Search Results (8)

A two-eyed seeing approach considered Indigenous knowledge and Western science towards eco–health, reconciliation and land back with Fort William First Nation (FWFN) in Ontario, Canada. To map traditional land use, occupancy, and ecological knowledge, we interviewed 49 FWFN members about their hunting, fishing, trapping, plant harvesting, cultural sites, and sacred gatherings on their ancestral land. Their traditional land use and occupancy includes more than 7.5 million ha of their ancestral land. The FWFN members reported many industrial impacts on their reserve and ancestral land. We analyzed the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) change over time on FWFN’s ancestral land and the Thunder Bay Pulp and Paper Mill (TBPP)’s National Pollutant Release Inventory data to investigate the FWFN members’ ecohealth concerns. The NDVI analysis revealed large tracts of degraded FWFN’s ancestral land due to logging areas, mining claims, settlements, and paper mills. Mining claims and greenstone belts occupy a quarter of the FWFN members’ ancestral land. The TBPP mill dumped pollution into the Kaministiquia River upstream and upwind of the FWFN community, exposing FWFN members to kilotons of cancerous and other toxic chemicals each year for over a century. Resource extraction and pollution in Northwestern Ontario negatively impacted the human health and ecosystem integrity of FWFN, requiring reconciliation by restoring damaged land and preventing pollution as the starting point for land back. The first step to land back is ending the environmental racism of the TBPP’s pollution directed downstream and downwind of FWFN and protecting ancestral land against logging, mining, and other extractive industries. Full article

The urbanization and industrialization of human society boost the socioeconomic growth but yet inevitably result in unprecedented damages to environment and organisms. One of the threats is the air pollution produced from anthropogenic activities. Moreover, the pollution concentrates longer in certain meteorological phenomena and exacerbates the impact on nature species and human health. This paper presents an association mining approach to identify the influential factors which result in a high volume of air pollution concentration, in particular, the particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm (PM_2.5). Since the literature showed that the identified factors are location and spatial-scale dependent, we chose a basin geography, Puli township, Taiwan, and inferred the association relationships with two different-scaled monitoring stations. The government-built supersite at Puli estimates the PM_2.5 concentration for the entire township of the area around 150 km², while the participatory microsites monitor air quality in a smaller region of a hundred thousand square meters. Our research was conducted with relevant data during 2017–2019. The mining result has unique findings as compared to the literature. The relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed and direction, which were identified as major factors in many previous studies, have less impact on air quality of our studied field than temperature and atmospheric pressure. The remarkable distinction is mainly attributed to the special weather patterns of basin geography. We investigated the impact of all national festivals and identified the most significant ones. The probability of observing PM_2.5 concentrations greater than 35 μg/m³ in the activity hours of New Year’s Eve is 50% which is significantly greater than 11.74%, the probability of observing the same concentration range over all days in the investigated years, while the Tomb Sweeping Day (TSD) has a varying impact on air quality depending on the order of the TSD date within the long holiday. The increase of PM_2.5 concentration is remarkably more significant if the TSD is the last day in the long holiday than if it is the middle day. This finding can be taken into consideration when the government agent makes schedules for national festivals. Finally, it was learned in our study that different landmarks and land uses have various significant impacts on micro-scale air quality. The microsites monitor high PM_2.5 concentrations at particular landmarks with a greater confidence than the mean confidence over all microsites. These pollution-associated landmarks with the confidence ranked from highest to lowest are night markets, crossroads, paper mills, temples, and highway exits. It is worth noting that the PM_2.5 increase contributed by temples is negligible, which may be attributed to the citizen action for promoting reduction in joss paper and incense stick burning. The land uses have diverse impacts on air quality. Anthropogenic activities contribute higher PM_2.5 concentrations in business districts and residential areas. The PM_2.5 concentration monitored at high lands and agricultural lands is lower than the overall background due to fewer mass gathering and combustion activities in these land uses. Full article

Over the past two decades, significant efforts have been made to diversify the tourism industry and enhance its educational experience. One such endeavor is urban trekking and geotourism, which have emerged as important means of promoting geological knowledge. The recent advancements in augmented reality technologies as well as the increasing availability of ‘born digital’ data such as those gathered from social media create a basis for the development of immersive and customized touristic experiences. Urban scientific heritage, augmented reality, and data mining are the key elements of the HUSH project. Its first focus is the identification of the naturalistic components in a given urban area (flora, fauna, and geological features) through literature surveys and scientific research. These factors become points of interest (PoIs) along touristic paths, where they are connected to the historical and artistic components of the area. Augmented reality serves as the medium through which the user can access this content. The contents are delivered as videos, text, images, or interactive 3D models. The mobile application from this project is a useful tool for promoting geoheritage and naturalistic values in urban areas and for improving the awareness and the sustainability of our cities. Full article

