example of research paper about environmental issues

2019 Best Papers published in the Environmental Science journals of the Royal Society of Chemistry

In 2019, the Royal Society of Chemistry published 180, 196 and 293 papers in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts , Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology , and Environmental Science: Nano , respectively. These papers covered a wide range of topics in environmental science, from biogeochemical cycling to water reuse to nanomaterial toxicity. And, yes, we also published papers on the topic of the environmental fate, behavior, and inactivation of viruses. 1–10 We are extremely grateful that so many authors have chosen our journals as outlets for publishing their research and are equally delighted at the high quality of the papers that we have had the privilege to publish.

Our Associate Editors, Editorial Boards, and Advisory Boards were enlisted to nominate and select the best papers from 2019. From this list, the three Editors-in-Chief selected an overall best paper from the entire Environmental Science portfolio. It is our pleasure to present the winners of the Best Papers in 2019 to you, our readers.

Overall Best Paper

In this paper, Johansson et al. examine sea spray aerosol as a potential transport vehicle for perfluoroalkyl carboxylic and sulfonic acids. The surfactant properties of these compounds are well known and, in fact, key to many of the technical applications for which they are used. The fact that these compounds are enriched at the air–water interface makes enrichment in sea spray aerosols seem reasonable. Johansson et al. systematically tested various perfluoroalkyl acids enrichment in aerosols under conditions relevant to sea spray formation, finding that longer chain lengths lead to higher aerosol enrichment factors. They augmented their experimental work with a global model, which further bolstered the conclusion that global transport of perfluoroalkyl acids by sea spray aerosol is and will continue to be an important process in determining the global distribution of these compounds.

Journal Best Papers

Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts

First Runner-up Best Paper: Yamakawa, Takami, Takeda, Kato, Kajii, Emerging investigator series: investigation of mercury emission sources using Hg isotopic compositions of atmospheric mercury at the Cape Hedo Atmosphere and Aerosol Monitoring Station (CHAAMS), Japan , Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts , 2019, 21 , 809–818, DOI: 10.1039/C8EM00590G .

Second Runner-up Best Paper: Avery, Waring, DeCarlo, Seasonal variation in aerosol composition and concentration upon transport from the outdoor to indoor environment , Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts , 2019, 21 , 528–547, DOI: 10.1039/C8EM00471D .

Best Review Article: Cousins, Ng, Wang, Scheringer, Why is high persistence alone a major cause of concern? Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts , 2019, 21 , 781–792, DOI: 10.1039/C8EM00515J .

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology

First Runner-up Best Paper: Yang, Lin, Tse, Dong, Yu, Hoffmann, Membrane-separated electrochemical latrine wastewater treatment , Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 51–59, DOI: 10.1039/C8EW00698A .

Second Runner-up Best Paper: Genter, Marks, Clair-Caliot, Mugume, Johnston, Bain, Julian, Evaluation of the novel substrate RUG™ for the detection of Escherichia coli in water from temperate (Zurich, Switzerland) and tropical (Bushenyi, Uganda) field sites , Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 1082–1091, DOI: 10.1039/C9EW00138G .

Best Review Article: Okoffo, O’Brien, O’Brien, Tscharke, Thomas, Wastewater treatment plants as a source of plastics in the environment: a review of occurrence, methods for identification, quantification and fate , Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 1908–1931, DOI: 10.1039/C9EW00428A .

Environmental Science: Nano

First Runner-up Best Paper: Janković, Plata, Engineered nanomaterials in the context of global element cycles , Environ. Sci.: Nano , 2019, 6 , 2697–2711, DOI: 10.1039/C9EN00322C .

Second Runner-up Best Paper: González-Pleiter, Tamayo-Belda, Pulido-Reyes, Amariei, Leganés, Rosal, Fernández-Piñas, Secondary nanoplastics released from a biodegradable microplastic severely impact freshwater environments , Environ. Sci.: Nano , 2019, 6 , 1382–1392, DOI: 10.1039/C8EN01427B .

Best Review Article: Lv, Christie, Zhang, Uptake, translocation, and transformation of metal-based nanoparticles in plants: recent advances and methodological challenges , Environ. Sci.: Nano , 2019, 6 , 41–59, DOI: 10.1039/C8EN00645H .

Congratulations to the authors of these papers and a hearty thanks to all of our authors. As one can clearly see from the papers listed above, environmental science is a global effort and we are thrilled to have contributions from around the world. In these challenging times, we are proud to publish research that is not only great science, but also relevant to the health of the environment and the public. Finally, we also wish to extend our thanks to our community of editors, reviewers, and readers. We look forward to another outstanding year of Environmental Science , reading the work generated not just from our offices at home, but also from back in our laboratories and the field.

Kris McNeill, Editor-in-Chief

Paige Novak, Editor-in-Chief

Peter Vikesland, Editor-in-Chief

• A. B Boehm, Risk-based water quality thresholds for coliphages in surface waters: effect of temperature and contamination aging, Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts , 2019, 21 , 2031–2041,   10.1039/C9EM00376B .
• L. Cai, C. Liu, G. Fan, C Liu and X. Sun, Preventing viral disease by ZnONPs through directly deactivating TMV and activating plant immunity in Nicotiana benthamiana , Environ. Sci.: Nano , 2019, 6 , 3653–3669,   10.1039/C9EN00850K .
• L. W. Gassie, J. D. Englehardt, N. E. Brinkman, J. Garland and M. K. Perera, Ozone-UV net-zero water wash station for remote emergency response healthcare units: design, operation, and results, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 1971–1984,   10.1039/C9EW00126C .
• L. M. Hornstra, T. Rodrigues da Silva, B. Blankert, L. Heijnen, E. Beerendonk, E. R. Cornelissen and G. Medema, Monitoring the integrity of reverse osmosis membranes using novel indigenous freshwater viruses and bacteriophages, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 1535–1544,   10.1039/C9EW00318E .
• A. H. Hassaballah, J. Nyitrai, C. H. Hart, N. Dai and L. M. Sassoubre, A pilot-scale study of peracetic acid and ultraviolet light for wastewater disinfection, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 1453–1463,   10.1039/C9EW00341J .
• W. Khan, J.-Y. Nam, H. Woo, H. Ryu, S. Kim, S. K. Maeng and H.-C. Kim, A proof of concept study for wastewater reuse using bioelectrochemical processes combined with complementary post-treatment technologies, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 1489–1498,   10.1039/C9EW00358D .
• J. Heffron, B. McDermid and B. K. Mayer, Bacteriophage inactivation as a function of ferrous iron oxidation, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 1309–1317,   10.1039/C9EW00190E .
• S. Torii, T. Hashimoto, A. T. Do, H. Furumai and H. Katayama, Impact of repeated pressurization on virus removal by reverse osmosis membranes for household water treatment, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 910–919,   10.1039/C8EW00944A .
• J. Miao, H.-J. Jiang, Z.-W. Yang, D.-y. Shi, D. Yang, Z.-Q. Shen, J. Yin, Z.-G. Qiu, H.-R. Wang, J.-W. Li and M. Jin, Assessment of an electropositive granule media filter for concentrating viruses from large volumes of coastal water, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol. , 2019, 5 , 325–333,   10.1039/C8EW00699G .
• K. L. Nelson, A. B. Boehm, R. J. Davies-Colley, M. C. Dodd, T. Kohn, K. G. Linden, Y. Liu, P. A. Maraccini, K. McNeill, W. A. Mitch, T. H. Nguyen, K. M. Parker, R. A. Rodriguez, L. M. Sassoubre, A. I. Silverman, K. R. Wigginton and R. G. Zepp, Sunlight mediated inactivation of health relevant microorganisms in water: a review of mechanisms and modeling approaches, Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts , 2018, 20 , 1089–1122,   10.1039/C8EM00047F .

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Original research article, perceptions of local environmental issues and the relevance of climate change in nepal's terai: perspectives from two communities.

• 1 Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
• 2 Research Department, Institute for Social and Environmental Research Nepal (ISER-N), Bharatpur, Nepal

The direct and indirect impacts of global climate change entail serious consequences for global biophysical and social systems, including the health, well-being and sustainability of communities. These impacts are especially serious for vulnerable groups in economically developing societies. While climate change is a global phenomenon, it is at the local level that impacts are most felt, and from where responses to climate change are enacted. It is increasingly urgent that communities possess the capacity to respond to climate change, now and in the future. Community representations of climate-relevant issues are critical to underpinning responses. Environmental representations do not directly reflect actual physical conditions but are interpreted through social and cultural layers of understanding that shape environmental issues. This paper investigates environmental and climate-relevant perceptions within two communities in the Terai region of Nepal; the city of Bharatpur and the village of Kumroj in Chitwan Province. Following mixed findings on levels of climate change awareness in Nepal, we set out to explore perspectives on the environment and climate change awareness by conducting 30 qualitative interviews with local people. The study found that issues linked to sanitation and cleanliness were most important in both communities, while reports of temperature and weather changes were less common and typically linked to local causes rather than climate change. Imagined futures were also closely related to current environmental issues affecting communities and did not discuss climate change, though temperature and weather changes were anticipated. However, when talk of climate change was deliberately elicited, participants displayed their awareness, though this was rarely linked to local conditions. We conclude that, in light of other pressing local issues, climate change is yet to penetrate the environmental representations of some communities and there is a need to address the disconnect between local issues and global climate change. Making climate change relevant at the local level by connecting to salient local issues and co-benefits comprises an important step in bridging the gap between more global awareness and its relevance more locally, particularly for communities at risk.

Introduction

Climate change impacts are set to profoundly change global ecological and social systems, bringing about fundamental changes to human behavior ( Evans, 2019 ). The complexity of global climate systems makes it difficult to accurately predict the nature of climate change impacts, though a degree of certainty rests in knowing that fundamental lifestyle shifts commensurate with the scale of climate change will be required if we are to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C by 2100 ( Rogelj et al., 2018 ). In addition to average temperature increase, societies also face increases in the frequency of extreme weather events, air pollution and sea level rise, posing an array of physical threats to human health and well-being, both directly and indirectly ( Watts et al., 2018 ).

Consequently, the impacts of sudden natural disasters (such as shock, emotional distress and post-traumatic stress), and cumulative stresses over time (for example, changes to livelihoods, economic opportunities and social support) from climate change carry serious psychological impacts for those affected ( Clayton et al., 2015 ). These impacts are especially pronounced for citizens living in economically developing countries, particularly for those within developing countries who rely on natural resources to sustain their livelihoods ( Aryal et al., 2014 ).

In addition to continued mitigation, societies will be required to adapt to current and future environmental change. Adaptation in this context refers to a community's capacity to deal with changes, reduce vulnerability to risks, and improve the well-being of communities ( Bhatta et al., 2015 ). While action on climate change maintains a crucial global imperative ( Gupta, 2010 ), variability in environmental impacts and sociocultural differences at the local level also highlight the need to better understand the contexts within which responses to climate-relevant issues occur ( Adger, 2003 ). While global environmental issues such climate change are constructed in top–down ways through scientific, political and other cultural narratives ( Adger et al., 2013 ), they are also blended with and filtered through more vernacular, localized forms of understanding ( Byg and Salick, 2009 ).

In this paper we investigate environmental and climate-relevant perceptions in the context of two rural communities in the Terai (lowland) region of Nepal. Nepal is an economically developing country in South Asia that faces serious impacts from climate change including a predicted temperature increase of 2.8°C by 2060 and up to 4°C by 2090, snowpack melt, glacier retreat, shifting climatic zones, increased extreme weather events, increased periods of drought and erratic precipitation ( Becken et al., 2013 ). In a country where agriculture is the principle industry for 80% of citizens ( Paudel et al., 2019 ) and widespread poverty exists, many of Nepal's citizens are precariously positioned by climate change threats ( Leichenko and Silva, 2014 ).

Following Smit and Wandel (2006) , we take a bottom-up approach to environmental and climate-relevant perceptions at the community level. We discuss the findings from 30 qualitative interviews with community members, focusing on the role of subjective environmental perceptions relating to current and future environmental issues, including community perspectives on climate change, with a focus on the impacts for human well-being. While scientific measurement of ecological impacts provides the foundation for mitigation and adaptation, community perceptions are also critical to ensuring that policy interventions fit community understandings and avoid being misinterpreted or rejected by the community ( Leiserowitz, 2007 ). The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has also stipulated that local knowledge should be used to inform climate adaptation planning ( Carter, 2019 ).

In addition to comprising physical phenomena, environmental issues, including climate change, comprise important social, cultural, and political dimensions that mediate perceptions of the physical ( Hulme, 2009 ; Whitmarsh, 2011 ). These are both facilitated and constrained by cultural knowledge, expressed through social norms, practices, institutional structures and prescribed roles and ways of living. The extent to which climate-relevant communications, interventions and policy are received, understood and enacted by local communities therefore depends on the degree to which top-down standardized scientific narratives converge with, or diverge from the micro-contexts of localized forms of knowledge ( Zinn, 2004 ). Culturally-filtered observations and experiences of environmental conditions are a crucial way in which citizens understand environmental conditions and processes of change ( Bickerstaff, 2004 ; Hulme, 2012 ). Human cognitive biases also influence and distort environmental perceptions. For example, more unusual or memorable weather events tend to exert a stronger influence on perceptions ( Trenberth et al., 2015 ).

Furthermore, perspectives of global climate change may be constrained due to being beyond human perceptual capacity. This means that other locally-salient issues may be perceived as more immediate ( Weber, 2010 ). While people may attribute extreme weather events to global climate change, such interpretations depend on culturally-available narratives that construct such issues, whereas physical climate change is, arguably, only discernible over long time periods. Essentially, a single event cannot unequivocally be attributed directly to climate change, though an individual may or may interpret it as such, depending on their perspective ( Hulme, 2014 ). Similarly, interpretations of local environmental conditions have been found to influence more global climate-relevant understandings. For example, in one study, local perceptions of deforestation, urbanization and air pollution framed explanations of climate change ( Maharjan and Joshi, 2012 ). This suggests that people look for proximate and visible causes in the absence of wider understanding.

Nonetheless, studies have demonstrated evidence that communities who are more in touch with their surroundings are able to accurately detect environmental changes, such as seasonal temperature and weather fluctuations ( Gurung, 1989 ; Tiwari et al., 2010 ; Poudel and Duex, 2017 ; Uprety et al., 2017 ). Other research has found that while community members are accurate in their perceptions of some seasonal and weather-related changes, they are less accurate at perceiving others ( Myers et al., 2013 ). Environmental impacts also affect different groups within a country or region differently, and not always uniformly ( Gentle et al., 2014 ) and may even be experienced differently by different members of the same community ( Maharjan and Joshi, 2012 ).

Climate change awareness has been reported to be higher in economically developed countries than in economically developing nations, a pattern also found for countries within Asia ( Maharjan and Joshi, 2012 ). Other research has found educational attainment to be the strongest predictor of awareness ( Lee et al., 2015 ). Cultural differences are also evident in terms of climate change risk perceptions; in Latin America and Europe, comprehension of the anthropogenic origin of climate change has been found to be the strongest predictor, while in several Asian and African countries, perception of temperature increase locally was most influential ( Lee et al., 2015 ). Perceptions of temperature and weather change are widespread. Savo et al. (2016) conducted a meta-analysis of 10,660 change observations reported across 2,230 localities in 137 countries, which showed increases in temperature, and changes in seasons and rainfall patterns in 70% of localities in 122 countries.

Nepal is particularly susceptible to climate change, with change in the Himalaya accelerating beyond the global average ( Zomer et al., 2014 ). In the Terai agriculture is the principle economic activity, with around 80% of the population dependent on farming for their livelihoods. Therefore, climate change carries significant risks for the economy, which indirectly affect food production and security. The situation is exacerbated by widespread poverty; in 2010 over 25% of the population subsisted below the national poverty line ( Adhikari, 2018 ). Poorer groups within society are more likely to be exposed to climate stresses and possess fewer resources to adapt ( Gentle et al., 2014 ; Leichenko and Silva, 2014 ). Nepal is divided into three ecological regions comprising the Terai (lowland), hill and mountain regions, each of which is characterized by different ecological and climatic conditions. The Terai forms a fertile plain located in the south of the country where the majority of food production takes place, and is also the most densely populated region ( Paudel, 2012 ). Of relevance within Nepal, food shortages due to seasonal changes, infestations of new crop pests and a decline in soil productivity have been recorded ( Paudel, 2012 ).

Public awareness is seen as a major limitation to climate change adaptation within Nepal ( Withana and Auch, 2014 ). While some studies have found high levels of climate change awareness amongst Nepalese citizens ( Becken et al., 2013 ), other research has found awareness to be low ( Gallup, 2009 ). In a cross-national study of 5,060 households, Tanner et al. (2018) report that climate change awareness was low (<50% were aware of the phenomenon even if they had been aware of changes in the weather). Awareness in urban areas was lower than in rural areas (56% v 46%), and very low in mountain areas (63% had not heard of climate change). There were also significant proportions of citizens who did not perceive that the climate was changing. Maharjan and Joshi (2012) report that among the Chepang community only 11.8% of respondents had heard of climate change; of those, only 4.8% were able to relate the phenomenon to changes in weather patterns, temperature, rainfall, wind, floods, landslides, and environmental change.

Research on community perceptions of environmental and climate-relevant change in Nepal has recorded perceptions of warmer summers ( Tiwari et al., 2010 ; Uprety et al., 2017 ); milder winters ( Dahal, 2005 ; Maharjan and Joshi, 2012 ; Becken et al., 2013 ); more erratic rainfall ( Chapagain et al., 2009 ; Paudel, 2012 ; Becken et al., 2013 ; Devkota and Bhattarai, 2018 ); increased periods of drought ( Tanner et al., 2018 ); and more frequent foggy days ( Shrestha et al., 2018 ). However, community perceptions are not consensual. Maharjan and Joshi (2012) report that while 47.5% believed that summers were getting warmer, nearly 10% reported that summers were becoming cooler and 38% perceived no change. In addition, 21% believed that winters were getting colder while 22% believed that winters were becoming milder. Furthermore, 37% believed that there was less rain overall, while 13–17% perceived no change in rainfall. They attribute this to differences in “visual salience”; whereby rainfall is more conspicuous and facilitates perception, whereas temperature change is less directly observable.

With specific reference to the Terai region, Maharjan et al. (2011) interviewed farmers in the Western Terai, with 90% of respondents reporting increases in climate-related risks (erratic rainfall, flooding, droughts, riverbank erosion, windstorms, hailstorms, insect infestations). Tiwari et al. (2010) surveyed Terai communities in which over 75% of participants reported delayed onset of the monsoon and changes in flowering and fruiting time for some plant species. Meanwhile, Manandhar et al. (2011) found that more than two-thirds of farmers in the Terai claimed to have personally experienced evidence of climatic change.

As a result of perceived environmental change in the Terai, and in other regions livelihoods and lifestyles are adapting to changing conditions. Khanal et al. (2018) surveyed farming households in Nepal to gauge adaptation practices across the three ecological regions of Nepal, reporting that 91% of households had adopted at least one practice to minimize impacts of climate change. Adaptation may be more anticipatory or reactive and distinguished by duration, scale of implementation (i.e., more local or more widespread) and focus (e.g., behavioral, institutional, economic, technological, informational) ( Smit et al., 2000 ). In a study of climate change adaptation in the rural hill region of Nepal, Gentle et al. (2018) examined household responses in four villages. Adaptive responses to climate change in rural communities were found to be less coordinated and more reactive and unplanned rather than anticipated and coordinated.

Changes to agricultural practices constitute a primary focal point for adaptation and change. These have included changes in the times crops are sown and harvested ( Maharjan et al., 2011 ), switching to more climate resilient crop varieties and tree and plant species ( Maharjan et al., 2011 ; Paudel, 2016 ; Gahatraj et al., 2018 ), as well as increased use of pesticides, and income diversification ( Gentle et al., 2018 ). Climate change is also perceived as benefiting some crop species ( Rawal and Bharti, 2015 ). For example, mangos are being grown at higher altitudes than was possible in the past ( Chapagain et al., 2009 ).

Within villages, water practices were changing to conserve water resources ( Tiwari et al., 2010 ), and changes to diets have also been identified ( Tanner et al., 2018 ), with less rice being consumed due to the effects of climate on rice productivity ( Maharjan and Joshi, 2013 ). Two-story houses are increasingly being constructed for food storage and as refuge from flooding ( Maharjan and Joshi, 2013 ), while buildings are being oriented to withstand windstorms, incorporating single rather than double doors ( Maharjan and Joshi, 2013 ). Seasonal migration and resettlement becoming more common ( Prasain, 2018 ). People are also reported to be planting more trees and grasses on their own land as well as on communal land to protect communities from flooding, wind and dust ( Tiwari et al., 2010 ; Maharjan et al., 2017 ). Withana and Auch (2014) report that afforestation is viewed as the most effective climate change adaptation strategy by communities.

In summary, perceptions of environmental conditions are key to informing behavior, including the need to adapt to a changing climate. In the context of Nepal, adaptation is particularly salient and it is critical that communities respond to environmental risks in ways that ensure the well-being and futurity of those communities. Given that studies of climate-relevant perceptions have reported mixed findings in terms of awareness, we seek to clarify how Nepalese communities view environmental issues now and in the future. Such perceptions act as important indicators of how local communities make sense of what is happening in their surroundings.

Following our review of the literature, the following questions guide the study approach:

• How do communities in Nepal's Terai perceive their environment?

• How do they see that environment changing in the future?

• To what degree are local communities aware of climate change?

• What is the relative importance of climate change compared to other issues environmental affecting the community?

