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Being one of Ukraine’s major sources of economic revenue, the country’s agro-industrial sector proved, at the same time, to be perhaps the most vulnerable branch of economy in the times of political and social turbulence. While the state is searching for the ways of strengthening its positions at the global market, its agricultural potential to a considerable extent remains both under- and misused. Based on comprehensive historic analysis, this research establishes the origins of the current situation and assesses the possibilities of positive change. Utilizing the experience of other European countries’ with regards to making agriculture more sustainable and competitive in the modern world, the author describes the ways of applying these practices against the background of Ukrainian socio-political system. Drawing knowledge from the experience of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) worldwide, this research aims at harmonizing their methods with evaluation demands in Ukrainian agriculture. It discusses and criticizes the existing assessment approach and suggests measures necessary for making it more comprehensive. The author offers profound analysis of Ukrainian agricultural policies to date, reviews national regulating directives and outlines country-specific challenges as to improving agricultural sustainability. In order to provide Ukrainian decision-makers with a clear and all-round tool for assessing the advances and failures of the acting state policies in the AIS, a set of reliable indices for evaluating agricultural performance has been developed by the author, which is largely based on the widely-acknowledged Driving Force – State – Response framework offered by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Human Development Index (HDI) from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) methodology. At the same time, the newly developed set takes into consideration the peculiarities of Ukrainian socio-political setting. Three major categories of indicators were chosen as a backbone for further elaboration, namely economic, social and political. Therefrom results a list of twelve relevant indices. At the concluding stage of the research, they were processed and transformed to three top-level indices: Economic Development Index, Environmental Situation Index and Social Development Index. These three indices are intended for clear and illustrative presentation of the current situation for high level decision-makers and governmental bodies. Methodology utilized for the purposes of this research with necessary adaptation and fine tuning can also be used with other set of initial data, indicators and indices. Application field can also be downscaled from the highest (national) to the lowest (regional) level by adapting the indicator-indices system to the initial input data. This will considerably simplify the compilation and presentation of regional reports and will provide transparency for interregional comparison within the country.
Yemen is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. The water deficit has been aggravated by the rapidly increasing demands for both surface and groundwater resources that are being unsustainably exploited. To address the country’s severe water scarcity, the government has adopted long-term intervention policies as stated in ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’. These policies are aimed at restoring the balance between water demand and availability, and at reducing the existing water deficit. Although 11 years have passed since this vision was adopted, the water deficit is still on the rise. The present situation raises questions about the efficiency of the intervention policies adopted by ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’ and about the effectiveness of implementing these policies. Another fundamental question pertains to the availability of a strategic assessment tool in the water resources sector that can be used to assess strategically future and current policies, strategies and plans, in order to ensure their efficiency in supporting water resources and in producing the positive impacts for which these strategic initiatives were developed in the first place. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an assessment tool designed to function at a strategic level and help to bring aspects of environmental sustainability into the decisionmaking process. This research aims to demonstrate the potential of SEA in enhancing environmental sustainability in water policies for achieving sustainability of water resources in Yemen. In order to show the potential of SEA in the Yemeni water resources sector, this research has applied SEA methodologies and adopted a scenario-building approach for assessing the intervention policies adopted by ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’ to support augmentation of water resources. Qualitative and quantitative approaches have been used in this research. Quantitative historical data on water availability, water demand and water savings by interventions