environment interaction assignment

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5 Human-Environment Interactions

One of the central contributions of the geographic discipline is its examination of the interactions between social and ecological systems. Thinking about these interactions requires addressing several key questions.

The first question is how does the natural environment shape, control, and constrain human systems? One way this is understood is in terms of natural hazards, which are natural events that disrupt human activity. For example, the ongoing and persistent drought in California (2012-Present, Figure 1.5) has resulted in devastating effects on ecosystems and human society. The threat of wildfire is greatly increased by the continued dryness and wildlife and people are suffering from severe water shortage. The dry conditions also have taken a heavy toll on agriculture, tourism, and recreational industries.

The second key question about human-environment interactions is how human decision-making and processes shape and change the natural environment, including ecosystems, river systems, vegetation, and climate. Humans have caused such significant environmental change that Nobel Prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen suggested in 2000 that we have entered a new era known as the Anthropocene.

There is great concern about whether social and ecological systems can coexist in a sustainable manner. This has helped advance the concept of sustainability , which seeks to understand how human activities can exist without disrupting the ability of natural ecosystems to function. The sustainability concept will appear in various modules for this course, including coupled human-environmental systems, ethics and democracy, development, and individual responsibility. You will work through how sustainability is understood and the different ways that it is addressed.

An important consideration to sustainability is the concept of governance . Studies of governance consider how people make decisions and how they are constrained by external forces and structures to limit their range of options. An understanding of human-environment interactions attends to environmental governance in the ways that the ability of people to make decisions regarding the natural environment is shaped in part by external factors. As an example of this, the farmer in Brazil that we already discussed participates in governance decision-making with other stakeholders (the Brazilian government, other community members, etc.), state policies, and markets. The decisions that result in terms of transforming the natural environment are influenced by the governance mechanisms that shape the range of options available to particular actors. Environmental governance , which is in essence how natural resources are interpreted and managed by different stakeholders, connects to questions of sustainability. For example, one way of governing natural resources is through common property systems whereby individual actors are allowed access but with certain restrictions. Another example is exclusionary protected areas that restrict the movement of human populations and extraction of natural resources. These are two types of environmental governance strategies that have different impacts on social and ecological systems.

Finally, many of these discussions include concerns for ethics , as they involve how we prioritize human needs at the expense of non-human needs, how some human populations benefit from industrial development more than others, and what are the ecological costs of human-driven environmental change. The next course module, Coupled Human-Environment Systems , addresses these questions in more detail.

Introduction to Geography Copyright © by Petra Tschakert; Karl Zimmerer; Brian King; Seth Baum; and Chongming Wang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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10.1: Ecosystems and ecological interactions

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What lives in the forest?

Take a close look at this ecosystem. Obviously there are deer and many types of plants. But there are organisms that live there that cannot be seen in the picture. Many other animals, such as rabbits, mice, and countless insects. There are also bacteria and fungi. Add in the nonliving aspects of the area, such as the water , and you have an ecosystem.

The Ecosystem

Ecology is the study of how living things interact with each other and with their environment. It is a major branch of biology, but has areas of overlap with geography, geology, climatology, and other sciences. The study of ecology begins with two fundamental concepts in ecology: the ecosystem and their organisms.

Organisms are individual living things. Despite their tremendous diversity, all organisms have the same basic needs: energy and matter. These must be obtained from the environment. Therefore, organisms are not closed systems. They depend on and are influenced by their environment. The environment includes two types of factors: abiotic and biotic.

• Abiotic factors are the nonliving aspects of the environment. They include factors such as sunlight, soil, temperature, and water .
• Biotic factors are the living aspects of the environment. They consist of other organisms, including members of the same and different species.

An ecosystem is a unit of nature and the focus of study in ecology. It consists of all the biotic and abiotic factors in an area and their interactions. Ecosystems can vary in size. A lake could be considered an ecosystem. So could a dead log on a forest floor. Both the lake and log contain a variety of species that interact with each other and with abiotic factors. Another example of an ecosystem is pictured in Figure below .

A desert ecosystem. What are some of the biotic and abiotic factors in this desert ecosystem?

When it comes to energy, ecosystems are not closed. They need constant inputs of energy. Most ecosystems get energy from sunlight. A small minority get energy from chemical compounds . Unlike energy, matter is not constantly added to ecosystems. Instead, it is recycled. Water and elements such as carbon and nitrogen are used over and over again.

One of the most important concepts associated with the ecosystem is the niche. A niche refers to the role of a species in its ecosystem. It includes all the ways that the species interacts with the biotic and abiotic factors of the environment. Two important aspects of a species’ niche are the food it eats and how the food is obtained. Look at Figure below . It shows pictures of birds that occupy different niches. Each species eats a different type of food and obtains the food in a different way.

Bird Niches. Each of these species of birds has a beak that suits it for its niche. For example, the long slender beak of the nectarivore allows it to sip liquid nectar from flowers. The short sturdy beak of the granivore allows it to crush hard, tough grains.

Another aspect of a species’ niche is its habitat. The habitat is the physical environment in which a species lives and to which it is adapted. A habitat’s features are determined mainly by abiotic factors such as temperature and rainfall. These factors also influence the traits of the organisms that live there.

Competitive Exclusion Principle

A given habitat may contain many different species, but each species must have a different niche. Two different species cannot occupy the same niche in the same place for very long. This is known as the competitive exclusion principle . If two species were to occupy the same niche, what do you think would happen? They would compete with one another for the same food and other resources in the environment. Eventually, one species would be likely to outcompete and replace the other.

• Ecology is the study of how living things interact with each other and with their environment.
• The environment includes abiotic (nonliving) and biotic (living) factors.
• An ecosystem consists of all the biotic and abiotic factors in an area and their interactions.
• A niche refers to the role of a species in its ecosystem.
• A habitat is the physical environment in which a species lives and to which it is adapted.
• Two different species cannot occupy the same niche in the same place for very long.
• Define ecology.
• Define biotic and abiotic factors of the environment. Give an example of each.
• How do ecologists define the term ecosystem ? What makes up an ecosystem?
• State the competitive exclusion principle.
• Compare and contrast the ecosystem concepts of niche and habitat .

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Unit 4: Interactions in ecosystems

About this unit.

Explore the wild world of ecosystems! From population growth to resource availability, you'll discover the fascinating ways that living things interact to create vibrant and diverse communities.

Populations, communities, and ecosystems

• Populations, communities, and ecosystems (Opens a modal)
• Apply: populations, communities, and ecosystems Get 3 of 4 questions to level up!

Resources and population growth

• Resources and population growth (Opens a modal)
• Understand: resources and population growth Get 3 of 4 questions to level up!
• Apply: resources and population growth Get 3 of 4 questions to level up!

Ecological interactions

• Competition, predation, and mutualism (Opens a modal)
• Competitive, predatory, and mutualistic interactions (Opens a modal)
• Understand: ecological interactions Get 3 of 4 questions to level up!
• Apply: ecological interactions Get 3 of 4 questions to level up!

Human Impacts on the Environment

Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. These negative impacts can affect human behavior and can prompt mass migrations or battles over clean water.

Help your students understand the impact humans have on the physical environment with these classroom resources.

Earth Science, Geology, Geography, Physical Geography

FREE K-12 standards-aligned STEM

curriculum for educators everywhere!

Find more at TeachEngineering.org .

• TeachEngineering
• Interactions Everywhere!

Lesson Interactions Everywhere!

Grade Level: 4 (3-5)

Time Required: 45 minutes

Lesson Dependency: None

• Print lesson and its associated curriculum

Curriculum in this Unit Units serve as guides to a particular content or subject area. Nested under units are lessons (in purple) and hands-on activities (in blue). Note that not all lessons and activities will exist under a unit, and instead may exist as "standalone" curriculum.

• Moebius Strips
• Environmental Interactions
• Issues Awareness
• Issues, Issues Everywhere
• This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land
• Write On! Making Books or Newspapers to Share—Like Engineers

TE Newsletter

Engineering connection, learning objectives, more curriculum like this, introduction/motivation, associated activities, lesson closure, vocabulary/definitions, user comments & tips.

Environmental engineers design and build a range of projects and systems in our natural and human-made surroundings. For example, projects that re-direct a river's natural flow or restore contaminated rivers are types of environmental challenges that engineers take on. They also solve environmental problems that involve air pollution, public health, waste disposal, toxic materials control or land protection, among many others.

After this lesson, students should be able to:

• Describe an environment.
• Identify interactions taking place in an environment.
• Appreciate the degree to which living and non-living things depend on one another.
• Classify parts of the environment as either biotic or abiotic.
• Identify and understand the roles of environmental engineers in our society.

Educational Standards Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards. All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN) , a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org). In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g. , by state; within source by type; e.g. , science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc .

Ngss: next generation science standards - science.

View aligned curriculum

Do you agree with this alignment? Thanks for your feedback!

International Technology and Engineering Educators Association - Technology

State standards, colorado - science.