Materials and Methods

The following subsections describe the study design and procedure. Broadly, this comprised a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with residents in two communities in the Terai region of Nepal. Thirty interviews were conducted in total. 15 interviews were conducted with residents of the village of Kumroj, a small rural community bordering Chitwan National Park. Another 15 interviews were conducted with residents of Bharatpur, an urban community approximately 12 miles (20 km) away. For each group, we were interested in gauging perceptions of salient environmental issues, including climate change. We selected two different communities to explore the degree to which locally salient issues varied and informed discussions. Before commencing fieldwork, the study design was scrutinized and approved by the Research Ethics Committee in the School of Psychology at Cardiff University.

Participants

Fieldwork was conducted in January and February 2016. A purposive sampling strategy ( Silverman, 2015 ) was used to try to generate a range of different sociodemographic profiles within each community in terms of age, gender and ethnicity. All participants were aged 18+ and resided in either Bharatpur or Kumroj, both in the Chitwan district. Bharatpur has a population of 280,000 and is one of the largest and fastest growing cities in Nepal. While it is home to a number of small-scale processing industries, agriculture remains the biggest industry. Kumroj is a small town with a population of 8,000. Kumroj borders Chitwan National Park, the first National Park created in Nepal (in 1973). In recent years in-migration has increased pressure on land for settlement and agriculture. Increasing tourism has put additional pressure on the landscape. A number of community development initiatives have attempted to confer Kumroj as an ecological exemplar, with the creation of a community forest initiative and grant funding to encourage domestic biogas installation to reduce deforestation, launched on World Environment Day, 2013. Around 80% of households within Kumroj have installed bio-gas converters to reduce reliance on the forest for fuel.

To arrange fieldwork with local people in Kumroj, we contacted the offices of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) in Kathmandu, who had been involved in community development projects in Kumroj. Through WWF, we were able to negotiate access through local community leaders who helped us to recruit participants. Prior to our arrival, the study was advertised by word-of-mouth by community leaders, who identified potential members of the community willing to be interviewed. Extra care had to be taken in gaining access to participants, establishing contact and opening communicative spaces with the community, which could be damaged if pushed too quickly ( Wicks and Reason, 2009 ). The study was promoted as a “ lifestyle and behavior ” project and avoided making reference to the environment, as we wished to avoid recruiting only those members of the community whose motivations and values were strongly pro-environmental. At recruitment, a brief screening procedure was applied; individuals were screened to ensure that they were 18+ and aware of the broad purpose of the study and what would be required in terms of participation. We also purposefully recruited individuals to ensure that we had a roughly equal split in terms of gender, as well as diversity in terms of age, ethnicity, occupation, and income. See Table 1 for subsample demographics.

Table 1 . Subsample demographics.

To recruit our Bharatpur subsample, we collaborated with the Institute for Social and Environmental Research Nepal (ISER-N). ISER-N is a research and development institute that conducts applied research to inform policy-making and effective sustainable development initiatives across local communities. Using a similar method to the above, ISER-N acted as our guide and point of access to the local community and advertised and recruited a subsample of local people who had expressed an interest in discussing their lifestyles and behaviors.

Once participants had been identified, screened, and given further information about the study, they were invited to take part in an interview to discuss aspects of their day-to-day lifestyles and behaviors with the research team. Interviews were scheduled to take approximately one-and-a-half hours, but varied from 45 min to 2 h. A semi-structured interview method ( Galletta, 2013 ) was chosen in which a standard set of questions was covered while also allowing flexibility for follow-up questions and exploration of other issues of relevance to participants. Such flexibility is an advantage in cross-cultural settings as this allows for greater exploration of cultural factors underpinning issues of interest ( McIntosh and Morse, 2015 ; Hagaman and Wutich, 2017 ). All participants were required to give written informed consent prior to participation.

Questions in the interview protocol sought to contextualize environmental perspectives within people's wider everyday lives as far as possible. Questions broadly covered perceptions of the environment and the importance of environmental issues environmental problems (including climate change), engagement in environmentally-friendly behavior, the character, motivations for and consequences of behaviors, and comparisons with others in terms of acting in environmentally-friendly ways (see Supplementary Information ).

The majority of interviews took place at participants' homes. Discussions took place on seats or woven mats in the front yards of houses rather than inside the building itself. A small number of interviews were conducted in other locations, such as a local café, or community building in the case where the home could not be used. We relied heavily on our collaborators and local community leaders to manage interview arrangements in line with our concerns about accessing members of an unfamiliar culture and wishing not to transgress social boundaries. Because people's yards are the area of the home where a lot of day-to-day interaction takes place, providing socially appropriate spaces for interaction.

One of the disadvantages of holding interviews outside was that on some occasions the research team's presence would attract the curiosity of other family members, neighbors and other locals. The sudden presence of others could occasionally alter the dynamic of the interview interaction, particularly if the others who were present began talking or offering their own perspectives. On one or two occasions the research team had to ask bystanders to limit their contribution so as to allow the participant to speak. To a cultural outsider this would appear potentially problematic and non-conducive to an appropriate interview context, which led us to consider this and other ethical considerations in conducting interview research in different cultures.

Ethical Considerations in Conducting Interviews in Different Cultures

Researchers typically assume that the communities in which they work will be aware of the concept of research and its value, though for many communities research is something abstract, distanced and difficult to make sense of in relation to their ordinary lived experience. This came across clearly in working with each subsample. In Bharatpur, participants were familiar with ISER-N and, owing to participating in other cross-cultural research, were more comfortable with the researcher's presence than participants in Kumroj, who had not been so exposed to researchers and the research process. Further to this, bridging communicative spaces is not confined merely to issues of translation and word equivalence, but of more conceptual differences in terms of the ways that different cultures define reality and categorize their experience ( Fong, 2012 ). Language and culture are woven together in ways that require not only the translation of speech, but the translation of cultural meanings that are often concealed from those outside of that culture. In designing the interview protocol, we worked closely with our collaborators not only to ensure that questions were understandable, but that any cultural assumptions (for example, about the lifestyles, values, and practices of the community) were identified and addressed appropriately. All interview materials were double-translated.

Qualitative methods including interviews, also carry particular ethical implications in terms of power imbalance, where the discussion is primarily directed by the researcher ( King et al., 2018 ). Assumptions about the identity of the western researcher (typically white, middle-class, and educated) on the part of the research participant construct interactional dynamics before a word has been spoken. Similarly, the reflexive researcher will not only consider how their own identity might influence communication, but how their assumptions about the community they are researching enter into framing interactions. While researchers may seek to embark on research practices that are non-exploitative and non-oppressive, researchers are nonetheless complicit in systems of oppression and should be aware of their own privileges.

The interview team comprised a male researcher (lead author) and a female translator to minimize any gender imbalance that might affect trust and participant disclosure, especially for female participants ( Campbell and Wasco, 2000 ; Sikes, 2018 ). The translator also played an active role in facilitating each interview, asking additional questions and clarifying understanding, as opposed to simply translating questions and responses. It was felt that a combination of cultural insider and cultural outsider benefited the discussion; while the former helped to increase trust and disclosure, the latter encouraged more detailed exploration of issues that might otherwise be taken for granted by those familiar with those issues ( Dwyer and Buckle, 2009 ).

Conducting qualitative fieldwork in collaboration with translators can also compromise the quality and accuracy of the material generated. In an interview context, the translator adds an additional layer to the interaction. For example, the translator is likely to be more acquainted with the cultural nuances of the interaction than the researcher. Therefore, both the researcher and translator can affect the fieldwork process, as well as disrupting the flow of talk to allow for translation ( Van Teijlingen et al., 2011 ). When fully transcribed, interviews can also show disparity between participant responses and translated responses. van Teijlingen et al. suggest that a way round this is to allow the translator to conduct the interview and only relay main points to the researcher, though this can be impractical, as well as excluding the researcher.

Prior to the interviews, considerable time was spent in developing and pre-testing interview questions. After constructing an initial set of interview questions in English, these were double-translated and then reviewed by our collaborators in Nepal. This was invaluable in not only identifying significant weaknesses in conceptual equivalence between Nepali and English versions of the questions ( Larkin et al., 2007 ), but also in highlighting researchers' cultural assumptions inherent in questions relating to everyday life in “other” places. That is, while a translated question may be conceptually equivalent to the original, it still may not be understandable in another culture (e.g., where researchers from one culture assume that all participants in another culture will have the same access to resources, such as running water). Even when all care is taken with translation, translators may be unfamiliar with a particular geographical region or cultural group. Therefore, it is recommended that questions are pre-tested in the specific cultural contexts in which they will be used.

With reference to interview locations, our decision to hold interviews outside and not in a more private location was primarily guided by social conventions as well as pragmatism, though we acknowledge the active influence of the nature of the space within which such interactions take place ( Gagnon et al., 2015 ). As mentioned at the end of the previous section, on occasion others were present at interviews in ways that influenced participant responses and could have constrained disclosure or breached informal assumptions about confidentiality (though interview questions were not considered to cover personally sensitive topics). Conversely, in discussing lifestyle and behavior issues, the home sometimes served as an exemplar in which participants described their activities in the context of the physical surroundings, which enhanced disclosure. In addition, conducting interviews in familiar environments can reduce the power imbalance between researcher and research participant ( Gagnon et al., 2015 ).

Ethical considerations do not end at the point at which the interview concludes but influence ongoing reflections following the interview (such as translation, analysis, writing-up and dissemination) ( Hoover et al., 2018 ). Acknowledging that translation imposes an additional level of interpretation on the spoken word ( Caretta, 2015 ), we have tried insofar as possible to contextualize accounts based on participants' direct speech rather than translators' interpretations of what was said. At the end of each interview, participants were provided with a verbal and written debrief in Nepali, in which they were given the opportunity to get in touch with the research team through appointed members of the local community and in-country collaborators should they have any further questions or concerns once participation had ended.

Analytic Approach

All interviews were digitally audio-recorded and translated and transcribed at ISER-N. Written field notes were also taken throughout each interview relating to points of interest and things that might not be captured by the recorder. An “ in-interview ” system of translation was used whereby questions and responses were translated between English and Nepali by the translator. This method of translation was primarily used to aid communication within the interview itself. When the interview recordings were translated, the translators re-translated participants' responses, which appear alongside the in-interview translations in the transcripts. This was done as the task of translating what at times were lengthy utterances in the moment, could have led to omissions and gaps, whereas in translating participant responses from the recordings utterances could be replayed and listened to repeatedly for clarity, thus better capturing what was said.

An episodic narrative approach was used as an analytic framework by which to explore participants' accounts of environmentally-friendly perceptions and behaviors. This approach treats perceptions and experiences as lived narratives situated within the wider society and culture ( Flick, 2000 ; Jovchelovitch and Bauer, 2000 ). Narrative interviewing is interested in eliciting particular episodes or features of participants' lives and how they make sense of the world as embodied, culturally and spatially situated individuals ( Raulet-Croset and Borzeix, 2014 ). Interview audio files and transcripts were analyzed using NVivo 11, supplemented by written field notes.

Our analysis combined several methods, which we outline here. In line with the early stages of a grounded theory approach ( Timmermans and Tavory, 2012 ) we began by reading through transcripts to identify examples of talk that involved themes relating to health and well-being in the context of environmental issues. As much as possible, given inevitable researcher preconceptions and positions ( Caelli et al., 2003 ) we sought to identify general themes and provisional topics of interest, without imposing a predetermined framework. This manner of bottom-up or inductive analytic reading of the data allows for the broadest possible range of salient themes to be identified. Once we familiarized ourselves with the material through repeated readings, we then developed a system of codes to more precisely categorize these themes. In order to do so, we used a version of template analysis, which is suitable for identifying themes in research data that is commensurate with both essentialist and constructionist perspectives, and which enables a hybrid approach that utilizes both inductive and deductive techniques ( Brooks et al., 2015 ). Template analysis is a form of thematic analysis applied to qualitative data, that is sensitive both to emergent themes that are grounded in the data (i.e., not anticipated or predetermined by the researcher) as well as permitting predetermined codes or categories to be applied (i.e., in line with the researcher's interests and the existing literature). The coding framework was developed through an iterative process: through multiple readings of the research data and refinement of initial codes until further changes to the framework did not enhance it further. A further feature of template analysis is the development and application of a hierarchical coding approach, designed to shed light on the structure across the set of codes. In the case of the present study, this for example has led to higher-level codes such as “behavioral responses” beneath which we identify sub-codes such as “cleanliness” and “waste disposal.”

In the analysis that follows, we present extracts from interviews in both communities comprising perceptions of environmental issues. Where considering the themes identified within the data, we have illustrated this using a single typical extract and alluded to its occurrence in other participants' accounts within the text.

Community Perceptions of Current Environmental Conditions

We began by asking participants about the importance of environmental issues in their day-to-day lives and what the surrounding environment was like. Responses comprised both positive and negative evaluations of environmental conditions, though there was a greater range of issues forming the latter. To get some sense of the kinds of terms used to describe the local environment in each community, we created two word clouds using NVivo, which display the most frequently used words in discussing issues. The results of these are displayed in Figures 1 , 2 .

Figure 1 . Word cloud of the 75 most common words associated with present environmental conditions (Bharatpur participants).

Figure 2 . Word cloud of the 75 most common words associated with present environmental conditions (Kumroj participants).

Both communities used the same terms in discussing the environment, such as “ people ” and “ good .” In Bharatpur, “ better ” was also commonly used in talking about the environment, which may reflect the dominance of the issue of sanitation (see section Sanitation and Hygiene below). Negative words such as “ pollution,” “ smoke,” “ problem,” and “ dust” also came up relatively regularly, as did the word “ plastic .” Terms relating to hygiene and sanitation were also notable. These included “ cleanliness,” “ toilet ,” “ healthy,” and “ clean .” Meanwhile, in Kumroj, commonly used terms appeared congruent with the community's rural position. These included “ animals ,” “ jungle ,” “ wild ,” and “ forest .” Words such as “ polluted ,” “ concerned,” and “ worried” were also used. We now move on to discuss responses in more detail.

Sanitation and Hygiene

The primary way issue through which the environment was assessed in both communities, though particularly in Bharatpur, related to sanitation and the need to maintain a clean environment to reduce the risks of disease:

“ Previously, like ten to fifteen years ago people used to smoke, and there was open defecation everywhere, there weren't any toilets, so people used to get sick and the death rate also used to be very high, people used to be suffering by many kinds of disease, skin problems, allergies. Now currently almost every household has a toilet, and many organizations have been working on cleanliness. They have been providing various training and awareness programs regarding the clean environment. So now I would say, the environment is not so bad around here .” (Bharatpur, Interview A3).

In the above account, a positive assessment of environmental conditions is formulated by drawing a comparison between past and present sanitation and sanitary practices. Whereas, in the past, communities were affected by diseases resulting from unsanitary conditions, this had now changed, providing a positive indicator of the local environment as a whole.

In addition to health risks from open defecation, providing proper toilets in rural communities such as Kumroj also minimized other risks from wildlife, and the discomfort of adverse weather conditions:

“ If we don't have a toilet, then we may have to face many difficulties such as while going outside for toilet then we might get attacked from snake or when raining it would be hard to go the toilet. And if we openly defecate then it will pollute the environment and as result we may have to suffer from different diseases, so environment is the most important thing to survive for everyone and we can't imagine life without environment .” Kumroj, Interview B11).

For rural communities, development of sanitation was considered not only key to well-being, but also, implicitly, key to a good environment. Talk of sanitation in the context of evaluating the local environment also rested heavily on community awareness. What contributed to a lack of environmental quality in the past was not only that proper sanitation was unavailable, but that in the past, communities were less aware of the risks to health and well-being from poor sanitation. Risky sanitary practices were thus maintained as people did not know any better. In contrast, nowadays, communities were more aware of risks from inadequate sanitation and knew how to overcome issues such as contaminated drinking water. In this way, community awareness also contributed to positive judgements of environmental quality:

“ The e nvironment here is better in comparison to the past…These facilities didn't exist. There had been problems of drinking water taps. The same tap was used. It wasn't enough. In society, people had to drink water from wells. They had germs, smoke and dust .” (Bharatpur, Interview A10).

Similar to the accounts of the shift to a better environment through the development of toilet facilities and reduction in the practice of open defecation, an overall positive evaluation of the environment is constructed through comparisons of past and present. For many participants, issues of health, sanitation and hygiene formed the yardstick by which the overall environment was evaluated positively.

Waste and Pollution

While improvements in sanitation and hygiene across both communities provided a positive indicator of environmental quality, there was more ambivalence where participants discussed other issues indicative of environmental quality in their respective communities. For participants in both Bharatpur and Kumroj, distance from industrial development and proximity to green spaces were important factors associated with positive environmental assessments:

“ The environment around here is ok, there is no industry and factory so it is not that much polluted here and we are nearby jungle so we have greenery, yeah, it's good, it's fine .” (Kumroj, Interview B5).

As illustrated in the above account, environmental quality was implicitly understood as relating to human well-being, in terms of risks from pollution. Such a location for the community, close to the jungle and away from factories, led to evaluations that the environment was good. Conversely, accounts of pollution from other sources within the community itself, suggested a rather different environmental evaluation. At the same time as some participants positively evaluated the environment being relatively pollution-free, others constructed it as a polluted space due to the way that plastic waste was managed. The problem of plastic waste disposal came up most frequently in Bharatpur:

“… looking at increasing population, there can be very dangerous pollution. I feel that it will increase, yes, increasing. The use of plastics is increasing and there is no awareness regarding how to maintain cleanliness, how to save us from the problem. They have no such idea. Due to increasing population density, such symptoms are evident .” (Bharatpur, Interview A14).

Concerns about plastic waste were tied to other concerns about local population increase and the perception that there was a lack of awareness amongst the community in addressing the issue. Such accounts implied that there were no alternatives to using plastic, therefore the problem was in disposing of plastic waste that littered the environment and did not decompose. The main problem causing the pollution was not the presence of plastic waste, but the method used to manage and deal with waste plastic. This chiefly involved collecting the plastic and burning it in open fires. While this resolved the problem of plastic waste littering the community, participants were concerned that the smoke polluted the air and posed risks to health:

“ There is plastic around here and there. To dispose plastic, we need to burn it, and if we burn plastic it makes huge air pollution and affects people's health. The other day I argued with one person not to throw plastic. We must use firewood for cooking and because of that there is again smoke in the air, because of a lack of cooking gas. That's why it has been a very bad environment .” (Bharatpur; Interview A2).

In contrast to the previous extract constructing the local environment in positive ways as being relatively pollution-free, alternative perspectives such as the above led to very different evaluations of the local environment, with concomitant consequences for the health of the community. While the local community was aware of the contribution of existing informal plastic waste management practices to air pollution, it was nonetheless positioned as being powerless to change in ways that address air pollution as people are locked in to environmentally-damaging practices in order to manage waste and address basic needs. Similar to the need to use firewood for cooking due to shortages of cleaner alternatives, there were no alternatives and burning plastic waste was viewed as unavoidable. Essentially, such accounts lead to a very different evaluation of local environmental conditions.

Conversely, in Kumroj, a municipal system for collecting plastic waste had been in place for some time, therefore the community's method of dealing with plastic waste was not considered to threaten local environmental quality as much as problems such as poor sanitation:

“ People defecate wherever they want around the city area, there are toilets in here no toilets, so people openly defecated. So, I'm concerned about it…Otherwise, there is a facility to collect the waste from municipalities, the van comes and takes away waste. People collect the wastage plastic in sacks, then when the municipality van comes, then they take it away .” (Kumroj, Interview B6).

The account begins by constructing open defecation as the main issue threatening the environment in nearby Bharatpur, implying a negative assessment of the surroundings. This is contrasted with a more positive assessment where the speaker switches to talk about plastic waste management in Kumroj. Therefore, while plastic waste was a problem in both communities, in evaluating the local environment, the different ways in which plastic waste was managed were used to formulate contrasting assessments of environmental quality overall. These contrasting assessments may also connect to the wider importance of health and well-being, in which potential risks are offset by waste management practices in one community, but raised by plastic waste management practices in another.

Deforestation

While plastic waste did not negatively influence environmental assessments in Kumroj as it did in Bharatpur, there were, nonetheless, other issues affecting the community leading to negative environmental evaluations that were not reported in Bharatpur. For people in rural Kumroj, there was a closer felt connection to the neighboring forest as a source of environmental concerns. That is, forest conditions were more commonly invoked in environmental assessments by participants in Kumroj than in Bharatpur. The forest was seen as a valuable community resource, primarily as a source of firewood. Such talk occurred against a context of strikes and fuel shortages, further highlighting the importance of the forest as a source of firewood for local communities, which was being rapidly diminished due to increased demand:

“ We restored the forest with a lot of hard work. The strikes have already led to twenty-five percent of the forest to deforest and if this goes on, the forest will be completely deforested in a year or two. There is a new facility called biogas, we have that facility but, we have seventy-five percent biogas but people are poor and some bring the firewood from the forest, steal it and sell it… People have to survive. Having to die today and struggling for it tomorrow isn't going to work. If you have to survive today, you'll have to work for it today. And if they don't have any other way they'll go to the forest and steal the firewood .” (Kumroj, Interview B10).

Despite attempts to increase forest cover and reduce reliance on firewood by providing biogas converters within local communities, this did not address the wider problem of sustaining local people's livelihoods, which caused further deforestation and the potential loss of the forest altogether. From this perspective, the amount of forest cover formed an indicator of environmental quality. Furthermore, for participants in Kumroj, the environment was also judged based upon perceived changes in the amount of wildlife that could be observed locally:

“ I think the current environment is worse than the previous environment. I have noticed that the current environment is going down every day instead of going up. Because, previously when I used to go to the jungle I could see the wild animals very near, even sometimes outside of the jungle, but these days we have to go very deep into the jungle to search for the animals .” (Kumroj, Interview B14).

While the need for wood to sustain people's lives were commonly acknowledged within accounts of the pressures on forest resources in Kumroj, deforestation remained a significant concern.

