Academic literature on the topic 'Mining -affected areas'

Multi-criteria decision analysis and cost-benefit analysis, either individually or in combination, have been used as the preferred tools to develop ecosystem services valuation, presenting significant discrepancies and variations between the calculated values. To counteract this problem, a new framework was developed based on a hierarchical weighting of the non-provisioning ecosystem services, using biodiversity as the reference ecosystem service since it is the easiest to apprehend. Their monetisation was made using the average price of EU carbon dioxide emission allowances during 2019 and 2020, obtaining reasonable and comparable results in line with what was expected for the study region. However, the revised EU Emissions Trading System Directive, which will apply from 2021–2030, generated a price escalation of carbon allowances, making it necessary to adjust or rethink the proposed framework. To achieve this goal, the paper proposes the introduction of new vectors or “missing ecosystem services” to counterbalance efforts to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions without necessarily removing humans from the equation: welfare and human health. As the linkages regarding ecosystem health, ecological restoration and human health are not well known, only welfare was incorporated into the framework. The results were highly satisfactory, in line with what was expected for the study region and the ones obtained before the price escalation of carbon allowances that started in 2021.

Abstract Coal extraction in Valea Jiului leaves behind large areas of affected land. Once the mining units in Valea Jiului are closed, they can be given a different destination than the original one. Both surface and underground constructions can be used for other purposes, both economic and environmental protection. One of the mining operations that is currently in the process of closure and greening is the Lupeni Mining. In this paper we will present some solutions for the reuse of the areas affected by coal extraction at the Lupeni Mine.

A major challenge in using recovery techniques, for the different natural ecosystems affected by mining, is a mutual relationship between the habitat and its biota response. This study aimed to do a review to identify the number of publications, which countries are publishing more and which recovery techniques and taxonomic group are used in mining areas globally have contributed to the maintenance or recovery of the environment. We reviewed the literature on recovery in mining areas worldwide, between 1994 and 2016, using the Web of Science online database. We identified 9,000 publications, after the selection procedures, we analyzed the 467 remaining manuscripts. Of these, 34.26% were published between 1994 and 2004, and 65.74% between 2006 and 2016. The countries that contributed the most were the USA with 16.45%, Australia with 13.56% and China with 8.66%. Brazil contributed 6.9% of the publications. The recovery techniques using vegetation were the most reported in the literature and most used. The taxonomic group of terrestrial plants was the most cited and most used in the recovery of degraded areas. We found various techniques for recovering degraded areas can be established, but most of them did not show proper monitoring and without this the recovery processes may not achieve their objectives and studies that test the effect size of these recovery methods are still necessary.

This study aims to analyze the recovery of the agricultural area’s function affected by the Poboya traditional gold mining in supporting the stability of sustainable food supply. We began the research by examining the existing mining land conditions through spatial analysis (land cover and land use changes from 2010 to 2019). Apart from that, it also analyzed the land’s health was through the soil’s physical and chemical properties, especially mercury. The observation proved that changes in the land’s cover and uses lead to decreased land quality and degradation. The existing condition showed heavy metals, particularly mercury, mostly polluted agricultural land in the mining area. The model design produced by this study may 1) emphasize land arrangement; 2) revegetation design with forestry, plantation, and food crops; 3) domesticated plant; and 4) environmental monitoring, concerning monitoring of soil quality, monitoring of erosion and sedimentation, water quality, acid mine drainage, successful revegetation, and others. These four aspects expect to help suppress the rate of land degradation in agriculture located in ex-mining areas and reduce forest destruction in the Grand Forest Park area.