Are you concerned about the natural and human-made environment? Are you interested in solving problems related to water or air pollution, solid waste disposal, recycling, preserving the rainforests, new types of energy, how we use our natural resources, etc.? If you have answered yes to any of these questions, you would likely be interested in learning more about becoming an environmental engineer when you grow up.

There are two types of environments that exist: 1) the natural environment (see Figure 1), and 2) the human-made environment (see Figure 2). Can you think of things in your environment that are natural? (Have students brainstorm answers, such as water, air, sun, soil, food, animals, etc.) The natural environment is split into two parts: living things, which we call biotic , such as plants and animals; and non-living things, which we call abiotic , such as water, air and sunlight. Can you think of things in your environment that are human-made? (Have students brainstorm ideas, such as houses, cars, clothing, etc.) Could you live without the environment? (Answer: You can live without some parts of it, but you cannot live without the LAWS: light, air, water and soil.) Are there some parts of your environment that you could live without? (Answer: Yes, you can live without your computer, rollerblades, bike, electronic games, mountains, etc. You cannot live without light, air, water and soil.)

The environment affects your health and well-being, in addition to your choices for entertainment, occupation, clothing, etc. Environmental engineers design and create a vast majority of things we use in the environment in everyday life. They also control and fix parts of our environments that are natural and human-made, such as the direction of a river or the contamination of a river. They work with everything from air pollution, hazardous and toxic materials and water supplies to waste disposal, public health, land and other natural resources.

Lesson Background and Concepts for Teachers

History of Environmental Engineering

Environmental engineering came about in the 1800s, post Civil War due to life-threatening water quality and air quality problems. In 1830, environmental engineers designed the first water supply systems in the United States. Furthermore, by 1939, the start of World War II, environmental engineers ensured that water was safe to drink. Environmental engineering continues to be a recognized profession today because of the continuing need for pollution control, among other environmental issues.

The Role of Environmental Engineering

Environmental engineers assess and manage the effects of human and other activity on the natural and human-built environment. They work in many different major categories of environmental protection:

Environmental engineers have diverse roles within these major categories. They frequently work closely with other professionals, at times pooling expertise on particular projects. They can be:

Additionally, there are several different types of companies or organizations who employ environmental engineers:

The Environments in Which We Live

A natural environment consists of two parts: abiotic (the physical environment) and biotic (the living environment), as well as the interactions between and within them. Refer to the associated activity Environmental Interactions to have students create a "web" to identify and demonstrate the interactions between and among the living and non-living parts of an environment.

Abiotic (physical) environment – includes the natural environment of light, air, water and soil (the environmental LAWS), as well as the human-made environment (houses, stereos, tennis shoes, gum wrappers, etc.). An abiotic environment changes naturally from weathering, erosion, and so forth, but often so slowly that we often do not even notice its change. The effects of human activities (such as clearing a mountain to make a ski area) alter it much more immediately and obviously than natural activities. The natural physical environment is also made up of three parts: the lithosphere (the rocky part), the hydrosphere (the watery part), and the atmosphere (the gassy part).

Environments contain abiotic (non-living) factors, but the extent of their presence varies. These non-living factors are known as the environmental LAWS and are represented by: L – Light; A – Air; W – Water; and S – Soil. Refer to the associated activity Moebius Strips to demonstrate the interconnectedness of an environment and to explore natural cycles (water, oxygen/carbon dioxide, carbon, nitrogen) within the environment.

Biotic (living) environment – includes plants and animals (consumers, producers and decomposers). About 1.2 million species of plants and animals have been discovered and described, but it is estimated that there may be around 8.7 million species on Earth.

Producers are mainly green plants, and they fix the sun's energy and make food from simple substances. Consumers use the food stored by the producers. Decomposers are mainly bacteria and fungi and break down complex compounds into raw materials to be used again by the producers.

A human-made environment is any non-natural environment. Humans first began to severely alter the natural environment when they began farming approximately 10,000 years ago. Since then, humans have modified the natural environment in many ways through agriculture, architecture, industry, transportation, etc. As a result of an ever growing human population, the human-made environment is blamed for the major environmental problems (including air and water pollution, among others) facing us today.

Students and teachers can find out about many different engineering disciplines at https://www.teachengineering.org/k12engineering/types-of-engineering .

Some biographies of people who work in environmental professions can be found at the following website: https://www.thirteen.org/edonline/wue/cool_careers.html .

Watch this activity on YouTube

• Environmental Interactions - Students create a "web" to identify and demonstrate the interactions between and among the living and non-living parts of an environment. They use this information to better understand what an environment is and to consider how engineers use teamwork.

Review key vocabulary, especially abiotic factors and biotic factors, and reiterate the roles that environmental engineers play in society. (Reminder: Environmental engineers assess and manage the effects of human and other activity on the natural and human-made environment. Their roles include: researchers, designers, planners, pollution control facility operators, program managers, professional society workers, professors, government regulatory agency officials.)

abiotic factor: The parts of the environment that are non-living (a mountain, water, volcano, air, cars, etc.).

biotic factor: The parts of the environment that are living or were once living (dinosaurs, trees, grasshoppers, corn, etc.).

environment: The physical surroundings of an organism, including all the conditions and circumstances that affect its development (everything that surrounds you is your environment).

environmental engineer: A person who solves problems related to protecting the environment.

interaction: A relationship between parts of the environment.

LAWS: Light, air, water, soil

Pre-Lesson Assessment

Idea Web: Ask students to brainstorm a list of answers to a question. This may be done as a class, in small groups, or even as a possible homework assignment the day before starting the unit. As a class, use their answers to create an idea web (on the board, an overhead, etc.). An idea web is a network of logically interconnected ideas. For example, the idea "rain" might be connected with a body of water, "lake." Ask the class to decide if anything needs to be added to the web. Be sure they have included living and non-living items (especially LAWS: light, air, water and soil). Ask them:

• What is an environment? (Answer: Your environment is everything that surrounds you, both natural and human-made items.)
• What things make up an environment? (Answer: Your environment is everything that surrounds you, both natural and human-made items.)

Post Introduction Assessment

Question/Answer: As a class, discuss some of the following questions:

• How important do you think the environment is to your life? (Answer: Very important; the environment affects your health and well-being, as well as choices for entertainment, occupation, clothing, etc.)
• Could you live without the environment? (Answer: You can live without some parts of the environment, but you cannot live without the LAWS — light, air, water and soil.)
• Are there some parts of your environment that you could live without? (Answer: Yes, you can live without your computer, rollerblades, bike, electronic games, mountains, etc. You cannot live without light, air, water and soil.)
• What do you think an environmental engineer does? (Answer: See ideas in the Background section. Let students know that they will be learning much more about this in this unit.)
• Are you concerned about the natural and human-made environment? Are you interested in solving problems related to water or air pollution, solid waste disposal, recycling, preserving the rainforests, new types of energy, how we use our natural resources, etc.? (Note: Let students know that if they answered yes to any of these questions, they may be interested in becoming an environmental engineer.)

Lesson Summary Assessment

Bingo: Provide each student with a sheet of paper containing a list of the lesson vocabulary terms. Have each student walk around the room and find a student who can define one vocabulary term. Students must find a different student for each word. When a student has all terms completed s/he shouts "Bingo!" Continue until two or three (or most) students have bingo. Ask the students who shouted "Bingo!" to give definitions of the vocabulary terms.

Figure Drawing: Ask students to draw a picture of an environment that they spend time in outside of school; for example, their bedroom, a park, ballet class, etc. On the second day, have students present their pictures and ideas with the class. Collect and review the students' homework. They should follow the steps below:

• Name the environment they draw and be able to describe why it is an environment.
• List the biotic and abiotic factors in the environment.
• Describe at least five interactions that take place in the environment, with at least two of them being multi-step interactions.
• Describe at least one cycle that occurs in this environment (like clean laundry is removed from the closet and worn, it is then placed in the laundry hamper, laundry in the hamper gets washed, and clean laundry gets hung back up in closet).
• Describe what type of environmental engineer might interact with their drawn environment. (This allows for a little imagination and humor, especially if they are describing their bedroom or other home environment. For example, a student that has a very messy room may need a hazardous waste engineer! You may need to review some of the types of environmental engineers with them.)

Lesson Extension Activities

Current Events – Ask students to bring in articles from newspapers, magazines, etc. that discuss the environment and environmental engineers. Discuss the environmental engineer's role. Following are some websites for obtaining current environmental articles:

www.enn.com

www.cnn.com

https://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/

https://www.pollutiononline.com/resource/news

Pick an environmental novel or picture books to read (as a class or as a read-aloud). ( Note: You may refer to the References section for some book ideas .)

Ask students to review any environmental engineering job postings on websites like Indeed.com, or have them research the job at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/environmental-engineers.htm. Ask them to develop a general profile of an environmental engineer, including schooling, skills, other necessary experience, salary, etc.

