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THE BENEFITS OF AN ONLINE JOURNAL FOCUSED ON ENVIRONMENTAL CASE STUDIES

The case for case studies in confronting environmental issues.

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Wil Burns; The Case for Case Studies in Confronting Environmental Issues. Case Studies in the Environment 31 December 2017; 1 (1): 1–4. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/cse.2017.sc.burns01

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In its most distilled form, a “case study” involves investigation of “real-life phenomenon through detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events or conditions, and their relationships” [ 1 , 2 ]. The “case” may focus upon an individual, organization, event, or project, anchored in a specific time and place. Most cases are based on real events, or a plausible construction of events, and tell a story, often involving issues or conflicts which require resolution [ 3 ]. They also frequently include central characters and quotations and dialogue [ 4 ]. Often the objective of a case study approach is to develop a theory regarding the nature and causes of similarities between instances of a class of events [ 5 ]. More broadly, case studies seek to illustrate broader, overarching principles or theses.

In recent years, researchers have increasingly embraced the study method in recognition of the limitations of quantitative methods to provide in-depth and holistic explanations of social problems [ 6 ]. A case study, in the context of environmental issues, usually involves the focus on an actual environmental situation, commonly involving a decision, an issue, a challenge, or an opportunity faced by a group of individuals, an organization, or a society.

Case studies enjoy a natural advantage in research of an exploratory nature. As Yin concludes, case studies allow a researcher to “reveal the multiplicity of factors [which] have interacted to produce the unique character of the entity that is the subject of study” [ 7 ]. Explanatory case studies can facilitate conducting causal studies, and in extremely complex and multivariate cases, help to structure analyses that employ pattern-matching techniques [ 8 ]. Descriptive case studies help researchers to formulate hypotheses of cause-effect relationships from descriptive theories [ 8 ].

Case studies have been employed throughout history to facilitate the pursuit of knowledge and its dissemination. The Hippocratic Corpus in the fifth century BC employed case studies to develop insights into medicine that stimulated discoveries for centuries to come [ 9 ]. The case study approach also informed the work of Darwin, Freud, and Piaget.

The formal use of case studies in academia began at Harvard Law School at the turn of the twentieth century [ 10 ]. In recent years, empirical research has demonstrated the value of the case study method as a pedagogical tool in the classroom, with case studies employed in the humanities, social sciences, engineering, law, medicine, and business [ 11 , 12 ]. Case studies have also been used by practitioners in a wide array of fields, including medicine, law, and business [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. In environmental science and policy sectors, case studies are particularly salutary in providing practitioners with examples of best practices [ 18 ], and to assist them in developing effective recommendations and policy prescriptions [ 8 , 19 , 20 ].

Many learners are more inductive than deductive reasoners. Case studies can help to facilitate learning by helping them to reason from examples, analogies, and models, as well as from basic principles [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Studies surveying faculty and student learning results associated with the use of case studies demonstrate significant increases in student critical thinking skills and knowledge acquisition, as well as enhanced ability to make connections between multiple content areas and to view issues from different perspectives [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. Case studies also promote active learning, which has been proven to enhance learning outcomes [ 21 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Through careful examination and discussion of various cases, “students learn to identify actual problems, to recognize key players and their agendas, and to become aware of those aspects of the situation that contribute to the problem” [ 30 , 31 , 32 ]. Moreover, cases can serve as models or paradigms that facilitate understanding similar cases [ 33 ].

Additionally, case-based instructional methods usually employ empirical or realistic narratives to afford students the opportunity to integrate multiple sources of information in real-world contexts in ways that might not be captured through experimental or survey research methods [ 6 ]. Studies have indicated that this can increase student motivation to participate in class activities, promoting learning and increasing performance on assessments [ 34 ]. It also often affords students the opportunities to engage with ethical and societal issues related to their disciplines [ 35 ], as well as facilitating interdisciplinary learning [ 34 ]. The fostering of effective integrative learning experiences in the classroom was identified as one of the four essential learning outcomes in the Learning for the New Global Century report of the Association of American Colleges and Universities [ 36 ].

