scholarly journals Monitoring oyster culture rafts and seagrass meadows in Nagatsura-ura Lagoon, Sanriku Coast, Japan before and after the 2011 tsunami by remote sensing: their recoveries implying the sustainable development of coastal waters

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e10727
Author(s):  
Hiroki Murata ◽  
Motoyuki Hara ◽  
Chinatsu Yonezawa ◽  
Teruhisa Komatsu

Background Coastal ecosystems are blue infrastructures that support coastal resources and also aquaculture. Seagrass meadows, one of coastal ecosystems, provide substrates for epiphytic diatoms, which are food resources for cultured filter feeder organisms. Highly intensive coastal aquaculture degrades coastal environments to decrease seagrass meadows. Therefore, efficient aquaculture management and conservation of seagrass meadows are necessary for the sustainable development of coastal waters. In ria-type bays, non-feeding aquaculture of filter feeders such as oysters, scallops, and ascidians are actively practiced along the Sanriku Coast, Japan. Before the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the over-deployment of oyster culture facilities polluted the bottom environment and formed an hypoxic bottom water layer due to the organic excrements from cultured oysters. The tsunami in 2011 devastated the aquaculture facilities and seagrass meadows along the Sanriku Coast. We mapped the oyster culture rafts and seagrass meadows in Nagatsura-ura Lagoon, Sanriku Coast before and after the tsunami and monitored those and environments after the tsunami by field surveys. Methods We conducted field surveys and monitored the environmental parameters in Nagatsura-ura Lagoon every month since 2014. We used high-resolution satellite remote sensing images to map oyster culture rafts and seagrass meadows at irregular time intervals from 2006 to 2019 in order to assess their distribution. In 2019, we also used an unmanned aerial vehicle to analyze the spatial variability of the position and the number of ropes suspending oyster clumps beneath the rafts. Results In 2013, the number and distribution of the oyster culture rafts had been completely restored to the pre-tsunami conditions. The mean area of culture raft increased after the tsunami, and ropes suspending oyster clumps attached to a raft in wider space. Experienced local fishermen also developed a method to attach less ropes to a raft, which was applied to half of the oyster culture rafts to improve oyster growth. The area of seagrass meadows has been expanding since 2013. Although the lagoon had experienced frequent oyster mass mortality events in summer before the tsunami, these events have not occurred since 2011. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami deepened the sill depth and widened the entrance to enhance water exchange and improve water quality in the lagoon. These changes brought the expansion of seagrass meadows and reduction of mass mortality events to allow sustainable oyster culture in the lagoon. Mapping and monitoring of seagrass meadows and aquaculture facilities via satellite remote sensing can provide clear visualization of their temporal changes. This can in turn facilitate effective aquaculture management and conservation of coastal ecosystems, which are crucial for the sustainable development of coastal waters.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8316
Author(s):  
Camelia Mirela Baba ◽  
Constantin Duguleană ◽  
Marius Sorin Dincă ◽  
Liliana Duguleană ◽  
Gheorghița Dincă

The Covid-19 induced economic crisis has significantly affected almost all businesses from nearly every sector, causing severe financial problems, lack of cash assets, and decrease of revenues. In this context, the economic entities were forced to look for adjustment and rescue solutions of their activities. One possible solution for the recovery and reorganization of economic entities’ activities is demerger. This paper evaluates the impact of demerger upon the sustainable development of economic entities in terms of economic efficiency and financial performances. To achieve this goal, a statistical analysis of profitability ratios before and after the demerger, as well as a structural analysis of 268 demerger projects for the April 2012–April 2021 period, were performed. The results attest there are no significant differences between the ex-ante and ex-post financial performances. However, demerger seems to have a positive effect upon analyzed companies helping them to overcome economic hardships, rethink their business strategies, and continue their activity in the medium and long-term time horizon.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Estoque

The formulation of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) was a major leap forward in humankind’s quest for a sustainable future, which likely began in the 17th century, when declining forest resources in Europe led to proposals for the re-establishment and conservation of forests, a strategy that embodies the great idea that the current generation bears responsibility for future generations. Global progress toward SDG fulfillment is monitored by 231 unique social-ecological indicators spread across 169 targets, and remote sensing (RS) provides Earth observation data, directly or indirectly, for 30 (18%) of these indicators. Unfortunately, the UN Global Sustainable Development Report 2019—The Future is Now: Science for Achieving Sustainable Development concluded that, despite initial efforts, the world is not yet on track for achieving most of the SDG targets. Meanwhile, through the EO4SDG initiative by the Group on Earth Observations, the full potential of RS for SDG monitoring is now being explored at a global scale. As of April 2020, preliminary statistical data were available for 21 (70%) of the 30 RS-based SDG indicators, according to the Global SDG Indicators Database. Ten (33%) of the RS-based SDG indicators have also been included in the SDG Index and Dashboards found in the Sustainable Development Report 2019—Transformations to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. These statistics, however, do not necessarily reflect the actual status and availability of raw and processed geospatial data for the RS-based indicators, which remains an important issue. Nevertheless, various initiatives have been started to address the need for open access data. RS data can also help in the development of other potentially relevant complementary indicators or sub-indicators. By doing so, they can help meet one of the current challenges of SDG monitoring, which is how best to operationalize the SDG indicators.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Oana-Cristina Modoi ◽  
Andreea Vescan

The involvement of the young people in adopting sustainable behaviors and their possible activities as social entrepreneurs is important, in terms of the future adults who will make decisions on sustainable economic development. The objective of the study is to find out what are drivers, barriers and practices in the vision of young people and adolescents in Romania, in terms of social entrepreneurship. The study took place online and aimed to facilitate access to quality information related to the integration of the sustainable development principles in daily behaviors of young people, their willingness to become involved in social entrepreneurship activities. As a working methodology, a questionnaire is applied to adolescents and young people, before and after the seminars they participate, in which they are asked about how they see their involvement in some activities of the environmental protection and in social entrepreneurship activities or in what way they want to contribute to the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and which sustainability goals they would choose first.