Have students research different university web sites for descriptions and requirements for environmental engineering programs and degrees. They should develop a general profile of an environmental engineering education and career.

Ask different groups of students to research and write letters to different types of environmental engineers (water, solid waste, consultants, land management, etc.). Students should ask each engineer to define "environment" in his/her own words. The class can compare the results once the students' response letters have returned.

Invite an environmental engineer as a guest speaker. A student my have a relative or friend that will be willing to speak to the class. Or, call the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the local water treatment plant (drinking or waste), a recycling company, or a consulting firm, etc. and ask if they have someone who could come and speak to the class. Ask the guest speaker to define "environment" in his/her own words and compare with the class's definition. Ask the speaker to describe the different types of interactions/relationships s/he deals with in the environment. Ask the speaker to describe his/her career in detail.

Display different pictures of different types of environments and ask the students to describe the interactions that take place there. Have them discuss the types of environmental engineer that may come in contact with the environment.

Students are introduced to the concepts of air pollution, air quality, and climate change. The three lesson parts (including the associated activities) focus on the prerequisites for understanding air pollution. First, students use M&M® candies to create pie graphs that express their understanding o...

With a continued focus on the Sonoran Desert, students are introduced to the concepts of biomes, limiting factors (resources), carrying capacity and growth curves. By studying these ecological relationships, students see the connection between ecological relationships of organisms and the fundamenta...

In this multi-day activity, students explore environments, ecosystems, energy flow and organism interactions by creating a scale model biodome, following the steps of the engineering design process.

Students gain an understanding of the parts of a plant, plant types and how they produce their own food from sunlight through photosynthesis. They learn how plants play an important part in maintaining a balanced environment in which the living organisms of the Earth survive. This lesson is part of ...

Chandler, Pauline. Environmental Issues (Hand-On Minds-On Science Series): Intermediate, Westminster, California: Teacher Created Materials, Inc., 1994.

Cole, Joanna, and Bruce Degen.  The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge . New York, NY: Scholastic, 2010.

Durell, Ann, Craighead George, Jean and Paterson, Katherine (eds). The Big Book For Our Planet (First Edition) . New York: Dutton Children's Books, 1993.

Kerrod, Robin. Let's Investigate Science – The Environment . New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 1994.

MacKay, Amanda.  The Little Beaver and the Beautiful Forest . Toronto, ON, CAN: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.

McFadden (ed). Science Plus – Technology and Society (Level Red) . Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1993.

Mora C, Tittensor DP, Adl S, Simpson AGB, Worm B (2011) How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean? PLoS Biol 9(8): e1001127. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127

Paul, Miranda, and Elizabeth Zunon.  One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia . Minneapolis, MN: Findaway World, LLC., 2015.

Rohmer, Harriet, and Julie McLaughlin.  Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet . San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2009.

Verde, Susan, et al.  The Water Princess . New York, NY: G.P. Putnams Sons, 2016.

https://www.teachengineering.org/k12engineering/types-of-engineering

www.thirteen.org/edonline/wue/cool_careers.html

https://cee.mines.edu/

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/biodiversity/

Other Related Information

(optional: Show students the What Is Engineering? video)

1.2 Interactions Among Organisms

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Introduction

In the previous section on Daisyworld, the interactions among daisies appear very simple. Yet Daisyworld has some very interesting behaviors due to feedbacks among black and white daisies and temperature . In real ecosystems, the interactions are more varied and complex. These interactions commonly produce feedbacks in the respective populations of various species. Competition for resources and predation can limit populations of organisms. Mutually beneficial relationships can increase the populations of both species interacting. And the organisms influence their environment, shaping Earth's surface and the resources available to ecosystems. Thus, interactions among species are a major component of how like on Earth persists and evolves through time.

Some Interaction Types

Most interactions between species have produce harms and benefits for the organisms involved, but sometimes the results are closer to neutral. There are typically 6 types of interactions when considering the harms and benefits to each species (Figure), but there are also other ways to frame interactions (see this Khan Academy video for example).

Figure: The benefits and harms to organisms with different types of interactions. Predation has the equivalent effects as parasitism in this diagram. ( Diagram by Ian Alexander, Wikipedia , CC BY-SA 4.0 )

The following sections include these interactions types, with examples. For the first three interactions types, mutualism, neutralism, and competition, the effects of the interaction are similar on both of the species. For the next three, the effects are asymmetric, with one species benefiting more than the other from the interaction. Note that these categories are neither the only interaction types nor are they able to capture the intricacies of actual interactions among organisms. For example, how does an opossum pushing a skunk into the water fit within this classification? (Confession: I just wanted to include a link to the video.)

Many interactions result in benefits to both organisms, and for a relationship to be mutually beneficial, both species need to do better when interacting with the other. These relationships include organisms providing resources and protection for each other. Ecosystems are commonly built around these relationships, and mutualistic relationships allow large amounts of biomass to accumulate, say in a rainforest. Organisms helping each other increases the amount and diversity of life that can be supported.

Examples: Insects pollinate flowers, which provide the insects with nectar and pollen as food. Fungi obtain their energy from breaking down dead wood to release nutrients for the living trees. Bacteria in our guts help us digest our food, and we provide them with a stable environment with plenty of food for themselves. The examples are limitless.

Some species exist in the same environment without directly affecting each other. If they use different resources in the environment and do not prey on each other, their direct interactions are neutral - neither good nor bad for either species. Even if their interactions are neutral, they are part of the same ecosystem, so changes in the ecosystem can affect both species similarly or differently.

Example : California ground squirrels and mule deer both live in many California ecosystems. The squirrels generally eat seeds, barley, oats, and acorns with some insects and bird eggs. In contrast, mule deer largely browse on bushes and trees, with acorns being an important part of their diet in summer and fall (Sommer et al., 2007). These two species might compete for acorns when other resources are sparse, but they mostly exist in neutral proximity to each other. However, both are hunted by coyotes , bobcats , and pumas , so their populations are linked through other species. For example, if the population of squirrels declines, say from predation by red tailed hawks , there might be more predator pressure on deer from their common predators, e.g. coyotes, bobcats, and pumas. Thus, a large population of squirrels might reduce predation on deer, indirectly benefiting them, while also increasing competition for acorns if other food resources are low.

Competition

Competition for resources and space is very common among species that occupy similar roles in an ecosystem. When species compete with each other, both pay a price for that competition because they are sharing resources. When interactions are predominantly competitive, either species would do better if the other was not present. Competition tends to drive selection of the organisms that are best suited for a particular ecosystem role, with the population of the better adapted species increasing relative to that of the less well adapted species. As the population of the more successful species increases, it is less affected by the competition because each organism experiences fewer interactions with its competitors. In contrast, each individual of the less successful species experiences relatively more competitive interactions, making the harm experiences greater. 

Example: California grasslands have been invaded by new species of grass introduced by humans. These new species out competed the native species due to their greater ability to reproduce in many of the environments (see for example, Corbin and D'Antonio, 2010 ). The new species are taking up the space and nutrients previously used by the native grasses. In this case, the native species experienced a significantly greater harm during the competition than the invasive species.

Example: Virginia opossums and striped skunks actually do compete with each other to some degree. Both are opportunistic feeders, eating almost anything that is available, with opossums eating more small vertebrates and plants and skunks focusing more on insects. They are also about the same size. Thus, they play a similar role in the ecosystem and can compete for both food and dens, although opossums can also den in trees. In contrast to the example of the grasses,  opossums and skunks commonly co-exist, with the competition less intense and their abilities to reproduce more equal in many ecosystems.

Commensalism

Sometimes interactions benefit one organism while being of neither benefit nor harm to the other organism. These types of relationships are also very common and help promote diverse ecosystems.

Examples: A tree frog in a rainforest benefits from the habitat created by the tree it lives in without harming or benefiting the tree. A cattle egret can catch half again as much food while expending two thirds of the energy if it searches for insects near grazing animals who disturb the insects. This activity does not directly benefit the grazing animals, nor does it harm them.

Interactions can have no effect on one species while harming another. These interactions are usually incidental to a behavior of the species that does not experience harm or benefit. They can include interactions such as a change in the environment, incidental killing of organisms, and other influences.

Examples: Hippos consume a significant amount of undigestible organic matter, and they create a very large volume of poop. They often poop in ponds, and these ponds can become anoxic, killing the aquatic organisms that require oxygen to live ( Pennisi, 2018 ). Most animals have stepped on insects, killing them.

Parasitism and Predation

Parasitism and predation both have a strong benefit for one species and a significant harm to the other. In both cases, one organism takes resources from another. Parasitism involves one organism living off the resources of another for an extended period of time without causing their death. Parasites benefit from the survival of their host organism. In contrast, predation usually involves killing the prey organism and consuming it. Often, parasites are small relative to their hosts, whereas predators are frequently about the same size as or larger than their prey. This difference in size is related to the energy needs of an organism relative to its size: in general, larger organisms need more energy to accumulate their biomass and to maintain their activity. A small parasite can take energy from a larger host for an extended period of time without killing it. In contrast, a larger organism generally needs more energy, so it is difficult to maintain itself without killing the organism it is preying on. Similarly, it is easier to kill an organism that is of similar size or smaller, so predators tend to prey on smaller organisms. In contrast, parasites typically kill by causing systemic problems for their hosts, such as diseases, extracting too many resources, or taking over cellular processes in the case of viruses.

