scholarly journals IMPORTANCE OF ECOSYSTEM ASSETS FOR PROVIDING THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF TERRITORIES

Author(s):  
Mariia Ilina ◽  
Yulia Shpyliova

National environmental policy in Ukraine declares introducing of the ecosystem approach into all aspects of social and economic development, as well as conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems. The legislative acts sustain support of ecosystem services will enhance sustainable development of the society and ecosystems. One of the Sustainable Development Goals for Ukraine until 2030 concerns protection and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems like inland freshwaters, mountains, forests and meadows. It proves ecosystem management tools are relevant for the environmental policy and methodological basis for those tools being applied is assessment of ecosystem assets and services. Concept of ecosystem assets is quite innovative in Ukraine, and its definitions and visions of functions differ a lot. Both Ukrainian and foreign researchers focus mostly on ecosystem services, approaches to assess them and administration of the payments. Ecosystem assets and issues on their evaluations well as introduction of the ecosystem approach into the managerial practices are still underdeveloped. The paper is to define economic sense of ecosystem assets for provision of the sustainable development of territories. Evaluation of ecosystem assets is important for local communities in order to assess scope of ecosystem payments, elaborate local development strategies, and make decisions if economic activities communities carry on have to be altered. There are no universal rules for such the evaluation, and with foreign experience alone it is difficult to decide how territorial communities can assess their ecosystem assets and which tangible benefits they will get from it. Therefore, it is needed make more efforts in Ukraine too in order to introduce the tool and identify priority areas for its application, i.e. land and water use, biodiversity and so on. So that enhance implementation of the ecosystem approach into the management practices, considerable amendments in the legislation are required. Pilot projects on evaluation of ecosystem assets would be helpful and confirm feasibility of the approach. Even more, such the projects would assist to assess ecosystem services particularly produced by protected areas, water, soils and landfills.

Author(s):  
Adriano CIANI ◽  
Asta RAUPELIENE ◽  
Vilma TAMULIENE

In the world, the question of the good practice to manage of territory is a pillar of the implementations of Sustainable Development Goals 2015-2030. The authors are working in collaboration with a holistic approach at the topic. In this way, the Smart Communities and Smart Territories are the new paradigms in 21th Century to solve the question of the adaptation at the Climate Change and to guarantee, for the future generation, the conservation and promotion of all potentialities of each territory and identity of areas. Until now, they have use a deductive method to analyse and show, in the framework of the Sustainable Development, the Community Led Local Development (EU Programme for CLLD) and Ecosystem Services, the need to move from an emergency management approach to pre-emptive territory management. The results of this research have produced the original and autonomous configuration of a new and innovative strategy and governance based on a model that puts in synergy the three aspects of the framework that has been given the name of Territorial Management Contracts (TMC). The TMC, appear a possible shared and democratic model that could to combine the territory risk management with solutions of development driving and sharing by the local populations. This innovative approach is strictly linked with the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals 2015-2030 and the Europe 2020 (smart, sustainable and inclusive). The authors argue that the TMC model is now sufficiently mature to pass from the processing phase to that of the implementation that in the Payment of the Ecosystem Services (PES) finds a concrete reinforcement of the scientific analysis carried out.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2103
Author(s):  
Rafał Blazy ◽  
Hanna Hrehorowicz-Gaber ◽  
Alicja Hrehorowicz-Nowak ◽  
Arkadiusz Płachta

Ecosystems have become synanthropized, and the degree of their transformation depends on their susceptibility to anthropopressure, but they are necessary for the functioning of the anthropogenic environment. They provide many ecosystem services, yet they are often not protected in any way, and their value is not taken into account at all in the process of creating local development plans. The analysis of the blue and green infrastructure covered three municipalities: Łapanów, Gdów, and Dobczyce. To calculate the benefits of ecosystem services, the method of calculating the Ve coefficient was adopted, which would enable a more accurate financial evaluation of the local development plan and make the previously synthetic economic coefficient of net present value (NPV) real. Besides, the impact of water bodies on the financial benefits of ecosystem services was analyzed. Only the protection of ecosystems introduced by including it in the local development plan enables full ecosystem synergy. Next to anthropological ecosystems, there are also natural ecosystems, which are necessary for the proper functioning of the commune. The network of those includes green (in the case of vegetated areas) and blue (in the case of surface waters) infrastructure, and their synergy is the key to the sustainable development of the commune.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bingsheng Liu ◽  
Tao Wang ◽  
Jiaming Zhang ◽  
Xiaoming Wang ◽  
Yuan Chang ◽  
...  

AbstractAchieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a long-term task, which puts forward high requirements on the sustainability of related policies and actions. Using the text analysis method, we analyze the China National Sustainable Communities (CNSCs) policy implemented over 30 years and its effects on achieving SDGs. We find that the national government needs to understand the scope of sustainable development more comprehensively, the sustained actions can produce positive effects under the right goals. The SDGs selection of local governments is affected by local development levels and resource conditions, regions with better economic foundations tend to focus on SDGs on human well-being, regions with weaker foundations show priority to basic SDGs on the economic development, infrastructures and industrialization.


Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Yuejuan Yang ◽  
Hao Zhang ◽  
Xinquan Zhao ◽  
Zhizhang Chen ◽  
Aiguo Wang ◽  
...  

