increasingly&#160;acknowledged&#160;to affect&#160;the&#160;on-set&#160;of&#160;violent&#160;conflict.&#160;Full consensus&#160;upon&#160;the general&#160;mechanisms&#160;linking&#160;these&#160;factors&#160;with conflict&#160;is,&#160;however,&#160;still limited.&#160;The absence of full&#160;understanding&#160;of&#160;the non-linearities&#160;between all components and the lack of sufficient data make it&#160;therefore&#160;hard to address violent conflict risk on the long-term.&#160;Although it is&#160;neither&#160;desirable nor feasible&#160;to make exact predictions,&#160;projections are a viable means&#160;to provide&#160;insights into potential&#160;future&#160;conflict risks&#160;and uncertainties thereof.&#160;Hence, making&#160;different&#160;projections is a&#8239;legitimate&#8239;way to deal with and understand these uncertainties, since the construction of diverse scenarios delivers insights into&#160;possible realizations of the future.&#160;&#160;Through&#160;machine learning techniques, we&#8239;(re)assess the major drivers of conflict&#160;for the current situation&#160;in Africa, which are&#160;then&#160;applied to project the regions-at-risk following&#160;different&#160;scenarios.&#160;The model shows to accurately reproduce observed historic patterns leading to a&#160;high ROC score of&#160;0.91.&#160;We show that&#160;socio-economic factors&#160;are&#160;most dominant&#160;when&#160;projecting&#160;conflicts&#160;over&#160;the African continent.&#160;The projections show that there is an&#160;overall&#160;reduction in conflict risk&#160;as a result of&#160;increased&#160;economic welfare that&#160;offsets&#160;the&#160;adverse&#160;impacts&#160;of&#160;climate change and&#160;hydrologic variables.&#160;It must be noted, however, that these projections are based on current relations.&#160;In case the relations of drivers and conflict change in the future, the resulting&#160;regions-at-risk may change too.&#160;&#160; By identifying the most prominent drivers,&#160;conflict risk&#160;mitigation measures can be tuned more accurately to reduce the direct and indirect consequences of climate change&#160;on&#160;the population in Africa.&#160;As new and improved&#160;data becomes available, the model can be updated for more robust projections of conflict risk in Africa under climate change.

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Securing 2020 vision for 2030: climate change and ensuring resilience in water and sanitation services

Journal of Water and Climate Change ◽

10.2166/wcc.2010.105b ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 2-16 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Guy Howard ◽

Katrina Charles ◽

Kathy Pond ◽

Anca Brookshaw ◽

Rifat Hossain ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Drinking Water ◽

Water Supply ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Water And Sanitation ◽

Sanitation Services ◽

Development Goals ◽

Management Approaches ◽

Sanitation Systems ◽

Water Supply And Sanitation

Drinking-water supply and sanitation services are essential for human health, but their technologies and management systems are potentially vulnerable to climate change. An assessment was made of the resilience of water supply and sanitation systems against forecast climate changes by 2020 and 2030. The results showed very few technologies are resilient to climate change and the sustainability of the current progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may be significantly undermined. Management approaches are more important than technology in building resilience for water supply, but the reverse is true for sanitation. Whilst climate change represents a significant threat to sustainable drinking-water and sanitation services, through no-regrets actions and using opportunities to increase service quality, climate change may be a driver for improvements that have been insufficiently delivered to date.

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Climate change and employment relations

Journal of Industrial Relations ◽

10.1177/0022185617699651 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 59 (5) ◽

pp. 670-679 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Caleb Goods

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Research Area ◽

Research Note ◽

Employment Relations ◽

Important Research ◽

Workplace Relations ◽

Important Research Area

A central, yet overlooked, aspect of contemporary employment relations is the growing impact climate change is having on workplace relations. This research note outlines how climate change and workplace relations are linked, the minimal academic focus this important research area has received and the limited response from employment relations actors to the climate change challenge. Some examples of ‘climate bargaining’ are given to demonstrate both the connection between employment relations and climate change and to provide possible models for meaningfully advancing climate change actions in the workplace.

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A Thought Experiment on Sustainable Management of the Earth System

10.20944/preprints201805.0037.v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Jobst Heitzig ◽

Wolfram Barfuss ◽

Jonathan F. Donges

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Game Theory ◽

Optimal Control ◽

Sustainable Management ◽

Thought Experiment ◽

Earth System ◽

The Earth ◽

The Right ◽

Safe Operating ◽

Qualitative Decision

We introduce and analyse a simple formal thought experiment designed to reflect a qualitative decision dilemma humanity might currently face in view of climate change. In it, each generation can choose between just two options, either setting humanity on a pathway to certain high wellbeing after one generation of suffering, or leaving the next generation in the same state as this one with the same options, but facing a continuous risk of permanent collapse. We analyse this abstract setup regarding the question of what the right choice would be both in a rationality-based framework including optimal control, welfare economics and game theory, and by means of other approaches based on the notions of responsibility, safe operating spaces, and sustainability paradigms. Despite the simplicity of the setup, we find a large diversity and disagreement of assessments both between and within these different approaches.

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