Parasitism Examples: Parasites include organisms like ticks that live by sucking the blood of mammals. Other parasites include mistletoe living in trees ; mistletoe has evolved to plant its "roots" into the circulation system of the trees, extracting nutrients and water from the host. This can cause significant damage to the tree.

Predation Examples: Obvious examples include animals that prey on other animals. (see https://necsi.edu/predator-prey-relationships for some examples.)

There are a lot of questions as to how herbivory (eating of plants) fits into this relationship scheme. If an herbivore kills the plant, the interaction is similar to predation. However, many plants survive and some have even evolved to do better when fed on by other species. For example, fruits often attract other species to help distribute the seeds for the plant. Thus, the relationships between plants and the things that eat them can be evaluated in terms of harms and benefits much like those involving other species interactions.

Relationships among organisms can be more complicated than who benefits or loses from the direct interactions. Both direct and indirect interactions have been driving forces for evolution, leading to deeply interconnected communities within ecosystems. The relationships often become more intricate and interdependent through time as species help and harm each other, responding to the organisms around them. These interactions often lead to stabilizing feedbacks and persistent ecosystems. Sometimes, however, a geological event, evolution of a revolutionary process, or the introduction of a new species can disrupt the established relationships and lead to ecological change that triggers an amplifying feedback.

Return to Daisyworld

In the introduction to this chapter, I posed some questions about the interactions among daisies in Daisyworld:

How many different types of interactions are there? Can they be classified into the interaction types described in the second part of the chapter? If this was a real ecosystem, what other organisms would be needed to allow the daisies to grow? How would any of these needs affect the simple Daisyworld model?

How would you answer these questions after reading about different interaction types? What would you like to add to a Daisyworld model?

https://animaldiversity.org

Sommer, M. L., R. L. Barboza, R. A. Botta, E. B. Kleinfelter, M. E. Schauss and J. R. Thompson. 2007. Habitat Guidelines for Mule Deer: California Woodland Chaparral Ecoregion. Mule Deer Working Group, Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. PDF

Pennisi, 2018 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018...-across-africa

Corbin and D'Antonio, 2010 https://link.springer.com/article/10...258-010-9722-0

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14: Human-Environment Interactions

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• Heather Karsten & Steven Vanek
• Pennsylvania State University via John A. Dutton: e-Education Institute

Human-Environment Interactions: Resilience, Vulnerability, and Adaptive Capacity (RACV) of Food Systems

In Module 11, we focus on human-environment interactions in food systems under stress. Just as a human body does not persist in a constant state of perfect health, farms, fisheries and other components of food systems face adversity. These components must have sources of resilience and restoration to overcome these challenges. Shocks and perturbations from the natural world are a major negative coupling force from the natural systems to human societies and are sometimes compounded by problems and crises within societies. Such shocks are most evident where the natural world meets human management in production areas, and so Module 11.1 focuses on the resilience and vulnerability of agriculture. As a premier example of this, we build on the material from module 2 and learn about the way that humans’ manipulation of seeds and plant varieties has created agrobiodiversity. Agrobiodiversity, along with crop management techniques, make food production systems resilient or vulnerable to shocks and perturbations. In Module 11.2 we take up the theme of food access and food insecurity as a major example of vulnerability and an ongoing challenge for a significant proportion of humanity. Food insecurity also manifests as acute crises that carry the formal designation of famines. We will also study these since they are large-scale failures of the modern food system, which currently produces enough food for every person on earth. Just as health sciences and medicine are ways to improve and guarantee health for all persons, our hope is that by understanding vulnerability and resilience in food systems we can address food insecurity for all people as a facet of sustainable food systems. Addressing food insecurity is a serious consideration that you will contemplate in your capstone project.

• Describe the concepts of resilience, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability (RACV) in a food system.
• Explain food access and food insecurity as a key challenge to food systems.
• Appraise the value of human seed systems and agrobiodiversity as human system components that incorporate crops as natural components and foster resilience.
• Apply concepts of RACV to understand changes in seed systems and food production in examples.
• Analyze stresses and shocks from climate change and food system failure that lead to both gradual changes in food systems and acute crises such as famines.

Learning Objectives

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Define the concepts of perturbations and shocks, resilience, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability in the context of agri-food systems.
• Define and describe agrobiodiversity within food production systems and changes in this agrobiodiversity over time.
• Define the concepts of food access, food security, food insecurity, malnutrition, and famine.
• Give examples of resilience, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability in food systems.
• Give examples of support systems for biodiversity in land use and food systems.
• Evaluate recent examples in land use and food systems of resilience, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability (RACV).
• Analyze an example of a recent famine and understand how multiple factors of vulnerability and shocks combine to create widespread conditions of food insecurity known as famines.
• Understand scales at which resilience and vulnerability come into play, including farm, community, regional, and international scales.
• Propose principles embodying RACV for incorporation into a proposal/scenario for an example food system (capstone project).

Assignments

Module 11 Roadmap

Please note that some portions of the Summative Assessment may need to be completed prior to class. Detailed instructions for completing the Summative Assessment will be provided in each module.

If you prefer to use email:

If you have any questions, please send them through Canvas e-mail. We will check daily to respond. If your question is one that is relevant to the entire class, we may respond to the entire class rather than individually.

If you prefer to use the discussion forums:

If you have any questions, please post them to the discussion forum in Canvas. We will check that discussion forum daily to respond. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate.

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Human-built environment interactions: the relationship between subjective well-being and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics

Ali reza sadeghi.

1 Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Maryam Ebadi

Fatemeh shams.

2 Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Sina Jangjoo

3 Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Florida State University, 768-2 California St., Tallahassee, FL 32304 USA

Associated Data

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

The neighborhood is one of the most fundamental urban elements and acts as the intermediary link between the city and citizens to enhance the quality of life. The present study examined the significance of the relationship between the subjective well-being of citizens and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics in urban historical fabrics for creating healthy neighborhoods. To this end, a survey research method was employed, and the data were collected via questionnaires. The population consisted of all the citizens of the historical neighborhood of Sange Siah in Shiraz, Iran, who lived or worked in the neighborhood and used the neighborhood spaces daily. A Nonparametric Spearman correlation coefficient was run to assess the correlation between the variables. The results showed that the component of social inclusion from among the six components of subjective well-being had a significant positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics (r = 0.712). In the following, the components of satisfaction with life (0.614), mental well-being (0.569), positive and negative effect (0.526), and feeling of happiness (0.468) had a moderate positive correlation; and the component of physical and mental health also had a weak positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics (0.230). In addition, the concept of subjective well-being with a correlation coefficient of 0.579 had a moderate positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, which indicates that the structural characteristics of the neighborhood have a significant relationship with the subjective well-being of the people living in the neighborhood.

Introduction

Today, given the rapid growth of urbanization, living along with daily stresses has led to the increase of mental and psychological problems in humans. In such environments and for creation of healthy neighborhoods, the assignment of attention to the components of “physical and mental” health and the creation of “positive subjective well-being” among citizens has become a global challenge. This issue assumes importance when it is observed that the World Health Organization (WHO) has focused on building a network of healthy cities. Fitzpatrick believes that well-being is “a subjective component; so it relates to the feelings, perceptions, cognitions, and experiences of the same person that is the subject of well-being”. Fitzpatrick argues that no clear and complete definition of well-being can come into play and the question of “what is well-being” cannot be easily answered and evaluated 1 .

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) considers health a product of people's positive subjective well-being. It is reported that many international organizations aim to improve and promote human well-being in urban environments 2 . In this regard, well-being in life is considered one of the most urgent innate desires and psychological needs of humans. In such a way, some researchers call happiness “subjective well-being” 3 , which refers to the extent to which one loves and enjoys his/her life 4 or feeling supreme and relatively sustainable pleasures 5 . In fact, in this type of thinking, subjective well-being is shaped not only by having access to adequate food, water, and shelter but also through positive interactions with others, favorable physical and emotional experiences, avoidance of the sense of pain, and the ability to control conditions. Considering all these points, the primary sign of subjective well-being is that people believe they have at least a good life 6 . Nowadays, many researchers seek to investigate the dimensions of subjective well-being and the relationship between subjective well-being and its dimensions and components with individual, social, physical, and environmental issues such as physical and mental health, social inclusion, and built environment conditions. In the meantime, neighborhood environment characteristics, as the independent and external variables, play an essential role in predicting citizens’ subjective well-being 7 . A neighborhood is considered a significant territory and environment for people’s lives and enjoys a unique capability that affects citizens' well-being; besides, it is viewed as a desirable scale on which urban planners and designers can apply their desired changes 8 . However, there are only a limited number of studies investigating the significance of the relationship between neighborhood environment characteristics and their impacts on citizens' subjective well-being 7 .