Climate and Weather

While it was not foremost in terms of locally significant issues, participants in Bharatpur and Kumroj also referred to changes in climate and weather conditions in formulating their assessments of the local environment. These changes did not form the basis for positive evaluations of the local environment but appeared in negative or neutral assessments. Talk referred to a narrow range of changes. These mainly involved observations of temperature extremes in which summers were perceived to be increasingly hot, and winters increasingly cold. However, while these observations of climatic change were described causal factors were hardly mentioned. Furthermore, the phenomenon of global climate change was not spontaneously invoked in accounts:

“ I would say it's okay, so far Chitwan's environment is fine, although here is not much forest and plants. In winter it's very cold and summer is getting hotter .” (Bharatpur, Interview A6).

What appears initially as a positive assessment of the local environment is tempered by a perceived lack of forest cover and greenery in Bharatpur. In addition, the speaker adds the casual observation that winter and summer are increasingly subject to extreme temperatures, though no reason is offered as to why.

In addition to temperature changes, the other way in which the environment was judged was based on fluctuations in precipitation. In such accounts, there was consensus that rainfall was becoming more erratic and less predictable, and that rainfall overall was decreasing, including at the wettest times of the year. Again, no specific reasons were ventured as to why this was happening:

“ Yeah, I think sometimes, I think there's not enough or little rainfall during the rainy season .” (Bharatpur, Interview A1)

While changes in climate in terms of global averages cannot readily be detected by individuals ( Hulme, 2009 ), participants' observations appeared to reflect general climate trends. However, there was little concern expressed about temperature and precipitation changes, in comparison to other issues linked to health, cleanliness and well-being. Very occasionally, this type of issue was also linked to other perceived environmental problems. For example, one participant associated reductions in the amount of rain that fell to changes in forest cover:

“… we shouldn't be cutting down trees like we have been doing. We wouldn't get any rain if there weren't any trees .” (Kumroj, Interview B6).

The above account provides an isolated example of causation in relation to weather related changes. Even so, the role of climate change is not mentioned and rainfall change is attributed solely to the local problem of deforestation. While discussions of weather and climate were almost exclusively focused on the local area, an isolated reference was made to climate change in discussing the environment on a larger scale. One speaker spontaneously referred to broader patterns of global warming observed in changes beyond the local environment:

“… as you know because of the international global warming, now these days we have maximum cold, maximum hot, and impacts on ice and the change of snow fall trends…now there is very little snow fall in the mountains. If there is snow it melts so fast. These days we can see there are big storms, rainfall, everything has changed now. I think all the weather patterns have changed because of global warming. So, all those things make me concerned about the environment .” (Kumroj, Interview B13).

While an isolated example, the extract illustrates that climate change did arise in discussions of more local environmental conditions. Broader weather and temperature changes in Nepal corroborated observations at the local level, including temperature extremes and changes in rainfall.

In summary, assessments of the local environment were framed in different ways, leading to differences in the way that environment environmental conditions were evaluated. Assessments were framed based upon locally significant issues, which were both shared by, and individual to each community. Moreover, the most significant concerns were related to health and wellbeing. Next, we consider responses to the question of future environmental change.

Community Perceptions of Future Environmental Change

Following discussions over present environmental conditions, we then asked participants how the local environment might change in the future. Responses again comprised both positive and negative impressions, with a higher proportion of responses focused on the latter.

As previously, we created word clouds to get a sense of the sorts of terms that were used in imagining the future, and how these terms varied across communities. The results are shown in Figures 3 , 4 .

Figure 3 . Word cloud of the 75 most common words associated with future environmental conditions (Bharatpur participants).

Figure 4 . Word cloud of the 75 most common words associated with future environmental conditions (Kumroj participants).

Among participants in Bharatpur, the words “ waste ,” “ population,” and “ increasing ” came up most frequently in responses about future change. References to negative terms, such as “ pollution ” appeared less than in talk about existing conditions, though it appeared to be used relatively more frequently by participants in Kumroj. With reference to the latter community, the two most prominent words used in talking about the future were “ forest ” and “ people .” Other terms referred to environmental concerns looking to the future, including “ live ,”, “ less ,” “ important,” “ survive,” and “ disappear.” We now move on to discuss responses in more detail.

Future Deforestation

Across both communities, the most commonly reported issue in the future was that of population increase and its consequences, especially for those in Kumroj. As can be read from the analysis so far, population increase influenced environmental perceptions; and was something that was set to continue into the future. Population increase was not viewed in positive ways in either community. Instead, environmental impacts were predicted to increase as more people came to live in the Terai. Of these impacts, the pressure on local forests was most often mentioned. This tapped into the idea that the forest existed as a resource for local communities and that, as a resource, the forest was already being overused:

“ Well, um…I think, the population will increase, they may need more homes, more food, etcetera. For that, the increased population might destroy the green forest for their homes and for cultivating land. There might not be good management of the increased population. There may come disorder in the environment. There might be less wild animals, less trees and plants .” (Bharatpur, Interview A7).

In addition to providing raw materials in terms of firewood, as mentioned above, the need for land clearance to build settlements and provide food for newcomers compounded deforestation. If not well-managed, there were fears that this would eventually lead to the complete loss of the forest, both as a resource, and as a habitat for local flora and fauna. Such accounts appeared to be grounded in existing concerns about the exploitation of forest resources and served as a warning against continuing unchecked exploitation. In addition to its construction as a community resource and as a habitat for wildlife, in one or two discussions of future population increase, the forest was constructed as a safeguard against preventing other environmental impacts. For example, the forest protected the landscape from flooding and erosion:

“ Since the population and settlements are increasing, the forest is being cut down and people are settling in areas that were forest. More trees are being cut down to meet demand and brick factories are setting up and their chimneys pollute the air with lots of smoke. Because of less forest there could be floods and landslides, so this is the way the environment will be affected in future .” (Kumroj, Interview B11).

Further to the above, while participants were asked about environmental change in the future, discussions were typically grounded in perceptions of the present. Within the above extract, indications of future conditions linked to increased population and natural disasters are connected with conditions in the here and now, which are projected into an imagined future. It is assumed that present conditions will remain stable and consistent, with little expectation of change. As such, these accounts of the future highlight anxieties linked to present conditions, along with a sense of futility and helplessness that little will change. Conversely, issues such as sanitation did not really come up as future concerns, which likely reflects perceptions of sanitation improvements in the present, compared to the past.

Future Temperature Increases and Reduced Precipitation

Of relevance to climate change, rising temperatures, reduced rainfall and the loss of water resources also came up as potential future conditions locally. As found previously in accounts of present conditions, such talk tended to report conditions without elaborating on reasons as to what might contribute to causing them, or by offering opaque references to some unspoken (or non-understood) conditions or circumstances as “ having changed ”:

“ Yes, I think the environment might change. We even hear in the news that the heat or temperature has risen…we also have heard that because of some things the amount of rainfall has also decreased.” (Bharatpur, Interview A1).

The above narrative hints at climate change, though without any formal acknowledgment of the phenomenon. First of all, the speaker does not refer to direct experience of rising temperatures but formulates this information as something gathered from the media. Likewise, due to a set of unnamed causal factors labeled as “ some things ,” rainfall has also decreased, hinting at complexity. Furthermore, while the speaker begins by stating the belief that the environment could possibly change, the following discussion of climate-relevant change is grounded in changes that have already occurred, rather than changes that could happen in the future. As above, perceptions of future change are intimately connected to changes in the present. This is also confirmed in the next extract, in which a response to the question over future change is also constructed as an account of a present in which the environment locally had shifted from a state of stability to one of flux:

“ When it used to rain in Chure…that is in the mid hills, if we put some grains in the sun to dry then we wouldn't have time to collect them and bring them inside so quickly. The rain would have come, it used to rain quickly. But five to seven years after that there were floods and then other floods, and after that the climate started getting worse and worse. Nowadays what happens is we can see it raining in Chure but here is doesn't rain. So that is a very definite thing that I have noticed .” (Kumroj, Interview B13).

In this extract, rather than merely hearing about weather and temperature-related changes from secondary sources, evidence of environmental change could be found in the course of changes to practices that were arranged in line with previously stable and consistent weather patterns. As weather patterns had become less predictable, community practices had undergone changes, highlighting the impact of weather-related changes on the local community.

Local Community Perceptions of Climate Change

The previous sections have shown that while participants in both communities spoke about issues related to changes to temperature and weather, both now in the future, these issues were typically unelaborated beyond the reporting of changes when unelicited, and only rarely connected to wider global climate change. Yet these perceptions often paralleled broader climate change trends. In order to gauge the extent to which participants were aware of climate change, we then asked directly whether participants had heard of climate change or global warming.

Using NVivo, we began by mapping climate change themes from participants' accounts in both communities., which then formed basic nodes through which to understand the various ways in which participants in both communities talked about climate change. The conceptual map is shown in Figure 5 . We then looked at responses in more detail.

Figure 5 . Conceptual map of themes arising in participants' talk about climate change across both communities.

Changes in Temperature

Of the participants who were directly asked whether they had heard of climate change, only one or two had not, though nobody claimed to know more than a little. Responses were very similar across both communities. Nearly all participants in both communities referred to changes in temperature and/or weather locally. Extreme temperatures were the most commonly cited indicator, most often connected to hotter summers, but also less frequently linked to colder winters, as detailed above in the section on Climate and Weather. Generally, little was said beyond simply noticing change, though one important impact of temperature change in the Terai concerned the direct consequences for plant life:

“ Well…hmm…actually I don't know the reason of global warming. I have heard that the snow of the mountains is melting these days. If it melts it will be hotter. The vegetation will be dry and can't survive, I heard this. It means the temperature increase may affect every living thing on the earth .” (Bharatpur; Interview A7).

Such talk reflects the importance of agriculture for many communities in what is Nepal's primary agricultural region; while the direct impact on plants was highlighted, other impacts of temperature change were not. The speaker also claims to be unaware of the causes of global warming. However, they construct a link between snowmelt on the distant mountains and temperature rise more locally, with potential impacts for the planet.

Links between climate change and health were rare, however, one speaker explained that hotter temperatures brought new disease risks to humans:

“ What is there is that the rays of the sun, the layer between sun and the earth is what people call depleting nowadays, isn't it? This leads to an increase in heat. This heat has brought about different diseases. Like, mosquito bites cause various diseases. I have heard from the radio that climate change has adversely affected human beings .” (Bharatpur; Interview A14).

In explaining the causes of temperature rise that bring about health risks from flying insects, the speaker combines elements of ozone layer depletion and global warming. This reflects the way that lay understandings of climate change do not map neatly onto expert definitions, but often overlap with other environmental problems ( Rudiak-Gould, 2012 ).

Changes in Precipitation

Following changes in temperature, particularly in the summer months, changes in precipitation were the other main symptom linked to climate change in both communities. An example of this type of perception is provided in Section 3.1.3, though talk of erratic or reduced rainfall was framed locally and very nearly always unconnected with global climate change. However, when the issue of climate change was deliberately elicited by the interviewer, a greater degree of acknowledgment was given to the influence of the phenomenon on local changes particularly in relation to agriculture:

“ Because of global warming, there is not timely rainfall, nothing happens according to the growing seasons. For example, no rain in the rainy reason but it is (rainy) in winter time. Nothing occurring at the right time, I guess this is all the impact of climate change .” (Kumroj, Interview B13).

Because of global warming, regular patterns of precipitation and the seasons had been thrown into disarray. This was of particular importance in the Terai in terms of agriculture, and was the primary way in which such changes to established patterns were recognized. For others, while erratic weather had recently been observed, it was of little concern as the weather tended not to be consistent but changeable day-to-day:

“ Few years back there was heavy rain, but now there is very little rain, and the summer heat has increased since last year…I think it's not really concerning me because every day is different and going on in its own way, so I don't feel really concerned about it .” (Kumroj, Interview B12).

In general, accounts of changing temperature and weather were constructed in ways that assumed a transition from the stable and consistent natural patterns of the past, to a present in which established patterns had been disrupted. However, for those less concerned, changes were viewed as part of natural variability. Ultimately, when thinking about local conditions, climate change typically did not form a part of community perspectives unless introduced by the interviewer. The final section summarizes individual climate-relevant behavioral responses to the issues raised in talking about the environment.

Health and Well-Being Motivates Engagement in Climate-Relevant Behaviors

Because participants in Bharatpur and Kumroj often did not associate local issues with climate change, there was little talk of the need to adopt specific mitigation or adaptation behaviors. However, within each community one or two climate-relevant behaviors were raised in the course of discussing engagement in more general environmentally-relevant actions. For example, planting trees was widely practiced in both communities. Primarily, this was done to provide wood, create shade around homes and provide fruit. Trees were also considered important in preventing drought (see section on Climate and Weather) and other natural disasters such as flooding and erosion (see section Future Deforestation). In addition, a few participants framed climate-relevant behaviors as motivated by the need to safeguard health and well-being:

“ Trees I plant in the rainy season, so I plant yearly. Once I cut the old, then I plant new…Trees keep the environment clean and healthier. Trees inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen” (Bharatpur, Interview A6).

While there was no clear link made to climate change, participants acknowledged the value of reducing atmospheric carbon, which was understood as maintaining a “ clean and healthier ” environment. Essentially, such climate-relevant practices were understood not in accordance with received scientific conceptualisations of climate change, but through more pragmatic perspectives linked to health and well-being.

In Kumroj, the Nepalese government had tried to maintain forest stocks by encouraging villagers to purchase biogas converters through grant schemes. Several participants, mainly from Kumroj, had biogas converters. These were seen as advantageous as organic waste could be utilized for producing fuel and then used as a fertilizer. Food could also be cooked quicker without the need to light a fire, and it reduced the need to collect wood. While participants did not mention the link between biogas practices and climate change, one of the most important benefits of biogas was that it did not pollute the air and so reduced health risks linked to inhaling wood smoke:

“ It (biogas) is clean and the air is also clean. The utensils are also not black. Biogas is more hygienic. People can be safe from colds and coughs and smoke-related diseases .” (Kumroj; Interview B13).

Cleanliness is paramount to the importance of biogas in the above extract. The pollution emitted by burnt wood is illustrated with reference to the condition of cooking utensils, with the implication that the wider environment is being affected in a similar way. In contrast, biogas does not discolor cooking utensils, which illustrates the fuel's superiority in terms of minimizing health risks caused by woodsmoke.

This study set out to investigate community perceptions of environmental and climate-relevant issues within two communities in the Terai region of Nepal. Specifically, we sought to address 4 related research questions; (1) How do community members perceive their environment? (2) How do they see that environment changing in future? (3) To what degree are communities aware of climate change? (4) How important is climate change in comparison to other issues? A range of environmental and climate-relevant issues emerged within current and future perspectives. Perspectives were focused primarily on local issues rather than wider environmental conditions. Issues linked to health and well-being were of paramount importance, while climate change was hardly mentioned in either community, either as a current or future problem. However, there was common awareness of temperature and weather changes in the local climate, though the vast majority did not link these changes to climate change. We now move on to discuss the results of our analyses in more detail.

For participants in both communities, assessments of the local environment were commonly based on evaluations of a single locally-salient issue. Positive issues, such as improvements in sanitation over time, invariably resulted in positive overall evaluations of the environment overall. Conversely, pollution resulted in more negative overall assessments. This highlights the highly subjective nature of environmental perceptions and the way in which specific issues can achieve heightened significance in judgements of environmental quality.

Many of the environmental issues raised in both communities were related to health and well-being, including cleanliness, pollution, and deforestation. It may be the relative proximity of each community contributed to this overlapping of issues. It may also be because they represent basic environmental concerns common to many communities—keeping the environment clean, healthy, and pollution free. Similarities between communities may also be partly attributable to our sampling method (see section Study Limitations and Future Research) There were also some differences in issues between communities. While plastic waste was more of an issue in Bharatpur, deforestation came up more often in Kumroj—though neither issue was exclusive to each community.

Climate change as an issue came up only once spontaneously, implying that other local issues were more salient. However, temperature and weather changes analogous to climate change did come up in several interviews across both communities, though without attribution to climate change. There was also little consideration of causal factors beyond immediate local causes such as deforestation affecting precipitation, flooding, and land erosion. In line with Leichenko and Silva (2014) , it appeared that temperature and weather changes allied to global climate change were already being experienced, though such issues were more atomized and vernacular and sometimes merged with other environmental problems ( Rudiak-Gould, 2012 ). In line with previous work, community perspectives often drew on different issues without attempting to clearly categorize or explain them ( Lorenzoni et al., 2007 ). Xiao and Dunlap (2007) note how particular environmental cognitions can constrain others; it is therefore possible that, when issues are framed locally, wider frameworks of understanding are overlooked.

Perceptions of Future Environmental Change

Perceptions of future environmental change were closely linked to mental representations of current conditions and issues of anxiety and concern. This could be seen in the way that participants rarely spoke about sanitation with reference to environmental change in the future, as sanitation had improved within communities. However, concerns about issues linked to current population increase were projected into the future and anticipated to continue unabated. Previous work has found that existing perceptions of self and other can be elicited through projections of “possible selves” in the future ( Harrison, 2018 ). In the same way, communities' imagined environmental futures highlight salient issues within existing relationships between communities and their physical surroundings.

The Terai region has witnessed large increases in population over recent decades ( Population Reference Bureau, 2002 ), and this was linked to pollution, deforestation and pressure on natural resources. While predictions of temperature and weather emerged from the interviews, such impacts were less frequently mentioned than concerns over population growth, as found in other research (e.g., Butler et al., 2014 ). Before communities can interpret and respond to climate-relevant issues, it may therefore be necessary to address existing concerns characterized by visions of the present and the future. In addition, the analysis highlights the relevance of sociocultural arrangements and cultural practices that contribute to community perspectives. For example, tree-felling was understood sympathetically within wider contexts of survival and economic struggle, as well as fuel shortages that left no alternative but to take wood from the forest. Such perspectives serve to highlight the complex nature and wider structural relations sustaining environmentally damaging practices.

Awareness of Climate Change

Climate awareness was relatively unmentioned in discussing the local environment, echoing previous studies ( Gallup, 2009 ; Withana and Auch, 2014 ). We found little difference between awareness in Bharatpur and Kumroj. A potential reason for this is that the changes observed suggest broader shifts in temperature and weather affecting the wider region, rather than localized effects or micro-climates that might affect one community and not another. Other studies have also reported lower awareness in rural communities ( Tanner et al., 2018 ), though a lack of difference may be due to the higher levels of environmental awareness from NGO engagement in Kumroj. However, while most participants did not spontaneously discuss the issue of climate change, when directly questioned, all had at least heard of climate change and many were able to eloquently demonstrate a good degree of knowledge. Therefore, it may not have been that participants were unaware of climate change, but simply did not consider it a locally salient issue. Tanner et al. (2018) also found that climate change awareness was low, despite respondents observing changes to local weather and climate. It may be that communities look to more local explanations for climate-relevant issues, as was found in some discussions. Therefore, if received knowledge teaches that the lack of rain is due to local forests being depleted, why would communities look to wider, more nebulous phenomena as explanations? The kinds of issues that came up in talk of climate change broadly reflects other research on community perceptions of climate change in the Terai (e.g., Tiwari et al., 2010 ; Maharjan et al., 2011 ). The apparent disjuncture between local experience and climate change suggests that the latter may lack relevance for local communities as long as environmental changes can be attributed to more local causal factors. It also suggests two kinds of climate change; a distanced, abstract climate change, and a more experiential, locally-grounded one. Within communities facing such impacts there is a need for a nuanced understanding that blends both. Howe et al. (2013) remark that local perceptions, such as temperature change, can positively bias perceptions of more abstract global climate change, which in turn can generate greater awareness and the capacity to respond to reduce risks to communities. As communities appear to be aware that the local climate is changing in a variety of ways, it is necessary to translate this awareness beyond the local. Reciprocally, more global perspectives need to connect with the concerns and interests of communities at the local level to make climate change more relevant to people's everyday lives. Bain et al. (2016) discuss evidence for initiatives promoting public engagement designed to generate support on the basis of considerations that are independent of climate change, including health and the creation of benevolent communities.

Study Limitations and Future Research

The use of a single qualitative methodological approach utilizing a small sample can only provide a partial insight into climate-relevant and environmental issues confronting the communities studied. Qualitative interview methods rely heavily on participants being able to recall and clearly convey their thoughts in the limited context of the interview interaction. Managing interview interactions in a cross-cultural setting remains a significant challenge and it is possible that the framing of questions could have influenced responses, such as precluding the discussion of global climate change by not deliberately eliciting the topic early in the interviews. Triangulation using other methods and larger samples might help to clarify these qualitative findings. Convergence in perspectives between communities may be attributable to our sampling method. While we categorized Bharatpur as the urban counterpart to rural Kumroj, most participants lived on the edges of the city close to the countryside, which may have generated perceptions that were more aligned with a rural, rather than an urban perspective. Future research might further investigate the apparent disparity between awareness of climate change more generally, and a lack of acknowledgment of climate change in discussions of environmental conditions at the local level. Drawing attention to this gap might also serve to elicit more comprehensive community perspectives and rule out potential shortcomings of a single methodological approach.

Data Availability

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this manuscript will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher.

Ethics Statement

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Ethics Policy, Cardiff University School of Psychology. The protocol was approved by the Cardiff University School of Psychology Ethics Committee. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Author Contributions

NN, IC, and RM conducted fieldwork with the assistance and guidance of LW and SC. NN was primarily responsible for analysis and authorship of the paper, with significant contributions in both areas from the other authors. All authors agree to be accountable for the content of the work.

This project was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) as part of the CASPI Project (no. 336665).