Case studies have proven to be a valuable component of teaching environmental studies and science by fostering critical transdisciplinary perspectives conductive to addressing environmental issues [ 37 ], as contributing to efforts to “flip the curriculum” in an effort to foster engaged learning in environmental studies and science courses [ 38 ]. Case studies are also a valuable tool for environmental practitioners. They can provide guidelines for best practices [ 15 , 39 ], as well as lessons learned by others in any given professional sector, including in the environmental arena [ 40 , 41 ]. The case study method has proven to be an effective tool to assist environmental professional in developing effective recommendations and policy prescriptions [ 19 , 20 ]. Also pertinent to the environmental sector, case study research can also help to identify relevant variables to facilitate subsequent statistical research [ 42 ]. Moreover, case studies can be employed in organizations for training purposes to foster problem-based learning and the ability to formulate solutions [ 43 ].

Most instructors and environmental professionals that have utilized case studies in the classroom, or in their work, have found them to be a valuable tool [ 6 ]. However, within the classroom environment one of the main obstacles to using case-based instructional method is lack of preparation time, with most instructors currently preparing their own case studies [ 35 ]. The imposing nature of case study construction, as well as the imposing cost of developing cases internally [ 38 ], ensures that many instructors eschew this teaching method.

Moreover, there is imposing challenge of developing effective discussion questions to scaffold case-based learning exercises [ 4 , 44 ]. Case studies also are often not subjected to sufficient academic rigor, undermining their effectiveness and credibility [ 45 , 46 ]. Finally, many instructors are intimidated by the challenge of student evaluation when case studies are incorporated into the educational process [ 47 ].

Case Studies in the Environment hopes to address all of these challenges. It will seek to develop a substantial compendium of case studies in the following categories in field of environmental science and studies:

Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

Environmental Law, Policy and Management

Energy and the Environment

Water Management, Science and Technology

Sustainability

Each case study will be 1,500–3,000 words, and will be subject to peer-review by experts in the field of both environmental studies and science and case studies. Moreover, each case study will be accompanied by a set of suggested discussion questions to help scaffold their use in the classroom, 1 as well as a set of Power Point slides for lectures or presentations in professional environments. It is our hope to ultimately develop a community of academics and practitioners around case studies through workshops, conference panels and online interaction.

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A Case Study of Environmental Injustice: The Failure in Flint

Carla campbell.

1 Department of Public Health Sciences, Room 408, College of Health Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W. University Ave, El Paso, TX 79968, USA

Rachael Greenberg

2 National Nurse-led Care Consortium (NNCC), Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA; su.ccnn@grebneergr

Deepa Mankikar

3 Research and Evaluation Group, Public Health Management Corporation, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA; gro.cmhp@rakiknamd

Ronald D. Ross

4 Occupational and Environmental Medicine Consultant, Las Cruces, NM 88001, USA; [email protected]

The failure by the city of Flint, Michigan to properly treat its municipal water system after a change in the source of water, has resulted in elevated lead levels in the city’s water and an increase in city children’s blood lead levels. Lead exposure in young children can lead to decrements in intelligence, development, behavior, attention and other neurological functions. This lack of ability to provide safe drinking water represents a failure to protect the public’s health at various governmental levels. This article describes how the tragedy happened, how low-income and minority populations are at particularly high risk for lead exposure and environmental injustice, and ways that we can move forward to prevent childhood lead exposure and lead poisoning, as well as prevent future Flint-like exposure events from occurring. Control of the manufacture and use of toxic chemicals to prevent adverse exposure to these substances is also discussed. Environmental injustice occurred throughout the Flint water contamination incident and there are lessons we can all learn from this debacle to move forward in promoting environmental justice.

1. Description of the Flint Water Crisis

At this point, most Americans have heard of the avoidable and abject failure of government on the local, state and federal level; environmental authorities; and water company officials to prevent the mass poisoning of hundreds of children and adults in Flint, Michigan from April 2014 to December 2015 [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. One tends to imagine chemical poisoning as a victim dropping dead in a murder mystery, or the immediate casualties in an industrial accident or a chemical warfare attack. Unlike the release of methyl isocyanate gas in Bhopal, India in 1984 or the release of radiation with the radiation accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986, the poisoning of the population in Flint was an insidious one. People drinking the contaminated water would never have known they had elevated blood lead levels (BLLs) without specific medical testing for blood lead levels. In fact, if the water contamination had not been made public, most exposed children and their families would have never suspected they were being exposed over a 20-month period of time, and it would be expected that the water contamination and lead exposure would have continued up until today.