Overall, it is necessary to have a comprehensive model of the dimensions of the “built environment” on the neighborhood scale and its effects on citizens’ subjective well-being. Such a model should be able to incorporate all the neighborhood environment characteristics and different aspects of subjective well-being 9 . The creation of positive subjective well-being in citizens is considered one of the main goals of life and an indicator of social sustainability 10 , which can be realized on various scales through planning and designing the built environments.

Considering the points mentioned above, the main purpose of the present study is to investigate the significance of the relationship between citizens’ subjective well-being and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. Sange Siah Neighborhood, located in the historical fabric of the city of Shiraz in Fars Province in Iran, was selected as the sampling base and case study in order to conduct this research. The selected neighborhood has specific historical, physical, and social characteristics and is known as a historical “neighborhood” with a unique identity in Shiraz. Accordingly, the main question of this study can be arranged as follows: Is there any significant relationship between perceived neighborhood environment characteristics in urban historical fabrics and different dimensions of subjective well-being based on the citizens’ preferences? In this line, the research hypothesis is also formulated in this proposition that there seems to be a significant correlation between perceived neighborhood environment characteristics and the level of subjective well-being among citizens of historical fabrics. Therefore, in the following section, i.e., the literature review, the theories pertaining to subjective well-being and its relationship with neighborhood environment characteristics are reviewed and analyzed to explain the research's theoretical framework.

Literature review

In the past two decades, various research has been conducted with different approaches to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of the built environment and subjective well-being. These research projects can be categorized into several general groups based on their chosen approach to this subject and research methodology. The first group is the research that has focused only on special and unique dimensions of subjective well-being with a reductionist approach and considered the concept of subjective well-being as equivalent and synonymous with a specific component. They have only analyzed this component or dimension to analyze subjective well-being. Some of the research includes 8 (emotional components as subjective well-being), 11 (individual physical health as subjective well-being), 14 (individual satisfaction as subjective well-being), 16 (mental health as subjective well-being), 17 (Physical and mental health as subjective well-being), 18 (individual satisfaction as subjective well-being), 19 (residential satisfaction and life satisfaction as subjective well-being). Although these research projects have tried to measure the relationship between the characteristics of the built environment and subjective well-being, they are seriously criticized due to the lack of a comprehensive approach to subjective well-being and its components and dimensions.

The second group is research that has tried to consider the multiple dimensions of subjective well-being with a holistic approach when examining the relationship or how the environment affects subjective well-being and has not focused on a specific aspect or dimension of subjective well-being. However, most of these research projects have examined subjective well-being in the form of two or three dimensions and have not been able to take a comprehensive and holistic view of subjective well-being and have not considered all aspects of this concept. Among these research projects, we can refer to research 12 (emphasis on the dimensions of vitality and mental health), 13 (depression and negative affective component), 15 (happiness and positive affective components), and 6 (positive and negative effective components, happiness and anxiety).

The third group is research that put the concept of subjective well-being together with different concepts and factors in their research with a simple look at the concept of subjective well-being and investigated the relationship of the built environment with several separate and different concepts simultaneously. Among these research projects, we can refer to 20, which measured the relationship between the built environment and several factors such as public transportation system, social deprivation, physical and mental health, and subjective well-being. The lack of serious focus on the concept of subjective well-being and its components and dimensions is a serious criticism of this group of research.

In this regard, Saelens et al. 11 , concluded that the Perceived neighborhood components (Land-use mix, Street connectivity, Accessibility, /aesthetics, and Residential Safety) play a significant role in the level of physical health as one of the components of mental well-being. Guite et al. 12 concluded that three independent variables, the noise level of neighbors, feeling of overcrowding and density, and Fear of crime and harassment, affect people's subjective well-being. Mair et al. 13 showed that the socio-economic status of people at the neighborhood level impacts people's subjective well-being. Lovejoy et al. 14 showed that the Attractiveness of the neighborhood and the Safety perceived by the people living in the neighborhood as two important characteristics are more related to the component of People's satisfaction with the neighborhood in two types of traditional and suburban neighborhoods in Northern California.

Lyden et al. 15 concluded that positive evaluation of subjective well-being is associated with important aspects of the built environment, including Accessibility to cultural amenities and public transportation. Bond et al. 16 investigated the residential and environmental conditions of the neighborhood, on the level of mental health of people, that moving from apartments to villas increases the subjective well-being of the respondents, and in addition to the physical conditions of the housing, the variable of housing rent can also affect the subjective well-being of the residents. Friedman et al. 17 showed that the Perceived neighborhood environment characteristics such as safety, social cohesion with the component of physical and mental health, and subjective well-being, in general, have a positive relationship. Ambrey & Fleming 18 , showed that public green spaces positively affect people's satisfaction with the neighborhood environment. Cao 19 , concluded that Street connectivity positively affects the evaluation of people's life satisfaction, while density negatively affects people's life satisfaction.

Ma et al. 20 , concluded that neighborhood density has negative effects on people's physical and mental health; while it has a positive effect on the subjective well-being of citizens, the perception of crime in a neighborhood is highly correlated with transportation and poor physical health. Also, the aesthetics of the neighborhood's structure and the characteristics of the neighborhood's social environment have stronger effects on the level of subjective well-being of the citizens than other characteristics of the neighborhood. Dong & Qin 8 , showed that among the objective characteristics of the built environment, only urban parks have a high correlation with the emotional components of subjective well-being; on the other hand, among the social characteristics of neighborhoods, only the relations between neighbors have a high correlation with subjective well-being. Kent et al. 6 showed that perceived neighborhood environment characteristics strongly correlate with the perception of aesthetics and social cohesion of the neighborhood.

On the other hand, the view and approach to the environment, its components, and scale have also been different in the research. Some research projects have focused only on the social environment 13 , 16 , and another group has only considered the mental components of the environment as a criterion for action. Another group has only used the mental components of the environment as a criterion for action (11 and 17). Some research projects have only examined the objective components of the environment 12 , 14 , 15 , 20 . Also, a group of researchers has considered the environment as a concept consisting of objective and subjective components 6 , 19 and objective, subjective and social components 8 . Regarding scale, a group of research has focused only on one type of environment, such as green space 18 . Another group examined the components and characteristics of the environment on the neighborhood scale 11 , 13 , 14 , 16 , 17 , 19 , 20 , and another group considered the environmental components on the city scale 15 , 18 .

As it can be seen, the lack of attention to mental well-being as an integrated whole of various dimensions and components, as well as the lack of attention to the importance of citizens' perception of the components of the built environment, are the gaps in the research conducted to investigate the relationship between subjective well-being and neighborhood environment characteristics. Table ​ Table1 1 presents an overview of the studies conducted in this realm.

Analysis of the studies conducted on significance of the relationship between neighborhood environment characteristics and subjective well-being of citizens.

According to Table ​ Table1, 1 , only a few studies have examined the significance of the relationship between citizens’ subjective well-being in all its dimensions (physical and mental health, social inclusion, cognitive component, affective component) and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, although numerous studies have assessed the effect of neighborhood environment characteristics on the subjective well-being of citizens. This point verifies the novelty and innovation aspect of this research.

Regarding what was mentioned above, it can be acknowledged that the “Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS)” is a useful scale that is utilized as a valid global scale to measure the neighborhood environment 11 . This scale consists of some of the dimensions and indicators required for assessing and measuring citizens’ perceptions of neighborhood environment characteristics, which are briefly referred to as “perceived evaluation of the neighborhood environment” in this article. These dimensions and indicators include residential density, land-use mix in neighborhoods, environmental diversity, different types of activities (stores, supermarkets, post offices, schools, fast foods, restaurants, and banks), accessibility (to mixed uses and types of public transportation), street connectivity, safety infrastructure for walking, safety across the neighborhood, aesthetic factors in the neighborhood (street trees and evaluation of buildings attractiveness), and traffic hazards and crimes 6 .

In sum, the main components of the perceived evaluation of the neighborhood environment are presented in Table 2 .

Explaining the main components of perceived evaluation of the neighborhood environment.