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Ugan Manandhar of WWF Nepal and the staff of ISER-Nepal for their valued collaboration on this project. Thanks also to Jyotsna Shrestha (independent translator) for help in designing the study and assisting with the translation of interviews in Kumroj, and Bishnu Adhikari, who assisted with fieldwork translation in Bharatpur. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Krishnan Ghimire of ISER-Nepal, who was instrumental in supporting the research.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2019.00060/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: climate change, environment, perception, community, local, Nepal, culture

Citation: Nash N, Capstick S, Whitmarsh L, Chaudhary I and Manandhar R (2019) Perceptions of Local Environmental Issues and the Relevance of Climate Change in Nepal's Terai: Perspectives From Two Communities. Front. Sociol. 4:60. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2019.00060

Received: 11 March 2019; Accepted: 22 July 2019; Published: 20 August 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Nash, Capstick, Whitmarsh, Chaudhary and Manandhar. 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) and the copyright owner(s) 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: Nick Nash, nashn1@cardiff.ac.uk

This article is part of the Research Topic

Climate Change and Society

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Environmental Justice Research: Contemporary Issues and Emerging Topics

Environmental justice (EJ) research seeks to document and redress the disproportionate environmental burdens and benefits associated with social inequalities. Although its initial focus was on disparities in exposure to anthropogenic pollution, the scope of EJ research has expanded. In the context of intensifying social inequalities and environmental problems, there is a need to further strengthen the EJ research framework and diversify its application. This Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) incorporates 19 articles that broaden EJ research by considering emerging topics such as energy, food, drinking water, flooding, sustainability, and gender dynamics, including issues in Canada, the UK, and Eastern Europe. Additionally, the articles contribute to three research themes: (1) documenting connections between unjust environmental exposures and health impacts by examining unsafe infrastructure, substance use, and children’s obesity and academic performance; (2) promoting and achieving EJ by implementing interventions to improve environmental knowledge and health, identifying avenues for sustainable community change, and incorporating EJ metrics in government programs; and (3) clarifying stakeholder perceptions of EJ issues to extend research beyond the documentation of unjust conditions and processes. Collectively, the articles highlight potentially compounding injustices and an array of approaches being employed to achieve EJ.

Environmental justice (EJ) research seeks to document and redress the disproportionate environmental burdens and benefits associated with social inequalities. Although its initial focus was on anthropogenic pollution, the scope of EJ research has expanded significantly in recent years to encompass other phenomena—for example, access to healthful food and climate change—with disparate negative impacts on particular social groups. Dimensions of social inequality examined have expanded beyond race and socioeconomic status to focus to some degree on ethnicity, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, age, as well as intersections between dimensions of inequality. In the context of intensifying social inequalities and environmental problems, there is a need to further strengthen the EJ research framework and diversify its application. This Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) incorporates 19 articles that collectively advance EJ scholarship in conceptual, methodological, and empirical terms.

These articles demonstrate how the scope and purpose of EJ research have broadened significantly in recent years and continue to expand in new directions, both topically and geographically. Several articles in this Special Issue break new ground by extending the EJ research framework to consider emerging issues such as energy [ 1 , 2 ], food [ 3 ], drinking water [ 4 , 5 ], flooding [ 6 , 7 ], sustainability initiatives [ 8 , 9 ], and gender dynamics [ 10 ], including EJ concerns in Canada [ 5 , 11 ], the UK [ 12 ], and Eastern Europe [ 13 ]. Finley-Brook and Holloman [ 1 ] explore the EJ implications of energy production in the U.S. Their study demonstrates how the transition from high carbon energy sources such as coal and oil contribute to environmental injustices, and proposes priorities for a new energy justice research agenda that combines advocacy, activism, and academics. Kyne and Bolin [ 2 ] focus on nuclear hazards associated with both the U.S. weapons programs and civilian nuclear power. Their article argues that nuclear power plants, uranium mining, and waste disposal raise a variety of EJ issues that encompass distributive, procedural, recognition, and intergenerational justice. Carrel et al. [ 3 ] examine the EJ impacts of animal feeding operations in Iowa, USA. Their findings underscore the need to understand the structural, political, and economic factors that create an environmentally unjust landscape for swine production in the U.S. Midwest. Galway [ 4 ] investigates access to safe and reliable drinking water in First Nations communities in Ontario, Canada, based on drinking water advisory data. The study highlights the prevalence of drinking water advisories as a growing problem that needs to be addressed. Campbell et al. [ 5 ] focus on the governmental failures in treating the municipal water system that led to the poisoning of hundreds of children and adults in Flint, Michigan, USA, and discuss how such tragic events can be prevented in the future. Maldonado et al. [ 6 ] examine if Hispanic immigrants are disproportionately exposed to flood hazards compared to other racial/ethnic groups in the Houston and Miami metropolitan areas, USA, based on household-level survey data. Their divergent findings for these two urban areas suggest that future EJ research on flooding should distinguish between Hispanic subgroups based on nativity status and other local contextual factors. Muñoz and Tate [ 7 ] focus on the EJ consequences of disaster recovery, based on a case study of three communities in Iowa, USA, that were affected by severe flooding in 2008. Their analysis of the two federal programs that funded property acquisitions indicated that households in socially vulnerable areas were less likely to obtain full financial compensation and endured longer waiting periods before receiving acquisition funds. Jennings et al. [ 8 ] examine another emerging issue in EJ research: advancing sustainability by ensuring that urban ecosystem services and related health benefits are equally distributed across all population groups. Their article integrates complementary concepts from multiple disciplines to illustrate how cultural ecosystem services from urban green spaces are associated with equity and social determinants of health. Hornik et al. [ 9 ] explore how people conceptualize the connection between EJ and sustainability, based on analyzing stakeholder perspectives in Milwaukee, WI, USA. Bell [ 10 ] addresses an important gap in prior EJ research by providing a gender perspective and exploring women’s experience of EJ, based on a review of the existing literature and her own prior experiences as a scholar and activist. Bell’s analysis confirms that women tend to experience inequitable environmental burdens and are less likely than men to have control over environmental decisions, both of which lead to disproportionate health impacts.

In addition to broadening the scope of EJ scholarship by exploring these new frontiers, our Special Issue contributes to three specific research themes: (a) documenting connections between unjust environmental exposures and health impacts; (b) promoting and achieving EJ; and (c) clarifying stakeholder perceptions of EJ issues. These themes and related articles are described below.

Documenting connections between unjust environmental exposures and health impacts : As the EJ framework has expanded in new directions, recent research has emphasized the need to examine health outcomes and health disparities associated with exposure to environmental hazards, thus extending EJ to environmental health justice. Several articles in this Special Issue advance environmental health justice scholarship by documenting linkages between unequal environmental exposure and adverse health impacts associated with unsafe infrastructure and homes [ 5 , 14 ], substance use and addiction [ 15 ], and children’s obesity and academic performance [ 16 ]. Campbell et al. [ 5 ] provide a detailed assessment of the recent drinking water crisis and lead poisoning in Flint, USA. In addition to describing how this tragedy happened and why socially disadvantaged populations are at particularly high risk for lead exposure, Campbell et al. discuss how childhood lead exposure and Flint-like events can be prevented from occurring in the future. Mankikar et al. [ 14 ] examine whether participation in a two-month long environmental education intervention program reduces exposure to homebased environmental health hazards and asthma-related medical visits. Their home intervention program in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, focused on low-income households where children had asthma, were at risk for lead poisoning, or faced multiple unsafe housing conditions. Cleaning supplies (e.g., a microfiber cloth, soap), safety supplies (e.g., CO detector, fire alarm) and pest management tools (e.g., caulk, roach bait) were provided along with educational materials and face-to-face instruction. Their findings indicate that low-cost comprehensive home interventions are effective in reducing environmental home hazards and improve the health of asthmatic children in the short term. Mennis et al.’s [ 15 ] review article seeks to extend EJ research by including environmental factors influencing substance use disorders—one of the most pressing global public health problems. They demonstrate why inequities in risky substance use environments should be considered as an EJ issue and conclude that future research needs to examine where, why, and how inequities in risky substance use environments occur, the implications of such inequities for disparities in substance use disorders and treatment outcomes, and the implications for tobacco, alcohol, and drug policies as well as prevention and treatment programs. Clark-Reyna et al. [ 16 ] focus on chemicals known as metabolic disruptors that are of specific concern to children’s health and development. Their article examines the effect of residential concentrations of metabolic disrupting chemicals on children’s school performance in El Paso, Texas, USA. Results indicate that concentrations of metabolic disruptors are significantly associated with lower grade point averages directly and indirectly through body mass index. Findings from this study have important implications for future EJ research and chemical policy reform in the U.S.

Promoting and achieving EJ : While EJ scholars often focus on describing the injustices experienced by socially disadvantaged communities, several articles in this Special Issue direct attention toward efforts to achieve EJ through implementation of interventions to improve environmental knowledge and health [ 14 , 17 ], identification of avenues for sustainable and just community and societal change [ 1 , 8 , 9 , 13 ], and incorporation of EJ metrics in government programs [ 12 ]. In the area of interventions, Ramirez-Andreotta et al. [ 17 ] examine parental perceptions of the “report back” process after an exposure assessment. Results showed that parents coped with their challenging circumstances using data and that they made changes to reduce children’s exposure to contaminants. The findings suggest that providing information to EJ community members could be an effective strategy to reduce exposure, when immediate wider scale remediation is not possible. While Mankikar et al. [ 14 ] was summarized above, what is relevant here is that low income communities disproportionately face challenges from poor quality housing, especially renters. The promise of the type of intervention conducted by Mankikar et al. for achieving EJ is that it works to improve the environmental health of children. In terms of identifying avenues for change, Hornik et al. [ 9 ] examine stakeholder beliefs about how positive change should be made to ameliorate injustices related to water pollution in Milwaukee, WI, USA. In order to work towards EJ, the authors argue that is important to build mutual understanding among stakeholders and acknowledge the potential for complex interactions across scales of governance in order to mitigate conflicts. Related to avenues for achieving EJ, Finley-Brook and Holloman [ 1 ] emphasize the importance of involving communities in the participatory design of solutions and fairly distributing benefits. The energy case studies they review suggest that empowering approaches are feasible, but also highlight the potential for conflict between what is “green” and what is “just”. Petrescu-Mag et al. [ 13 ] explore EJ issues in a Roma community in Romania beset by environmental challenges associated with a landfill. Researchers engaged community residents in discussions about potential action options, and residents strongly preferred improving local on-site living opportunities at the dump. An examination of the process of selecting this option suggests that negotiations among stakeholders are required in order to begin to address environmental injustices. Jennings et al. [ 8 ] argue that it is critical for all communities to have access to cultural ecosystem services that influence social determinants of health in order to achieve health equity and promote physical and psychological well-being. Taking a different approach, Fairburn et al. [ 12 ] trace the development and diffusion of indices of multiple deprivation (IMD). EJ scholars have impacted public policy through the incorporation of environmental data into IMD in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and evidence suggests that IMD are potential catalysts for EJ as they enable decision-makers to make more equitable decisions.

Clarifying stakeholder perceptions of EJ issues : The EJ research framework has focused on objectively documenting conditions and processes that constitute environmental injustices. Based on this materialist foundation, less emphasis in EJ research has been placed on people’s subjectivities. Several articles in this Special Issue advance EJ research by examining and clarifying stakeholder subjectivities regarding EJ issues [ 9 , 11 , 18 , 19 ], which extends the research framework beyond the documentation of unjust conditions and processes. In Hornik et al.’s [ 9 ] study, which clarifies community group perceptions of EJ in the context of water sustainability initiatives in Milwaukee, WI, USA, stakeholders shared similar perspectives on environmental injustice as an everyday experience. However, they had divergent perspectives on how environmental injustices are produced and most effectively redressed, which has implications for promoting initiatives for EJ and sustainability. Teixeira and Zuberi [ 18 ] examine neighborhood perceptions of environmental health hazards among black youth in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Youth identified the intersection of race and poverty, poor waste management, housing abandonment, and crime as salient neighborhood environmental concerns, and understood correctly (based on the authors’ analysis of secondary spatial data) that black vs. white neighborhoods in the city are characterized by unequal environments. Findings suggest that environmental conditions provide clearly recognizable indicators of injustice for youth, and, furthermore, that youth interpret the lack of response to unjust conditions to imply that no one cares. Songsore and Buzzelli [ 11 ] examine the role of Ontario, Canada media in amplifying people’s perceptions of wind energy development (WED) health risks and injustices. Scientific evidence for negative health effects of wind turbines is contested, yet provincial media legitimated concerns about serious health impacts, which amplified public health risk perceptions and aroused claims of procedural injustice regarding the lack of community participation in Ontario’s WED process. Findings highlight the importance of media in shaping perceptions of environmental injustice, and reveal how public perceptions of injustice may be cultivated to impede societal transitions toward renewable energy sources. Ard et al. [ 19 ] use multilevel models in a US national study of the roles of neighborhood social capital and exposure to industrial air pollution in explaining the racial gap in self-rated health between black, Hispanic, and white individuals. They found that individuals’ feelings of trust in neighbors of different social standing and perceptions of political empowerment largely accounted for lower self-rated health among African Americans (and partially accounted for it among Hispanics) relative to whites, while exposure to industrial air pollution was statistically irrelevant. Results suggest that people’s perceptions of well-being may be shaped largely by their social contexts, and that harmful environmental exposures may not always be of paramount importance in shaping those perceptions. Taken together, these articles underscore how people’s subjectivities deeply matter: they influence which phenomena are contested as EJ issues and condition possibilities for redressing environmentally unjust arrangements.

The wide array of environmental health hazards, communities, and countries represented in this Special Issue reflect the expanding scope and purpose of EJ research, which has broadened and transformed significantly in recent years. The articles cover topics ranging from energy, food, water, obesogenic chemicals, landfills, and greenspace. They document connections between unjust environmental exposures and health impacts; provide ideas for how to promote and achieve EJ; and clarify stakeholder perceptions of EJ issues. In doing so, the Special Issue illustrates the existence of multiple and compounding marginalities, but also the wide variety of approaches being employed to achieve EJ, in its many diverse forms.

Author Contributions

All three authors contributed to the organization, writing, and editing of this manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Addressing Climate Change Through Education  

Tamara shapiro ledley, juliette rooney-varga, and frank niepold, publication history:.

The scientific community has made the urgent need to mitigate climate change clear and, with the ratification of the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international community has formally accepted ambitious mitigation goals. However, a wide gap remains between the aspirational emissions reduction goals of the Paris Agreement and the real-world pledges and actions of nations that are party to it. Closing that emissions gap can only be achieved if a similarly wide gap between scientific and societal understanding of climate change is also closed. Several fundamental aspects of climate change make clear both the need for education and the opportunity it offers. First, addressing climate change will require action at all levels of society, including individuals, organizations, businesses, local, state, and national governments, and international bodies. It cannot be addressed by a few individuals with privileged access to information, but rather requires transfer of knowledge, both intellectually and affectively, to decision-makers and their constituents at all levels. Second, education is needed because, in the case of climate change, learning from experience is learning too late. The delay between decisions that cause climate change and their full societal impact can range from decades to millennia. As a result, learning from education, rather than experience, is necessary to avoid those impacts. Climate change and sustainability represent complex, dynamic systems that demand a systems thinking approach. Systems thinking takes a holistic, long-term perspective that focuses on relationships between interacting parts, and how those relationships generate behavior over time. System dynamics includes formal mapping and modeling of systems, to improve understanding of the behavior of complex systems as well as how they respond to human or other interventions. Systems approaches are increasingly seen as critical to climate change education, as the human and natural systems involved in climate change epitomize a complex, dynamic problem that crosses disciplines and societal sectors. A systems thinking approach can also be used to examine the potential for education to serve as a vehicle for societal change. In particular, education can enable society to benefit from climate change science by transferring scientific knowledge across societal sectors. Education plays a central role in several processes that can accelerate social change and climate change mitigation. Effective climate change education increases the number of informed and engaged citizens, building social will or pressure to shape policy, and building a workforce for a low-carbon economy. Indeed, several climate change education efforts to date have delivered gains in climate and energy knowledge, affect, and/or motivation. However, society still faces challenges in coordinating initiatives across audiences, managing and leveraging resources, and making effective investments at a scale that is commensurate with the climate change challenge. Education is needed to promote informed decision-making at all levels of society.

Air Pollution and Weather Interaction in East Asia  

Aijun ding, xin huang, and congbin fu.

Air pollution is one of the grand environmental challenges in developing countries, especially those with high population density like China. High concentrations of primary and secondary trace gases and particulate matter (PM) are frequently observed in the industrialized and urbanized regions, causing negative effects on the health of humans, plants, and the ecosystem. Meteorological conditions are among the most important factors influencing day-to-day air quality. Synoptic weather and boundary layer dynamics control the dispersion capacity and transport of air pollutants, while the main meteorological parameters, such as air temperature, radiation, and relative humidity, influence the chemical transformation of secondary air pollutants at the same time. Intense air pollution, especially high concentration of radiatively important aerosols, can substantially influence meteorological parameters, boundary layer dynamics, synoptic weather, and even regional climate through their strong radiative effects. As one of the main monsoon regions, with the most intense human activities in the world, East Asia is a region experiencing complex air pollution, with sources from anthropogenic fossil fuel combustion, biomass burning, dust storms, and biogenic emissions. A mixture of these different plumes can cause substantial two-way interactions and feedbacks in the formation of air pollutants under various weather conditions. Improving the understanding of such interactions needs more field measurements using integrated multiprocess measurement platforms, as well as more efforts in developing numerical models, especially for those with online coupled processes. All these efforts are very important for policymaking from the perspectives of environmental protection and mitigation of climate change.

Legal Regimes for Sharing Transboundary Water  

Mara tignino.

The law applicable to transboundary waters is a corpus juris that dates back to the 19th century. It originally focused on regulating the uses of transboundary watercourses for navigation and commercial transport. It was crafted primarily on the European and North American continents, and it has gradually become universally applicable, thereby taking a new shape. The regulation of transboundary waters was rooted in a strict dynamic of coexistence between sovereign entities: each acted as it saw fit with respect to “its” portion of the watercourse, which was treated at the same time as the image of the territory to which it is attached. The need for regulation only arose when uses affected the riparian states’ exercise of their “sovereign rights.” Since the 1990s, the law has tried to break away from this “classical” logic to make room for more community-based and even “ecosystem” notions based on aspects of joint management, and sometimes even pool of shared resources. A number of treaties have been negotiated and adopted by states bordering transboundary watercourses in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They reflect, and sometimes even develop, some of the principles and rules enacted in broader forums, such as the United Nations (UN) or its Economic Commission for Europe, or the European Union. These efforts show the steps taken in the field of transboundary waters management, but they also reveal some of its limits, as they do not always comprehend all facets of water management and protection.

Arid Environments  

Julie laity.

Arid environments cover about one third of the Earth’s surface, comprising the most extensive of the terrestrial biomes. Deserts show considerable individual variation in climate, geomorphic surface expression, and biogeography. Climatically, deserts range from dry interior environments, with large temperature ranges, to humid and relatively cool coastal environments, with small temperature ranges. What all deserts share in common is a consistent deficit of precipitation relative to water loss by evaporation, implying that the biological availability of water is very low. Deserts develop because of climatic (persistent high-pressure cells), topographic (mountain ranges that cause rain shadow effects), and oceanographic (cold currents) factors that limit the amount of rain or snowfall that a region receives. Most global deserts are subtropical in distribution. There is a large range of geomorphic surfaces, including sand sheets and sand seas (ergs), stone pavements, bedrock outcrops, dry lakebeds, and alluvial fans. Vegetation cover is generally sparse, but may be enhanced in areas of groundwater seepage or along river courses. The limited vegetation cover affects fluvial and slope processes and results in an enhanced role for the wind. While the majority of streams in deserts are ephemeral features, both intermittent and perennial rivers develop in response to snowmelt in nearby mountains or runoff from distant, more well-watered regions. Most drainage is endoreic, meaning that it flows internally into closed basins and does not reach the sea, being disposed of by seepage and evaporation. The early study of deserts was largely descriptive. More process-based studies commenced with the study of North American deserts in the mid- to late-1800s. Since the late 20th century, research has expanded into many areas of the world, with notable contributions coming from China, but our knowledge of deserts is still more compete in regions such as North America, Australia, Israel, and southern Africa, where access and funding have been more consistently secure. The widespread availability of high-quality remotely sensed images has contributed to the spread of study into new global field areas. The temporal framework for research has also improved, benefiting from improvements in geochronological techniques. Geochronological controls are vital to desert research because most arid regions have experienced significant climatic changes. Deserts have not only expanded or contracted in size, but have experienced changes in the dominant geomorphic processes and biogeographic environment. Contemporary scientific work has also benefited from improvements in technology, notably in surveying techniques, and from the use of quantitative modeling.

Atmospheric Brown Clouds  

Sumit sharma, liliana nunez, and veerabhadran ramanathan.