Lead can cause immediate acute poisoning but the subacute, moderate, long-term exposure impact of concern in Flint is more common, and much more insidious. Any resulting behavioral disturbance or loss of intellectual function would probably not been have linked by their physicians or families to lead poisoning, and instead accepted as something that had just occurred. Additionally, the adverse effects from this event may take years to surface as most negative health effects from low-level lead exposure develop slowly [ 4 ]. Hypertension and kidney damage may not present until long after the exposure. Any resulting behavioral disturbance or loss of intellectual function would probably have not been linked by their physicians or families to lead poisoning, and instead accepted as something that had just occurred.

The Flint disaster was due to the switch in water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which was then not treated with an anti-corrosion chemical to prevent lead particles and solubilized lead from being released from the interior of water pipes, particularly those from lead service lines or those with lead solder. This water was known to be very corrosive, so corrosive that, in fact, it was not used by the nearby auto industry [ 2 ]. The General Motors plant switched to water from the neighboring Flint Township when General Motors noticed rust spots on newly machined parts [ 2 ]. This corrosive new water supply was then not treated with the anti-corrosion treatment, in noncompliance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Lead and Copper Rule, which calls for action when a water supply is found to be corrosive to prevent the potential release of metals from water service lines [ 5 ].

A national water expert, Dr. Marc Edwards, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech University, has stated that the published instructions by EPA for collection of water samples for lead analysis were biased in the direction of underestimating the lead content of the water samples. He had spent years communicating this problem to EPA without a subsequent change in these instructions [ 6 ]. Dr. Edwards testified before Congress in spring 2016 that the Regional EPA Administrator was not alert to what was happening in Flint. Dr. Edwards also published papers previously bringing to the public attention the lead contamination of drinking water in Washington, DC. After Washington, DC made a change in its water disinfectant from chlorine to chloramine, residents were exposed to water with high levels of lead (140 ppb and above) from 2001 to 2004 [ 7 , 8 ]. This resulted in an increase of blood lead levels in young children (many from high-risk neighborhoods) of four times the amount that it was prior to the change in water disinfectant [ 7 , 8 ]. Dr. Edwards was a key player in ensuring that this issue was brought to light and those responsible parties were held accountable [ 9 ]. For comparison, the EPA standard for maximum contaminant level for lead in water is 15 ppb [ 5 ].

Regarding the Flint, Michigan water contamination incident, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a local pediatrician, performed a study looking at blood lead levels (BLLs) from Flint children from 2013 (before the water change) to 2015 (after the water change), assessing the percentage of BLLs over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reference level of 5 µg/dL, reviewing water levels in Flint, and identifying geographical locations of blood and water levels using geospatial analysis. Her study demonstrated that the level of elevated blood lead levels (above 5 µg/dL) in a group of Flint children almost doubled between levels collected prior to the change in water source and afterwards; among children living in the area with highest water lead levels the percentage with elevated BLLs was approximately three times higher when compared to pre-diversion levels (4% versus 10.6%) [ 10 ]. These are extraordinary changes! (The specific blood lead levels or even range of BLLs was not reported in the article.) Unfortunately, many children in Flint already had multiple risk factors for lead poisoning, including “poor nutrition, concentrated poverty, and older housing stock” [ 10 ].

2. Elevated Blood Lead Levels in US Children and the Adverse Health Impacts and Costs of Exposure

Lead exposure in young children can lead to decrements in intelligence, development, behavior, attention, and other neurological functions. Two giants in childhood lead poisoning research and advocacy, Dr. Philip Landrigan and Dr. David Bellinger, summarize the adverse effects of lead very completely, yet succinctly: “Lead is a devastating poison. It damages children’s brains, erodes intelligence, diminishes creativity and the ability to weigh consequences and make good decisions, impairs language skills, shortens attention span, and predisposes to hyperactive and aggressive behavior. Lead exposure in early childhood is linked to later increased risk for dyslexia and school failure.” [ 11 ] Other articles and reports have also confirmed these adverse effects [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ].