Increasing anthropogenic activities are threatening freshwater ecosystems worldwide. Sand mining in Poyang Lake has significantly impacted the wetland ecosystem over the past 20 years, yet a quantitative analysis of these impacts remains insufficient. Here, we used 63 Landsat images taken from 2000 to 2020 along with the support vector machine (SVM) method and a retrieval model of suspended sediment concentration (SSC) to identify sand mining vessels and areas affected by sand mining. Then, we analyzed the changes in landscape patterns in the areas affected by sand mining. The potential impact of underwater noise generated by sand mining vessels on Yangtze finless porpoises was analyzed by a sound propagation model. The number of sand mining vessels in Poyang Lake during the flood, normal, and dry seasons increased from 2000 to 2016 but rapidly decreased from 2017 to 2020. Sand mining vessels were mainly distributed in the northern channel from 2000 to 2006, moved toward the center of the lake from 2007 to 2010, then moved northward in 2017. Within the areas affected by sand mining, water and mudflats declined, grassland and sandbars increased, and the landscape discontinuity increased. The habitat of the Yangtze finless porpoise affected by underwater noise from sand mining vessels in all seasons has significantly increased overtime. The mean area of the affected habitats was 70.65% (dry), 64.48% (normal), and 63.30% (flood) of the total habitat areas. The porpoise habitats in the northern channel and the west branch of the Ganjiang River are more seriously affected by the underwater noise of sand mining vessels than the southern lake. The impact of sand mining activities on wetland landscape and aquatic species demands systematic investigation in the future.

The rehabilitation of abandoned mining sites is an increasingly pressing issue in the context of sustainable development. Recent research has emphasized the need for a holistic approach to the abandoned mining sites and their environmental rehabilitation. Based on field analysis, environmental assessments, satellite imagery processing and geographic information operations, this paper pushes forward the existing knowledge by conducting a comprehensive assessment of abandoned mining sites in the Romanian Carpathians and by proposing innovative and sustainable rehabilitation solutions. Our findings highlight that abandoned mining sites and their surrounding territories in the Romanian mountains have significant ecological imbalances and complex socio-economic issues. The findings also suggest that by adopting innovative, integrated, and sustainability-oriented approaches, territories affected by mining can be transformed into valuable and sustainable spaces to meet human needs. We conclude by presenting the importance of innovation in ecological reconstruction and spatial–functional reintegration of mining sites in mountain areas as a useful tool in making fair decisions, both in the context of implementing appropriate development policies as well as for the resilience and environmental sustainability of mining-affected mountain areas.

Mining activities are among the most long-lasting anthropogenic pressures on streams and rivers. Therefore, detecting different benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the areas recovered from mining activities is essential to establish conservation and management plans for improving the freshwater biodiversity in streams located near mining areas. We compared the stability of benthic macroinvertebrate communities between streams affected by mining activities (Hwangjicheon: NHJ and Cheolamcheon: NCA) and the least disturbed stream (Songjeonricheon: NSJ) using network analysis, self-organizing map, and indicator species analysis. Species richness was lowest at sites where stream sediments were reddened or whitened due to mining impacts in NHJ and NCA. Among functional feeding groups, the ratio of scrapers was lower (i.e., NHJ) or not observed (i.e., NCA) in the affected sites by mining. The networks (species interactions) were less connected in NHJ and NCA than in NSJ, indicating that community stability decreased in the area affected by mining activity. We identified five groups based on the similarity of benthic macroinvertebrate communities according to the gradients of mining impacts using a self-organizing map. the samples from the reference stream (clusters 1 and 5), sites located near the mining water inflow area (cluster 4), sites where stream sediments acid-sulfated (cluster 2), and sites that had recovered from mining impacts (cluster 3). Among the 40 taxa selected as indicators defined from the five clusters in self-organizing map, only few (Physa acuta, Tipula KUa, and Nemoura KUb) indicator species were selected in each cluster representing the mining-impacted sites. Our results highlighted that the benthic macroinvertebrate community complexity was lower in streams affected by mining activity. Furthermore, the range of disturbed areas in the streams, where conservation and management plans should be prioritized, can be quantified by examining alterations in the benthic macroinvertebrate community.

This chapter focuses on environmental dimensions of water. The first section of this chapter reproduces general environmental law instruments relevant in the context of protection and conservation of water and related ecosystem. This is followed by a section on environmental law instruments that specifically address the issues of water pollution and water quality. Protection and conservation of water requires regulation of a number of activities that affect water bodies and thus the fourth section captures regulation of activities in catchment areas and regulation of activities that particularly and directly affects water—for example sand mining. Protection and conservation of water also requires augmentation measures and measures to ensure optimal use of water. The fourth and fifth section, thus, focuses two such measures, rainwater harvesting and recycle and re-use of wastewater.

