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Sustainable Livelihood Security Index
Published in Shruti Kanga, Suraj Kumar Singh, Gowhar Meraj, Majid Farooq, Geospatial Modeling for Environmental Management, 2022
Supratim Guha, Dillip Kumar Barik, Venkata Ravibabu Mandla
Forest cover is one of the key indicators in ecological sustainability. For example, forest cover plays a significant role in the carbon cycle, water cycle, soil preservation, and pollution control and also gives shelter to some habitats. In addition, forests provide resources for humans not only in terms of food but also housing, agriculture, and a cluster of marketable forest products. Unfortunately, conservation of the forest resources is threatened due to tremendous growth in population, fragmentation of the land holdings, demand for the fodder, and energy resources. A minimum forest cover is essential for a healthy environment to ensure ecological security. Variables of human density were selected to reflect the extent of stress on the overall ecological security in terms of forest loss and habitat degradation (Maikhuri et al., 2001; Arjunan et al., 2005). In particular, the increase of population in a comparatively short duration is responsible for increasing the built-up area. Gradually, the built-up areas are grabbing forests, agricultural fields, and water bodies, thus hampering the sustainability. Hence, it is a negative indicator in the determination of SLSI. Similarly, waterbodies have a strong relationship with climatic changes having great impacts on anthropogenic water resources (Li et al., 2013; Pekel et al., 2016; Tao et al., 2015; Tulbure and Broich, 2013; Tulbure et al., 2014; Zou et al., 2017). Therefore, it is very much essential to protect waterbodies for environmental as well as anthropogenic purposes.
Forests and Tree-based Land Use Systems: Mitigation and Adaptation Option to Combat Climate Change
Published in Moonisa Aslam Dervash, Akhlaq Amin Wani, Climate Change Alleviation for Sustainable Progression, 2022
Kamini Gautam, Sapna Thakur, Vipasha Bhat, Sheeraz Saleem Bhat
Forests act as a stabilising force for maintaining the global climate system and play a twofold role in climate change. They act as both a carbon source and a sink for greenhouse gas emissions. Forests unfold immense opportunities to address the effects of climate change. Forests being a largest storehouse of carbon after the oceans, hold more than 652 billion tonnes of sequestered carbon, 44% in the biomass, 11% in dead wood and litter, and rest 45% in the soil (FAO, 2010). Approximately 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is sequestered annually by forests, which accounts for one-third of the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels (IUCN 2021). Further, IPCC in its third Assessment Report has reported that the global forests possess a biophysical-mitigation potential of 5,380 Mt CO2/yr on an average by 2050, whereas the SR LULUCF holds a mitigation potential of 11670 Mt CO2/yr on all lands (IPCC, 2000a; IPCC, 2001). Globally two billion hectares of degraded land is available for the restoration. Increasing the forest cover and their sustainable management is of utmost importance as a measure to combat global climate change. Similarly, halting the speed of forest degradation and encouraging their restoration can contribute towards one- third of the total climate change mitigation (IUCN 2021).