Atmospheric brown clouds (ABCs) are widespread pollution clouds that can at times span an entire continent or an ocean basin. ABCs extend vertically from the ground upward to as high as 3 km, and they consist of both aerosols and gases. ABCs consist of anthropogenic aerosols such as sulfates, nitrates, organics, and black carbon and natural dust aerosols. Gaseous pollutants that contribute to the formation of ABCs are NOx (nitrogen oxides), SOx (sulfur oxides), VOCs (volatile organic compounds), CO (carbon monoxide), CH4 (methane), and O3 (ozone). The brownish color of the cloud (which is visible when looking at the horizon) is due to absorption of solar radiation at short wavelengths (green, blue, and UV) by organic and black carbon aerosols as well as by NOx. While the local nature of ABCs around polluted cities has been known since the early 1900s, the widespread transoceanic and transcontinental nature of ABCs as well as their large-scale effects on climate, hydrological cycle, and agriculture were discovered inadvertently by The Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX), an international experiment conducted in the 1990s over the Indian Ocean. A major discovery of INDOEX was that ABCs caused drastic dimming at the surface. The magnitude of the dimming was as large as 10–20% (based on a monthly average) over vast areas of land and ocean regions. The dimming was shown to be accompanied by significant atmospheric absorption of solar radiation by black and brown carbon (a form of organic carbon). Black and brown carbon, ozone and methane contribute as much as 40% to anthropogenic radiative forcing. The dimming by sulfates, nitrates, and carbonaceous (black and organic carbon) species has been shown to disrupt and weaken the monsoon circulation over southern Asia. In addition, the ozone in ABCs leads to a significant decrease in agriculture yields (by as much as 20–40%) in the polluted regions. Most significantly, the aerosols (in ABCs) near the ground lead to about 4 million premature mortalities every year. Technological and regulatory measures are available to mitigate most of the pollution resulting from ABCs. The importance of ABCs to global environmental problems led the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to form the international ABC program. This ABC program subsequently led to the identification of short-lived climate pollutants as potent mitigation agents of climate change, and in recognition, UNEP formed the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to deal with these pollutants.

Biodiversity Generation and Loss  

T.h. oliver.

Human activities in the Anthropocene are influencing the twin processes of biodiversity generation and loss in complex ways that threaten the maintenance of biodiversity levels that underpin human well-being. Yet many scientists and practitioners still present a simplistic view of biodiversity as a static stock rather than one determined by a dynamic interplay of feedback processes that are affected by anthropogenic drivers. Biodiversity describes the variety of life on Earth, from the genes within an organism to the ecosystem level. However, this article focuses on variation among living organisms, both within and between species. Within species, biodiversity is reflected in genetic, and consequent phenotypic, variations among individuals. Genetic diversity is generated by germ line mutations, genetic recombination during sexual reproduction, and immigration of new genotypes into populations. Across species, biodiversity is reflected in the number of different species present and also, by some metrics, in the evenness of their relative abundance. At this level, biodiversity is generated by processes of speciation and immigration of new species into an area. Anthropogenic drivers affect all these biodiversity generation processes, while the levels of genetic diversity can feed back and affect the level of species diversity, and vice versa. Therefore, biodiversity maintenance is a complex balance of processes and the biodiversity levels at any point in time may not be at equilibrium. A major concern for humans is that our activities are driving rapid losses of biodiversity, which outweigh by orders of magnitude the processes of biodiversity generation. A wide range of species and genetic diversity could be necessary for the provision of ecosystem functions and services (e.g., in maintaining the nutrient cycling, plant productivity, pollination, and pest control that underpin crop production). The importance of biodiversity becomes particularly marked over longer time periods, and especially under varying environmental conditions. In terms of biodiversity losses, there are natural processes that cause roughly continuous, low-level losses, but there is also strong evidence from fossil records for transient events in which exceptionally large loss of biodiversity has occurred. These major extinction episodes are thought to have been caused by various large-scale environmental perturbations, such as volcanic eruptions, sea-level falls, climatic changes, and asteroid impacts. From all these events, biodiversity has shown recovery over subsequent calmer periods, although the composition of higher-level evolutionary taxa can be significantly altered. In the modern era, biodiversity appears to be undergoing another mass extinction event, driven by large-scale human impacts. The primary mechanisms of biodiversity loss caused by humans vary over time and by geographic region, but they include overexploitation, habitat loss, climate change, pollution (e.g., nitrogen deposition), and the introduction of non-native species. It is worth noting that human activities may also lead to increases in biodiversity in some areas through species introductions and climatic changes, although these overall increases in species richness may come at the cost of loss of native species, and with uncertain effects on ecosystem service delivery. Genetic diversity is also affected by human activities, with many examples of erosion of diversity through crop and livestock breeding or through the decline in abundance of wild species populations. Significant future challenges are to develop better ways to monitor the drivers of biodiversity loss and biodiversity levels themselves, making use of new technologies, and improving coverage across geographic regions and taxonomic scope. Rather than treating biodiversity as a simple stock at equilibrium, developing a deeper understanding of the complex interactions—both between environmental drivers and between genetic and species diversity—is essential to manage and maintain the benefits that biodiversity delivers to humans, as well as to safeguard the intrinsic value of the Earth’s biodiversity for future generations.

Biodiversity Hotspots and Conservation Priorities  

Peter kareiva and isaac kareiva.

The concept of biodiversity hotspots arose as a science-based framework with which to identify high-priority areas for habitat protection and conservation—often in the form of nature reserves. The basic idea is that with limited funds and competition from humans for land, we should use range maps and distributional data to protect areas that harbor the greatest biodiversity and that have experienced the greatest habitat loss. In its early application, much analysis and scientific debate went into asking the following questions: Should all species be treated equally? Do endemic species matter more? Should the magnitude of threat matter? Does evolutionary uniqueness matter? And if one has good data on one broad group of organisms (e.g., plants or birds), does it suffice to focus on hotspots for a few taxonomic groups and then expect to capture all biodiversity broadly? Early applications also recognized that hotspots could be identified at a variety of spatial scales—from global to continental, to national to regional, to even local. Hence, within each scale, it is possible to identify biodiversity hotspots as targets for conservation. In the last 10 years, the concept of hotspots has been enriched to address some key critiques, including the problem of ignoring important areas that might have low biodiversity but that certainly were highly valued because of charismatic wild species or critical ecosystem services. Analyses revealed that although the spatial correlation between high-diversity areas and high-ecosystem-service areas is low, it is possible to use quantitative algorithms that achieve both high protection for biodiversity and high protection for ecosystem services without increasing the required area as much as might be expected. Currently, a great deal of research is aimed at asking about what the impact of climate change on biodiversity hotspots is, as well as to what extent conservation can maintain high biodiversity in the face of climate change. Two important approaches to this are detailed models and statistical assessments that relate species distribution to climate, or alternatively “conserving the stage” for high biodiversity, whereby the stage entails regions with topographies or habitat heterogeneity of the sort that is expected to generate high species richness. Finally, conservation planning has most recently embraced what is in some sense the inverse of biodiversity hotspots—what we might call conservation wastelands. This approach recognizes that in the Anthropocene epoch, human development and infrastructure are so vast that in addition to using data to identify biodiversity hotspots, we should use data to identify highly degraded habitats and ecosystems. These degraded lands can then become priority development areas—for wind farms, solar energy facilities, oil palm plantations, and so forth. By specifying degraded lands, conservation plans commonly pair maps of biodiversity hotspots with maps of degraded lands that highlight areas for development. By putting the two maps together, it should be possible to achieve much more effective conservation because there will be provision of habitat for species and for economic development—something that can obtain broader political support than simply highlighting biodiversity hotspots.

Business Models for Sustainability  

Nancy bocken.

Human activity is increasingly impacting the environment negatively on all scales. There is an urgent need to transform human activity toward sustainable development. Business has a key role to play in this sustainability transition through technological, product and service, and process innovations, as well as innovative business models. Business models can enable new technologies, and vice versa. These models are therefore important in the transition to sustainability. Business models for sustainability, or synonymously, sustainable business models, take holistic views on how business is operated in relation to its stakeholders, including the society and the natural environment. They incorporate economic, environmental, and social aspects in an organization’s purpose and performance measures; consider the needs of all stakeholders rather than giving priority to owner and shareholder expectations; treat “nature” as a stakeholder; and take a system as well as a firm-level perspective on the way business is conducted. The research field of sustainable business models emerged from fields such as service business models, green and social business models, and concepts such as sharing and circular economy. Academics have argued that the most service-oriented business models can achieve a “factor 10” environmental impact improvement if designed the right way. Researchers have developed various conceptualizations, typologies, tools, and methods and reviews on sustainable business models. However, sustainable business models are not yet mainstream. Important research areas include the following: (a) tools, methods, and experimentation; (b) the assessment of sustainability impact and rebounds for different stakeholders; (c) sufficiency and degrowth; and (d) the twin revolution of sustainability and digital transition. First, a plethora of tools and approaches are available for inspiration and for creation of sustainable business model designs. Second, in the field of assessment, methods have been based on life cycle thinking considering the supply chain and how a product is (re)used and eventually disposed of. In the field of sufficiency, authors have recognized the importance of moderating consumption through innovative business models to reduce the total need for products, reducing the impact on the environment. Finally, researchers have started to investigate the important interplay between sustainability and digitalization. Because of the potential to achieve a factor 10 environmental impact improvement, sustainable business models are an important source of inspiration for further work, including the upscaling of sustainable business models in established businesses and in new ventures. Understanding how to design better business models and preempting their usage in practice are essential to achieve a desired positive impact. In the field of sufficiency, the macro-impacts of individual and business behavior would need to be better understood. In the area of digital innovation, environmental, societal, and economic values need scrutinization. Researchers and practitioners can leverage the popularity of this field by addressing these important areas to support the development and roll-out of sustainable business models with significantly improved economic, environmental, and societal impact.

Causes of Soil Salinization, Sodification, and Alkalinization  

Elisabeth n. bui.

Driving forces for natural soil salinity and alkalinity are climate, rock weathering, ion exchange, and mineral equilibria reactions that ultimately control the chemical composition of soil and water. The major weathering reactions that produce soluble ions are tabled. Where evapotranspiration is greater than precipitation, downward water movement is insufficient to leach solutes out of the soil profile and salts can precipitate. Microbes involved in organic matter mineralization and thus the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur biogeochemical cycles are also implicated. Seasonal contrast and evaporative concentration during dry periods accelerate short-term oxidation-reduction reactions and local and regional accumulation of carbonate and sulfur minerals. The presence of salts and alkaline conditions, together with the occurrence of drought and seasonal waterlogging, creates some of the most extreme soil environments where only specially adapted organisms are able to survive. Sodic soils are alkaline, rich in sodium carbonates, with an exchange complex dominated by sodium ions. Such sodic soils, when low in other salts, exhibit dispersive behavior, and they are difficult to manage for cropping. Maintaining the productivity of sodic soils requires control of the flocculation-dispersion behavior of the soil. Poor land management can also lead to anthropogenically induced secondary salinity. New developments in physical chemistry are providing insights into ion exchange and how it controls flocculation-dispersion in soil. New water and solute transport models are enabling better options of remediation of saline and/or sodic soils.

Classification and Mitigation of Soil Salinization  

Soil salinity has been causing problems for agriculturists for millennia, primarily in irrigated lands. The importance of salinity issues is increasing, since large areas are affected by irrigation-induced salt accumulation. A wide knowledge base has been collected to better understand the major processes of salt accumulation and choose the right method of mitigation. There are two major types of soil salinity that are distinguished because of different properties and mitigation requirements. The first is caused mostly by the large salt concentration and is called saline soil, typically corresponding to Solonchak soils. The second is caused mainly by the dominance of sodium in the soil solution or on the soil exchange complex. This latter type is called “sodic” soil, corresponding to Solonetz soils. Saline soils have homogeneous soil profiles with relatively good soil structure, and their appropriate mitigation measure is leaching. Naturally sodic soils have markedly different horizons and unfavorable physical properties, such as low permeability, swelling, plasticity when wet, and hardness when dry, and their limitation for agriculture is mitigated typically by applying gypsum. Salinity and sodicity need to be chemically quantified before deciding on the proper management strategy. The most complex management and mitigation of salinized irrigated lands involves modern engineering including calculations of irrigation water rates and reclamation materials, provisions for drainage, and drainage disposal. Mapping-oriented soil classification was developed for naturally saline and sodic soils and inherited the first soil categories introduced more than a century ago, such as Solonchak and Solonetz in most of the total of 24 soil classification systems used currently. USDA Soil Taxonomy is one exception, which uses names composed of formative elements.

Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture across Africa  

Laura pereira.

Confidence in the projected impacts of climate change on agricultural systems has increased substantially since the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. In Africa, much work has gone into downscaling global climate models to understand regional impacts, but there remains a dearth of local level understanding of impacts and communities’ capacity to adapt. It is well understood that Africa is vulnerable to climate change, not only because of its high exposure to climate change, but also because many African communities lack the capacity to respond or adapt to the impacts of climate change. Warming trends have already become evident across the continent, and it is likely that the continent’s 2000 mean annual temperature change will exceed +2°C by 2100. Added to this warming trend, changes in precipitation patterns are also of concern: Even if rainfall remains constant, due to increasing temperatures, existing water stress will be amplified, putting even more pressure on agricultural systems, especially in semiarid areas. In general, high temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns are likely to reduce cereal crop productivity, and new evidence is emerging that high-value perennial crops will also be negatively impacted by rising temperatures. Pressures from pests, weeds, and diseases are also expected to increase, with detrimental effects on crops and livestock. Much of African agriculture’s vulnerability to climate change lies in the fact that its agricultural systems remain largely rain-fed and underdeveloped, as the majority of Africa’s farmers are small-scale farmers with few financial resources, limited access to infrastructure, and disparate access to information. At the same time, as these systems are highly reliant on their environment, and farmers are dependent on farming for their livelihoods, their diversity, context specificity, and the existence of generations of traditional knowledge offer elements of resilience in the face of climate change. Overall, however, the combination of climatic and nonclimatic drivers and stressors will exacerbate the vulnerability of Africa’s agricultural systems to climate change, but the impacts will not be universally felt. Climate change will impact farmers and their agricultural systems in different ways, and adapting to these impacts will need to be context-specific. Current adaptation efforts on the continent are increasing across the continent, but it is expected that in the long term these will be insufficient in enabling communities to cope with the changes due to longer-term climate change. African famers are increasingly adopting a variety of conservation and agroecological practices such as agroforestry, contouring, terracing, mulching, and no-till. These practices have the twin benefits of lowering carbon emissions while adapting to climate change as well as broadening the sources of livelihoods for poor farmers, but there are constraints to their widespread adoption. These challenges vary from insecure land tenure to difficulties with knowledge-sharing. While African agriculture faces exposure to climate change as well as broader socioeconomic and political challenges, many of its diverse agricultural systems remain resilient. As the continent with the highest population growth rate, rapid urbanization trends, and rising GDP in many countries, Africa’s agricultural systems will need to become adaptive to more than just climate change as the uncertainties of the 21st century unfold.

Containing Carbon Through Cap-and-Trade or a Per-Unit Tax  

John a. sorrentino.

Carbon has been part of the Earth since its beginning, and the carbon cycle is well understood. However, its abundance in the atmosphere has become a problem. Those who propose solutions in decentralized market economies often prefer economic incentives to direct government regulation. Carbon cap-and-trade programs and carbon tax programs are the prime candidates to rein in emissions by altering the economic conditions under which producers and consumers make decisions. Under ideal conditions with full information, they can seamlessly remove the distortion caused by the negative externality and increase a society’s welfare. This distortion is caused by overproduction and underpricing of carbon-related goods and services. The ideal level of emissions would be set under cap-and-trade, or be the outcome of an ideally set carbon tax. The ideal price of carbon permits would result from demand generated by government decree meeting an ideal fixed supply set by the government. The economic benefit of using the ideal carbon tax or the ideal permit price occurs because heterogeneous decision-makers will conceptually reduce emissions to the level that equates their marginal (incremental) emissions-reduction cost to the tax or permit price. When applying the theory to the real world, ideal conditions with full information do not exist. The economically efficient levels of emissions, the carbon tax, and the permit price cannot be categorically determined. The targeted level of emissions is often proposed by non-economists. The spatial extent and time span of the emissions target need to be considered. The carbon tax is bound to be somewhat speculative, which does not bode well for private-sector decision-makers who have to adjust their behavior, and for the achievement of a particular emissions target. The permit price depends on how permits are initially distributed and how well the permit market is designed. The effectiveness of either program is tied to monitoring and enforcement. Social justice considerations in the operation of tax programs often include the condition that they be revenue-neutral. This is more complicated in the permit scheme as much activity after the initial phase is among the emitters themselves. Based on global measurement of greenhouse gases, several models have been created that attempt to explain how emissions transform into concentrations, how concentrations imply radiative forcing and global warming potential, how the latter cause ecological and economic impacts, and how mitigation and/or adaptation can influence these impacts. Scenarios of the uncertain future continue to be generated under myriad assumptions in the quest for the most reliable. Several institutions have worked to engender sustained cooperation among the parties of the “global commons.” The balance of theory and empirical observation is intended to generate normative and positive policy recommendations. Cap-and-trade and carbon tax programs have been designed and/or implemented by various countries and subnational jurisdictions with the hope of reducing carbon-related emissions. Many analysts have declared that the global human society will reach a “tipping point” in the 21st century, with irreversible trends that will alter life on Earth in significant ways.

Deforestation: Drivers, Implications, and Policy Responses  

Christiane w. runyan and jeff stehm.

Over the last 8,000 years, cumulative forest loss amounted to approximately 2.2 billion hectares, reducing forest cover from about 47% of Earth’s land surface to roughly 30% in 2015. These losses mostly occurred in tropical forests (58%), followed by boreal (27%) and temperate forests (8%). The rate of loss has slowed from 7.3 Mha/year between 1990–2000 to 3.3 Mha/year between 2010–2015. Globally since the 1980s, the net loss in the tropics has been outweighed by a net gain in the subtropical, temperate, and boreal climate zones. Deforestation is driven by a number of complex direct and indirect factors. Agricultural expansion (both commercial and subsistence) is the primary driver, followed by mining, infrastructure extension, and urban expansion. In turn, population and economic growth drive the demand for agricultural, mining, and timber products as well as supporting infrastructure. Population growth and changing consumer preferences, for instance, will increase global food demand 50% by 2050, possibly requiring a net increase of approximately 70 million ha of arable land under cultivation. This increase is unlikely to be offset entirely by agricultural intensification due to limits on yield increases and land quality. Deforestation is also affected by other factors such as land tenure uncertainties, poor governance, low capacity of public forestry agencies, and inadequate planning and monitoring. Forest loss has a number of environmental, economic, and social implications. Forests provide an expansive range of environmental benefits across local, regional, and global scales, including: hydrological benefits (e.g., regulating water supply and river discharge), climate benefits (e.g., precipitation recycling, regulating local and global temperature, and carbon sequestration), biogeochemical benefits (e.g., enhancing nutrient availability and reducing nutrient losses), biodiversity benefits, and the support of ecosystem stability and resiliency. The long-term loss of forest resources also negatively affects societies and economies. The forest sector in 2011 contributed roughly 0.9% of global GDP or USD 600 billion. About 850 million people globally live in forest ecosystems, with an estimated 350 million people entirely dependent on forest ecosystems for their livelihoods. Understanding how to best manage remaining forest resources in order to preserve their unique qualities will be a challenge that requires an integrated set of policy responses. Developing and implementing effective policies will require a better understanding of the socio-ecological dynamics of forests, a more accurate and timely ability to measure and monitor forest resources, sound methodologies to assess the effectiveness of policies, and more efficacious methodologies for valuing trade-offs between competing objectives.

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon  

Phillip fearnside.

Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia destroys environmental services that are important for the whole world, and especially for Brazil itself. These services include maintaining biodiversity, avoiding global warming, and recycling water that provides rainfall to Amazonia, to other parts of Brazil, such as São Paulo, and to neighboring countries, such as Argentina. The forest also maintains the human populations and cultures that depend on it. Deforestation rates have gone up and down over the years with major economic cycles. A peak of 27,772 km2/year was reached in 2004, followed by a major decline to 4571 km2/year in 2012, after which the rate trended upward, reaching 7989 km2/year in 2016 (equivalent to about 1.5 hectares per minute). Most (70%) of the decline occurred by 2007, and the slowing in this period is almost entirely explained by declining prices of export commodities such as soy and beef. Government repression measures explain the continued decline from 2008 to 2012, but an important part of the effect of the repression program hinges on a fragile base: a 2008 decision that makes the absence of pending fines a prerequisite for obtaining credit for agriculture and ranching. This could be reversed at the stroke of a pen, and this is a priority for the powerful “ruralist” voting bloc in the National Congress. Massive plans for highways, dams, and other infrastructure in Amazonia, if carried out, will add to forces in the direction of increased deforestation. Deforestation occurs for a wide variety of reasons that vary in different historical periods, in different locations, and in different phases of the process at any given location. Economic cycles, such as recessions and the ups and downs of commodity markets, are one influence. The traditional economic logic, where people deforest to make a profit by producing products from agriculture and ranching, is important but only a part of the story. Ulterior motives also drive deforestation. Land speculation is critical in many circumstances, where the increase in land values (bid up, for example, as a safe haven to protect money from hyperinflation) can yield much higher returns than anything produced by the land. Even without the hyperinflation that came under control in 1994, highway projects can yield speculative fortunes to those who are lucky or shrewd enough to have holdings along the highway route. The practical way to secure land holdings is to deforest for cattle pasture. This is also critical to obtaining and defending legal title to the land. In the past, it has also been the key to large ranches gaining generous fiscal incentives from the government. Money laundering also makes deforestation attractive, allowing funds from drug trafficking, tax evasion, and corruption to be converted to “legal” money. Deforestation receives impulses from logging, mining, and, especially, road construction. Soybeans and cattle ranching are the main replacements for forest, and recently expanded export markets are giving strength to these drivers. Population growth and household dynamics are important for areas dominated by small farmers. Extreme degradation, where tree mortality from logging and successive droughts and forest fires replace forest with open nonforest vegetation, is increasing as a kind of deforestation, and is likely to increase much more in the future. Controlling deforestation requires addressing its multiple causes. Repression through fines and other command-and-control measures is essential to avoid a presumption of impunity, but these controls must be part of a broader program that addresses underlying causes. The many forms of government subsidies for deforestation must be removed or redirected, and the various ulterior motives must be combated. Industry agreements restricting commodity purchases from properties with illegal deforestation (or from areas cleared after a specified cutoff) have a place in efforts to contain forest loss, despite some problems. A “soy moratorium” has been in effect since 2006, and a “cattle agreement” since 2009. Creation and defense of protected areas is an important part of deforestation control, including both indigenous lands and a variety of kinds of “conservation units.” Containing infrastructure projects is essential if deforestation is to be held in check: once roads are built, much of what happens is outside the government’s control. The notion that the 2005–2012 deforestation slowdown means that the process is under control and that infrastructure projects can be built at will is extremely dangerous. One must also abandon myths that divert efforts to contain deforestation; these include “sustainable logging” and the use of “green” funds for expensive programs to reforest degraded lands rather than retain areas of remaining natural forests. Finally, one must provide alternatives to support the rural population of small farmers. Large investors, on the other hand, can fend for themselves. Tapping the value of the environmental services of the forest has been proposed as an alternative basis for sustaining both the rural population and the forest. Despite some progress, a variety of challenges remain. One thing is clear: most of Brazil’s Amazonian deforestation is not “development.” Trading the forest for a vast expanse of extensive cattle pasture does little to secure the well-being of the region’s rural population, is not sustainable, and sacrifices Amazonia’s most valuable resources.