Pollution is one of the most pressing issues facing contemporary China and among the most prominent causes for unrest. Much of industry and mining takes place in rural areas, yet we know little about how rural communities affected by severe pollution make sense of it and the diverse form of activism they embrace. This book describes some of these engagements with pollution through three in-depth case studies based on the author’s fieldwork and an analysis of “cancer villages” examined in existing social science accounts. It challenges assumptions that villagers are ignorant about pollution or fully complicit with it and it looks beyond high-profile cases and beyond single strategies. It examines how villagers’ concerns and practices evolve over time and how pollution may become normalised. Through the concept of “resigned activism”, it advocates rethinking conventional approaches to activism to encompass less visible forms of engagement. It offers insights into the complex dynamics of popular contention, environmental movements and their situatedness within local and national political economies. Describing a likely widespread scenario across much of industrialised rural China, this book provides a window onto the staggering human costs of development and the deeply uneven distribution of costs and benefits. It portrays rural environmentalism and its limitations as prisms through which to study key issues surrounding contemporary Chinese culture and society, such as state responsibility, social justice, ambivalence towards development and modernisation and some of the new fault lines of inequality and social conflict which they generate.

This chapter takes a social cognitive affective neuroscience approach to describe the processes and systems to give rise to emotion and the volitional control of emotion. It provides a detailed description of the processes that underlie the regulation of emotion. It introduces and synthesizes the brain structures involved in emotion processing and regulation. There is a particular focus on the role of the ventrolateral, dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrtonal cortex, amgydala, ventral striatum and insula, and on cognitive strategies such as reappraisal. It provides a critical framework for understanding the underlying behavioral and neural basis for the affect dysregulation observed across personality disorders, and summarizes future directions for this area of investigation.

This book is about the challenges and opportunities facing developing countries in using their extractive industries (oil and gas and mining) to achieve inclusive and sustainable development. While resource wealth can yield prosperity, it can also cause acute social inequality, deep poverty, environmental damage, and political instability. There is a new determination to improve the benefits of extractive industries to their host countries, and to strengthen the sector’s governance. The book provides a comprehensive contribution to a debate on what must be done for the extractive industries to deliver development, protect often-fragile environments from damage, enhance the rights of affected communities (and the benefits to them), and support climate change action (as the world transitions away from fossil fuels). That debate has many participants: governments of resource-abundant countries; extractives companies (together with their industry associations); community-based organizations (and their NGO and INGO partners); bilateral and multilateral development agencies; the national and international media; and the research community in universities and think tanks. New initiatives all recognize that resource wealth can provide a means for poorer nations to decisively break with poverty—by diversifying economies and funding development spending. This book offers ideas and recommendations in the main policy areas as it brings together international experts from many disciplines and organizations. From this collective insight and experience, the book concludes that more attention must be given to the development role of extractive industries, and looks to the future as action on climate change will shape the prospects for the sector.

Arsenic in Drinking Water and Skin Cancer is a comprehensive guide that explains the relationship between arsenic-contaminated water and the development of skin cancer.The article is organized into distinct sections that provide a clear understanding of how arsenic enters drinking water, the health risks associated with exposure, and strategies for prevention. It begins by defining arsenic as a naturally occurring element found in rocks, soil, and water, while also highlighting how human activities like mining and industrial waste contribute to water contamination. The article emphasizes that while trace amounts of arsenic in water are harmless, prolonged exposure to levels above the safety limit of 10 micrograms per liter (µg/L) can lead to skin-related health problems. The guide explores how arsenic exposure affects the skin, causing visible signs such as dark patches (hyperpigmentation) and rough, scaly lesions (keratosis), which can later develop into skin cancer. It explains the biological mechanisms, focusing on DNA damage and oxidative stress caused by arsenic exposure. The article identifies high-risk populations, such as people living in areas with arsenic-contaminated groundwater. The information is presented in simple terms to ensure it is accessible and easy to understand for all readers.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