Ethical dimensions of renewable energy
Published in Andrew Maynard, Jack Stilgoe, The Ethics of Nanotechnology, Geoengineering and Clean Energy, 2020
Hydro (water) power includes a range of renewable energy production, including large-scale hydro-power dams, small-scale low head hydro turbines, micro-hydro, and related pumped storage plants which use water to store potential electricity. Hydro, utilising an existing flow resource, has the potential to produce unlimited zero-carbon energy. At the same time, it may involve expensive infrastructure and its potential is so far less fully realised in the developing world than in the industrial or industrialising world — at present China is the leading hydro power producer. However, the consequences of large-scale hydro dams for the ecosystem, and for local and upstream/downstream human populations (who may not even benefit from the energy) means that large-scale hydro may not be viewed as renewable from the wider perspective on sustainability. This immediately raises the ethical issue of ‘inequity in distribution of impacts among different social groups’: Diversion of the river resulted in loss of water sports (for high-income groups both local and remote), loss of historical monuments (for remote high-income groups) and recreation losses (for local poor). Removal of forest cover leads to loss of non-timber products (for local poor) and carbon storage (for remote high- and low-income groups). Loss of home garden productivity was borne by local poor groups. Benefit of the project, generation of 145 GWh annually, was a gain for the grid connected groups.(Gunawardena 2010, 726)
Land use/land cover dynamics and perception of the local communities in Bita district, south western Ethiopia
Published in International Journal of River Basin Management, 2023
Fikire Belete, Melesse Maryo, Alemtshay Teka
Our planet earth is endowed with plenty of natural resources which sustained life for millennia (FAO, 2016). People began converting natural ecosystems into other land-use types using fires and primitive tools to enable hunting and produce food through agricultural activities (Reid et al., 2000). For instance, about half of the ice-free land surface has been modified by human activities over the last 10,000 years (Lambin et al., 2003). At global levels, one third of forest land area was covered and vast areas of this surface have changed due to natural and human factors (FAO, 2015). Today, human beings developed greater technological capacity than ever before to bring about speedy land-use changes on a very large scale (FAO, 2016). Land use/land cover change (LULCC) is the change in the aerial extent of a given type of LULC (Erb, 2012). It is one of the major threats to the loss of biological resources, mainly forests, grasslands, wetlands and the varied wildlife worldwide which in turn causes global environmental change. The conversion of forest land to other land-use types to satisfy human needs is the key factor for land degradation, habitat fragmentation and the loss of biodiversity from the earth’s surface (FAO, 2010a; Samuel et al., 2014). Deforestation and forest degradation are the main challenges for the loss of forest cover in developing countries (Goll, Nick et al., 2014; Hosonuma et al., 2012).
Modelling areas for sustainable forest management in a mining and human dominated landscape: A Geographical Information System (GIS)- Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) approach
Published in Annals of GIS, 2022
Xavier Takam Tiamgne, Felix Kanungwe Kalaba, Vincent Raphael Nyirenda, Darius Phiri
Forests are home to vast amounts of terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, and they are the most species-rich habitat type on the planet, particularly in humid tropical regions (Lindenmayer 2009; Gibson et al. 2011). Human activities that result in forest loss, fragmentation, and degradation (FAO 2015) have already resulted in a significant loss of biodiversity and homogenization (Lindenmayer and Franklin 2002). The rate of deforestation is expected to increase, particularly in the rich forests of Central and South America, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa (Keenan et al. 2015). These changes in forest cover and condition are a cause for concern because they threaten biodiversity and a wide range of critical ecosystem services such as climate regulation, biomass production, water supply and purification, pollination, and habitat for forest species (Brockerhoff et al. 2013; Mori, Lertzman, and Gustafsson 2017).
A remotely sensed tracking of forest cover and associated temperature change in Margalla hills
Published in International Journal of Digital Earth, 2019
Noora Khalid, Saleem Ullah, Sheikh Saeed Ahmad, Asad Ali, Farrukh Chishtie
In Pakistan, the forest covered area is not more than 5% of the total land (IUCN 2005; Shahbaz, Ali, and Suleri 2007). Majority of the country forests are located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (a province in the north and western part) which accounts for over 40% of national forest wealth and is continuously dropping over the years (IUCN 2005). Pakistan is reported to have the highest rate of deforestation in South Asia (World Bank 2013). This alarming situation demands detailed research efforts to quantify the decline of forest reserves. Various researchers have attempted to study forest attributes using old conventional techniques which are based on human observations and have rarely employed latest technologies like satellite remote sensing. As such, conventional methods are costly, more time consuming, demand large human resources and lack continuous spatial coverage, which hardly help the government in enforcing regulations and policies to mitigate deforestation. Remote sensing (especially satellite remote sensing) offers an effective alternative to monitor forests wealth at a low cost and more precisely to quantify forest cover changes at different scales. Moreover, using remote sensing technology, results can be reproduced. Remote sensing applications in forestry not only reduce the survey crew and cost, but can observe areas which are otherwise inaccessible by conventional approaches. Thus, remote sensing has emerged as a vital decision-support tool for forest managers to monitor forests over large areas at reparative intervals.