The fashion industry generates packaging waste through the entire supply chain. Although brands are making efforts to improve packaging sustainability as demands for low-impact packaging are rising, there is a lack of empirical evidence of innovative packaging solutions among fashion retailers. This study represents the first global report on sustainable packaging innovation in the fashion sector. A data-mining approach was utilized to gather a sample of 400 international fashion brands that advertise sustainable packaging solutions across five continents. The sustainability of the packaging solution was evaluated for each brand based on three factors: sustainability mission, the availability of packaging data, and the actual sustainability of the package. The results showed that 57% of brands have made evident progress in the sustainable packaging area; 34% of brands have initiated the transition from conventional to improved packaging; the remaining brands have committed to rethink (1%) or to improve (8%) their packaging in the future. By providing comprehensive state-of-the-art evidence about practical achievements in the sustainable packaging field, this global report intends to help academics and practitioners to evaluate the environmental, social, and economic impacts of existing packaging products and to design circular packaging that minimizes these impacts. Full article

Using the Wałbrzych agglomeration housing estates—once the most important mining and industrial region in Lower Silesia—as an example, this article illustrates the specific significance of the design of green spaces, including urban layouts, and the issue of protecting unique trees and green spaces in the concepts of estates from the early modernism period after the First World War in the years 1919–1927. This article tries to deepen the knowledge on the origins of the design solutions of public and private greenery systems while considering natural, landscape, and social needs. This study complements the information gathered so far in the field of forming green areas in modernist housing estates and highlights the importance of this issue in complex urban design. The Wałbrzych housing settlements are crucial because they were among the first of their kind, not only in Lower Silesia but also in the whole of the Weimar Republic. Based on literature and source studies, it was possible to reconstruct design ideas concerning the composition of green areas in most housing estates in the discussed area. The most interesting ones were presented and broken down into the landscape-related and functional aspects of the use of greenery in housing estates. This made it possible to select specific solutions applied by designers in order to indicate sources of inspiration and theoretically developed rules which then and now seem to be extremely adequate. Full article

The increasing demand for green technology and battery metals necessitates a review of geological exploration techniques for Li–Cs–Ta (LCT) pegmatites, which is applicable to the work of mining companies. This paper reviews the main controls of LCT pegmatite genesis relevant to mineral exploration programs and presents a workflow of grassroots exploration techniques, supported by examples from central Europe and Africa. Geological exploration commonly begins with information gathering, desktop studies and Geographic Information System (GIS) data reviews. Following the identification of prospective regional areas, initial targets are verified in the field by geological mapping and geochemical sampling. Detailed mineralogical analysis and geochemical sampling of rock, soil and stream sediments represent the most important tools for providing vectors to LCT pegmatites, since the interpretation of mineralogical phases, deportment and liberation characteristics along with geochemical K/Rb, Nb/Ta and Zr/Hf metallogenic markers can detect highly evolved rocks enriched in incompatible elements of economic interest. The importance of JORC (Joint Ore Reserves Committee) 2012 guidelines with regards to obtaining geological, mineralogical and drilling data is discussed and contextualised, with the requirement of treating LCT pegmatites as industrial mineral deposits. Full article

Industrial and mining activities are recognized as major sources of soil pollution. This study proposes an index system for evaluating the inherent risk level of polluting factories and introduces an integrated risk assessment method based on human health risk. As a case study, the health risk, polluting factories and integrated risks were analyzed in a typical industrial and mining gathering area in China, namely, Binhai New Area. The spatial distribution of the risk level was determined using a Geographic Information System. The results confirmed the following: (1) Human health risk in the study area is moderate to extreme, with heavy metals posing the greatest threat; (2) Polluting factories pose a moderate to extreme inherent risk in the study area. Such factories are concentrated in industrial and urban areas, but are irregularly distributed and also occupy agricultural land, showing a lack of proper planning and management; (3) The integrated risks of soil are moderate to high in the study area. Full article

Industrial and mining activities have been recognized as the major sources of soil heavy metal contamination. This study introduced an improved Nemerow index method based on the Nemerow and geo-accumulation index. Taking a typical industrial and mining gathering area in Tianjin (China) as example, this study then analyzed the contamination sources as well as the ecological and integrated risks. The spatial distribution of the contamination level and ecological risk were determined using Geographic Information Systems. The results are as follows: (1) Zinc showed the highest contaminant level in the study area; the contamination levels of the other seven heavy metals assessed were relatively lower. (2) The combustion of fossil fuels and emissions from industrial and mining activities were the main sources of contamination in the study area. (3) The overall contamination level of heavy metals in the study area ranged from heavily contaminated to extremely contaminated and showed an uneven distribution. (4) The potential ecological risk showed an uneven distribution, and the overall ecological risk level ranged from low to moderate. This study also emphasized the importance of partition in industrial and mining areas, the extensive application of spatial analysis methods, and the consideration of human health risks in future studies. Full article