In the age of the Anthropocene, human impact on a geologic scale infiltrates nearly every aspect of contemporary life. The immense breadth and depth of the changes to the planet that have been caused by this impact have affected my work and my pedagogy as an artist and educator interested in connections between culture and environment.Although I have always been interested in the Anthropocene, my fascination with its artifacts grew when I accepted a teaching position in the School of Art and Design at West Virginia University and moved to “The Mountain State”—or what West Virginia’s former governor and now senator, Joe Manchin, has lovingly called “The Extraction State.” Here, it is obvious that not only have the surface and ecology of mountains changed because of defores-tation, but entire topographies have morphed in a geologic instant as a product of large-scale mountaintop removal (MTR) mining. This type of mining is a quick, relatively inexpensive process in which the summits of mountains are blasted away to expose coal seams, and the overburden is dumped into adjacent valleys. This anthropocentric practice has come to define the state and has created a battleground, pitting local communities and the mountain ecol-ogy against an ever-growing, global need for cheap energy. In mined areas of Appalachia, the biodiversity of some of the oldest mountains in the world is obliterated instantly, habitats are immediately lost and clean water sources are buried or left highly contaminated. In addition, the local people often suffer from serious health issues affecting their lungs, kidneys, hearts, and nervous systems. They also suffer economically as property values drop, businesses close, and economic diversity is lost.

AbstractArea-based management tools (ABMTs) for the marine realm can comprise a multitude of different concepts. They have in common that their main purpose is the conservation of the marine environment and the balancing of different ocean uses. Although marine protected areas (MPAs) are a widely discussed concept and part of ABMTs, the latter term goes further. This is exemplified by the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) that includes a definition of ABMTs. Many such tools address specific human ocean uses in a geographically defined area, for example, shipping, fisheries, seabed mining, and other resource extraction. Others are designed to be cross-sectoral and pursue a broader objective such as balancing (all) relevant uses as part of marine spatial planning or more comprehensive protection of biological diversity. This chapter focuses upon international legal agreements that employ area-based management which addresses or potentially affects shipping to explore and compare their scope and purposes. This includes treaties with a global scope (e.g., UNCLOS, MARPOL, SOLAS, BBNJ Agreement) but also some regionally limited instruments (e.g., regional fisheries agreements). One of the leading questions is to what extent the international legal framework on ABMTs is set up in a coherent manner or whether—due to different purposes of ABMTs from different agreements and disconnection—it places burdens upon the shipping sector that are not necessarily justified to enhance sustainability in ocean governance.

Our research task is to present and analyse features of the local human-nature and human-reindeer relations in the historical timespan of the twentieth century and in the context of cultural nature in the historical Forest Sami area of Finnish Mid-Lapland. By cultural nature we refer to the different meanings and attributes groups and individuals give and have given to their surrounding natural environment with its fauna, flora, and waterways. The question is viewed through environmental changes and the meanings connected to reindeer roundups (corrals) and roundup places as an example of human-nature interaction. The reindeer roundups have historically been important social meeting places for subarctic communities, and the roundup events have traditionally been the highlight of the reindeer year. Our empirical focus lies in two reindeer herding cooperatives (Finn. paliskunta), Sattasniemi and Oraniemi, geographically located in the middle of Finnish Lapland ‒ mainly in Sodankylä, and partly in Savukoski and Pelkosenniemi municipalities ‒ and the reindeer roundup processes in these cooperatives. Our key source data consists of archival material, such as the minutes and reports of the Reindeer Herders Association and Sattasniemi co-operative. We have also utilised regional, local and occupational newspapers and magazines from the 1920s to the 2010s. In order to reach the voices of the contemporary herder communities we conducted a Cultural Nature Survey from 22 February to 30 March 2021. In the course of the twentieth century, Mid-Lapland faced enormous environmental changes. Intensive forestry, energy production and the mining industry have physically altered the landscape and disturbed reindeer herding based on natural pasture rotation. Continuity of livelihood and way of life are worrying issues in the region. The feeling of not being heard or understood also affects communities’ nature and reindeer relationships. The more the surrounding natural and cultural environments have changed, the more the Mid-Lappish communities have tried to revitalise the ‘original’ nature-human-reindeer relationship and the nostalgic stories of dense forests, free waterways and untouched wilderness. The locals emphasise their ‘authentic’ Lappish lifestyle, at least in terms of reindeer herding. This endeavour can be regarded as cultural use of nature. The article was prepared in cooperation between the University of Lapland and the University of Eastern Finland. It is part of the HISTECO project (2019‒2023) funded by the Academy of Finland and led by Sari Stark.

