The Societal Transformation Framework

The nation of Semite tribes has influenced humanities for thousands of years by their creativity, perseverance, migrations, and a holistic vision of various domains of life. This historic nation that mainly includes Arameans, Hebrews, Phoenicians, Akkadians, Babylonian, Assyrians, and other Yemenite tribes, inhabited the lands of Shem, drawing their origins from the southern Yemenite inlands. It is the oldest structured and networked civilization that has chosen the Middle Eastern area as a jumpstart for their expansions to reach various parts of the world. Navigation, religion(s), alphabet, language, mathematics, sciences, culture, commerce, finance, and many other fields were originated and developed by this exceptional and enduring nation of tribes. From their origin until today, this historic nation of tribes faced many challenges, confrontation, genocides, and even risks of extinction like in the dark ages of Nazism, pan-Arabism, middle-age inquisition, extreme Islamism.

Assessing the Existing Vegetation Around Abandoned Mining Areas With Potentially Toxic Heavy Metals

In abandoned mining areas, heavy metals may exist. Those heavy metals can cause physical consequences and death. Through the use of geographic information systems (GIS), the environmental diagnosis of vegetation potentially affected by the presence of very toxic heavy metals in abandoned mining areas in Extremadura was conducted. Initially, graphic and alphanumeric information was obtained from numerous sources, and the geospatial database generated was analyzed, allowing the location of abandoned mines. Subsequently, the mines were classified according to the degree of toxicity of the heavy metals that had been exploited. Then, taking into account the mines whose heavy metals were considered very toxic, a geospatial analysis was performed using concentric buffers at 1, 5, 10, 20, 40, and 60 kilometres. The results obtained made it possible to obtain thematic cartography representative of the areas potentially affected. The proportion of vegetation potentially affected, has been classified according to the existing vegetation series and climatic belts.

Environmental Impact Assessment

Human development activity is introduced with insufficient attention to the consequences for living environment and ecosystem. The conceptual background and practical approaches to deal with the proposed outcomes are addressed within the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure. This assessment framework provides strategic policies and planning, built upon a broad consultation process for securing a sustainable future for the environment. The Mediterranean Sea is home to a large diversity of ecosystem and consists of complex environment subjected to considerable pressure. The proposed EIA procedure in this study aims at addressing cross-cutting issues in order to achieve the best interface and interaction between environmental criteria, objectives, and perspectives in the region. Furthermore, the deniable role of this framework in support of provided ecosystem services, societal subsystems, regularity instruments in the Mediterranean region will be completely discussed.

Understanding the Concept and Limitations of Circular and Green Economy in the Mediterranean Region

The chapter gives a detailed description of concept and limitation of “circular and green economy” within the framework of Mediterranean region. It begins with an introduction of concept of circular and green economy, which explores transformation from a linear economy (i.e., “traditional take-make-waste model”) to the circular economy. It then describes the concept and theoretical foundation of the circular and green economy before giving a detailed comparative description of its practical economic and business rationale within the Mediterranean Region and the world at large. To make this chapter approachable to readers of various abilities, the chapter gives detailed description with the aid of tables and figures. Besides, previous financing info is included before providing policy recommendations that if implemented could offer a significant boost to a greener inclusive economic growth in the Mediterranean region and the world at large.

Innovation, Macroeconomic Effects, and Environmental Degradation

All over the world, rising population, diminishing natural resources, and the necessity of sustainable growth pointed out the importance of innovation. In the growth strategies, the ability to innovate, as knowledge capital, is one of the most important determinants of sustainable development for all developing countries as their aim is to generate added value, higher development, and a sustainable environment. The aim of this study is to present the importance of innovation for sustainable growth performance in the 13 Mediterranean countries. In the chapter, the role of innovation in macroeconomic performance and sustainable environment in the aforementioned countries will be analyzed. This chapter not only provides an analysis of the relationship between the innovation, macroeconomic factors, and environmental degradation but also policy suggestions to put forth to have more innovative technologies, sustainable growth performance, and environment conservation.

