Search Results (1,008)

This systematic review paper examines how technical, operational, and structural factors influence the adoption of digital agriculture among small-scale farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Guided by PRISMA protocols, the study applies a hybrid thematic synthesis across six dimensions: technical, operational, policy and regulatory, governance, social and cultural, and environmental. The findings indicate that digital tools can generate substantial benefits, including yield increases of 10–30% (documented primarily for mobile-based advisory services and precision input management in East African horticulture and West African cocoa value chains) and price gains of 15–25%, with adoption rates of 70–80% in settings characterised by robust infrastructure, strong institutional support, and effective value chain integration. However, these benefits are unevenly distributed and tend to concentrate in “islands of adoption” characterized by robust infrastructure, strong institutional support, and effective value chain integration. While technical (94.9%) and operational (91.5%) factors dominate the literature, their impact is constrained by persistent structural barriers, including weak policy implementation (79.7%), fragmented governance systems (76.3%), and socio-cultural exclusion—such as gender disparities, age-related digital divides, and language misalignment (71.2%). The review identifies five minimum conditions for meaningful adoption: (i) affordable connectivity and access to digital devices; (ii) context-specific digital literacy; (iii) culturally relevant, user-centred design; (iv) robust institutional ecosystems; and (v) enabling policy and financial frameworks. Overall, the findings underscore that digital agriculture adoption is a socio-technical process shaped not only by technological innovation but also by institutional arrangements and user capabilities. Comparative cases, such as Kenya’s Farm.ink and the less successful EZ Farm initiative, further highlight the importance of integrated, context-responsive approaches to ensure that digital agriculture enhances, rather than marginalizes, small-scale farmers. Full article

Ancient and large old trees hold significant ecological, cultural, and landscape importance. While numerous studies have investigated the ecosystem services these trees provide—such as carbon sequestration, air purification, and microclimate regulation—the findings remain dispersed and fragmented. To address this gap, the present study employs ecosystem service theory alongside a combination of bibliometric analysis and systematic review, examining 217 articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. This approach offers a comprehensive synthesis of global research on ancient trees. The bibliometric results reveal a rapid expansion of research since 2015, with a particularly notable surge after 2019. Research focus has progressively shifted from traditional resource surveys and conservation management toward regulating services, emphasizing ecosystem functioning, carbon storage, microclimate regulation, and biodiversity conservation. Concurrently, methodological approaches have diversified, incorporating GIS-based spatial analysis, remote sensing techniques, and carbon storage modeling. Despite these methodological advancements, current research faces several challenges, including insufficient integration across spatial and temporal scales, limited long-term dynamic monitoring, and a weak linkage between ecological functions and sociocultural values. To enhance the protection and revitalization of ancient trees, future investigations should adopt multiscale and interdisciplinary frameworks that integrate ecological functions, landscape spatial dynamics, and sociocultural dimensions. Such approaches will facilitate the sustainable management of ancient trees globally and ensure the enduring provision of their ecosystem services. Full article

Urbanization is increasingly limiting daily human exposure to natural forest environments, highlighting the growing importance of urban green infrastructure and nature-based solutions in supporting human health and well-being. Among the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of forests, biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), particularly terpenes, are recognized as key contributors due to their bioactive properties and role in cultural ecosystem services related to human well-being. This study explores the potential of urban and natural trees of Pinus nigra J. F. Arnold to serve as sources of health-relevant BVOCs by examining seasonal and spatial variability in needle terpene profiles. Needle samples were collected from trees growing in an urban park and a protected natural area across three seasons (spring, summer, and autumn), and analyzed using headspace GC/MS. The study was designed as an exploratory assessment aimed at identifying general patterns of terpene variability across contrasting environments. Across all seasons and locations, α- and β-pinene consistently dominated the terpene profile, together accounting for the majority of detected compounds, and showed no significant variation in relation to site or season. In contrast, secondary monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes exhibited greater variability, contributing to context-dependent differences between environments. Despite these variations, the overall terpene composition remained relatively stable, particularly with respect to compounds previously associated with health-related effects. These preliminary findings provide insights into the potential role of Pinus nigra within urban and natural green infrastructure associated with nature-based health-oriented practices. The observed stability of health-related terpenes suggests that urban Austrian pine trees can represent a consistent source of compounds previously associated with health-related effects, although their relevance requires further investigation involving total and individual BVOC emissions measurements and human exposure assessments. Full article