Therefore, it is important to determine the extent of the problem of elevated blood lead levels in U.S. children. Currently, based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2003 to 2012, 3.24% of children overall aged 1–5 years had a BLL > 5 µg/dL, compared with 7.8% of non-Hispanic Black (NHB) children [ 21 ]. Males had higher adjusted BLLs than females, and a higher poverty income ratio was associated with lower adjusted blood lead levels. Adjusted BLLs increased in renter-occupied (as opposed to owner-occupied) homes and with an increase in the numbers of smokers inside the home [ 21 ]. A previous analysis by Dixon et al. [ 22 ] of NHANES data from 1999 to 2004 found that BLLs were affected by the levels of lead in the floor and the condition of and surface type of the floor; that non-Hispanic Black children had higher BLLs than non-Hispanic white (NHW) children; that Mexican-born children had higher BLLs than those born in the U.S.; that houses built before 1940 were associated with children with higher BLLs; that children living in houses with a smoker had higher BLLs than those living with non-smokers; and that the odds of NHB children having BLLs > 5 µg/dL and > 10 µg/dL were more than double that of NHW children [ 21 , 22 ]. A recent report suggested that many children requiring blood lead testing due to Medicaid insurance status or state or city requirements for testing are not getting tested, and/or the results are not being properly followed up on [ 23 ].

The costs from lead poisoning are considerable, as are the cost savings for prevention of childhood lead poisoning. Attina and Trasande state that in the United States and Europe the lead-attributable economic costs have been estimated at $50.9 and $55 billion dollars, respectively [ 24 ]. Interestingly, they estimate a total cost of $977 billion of international dollars in low- and middle-income countries, with economic losses equal to $134.7 billion in Africa, $142.3 billion in Latin American and the Caribbean, and $699.9 billion in Asia, giving a total economic loss for these countries in the range of $728.6–$1,162.5 billion [ 24 ]. A previous analysis showed that each dollar invested in lead paint hazard control results in a return of $17–$221 or a net savings of $181–$269 billion for a specific cohort of children under six years of age as the benefits of BLL reduction would include categories such as health care, lifetime earnings, tax revenue, special education, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, and the direct costs of crime [ 25 ]. Another prior analysis estimated the economic benefits resulting from an historic lowering of children’s BLLs as measured by data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to be $110–$319 billion for each year’s cohort of 3.8 million two-year-old children, using a discounted lifetime earnings of $723,300 for each two-year-old child in 2000 dollars [ 26 ]. These estimated benefits were due to projected improvements in worker productivity due to increased intelligence quotient (I.Q.) points.

3. How the Flint Case and Other Examples Exhibit Environmental Injustice

Most affected by this egregious environmental disaster was a mostly poor and African-American population [ 27 ]. Some have speculated whether such an error in judgment might have occurred if a different population had been involved, and The New York Times uses the term racism in its editorial [ 27 ]. Another New York Times article talks of an analysis of emails from Governor Rick Snyder’s office that did not mention race but talked of costs involving Flint’s water supply, questioned scientific data regarding water contamination with lead, and mentioned uncertainties about the duties of state and local health officials [ 28 ]. It also mentions that some civil rights advocates were indicating that the Flint water crisis appeared to represent environmental racism [ 28 ]. The article goes on to discuss that the switch in water source was explicitly decided in favor of saving money for the financially unstable city of Flint, and that an emergency manager appointed by Gov. Snyder to carry out the running of the city was himself African-American [ 28 ]. One of Gov. Snyder’s key staff people sounded an alarm about the concern for lead in water, but the state health department responded back that the Flint water was safe [ 28 ].