have been collected from the databases of national institutions and international organizations concerned. Statistical analyses have been used to project future trends until 2025. Qualitative analyses of relevant studies and reports covering the environmental, administrative, sociocultural and political-economic aspects of water resources management in Yemen have been implemented as well. In addition, 13 semi-structured key informant interviews have been conducted with decision-makers, managers and leading experts in the water and irrigation sectors. The research produced three future scenarios for the total water balance that may play out until 2025 in Yemen. These scenarios provide impact assessment and alternatives’ comparison of the existing intervention policies. The resulting scenarios are as follows: the ‘Business as Usual’ scenario, which forms an assessment of currently applied interventions and provides an image for the future, if current interventions are maintained at the same pace; the ‘Do-nothing’ scenario representing the situation if no interventions are implemented; and the ‘Sustainability’ scenario, which represents the potential future of the total water balance if existing interventions are to be scaled up and out. The findings confirm the significant potential of currently adopted intervention policies to support water resources. They also reveal that the current level of implementing the intervention policies has hindered the potential of these intervention policies in achieving the expected positive impact on the water balance by 2025. In order to achieve a significant decrease in the water deficit, the strategic quantitative targets that need to be implemented were identified. The methodology followed in implementing the research and achieving the findings demonstrates the potential of SEA in enhancing environmental sustainability in water policies for achieving integrated and sustainable water resources management in Yemen. The recommendations of the research covered improving the existing water balance as well as improving the assessment and planning context in the water resources sector. In order to improve the water balance situation, the research recommends implementing quantitative targets for water savings and augmentations, such as those developed by this research. These targets have been identified based on the capacities of sectors implementing these interventions. The research also recommends further decentralization of planning and management of water resources and the establishment of Water User Associations (WUAs) as the main vehicles for ensuring sustainable planning and management of water resources, including the scale out of interventions, subject to assessment in this research. In order to improve assessment and planning of water resources, the research recommends the adoption of SEA, the updating of water resources data and conducting regular assessments of policies, plans and programmes as part of monitoring their impact and providing a chance for amending these policies and strategies, if required, to achieve sustainability of water resources.
Urban adaptation is a critical issue for many of the developing countries of Southeast Asia. Vietnam is likely to be among the countries most adversely affected by climate change. Moreover, its largest city, Ho Chi Minh City is considered worldwide as one of most vulnerable to a multitude of climate-related hazards, including flooding, sea-level rise and extreme heat events. Similar to other rapidly developing megacities in Southeast Asia, Ho Chi Minh City has undergone enormous changes in recent decades and has rapidly developed into an emerging megacity shaped by global processes and local settlement patterns. Recently, the need to adapt to the multiple stressors of rapid urbanisation and climate change has become increasingly evident. Adaptation to climate change in urban areas depends on decision-makers’ understanding of the current and future impacts of climate change. Land-use planning as a place-based and problem-solving strategy has been recognised as a key tool in this respect, to mainstream climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction into urban development. Yet a key challenge is a lack of relevant information on exposed populations and assets at risk to planners and policymakers. The dissertation outlines the development of an integrated framework predominantly based on an urban structure type approach. This approach was used to manually interpret high resolution, remotely sensed imagery in order to portray and understand patterns of settlement and urban structure layout of the current and emerging landscapes of Ho Chi Minh City. The approach is able to capture the highly dynamic spatiotemporal, social and structural changes associated with rapid urbanisation. The overall findings show the applicability of the developed framework to produce important input indicators for risk adapted land-use planning. These are ultimately useful to determine hotspots for administrative interventions and to assist prioritising in spatial and urban planning decision-making.
