Robust cepstral feature for bird sound classification

Birds are excellent environmental indicators and may indicate sustainability of the ecosystem; birds may be used to provide provisioning, regulating, and supporting services. Therefore, birdlife conservation-related researches always receive centre stage. Due to the airborne nature of birds and the dense nature of the tropical forest, bird identifications through audio may be a better solution than visual identification. The goal of this study is to find the most appropriate cepstral features that can be used to classify bird sounds more accurately. Fifteen (15) endemic Bornean bird sounds have been selected and segmented using an automated energy-based algorithm. Three (3) types of cepstral features are extracted; linear prediction cepstrum coefficients (LPCC), mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), gammatone frequency cepstral coefficients (GTCC), and used separately for classification purposes using support vector machine (SVM). Through comparison between their prediction results, it has been demonstrated that model utilising GTCC features, with 93.3% accuracy, outperforms models utilising MFCC and LPCC features. This demonstrates the robustness of GTCC for bird sounds classification. The result is significant for the advancement of bird sound classification research, which has been shown to have many applications such as in eco-tourism and wildlife management.

Benthic Foraminifera as an Environmental Indicators in Mediterranean Marine Caves: A Review

Marine caves are characterized by wide environmental variability for the interaction between marine and continental processes. Their conditions may be defined as extreme for inhabiting organisms due to the enclosed morphology, lack of light, and scarcity of nutrients. Therefore, it is necessary to identify reliable ecological indicators for describing and assessing environmental conditions in these habitats even more than elsewhere. This review aims to provide the state of art related to the application of benthic foraminifera as proxies in the (paleo)ecological characterization of different habitats of marine caves. Special attention was addressed to a research project focused on Mediterranean marine caves with different characteristics, such as extent, morphology, freshwater influence, salinity, sediment type, oxygenation, and organic matter supply. This review aims to illustrate the reliability of foraminifera as an ecological and paleoecological indicator in these habitats. They respond to various environmental conditions with different assemblages corresponding to a very detailed habitat partitioning. Because marine caves may be considered natural laboratories for environmental variability, the results of these studies may be interpreted in the perspective of the global variability to understand the environmental drivers of future changes in marine systems.

A Scoping Review of Indicators for Sustainable Healthy Diets

Introduction: Diets are currently unsustainable in many countries as evidenced by the growing burden of malnutrition, degradation of natural resources, contributions to climate change, and unaffordability of healthy diets. Agreement on what constitutes a healthy and sustainable diet has been debated. In 2019, FAO and WHO published the Sustainable Healthy Diets Guiding Principles, defining what qualifies as a sustainable healthy diet. While valuable, these principles require measurable indicators to support their operationalization. Our scoping review aims to describe how sustainable healthy diets have been assessed in the literature since 2010.Methods: A search for English-language articles published in peer-reviewed journals was conducted from January 2010 through February 2020 across three databases. Out of the 504 articles initially identified, 103 articles were included. Metadata were extracted from each article on: publication year, country of study, study aims, methods, main data sources, indicators used to assess sustainable healthy diets, reported indicator strengths or limitations, and main study findings. A qualitative content analysis identified major conceptual themes across indicators and their frequency of use.Findings: From the 103 empirical articles included in our review, 57.3% were published after 2017. Most studies were carried out in high-income countries (74%). Approximately 42% of the articles assessed the sustainability of diets using solely health and environmental indicators; <25% assessed the sustainability of diets across health, environmental, and sociocultural aspects of sustainability. We found a substantial number of unique indicators used for assessing health (n = 82), environmental (n = 117), and sociocultural (n = 43) aspects of diets. These indicators covered concepts related to health outcomes, aspects of diet quality, natural resources, climate change, cultural acceptability, and cost of diets. The preponderance of indicators currently used in research likely poses challenges for stakeholders to identify the most appropriate measures.Conclusion: Robust indicators for sustainable healthy diets are critical for understanding trends, setting targets, and monitoring progress across national and sub-national levels. Our review highlights the geographical imbalance, the narrow focus on health and environmental aspects, and the lack of common measures used in research. Measures registries could provide the decision-support needed by stakeholders to aid in the indicator selection process.

Industrial Pollution, Social Trust, and Civic Engagement: A Nationwide Study of the Socioenvironmental Nature of Social Capital

I conduct a nationwide investigation of the relationship that toxic industrial pollution and the facilities that produce it have with trust and civic engagement within communities. Data on pollution exposure come from the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators Geographic Microdata (RSEI-GM) and Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data sets for the years 1995 to 1999. Data on trust and civic engagement come from the 2000 restricted-access Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS). Statistical analyses provide strong support for Freudenburg and Jones’ conceptualization of corrosive communities and indicate that exposures to more toxic air pollution associate negatively with various measures of trust, and that increased numbers of TRI facilities associate negatively with various measures of civic engagement. The implication is that exposure to toxic industrial air pollution and the facilities that produce it not only adversely affect the physical health of nearby communities, but also their social well-being and underlying capacities for collective action.