The Flint Water Advisory Task Force, comprised of five experts in public health and water policy and convened by Governor Snyder, repeatedly stated in its findings that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) improperly and inaccurately described the Flint water as being safe, which unfortunately was then interpreted as accurate by other state agencies and city and county agencies [ 29 ]. The Task Force report also described the Flint water crisis as “a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction and environmental injustice”, and adds that the MDEQ failed in its responsibility to properly enforce drinking water regulations, while the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHD) failed its mission to protect public health [ 29 ]. A recent article suggests these two agencies produced sampling data that were flawed, failed to provide accurate information to the Governor’s office, the EPA and the public, and did not respond appropriately when given information by environmental health and medical professionals [ 30 ]. The Task Force report also explains that state-appointed emergency managers replaced local decision-makers in Flint, thus removing “the checks and balances and public accountability that come with public decision-making” [ 29 ]. The group also credits the public and engaged Flint citizens with continuing to question government leadership (although the Task Force noted “callous and dismissive responses to citizens’ expressed concerns”), and the media for its investigative journalism of the crisis [ 29 ]. The Task Force’s conclusion was that “Flint water customers were needlessly and tragically exposed to toxic levels of lead and other hazards through mismanagement of their drinking water supply” [ 29 ]. The Flint Water Advisory Task Force suggests that the Michigan governor should issue an executive order to mandate training and guidance on environmental justice across all state agencies, with acknowledgement that the Flint crisis of water contamination is an example of environmental injustice which has fallen on a predominantly African-American community [ 29 ]. The Task Force issued 44 recommendations to remedy the results of the failure of proper governance and resultant lead poisoning [ 29 , 30 ].

Many have spoken out about this environmental injustice, including research scientists and clinicians [ 11 , 31 , 32 , 33 ] and public health professionals [ 34 ]. Even the EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy, is speaking about how Michigan evaded the EPA regarding the Flint water crisis and how this type of disaster cannot happen elsewhere [ 34 , 35 ]. Dr. Robert Bullard, dean of the School of Public Health at Texas Southern University, calls the Flint water crisis—leading to lead exposure and poisoning with long delays in addressing the problem—a classic case of environmental racism [ 36 ]. “Environmental racism is real…so real that even having the facts, having the documentation and having the information has never been enough to provide equal protection for people of color and poor people” [ 37 ]. He continues, “It takes longer for the response and it takes longer for the recovery in communities of color and low-income communities.” [ 37 ] He explains that regional EPA officials and state officials in Michigan responded first with a cover-up, “and then defensively—either trying to avoid responsibility or minimizing the extent of the damage”, as contrasted with handling of other environmental problems in predominantly white communities [ 37 ]. An example is then given of government officials on all levels helping to clean up a spill of coal ash in Roane County, Tennessee, in a mostly white community [ 37 ]. A Democrat who represents Flint, Michigan, Representative Dan Kildee, called race “the single greatest determinant of what happened in Flint” [ 28 ]. What is the solution? Dr. Bullard suggests that real solutions will result when communities previously left out of decision-making are offered a seat at the table [ 31 ]. In order to stop unequal protection from environmental hazards, Dr. Bullard has come up with five principles he suggests government adopt to further environmental justice: “guaranteeing the right to environmental protection, preventing harm before it occurs, shifting the burden of proof to the polluters, obviating proof of intent to discriminate, and redressing existing inequities” [ 37 ]. Charles Lee, another author writing about environmental justice who worked in the Office of Environmental Justice at EPA, quotes a definition of the environment as “the place where we live, where we work, and where we play” [ 38 ]. He goes on to state that “environmental justice must be the starting point for achieving healthy people, homes, and communities” [ 38 ]. Lastly, the Flint Water Task Force elaborates on its finding of environmental injustice in the Flint case. “Environmental justice or injustice, therefore, is not about intent. Rather, it is about process and results—fair treatment, equal protection, and meaningful participation in neutral forums that honor human dignity…The facts of the Flint water crisis lead us to the inescapable conclusion that this is a case of environmental injustice. Flint residents, who are majority Black or African American and among the most impoverished of any metropolitan area in the United States, did not enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards as that provided to other communities” [ 29 ].

The reader is referred to several references [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] for a more detailed timeline of the specific events and actions that occurred in Flint. The Flint Water Task Force report also provides a summary of its findings and recommendations, giving greater details on the specific events and actions during the switch in water supply [ 29 ]. Regardless of the motivations behind the water supply mismanagement, we must improve governmental safeguards and public health surveillance to strive to avoid such needless exposures to environmental toxicants in the future.