Strategic Environmental Assessment in regional land use planning (here: SEA-REP) is a systematic process in Germany, which aims at an optimisation of the integration of environmental policies into decision-making at regional scale. It therefore plays an essential role for the comparison of site alternatives, and the implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures of negative effects of both regional development and climate change. Significant findings and personal experiences gained in an INTERREG project (‛transSEA’) created a fundamental basis for this doctoral research. The main objective was to develop the ‛LUCCA’ indicator system, which is a result of an analysis of land use types, that are increasingly important for effects of global climate change, and should therefore adapt to future conditions with regional land use planning. This system was developed from current German practice of the methodological application of SEA-REP in the core assessment of site-specific impacts on the affected area and impact zone. Main objectives were to integrate spatial effects of climate change into SEA-REP, and to develop a method to make particularly the tendency of physical degradation of natural resources in a region transparent. The research was based on a comprehensive analysis of best practice of SEA and assessment methods applied in German case studies of regional land use planning. Proposed was a a two-tiered environmental baseline- and objective-led approach of impact assessment. Its first tier is a site-specific assessment of significant impacts of regional plan designations and their alternatives. An environmental conflict analysis has the aim to apply assessment thresholds of conflict intensity for each impact factor affecting the importance of assessed components of LUCCA. Results are three classes of conflict intensity, which were determined and can be measured with the help of state indicators, impact indicators and assessment thresholds. 12 LUCCA indicators were defined in connection to regional environmental orientation objectives, environmental components, land uses and further criteria for indicator selection. The second tier is represented by an overall strategic assessment of the regional plan and its designation criteria. This assessment additionally considers positive and cumulative impacts, as well as structural alternatives. The result of the research is a standard concept for environmental orientation objectives, guidance indicators and assessment ranges for the LUCCA indicator system. Regional environmental orientation objectives, which represent outcome values of the future state of environment, were derived from existent environmental quality objectives and environmental quality standards. For each LUCCA indicator mitigation and adaptation measures of regional planning and requirements for tiering to SEA of lower land use planning were proposed. Recommendations for vital and critical action are addressed to competent national and regional authorities of spatial and sector planning. These involve the direct integration of concerns of climate change into SEA-REP, the regional operationalisation of environmental objectives for adaptation to climate change, an improved cooperation between spatial and sector planners concerned with the future use of land and resources, and, last but not least, an involvement of the public in the setting of regional objectives for the future state of a region’s environment. Recommendations for the competent national and federal ministries are the integration of substantial standards into legislation, the setting of binding standards for a stricter reduction of land consumption, the determination of clear responsibilities and activities at all planning levels, and the release of guidance for effective regional land use planning practice that enhances adaptation to climate change. The main recommendations for European regional planning bodies are to establish regional environmental objective concepts for SEA-REP, update regional environmental data profiles, apply the SEA-REP+LUCCA indicator system, develop a tiered decision-support system, challenge conventional regional planning, improve cooperation with sector planning and involve the public in the development of adaptation strategies. A recommended adaptation task at regional planning level is the designation of strictly safeguarded priority areas with specific functions of land uses for the mitigation of negative effects of climate change. Such priority areas, which should be area-specifically defined in a regional land use map, should be linked to the implementation of binding adaptation measures in lower land use planning and at project level. An operationalisation of proposed assessment steps will be necessary for the regional-specific geographic and bio-physical conditions of the EU regions. The thesis concludes with future research needs and an outlook on the potential future role of SEA-REP. A clear responsibility of the future tasks of SEA-REP and LUCCA was recognised as a formal driving force for adaptation of land use to effects of climate change. Improved knowledge on spatial effects of climate change and vulnerability assessments will be required for an effective revision and application of SEA-REP and LUCCA. SEA should gain further importance in a transparent and participative decision-making. Environmental concerns and the protection of LUCCA will have to gain more weight, if the significance of danger and harm, caused by effects of climate change and anthropogenic land degradation, shall be mitigated now and in the future.