Author(s):  
Bin Guo ◽  
He Dongliang

The premise of promoting the sustainable development of rural land transfer is that rural land transfer can improve the welfare level of farmers. Based on Amartya Sen’s theory of capability, this paper selects part-time farmers’ six welfare functional activities after rural land transfer, including family economic status, social security, health and leisure, social demand, psychological condition and occupational status. A multidimensional welfare measure model of having uneven distribution sensitive and satisfying “Subgroup Conformance” and “path independence” is used to measure the part-time farmers’ welfare changes after rural land transfer. The results show that the comprehensive welfare level of part-time farmers has improved before and after rural land transfer. From the sub dimension index, the welfare level of family economic situation, psychological condition and occupational status has increased obviously, the change of social security welfare level is not significant, the welfare level of health and leisure and social demand has declined, and the welfare loss of various dimensions is increased, which indicates that the welfare distribution of part-time farmers after rural land transfer is more unbalanced. Therefore, it is suggested that the welfare level of the part-time farmers can be improved by improving the rural social security, increasing the training of farmers’ employment knowledge, and providing non-agricultural employment opportunities, thus promoting the sustainable development of rural land transfer.


PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e12282
Author(s):  
Mengjie Yu ◽  
Liyou Zhang ◽  
Changdong Liu ◽  
Yanli Tang

Sustainable development of the important economic species, Asian paddle crab (Charybdis japonica), has attracted attention in the coastal waters of the Yellow Sea, China. The commonly used round pots are almost nonselective, resulting in severe bycatch of juveniles. In this study, we explored a method to improve the size selectivity for C. japonica by mounting escape vents on the side panels of each pot. The selectivity of pots with escape vent sizes of 70 mm × 20 mm, 70 mm × 25 mm, 70 mm × 30 mm, and 70 mm × 35 mm was tested using a catch comparison method. The estimated minimum landing size (MLS) of carapace height (27 mm), according to the regulated MLS of carapace length (50 mm), was used as a reference point to explain the results. Significant increases in the size of crabs caught by pots were found with the enlargement of escape vent size (Kruskal–Wallis test, P < 0.01). The pots with 70 mm × 20 mm, 70 mm × 25 mm and 70 mm × 30 mm escape vents released nearly 50%, 75% and 95% of undersized individuals, respectively, and these three types of pots retained approximately 90% of legal-sized individuals compared with the control pots without escape vents. The pots with 70 mm × 35 mm escape vents released nearly all undersized individuals, but they also released most legal-sized individuals. Pots with an escape vent size of 70 mm × 30 mm were recommended for the sustainable development of C. japonica in the Yellow Sea of China. The results of this study reiterate the importance of carapace height for determining the size selectivity, which can serve as a reference to formulate management regulations in the coastal waters of the Yellow Sea, China.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10875
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Bailão da Silva Lopes ◽  
Thiago Almeida Vieira

Higher Education as a transforming instrument in societies raises the need for universities and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as a whole to be leaders in the current paradigm of the time. The objectives of this study are to verify and analyze the movement and actions around the world that drove and started the conceptual model of Sustainable University (SU), as well as these ideas that started in Brazil and their implications for the reality of the Brazilian Amazon Region. A timeline has been sketched and provides additional theoretical insights into universities’ involvement in events before and after the sustainable development process. The methodological procedures were based on a wide literature review in scientific databases that gather journals with satisfactory impact factors; with the refinement of the searches, 87 scientific articles supported the analysis of this study. The results show that universities have played a prominent role on the world stage since 1950, in the post-war period. In the 1970s, HEIs sought to engage in the design of the new paradigm, and in the 1980s it is enunciated as Sustainable Development and conceptualized by the Sustainability approach. Universities, which had been active in discussions and events related to sustainability from the late 1980s onwards, began to organize themselves more effectively and promote sustainable initiatives to become examples of sustainability. Currently, many HEIs from countries in Europe and North America stand out in the initiatives. In Brazil, according to a global classifier, some HEIs seek to align themselves towards the SU model. Until 2019, no university in the Brazilian Amazon region had integrated the ranking, but in 2020, two appear in the list. It appears that information on the sustainability of universities inserted in the context of the Brazilian Amazon is still incipient.


2021 ◽  
Vol 234 ◽  
pp. 00105
Author(s):  
Yassine Barakat ◽  
Salmane Bourekkadi ◽  
Samira Khoulji ◽  
Mohamed Larbi Kerkeb

Artificial intelligence has proven its effectiveness through many applications in society: medical diagnostics, e-commerce, robot control and remote sensing. It has been able to advance many fields and industries including finance, education, transportation and others. In this review article, the method adopted consists first of all in collecting and analyzing all the data making it possible to certify the existence of a varying impact of artificial intelligence on the environment and the sustainable development, through the description of the contributions of AI at the level of several approaches carried out and projects carried out recently. Secondly, we drew from the different levels of differential paradigms cited in the first part, a synthesis, a critical point of view, as well as the perspectives that the feedbacks to the various points raised in the critical vision create, in particular those related to the limits of artificial intelligence and its implications for sustainable development.


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