Another recent disaster, involving contamination of local water supplies, was that of the contamination of the Animas River in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico by mine waste from the Gold King Mine, leading to excessively high levels of some toxic elements metals including lead, arsenic and cadmium (all of these being toxic metals) [ 39 , 40 , 41 ]. The river water was subsequently off limits for agricultural use and closed for recreational use [ 39 , 42 ]. The Navajo Nation has recently expressed how difficult and problematic this poisoning of their drinking water source has been to this tribe, and that they have not been adequately reimbursed for the adverse impacts to their water source and way of life [ 43 , 44 ]. The Native American Rights Fund states that a source of clean and abundant water is hard to come by for many Native tribes and peoples and that many face health and developmental risks from environmental problems such as surface and groundwater contamination, hazardous waste disposal, illegal dumping, and mining wastes, all of which can contribute to poor quality of water [ 45 ]. As the Flint, the Navajo Nation, and the Native American Rights group exposures highlight, poor and minority communities are unfortunately too often exposed to poisonous chemicals in their neighborhoods and on their tribal lands, leading to environmental injustice [ 44 ].

Not only has the incident in Flint brought to light the contamination of Flint’s water system, it raises issues about local water supplies to towns and cities, and particularly to child care centers and school systems, around the nation [ 46 , 47 , 48 ]. This has caused our nation to focus on investigating for lead contamination in water supplies in other cities, particularly in school systems, child care centers and other places occupied by children [ 49 , 50 ]. A Huffington Post article states that the Flint water crisis has provided a wake-up call to the country with the “discovery” of poisoned water in many communities in the U.S., and that our water infrastructure is outdated and deteriorating, and that water sampling procedures for lead are also “dangerously” outdated, as they allow for 10% of the population to be exposed to levels over the EPA maximum contaminant level [ 51 ]. Some cities have been cited for their exemplary actions in keeping their city water supplies free from lead contamination [ 52 ].

Historically, the scientists in the companies that put lead in gasoline and lead in paint became aware of the dangers of those specific lead exposures, but it took much time to finally remove lead from these products; many counties banned the use of lead-based paint in residential housing before the U.S. did [ 53 , 54 ]. One author states, “Flint’s tragedy is shedding light on a health issue that’s been lurking in U.S. households for what seems like forever. But that demands the question: Why has lead poisoning never really been treated like what it is—the longest-lasting childhood-health epidemic in U.S. history?” [ 55 ]. Bliss then goes on to describe how when in the 1950s, when “millions of children had had been chronically or acutely exposed (to lead)” and this had been linked to health problems, that “If the lead industry had stepped up then (or if it had been forced to by government)”, maybe lead poisoning would have been treated like any other major childhood disease—polio, for example. In the 1950s, “Fewer than sixty thousand new cases of polio per year created a near-panic among American parents and a national mobilization that led to vaccination campaigns that virtually wiped out the disease within a decade”, write Rosner and Markowitz [ 56 ]. “With lead poisoning, the industry and federal government could have mobilized together to systemically detoxify the nation’s lead-infested housing stock, and end the epidemic right there” [ 55 ]. Bliss then goes on to describe how “the industry’s powerful leaders diverted the attention of health officials away from their products, and toward class and race” by associating childhood lead poisoning with that of a child “with ‘ignorant’ parents living in ‘slums’” [ 55 ]. Bliss goes on to state that “lead poisoning in children can be eradicated…Today the cost of detoxifying the entire nation hovers around $1 trillion, says Rosner. Any federal effort to systematically identify and remove lead from infested households would be complex, decades-long, and require ongoing policy reform. ‘But it’s also saving a next generation of children,’ Rosner says. ‘You’re actually going to stop these kids from being poisoned. And isn’t that worth something?’” [ 56 ]. “And Rosner is a tiny bit hopeful. Amid national conversation about economic inequality, a housing crisis, and the value of black and Latino lives, the attention that Flint has brought to lead might usher in the country’s first comprehensive lead-poisoning prevention program” [ 56 ].

With the information about lead contamination in Flint and many cities around the country, one might wonder whether there is a dearth of information or recommendations about how to prevent and manage childhood lead poisoning. There is not. Many authors have weighed in on this question recently [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 15 , 17 , 19 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ], some with very specific plans and ideas. Primary prevention of lead exposure has been particularly emphasized in almost all of them. Landrigan and Bellinger compel us to “map the sources of lead, get the lead out, and make sure there is no new lead” [ 11 ]. Jacobs and colleagues at the National Center for Healthy Housing have started a campaign for lead exposure detection and lead poisoning prevention based on these three principles: “find it, fix it, and fund it” [ 33 ]. Some call for revised standards for lead in air, house dust, soil and water [ 12 , 61 , 62 , 63 ]. The chief causes of lead exposure are nicely summarized by Levin and colleagues [ 64 ]. Unfortunately, childhood lead poisoning prevention is often deemed to be not important enough to work on, with other pressing medical and public health problems intervening; it is also complicated, complex and involves many stakeholders. Thus, the clinicians, government officials, and public health officials looking for a quick fix and a one-prescription answer to this medical problem are often disappointed and discouraged.

