Sustainability Assessment Model of the Buriganga River Restoration Project in Bangladesh: A System Dynamics and Inclusive Wealth Study

The Bangladesh government initiated the Buriganga River Restoration Project in 2010 to clean the heavily polluted Turag-Buriganga River. This study assessed the dynamic impact of the project on intergenerational well-being and developing a sustainable river system. The project outcomes were modeled for three future scenarios—varying waste control, streamflow, and migration control levels. System dynamics modeling—based on Streeter-Phelps’ water quality model and inclusive wealth (IW) index—was applied to secondary data (including remotely sensed data). The simulation model indicated that the project (with increasing streamflow up to 160 m3/s) will not ensure sustainability because dissolved oxygen (DO) is meaningfully decreasing, biological oxygen demand (BOD) is increasing, and IW is declining over time. However, sustainability can be achieved in scenario 3, an integrated strategy (streamflow: 160 m3/s, waste control: 87.78% and migration control: 6%) that will ensure DO of 8.3 mg/L, BOD of 3.1 mg/L, and IW of 57.5 billion USD in 2041, which is equivalent to 2.22% cumulative gross domestic product by 2041. This study is the first to use combined modeling to assess the dynamic impacts of a river restoration project. The findings can help policymakers to achieve sustainability and determine the optimal strategy for restoring polluted rivers.

Community-Based Conservation and Cross-Cultural Relationships

<p>Conservation is a well-established concept which exists in diverse forms based on diverse meanings and environmental values. The role which communities play in local resource management addresses many challenges in regards to top-down state management over natural resources. Communities’ ability to act as environmental agents is contingent on how willing nation-states are to devolve power and decision-making to communities. Co-management relationships between community and state is one means of devolving power and increasing community agency. Where Indigenous communities are involved, co-management is a way of shifting power, knowledge and resources away from Western centred norms towards Indigenous worldviews and institutions. In Aotearoa New Zealand, co-management emerges across conservation efforts, from state managed levels to locally managed levels. Community-based conservation is one type of local co-management. This research aims to analyse the different experiences and perspectives of community volunteers at the Manawa Karioi Ecological Restoration project in Island Bay, Wellington. The Manawa Karioi Ecological Restoration project is first and foremost a collaborative relationship between the volunteers of the Manawa Karioi Society and the whānau (family) of the Tapu Te Ranga marae. The land on which conservation occurs belongs to the Tapu Te Ranga marae, and therefore the longstanding relationship that the two groups have with one another goes a long way to explaining the effectiveness of restoration at Manawa Karioi. This research focuses on interviews from twelve different participants, both from the Tapu Te Ranga marae and the Manawa Karioi Society. Through the conceptual lens of poststructuralism and political ecology, the key themes of this research will bring to light how the relationship between the Tapu Te Ranga marae and the Manawa Karioi Society enables process towards decolonisation of community-based conservation, wider societal understandings of nature and sense of place in nature. This research will explore the relationship between Manawa Karioi and the Tapu Te Ranga marae, with an aim to provoke further thought for other community organisations who wish to engage with, or already have a form of relationship with, Iwi, hapu or whānau. In doing so this research can be offered as a frame of reference for such organisations.</p>

Community-Based Conservation and Cross-Cultural Relationships

<p>Conservation is a well-established concept which exists in diverse forms based on diverse meanings and environmental values. The role which communities play in local resource management addresses many challenges in regards to top-down state management over natural resources. Communities’ ability to act as environmental agents is contingent on how willing nation-states are to devolve power and decision-making to communities. Co-management relationships between community and state is one means of devolving power and increasing community agency. Where Indigenous communities are involved, co-management is a way of shifting power, knowledge and resources away from Western centred norms towards Indigenous worldviews and institutions. In Aotearoa New Zealand, co-management emerges across conservation efforts, from state managed levels to locally managed levels. Community-based conservation is one type of local co-management. This research aims to analyse the different experiences and perspectives of community volunteers at the Manawa Karioi Ecological Restoration project in Island Bay, Wellington. The Manawa Karioi Ecological Restoration project is first and foremost a collaborative relationship between the volunteers of the Manawa Karioi Society and the whānau (family) of the Tapu Te Ranga marae. The land on which conservation occurs belongs to the Tapu Te Ranga marae, and therefore the longstanding relationship that the two groups have with one another goes a long way to explaining the effectiveness of restoration at Manawa Karioi. This research focuses on interviews from twelve different participants, both from the Tapu Te Ranga marae and the Manawa Karioi Society. Through the conceptual lens of poststructuralism and political ecology, the key themes of this research will bring to light how the relationship between the Tapu Te Ranga marae and the Manawa Karioi Society enables process towards decolonisation of community-based conservation, wider societal understandings of nature and sense of place in nature. This research will explore the relationship between Manawa Karioi and the Tapu Te Ranga marae, with an aim to provoke further thought for other community organisations who wish to engage with, or already have a form of relationship with, Iwi, hapu or whānau. In doing so this research can be offered as a frame of reference for such organisations.</p>

Merchant development of the city of Yalutorovsk (XIX – early XX centuries)

The architecture of stone buildings, built at the expense and with the assistance of merchants and small traders, which form the basis of the architectural and historical environment of the center of Yalutorovsk, was considered. For the first time, on the basis of composition and style analysis of merchant buildings, the specifics of style directions in the architecture of the city were revealed. Changes in the functional purpose, the original appearance of historical objects and development in general were traced. The materials of complex scientific research and restoration project of two merchant trading houses and previously unpublished photo documents are presented.

Engineering and design of the Lightning Point Shoreline Restoration Project in Bayou La Batre, Alabama

Lightning Point, located in Alabama at the confluence of the Bayou La Batre navigation channel and Mississippi Sound, is a culturally and ecologically valuable site with an extensive history of shoreline erosion. Between 1916 and 2019, the shoreline experienced approximately 750 to 1,000 ft of shoreline retreat as a result of severe weather events and anthropogenic causes such as shoreline modification and response efforts related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Moffatt & Nichol worked with The Nature Conservancy to restore the lost habitat and resources through ecology-based engineering and design. The Lightning Point Shoreline Restoration Project is a 1-milelong living shoreline that includes approximately 4,700 ft of segmented, overlapping breakwaters, 40 acres of marsh and upland habitat creation, and 10,000 linear feet of tidal creeks. The project was designed to include a diversity of habitat types (subtidal, intertidal, higher scrub-shrub) and to serve as a resilient restoration solution capable of adapting in the face of sea level rise and increasing storm activity.

Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Yellow River Basin from 1980 to 2015 and Its Impact on the Ecosystem Services

Land use and land cover change is an important driving force for changes in ecosystem services. We defined several important human-induced land cover change processes such as Ecological Restoration Project, Cropland Expansion, Land Degradation, and Urbanization by the land use / land cover transition matrix method. We studied human-induced land cover changes in the Yellow River Basin from 1980 to 2015 and evaluated its impact on ecosystem service values by the benefit transfer method and elasticity coefficient. The results show that the cumulative area of human-induced land cover change reaches 65.71 million ha from 1980 to 2015, which is close to the total area of the Yellow River Basin. Before 2000, Ecological Restoration Project was the most important human-induced land cover change process. However, due to the large amount of cropland expansion and land degradation, the area of natural vegetation was reduced and the ecosystem value declined. Since 2000, due to the implementation of the "Grain for Green" program, the natural vegetation of upstream area and midstream area of Yellow River Basin has been significantly improved. This implies that under an appropriate policy framework, a small amount of human-induced land cover change can also improve ecosystem services significantly.