La Paz Bay is one of the most important destinations for recreational fishing events in Baja California Sur, Mexico, with significant tourist activity that supports ecosystem services and provides economic benefits to participants, benefits that have not yet been economically measured. The aim of this study was to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of anglers who participated in sport-fishing events and to propose tourism promotion and recreational fisheries management strategies. Applying 184 face-to-face surveys at sport fishing events in LPB held in 2022 and 2023 to collect information regarding fishers’ and fishing trips characteristics, and using the individual travel cost method to estimate the individual WTP per angler, which ranges from USD 50.96 to 625.63, and the recreational economic value of fishing events in La Paz was estimated at USD 0.89 to 1.11 million. Strategies for conserving species reserved for sport fishing and promoting tourism are discussed, which could help improve tournament activity and promote the rational use of natural resources. This study represents the first effort aiming to value sport fishing events in Mexico. Also, demonstrates the economic relevance of sport fishing events for recreational fisheries management and tourism-promoting policies in LPB. It provides evidence that conserving sport-fishing species could enhance management strategies and sustainable tourism promotion policies for this recreational activity. Full article

Urban renewal increasingly adopts Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) to address environmental challenges and enhance social well-being. However, it remains unclear whether and to what extent NBSs contribute to cultural ecosystem services (CESs), which reflect people’s perceptions, values, and experiences of urban nature. This study develops an integrated framework combining text and image mining of social media data to evaluate the CES outcomes of NBS in regenerated urban districts in Chengdu, China. The comment data were analyzed for CES using Jieba word segmentation and dictionary matching, while images were categorized into NBS types by manual classification. By integrating these multimodal data, the framework effectively clarifies the relationship between NBSs and CESs from the perspective of public perception. Results indicate that recreation and leisure, inspiration, and spiritual values are the most prominent aspects of public perception, with linear green infrastructure and pocket parks being the most frequently identified NBS types. Correspondence analysis further reveals significant associations between specific NBS interventions and CES categories. By integrating textual and visual data, this study offers a practical and real-time approach for capturing public perceptions of CESs and provides actionable insights for the design and management of NBS-driven urban regeneration. Full article

With the development of ecotourism, national park recreation research has evolved from a marginal branch of tourism studies into a vibrant interdisciplinary field. Although scholarly attention has grown, a systematic, holistic overview of its global development trajectory and knowledge structure remains lacking. To address this gap, this study presents a bibliometric analysis of national park recreation research published from 1994 to 2024, based on the Web of Science Core Collection. Using CiteSpace for scientometric visualization, we examine the field’s evolutionary phases, collaboration networks, thematic distributions, and emerging trends. Our results show that national park recreation research has progressed through three distinct stages: initial emergence, steady development, and rapid growth. Collaboration among individual researchers and institutions remains generally limited. Dominant research themes include spatial planning and zoning, ecological conservation, stakeholder engagement, cultural ecosystem services, and tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors. Building on these findings, we synthesize a comprehensive knowledge structure of this field and outline key future research priorities. This overview enables researchers to quickly grasp the field’s global research panorama and identify targeted thematic directions. We call for greater attention to understudied areas, including visitor social psychology, community participation, digital technology applications, and adaptive management in future studies. Full article

Brownfield greening (BG) has become an important approach to addressing urban land scarcity, environmental remediation, and sustainable urban development. This scoping review analysed 116 English-language publications from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The review identified five major research themes: pollution and remediation, regeneration design, brownfield characteristics and greening benefits, planning and decision-making, and stakeholder perceptions. Findings indicate a transition from contamination-focused studies towards integrated approaches emphasising ecological restoration, social values, and multifunctional green infrastructure. Research methods have evolved from qualitative case studies to interdisciplinary approaches involving spatial analysis, ecological modelling, scenario simulation, and participatory methods. Existing studies mainly focus on regenerated sites and site-scale analyses, while contamination and remediation processes are often insufficiently incorporated into planning, design, and ecosystem-service assessments. The review highlights the diverse ecological, social, economic, and cultural benefits generated by BG and identifies key research gaps, including the need to better integrate remediation into regeneration processes, to conduct long-term monitoring, to conduct comparative international studies, and to include evidence from underrepresented regions. Overall, BG is increasingly recognised as a multifunctional strategy for sustainable urban regeneration. Full article

Wetlands are vital ecosystems that provide critical provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services that underpin biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods. Despite their importance, ecosystem service valuation is often overlooked in coastal wetland restoration, limiting recognition of their contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To address this gap and overcome methodological fragmentation in wetland assessments, this study develops the Integrated Ecosystem Valuation and Management of Wetlands (IEVMW) framework, which integrates the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), Drivers–Pressures–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework, IPCC climate risk assessment, and Total Economic Value (TEV) approaches into a unified methodology. The framework was applied to the Kol Wetlands in India to identify ecosystem services, assess climate-related risks, estimate economic values, and develop management recommendations. Results indicate that provisioning services contribute the highest economic value, followed by regulating and cultural services. Climate change was estimated to place approximately 11.7% and 13.0% of ecosystem service value at risk in North Kol and South Kol, respectively, corresponding to a combined economic value at risk of ₹42.9 crore, with provisioning services being the most vulnerable. The IEVMW framework provides a practical and scalable approach for linking ecosystem service valuation, climate risk assessment, and governance, thereby supporting climate-resilient wetland management and biodiversity conservation across diverse socio-environmental contexts. Full article