The sandstone quarrying and mining in Vidhyan region of Uttar Pradesh has severely devastated the floral biodiversity of the adjacent forest area. It is necessary to conserve these areas for the protection and sustainable use of forest resources. In most of the conservation program, microbial deficiency creates problems in establishment of the vegetation and delays the natural succession. Therefore, probiotic interventions were applied to conserve these areas promptly. The probiotic beneficial microbes' interventions, due to their multifarious beneficial characters, may facilitate the upcoming of flora through enrichment of the soil, better nutrient absorption, providing resistance against different stresses, etc. Probiotic interventions may positively impact the conservation of floral diversity and restoration of stone mining-affected forest area.

In abandoned mining areas, heavy metals may exist. Those heavy metals can cause physical consequences and death. Through the use of geographic information systems (GIS), the environmental diagnosis of vegetation potentially affected by the presence of very toxic heavy metals in abandoned mining areas in Extremadura was conducted. Initially, graphic and alphanumeric information was obtained from numerous sources, and the geospatial database generated was analyzed, allowing the location of abandoned mines. Subsequently, the mines were classified according to the degree of toxicity of the heavy metals that had been exploited. Then, taking into account the mines whose heavy metals were considered very toxic, a geospatial analysis was performed using concentric buffers at 1, 5, 10, 20, 40, and 60 kilometres. The results obtained made it possible to obtain thematic cartography representative of the areas potentially affected. The proportion of vegetation potentially affected, has been classified according to the existing vegetation series and climatic belts.

Risk assessment for human health and ecosystems by exposure to chemicals is an important process to aid in the mitigation of affected areas. Generally, this process is carried out in isolated spots and therefore may be ineffective in mitigating. This chapter describes an architecture of a multi-agent system for environmental risk assessment in areas contaminated as often occur in mining, oil exploration, intensive agriculture and others. Plan multiple points in space-time matrix where each agent carries out exposure assessment and the exchange of information on toxicity, to characterize and classify risk in real time. Therefore, it is an architecture model with multi-agent that integrates ontology by semantic representation, classifies risks by decision rules by support vectors machines with multidimensional data. The result is an environment to exchange information that provides knowledge about the chemical contamination, which can assist in the planning and management of mitigation of the affected area.

Brown Coal Research Institute j. v. c. (VUHU) from July 2023, together with scientific teams from several European countries, participates as part of the EU research program in the solution of the REECOL project, which deals with the reclamation of areas affected by mining in European coal basins. This paper includes the results achieved in the preparation of the first sub-research report of the project, which deals with degraded soils. On the basis of archival data and own research, the concept of "soil degradation" was defined for the purposes of the REECOL project solution in the conditions of the Most basin, a set of laboratory analyses of soils suitable for determining the degree of degradation was determined, which will be modified in the course of the next solution in terms of efficiency and financial sustainability. The methodology of research is composed of terrain mapping, sampling and sample analysis realised by accredited test laboratories. The main part of the paper contains a brief description and localization of the areas of degraded soils of the Most Basin. The individual chapters briefly describe the areas affected by various types of degradation and the proposal for their reclamation, one locality is always described in more detail as a case study area. Part of the contribution is a map of areas affected by individual types of soil degradation.

Brown Coal Research Institute j. v. c. (VUHU) from July 2023, together with scientific teams from several European countries, participates as part of the EU research program in the solution of the REECOL project, which deals with the reclamation of areas affected by mining in European coal basins. One of the important tasks of the first phase of the project solution is to find suitable case study areas in each country of the project solution. The selection of these areas in the Most Basin (CZ) is the subject of this paper. The selection of case study areas was based on the results of long-term research in the Most Basin. Areas with the occurrence of all main soil types, a long reclamation history and the application of various reclamation methods, including successional areas, were selected. The main part of the paper contains the characteristics and localization of the proposed case areas. The first of them is the Radovesice spoil heap with four experimental areas, two of which are left to natural succession and two are reclaimed using marls. The second area is the Strimice spoil heap with two experimental areas, one is left to natural succession and the other is reclaimed using bentonite. The paper describes the current situation of the areas, their reclamation history and long-term pedological development.