Ecological Effects of Environmental Stressors  

Bill freedman.

Regimes of environmental stress are exceedingly complex. Particular stressors exist within continua of intensity of environmental factors. Those factors interact with each other, and their detrimental effects on organisms are manifest only at relatively high or low strengths of exposure—in fact, many of them are beneficial at intermediate levels of intensity. Although a diversity of environmental factors is manifest at any time and place, only one or a few of them tend to be dominant as stressors. It is useful to distinguish between stressors that occur as severe events (disturbances) and those that are chronic in their exposure, and to aggregate the kinds of stressors into categories (while noting some degree of overlap among them). Climatic stressors are associated with extremes of temperature, solar radiation, wind, moisture, and combinations of these factors. They act as stressors if their condition is either insufficient or excessive, in comparison with the needs and comfort zones of organisms or ecosystem processes. Chemical stressors involve environments in which the availability of certain substances is too low to satisfy biological needs, or high enough to cause toxicity or another physiological detriment to organisms or to higher-level attributes of ecosystems. Wildfire is a disturbance that involves the combustion of much of the biomass of an ecosystem, affecting organisms by heat, physical damage, and toxic substances. Physical stress is a disturbance in which an exposure to kinetic energy is intense enough to damage organisms and ecosystems (such as a volcanic blast, seismic sea wave, ice scouring, or anthropogenic explosion or trampling). Biological stressors are associated with interactions occurring among organisms. They may be directly caused by such trophic interactions as herbivory, predation, and parasitism. They may also indirectly affect the intensity of physical or chemical stressors, as when competition affects the availability of nutrients, moisture, or space. Extreme environments are characterized by severe regimes of stressors, which result in relatively impoverished ecosystem development. This may be a consequence of either natural or anthropogenic stressors. If a regime of environmental stress intensifies, the resulting responses include a degradation of the structure and function of affected ecosystems and of ecological integrity more generally. In contrast, a relaxation of environmental stress allows some degree of ecosystem recovery.

Economics, Agriculture, and Famines  

Noel russell.

There are continuing developments in the analysis of hunger and famines, and the results of theoretical and empirical studies of hunger and food insecurity highlight cases where hunger intensifies sufficiently to be identified as famine. The varying ability of those affected to cope with the shocks and stresses imposed on them are central to the development of food insecurity and the emergence of famine conditions and to explaining the complex interrelationships between agriculture, famine, and economics. There are a number of approaches to understanding how famines develop. The Malthusian approach, which sees population growth as the primary source of hunger and famine, can be contrasted with the free market or Smithian approach, which regards freely operating markets as an essential prerequisite for ensuring that famine can be overcome. A major debate has centered on whether famines primarily emerge from a decline in the availability of food or are a result of failure by households to access sufficient food for consumption, seeking to distinguish between famine as a problem related to food production and availability and famine as a problem of declining income and food consumption among certain groups in the population. These declines arise from the interaction between food markets, labor markets and markets for livestock and other productive farm resources when poor people try to cope with reduced food consumption. Further revisions to famine analysis were introduced from the mid-1990s by authors who interpreted the emergence of famines not as a failure in markets and the economic system, but more as a failure in political accountability and humanitarian response. These approaches have the common characteristic that they seek to narrow the focus of investigation to one or a few key characteristics. Yet most of those involved in famine analysis or famine relief would stress the multi-faceted and broad-based nature of the perceived causes of famine and the mechanisms through which they emerge. In contrast to these approaches, the famine systems approach takes a broader view, exploring insights from systems theory to understand how famines develop and especially how this development might be halted, reversed, or prevented. Economists have contributed to and informed different perspectives on famine analysis while acknowledging key contributions from moral philosophy as well as from biological and physical sciences and from political and social sciences. Malthus, Smith, and John Stuart Mill contributed substantially to early thinking on famine causation and appropriate famine interventions. Increased emphasis on famine prevention and a focus on food production and productivity led to the unarguable success of the Green Revolution. An important shift in thinking in the 1980s was motivated by Amartya Sen’s work on food entitlements and on markets for food and agricultural resources. On the other hand, the famine systems approach considers famine as a process governed by complex relationships and seeks to integrate contributions from economists and other scientists while promoting a systems approach to famine analysis.

Economics of Hazardous Waste Management  

Hilary sigman.

Hazardous waste management involves treatment, disposal, or recycling of a wide range of different waste streams from industry, households, and others. The diversity of wastes and management methods means that many choices affect its environmental harms, which result from possible contamination of groundwater, surface water, soil, and air. Efficient public policies that would fully reflect such varied external costs are unlikely to be feasible. In practice, governments principally apply three policy approaches to hazardous waste: taxes on hazardous waste, liability for environmental damages, and standards-based regulation of waste management facilities. Hazardous waste taxes may help internalize environmental costs but do not reflect all the variability in these costs. By contrast, liability for environmental damage can make waste generators and managers confront environmental costs that vary with their particular choices. However, environmental liability is often linked to programs for cleanup of contaminated sites and may not create efficient incentives for active waste management because this liability does not reflect the social costs of the contamination. Regulation usually takes the form of technology and performance standards applied to treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) and affects generation decisions only indirectly. Research finds that public policies that raise costs of hazardous waste management, such as taxes and regulation, encourage less waste generation, but may also provoke detrimental responses. First, facilities may substitute illegal waste dumping for legal management and thus exacerbate environmental damage. Second, generators may ship waste to jurisdictions with weaker environmental protections, especially developing countries, giving rise to a “waste haven” effect. This effect may create offsetting environmental damage, facilitate destructive policy competition among jurisdictions, and worsen inequities in exposure to environmental harm from hazardous waste.

Economics of Low Carbon Agriculture  

Dominic moran and jorie knook.

Climate change is already having a significant impact on agriculture through greater weather variability and the increasing frequency of extreme events. International policy is rightly focused on adapting and transforming agricultural and food production systems to reduce vulnerability. But agriculture also has a role in terms of climate change mitigation. The agricultural sector accounts for approximately a third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, including related emissions from land-use change and deforestation. Farmers and land managers have a significant role to play because emissions reduction measures can be taken to increase soil carbon sequestration, manage fertilizer application, and improve ruminant nutrition and waste. There is also potential to improve overall productivity in some systems, thereby reducing emissions per unit of product. The global significance of such actions should not be underestimated. Existing research shows that some of these measures are low cost relative to the costs of reducing emissions in other sectors such as energy or heavy industry. Some measures are apparently cost-negative or win–win, in that they have the potential to reduce emissions and save production costs. However, the mitigation potential is also hindered by the biophysical complexity of agricultural systems and institutional and behavioral barriers limiting the adoption of these measures in developed and developing countries. This includes formal agreement on how agricultural mitigation should be treated in national obligations, commitments or targets, and the nature of policy incentives that can be deployed in different farming systems and along food chains beyond the farm gate. These challenges also overlap growing concern about global food security, which highlights additional stressors, including demographic change, natural resource scarcity, and economic convergence in consumption preferences, particularly for livestock products. The focus on reducing emissions through modified food consumption and reduced waste is a recent agenda that is proving more controversial than dealing with emissions related to production.

Economics of the Biodiversity Convention  

Joanne c. burgess.

Biological diversity refers to the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms and interactions. Biological diversity, or biodiversity for short, is being lost at an unprecedented rate. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species estimates that 25% of mammals, 41% of amphibians, 33% of reef building corals, and 13% of birds are threatened with extinction. These biodiversity benefits are being lost due to conversion of natural habitat, overharvesting, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. The loss of biodiversity is important because it provides many critical resources, services, and ecosystem functions, such as foods, medicines, clean air, and storm protection. Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse pose a major risk to human societies and economic welfare. The CBD was established in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio “Earth Summit”) and enacted in 1993. The international treaty aims to conserve biodiversity and ensure the sustainable use of the components of biodiversity and the equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the use of genetic resources. The CBD has near universal global participation with 196 parties signatory to the treaty. The non-legally binding commitments established in 2010 by the CBD are known as the Aichi Targets. They include the goal of conserving at least 17% of terrestrial and inland water habitats and 10% of coastal and marine areas by 2020. Biodiversity continues to decline at an unprecedented rate and the world faces “biological annihilation” and a sixth mass extinction event. There are several underlying causes of the continuing loss of biodiversity that need to be addressed. First, the CBD Aichi Targets are not ambitious enough and should be extended to protect as much as 50% of the terrestrial realm for biodiversity. Second, it is difficult to place an economic value on the range of direct, indirect, and nonuse values of biodiversity. The failure to take into account the full economic value of biodiversity in prices, projects, and policy decisions means that biodiversity is often misused and overused. Third, biodiversity is a global public good and displays nonrival and nonexcludable characteristics. Because of this, it is difficult to raise sufficient funds for conservation and to channel these funds to cover local conservation costs. In particular, much of the world’s biodiversity is located in (mainly tropical) developing countries, and they do not have the incentive or the funds to spend the money to “save” enough biodiversity on behalf of the rest of the world. The funding for global biodiversity conservation is $4–$10 billion annually, whereas around $100 billion a year is needed to protect the Earth’s broad range of animal and plant species. This funding gap undermines CBD’s conservation efforts. Governments and international organizations have been unable to raise the investments needed to reverse the decline in biological populations and habitats on land and in oceans. There is an important role for private-sector involvement in the CBD to endorse efforts for more sustainable use of biodiversity and to contribute funds to finance conservation and habitat protection efforts.

Economics of Water Scarcity in China  

Water scarcity has long been recognized as a key issue challenging China’s water security and sustainable development. Economically, China’s water scarcity can be characterized by the uneven distribution of limited water resources across space and time in hydrological cycles that are inconsistent with the rising demand for a sufficient, stable water supply from rapid socioeconomic development coupled with a big, growing population. The limited water availability or scarcity has led to trade-offs in water use and management across sectors and space, while negatively affecting economic growth and the environment. Meanwhile, inefficiency and unsustainability prevail in China’s water use, attributable to government failure to account for the socioeconomic nature of water and its scarcity beyond hydrology. China’s water supply comes mainly from surface water and groundwater. The nontraditional sources, wastewater reclamation and reuse in particular, have been increasingly contributing to water supply but are less explored. Modern advancement in solar and nuclear power development may help improve the potential and competitiveness of seawater desalination as an alternative water source. Nonetheless, technological measures to augment water supply can only play a limited role in addressing water scarcity, highlighting the necessity and importance of nontechnological measures and “soft” approaches for managing water. Water conservation, including improving water use efficiency, particularly in the agriculture sector, represents a reasonable strategy that has much potential but requires careful policy design. China’s water management has started to pay greater attention to market-based approaches, such as tradable water rights and water pricing, accompanied by management reforms. In the past, these approaches have largely been treated as command-and-control tools for regulation rather than as economic instruments following economic design principles. While progress has been made in promoting the market-based approaches, the institutional aspect needs to be further improved to create supporting and enabling conditions. For water markets, developing regulations and institutions, combined with clearly defining water use rights, is needed to facilitate market trading of water rights. For water pricing, appropriate design based on the full cost of water supply needs to be strengthened, and policy implementation must be enforced. An integrated approach is particularly relevant and greatly needed for China’s water management. This approach emphasizes integration and holistic consideration of water in relation to other resource management, development opportunities, and other policies across scales and sectors to achieve synergy, cost-effectiveness, multiple benefits, and eventually economic efficiency. Integrated water management has been increasingly applied, as exemplified by a national policy initiative to promote urban water resilience and sustainability. While economics can play a critical role in helping evaluate and compare alternative measures or design scenarios and in identifying multiple benefits, there is a need for economic or social cost–benefit analysis of China’s water policy or management that incorporates nonmarket costs and benefits.

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Every 2 years, the environmental, chemical, and health research communities meet in Costa de Caparica, Portugal to showcase the latest technologies, methodologies and research advances in pollution detection, contamination control, remediation, and related health issues. Since its inception in 2015, the International Caparica Conference on Pollution Metal Ions and Molecules (PTIM) has become a biennial global forum to hear from those who protect the land, the water, and the air at all environmental scales. During past PTIM editions, we have learned about numerous efforts to develop new recovery and clean-up processes to restore the natural equilibria of our planet. Soil, land, water, and air are the key focus of efforts that will require deeper understanding and better control.

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Every 2 years, the environmental, chemical, and health research communities meet in Costa de Caparica, Portugal to showcase the latest technologies, methodologies and research advances in pollution detection, contamination control, remediation, and related health issues. Since its inception in 2015, the International Caparica Conference on Pollution Metal Ions and Molecules (PTIM) has become a biennial global forum to hear from those who protect the land, the water, and the air at all environmental scales. During past PTIM editions, we have learned about numerous efforts to develop new recovery and clean-up processes to restore the natural equilibria of our planet. Soil, land, water, and air are the key focus of efforts that will require deeper understanding and better control. We have also become aware of more and more cases of spill contamination, degradation of land and water, destruction of marine environments, misconduct by cities and enterprises, and the general disrespect of the environment shown by humans.

In 2019 and 2020, we have witnessed once again how deeply health is connected with the environment. Our world is currently experiencing an extreme, yet predictable, health crisis linked to poor stewardship of the planet. Outbreaks of zoonoses, diseases that are transmissible between animals and humans, particularly those caused by coronaviruses, have led scientists to raise repeated alerts since 2002. Indeed, it is a problem followed daily by the environment program of the United Nations (UN 2020 ) and the World Health Organization (WHO 2020 ). The global pandemic produced by the dangerous, previously unknown virus SARS-CoV-2, has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths across five continents, with equally widespread economic and social repercussions. This problem resonates all too pertinently with the title of the third Environmental Science and Pollution Research (ESPR) special issue dedicated to the 3rd PTIM 2019—Impacts of Environmental Issues on Health and Well-being—a global pollution challenge.

A surprising upside of the COVID-19 global pandemic has been the real-time observations of the numerous environmental effects of lockdown with the world becoming visibly greener and more habitable. Unusual benefits such as cleaner air and water, lower CO 2 emissions, and sudden relief from constant physical disturbance and noise were behind many beautiful pictures of wildlife on land and in the oceans. Now, the question is whether humans can consolidate these positive effects.

The degradation of our blue planet is not just an environmental problem, because it presents serious global economic and health risks too. Trade, employment, and well-being all rely on nature, starting with the quality of the food we consume, the stability of our climate and weather, the purity of the air we breathe, the control of emergent and circulating disease, and as we have discovered from the various quarantine measures around the world, essential spaces for human contact, leisure, and relaxation. Without our natural environment, there would be no life and society. The appearance of COVID-19 helped nature send us an important message: our planet is able to restore itself in the absence of persistent pressure from human activities on the land, air, and water.

The PTIM conference series is already a well-established international scientific forum in the field of environmental, chemistry, health, and well-being sciences, all hot fields in these COVID-19 times. The previous two editions in 2015 and 2017 were devoted to “New toxic emerging contaminants: beyond the toxicological effects”, (Lodeiro et al. 2019 ) and “Global pollution problems, trends in detection and protection” (Lodeiro et al. 2016 ). Now, the central theme is health. In November 2019, the third edition of this superb conference took place once again in Costa de Caparica, Portugal, keeping to our tradition of collegiality and scientific endeavor to help the environment. We listened to amazing plenary talks by Joanna Burger (USA) on the temporal trends in heavy metals in the US Atlantic Coast Estuaries (Ostrom et al. 1999 ; Burger 2019 ) and by Elena Rodica Ionescu (France) on toxicity and biosensing of environmental pollutants (Ionescu et al. 2006 ; Zhou et al. 2019 ). Jia-Qian Jiang (UK) spoke about water and wastewater treatments using double hydroxide materials (Wang et al. 2019 ; Jiang and Lloyd 2002 ), Shin Takahashi (Japan) delighted us with a presentation about the persistence of organic pollutants in the Asia Pacific Region (Monirith et al. 2003 ; Anh et al. 2019 ), and Jose Luis Gomez-Ariza (Spain) captivated us with a talk combining analysis and health problems in relation to metallomics and metabolomics in environmental metal toxicity assessment (Rodriguez-Moro et al. 2020 ; Gómez-Ariza et al. 2000 ). Making this edition even more extraordinary was the presence of outstanding keynote speakers, namely Ana Luisa Fernando (Portugal) (Souza and Fernando 2016 ), Erika Kothe (Germany) (Haferburg and Kothe 2007 ), Binoy Sarkar (UK) (Sarkar et al. 2010 ), Yongchun Zhao (China) (Xin et al. 2020 ), Jerzy Jozef Zajac (France) (Muller et al. 2019 ), Tamara Garcia Barrera (Spain) (Callejón-Leblic et al. 2020 ), Michael Gochfield (USA) (Gochfeld 2003 ; Burger et al. 2020 ), and Elisabete Oliveira (Portugal) (Marcelo et al. 2020 ; Oliveira et al. 2018 ), who explained their research covering topics as diverse as nanoparticles and food, antibiotic resistance and heavy metals, environmental clean-up applications of clay minerals, power plant wastewater metal analysis, metabolomics and the role of selenium, mechanisms of mercury and selenium toxicity, and the use of mesoporous nanomaterials and chemosensors for removing toxic agents and emerging contaminants. The picture was completed by the participation of close to 170 research fellows from five continents, contributing 70 oral talks, 20 “shotgun” presentations by young researchers, and more than 40 poster communications.

We would like to congratulate Prof. Joanna Burger, who received the Proteomass Scientific Society Career Award 2019 for her contributions to eco-toxicology, behavioral toxicology, ecology, and environmental monitoring and assessment (Ostrom et al. 1999 : Burger 2019 ) (Fig. 1 ).

Participants at PTIM 2019 in Costa de Caparica, Portugal (above), and Professor Joanna Burger receiving the Career Award Ceremony with PTIM chairs Prof. José Luis Capelo-Martínez and Prof. Carlos Lodeiro (below)

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Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank all our fellows who have contributed to this special issue of the ESPR journal published by Springer Editorial. We thank the ESPR Editor-in-Chief Prof. Philippe Garrigues who agreed to publish this special issue, and to the editorial assistants Ms. Fanny Creusot, Ms. Joanne Berbon, and Ms. Florence Delavaud. Thanks for the acceptance to publish this special issue dedicated to the Third International Caparica Congress on Pollutant Toxic Ions and Molecules, PTIM2019 edition, allowing us to act as Guest Editors. The chairs of the 3rd PTIM 2019 conference, and the Guest Editors Jose Luis Capelo-Martínez, Carlos Lodeiro, Hugo Miguel Santos, and Elisabete Oliveira thank the PROTEOMASS Scientific Society (Portugal) (General Funding Grant) as the main organizer, partners LAQV-REQUIMTE, Green Chemistry Associated Laboratory, NOVA School of Science and Technology, and NOVA University Lisbon.

This work is funded by the supporters and sponsors Bruker, Paralab, Norleq, Labor Spirit, Sciex, Castelbel, Turismo de Portugal, TAP Air Portugal, Turismo de Lisboa, IATA, Springer (ESPR journal), Chemosensors MDPI journal, Edinburgh Instruments, Nanoarts, Royal Society of Chemistry through the Environmental Sustainability and Energy Division, and the Portuguese Chemical Society (SPQ).

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Carlos Lodeiro, José Luis Capelo-Martínez, Hugo M. Santos & Elisabete Oliveira

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Lodeiro, C., Capelo-Martínez, J.L., Santos, H.M. et al. Impacts of environmental issues on health and well-being: a global pollution challenge. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28 , 18309–18313 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10265-6

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Research Topics & Ideas: Environment

100+ Environmental Science Research Topics & Ideas

Finding and choosing a strong research topic is the critical first step when it comes to crafting a high-quality dissertation, thesis or research project. Here, we’ll explore a variety research ideas and topic thought-starters related to various environmental science disciplines, including ecology, oceanography, hydrology, geology, soil science, environmental chemistry, environmental economics, and environmental ethics.

NB – This is just the start…

The topic ideation and evaluation process has multiple steps . In this post, we’ll kickstart the process by sharing some research topic ideas within the environmental sciences. This is the starting point though. To develop a well-defined research topic, you’ll need to identify a clear and convincing research gap , along with a well-justified plan of action to fill that gap.

If you’re new to the oftentimes perplexing world of research, or if this is your first time undertaking a formal academic research project, be sure to check out our free dissertation mini-course. Also be sure to also sign up for our free webinar that explores how to develop a high-quality research topic from scratch.