The aesthetic value of agricultural landscapes is gaining importance as rural tourism burgeons during urbanization. To ascertain key elements influencing the visual appeal of agricultural landscapes, this research employed a visual choice experiment in Hangzhou Plain during the spring flowering period to assess public preferences for four landscape attributes in ground and aerial perspectives. The mixed logit model was utilized to evaluate the respondents’ average preference, while the latent class logit model helped in identifying distinct preference groups. The research revealed that participants exhibited different preferences between the two perspectives. The diversity within public preferences was highlighted, with respondents favoring oilseed rape-dominated landscapes with a single agricultural land cover proportion in ground perspective while favoring diverse landscapes in aerial perspective. Gender, education level, landscape familiarity, connection to agriculture, and membership in relevant organizations significantly shape individual preferences. These results can help refine multi-objective policy targeting by incorporating aesthetic value perspective in agricultural landscapes. Full article

Recreational fisheries are one of the most widespread forms of inland water use in developed countries, and they are increasingly being interpreted as a social–ecological system that integrates ecosystems, users, and governance structures. This study aimed to evaluate the perceived status of fish resources, the effectiveness of the management system, and the obstacles to developing recreational fisheries in Poland. The evaluation was based on a nationwide survey (CAWI, N = 1574). The results indicate a critical perception of both resource conditions and management performance. Institutional barriers were identified as the most significant. While environmental factors remain significant, their role should be interpreted within the broader context of governance effectiveness. The structure of motivations confirms the dominance of recreational and environmental functions over utilitarian and economic ones, highlighting the growing importance of cultural ecosystem services. The findings reveal a discrepancy between the evolving recreational aspects of angling and the existing management system, indicating an institutional mismatch that poses a significant challenge to sustainable water resource management. These findings align with the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those related to water quality and ecosystem protection. While the study focuses on Poland, the identified challenges are not unique and are relevant to many countries undergoing similar transformations. The results emphasize the need for more integrated, adaptive, and participatory governance models. Full article

In the context of global population growth and intensifying climate change, ensuring food security remains a critical challenge. Orchards are more productive than arable crops, contributing significantly to the nutrition of a growing population. Ecologically, due to the absence of frequent soil tillage, orchards resemble natural forest ecosystems more closely than other agricultural systems. Irrigated orchards are particularly productive and enhance biodiversity in territories where water scarcity is the limiting factor for ecosystems. This review, the result of extensive reflection and a comprehensive analysis of the literature on orchard sustainability, synthesizes evidence on the diverse ecosystem services provided by these perennial systems. Due to their structural complexity, well-managed orchards contribute significantly to climate regulation through carbon sequestration, microclimate cooling, and soil erosion prevention. Furthermore, they support nutrient cycling and provide cultural value. This paper establishes an integrated scientific framework to inform evidence-based policies and reshape societal perceptions. It argues that recognizing orchards as multifunctional landscapes, rather than mere resource consumers, is critical for environmental resilience, supporting their fair valuation as essential components of a sustainable bioeconomy. Full article

This study examines the visitor-demand impact of a government-funded payment for ecosystem services policy applied to cultural heritage sites. In May 2023, South Korea abolished cultural heritage visitation fees at national-park temples. This policy shift replaced a decades-long user-pay model with government compensation to temples, effectively transitioning to a government-funded PES framework. The reform aimed to resolve protracted social conflict over fee collection at trailheads serving both religious and recreational visitors. Utilizing monthly visitation data spanning January 2020 to December 2024 (N = 960 site-months), we employed a difference-in-differences design with propensity score matching to compare eight treated temple sites against eight matched controls. The results indicate that fee abolition produced a statistically significant average increase of approximately 14,229 monthly visitors per treated site. The results proved robust across five distinct model specifications, and event-study analysis confirmed that the parallel trends assumption was satisfied. These findings provide quasi-experimental evidence that removing price barriers at heritage sites substantially increases observed visitor demand, a necessary condition for enhanced public accessibility to cultural ecosystem services. Whether this demand increase translates into broader welfare gains, such as regional economic spillovers, improved visitor well-being, or long-term fiscal sustainability of the subsidy, remains an important question for future research. Full article