Concern about the neurotoxic effects of lead has been expanded now to include the neurotoxic effects of many more new chemicals out in use by the American public, including children. Children are exposed to chemicals in their everyday lives, as these are found in toys, children’s products, personal care items such as shampoos and skin creams, on foods in the form of pesticide residues, and in the air in the form of air pollutants. Some authors have weighed in on the need for more control of the manufacture and use of these toxicants and for more research into adverse health effects [ 31 , 65 , 66 ]. In 2015, a unique group of research scientists, clinicians, government representatives, and health care advocates met to form the Project TENDR (Targeting Environmental Neurodevelopmental Risks) which focuses on engendering action to prevent exposure of fetuses, infants and children to environmental toxicants [ 67 ]. The group has created a list of five chemical classes of neurotoxins which have adverse effects on brain development. The list includes lead, specific air pollutants, organophosphate pesticides, phthalates, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which are flame retardants. These were selected based on the degree of evidence for their adverse effects and the ability of this group and other scientists, clinicians, government officials, and advocates to work effectively to prevent exposures to these toxicants. Project TENDR has recently released a consensus statement with many signatures of both individuals and groups [ 67 , 68 , 69 ], as well as other articles on the project’s work [ 70 ]. Later this year, the group will release specific recommendations for prevention of exposure to the five chemical groups. The recent passage of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act has been a welcome revision and updating of the Toxic Substances Control Act promulgated by EPA in 1976 [ 71 , 72 , 73 ]. This is a step in right direction for better control of exposures to lead and other toxic chemicals in our environment.

4. Future Directions: How to Move Toward Environmental Justice

How do we remedy the situation in Flint, Michigan, and prevent future episodes similar to the Flint and Navajo Nation disasters? The Flint Water Task Force recommends that the MDHHS establish a Flint Toxic Exposure Registry to follow-up on the children and adults who were residing in Flint from April 2014 until the present, and carry out more aggressive clinical and public health follow-up for all children with elevated BLLs in the state [ 29 ]. It also recommends that routine lead screening and appropriate follow-up occur in the children’s medical homes (with the primary care provider) [ 29 ]. Additionally, the Task Force recommends that the Genesee County Health Department improve follow-up of health concerns in cooperation with the MDHHS and City of Flint “to effect timely, comprehensive, and coordinated activity and ensure the best health outcomes for children and adults affected” [ 29 ]. Dr. Hanna-Attisha has established the Flint Child Health and Development Fund which will support children and their families to obtain the optimum health and development outcomes, early childhood education, access to a pediatric medical home, improved nutrition and integrated social services [ 6 ]. The Michigan State University (MSU)/Hurley Pediatric Public Health Initiative will assess, monitor, and intervene to increase children’s readiness to succeed in school by providing the above services, along with stimulating environments and parenting education [ 6 ]. This type of close follow-up has been recommended under the Flint Recovery and Remediation section of the Flint Water Task Force, as well as a recommendation to establish a dedicated subsidiary fund in the Michigan Health Endowment Fund for funding health-related services for Flint residents [ 29 ]. Therefore, local efforts will be taken to counteract the negative consequences of exposure to lead for Flint’s children. Several recent publications support the positive effects that enriched home environments can have on cognition and behavior in both human and animal studies [ 74 , 75 , 76 ].