Overview: Environmental Topics

• Ecology /ecological science
• Atmospheric science
• Oceanography
• Soil science
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental economics
• Environmental ethics
• Examples  of dissertations and theses

Topics & Ideas: Ecological Science

• The impact of land-use change on species diversity and ecosystem functioning in agricultural landscapes
• The role of disturbances such as fire and drought in shaping arid ecosystems
• The impact of climate change on the distribution of migratory marine species
• Investigating the role of mutualistic plant-insect relationships in maintaining ecosystem stability
• The effects of invasive plant species on ecosystem structure and function
• The impact of habitat fragmentation caused by road construction on species diversity and population dynamics in the tropics
• The role of ecosystem services in urban areas and their economic value to a developing nation
• The effectiveness of different grassland restoration techniques in degraded ecosystems
• The impact of land-use change through agriculture and urbanisation on soil microbial communities in a temperate environment
• The role of microbial diversity in ecosystem health and nutrient cycling in an African savannah

Topics & Ideas: Atmospheric Science

• The impact of climate change on atmospheric circulation patterns above tropical rainforests
• The role of atmospheric aerosols in cloud formation and precipitation above cities with high pollution levels
• The impact of agricultural land-use change on global atmospheric composition
• Investigating the role of atmospheric convection in severe weather events in the tropics
• The impact of urbanisation on regional and global atmospheric ozone levels
• The impact of sea surface temperature on atmospheric circulation and tropical cyclones
• The impact of solar flares on the Earth’s atmospheric composition
• The impact of climate change on atmospheric turbulence and air transportation safety
• The impact of stratospheric ozone depletion on atmospheric circulation and climate change
• The role of atmospheric rivers in global water supply and sea-ice formation

Topics & Ideas: Oceanography

• The impact of ocean acidification on kelp forests and biogeochemical cycles
• The role of ocean currents in distributing heat and regulating desert rain
• The impact of carbon monoxide pollution on ocean chemistry and biogeochemical cycles
• Investigating the role of ocean mixing in regulating coastal climates
• The impact of sea level rise on the resource availability of low-income coastal communities
• The impact of ocean warming on the distribution and migration patterns of marine mammals
• The impact of ocean deoxygenation on biogeochemical cycles in the arctic
• The role of ocean-atmosphere interactions in regulating rainfall in arid regions
• The impact of ocean eddies on global ocean circulation and plankton distribution
• The role of ocean-ice interactions in regulating the Earth’s climate and sea level

Tops & Ideas: Hydrology

• The impact of agricultural land-use change on water resources and hydrologic cycles in temperate regions
• The impact of agricultural groundwater availability on irrigation practices in the global south
• The impact of rising sea-surface temperatures on global precipitation patterns and water availability
• Investigating the role of wetlands in regulating water resources for riparian forests
• The impact of tropical ranches on river and stream ecosystems and water quality
• The impact of urbanisation on regional and local hydrologic cycles and water resources for agriculture
• The role of snow cover and mountain hydrology in regulating regional agricultural water resources
• The impact of drought on food security in arid and semi-arid regions
• The role of groundwater recharge in sustaining water resources in arid and semi-arid environments
• The impact of sea level rise on coastal hydrology and the quality of water resources

Topics & Ideas: Geology

• The impact of tectonic activity on the East African rift valley
• The role of mineral deposits in shaping ancient human societies
• The impact of sea-level rise on coastal geomorphology and shoreline evolution
• Investigating the role of erosion in shaping the landscape and impacting desertification
• The impact of mining on soil stability and landslide potential
• The impact of volcanic activity on incoming solar radiation and climate
• The role of geothermal energy in decarbonising the energy mix of megacities
• The impact of Earth’s magnetic field on geological processes and solar wind
• The impact of plate tectonics on the evolution of mammals
• The role of the distribution of mineral resources in shaping human societies and economies, with emphasis on sustainability

Topics & Ideas: Soil Science

• The impact of dam building on soil quality and fertility
• The role of soil organic matter in regulating nutrient cycles in agricultural land
• The impact of climate change on soil erosion and soil organic carbon storage in peatlands
• Investigating the role of above-below-ground interactions in nutrient cycling and soil health
• The impact of deforestation on soil degradation and soil fertility
• The role of soil texture and structure in regulating water and nutrient availability in boreal forests
• The impact of sustainable land management practices on soil health and soil organic matter
• The impact of wetland modification on soil structure and function
• The role of soil-atmosphere exchange and carbon sequestration in regulating regional and global climate
• The impact of salinization on soil health and crop productivity in coastal communities

Topics & Ideas: Environmental Chemistry

• The impact of cobalt mining on water quality and the fate of contaminants in the environment
• The role of atmospheric chemistry in shaping air quality and climate change
• The impact of soil chemistry on nutrient availability and plant growth in wheat monoculture
• Investigating the fate and transport of heavy metal contaminants in the environment
• The impact of climate change on biochemical cycling in tropical rainforests
• The impact of various types of land-use change on biochemical cycling
• The role of soil microbes in mediating contaminant degradation in the environment
• The impact of chemical and oil spills on freshwater and soil chemistry
• The role of atmospheric nitrogen deposition in shaping water and soil chemistry
• The impact of over-irrigation on the cycling and fate of persistent organic pollutants in the environment

Topics & Ideas: Environmental Economics

• The impact of climate change on the economies of developing nations
• The role of market-based mechanisms in promoting sustainable use of forest resources
• The impact of environmental regulations on economic growth and competitiveness
• Investigating the economic benefits and costs of ecosystem services for African countries
• The impact of renewable energy policies on regional and global energy markets
• The role of water markets in promoting sustainable water use in southern Africa
• The impact of land-use change in rural areas on regional and global economies
• The impact of environmental disasters on local and national economies
• The role of green technologies and innovation in shaping the zero-carbon transition and the knock-on effects for local economies
• The impact of environmental and natural resource policies on income distribution and poverty of rural communities

Topics & Ideas: Environmental Ethics

• The ethical foundations of environmentalism and the environmental movement regarding renewable energy
• The role of values and ethics in shaping environmental policy and decision-making in the mining industry
• The impact of cultural and religious beliefs on environmental attitudes and behaviours in first world countries
• Investigating the ethics of biodiversity conservation and the protection of endangered species in palm oil plantations
• The ethical implications of sea-level rise for future generations and vulnerable coastal populations
• The role of ethical considerations in shaping sustainable use of natural forest resources
• The impact of environmental justice on marginalized communities and environmental policies in Asia
• The ethical implications of environmental risks and decision-making under uncertainty
• The role of ethics in shaping the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable future for the construction industry
• The impact of environmental values on consumer behaviour and the marketplace: a case study of the ‘bring your own shopping bag’ policy

Examples: Real Dissertation & Thesis Topics

While the ideas we’ve presented above are a decent starting point for finding a research topic, they are fairly generic and non-specific. So, it helps to look at actual dissertations and theses to see how this all comes together.

Below, we’ve included a selection of research projects from various environmental science-related degree programs to help refine your thinking. These are actual dissertations and theses, written as part of Master’s and PhD-level programs, so they can provide some useful insight as to what a research topic looks like in practice.

• The physiology of microorganisms in enhanced biological phosphorous removal (Saunders, 2014)
• The influence of the coastal front on heavy rainfall events along the east coast (Henson, 2019)
• Forage production and diversification for climate-smart tropical and temperate silvopastures (Dibala, 2019)
• Advancing spectral induced polarization for near surface geophysical characterization (Wang, 2021)
• Assessment of Chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter and Thamnocephalus platyurus as Tools to Monitor Cyanobacterial Bloom Development and Toxicity (Hipsher, 2019)
• Evaluating the Removal of Microcystin Variants with Powdered Activated Carbon (Juang, 2020)
• The effect of hydrological restoration on nutrient concentrations, macroinvertebrate communities, and amphibian populations in Lake Erie coastal wetlands (Berg, 2019)
• Utilizing hydrologic soil grouping to estimate corn nitrogen rate recommendations (Bean, 2019)
• Fungal Function in House Dust and Dust from the International Space Station (Bope, 2021)
• Assessing Vulnerability and the Potential for Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) in Sudan’s Blue Nile Basin (Mohamed, 2022)
• A Microbial Water Quality Analysis of the Recreational Zones in the Los Angeles River of Elysian Valley, CA (Nguyen, 2019)
• Dry Season Water Quality Study on Three Recreational Sites in the San Gabriel Mountains (Vallejo, 2019)
• Wastewater Treatment Plan for Unix Packaging Adjustment of the Potential Hydrogen (PH) Evaluation of Enzymatic Activity After the Addition of Cycle Disgestase Enzyme (Miessi, 2020)
• Laying the Genetic Foundation for the Conservation of Longhorn Fairy Shrimp (Kyle, 2021).

Looking at these titles, you can probably pick up that the research topics here are quite specific and narrowly-focused , compared to the generic ones presented earlier. To create a top-notch research topic, you will need to be precise and target a specific context with specific variables of interest . In other words, you’ll need to identify a clear, well-justified research gap.

Need more help?

If you’re still feeling a bit unsure about how to find a research topic for your environmental science dissertation or research project, be sure to check out our private coaching services below, as well as our Research Topic Kickstarter .

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Writing a Paper about an Environmental Issue

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• Ph.D., Wildlife Ecology, University of Maine
• M.A., Natural Resources, Humboldt State University
• B.S., Biology, Université du Québec à Rimouski

Are you a student tasked with writing a research paper on an environmental issue? These few tips, along with some hard and focused work, should get you most of the way there.

Find a Topic

Look for a topic that speaks to you, that grabs your attention. Alternatively, choose a topic about which you are genuinely interested in learning more. It will be a lot easier to spend time working on something of interest to you.

Here are some places you can find ideas for a paper:

• Global warming
• Biodiversity
• Deforestation
• Fossil fuels
• Water Pollution
• The science or environment sections of major newspapers and news organizations will feature articles about current environmental news and events.
• Environmental news websites like Grist or Environmental News Network .

Conduct Research

Are you using internet resources? Make sure you can assess the quality of the information you find. This article from Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab is useful to help with assessing the quality of your sources.

Print resources are not to be neglected. Visit your school or city library, learn how to use their search engine, and talk to your librarian about accessing the resources available.

Are you expected to constrain your sources to primary literature? That body of knowledge consists of peer-reviewed articles published in scientific journals. Consult your librarian for help with accessing the proper databases to reach those articles.

Follow Instructions

Carefully read the handout or prompt given to you and which contains instructions about the assignment. Early in the process, make sure you choose a topic that will satisfy the assigned requirements. Once half-way through the paper, and once when it’s done, check it against the instructions to make sure you didn’t drift away from what was required.

Start With a Solid Structure

First craft a paper outline with your main ideas organized, and a thesis statement . A logical outline will make it easy to gradually flesh out ideas and eventually produce complete paragraphs with good transitions between them. Make sure all the sections serve the purpose of the paper outlined in the thesis statement.

After you have a good draft produced, put the paper down, and don’t pick it up until the next day. It’s due tomorrow? Next time, start working on it earlier. This break will help you with the editing stage: you need fresh eyes to read, and re-read your draft for flow, typos, and a myriad other little problems.

Pay Attention to Formatting

Along the way, check that you are following your teacher’s formatting instructions: font size, line spacing, margins, length, page numbers, title page, etc. A poorly formatted paper will suggest to your teacher that not only the form, but the content is of low quality as well.

Avoid Plagiarism

First, make sure you know what plagiarism is , you can then more easily avoid it. Pay especially close attention to properly attributing the work you cite.

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An improved semantic segmentation algorithm for high-resolution remote sensing images based on DeepLabv3+

• Pengfei Yan

Research progress on the origin, fate, impacts and harm of microplastics and antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater treatment plants

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Synthesis of CuO, ZnO nanoparticles, and CuO-ZnO nanocomposite for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B: a comparative study

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Excited by the prospect of future missions to the Jupiter system, Bruce Gibb explores the chemistry of Jupiter’s moons and wonders whether there could be life on Europa.

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Introduction: Global Warming is the theory that the atmosphere of the earth is gradually increasing as a result of the increase in levels of greenhouse gases and pollutants being released. Since the Industrial Revolution, Earth's global average temperature has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (The World Counts, 2014). There are generally two opinions regarding the argument of global warming: those who believe it is occurring and those who do not. People who believe in the issue back their opinions up […]

Carbon Footprint: Global Warming

Global warming (a gradual increase in the earth's and the oceans' average temperature) and carbon footprint (the amount of greenhouse gases primarily carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activities) coincide because without carbon footprint there would not be any global warming. When I was a child and growing up in Virginia, this state seemed experienced all four seasons. Today, this Old Dominion state seems to experience only two seasons summer and winter. I personally think this apparent change […]

Is Global Warming a Hoax?

Introduction As people, we can be privileged to all sorts of opinions. This creates the possibility of many controversies. Much like the argument Is Global warming a hoax? This is one of the most famous controversies happening around the world today. This dispute isn't just between the average person, scientist themselves disagreeing among one another. Which, is something I didn't expect before doing my own research. So the question is, what is global warming and why do some believe while […]

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How Can Climate Change Affect Natural Disasters?

Global warming is considered a consensus problem which affected the lives of many people and nature catastrophically. This terrible phenomenon can be described as the rise of the regular temperature of earth which occurs when pollutants in the atmosphere absorb the heat that has bounced off the surface and should be taken to space. (Venkataramanan, 2011). Many people disagree on its existence, however the usual temperature of earth has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit as said by NASA (Hardy, 2003). […]

Overpopulation in the World

Introduction The current world population stands 7.6 billion as per the United Nations Statistics, while the human population is projected to clock 10.5 billion in the year 2040 and 12 billion by the year 2050. The current human population growth rate per year 70 million. China has got the highest number of people per unit area, with the total population being 1.2 billion. The African continent has reached the highest population growth rate, which is 6 percent while the lowest […]

How does Global Warming Affect the Arctic Animal?

Over the past years, global warming had slowly gotten worse and is now affecting the animals leaving them without a home to go to. Not only does climate change increases the chances of natural disaster but also destructing our natural habitat and creating an unfit environment to survive in. What's worse is the rise in temperature leading a meltdown of ice among the arctic creating an extreme difficult condition and the struggle for species to make a living. Essentially, global […]

Greenhouse Effect & Types of Pollution

Transportation, industrial, phonic, water and air are all types of pollution coming from personal cars, cruise ships and smokestacks, decreasing the clean air to breathe, homes for animals, food production, and great changes to the poles. Global warming is severely affecting our planet, and it continues to grow out of control. Global warming is the gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere. This causes the greenhouse gases to increase, increasing the levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and […]

Global Warming – Rising Temperature of the Atmosphere and Ocean

Throughout earth's history, climate has fluctuated (for example ice age). However, if you take into account how many organisms have evolved, and how each one depends on their habitats to survive, fluctuations will be more harmful now, especially to humanity. The main cause of global warming is thought to be the result of human actions, for example; Carbon dioxide emissions (from cars and other transport) interfering with the Ozone layer, deforestation (from workers creating space for cattle grazing), and farming […]

Global Warming: its Causes and its Real Impact on the Earth

The steadily increasing temperature of our planet's atmosphere is known as global warming. Global warming has been a subject of much political and social controversy in recent years due to arguments questioning its legitimacy. When the facts of these arguments are seen in context, their relevance becomes apparent. The data clearly indicate that global warming is happening and that it is human-induced. The anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases negatively impacts our environment, causing an increase in global temperature. This results […]

Global Warming Affects the Natural Balance of Environment

The world climate is changing significantly day by day. What is Global Warming? Global Warming is a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide. Climate change causes an increase in average temperature. However a worldwide temperature adjustment are caused by characteristic occasions and humans that are accepted to be an add to accretion in normal temperatures. An Earth-wide temperature boost is a difficult issue […]

Climatic Changes in Greenland

Greenland is mostly covered in ice making it susceptible to melting from warm temperatures. The reason this country is named Greenland is because when Erik the Red was banned from Iceland he discovered this icy country and gave it the name in hopes of people settling (Pandita). In July and August of this year, the number of surface melt days on the Southwestern coast of Greenland was significantly above average, which is clearly an indication that global warming has begun […]

Global Warming – a Fix for the Future

Everyone has heard the infamous words global warming, but not many understand the disaster that's happening. Terms are thrown out such as carbon emissions and greenhouse gases the list goes on, and those not scientifically savvy tend to brush off what may become the downfall of humanity. According to Nasa's official website, The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and […]

The Art of Global Warming

Mankind has felt the need to leave its mark on history since the dawn of human civilization. There is evidence of this close to home in the tallest skyscrapers of New York and as far-reaching as Neil Armstrong's footprints on the moon. But how far is too far? As we have grown, so too has our knowledge of the world and the advancements in science and technology that come with it. So much so, that we are now faced with […]

The Greenhouse Effect

Human activities have contributed to what we now know as 'Global Warming' since the 19th century. Global Warming also known as the Greenhouse Effect is the warming that happens when Earth's atmosphere traps heat, almost like the walls of a greenhouse. Sunlight shines on the Earth where it is then absorbed and radiated back into the atmosphere as heat and is then trapped by what we call greenhouse gasses. Experts warn that we only have until 2030 to stem catastrophic […]

Climate Change: Vulnerability and Responsibility

When it comes to the environment people talk about how it is important to care for the earth we live in. While it is important to discuss such issues it is more beneficial to take action rather than to just talk about it. The earth is in desperate need of aid and though to many, it may not matter that the earth has increased a few degrees it can and has had devastating impacts. Taking responsibility for our home is […]

Climate Change – Scientists and Environmentalists are Deeply Concerned

Anthropogenic climate change and global warming cannot be denied. By reducing pollution, preventing deforestation and curtailing oil drilling, we can preserve the environment and mitigate the effects of global warming. Global warming is detrimental to Earth's environment. Most people are not aware of this and do not consider it as a major threat to earth's biosphere. The purpose of the images shown here is to highlight the causes, impact and mitigation of global warming. There are ways we can mitigate […]

Global Warming and the Future of the World’s Climate

Although hard to imagine, in less than a hundred years the US East Coast and other stretches of coastline around the world could be submerged underwater. Cites such as New York, New Orleans, and Houston could be swamped off the map as the waters of the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico overtook the previously dry land. The skyscrapers of the old downtown areas would become islands poking out of a vast sea of blue covering the roads and old infrastructure. […]

Climate Change – Critical Issue

I believe that among the numerous critical issues facing most Americans in this world today, climate change stands as one of, if not the most urgent. However, understanding and assimilating the different causes of the ever-growing environmental problems critically facing our lives today are crucial for reducing our pollution footprint. Climate change effects include major changes in temperature, precipitation, wind patterns, as well as other frequent disastrous weather phenomenon. That said, climate change policy in the US has transformed timidly […]

Global Warming – Several Major Agrarian Concerns

For many years, researchers have focused on maintaining the availability of food sources for the ever-growing human population. There are many factors that may impact the abundance of food; this research will focus on overall increase in temperature across the world and its impact on the agricultural environment. Global warming is a major research topic that presents several major agrarian concerns. In order to combat these concerns, scientists have been trying to find the root causes of problems presented through […]

The World should Turn to Vegetarian Diet to Stop Global Warming

A vegetarian according to vegetarian society is somebody who is on a diet of fruits, seeds, grains, vegetables, legumes, nut, yeast, fungi, algae, and/or some other non-animal grounded food (e.g. salt) with or minus dairy foods, eggs and/or honey. Global warming according to live science is the continuing temperature of the ground's surface, seas and thermosphere are any of the utmost frustrating environmental matters. Normal side heats high an entire of 1.71 units Fahrenheit (0.95 unit Celsius) between 1880 and […]

Causes and Effects of Global Warming

People are arguing if global warming is caused by man or if its a natural occurrence. Well, volcanoes have contributed to global warming such as El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991 they have cooled the earth's temperature but this was temporary. however, the amount of carbon dioxide they reliance is small compared to humans there are other things that can cause natural temperature changes tiny wiggles in the earth's orbit can change when and where sunlight hits even […]

Is a Tax on Carbon Emission a Way to Combat Global Warming?

In today's modern world, and especially during our current political environment, there is a big question of how important environmental issues are going to be now in our changing American government. Now that things are evolving and a new generation is casting their votes, most Americans are curious to see how the votes turn out and what are politicians will do regarding getting more awareness for climate change. After the elections, the next big concern is if the people within […]

Impact of Society on Earth’s Atmosphere

Everyday society is impacting the earth's atmosphere weather it is in a good or bad way. Mostly society effects the earth's atmosphere in a negative way, although people are aware of the current situation, they still continue to do the things that effect the earth atmosphere in a negative way. These things being burning fossil fuels, deforestation, or as easy as using fertilizers. According to climate change sheet 22 last modified on 07/18/2012 nitrogen contained in many fertilizers enhances the […]

Solutions on Pollution Issue

Funding is the most important factor in order to improve the current conditions of Vietnam. Seven principles which pollution control funds should aim to follow can be drawn from the decade of experience with environment funds of various kinds in Vietnam. To be effective, EPFs should: 1.Have a clear and overriding objective of pollution reduction and prevention. 2.Work according to a comprehensive pollution control plan of government which is based on credible and systematic priority setting procedures. 3.Integrate with the […]

How Global Warming Works

There's bright blue in the past, now there is horrible gray in the future and more heat in the summers, and the winters are getting warmer than usual. The seas and oceans rising, the ice caps falling, and animals decreasing. It is time to come to a conflict that could make our planet Earth fall. Welcome to a tremendous problem EVERYONE is trying to solve global warming. Industrializing is a benefit for us and the economy. All of this falls […]

The Global Warming Taboo

It is still hard to understand that the topic of Global Warming is still being thrown under the rug as it is perceived by some that it is not a leading issue that needs to be tackled. It makes me wonder why so much of America can't see the problems that are being created just by our everyday actions. Due to the fact that the issue is still under mass controversy leads the topic of global warming to be a […]

Natural Disasters and Climate Change

Global warming is the gradual increase of temperature in the world's atmosphere. It is often caused by high levels of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. It may also be increased by fossil fuels and agriculture causing many severe consequences, such as: species extinction, reduced forest and coral reefs, drought increases in Africa, severe flooding in Asia, threats to small islands because of ocean levels rising, and severe weather in hurricane zones. Our society today is destroying the climate. Every time […]

Climate Change: Environmental Protection Agency

Global warming, often referred to as climate change is used to describe the rise in average surface temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth's climate. There is a great debate amongst many as to whether global warming is real( some call it a hoax). There is a broad-based agreement within the scientific community that climate change is real. The U.S Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space […]

Global Warming and its Effects

Global warming has been a top discussion for a while now. Some people believe it is true based on the change in weather, more fires/floods, and severe droughts in some areas while others deny the fact that it is occurring. Recently, the topic of global warming has become more of a political topic. This is probably because a lot of the industries that are causing some of the issues would be affected financially if they were forced to take responsibility […]

The Story of Stuff

Four main issues have been discussed in the fourth chapter, "Consumption" of The Story of Stuff. The four themes are discussed below: Unhappy People, Nation, and PlanetAnnie emphasizes that many stuff doesn't make us happy but the work done out of hard work makes one satisfied thus one is happy. She goes further to say that "we can only compromise so much until no solution is reached." If one is rich, it is assumed he is happy, and those who […]

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Environment Problems — Environmental Issues

Essays on Environmental Issues

Environmental issues are a crucial topic for essays, as they address some of the most pressing challenges facing our planet today. When choosing an environmental issues essay topic, it's important to consider the significance of the subject matter and the potential for impactful discussions. This article will offer advice on selecting a compelling topic and provide a diverse list of recommended essay topics, divided by category.