Abstract The world's largest oil sands mining and bitumen upgrading complex (150 million tonnes of ore to produce 75 million barrels of sweet crude per year)is operated in Northern Alberta, Canada. The company's license to operate prohibits the discharge of any process affected water from the site. With an annual raw water import of approximately 34 million cubic metres, the company's water management program has been limited to the impounding of the waste water. The impounded volume has grown to over 350 million cubic metres and will continue to grow in future years. The storage of this waste water (contaminated with sand, fines, hydrocarbons and salts) is governed by the storage space that is made available by the mine plan, and the need to maintain sufficiently low suspended solids water for recycling in the process. In addition, the final reclamation of the site, on abandonment of operations, requires restoration of the land to an environmentally acceptable condition, and it is important that the quality of the water associated with the various areas is not limiting to this goal. This paper discusses the operation as well as research and development efforts that are in place to optimize the water management plans. Some of the areas that must be addressed include aspects of corrosion and scaling control, water balances and maintenance of water quality. To aid in this, a model using High-Performance Numeric Computation and Visualization Software has been developed. Also some impacts from alternative tailings management approaches will be discussed.

The basic structural and functional element of a belt conveyor is the conveyor belt, which is supported by carrying rollers. Research in this area is important for increasing the service life of mining belt conveyor components. The rollers are subject to various forms of wear. Tribological interactions between the roller, the conveyor belt, and the particles of the transported material or impurities from the environment that enter the tribological system cause various forms of mechanical wear. Abrasion is the predominant type of wear for a given friction node. Abrasive wear causes tearing and cutting of the surface of the rollers. Moreover, they are also subject to chemical wear, namely corrosion of the damaged steel shells of the rollers. The combination of the individual types of wear led to damage that affected the thickness of the roller shell and its basic mechanical property, namely Vickers hardness. In this paper, non-destructive testing methods were applied, while the hardness was determined by the UCI (Ultrasonic Contact Impedance) method and the shell thickness was determined by the ultrasonic method.

Species of macrofungi were collected from extremely polluted sampling spots in the vicinity of abandoned antimony mines in Slovakia. Concentrations of potentially toxic elements in plants and fungi were determined by ICP-MS and in soils and sediments by both ICP-MS and ICP-ES. Of the edible species the highest values of arsenic and cadmium were recorded in Agaricus arvensis, lead in Imleria badia and representatives of the genera Boletus, Leccinum and Suillus accumulated high levels of mercury. Suillus species also accumulated high levels of antimony and chromium. Bioconcentration factors were calculated for selected species and antimony, cadmium, and mercury were accumulated by most of the sampled species. Based on the results of our study, we can assume that the species Cardamine amara belongs to accumulators of potentially toxic elements. We do not recommend the consumption of edible mushrooms and medicinal plants from the studied localities, as they may pose a risk of intoxication for humans.

One of the areas in Romania where the environment felt from human activities is Jiu Valley (Petrosani Depression), an area where the main activity was mining. This fact led to pollution of the area, pollution that affects both health of population and tourism, which is considered as a viable economic alternative. Investigation of environmental components, identification and analysis of impact sources on air and surface waters are the objective of this paper, which is a first step of a larger research, that will lead to establishing the pollution degree of the area under study. The paper presents pollution sources, methods of analyzing environmental indicators, as well as the impact of economic activities on the environment. The main conclusion of the scientific approach is that, in addition to mining activities that had and still have a negative impact on the environment, other economic activities carried out in the area, including household activities, also leave a negative impact on the environment. Which of these (quantitatively speaking) leave a larger or smaller footprint will be the subject of a future paper, that will quantify all air and water quality indicators.