Urban morphology is used in many developed countries to classify and manage the dis-tribution of urban functions. In urban planning, it helps to identify the emerging prob-lems and solve the disorder of urban functions. The megacity Ho Chi Minh City has faced many problems with uncontrollable urbanization, urban management and plan-ning. It has received increasing tropical storms and cyclones which caused more heavy rains in recent decades. Rapid urbanization has caused the increase of built-up coverage with disordered typologies, incomplete infrastructure and urban-peripheral instability. In the flooding context, these problems have increased more seriously with flooding impacts and caused uncontrollable planning and management in the city. This study applies the urban morphology method to measure flood impacts on urban functions and develop the adaptive solutions for flooding adaptation for Ho Chi Minh City. The methods in this study are based on applying fractal geometry, GIS and Remote Sensing on large-scale maps for measuring the urban morphology. The land-use map and the building footprints map of 2010 were founded to analyze the distribution of urban areas by high resolution of satellite images and large scale GIS data. The fractal geometry was a setting based on Avenue program of Arcview GIS to measure the urban morphology. This formed a key input for the multi-criteria analysis (MCA) method that investigated the cause of flood impacts and suggested the solution for flooding adapta-tion. In addition, alterations of lakes, ponds and watercourse from 1995 to 2009 were explored. The study showed HCMC had problems on irrational development in residential densi-ties areas and urban functions, and the uneven development of population and residen-tial density between the urban areas: too much in the urban districts (about 300 to 500 persons per hectare per block and coverage ratio 0.7 - 0.9). This pushed the increasing demand on built-up area and filled-up rivers and canals (About 80 percent of original ponds and lakes in inner-center were filled-up in the past; and 63 percent of ponds and lakes have been filled-up in Sub-Districts and new-urban-development areas). It made the imbalance between the permeability of land surface and the run-off water flows; then leads the inundation to increase. This is the main reason for reducing the water-storage capacity in rainy season. Flooding in urban residential area was more im-pacted than in rural residential area, higher level and longer flood time; while flooding in the rainy season due to high tides, heavy rains or both was the emerging and uncon-trollable problems. For flooding adaptation, urban morphology analysis helped to figure out the potential areas in the city could be used for reducing flooding impacts in urban areas. There are many low-density residential areas in above 1.5 meter AMSL areas in the North, Northwest and Northeast areas of the city which could be developed with complete infrastructure and urban services to attract people from high-density residential areas impacted deeply by floods in the center. These potential areas could be the long-term strategic solution to flooding adaptation for HCMC. The results also suggested that some current flooded areas would be re-planned or returned to be the water-storage and permeable areas (such as green parks, ponds and lakes). This re-planning would improve the city landscape and increase the permeable surface, green spaces and open spaces to HCMC. More green spaces, lakes and ponds will also help to reduce the temperature of urban center in the dry season. This adaptation solution would reduce at least 25 percent of current flooded areas in urban center. The protection and constructed restriction of current agricultural areas in peri-urban Districts would maintain the infil-tration and green-tree areas. Furthermore, the complete drainage system would help to reduce better flood for these areas. Finally, fully dredging river and canal system of the city would reduce about 25 to 30 percent of current flooded areas.
Desertification is seen as a severe threat to Mediterranean ecosystems and the desert fringes. Both land use and climate variations may lead to an advance of the desert, and human and natural factors can be connected in feedback relationships. This makes it difficult to describe cause-and-effect relationships, and to predict the impact of global warming. A key is understanding historic desertification, since the investigation of the past allows to better separate the roles of man and weather. These questions were investigated in the Decapolis region in northern Jordan, an area in the transition zone between the Arabian desert and the Mediterranean climate belt. It had been assumed that historic desertification in the Decapolis was connected with severe degradation of soils, and caused by agricultural mismanagement and deforestation. This idea served as explanation for economic decay and abandonment of cities, too. However, the greatest part of the erosion took place during the last Ice Age and the Younger Dryas. There is no indication that the inanimate landscape changed significantly since the Bronze Age. Historic field systems were partially preserved and seem reflected by distinct soil development, indicating that the impact of land use was more complex and less devastating than previously assumed. Historic human impacts on the natural environment seem limited, and certainly not connected with desertification. Romantic northern European misconceptions of how a "natural" landscape should look like may in this context have contributed to a negative assessment of traditional agriculture in the Mediterranean. Comparative analyses of soils and colluvia, air photos, historic travel reports, tree rings and climate reconstructions indicate that population growth was behind the flourishing of the Decapolis, which took place mostly under favourably stable climatic conditions. Periods of decline seem triggered by climatic anomalies. As it seems, climate change was previously understood too linearly: extreme rainfall events can be more devastating than drought, and temperature, wind and rainfall distribution over the year are important as well. Cool and dry periods at the end of the last Ice Age were connected with incision and sometimes dramatic erosion. Climatic fluctuations during history may have been connected with pests, famines, plagues, and wars which caused dramatic drops of population levels. The ecological sensitivity of the desert belt may have aggravated the impact of climate variations. Economic recovery took place only when population levels rose again. It is so far unknown how climate will develop under global warming, but an increasing number of anomalous events could have dramatic impacts. The key for dealing with global warming seems therefore adaptation to climatic irregularities.