It was also stated that subjective well-being comprises all individuals' positive and negative evaluations of their lives. These include cognitive evaluation (satisfaction with life) and affective evaluation (positive and negative effects). Thus, “subjective well-being” can be regarded as an umbrella term for people’s various evaluations of their lives and events and generally refers to an evaluation of the body, mind, and conditions under which people live 21 . Although well-being and ill-being are subjective concepts, “subjective well-being” can be observed objectively in verbal and nonverbal behaviors and personal activities. It can be argued that the term well-being is often used interchangeably with subjective well-being 22 . In this definition, two aspects of subjective well-being are highly important and should be distinguished from each other. One is the cognitive dimension, usually perceived as individuals' satisfaction with life. At the same time, the other one is the affective dimension, usually considered as the feeling of happiness or discomfort in individuals or the balance between positive and negative effects 21 . According to the “Commission for the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP),” subjective well-being encompasses various aspects, such as a sense of happiness, cognitive evaluation including satisfaction with life, and affective evaluation including positive effects (e.g., pleasure and pride) and negative effects (e.g., stress, pain, and worry). In general, subjective well-being implies individuals’ evaluation of the inner well-being that they perceive they benefit from 23 . Russell believes subjective well-being refers to the person's perceptions of him/herself and subjective perception of his/her life experience. Subjective well-being encompasses individuals' affective and cognitive evaluations and presents a pleasant and advanced psychological state. It is a multidimensional concept that contains two broad areas, i.e., affective well-being and positive functioning. Affective well-being is a dimension of subjective well-being that includes perceptions of happiness, satisfaction with life, the balance of emotions, and positive and negative effects. Therefore, affective well-being includes a threefold structure: satisfaction with life, positive affect, and negative affect. As such, subjective well-being is defined by the definitions of affective well-being and positive functioning and includes elements of perceived happiness and satisfaction with life, the balance of positive and negative effects, psychological well-being, and social well-being. These elements are not unrelated to people’s daily behavior because positive and negative effects result from the factors that people apply in their lives and, thereby, assume great importance 24 . The main dimensions and components of subjective well-being are presented in Fig.  1 and Table ​ Table3 3 by analyzing and summarizing the findings of prior studies.

Main components of subjective well-being (SWB).

Explaining the components consisting of citizens’ subjective well-being.

Materials and methods

A descriptive-analytical research method in the form of a survey was employed to carry out the present study through library and field studies. All people living and working in the Sange Siah Neighborhood in the historical fabric of Shiraz city constituted this study's population. These individuals lived or worked in the neighborhood and had detailed knowledge of the neighborhood environment. Since the population's exact size was unknown, the sample size was calculated by the Cochran formula, which is used to determine the sample size when the population size is unknown. Based on this formula and with an error coefficient (d) of 0.1, the sample size was equal to 97.

Random sampling was used for the case study. For 21 days, from the beginning of July to August of 2021, researchers were continuously present at the passages and crossings of the neighborhood (esp. near the neighborhood's landmarks). They asked people over 18 years old who were crossing or doing some activity in public spaces (residents, passers-by, and vendors.) to fill out the questionnaire (inclusion criteria). For the researchers to have the most contact with the entire studied population, they were present in the neighborhood on working days and holidays and at different hours of the day and night. The authors asked some basic questions about whether the person is a resident of this neighborhood and whether they are willing to talk about the characteristics of their mental well-being. People who did not live in the neighborhood or did not want to express their feelings and perceptions of space were excluded from the questioning (exclusion criteria). Due to the high number of questions, the effort was to read them to the people so they would be more encouraged to answer. In the beginning, an explanation was given to the person about the purpose of the research and that there is no governmental affiliation. Figure  2 shows the Sange Siah Neighborhood's position in Shiraz in Iran. The passages where questioning took place and the most important elements of the neighborhood are marked in this image.

Location of the historical neighborhood of Sange Siah in historical fabric of Shiraz, Fars, Iran (Photos by: Sina Jangjoo).

The historical neighborhood of Sange Siah is indeed one of the neighborhoods left from the Safaris and Atabakans era. The neighborhood can be divided into different areas based on the existing functional areas. Still, in general, it can be said that there is a favorable mix of residential and commercial land uses in the edges of the neighborhood, and in the inner part, religious and then commercial land uses prevail. Today, many of the landmark buildings in the area have become tourist attraction points, which not only attract a large number of people from inside and outside the country but also cause the economic and livelihood prosperity of the neighborhood and have reduced the deterioration process by encouraging other people to restore and renovate.

The central passage in the neighborhood, known as Sange Siah Passage, was once considered an important passage of the city that had formed important spaces and activities around it 29 . At present, this passage is also considered one of the most important passages of the old fabric of Shiraz city. In this passage, there are more than 30 known historic buildings and collections registered by Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization, and it also has a high potential in terms of values and physical and functional capacities that are rarely found in historical cities of Iran. Despite extensive destructions, the presence of elements, such as baths, mosques, and bazaars with a relatively active functioning near the residential fabric has rejuvenated the concept of “neighborhood” and “neighborhood center” in this part of Shiraz as it has been assigned meaning and identity.

Due to its morphological qualities and distinctive content richness, this neighborhood is considered a valuable area as a public space and contains cultural and environmental values. During the era, different directions of social life have been formed, and it has been the place of various urban events. However, in this neighborhood, in recent decades, along with the migration of authentic and native people from the neighborhood, it has accommodated different groups of immigrants with different immigration origins, norms, and cultural life patterns. Moreover, according to the current intra-group relations, they are influenced to different degrees by the culture of their origin society, which has made the neighborhood face managerial, economic, social, and physical problems. Therefore, paying attention to increasing the residents' subjective well-being is necessary, because this neighborhood has preserved the concept of "neighborhood" and "neighborhood center" due to its unique historical, physical, and social characteristics. Therefore, it has been chosen as a case study for this research, and it is known as a favorable scale for urban planners and designers can apply their desired changes.

Moreover, in order to investigate the relationship between citizens’ subjective well-being and the neighborhood environment characteristics in the study sample, a three-part questionnaire was developed based on a 5-point Likert scale (See Online Appendix 1 ). The first part included questions regarding the participants' demographic characteristics, such as gender, age, marital status, employment status, etc.

The second part encompassed questions relating to citizens’ perception of neighborhood environment characteristics, and the third part of the questionnaire consisted of the questions aiming at the measurement of subjective well-being components separately. The items related to subjective well-being indices are explained based on the measures introduced in Table ​ Table4. 4 . Each of the components that have been questioned has items that have been confirmed and validated in related research. Therefore, the questions of this survey questionnaire have all been adapted to global standards and localized to make it more accurate and easy for the respondents to understand.

Measurement of the main components of citizens’ subjective well-being and its application in the research questionnaire.

SPSS was used for data analysis. Also, the content validity of the questionnaire was determined by experts in urban design and psychology; and Cronbach’s alpha method was used to assess its reliability. The qualitative content validity method was used to assess the validity of the research. In this regard, three experts in urban design and two in psychology were asked to determine whether the questionnaire measured all the critical aspects of citizens’ subjective well-being and the neighborhood environment characteristics. Also, are the questions formulated correctly to represent the indicators in question? The results of this study showed that the questionnaire has the necessary validity.

Accordingly, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.780 was obtained for all the items, indicating that the variables' data are sufficiently reliable. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test evaluated the normality of data distribution, and the value of 0.002 was obtained. As it is smaller than 0.05, the data are not within the normal range. Therefore, the correlation between the variables was examined using the nonparametric Spearman correlation test. Figure  3 presents the conceptual framework and the perceived relationship between the research variables.

The conceptual framework and the relationship between neighborhood environment characteristics and major dimensions of subjective well-being.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by Shiraz University Faculty of Art and Architecture Ethics Committee and performed in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki for ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted. Also, it is important to clarify that this article does not contain any studies involving animals performed by any of the authors; All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards; And informed consent was obtained from all individual participants (subjects) involved in the study.

Concerning the demographic information of the sample group, the results showed that 76% of the participants were male, and the remaining 24% were female. In addition, 28% of the respondents were placed in the 18–25-year age group, 37% in the 26–35-year age group, 21% in the 36–45-year age group, 9% in the 46–55-year age group, 3% in the 56–65-year age group, and 1% were over 65 years of age. Regarding marital status, 49% were single, 50% married, and 1% were divorced. Regarding the educational level, 38% of the respondents held an educational degree lower than high school, 40% had a high school diploma or an Associate degree, 11% had a bachelor’s degree, and 11% had a master’s degree. Considering the employment status, 31% of the respondents were unemployed or had a non-permanent job, 28% had a fixed-time job with a fixed payment, 22% had a fixed-time job with variable payment, 11% were homemakers, 3% were retired, and 5% were university students. Also, 6% of the respondents lived alone, and 94% lived with their families. In terms of income level, 40% of the respondents had a household income of fewer than 240 dollars; 37% had an income of 240–480 dollars; 16% had an income of 480–960 dollars, and 4% had an income higher than 960 dollars per month (See Online Appendix 2 ).

As stated above, the present study's main purpose was to examine the significance of the relationship between the six components of subjective well-being and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. It is noteworthy that perceived neighborhood environment characteristics consist of three general components, namely.

• Walkability (sub-components of diversity, accessibility, street connectivity, and safety infrastructure for walking),
• Neighborhood appreciation (including sub-components of aesthetics and social cohesion), and.
• Residential neighborhood safety (including sub-components of residential density and crime rate).

