Summary

Environmental science emerged from the fields of natural history and medicine during the Enlightenment. Today, it provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems. Environmental studies are incorporating more of the social sciences in order to understand human relationships, perceptions and policies towards the environment. This entry collection features information about design and technology for improving environmental quality in every aspect.

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Topic Review
Air Pollution and Settlement Intention in China
Air pollution has a significant negative effect on migrants’ settlement intention. The effect of air pollution on settlement intention is influenced by individual socioeconomic status; that education level, as an indicator of cognitive ability, affects migrants’ motivation to migrate; and that personal income, as an indicator of economic ability, affects the feasibility of their migration. Motivation to migrate and the feasibility of moving determine together the divergence in settlement intention, and those with higher incomes and higher education levels are more likely to leave cities with serious air pollution. Third, the heterogeneous effects suggested that the negative effect of air pollution was greater for older, male, and married migrants. Air pollution has a variety of effects on the heterogeneous migrants, resulting in changes in the demographic structure of cities.
  • 909
  • 27 May 2022
Topic Review
Electric Cars in Brazil
Brazil has been successful to reduce its carbon footprint using biofuels, but it is facing a dilemma in vehicle electrification. It cannot shift abruptly to battery electric vehicles, as current consumers are unable to afford them and investment in recharging infrastructure is uncertain. However, it has a significant manufacturing base, and it cannot isolate itself from global industrial trends. The emergence of a dominant design (set of core technologies defining a product category and adopted by the majority of players in the market) in small and affordable segments is essential for the diffusion of electric cars in developing countries. Biofuel hybrid technologies may support the transition. The Brazilian industry can engage in electric vehicle development by designing small cars based on global architectures, targeting consumers in emerging markets. 
  • 2.3K
  • 22 Jun 2025
Topic Review
The Belt and Road Initiative
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, is an international initiative with vital implications for the economy, society, culture, and the environment. Consisting of the "Silk Road Economic Belt" and the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", the BRI was inherited and developed from the ancient Silk Road that played an essential role in connecting the West with the East on various socio-economic levels with its spirit of peace, friendship, inclusiveness, openness, and mutual benefit for many centuries.
  • 2.5K
  • 30 May 2022
Topic Review
Ecosystem Services Potential of Endemic Floras
Natural, sustainable products arise in many fields, wild plants are reconsidered as providers of traditional or innovative applications. The notion of ecosystem services (ES) provides a frame to evaluate their benefits, but is still scarcely applied to endemic floras.
  • 1.5K
  • 31 May 2022
Topic Review
Regenerative Agriculture and Farmscape Function
The concept of a regenerative agriculture can be traced back to the cusp of the 1980s and discussions of sustainability. Early authors stressed that to achieve sustainable food production, the resources agriculture depended upon initially needed to be restored from the degraded state conventional agriculture had caused. For modern authors, within and outside regenerative agriculture, these resources—soil, water, biota, and the long term viability of human agricultural labor—have continued to deteriorate. To prioritise the regeneration of these resources; as has begun with the concept of ecosystem functions, goods, and services generally; researchers must specifically determine the functions people require of their farmscapes so that agricultural systems can be iteratively designed to meet these needs. 
  • 1.1K
  • 26 May 2022
Topic Review
Past and Future of Permafrost Monitoring
Changes in the thermal state of permafrost under the influence of climatic variations have occurred over the years, but have not reached their maximum. This circumstance significantly increases the risks in fuel and energy complex stability. Everywhere in the Russian Arctic, there is a loss of the bearing capacity in the bases of buildings and structures. The vast majority of the permafrost data are outdated and need to be actualized in the formation of a unified monitoring system. The development of the fuel and energy complex in the Russian Arctic complements the impact of background climate change. As a result of the joint effect of climate warming and large-scale man-made impacts on permafrost, a cumulative effect arises. Its consequences critically accelerate the loss of the stability of frozen foundations, which leads to major accidents of natural–technical systems.
  • 900
  • 26 May 2022
Topic Review
Mineralogy and Geochemistry of Ferromanganese Crusts
Late Pleistocene–Holocene rocks from the western part of Cocos-Nazca Spreading Centre (C-NSC) include ferromanganese crusts that elucidate the geochemistry and mineralogy of a deep-sea geological setting. Geochemical, mineralogical and petrological signatures indicate complex formation influenced by mild hydrothermal processes. These crusts consist mostly of mixed birnessite, todorokite-buserite, and Mn-(Fe) vernadite with traces of diagenetic manganates (asbolane), Fe-oxides and oxyhydroxides or hydrothermally associated and relatively pure Mn-oxyhydroxides (manganite). The average Mn/Fe ratio is 2.7, which suggests predominant mixed hydrogenous-early diagenetic crusts with hydrothermal influences. The mean concentrations of three prospective metals (Ni, Cu and Co) are low: 0.17, 0.08 and 0.025 wt %, respectively. The total content of ΣREY is also low, and ranges from 81 to 741 mg/kg (mean 339 mg/kg).
  • 1.4K
  • 27 May 2022
Topic Review
Marine Plastic Litter Reduction in Manila
Without coordinated intervention, the annual flow of plastics into the ocean is expected to nearly triple by 2040, from 11 million tons today to 29 million metric tons, globally. Manila Bay, situated in Manila, is where the challenges related to plastic pollution are of great importance nationally and, thus, make headlines globally, as plastic waste that is not properly managed has increased the economic and environmental effects of marine plastics. At the global governance forum on 2 March 2022, at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, 175 countries endorsed a historic resolution to end plastic pollution and forge an international, legally binding agreement by the end of 2024. With this global and binding agreement, cities like Manila could properly enforce measures to end this plastic pollution—which needs the political will of the administrators and the participation of the relevant constituents. 
  • 1.5K
  • 26 May 2022
Topic Review
Market Premium for Green Buildings
In real estate markets, there is growing relevance of Green Buildings, especially in cities where the greater part of residential buildings is built before the first regulations on energy performance. Through policies oriented towards sustainable practices, a twofold goal can be achieved: energy consumption mitigation respecting the historical value for existing buildings, direct economic impacts on real estate values.
  • 1.6K
  • 25 May 2022
Topic Review
Abandoned Croplands in South Africa
There is no standardised definition of agricultural land abandonment; however, a simple definition is the cessation of agricultural activities on a given surface of land. The term agricultural land abandonment is inclusive of land previously used for crops, vegetables, fruit trees, and cultivated and natural pastures. Other agricultural land abandonment studies specifically focus on crops, hence terms such as cropland abandonment, formerly arable lands, and old arable lands or fields are used. Others specify that for the land to qualify as abandoned, it should not be used for any other activity such as urbanisation or afforestation. Therefore, in the context of the rural areas of Africa wherein the cessation of cropping the land is used for grazing, the definition of cropland abandonment suffices. Baxter and Calvert define cropland abandonment as a process of withdrawing cropland from active agricultural production without a plan for crop cultivation in the immediate future. The cessation is usually due to a decline in economic viability even after changes in farming practices. Cessation results in natural succession wherein grasses, shrubs, and trees colonise former cropping lands; it can also result in land degradation. In the former homeland communal areas of South Africa, where the main agricultural activity involves cropping and livestock production, by default if the land is not used for cropping it turns into a grazing area. The same trend of abandoned cropping lands being used for grazing was also reported in Botswana. Therefore, the definition of abandoned cropping land is land mainly used for grazing. The areas are sometimes also called old fields, fallow, or idle fields. Some have turned to be secondary grasslands.
  • 3.1K
  • 25 May 2022
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