Sub-Saharan African cultural landscapes are adversely impacted by various development pressures, which calls for a holistic and integrated approach in their management. Mining development has been ranked highly by UNESCO World Heritage Centre, as one of the most common factors threatening the conservation and management of World Heritage properties around the world. For instance, out of 141 World Heritage properties which submitted their state of conservation reports in 2015, 18% were affected by mining activities. Out of these, 84% of the properties that were threatened by mining development were either cultural landscapes, natural properties and or mixed properties. African World Heritage cultural landscapes are the ones highly affected and threatened by planned and on-going mining and exploration activities.
Therefore, research was carried out using the Mulanje Mountain Cultural Landscape of Malawi and Mapungubwe Cultural landscape of South Africa. Specifically, the study aimed at examining the existing cultural landscape management theories and concepts in order to understand the key elements to be integrated into the suggested strategic management planning methodological framework. It also aimed at evaluating the impact of mining development on the conservation and management of African cultural landscapes. The study also investigated the stakeholder’s views and perception about the impact of mining activities on cultural and natural heritage values of the landscapes.
To achieve the research objectives, the literature was reviewed, firstly to determine the dimensions of cultural landscapes, and secondly, to determine the dimensions of mining development in World Heritage cultural landscapes. The study used two case studies as an effective comparative research strategy in the investigation of the conflicting issues of mining development against the conservation of the attributes of the two cultural landscapes. A case study research strategy was combined with other research methodologies. These included interviews, focus-group-discussions, observations, field site surveys, qualitative content analysis, and thematic analysis.
The study has revealed that stakeholder participation and inclusion is a key element in the integration of mining development in cultural landscape planning. This research has contributed to the methodological gap in cultural landscape management planning by developing and applying an integrated strategic management planning methodological framework. The application of this framework has shown that the governance in place for Mulanje Mountain cultural landscape conformed to the requirements of a long-term and holistic planning process and the participation and empowerment of multiple stakeholders in that process.
In most studies on flood risk in Nigeria, priority is given to urban flood risk than rural flood risk. Smallholder farmers who mostly inhabit rural areas and flood plains are known to be at great risk of flooding, but to date, there have been no studies on the impacts they experience and how they cope with these impacts.
To establish the existence of significant change in precipitation in the study area, statistical analysis of precipitation data was conducted using linear regression and non-parametric Mann Kendall test. Landsat satellite images for 1986, 2003 and 2016 were obtained from the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) website and used to collect and analyze data related to land use.
To determine flood risk in the context of land use change, the HEC-HMS model version 3.5 was used. Land use maps corresponding to 1986, 2003, and 2016 LULC conditions were analysed and prepared for the calculation of CN values using Soil Conservation Service (SCS-CN) method. CN map was prepared by integrating the maps of hydrologic soil groups and land use in ArcGIS software.
Based on selected morphological parameters, a flood risk map was developed for the study area. The morphologic flood risk showed that most parts of the basin face moderate flood risk. Higher runoff values were observed under 2016 LULC conditions mainly due to intense deforestation relative to those of 1986 and 2003. The results indicated that runoff and peak discharge are significantly affected by deforestation instead of changes in the rainfall pattern. Flood inundation maps of the study area were prepared for the flood events of 2012 and 2015. Maximum depth for the 2012 and 2015 flood events was calculated as 10.58m and 7.39m, respectively.
The socioeconomic aspects of the research were conducted using household survey method. Using snowball sampling techniques, 400 flood-affected households were selected. The results show that the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers in the study area remains very low and hampered by several factors such as poverty and weakened social networks. The synopsis of the examined variables leads to the following conclusion: Instead of climatic factors – as one indicator of vulnerability – it is social inequality and poverty in the region as well as the structural economic differences between various groups that mainly drives vulnerability in the study area.
Background: Food sustainability is becoming increasingly important for the achievement of sustainable development goals, especially in light of recent global challenges of climate change, geopolitical conflict and the increasing vulnerability of food systems. The world is emphasising the importance of holistic approaches to agriculture and food systems to tackle these challenges. Germany’s Sustainable Development Strategy for 2030 associates SDGs 2, 3 12 and 15 with sustainable agriculture and food systems as crucial elements to achieve these goals. However, with the lack of knowledge in this area, and the scarcity of tools to monitor and assess food sustainability, it has become crucial to investigate potential holistic approaches and frameworks to assess the sustainability of food systems.
