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Topic Review
Eco-safe Rural Roads assessment
Rural roads are important for the communities in the hilly areas of Nepal as they introduce livelihood opportunities at the local level, provide better access to the health care, education and resources. Yet, most of the rural roads in Nepal are unplanned and non-engineered, and these roads are often closed for many months during and after the monsoon. Such roads require huge investments, especially post-monsoon, to clear debris and to keep them operational. In parallel, there is evidence that such roads lead to large number of slope failures and accelerated sedimentation, which degrade the environment and ecosystem services. To remedy such roadside slope failures, eco-engineering practices were tested and demonstrated in partnership with three communities in the Panchase Region of the Nepal’s Central-Western Middle Hills.  Eco-engineering is a hybrid approach, combining civil engineering works for drainage and slope stability, with the plantation of deep-rooted vegetation. It is one activity contributing to Nature based Solutions (NbS) for the sustainable and long-term operation of the rural roads in the Panchase geographic region. This paper describes the inter-disciplinary and community-based research, monitoring and evaluation methods applied, including, the establishment of onsite demonstration plots and Rhizotrons in which Key performance Indicators (KPI) analysis of plant species were performed. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of eco-engineering for reducing risk, while creating ecological co-benefits along rural roads (or eco-safe roads) in hilly areas.  Based on this research, an ‘Eco-safe Rural Road Assessment Framework’ was developed, outlining the systematic process to be followed for the design of eco-safe rural roads for more sustainable road construction and maintenance. The ecological engineering practices which are being promoted by this framework have been accepted by communities and could be further implemented by local government bodies and up-scaled in other similar hilly areas around the country. 
  • 1.2K
  • 30 Oct 2020
Topic Review
EcoHealth
EcoHealth (also referred to as Health Ecology) is an emerging field of study researching how changes in the earth’s ecosystems affect human health. It has many prospects. EcoHealth examines changes in the biological, physical, social and economic environments and relates these changes to human health. Examples of these changes and their effects abound. Common examples include increases in asthma rates due to air pollution, PCB contamination of game fish in the Great Lakes of the United States , and habitat fragmentation leading to increasing rates of Lyme disease. Recently virulent new infectious diseases such as SARS, Ebola virus, Nipah virus, bird flu and hantavirus have all been found to result from ecosystem change created by humans. These diseases have high death rates and very few effective therapies. EcoHealth is bringing together physicians, veterinarians, ecologists, life scientists, social scientists, agricultural scientists, landscape and urban planners, and others to study how ecosystem changes affect human health. EcoHealth strives to provide innovative, practical solutions to reduce or reverse the negative health effects of ecosystem change, and to use the salutogenic effects of functional ecosystems to improve public health.
  • 848
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Ecological Compensation and Ecosystem Function Offsets
Ecological compensation, which is widely applied, is presumed to be an important mechanism to address environmental degradation that commonly occurs due to activities related to development projects and resource use. In comparison to carbon offsets, the implementation of biodiversity offsets are more challenging due to difficulties in biodiversity measurement, determining ecological equivalence, the relatively longer time taken, the higher level of uncertainty, the uniqueness of ecosystems, and the irreversibility of species loss. Generally, there is a positive relationship between biodiversity and carbon stocks; however, there are also cases where there are no clear or even negative relationships between biodiversity and carbon stocks. Ecosystem functions are directly or indirectly affected by environmental degradation, and ecological compensation measures usually compensate for only a few components of the ecosystem functions.
  • 395
  • 14 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Ecological Effects of Biodiversity
The diversity of species and genes in ecological communities affects the functioning of these communities. These ecological effects of biodiversity in turn are affected by both climate change through enhanced greenhouse gases, aerosols and loss of land cover, and biological diversity, causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and extinctions of species and local populations. The current rate of extinction is sometimes considered a mass extinction, with current species extinction rates on the order of 100 to 1000 times as high as in the past. The two main areas where the effect of biodiversity on ecosystem function have been studied are the relationship between diversity and productivity, and the relationship between diversity and community stability. More biologically diverse communities appear to be more productive (in terms of biomass production) than are less diverse communities, and they appear to be more stable in the face of perturbations. Also animals that inhabit an area may alter the surviving conditions by factors assimilated by climate.
  • 401
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Ecological Environment in Belt and Road Initiative Regions
With the widespread recognition and in-depth implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), especially in the context of global climate change, the ecological environment of Belt and Road Initiative regions might be confronted with pressures and challenges with rapid socioeconomic development. In response to those potential environmental challenges, China has put forward Green BRI and enriched the new Silk Road with more environmental connotations, aiming to reduce the conflict between economic development and eco-environmental protection.
  • 722
  • 03 Jan 2023
Topic Review
Ecological Footprint
Ecological Footprint (EF) is one of the most scientific methods for the assessment of environmental performance. It is broadly applied to measure the sustainability grade of communities. EF is also an accounting tool for quantifying Herman Daly’s (Nobel Prize winner for sustainable development) principles of sustainability, and it could provide the ability of natural resource consumption monitoring and present advice for the reduction of human pressure on the ecosystem.
  • 836
  • 09 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Ecological Footprint for the Algerian Fisheries Management
According to the estimated ecological footprint (EF) of fishery production (EFf), Algiers fishing is in the status of ecological surplus, as the demand for fisheries production averages 15,338.49 gha compared to more than 108 thousand gha of biologically productive fishing area. In addition to this overall output, this metric indicates each species’ primary production requirement (PPR), which could help to restructure the fishing effort based on the stock’s condition. For the energy component, the fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions expressed in metric tons of CO2 were used to estimate the required area for carbon sequestration, valued roughly at 500 gha. The latter is a reference state and remains approximate because it was derived from unofficial data provided by the fishers.
  • 813
  • 31 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Ecological Land in Arid Hilly
Cities in hilly arid areas of northwest China have generally experienced a low level of economic development; they also have unique natural characteristics such as climate, soil, terrain, environment, and surface cover. High quality ecological lands are those that provide humans and the environment with relatively high levels of ecological services including soil, water, and air purification, adsorbing pollutants, or providing water or nutrients needed by plants. This paper uses an improved model to evaluate the importance of ecological land in the core urban area of Lanzhou with specific attention to natural ecology and human needs. The purpose of this research is mainly twofold: (1) to construct a significant evaluation system for ecological land in the northwest arid hilly area, via the study’s methodology; (2) to explore the structure and spatial distribution characteristics of ecological land in the core area of Lanzhou in a practical sense, to reveal the development characteristics of ur-ban ecological land in the arid hilly region of northwest China, and to provide some guidance for the long-term development of Lanzhou.
  • 545
  • 17 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Ecological–Health Risk Assessments of Copper in the Sediments
The ecological and children’s HRA were assessed in all CCDITS (Cited Cu Data in The Sediments). Generally, local point Cu sources (8%) and lithogenic sources were the main controlling factors of Cu concentrations. 
  • 402
  • 26 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Economic Complexity
Economic complexity, which links the productive structure of a country with its knowledge, labour, and sophistication, seems to raise new challenges for the environment’s preservation and quality. The relationship between economic complexity and the environment is multi-faced and creates unimagined challenges for humanity in its path toward social and economic progress. 
  • 2.8K
  • 22 Jan 2022
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