Longwall mining can constitute a threat to the integrity of a pipeline by way of surface subsidence and soil strains. The subsidence and soil strain phenomena associated with longwall mining have been studied in detail both in the United Kingdom and the United States. Empirically-based methods are available to predict both subsidence and surface soil strains. These methods can be used to estimate the possible effects of subsidence on buried pipelines. The objectives of this study were to review the effects of longwall mining subsidence on pipelines and to develop concepts for preserving the integrity of pipelines affected by such subsidence. Presented in this report is a discussion of the subsidence phenomena and terminology, calculations for hypothetical settlement cases, the appropriate monitoring and intervention responses with respect to any possible effects on a pipeline, and examples of actual pipeline monitoring experience. A suitable strain monitoring technique is described in this report.

On 28 May 2024, the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform (SSHAP) organised a roundtable discussion on the mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) outbreak which has been spreading in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since early 2023.1 The objective was to appraise the current situation, with a particular focus on social science insights for informing context-sensitive risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) and wider operational responses. The roundtable was structured into two sessions: 1) an overview of the situation in DRC, including the current knowledge of epidemiology and 2) contextual considerations for response. This was followed by an hour-long panel discussion on operational considerations for response. Each session was initiated by a series of catalyst presentations followed by a question-and-answer session (Q&A). Details of the agenda, speakers and discussants can be found below. Despite estimates that less than 10% of suspected cases in DRC are being laboratory screened, the country is currently reporting the highest number of people affected by mpox in sub-Saharan Africa. It is notable that clade 1 of mpox is linked to this outbreak, which results in more severe disease and a higher fatality rate. While early cases of mpox were reported to be in gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM), the disease is now being detected more widely in DRC. The majority of those affected are children (up to 70% by some estimates2), which is a cause for concern. The outbreak is occurring on top of an overall high burden of disease and significant challenges to the health system and humanitarian interventions. The apparently heterogeneous picture of mpox across DRC – affecting different geographies and population groups – is shaped in part by social, economic and political factors. For instance, in South Kivu, accounts indicate that transmission via intimate and sexual contact is significant in mining areas, with an estimated one third of cases of disease reported in female sex workers. This raises questions about transactional sex and related stigma in these areas, as well as the implications of cross-border mobility linked to mining livelihoods for the spread of disease. A history of conflict and militia activity has additional implications for humanitarian intervention and is a factor in uptake and implementation of control strategies such as vaccination. Severe limitations in government health facilities in remote areas and a plural landscape of biomedical and non-biomedical providers are additional factors to consider for patterns of care-seeking and the timely provision of biomedical care. The limited reach of formal healthcare, including surveillance, makes it difficult to estimate the extent of cases and control disease spread through conventional epidemiological strategies. There are likely further challenges in accessing less visible populations such as GBMSM, as research in Nigeria has suggested.3,4 These complex contextual realities raise significant questions for mpox response. The roundtable convened a diverse range of expertise to offer perspectives from existing research and knowledge, with an emphasis on social science evidence. This roundtable report presents a synthesised version of the roundtable discussion with additional context as needed.

The aim of this note is to provide an overview of the situation of the Indigenous Peoples of Guyana. The note covers a range of issues, including land regularisation, environment - especially mining, logging and the establishment of protected areas - economic development, education, health care and local infrastructure. In line with the Bank's Policy on Indigenous Peoples, it stresses the need to ensure Indigenous Peoples are given the opportunity to participate in the discussions and decisions relating to all Bank operations that may affect them.

Clean water has a largely unknown economic value, particularly to small communities whose agricultural activities take place on river shores. In November 2015, the rupture of a mining tailings dam in the municipality of Mariana led to a record disposal of toxic residuals in southeast Brazil. A mud avalanche ran out for 600 km (373 miles) until it reached the Atlantic Ocean, leaving behind extreme ecological and economic damage in the Doce River basin. This is the largest environmental disaster in Brazil to date. We quantify the negative externalities using rich, identified, and comprehensive data from firm-to-firm electronic payments and individual-level consumer credit usage. We find that agricultural producers in affected municipalities received cumulatively 41% to 60% fewer inflows (income) from customer firms outside the affected zone three years after the disaster. Effects are driven by municipalities where the river shore is larger relative to the farming area. In these municipalities, individuals also faced an 8% fall in their credit card and consumer finance expenditures. This result is stronger for non-formal and high-risk workers. Thus, water contamination led to (first) production and (later) consumption decline with real effects on municipality-level agriculture and services output, causing a 7% decline in local GDP.