Measuring the Effect of Wage Inequality on Income Distribution via Theil Index in the Manufacturing Industry of Spain-Portugal

Income distribution is defined as sharing income arising from the sale of products among persons, groups, or production factors in a country within specific periods. Income inequality is the wage gaps between persons, groups, or regions. Increasing income inequality is accepted as the primary problem of economies in terms of bringing along many problems. This is because the fair distribution has continued to remain on the agenda of economic policies. There are several methods in measuring the inequality in the distribution of income as well as this study utilized Theil index because of the sensitivity of related index to super and subgroups of the income distribution. Spain and Portugal, in this chapter, were accepted as a single county; Spain and Portugal (each) were accepted as the regions of this presumptive country. Under this assumption, the course of wages inequality in time was revealed by the inequality analysis that was performed for eight sub-sectors of the manufacturing sector of Spain and Portugal for the years between1995 and 2015.

Governance, Planning, and Territorial Management

In the European Union, there have been significant developments in recent decades in cross-border cooperation and the removal of borders. Thirty years have passed since the launch of the Interreg funds, which finance territorial cooperation policies between Spain and Portugal. Despite these developments, which have encouraged economic and social flows between the two states, the border effect persists in many aspects, especially in terms of governance and shared territorial management. This study, therefore, focuses on how to address the border issue in the different spatial, sectoral, and urban planning instruments. This has involved analysing the different governance, planning, and territorial management systems in Spain and Portugal using the cross-border area of the Baixo Guadiana as a case study. As a preview of the results, following a comparative diagnosis, a number of obstacles and differences in spatial planning, and other territorial actions in this area have been revealed that are a hindrance to the integrated planning and co-management of the Spanish-Portuguese border area.

Achieving Seafood Security in the Mediterranean Region

The last decade has shown that food security is a major problem in the long term. Especially, food insecurity will be higher in poor and developing countries when the rising population needs more food sources. In this point, seafood products seem an alternative solution to achieve food security in the global food market. The Mediterranean region, which has lots of benefits from seafood market and fisheries, gives more attention to seafood security. Achieving seafood security is an important issue for coastal countries. This study aims to explain the importance of seafood security in the Mediterranean region through case of Turkey. The open access data from TURKSTAT (Turkish Statistical Institute) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) were used to determine seafood security conditions in Turkey. The study presents significant findings showing the role of seafood security in Mediterranean region in the context of sustainable development approach.

A Concrete Challenge for Territorial Governance in Europe

Since 2008, the year of the impact of the financial and economic crisis in Europe, many decisional processes have been subjected to a progressive re-nationalization tendency. The last reforms of EU Cohesion Policy have included some measures—the definition of the plans and the allocation process of the funds through national programmes and the thematic concentration—that are considered the expression of the centralization of powers and competencies that challenge the whole complex system of governance relations in Europe. These centralized trends impacted the territorial governance, the place-based approach to regional development, and the role of regions in policy making itself. This chapter aims to shed light on a specific historical period in which it has been experimented a declining support for territorial approaches in European policy making by presenting a complete definition of concept of territorial governance and by deeply discussing the theoretical framework in which regions have started to activate themselves and to participate to decisional processes at European level.

Evolutionary Dynamics in Mediterranean Landscapes

The specific richness and value of Mediterranean landscapes require a robust, well-defined, and comprehensive conservation strategy planning. Therefore, and considering the relevance of the topic in the light of the sustainability concept, those planning strategies should be based and sustained by many different studies and fields in order to provide a full view of the issue. Contextually, the present study through the use of geographic information systems (GIS) tools and methods allows addressing the evolution of forest and semi-natural areas in the Iberian Peninsula in the last three decades. With this study it was possible to verify that the land uses related to forests and semi-natural areas suffered many changes – increasing and decreasing periods; in fact, some of the reducing is concerning and should have a closer look by the territorial government authorities to give protection and conservation to this unique Mediterranean landscapes and environments.