Nonparametric Spearman correlation coefficient was run to assess the correlation between the variables (data was not normally distributed evaluated with the Kolmogorov-Smirnoff-Test). The results of examining the relationship of the components of subjective well-being with the three components of perceived neighborhood environment characteristics are summarized in Tables ​ Tables5, 5 , ​ ,6, 6 , ​ ,7 7 separately. Table ​ Table8 8 also shows the correlation between the sum of perceived neighborhood environment characteristics and the constituent components of citizens’ subjective well-being. In Tables ​ Tables5, 5 , ​ ,6, 6 , ​ ,7, 7 , ​ ,8, 8 , the value of N = 97 and the value of the critical interval for significant rho value was zero.

The correlation of walkability and its sub-components with constituent components of citizens’ subjective well-being.

The correlation of neighborhood appreciation and its sub-components with the constituent components of citizens’ subjective well-being.

The correlation of residential neighborhood safety and its sub-components with the constituent components of citizens’ subjective well-being.

The correlation between neighborhood characteristics and components of citizens’ subjective well-being.

The relationship of walkability as the first perceived neighborhood environment characteristic and its sub-components with components of subjective well-being was examined and it was revealed that the sub-components of diversity, accessibility, and street connectivity had a moderate positive correlation with the components of citizen’s subjective well-being (correlation coefficient between 0.377 and 0.622). Meanwhile, there was a weak positive correlation between the sub-component of street connectivity and social inclusion (0.319). Similarly, there was a slight positive correlation between the sub-component of safety infrastructure for walking and the components of citizens’ subjective well-being (0.326).

In the same way, the relationship of the neighborhood appreciation as the second perceived neighborhood environment characteristic and its sub-components with the components of subjective well-being was assessed. The results showed that the sub-components of aesthetics and social cohesion had a moderate positive correlation with the constituent components of citizen’s subjective well-being (0.363 and 0.405, respectively). This is so while the correlation between the sub-component of aesthetics and the components of mental well-being (0.281), feeling of happiness (0.257), and physical and mental health (0.277) is positive and weak. In addition, there was a slight positive correlation between the sub-component of social cohesion and the components of mental well-being (0.313) and physical and mental health (0.284).

In addition, the relationship of residential neighborhood safety as the third perceived neighborhood environment characteristic and its sub-components with the components of subjective well-being was examined. It was observed that there was a moderate positive correlation between the sub-component of residential density and the components of citizens’ subjective well-being (0.412). This is so while there is a weak positive correlation between this sub-component and the component of affective characteristics (0.328). Furthermore, the sub-component of crime rate had a weak positive correlation with the components citizens’ subjective well-being (0.202). However, only the component of satisfaction with life from among the components of subjective well-being had a relatively higher correlation with crime rate (0.514).

According to the results of data analysis in Table ​ Table8, 8 , it can be argued that only the component of social inclusion from among the six components of subjective well-being has a strong correlation (0.712) with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. In the next ranks, the components of satisfaction with life (0.614), mental well-being (0.569), affective characteristics (0.526), ​​and feeling of happiness (0.458) are respectively placed that have a moderate correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. Finally, the component of physical and mental health had a weak correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics (0.230). Overall, it can be claimed that the concept of subjective well-being has a moderate correlation (0.579) with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. The scatter graphs, obtained using Spearman's rank correlation test, allow the visualization of bivariate data. In each of these graphs, the vertical axis shows the value of perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, and the horizontal axis shows the value of different factors of citizens' subjective well-being (See Fig.  4 ). The followings illustrate the existence of positive and medium correlations between the two variables in graphs (a), (b), (c), and (d); an almost strong positive correlation between the two variables in graph (e); and a weak positive correlation between the two variables in graph (f).

The scatter graphs illustrating the correlation between perceived neighborhood environment characteristics and factors of citizens' subjective well-being.

In general, the findings of this study suggest that perceived neighborhood environment characteristics are significantly related to different aspects of subjective well-being and have a significant positive correlation. According to the results in Tables ​ Tables5, 5 , ​ ,6, 6 , ​ ,7, 7 , ​ ,8, 8 , it was found that the component of “social inclusion” from among the components of citizens’ subjective well-being had the highest positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. This finding is consistent with the results of the studies carried out by Lovejoy et al. 14 , Ma et al. 20 , and Dong and Qin 8 . In general, urban neighborhoods play a significant role in people’s lives, and, thereby, they are of great importance in the basic occasions of people and in establishing social relationships. The existence of “walkable” neighborhoods provides optimal physical opportunities to pause and reflect more on the neighborhood environment and, accordingly, access to the neighborhood's public spaces and its functional elements will increase. This important point can provide the foundation for people’s proper social communications within the neighborhood. In this way, urban neighborhoods with high walkability provide a suitable environment for the movement and pause of pedestrians and can increase social inclusion. “Neighborhood appreciation” also enhances social inclusion so that the apparent beauty of the neighborhood and one's decision to be present in the neighborhood environment can enhance residents’ perceptions of the neighborhood and its spaces and promote social inclusion among the residents by increasing social cohesion. Thus, the presence of spaces with apparent beauty, social cohesion, and environmental safety in the neighborhood results in the higher attendance of people in public spaces of the neighborhood at different times of the day (especially for women 32 ) and also leads to the increased social inclusion among the individuals. Similarly, in the current neighborhood under study (Sange Siyah), the existence of public spaces, such as a beautiful mosque and marketplace beside the residential fabric, a continuous walkable path, a strong neighborhood center, safe spaces for gatherings and passage of leisure time, and social events and various religious rituals in the neighborhood has led to the creation of strong perceptions and a sense of belonging among the residents. Physical and social diversity, walkable spaces, and different public areas in the neighborhood have increased social inclusion in the studied neighborhood.

Moreover, the “satisfaction with life” component had a moderate positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. Indeed, satisfaction with life refers to one's broad evaluation and comprehensive judgment of his/her life from birth. This result is consistent with that of the study conducted by Cao 19 because the concept of this component has a semantic overlap with the definition of the residential satisfaction component, where Cao defines it as the extent to which the neighborhood characteristics meet the current needs of families. In fact, according to the results of this study, the existence of neighborhoods with a high degree of walkability leads to an increased level of overall citizen satisfaction and, consequently, the increased level of residents’ subjective well-being and health. In addition, the promoted praise from the neighborhood because of its impact on people’s perceptions of physical beauty and social cohesion of the neighborhood is important in increasing the overall satisfaction with life. This is so because “satisfaction with life” includes reasonable personal evaluations that the residents have about the environment and structure of their neighborhood; therefore, it greatly affects the residents' subjective well-being.

People with different religions, income levels, occupations, and cultural characteristics live and work in the Sange Siyah neighborhood. It seems that the existence of these differences and the neighborhood's need to strengthen walkability, residential neighborhood safety, and neighborhood appreciation has caused that, from the respondents' point of view, the "satisfaction with life" component had a moderate positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics.

The “mental well-being” component had a moderate positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. Mental well-being represents a set of all evaluations (positive and negative) that individuals have of their lives and indicates their positive and negative thoughts and feelings. This finding is in line with the results obtained by Dong and Qin 8 . Moreover, the results obtained in the studies conducted by Mair et al. 13 , Leyden et al. 15 , Dong and Qin 8 , and Kent et al. 6 confirm the availability of the correlation between the “affective characteristics” component of subjective well-being and neighborhood environment characteristics. Their findings are consistent with the present study's results, asserting a significant positive relationship and a moderate correlation between “affective characteristics” as individuals' positive and negative effects and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics. On the other hand, the significant positive correlation of “feeling of happiness,” which is a kind of evaluation of positive emotions and moods, lack of depression, and lack of anxiety, with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics is consistent with the research findings reported by Leyden et al. 15 and Kent et al. 6 .

There are safe pathways, historical monuments, and beautiful and attractive public spaces in Sange Siyah which bring joy and happiness to see them. However, in this same neighborhood, there are buildings with physical deterioration and abandoned public spaces, as well as unsafe and crime-prone alleys that create a sense of worry and anxiety in a person. It seems that what was mentioned caused that, from the respondents' point of view, mental well-being and feeling of happiness had a moderate positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics.

The studies conducted by Bond et al. 16 and Ma et al. 20 confirm the existence of the correlation between the component of “physical and mental health” and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, which is also supported by the results of the present study. It should be mentioned that physical and mental health is defined as the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and a lack of illness and disability in individuals. The present study showed that the component of “physical and mental health” from among the components of citizens’ subjective well-being being significantly correlated with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics had the least level of positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics.

The male respondents in the Sange Siyah neighborhood were mainly young and middle-aged. It seems that these people have faced fewer problems related to physical and mental health due to their gender and age characteristics. In this sense, this component had the least level of positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics.