Ecosystem services are the material basis of economic and social development, and play essential roles in the sustainable development of ecosystems. Urbanization can remarkably alter the provision of ecosystem services. Most studies in this area have focused on densely populated metropolises with poor ecological environments, while comparatively few studies have focused on cities with low ecological pressures. Therefore, to avoid continuing to engage in the repetitive pattern of destroying first and rehabilitating later, quantitative analyses of urbanization and ecosystem services should be carried out in representative cities. In this study, based on partial least squares-discriminant analysis, kernel density estimation, and correlation analysis, we quantitatively evaluated the impact of urbanization on ecosystem services in Weifang city. The Data Center for Resources and Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research provided remote sensing data on land use, the gross domestic production (GDP), population data, and ecosystem services. The results were as follows: (1) The variation in population, GDP, and built-up areas consistently increased throughout the study period, whereas the ecosystem service values (ESVs) decreased; (2) food production, raw material production, nutrient cycle maintenance, and soil conservation were decisive ecosystem services that led to vast reductions in ESVs during the process of urbanization; and (3) the negative correlation coefficient between built-up areas and ecosystem services was greater than that between the population or GDP and ecosystem services, which indicated that the impacts of population and economic urbanization on ecosystem services lagged behind the impact of land urbanization. This study provides references for fully recognizing the ecological effects of urbanization, and make suggestions regarding the application of ecosystem services in sustainable development.


Author(s):  
Myriam Yolanda Sarabia Molina ◽  
Lupe Cecilia García Espinoza ◽  
Arnaldo Efrén Mendoza Tarabó

Small tourism enterprises play a key role in generating income and local development of a community in rural areas through community tourism (TC) ideas, services, processes, and products. These have been generated in the communities of San Pedro, Valdivia, Dos Mangas, and Sacachún from the province of Santa Elena, which deserve to be registered through empirical research. The results show that the population is interested in working towards the sustainable development of its natural and cultural resources. This interest is transforming the tourist activity in their responsible daily lives, and they are committed to caring for the environment. Therefore, the people's own lifestyles are highlighted in a scene of tranquility and harmony.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 8092
Author(s):  
Péteris F Timofejevs

Although the literature on populist radical right parties (PRRP) in Western and Eastern Europe has expanded considerably in the last two decades, relatively little is known about the views on nature and the environment of the PRRP in Eastern Europe. This study focuses on the Latvian PRRP “National Alliance” (NA), which has not only been a coalition government partner since 2011, but occupied a ministerial post tasked with environmental policy from 2014 to 2019. This article examines how the NA viewed nature, the environment, and governance for sustainability in the period 2010–2018, and more specifically, whether and to what extent the NA’s vision of nature and the environment was compatible with its sustainable development position. The study employs qualitative content analysis examining the official party literature. The results indicate that the party’s vision embraced the sustainable development position in its declaratory statements on nature and environmental policy. The NA’s views on governance for sustainability demonstrate a strong statist preference, downplaying more participatory approaches, thus departing from the sustainable development governance position.


Proceedings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veidemane

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) for 2030 are established to address global challenges including environment and human well-being. The SDGs are interconnected and achievement of them requires consideration of the planet’s ecosystems and resources - land, water and air. Ecosystem services (ES) approach has a high potential for better planning, policy and decision making. Understanding how different ecosystems (e.g., forests, rivers, wetlands, grasslands) contribute to the social and economic benefits is critical to ensure the long-term biodiversity protection and sustainable use of ecosystems. A conceptual framework linking biodiversity and ecosystem condition (its structure and functions), and ES to human well-being has been well-established in EU by so called MAES process (Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystem Services) lead by the European Commission. The framework is applied in recent research studies and projects, as well as national MAES processes. Various methods are applied for MAES in terms to determine biophysical, economic and social values and to deliver integrated ecosystem assessment. Assessment of ES and trade off analysis shall provide a new perspective for land use planning and decision making at different administrative and spatial levels and in different sectoral policies. EU and national policies for instance on agriculture, fishery, forestry, climate should account the benefits provided by relevant ecosystems and to ensure that the values are not diminished but rather enhanced during the implementation of the policies. Terrestrial and water ecosystems are interconnected as land-based human activities creates pressure that impacts the conditions in water ecosystems and thus delivery of ES by rivers and lakes. For example, intensive agricultural land use produces food for people and income; however, the activity also most frequently causes problems with water quality and quantity in the catchment area and a loss of biodiversity. A risk of such trade-off shall be handled in policy development. Ecosystems also contributes to the resilience of communities by reducing the risk of natural hazards and mitigate adverse impacts. Regulating services such as flood control are substituting investments in flood protection ensured by forests, wetlands and grasslands instead of human built infrastructure. Appropriate land cover and land use shall serve as a basic flood protection measure. Natural processes are increasingly recognised to create new-type solutions that use and deploy the properties of natural ecosystems and their services in an “engineered” way. A wide range of measures called also as nature-based solutions provide another opportunity to work with nature towards global sustainability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7805
Author(s):  
Maurizio Sajeva ◽  
Marjo Maidell ◽  
Jonne Kotta ◽  
Anneliis Peterson

The isolation of science disciplines and the weak integration between science, policy and society represent main challenges for sustainable human development. If, on the one hand, the specialization of science has produced higher levels of knowledge, on the other hand, the whole picture of the complex interactions between systems has suffered. Economic and natural sciences are, on matters of sustainable development, strongly divergent, and the interface informing decision-making is weak. This downplays uncertainty and creates room for entrenched political positions, compromising evidence-based decision-making and putting the urgent need to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of Agenda 2030 at risk. This article presents the heterodox Eco-GAME framework for interconnecting science through trans-disciplinary social-learning and meta-evaluation of scientific knowledge in pursuit of SDGs. The framework is tested and refined in the BONUS MARES project by systematic literature analysis, participatory workshops, and semi-structured interviews, in relation to the specific habitats of Baltic Sea mussel reefs, seagrass beds and macroalgae ecosystem services produced and methods applied. The results, acknowledging the urgency of interfacing science, policy and society, validate the Eco-GAME as a framework for this purpose and present a multi-dimensional system of indicators as a further development.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document