In the context of intensifying global climate change, high-altitude mountain ecosystems play a critical role in climate regulation, biodiversity conservation, and the advancement of sustainable human development. Plateau regions, such as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, are particularly sensitive and responsive to global climatic fluctuations and function as essential ecological barriers supporting development across Asia. These areas occupy a strategic position within Asia’s ecological security framework and the broader international community, influencing not only regional ecological stability and social cohesion but also sustainable development pathways. However, owing to their fragile ecosystem structures, limited regenerative capacity, and the ongoing expansion of urbanisation and human activities, these regions frequently suffer from habitat fragmentation and degradation of ecological functions. This issue is especially acute in natural protected areas adjacent to plateau cities. Consequently, there is an urgent need for quantitative assessments of ecological restoration effectiveness within natural protected areas, alongside investigations into development approaches that underpin long-term regional stability and sustainability. Focusing on Chokpori Mountain—the “urban green heart” of Lhasa, a principal city on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau—this study develops a three-dimensional assessment framework encompassing ecological, economic, and social dimensions. By integrating the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model, remote sensing inversion techniques, field monitoring, and questionnaire surveys, the research systematically evaluates the effectiveness of ecological restoration and proposes insights for sustainable governance. The findings indicate that ecological restoration elicited positive ecological responses, evidenced by a 69.2% increase in soil retention post-renovation, an increase in vegetation coverage, and modeled total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) export loads demonstrating enhanced nutrient retention potential and improved water purification potential; (2) economic stimulation was evident, as demonstrated by an increase in average weekend daily visitor numbers from 876 to 1567 and a 24.2% rise in average monthly revenue of shops within a 1 km radius; and (3) social well-being improved, with ecological satisfaction reaching 89.2% and recognition of cultural communication attaining 67.3%. An integrated analysis indicates a synergistic enhancement of ecological environmental quality, regional vitality, and public perception. Accordingly, the outcomes of this study provide both theoretical insights and practical guidance for the ecological restoration and sustainable management of urban protected areas in high-altitude plateau regions worldwide. Full article

Although the green belt around Greater Lomé (GBGL) is a vital ecological buffer, it is currently facing significant degradation. This decline appears to be associated with a combination of various socioeconomic uses by the local community and formal operations of established businesses. Grounded in the cultural materialism framework, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of the socioeconomic uses of the green belt around Greater Lomé in a context of degradation and investigates the dynamics of these socioeconomic uses and their environmental impacts through a multidisciplinary methodology. This approach combines anthropological analysis based on field observation, 53 semi-structured interviews and 5 focus groups, a quantitative questionnaire survey (n = 384) and an analysis of land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics derived from Landsat imagery (2003–2023). The results reveal six main types of socioeconomic uses of the GBGL (notably land transactions, agriculture, breeding and grazing, exploitation of wood energy, timber and utility wood, sand mining, and waste disposal), which lead to complex social dynamics ranging from conflicts to alliances among stakeholders. The LULC dynamics analysis indicates a staggering 468.26% expansion in built-up areas over the last 20 years, at the expense of swamp vegetation/gallery forest (−76.79%), tree-and-shrub savanna (−53.47%) and plantations (−49.43). This study provides a scientific basis supporting the urgent necessity to establish the GBGL as a legally protected entity and argues in favour of an inclusive management model that is designed to reconcile the socioeconomic survival needs of local populations with sustainable preservation of essential ecosystem services. Full article

The concepts of ecosystem services (ES), landscape services (LS), and urban ecosystem services (UES) have gained wide recognition within the international scientific community and are increasingly employed in urban and landscape planning and design, particularly in relation to green infrastructure and nature-based solutions. Nevertheless, their application in urban contexts often reveals theoretical and operational shortcomings, especially when ecological frameworks are transferred to cities without adequate consideration of their spatial, cultural, and design-specific characteristics. This paper examines the use of ecosystem services in urbanized environments and reflects on the contribution of urban planning theory to this evolving debate. While many operational approaches to UES have been developed within environmental and ecological disciplines, the complexity of urban contexts is still not fully captured, often resulting in interpretations that only partially address their multidimensional nature. This suggests an opportunity for stronger integration between ecological frameworks and urban planning perspectives. The article identifies key critical issues in the relationship between ecosystem services and urban environments, arguing for the need to reframe UES through a landscape-based approach. By introducing landscape services as a mediating concept between ecological processes and the built environment, the paper highlights the relevance of spatial structure, design intentionality, and landscape configuration in shaping environmental performance and urban sustainability. The proposed perspective aims to support the development of more context-sensitive and design-informed interpretations of urban ecosystem services, contributing to the advancement of sustainable built environment strategies. Full article