The continued growth of air travel calls for the incessant construction effort at many airports and their surroundings. Thus, there is a need to determine how airports can better manage existing infrastructure to accommodate this growth. This study, therefore, focuses on (1) investigating how changes in transportation infrastructure have affected travel time reliability (TTR) of the surrounding road network within the airport vicinity over time, and, (2) exploring selected unconventional intersection designs and proposing new inbound/outbound access routes from the nearby major roads to the airport. The efficiency of road networks that surrounds large airports is discussed using Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) as the case study. Firstly, an assessment of how transportation projects impact link-level travel time reliability (TTR) was performed using historical data. Secondly, an assessment of how future transportation projects would affect the traffic in the airport vicinity was performed. A simulation network was developed using the Vissim software, where the peak-hour turning movement counts were used with the existing signal design to replicate and calibrate the base scenario. Unconventional intersection designs such as continuous flow intersections (CFI), mini-roundabouts, and restricted crossing U-turn (RCUT) intersections were considered along with selected bridge design options to determine the impact on TTR. The results were compared with the conventional signalized intersection design. The connectivity projects led to an increase in TTR measures at most of the links within its vicinity after the project’s completion of the project. Similarly, parking areas exhibited the same characteristics, including those used by ridesharing companies. The simulation model showed that unconventional designs like RCUT and direct entry-exit ramps effectively reduced delay as well as the number of stops, increasing our understanding of how expansion projects affect TTR and potentially improving infrastructure optimization.

Reaching the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework requires commitment at all political levels and in all sectors. The State of Saxony also has to contribute its share. Saxony has a great potential, but also faces particular challenges. Almost half of the land area is used for agriculture, mainly for arable farming. However, only around eight percent of the land is farmed ecologically4. Intensification and monotonization of agriculture, as well as the use of pesticides and fertilizers, significantly contribute to the loss of biodiversity. Agriculture plays a crucial role as a habitat for biodiversity5. It is indispensable to promote biodiversity-friendly use, increase the proportion of land under organic farming, and establish corresponding methods in conventional agriculture. As a producer of fossil fuels, especially by the Lusatian and Central German lignite mining regions, Saxony is also strongly affected by the energy transition. The expansion of renewable energies needs to be nature-compatible and in harmony with the protection of biodiversity. Approaches to multifunctional landuse may provide support in this regard. Prof. Dr. Edeltraud Günther, Director of UNU-FLORES, emphasizes the need to consider biodiversity in the resource nexus. Saxony has good prerequisites to meet these challenges. With its Saxony Biodiversity 2030 Program, it has a revised biodiversity strategy to meet the global targets. In addition, Saxony is home to major research institutions that intensively focus on biodiversity. Research, education, and science communication play a central role in this context. Prof. Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector of UNU and Under-Secretary- General of the UN, emphasized the key role of education in his opening address of the DNCi 2023: 'Education is the key to unlock our potential. It empowers us to become stewards of our environment by providing us with a deep appreciation for biodiversity and inspiring sustainable practices in every aspect of our lives. By integrating transformative education at the international, national, and local levels, we can create profound change in attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors.' The DNCi 2023 participants had a hands-on experience of the importance of education and science communication on biodiversity thanks to a guided tour of the Botanical Garden. Many thanks to Prof. Dr. Christoph Neinhuis, Director of the Botanical Garden, and Dr. Barbara Dietsch, Scientific Director of the Botanical Garden, for these valuable insights. As part of the DNCi 2023, co-organized by UNU-FLORES, the IOER, and TU Dresden, we succeeded in bringing together different stakeholders from science, government, civil society, and the private sector to create a dynamic platform for exchange and collaboration on the topic of biodiversity. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all participants for their commitment during the event and beyond, and to the Saxon State Ministry of Energy, Climate Protection, Environment and Agriculture for supporting the event within the framework of its cooperation with UNU-FLORES.