Purpose: This study uses the national framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as the only available valid holistic framework, to explore the sustainability of the bread system in Germany. It operationalises the SDGs to bakery level to identify significant indicators that could, potentially, be used to assess the sustainability of artisan bakeries, and identify to which SDGs the bakeries contribute.
Methods: This study utilises a mixed-methods research design to address the multi-disciplinary nature of the food sustainability concept. It critically evaluates the SDG framework and identifies a set of indicators, which are expanded with further indicators to address the cultural dimension of bread as a cultural heritage. To collect data, a 26-item questionnaire was issued to 586 artisan bakeries with a response rate of 8.8% (n = 52); the 52 bakeries own 562 branches. This was followed by interviews with an acceptance rate of 19% (n = 10). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data, while the interviews were transcribed from German to English and coded using NVivo 11.
Results: Sustainable bread is redefined from a holistic perspective encompassing theory, policies and artisan bakeries. The results confirm that bakeries positively contribute to bread sustainability in Germany, as well as towards achieving the national SDGs. Progress areas include energy efficiency, sustainable packaging, local procurement, heritage promotion, waste reduction and ecolabels. Interestingly, individual bakeries appear to be slightly more sustainable than chains due to their flexibility in adapting to new practices and their use of organic products; however, chain bakeries are slightly less sustainable, but are proven to be more efficient in terms of productivity and market reach.
Historically as a city situated in a low-lying area a Ho Chi Minh City has been exposed to floods. Ho Chi Minh City is a megacity with uncontrollable urbanization and dynam-ic economies. In recent years, flood has become a serious problem with a multitude of follow-on impacts. It received more heavy rains affected by tropical storms and cy-clones. Further urbanization and future changes in climate are likely to increase flood risks. People have faced the flood impacts on the socioeconomic aspects in recent dec-ades. This study researched on 450 households in different spaces of the inner center (old districts), developed center (urban districts) and new-developing areas (peri-districts) and in different geographical elevations to identify the impacts of flooding in various space and time; and various problems on households’ socioeconomic aspects in flood residential areas. The multi-criteria analyses in GIS and with of the combination SPSS analysis, the sur-veyed households were identified by their location on the topographic map to clarify the flooding reasons and the types of flood in the areas. The 450 households were chosen in flood residential areas and selected in three categories of characteristics: (1) 150 poor households in flood housing areas; (2) 150 poor households in non-flood housing areas; and (3) 150 higher-income households in non-flood housing areas. This disparity was to analyze the different flood impacts on socioeconomic aspects and on household capitals amongst them. The linear regression in SPSS analysis was used to clarify the relation-ships between flood types with space factor (geographical elevation) and time factors (flood months in year, and flood years in residential areas). This test gave the supports to the reliability of the study results. By geographical elevation analysis, flood impacted on the areas in three main types: (1) flood by rain; (2) flood by tide; and (3) flood by both rain and tide. The tidal flood oc-cupied the low-elevation areas; flood by rain invaded the widespread higher-elevation areas; and the mix type of flood occupied the transition areas between flood areas by rain and by tide. Lower land had the deeper flood level, however; many of high-land areas were flooded in this city. Flood in residential areas had caused flood problems on streets, sidewalks (housing pavements), residential drainage system, water supply and electric power. In the poor households of Group One, flood in residential areas impacted their housing areas. To protect housing from flooding, many households had to invest their income for house rising or rebuilding or pavement rising, etc. They also privately invested for repairing or new buying their housing facilities, furniture and other appli-ances. Their income was lost and deficit. To the household capitals analysis, households were impacted more on physical, financial, natural and human capitals. The poor households in Group One had the most vulnerabilities amongst three groups, whilst there was no support from social organizations and government at levels. The household strategies developed in this study are to support people in flood and flood-prone areas conserving their capabilities to achieve the strategic outcome for sustainable develop-ment.