ASSESSMENT OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY: A CASE STUDY OF CASABLANCA, MOROCCO

By 2050, Most of the world’s population will live in cities, this demographic explosion will lead to significant urban development at the expanse of natural land which may harm the environmental quality. Consequently, assessing and modeling the urban environmental quality (UEQ) is requisite for efficient urban sprawl control and better city planning and management. The present study proposes a methodology to model and assess the environment of the urban system by developing the urban environmental quality index (UEQI) based on remote sensing data. Five environmental indicators were derived from the Landsat OLI image namely, Modified Normalized Difference Impervious Surface Index (MNDISI), Modified Normalized Difference, Water Index (MNDWI), Normalized difference vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized difference built-up Index (NDBI) and Soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI). Using the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) the urban environmental quality index was computed for the 17 communes of Casablanca city. The UEQI values were spatially mapped under three classes (good, moderate, and poor). The results obtained from the analysis showed a significant difference in the term of UEQI values among the communes. In addition, the environmental quality is inadequate in communes with fewer green spaces and more impervious surfaces. The outcomes of this work can serve as an efficient tool to determine the most critical interventions to be made by the authority for current and future urban planning and land/resource management.

Theoretical aspects of the formation and development of the ecological economy in Russia

The monograph is devoted to the place and role of ecology and environmental safety in ensuring sustainable socio-economic development of society. In the conditions of the forced transition of the economies of the leading countries of the world from an industrial type to a new formation of a green economy aimed at ensuring the preservation of ecological systems and the maximum reduction of damage to the biodiversity of ecological systems, the Russian Federation faces the task of forming a new course of socio-economic development of society focused on the preservation of natural potential and ecology at a level normal for the maintenance of the vital activity of society, flora and fauna in the foreseeable future and in the long term. The role and importance of environmental safety in the system of ensuring the economic security of the state are outlined, the concept of the ideology of "Global Commons" in ensuring sustainable socio-economic development of society is considered, the problems and prospects of the implementation of the program "Green Course of Russia" are analyzed, special aspects of environmental audit, accounting and control, damage assessment in the field of ecology are investigated. Special attention is paid to the forecast of the dynamics of key environmental indicators for the medium term. The main directions of increasing the effectiveness of the mechanism for ensuring environmental safety in a market economy are proposed. For a wide range of readers interested in environmental economics. It will be useful for students, postgraduates and teachers of economic universities.

A Review on Life Cycle Assessment of the Olive Oil Production

Olive oil is one of the most globally recognized high-value products, with 4 million hectares cultivated in the Mediterranean area. The production process involves many stages: farming, extraction, packing, and waste treatment. Each one of these stages should present critical points for the environmental impacts, and for this reason, the entire sector is adopting mitigation strategies to begin to be more sustainable. The mitigation actions’ efficiency should be evaluated through environmental indicators or environmental impact assessment by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This review aimed to carry out an overview of recent papers (2011–2021) involving an LCA study in the olive oil supply chain by giving a framework of what is included in LCA studies and highlighting the main contributors to environmental impacts. The main scholarly literature databases have been exploited, highlighting a great increase in publications, especially from the producer countries. The review results reflect the heterogeneity of the production process. However, the use of pesticides, fertilizers, water, and fuel for machinery heavily weigh on the farming stage’s environmental impact. Finally, special focus was given to key elements of LCA studies in the olive oil supply chain, such as functional unit, system boundaries, impact categories, calculation method, and software widely used.

COVID-19 and Its Implications to the Assessment of Sustainable Palm Oil Supply Chain Management: An Indonesian Perspective

Motivated by the low sustainability index and pressure to meet the global demand for eco-friendly crude palm oil (CPO) in the pandemic-ridden environment, this research aims to investigate the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the drivers of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) of the Indonesian CPO sector to tackle supply chain disruptions. To achieve this aim, the study seeks to determine the sustainability drivers to accommodate the pandemic-ridden environment and if sustainability indicators can help improve the supply chain management of the CPO sector. A methodology is divided into two interrelated parts: first, based on a careful review of extant literature of the CPO sector and sustainable supply chain in the light of pandemic. The proposed methodology is then tested using the response data of 108 oil mills' representatives collected through survey questionnaires and analyzed using statistical tools of reliability, distribution, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and diagnostic tests of CFA. The findings designate the environmental costs, rapidity, and adaptability as core economic indicators; the social and workforce development, health, and safety workforce development and consumer issues as crucial social indicators; while energy and material efficiency, management of waste and emissions, and sustainable suppliers as the best environmental indicators. This study provides a holistic platform on the implications of the pandemic to assess the SSCM of the CPO sector. These findings are expected to aid the industrial managers in employee skills and health protocols, customer service, and environmental management. The study is also anticipated to guide the supply-chain partners and government policymakers to take initiatives on SSCM in the context of the pandemic.

Assessment of potential sediment disasters and resilience management of mountain roads using environmental indicators

In recent years, extreme rainfall events occur frequently, causing serious watershed sediment disasters, destroying mountain roads, and endangering the safety of residents' lives and property. This study aims to deal with the spatial change of potential sediment movement on the road slope pre-disaster and to screen disaster hot spots for early warning and control system. The conceptual model is used to simulate the distribution of primary and/or derived disasters on a watershed scale to assess the impact of sediment disasters caused by heavy rain event. Correlation analysis shows that the models in assessment of primary disaster and derived disaster are significantly correlated with the collapse ratio and disaster ratio, respectively. Since the primary disaster has been considered when calculating the derived disaster risk, the terrain subdivision along Provincial Highway 21 (Tai-21) is extracted to understand the derived sediment disaster on the road slope. The model can effectively evaluate the road sections prone to disasters. According to the risk level, the hot spot of road slope disasters and the management of disaster resilience are determined and can be the reference for disaster prevention and control.