The Importance of Environmental Issues Essay Topics

Environmental issues encompass a wide range of challenges, including climate change, pollution, deforestation, and endangered species. These topics are critical because they directly impact the health of our planet and all its inhabitants. By addressing environmental issues in essays, students can raise awareness, promote solutions, and contribute to the global conversation about sustainability and conservation.

When choosing a topic for an environmental issues essay, it's essential to consider your interests, the current relevance of the issue, and the potential for generating thought-provoking discussions. You should also take into account the availability of credible sources and data to support your arguments. Additionally, choosing a specific aspect of a broader environmental issue can help narrow the focus of your essay and make your arguments more compelling.

Recommended Environmental Issues Essay Topics

• Climate Change
• The impact of climate change on global food security
• Policy responses to climate change in developing countries
• The role of renewable energy in mitigating climate change
• Climate change adaptation strategies for vulnerable communities
• Carbon pricing and its effectiveness in reducing greenhouse gas emissions
• The impact of climate change on wildlife
• Strategies to mitigate climate change
• The role of renewable energy in combating climate change
• Climate change and its effect on agriculture
• The importance of international cooperation in addressing climate change
• Plastic pollution in the world's oceans
• The health effects of air pollution in urban areas
• Regulatory approaches to controlling industrial pollution
• The impact of electronic waste on the environment
• Strategies for reducing water pollution in agricultural areas
• The effects of air pollution on human health
• Ways to reduce water pollution
• The role of government regulations in controlling pollution
• The impact of industrial pollution on the environment
• Deforestation
• The effects of deforestation on biodiversity in tropical rainforests
• Community-based forest management as a solution to deforestation
• The role of corporate responsibility in combating deforestation
• The impact of deforestation on indigenous communities
• Reforestation efforts and their impact on climate change mitigation

Endangered Species

• The ethical implications of captive breeding for endangered species conservation
• The impact of illegal wildlife trade on endangered species populations
• Conservation strategies for protecting endangered marine species
• The role of ecotourism in supporting endangered species conservation
• The potential for de-extinction in preserving endangered species

Sustainable Development

• Challenges and opportunities for sustainable urban development
• The role of sustainable agriculture in addressing food insecurity
• The impact of consumer behavior on sustainable development goals
• Corporate sustainability initiatives and their impact on the environment
• The role of education in promoting sustainable development practices

Environmental Policy

• The effectiveness of international agreements in addressing environmental issues
• The role of government regulation in promoting environmental conservation
• The impact of environmental lobbying on policy-making decisions
• The potential for market-based solutions in environmental policy
• The influence of public opinion on environmental policy development

Water Scarcity

• The causes of water scarcity in developing countries
• Technological solutions to address water scarcity
• The impact of water scarcity on agriculture
• Strategies for sustainable water management
• The role of government policies in addressing water scarcity

Biodiversity Loss

• The importance of preserving biodiversity
• The impact of habitat destruction on biodiversity
• Strategies for conserving endangered species
• The role of ecotourism in promoting biodiversity conservation
• The ethical implications of biodiversity loss

Waste Management

• The challenges of e-waste disposal
• Strategies for promoting recycling and composting
• The impact of waste management on public health
• The role of circular economy in reducing waste
• The economic benefits of effective waste management

These environmental issues essay topics provide a wide range of options for students to explore and analyze. By choosing a compelling environmental issues essay topic, students can engage in meaningful discussions and contribute to the ongoing efforts to address the challenges facing our planet. It's climate change, pollution, deforestation, endangered species, sustainable development, or environmental policy - there are countless opportunities to explore and raise awareness about important environmental issues through essays.

The Importance of Deforestation

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Environmental Problems: Challenges and Solutions

Air pollution: causes, effects, and solutions, environmental issues: the problem of climate change, the main factors of adapting to a new environment, the power of change: how you can change the world, different types and sources of pollution, the ecological footprint caused by human activities, geography's role in addressing global environmental risks, water pollution, its factors, and ways to reduce, human – the significant wellspring of global warming, climate change as the one of the biggest threats to humanity now, the long term effects of littering and pollution on the environment, a research on the relationship between the global economy and the environmental protection issues, the environment hazard of plastics, deforestation and the ways to overcome it, global warming and what people can do to save earth, we are causing environmental problems and we are suffering from them, the impact of china's progress on the environment, air pollution its causes and damaging effects, the top three individual contributors to climate change, relevant topics.

• Global Warming
• Invasive Species
• Natural Disasters
• Ocean Pollution
• Fast Fashion
• Solar Energy

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Sample code for the Twitter API v2 endpoints

xdevplatform/Twitter-API-v2-sample-code

Folders and files, repository files navigation, twitter api v2 sample code.

Sample code for the Twitter API v2 endpoints. Individual API features have folders where you can find examples of usage in several coding languages (Java, Node.js, Python, R, and Ruby).

• Twitter API Documentation

Prerequisites

• Twitter API Essential Access ( sign up here )
• A Project and an App created in the dashboard

Using the code samples

In order to run the samples in this repository you will need to set up some environment variables. You can find your credentials and bearer token in the App inside of your Project in the dashboard of the developer portal .

For OAuth 1.0a samples, you will need to export your consumer key and secret in your terminal. Be sure to replace <your_consumer_key> and <your_consumer_secret> with your own credentials without the < > .

For samples which use bearer token authentication, you will need to export the bearer token. Be sure to replace <your_bearer_token> with your own bearer token without the < > .

Language-specific requirements

Java environment set up.

If you use Homebrew, you can install a Java runtime using:

You will also need to download the relevant JAR files referenced in the individual samples in order to build and run the code. If you use an IDE, it may be able to do this automatically for you.

JavaScript (Node.js) environment set up

You will need to have Node.js installed to run this code. All Node.js examples use needle as the HTTP client, which needs to be npm installed. For OAuth with user context requests, you'll need to install the got and oauth-1.0a packages.

Python environment set up

You will need to have Python 3 installed to run this code. The Python samples use requests==2.24.0 which uses requests-oauthlib==1.3.0 .

(Optionally) It is common and recommended not to install required package globally, but locally under project subfolder using venv :

You can install these packages as follows:

Ruby environment set up

You will need to have Ruby (recommended: >= 2.0.0) installed in order to run the code. The Ruby examples use typhoeus as the HTTP client, which needs to be gem installed. For OAuth with user context requests, you'll also need to install the oauth gem (see below).

Additional resources

We maintain a Postman Collection which you can use for exercising individual API endpoints.

• Using Postman with the Twitter API
• Twitter API v2 on the Postman website

For general questions related to the API and features, please use the v2 section of our developer community forums .

If there's an bug or issue with the sample code itself, please create a new issue here on GitHub.

Contributing

We welcome pull requests that add meaningful additions to these code samples, particularly for languages that are not yet represented here.

We feel that a welcoming community is important and we ask that you follow Twitter's Open Source Code of Conduct in all interactions with the community.

Copyright 2021 Twitter, Inc.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

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Environmental Economics Research Paper Topics

This comprehensive guide to environmental economics research paper topics is designed to assist students and researchers in selecting a subject for their study. Environmental economics, a field at the intersection of economics and environmental science, offers a wide array of topics that explore the economic aspects of environmental issues. From policy and natural resource economics to sustainability and climate change, this guide provides a diverse list of topics to inspire your research journey. Additionally, it offers expert advice on choosing a topic and writing a research paper in environmental economics. The guide also introduces iResearchNet’s writing services, which offer custom research papers on any topic in environmental economics, ensuring high-quality, in-depth research, and timely delivery.

Environmental economics is a fascinating field that combines the principles of economics with the study of environmental issues. It seeks to understand the economic impacts of environmental policies and to develop solutions that can balance economic growth with environmental sustainability. Here is a comprehensive list of environmental economics research paper topics that you can explore:

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Environmental Policies and Economic Growth

• The impact of environmental regulations on economic growth.
• The role of green taxes in promoting sustainable development.
• The economic benefits of renewable energy policies.
• The cost-effectiveness of carbon pricing mechanisms.
• The impact of environmental policies on job creation.
• The role of government subsidies in promoting green technologies.
• The economic implications of the Paris Agreement.
• The effect of environmental policies on industrial competitiveness.
• The role of environmental policies in shaping market behavior.
• The economic feasibility of transitioning to a circular economy.

Natural Resource Economics

• The economic valuation of natural resources.
• The role of property rights in natural resource management.
• The economic implications of overfishing.
• The impact of mineral extraction on local economies.
• The economics of water scarcity.
• The role of economic incentives in promoting sustainable forestry.
• The impact of climate change on agricultural economics.
• The economic costs and benefits of biodiversity conservation.
• The role of natural resources in economic development.
• The economic implications of soil degradation.

Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis

• The use of cost-benefit analysis in environmental decision making.
• The challenges of monetizing environmental benefits.
• The role of discount rates in environmental cost-benefit analysis.
• The use of cost-effectiveness analysis in environmental policy.
• The limitations of cost-benefit analysis in addressing environmental justice issues.
• The role of cost-benefit analysis in climate change mitigation strategies.
• The use of multi-criteria analysis in environmental decision making.
• The role of risk analysis in environmental cost-benefit analysis.
• The impact of uncertainty on environmental cost-benefit analysis.
• The use of cost-benefit analysis in ecosystem service valuation.

Economics of Climate Change

• The economic impacts of climate change.
• The role of carbon markets in mitigating climate change.
• The economic feasibility of climate change adaptation strategies.
• The impact of climate change on global trade.
• The role of climate finance in promoting low-carbon development.
• The economic implications of sea level rise.
• The impact of climate change on agricultural productivity.
• The role of economic modeling in climate change projections.
• The economic costs and benefits of geoengineering.
• The impact of climate change on energy economics.

Environmental Justice and Economics

• The economic dimensions of environmental justice.
• The role of economic inequality in environmental degradation.
• The impact of environmental policies on marginalized communities.
• The role of green jobs in promoting environmental justice.
• The economic implications of environmental racism.
• The impact of environmental displacement on economic wellbeing.
• The role of economic empowerment in promoting environmental justice.
• The economic costs of environmental health disparities.
• The impact of environmental gentrification on urban economies.
• The role of economic policy in addressing environmental justice issues.

Green Economy and Sustainable Development

• The economic benefits of transitioning to a green economy.
• The role of green jobs in sustainable development.
• The economic implications of sustainable consumption and production.
• The impact of green growth strategies on economic competitiveness.
• The role of green finance in promoting sustainable development.
• The economic implications of the circular economy.
• The impact of green innovation on economic growth.
• The role of sustainable tourism in the green economy.
• The economic feasibility of green infrastructure projects.

Environmental Economics and Policy

• The economic impacts of environmental regulations.
• The role of economic incentives in environmental policy.
• The impact of environmental taxes on economic behavior.
• The role of trade policy in environmental protection.
• The economic implications of the polluter pays principle.
• The impact of environmental subsidies on market behavior.
• The role of economic instruments in biodiversity conservation.
• The economic feasibility of ecosystem service payments.
• The impact of environmental policy on economic competitiveness.
• The role of economic analysis in environmental policy making.

Economics of Energy and Environment

• The economic impacts of renewable energy policies.
• The role of energy economics in environmental sustainability.
• The impact of fossil fuel subsidies on the environment.
• The role of energy efficiency in economic growth.
• The economic implications of the energy transition.
• The impact of energy prices on environmental quality.
• The role of energy policy in climate change mitigation.
• The economic feasibility of carbon capture and storage.
• The impact of energy security on environmental sustainability.
• The role of energy markets in environmental protection.

Environmental Economics and Agriculture

• The economic impacts of agricultural pollution.
• The role of agricultural economics in environmental sustainability.
• The impact of agricultural subsidies on the environment.
• The role of sustainable agriculture in economic development.
• The economic implications of organic farming.
• The impact of agricultural trade on the environment.
• The role of agricultural policy in environmental protection.
• The economic feasibility of agroecology.
• The impact of agricultural innovation on environmental sustainability.
• The role of agricultural markets in environmental protection.

Environmental Economics and Urbanization

• The economic impacts of urban pollution.
• The role of urban economics in environmental sustainability.
• The impact of urban sprawl on the environment.
• The role of sustainable urban development in economic growth.
• The economic implications of urban green spaces.
• The impact of urban transportation on environmental quality.
• The role of urban planning in environmental protection.
• The economic feasibility of green buildings.
• The impact of urbanization on biodiversity.
• The role of urban infrastructure in environmental protection.

These environmental economics research paper topics cover a wide range of issues in the field of environmental economics, from policy and law to energy and agriculture. They provide a starting point for your research and can be tailored to fit your specific interests and the requirements of your assignment. Remember, choosing the right topic is the first step in writing a successful research paper. So take your time, explore these topics, and choose one that you find interesting and meaningful.

Environmental Economics Research Guide

Environmental economics is a vital field that examines the interplay between economic systems and the environment. As our world faces increasingly complex environmental challenges, understanding the economic dimensions of these issues becomes crucial for developing effective solutions. This page aims to provide a comprehensive resource for students studying environmental science and seeking research paper topics in the field of environmental economics.

Environmental economics focuses on analyzing the costs and benefits associated with environmental policies, natural resource management, pollution control, and sustainable development. It explores the ways in which economic activities impact the environment and how environmental factors influence economic decision-making. By studying environmental economics, students gain insights into the intricate relationship between human activities and the natural world, enabling them to propose informed strategies for sustainable development.

For students pursuing a degree in environmental science, conducting research in environmental economics offers a unique perspective on addressing environmental challenges. It provides a framework to assess the economic implications of environmental issues and develop innovative solutions that balance ecological sustainability and economic prosperity. Research papers in environmental economics not only contribute to the academic discourse but also equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to effect positive change in their future careers.

The purpose of this page is to serve as a valuable resource for students seeking inspiration and guidance for their research papers in environmental economics. We aim to provide a curated list of diverse research paper topics, expert advice on topic selection, and practical tips on writing an effective environmental economics research paper. Additionally, we introduce the writing services offered by iResearchNet, providing students the opportunity to order custom research papers tailored to their specific needs.

By exploring the topics and advice presented on this page, students will be equipped with the tools and insights necessary to delve into the fascinating field of environmental economics. Whether you are interested in studying the economic impact of climate change, analyzing environmental policies, or exploring sustainable development strategies, this page will help you navigate the vast landscape of environmental economics research.

We invite you to embark on this exciting journey of exploring environmental economics research paper topics and discovering the potential to make a meaningful impact on the environmental challenges of our time.

Choosing an Environmental Economics Topic

Choosing the right research paper topic is a crucial step in the process of writing an impactful and successful environmental economics research paper. With the vast scope of environmental economics, it is essential to select a topic that is not only interesting but also relevant, feasible, and has the potential to contribute to the field. Here are ten expert tips to help you navigate the process of choosing environmental economics research paper topics:

• Identify your Interests : Start by identifying your personal interests within the field of environmental economics. Think about the environmental issues that resonate with you, such as climate change, natural resource management, pollution control, or sustainable development. Choosing a topic that genuinely interests you will make the research process more enjoyable and motivating.
• Stay Updated with Current Issues : Keep yourself informed about the latest environmental issues and developments in environmental economics. Follow reputable news sources, academic journals, and research publications to stay abreast of emerging trends, debates, and areas of active research. This will enable you to select topics that are timely and relevant.
• Conduct Preliminary Research : Before finalizing a research topic, conduct preliminary research to gain a broad understanding of the existing literature in the field. Review academic papers, books, and reports related to environmental economics to identify gaps in knowledge and potential research areas that warrant further exploration.
• Narrow Down the Scope : Environmental economics is a vast field, and it is essential to narrow down the scope of your research topic. Focus on a specific aspect, problem, or geographic region that you can realistically address within the scope of your research paper. Narrowing down the topic will allow you to delve deeper and provide a more comprehensive analysis.
• Consult with Your Advisor : Seek guidance from your academic advisor or faculty members specializing in environmental economics. They can provide valuable insights, suggest potential research topics, and offer guidance on selecting a topic that aligns with your academic goals and interests.
• Consider the Research Gap : Look for areas in environmental economics where there is a research gap or limited literature available. Identifying gaps in the existing body of knowledge will allow you to contribute to the field by conducting original research and generating new insights.
• Balance Practicality and Significance : When choosing a research topic, consider the practicality of data collection and analysis. Ensure that you have access to relevant data sources and research methods required to investigate the topic effectively. Additionally, evaluate the potential significance of the research topic in addressing real-world environmental challenges.
• Engage in Discussions and Seminars : Participate in discussions, seminars, and conferences related to environmental economics. Engaging with peers and experts in the field will expose you to diverse perspectives and help you discover potential research topics and areas of interest that you may not have considered before.
• Seek Interdisciplinary Approaches : Environmental economics often intersects with other disciplines such as ecology, policy studies, sociology, and public health. Consider incorporating interdisciplinary approaches into your research topic to explore the interconnectedness between environmental and social factors, which can provide a more holistic understanding of the issues at hand.
• Reflect on Practical Applications : Reflect on the practical applications of your research topic. Consider how your findings and analysis can contribute to policy development, inform decision-making processes, or propose sustainable solutions. Topics that have practical implications and can make a positive impact in real-world contexts tend to be more compelling and meaningful.

By following these expert tips, you will be well-equipped to choose a compelling and relevant environmental economics research paper topic that aligns with your interests, addresses knowledge gaps, and has the potential to contribute to the field. Remember to consult with your academic advisor throughout the process to ensure that your chosen topic aligns with the requirements and objectives of your research paper.

How to Write an Environmental Economics Research Paper

Writing an environmental economics research paper requires a systematic and well-structured approach to effectively communicate your research findings and contribute to the field. Here are ten essential tips to help you navigate the process of writing an impactful environmental economics research paper:

• Understand the Research Question : Start by clearly understanding the research question or objective of your paper. Identify the specific problem or issue you aim to address and formulate a concise and focused research question. This will serve as the guiding principle throughout your research and writing process.
• Conduct In-depth Literature Review : Before delving into your own research, conduct a comprehensive literature review to familiarize yourself with the existing body of knowledge. Identify key theories, concepts, methodologies, and empirical studies relevant to your research question. This will help you establish the context for your research and identify research gaps to address.
• Develop a Solid Research Methodology : Choose an appropriate research methodology that aligns with your research question and objectives. Whether it’s quantitative, qualitative, or a combination of both, ensure that your chosen methodology allows you to collect and analyze data effectively to answer your research question.
• Collect and Analyze Data : Depending on your research question, collect relevant data from credible sources. This may include primary data collected through surveys, interviews, or experiments, or secondary data from academic journals, government reports, or databases. Analyze the data using appropriate statistical or qualitative analysis techniques to derive meaningful insights.
• Organize Your Paper : Structure your research paper in a logical and coherent manner. Start with an introduction that provides background information, states the research question, and outlines the paper’s structure. Follow this with a literature review, methodology section, presentation and analysis of findings, discussion of results, and a conclusion that summarizes your key findings and their implications.
• Provide Clear and Concise Writing : Ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and accessible to your target audience. Use plain language and avoid unnecessary jargon. Clearly articulate your arguments, provide sufficient evidence, and use appropriate citations to support your claims. Use subheadings, bullet points, and paragraph breaks to improve readability.
• Support Your Arguments with Evidence : Back up your claims and arguments with reliable evidence. Use empirical data, case studies, academic research, and real-world examples to support your analysis. Be critical of your sources and ensure they are reputable and peer-reviewed.
• Engage in Critical Analysis : Demonstrate critical thinking skills by analyzing and interpreting your findings in the context of existing literature and theories. Identify strengths, limitations, and potential biases in your research. Discuss alternative explanations and consider counterarguments to strengthen the validity of your research.
• Discuss Policy Implications : Environmental economics research often has policy implications. Discuss the implications of your research findings for environmental policies, regulations, or economic decision-making. Highlight the potential benefits and challenges of implementing your research outcomes in real-world scenarios.
• Revise and Edit : Revise and edit your research paper thoroughly before final submission. Pay attention to clarity, grammar, spelling, and formatting. Read your paper multiple times, seek feedback from peers or advisors, and make necessary revisions to improve the overall quality and coherence of your work.

By following these tips, you can effectively write an environmental economics research paper that is well-structured, evidence-based, and contributes to the understanding of environmental issues from an economic perspective. Remember to maintain a systematic approach, stay focused on your research question, and continuously refine your writing through feedback and revisions.

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