Subjective well-being is one of the essential goals in achieving social sustainability, and, thereby, it is of paramount importance in human life. Considering this study's findings and the correlation between different dimensions of subjective well-being and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, some strategies have been presented in Table ​ Table9 9 for enhancing citizens’ subjective well-being by increasing the quality of neighborhood environment characteristics. It should be noted that these strategies are mentioned according to the results obtained from the present research. It was determined that among the six components of subjective well-being with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, in order, the component of Social Inclusion with positive and strong correlation at the first level, the component of Satisfaction with Life at the second level, Affective Component (positive and negative effect) at the third level, the Feeling of Happiness at the fourth level with a positive and weak correlation, and therefore the component of Physical and Mental Health is on the fifth level with a positive and weak correlation. Therefore, according to table number 8, an effort has been made to increase the level of subjective well-being of the residents of Sange Siah neighborhood based on the research results obtained and considering the significance level of each of the perceived components of the neighborhood in relation to the components of Subjective well-Being of the residents, strategies in 5 levels and in order of the degree of significance and correlation (strong-moderate-weak) of the components of subjective well-being with the perceived neighborhood environment characteristics (in order of priority and degree of significance) to increase the Subjective well-being of the citizens of this neighborhood as much as possible to be presented. In this way, it was determined that among the three components of Walkability, Neighborhood appreciation, and Residential Neighborhood Safety, the priority of improving Walkability, Residential neighborhood safety, and Neighborhood Appreciation are important. The components of subjective well-being (Social Inclusion, Satisfaction with Life, Affective Component, the Feeling of Happiness, and Physical and Mental Health) in the first level were more correlated with Walkability (0.619), and in the second level with the Residential neighborhood safety, (0.482) and the last level with the Neighborhood appreciation (0.385). Therefore, the strategies were made to increase subjective well-being according to the priority of each perceived environmental component.

Goals and strategies for promoting citizens’ subjective well-being in neighborhood as an artificial environment.

The main purpose of the present study was to examine the significance of the relationship between citizens’ subjective well-being and perceived neighborhood environment characteristics for creation of healthy neighborhoods. Hence, a systematic review of the previous literature was first carried out in order to respond to the main research question and validate the research hypothesis (Table ​ (Table1) 1 ) and, then, the theoretical foundations related to the research keywords were reviewed. The results of this review focused on explaining the dimensions, components, and indicators pertaining to the measurement of perceived neighborhood environment characteristics (Table ​ (Table2) 2 ) and citizens’ subjective well-being (Table ​ (Table3, 3 , Table ​ Table4, 4 , and Fig.  1 ). In the next step, and after examining the reliability and validity of the research questionnaire and collecting the data from the sample group, the correlations between the variables were analyzed using Spearman correlation test (Tables ​ (Tables5, 5 , ​ ,6, 6 , ​ ,7, 7 , ​ ,8). 8 ). The results showed that the main hypothesis of the study is accepted (Fig.  5 ). In fact, it had been hypothesized that there is a significant correlation between perceived neighborhood environment characteristics (with components of: walkability, neighborhood appreciation, and residential neighborhood safety) and citizens’ subjective well-being (components of: social inclusion, satisfaction with life, mental well-being, affective characteristics, feeling of happiness, physical and mental health) in historical fabrics.

Correlation between perceived neighborhood environment characteristics and factors of citizens' subjective well-being.

According to Figure number 5, the results of this research show that among the perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, accessibility (0.616) has a positive and strong correlation, social cohesion (0.405), and residential density (0.412) have a positive and moderate correlation with subjective well-being. Also, among the six components of subjective well-being, the component of social inclusion had a significant positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics (r = 0.712). In the following, the components of satisfaction with life (0.614), mental well-being (0.569), positive and negative effect (0.526), and feeling of happiness (0.468) had a moderate positive correlation; and the component of physical and mental health also had a weak positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics (0.230). In addition, the concept of subjective well-being with a correlation coefficient of (0.579) had a moderate positive correlation with perceived neighborhood environment characteristics, which indicates that the structural characteristics of the neighborhood have a significant relationship with the subjective well-being of the people living in the neighborhood. Therefore, according to the review of previous studies, it was found that previous related researchers have considered the effect of specific aspects of the built environment on a limited number of subjective well-being components; but in the meantime, there is a gap in the literature related to exploring the effects of the built environment on multiple components of subjective well-being. Thus, this study tried to fill this gap. It analyzed the relationship between the perceived variables of the built environment with multiple elements of subjective well-being to show a more comprehensive picture of the perceived neighborhood environment characteristics on subjective well-being. It is hoped that the findings of this study, especially the strategies presented in Table ​ Table9, 9 , can provide the grounds for the promotion of citizens’ subjective well-being by enhancing the quality of neighborhood environment characteristics.

Supplementary Information

Acknowledgements.

The authors thank the anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions. We also thank FSU Libraries and FSU Askew School of Public Administration and Policy for providing an Open Access Fund to help publish this paper.

Author contributions

Supervision: A.R.S.; Conceptualization: A.R.S.; Methodology: A.R.S.; Formal analysis and investigation: M.E., F.S., S.J.; Writing—original draft preparation: M.E., F.S., S.J.; Writing—review and editing: A.R.S., S.J.; Resources: M.E., F.S., S.J. All authors contributed to the study and All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-022-25414-9.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Presence and (dis)connectedness -the influence of smartphones usage on human-nature and human-human interactions in outdoor studies provisionally accepted.

• 1 Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Norway

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Interactions between students and nature and students and their peers are central to learning processes in outdoor studies programs. This paper draws on symbolic interactionist social theory to interpret participants' experiences of smartphone usage and its impact on human-nature and human-human interactions. The findings are derived from a collective case study using semi-structured interviews with educators and focus group interviews with students enrolled in outdoor studies programs in Norway. Two primary themes were identified through reflexive thematic analysis: perceptions of nature and attentiveness to peers. Each of these themes illustrates the fluctuating presence and (dis)connectedness of students and the implications of this for learning outof-doors. On the one hand, the findings suggest that the use of smartphones reduces students' sensory perception of nature and their attentiveness to interactions with their peers. On the other hand, smartphones and their access to online networks can contribute to the continuity of learning experiences between indoor and outdoor learning, as well as beyond the formal learning environment. Taken together, this inquiry offers new insights into the challenges of tertiary level teaching and learning outdoors in spaces that are mediated (at times) by interactions with smartphones and associated media infrastructures.

Keywords: outdoor education, Smartphones, presence, Symbolic Interactionism, mobile technology

Received: 12 Jan 2024; Accepted: 19 Apr 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Van Kraalingen and Beames. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Miss. Imre Van Kraalingen, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway

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Dragon's Dogma 2: Seat of the Sovran Guide

Quick links, introduction to the quest, initial interaction with captain brant, encounter outside the meeting room, speak with captain brant in the tavern, required tasks and sub-quests for seat of the sovran, tavern location and meeting points, completion of seat of the sovran.

• Gain the city's trust to solidify your reputation as the Arisen in Vernworth.
• Navigate political challenges and interactions with key NPCs to progress in the quest.
• Complete tasks such as monster culling and political intrigue to secure an invitation to the coronation.

Seat of the Sovran is a main quest in Dragon's Dogma 2 that unfolds in Vernworth, where you must work to solidify your reputation as the true Arisen and navigate the complex political climate of the continent of Vermund. This guide provides a detailed walkthrough of the quest steps, including interactions with key NPCs and subsequent tasks.

Upon arriving in Vernworth, you'll meet Captain Brant, who will outline the challenges you face due to the skeptical political environment. To be accepted as the true Arisen, you'll need to gain the trust and favor of the city's citizens.

• Location : Find Captain Brant in Vernworth and engage him in a conversation about the local political dynamics and your role as the Arisen.

Dragon's Dogma 2: Disa's Plot Guide

• Event : After your initial meeting with Brant, as you exit the room, a man hastily runs past you, followed by a guard who asks if you've seen the man.
• Decision Point : You can choose to lie or tell the truth about the man's whereabouts. This choice will impact your reputation but won't affect your ability to complete the quest.
• Timing : Visit the tavern at night to find Brant.
• Conversation : Brant will discuss the challenges posed by Disa, the queen regent, and her circle of sycophants. He suggests waiting until the coronation of the Sovran to introduce yourself, which requires boosting your reputation formally.

Dragon's Dogma 2: An Unsettling Encounter Guide

To enhance your reputation and secure an invitation to the coronation, you must complete a series of tasks and sub-quests:

• Monster Culling : Focuses on reducing the threat of local monster populations.
• Disa’s Plot : Involves uncovering and thwarting the schemes of the queen regent.
• The Stolen Throne : Centers on political intrigue and the recovery of a significant artifact.
• The Caged Magistrate : Requires freeing an unjustly imprisoned official to gain political leverage.
• Tavern Details : The tavern, located at the heart of Vernworth, serves as a central hub for your interactions with Brant.
• Discreet Meetings : Brant will move to an outside table for more private discussions after your initial talk.

Completing the above sub-quests and learning more about the Sovran will lead to successfully completing Seat of the Sovran, advancing the main story.

Dragon's Dogma 2: All Main Story Quests