Secondly, government agencies at the federal, state and local level and municipal authorities will need to improve their performance to ensure environmental justice, rather than contribute toward environmental injustice. This was mandated in an Executive Order by President William Clinton which requires all federal agencies to take action to ensure environmental justice [ 77 ]. The American Academy of Pediatrics provides a good starting point regarding childhood lead exposure prevention with their recommendation that “The US EPA and HUD should review their protocols for identifying and mitigating residential lead hazards (e.g., lead-based paint, dust, and soil) and lead-contaminated water from lead service lines or lead solder and revise downward the allowable levels of lead in house dust, soil, paint, and water to conform with the recognition that there are no safe levels of lead” [ 12 ]. They also give many other recommendations for government, as well as for pediatricians and other health care providers, for reducing and preventing children’s exposure to lead. Other groups, authors and reports have weighed in on what needs to be fixed and carried out, as indicated earlier in this article. As Bellinger puts it, “We know where the lead is, how people are exposed, and how it damages health. What we lack is the political will to do what should be done” [ 32 ].

Looking at the Flint case specifically, why was the water supply switched in Flint? The evidence seems to point to financial reasons for this. In Flint, state officials decided to save money without concern for providing environmental protections for a community at well-established increased risk. This is clear injustice in environmental protection to a low income and minority community. Why weren’t the corrosion control measures implemented? The Flint Water Task Force implicates various leadership groups, including the MDEQ, MDHHS, Michigan’s Governor’s Office, State-appointed Emergency Managers, the EPA, and City of Flint, although the MDEQ and EPA seem to share most culpability [ 29 ].

5. Conclusions

In short, this crisis was the result of failures on every level. We have presented various comments about how environmental racism and injustice played into this situation. Why were the concerns and complaints about water quality from a mostly African-American community not addressed? The facts presented demonstrate that environmental injustice is the major and underlying factor involved in the events in Flint. Having a state-appointed emergency manager in charge took away the normal communication the City of Flint might have had with its residents and constituents. The Flint Water Task Force has a list of 44 recommendations, mostly directed at the various agencies and offices involved, for improving the situation and preventing further problems [ 29 ]. Much of this involves recommending that these entities seek and follow expert advice, whether on water treatment techniques or protecting the public’s health [ 29 ]. It is also imperative to rebuild relationships with Flint’s community and respond to community needs in order to make real and lasting change. Perhaps putting the Flint situation under a microscopic analysis may prevent future episodes of such environmental injustice.

We must do a better job at moving forward and preventing environmental injustice; our future work is cut out for us.

Author Contributions

The concept of the paper was developed by all of the authors. Carla Campbell performed the lead writing. Rachael Greenberg, Deepa Mankikar and Ronald Ross contributed references, edited the paper, and contributed to the revisions. All authors reviewed the article and approved the final content.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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• Published: 26 March 2021

Environmental problems and Geographic education. A case study: Learning about the climate and landscape in Ontinyent (Spain)

• Benito Campo-Pais   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7675-7788 1 ,
• Antonio José Morales-Hernández 1 ,
• Álvaro Morote-Seguido 1 &
• Xosé Manuel Souto-González   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1480-327X 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  8 , Article number:  90 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Environmental studies

Cultural perceptions of the environment bring us back to elements and factors guided by “natural” cause-effect principles. It seems that academic education has had little effect on the manner and results of learning about changes in the local landscape, especially as regards rational explanations. There is considerable difficulty relating academic concepts about the climate to transformations in the environmental landscape. Teaching tasks are mediatized due to the use of rigorous and precise concepts which facilitate functional and satisfactory learning. This is the objective of the research this article aims to undertake, for which we have chosen the case of Ontinyent (Spain). This research will include two parts: the first aims to identify problems in geographical education of the climate, and the second applies to didactic suggestions for improvement. Methodologically, this study involves qualitative, non-experimental, research-oriented toward change, which purports to understand the educational reality. Our sample included a total of 431 students. Moreover, a semi-structured interview, conducted with teachers in schools and universities in Ontinyent, was organized. Fourteen teachers were interviewed, including two who participated as research professors in the action-research method. The study revealed that students’ conceptual and stereotypical errors, in the different educational stages, vary according to the type (climate, weather, climate change, landscape) and stage (Primary, Secondary, University). They are persistent and continuous, given that they are repeated and appear anchored in the ideas and knowledge development of students regarding the problems and the study of the climate throughout their education.

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“The spring, the summer,

The childing autumn, angry winter, change

Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,

By their increase, now knows not which is which:

And this same progeny of evils comes

From our debate, from our dissension”

(W. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream , cited in Kitcher and Fox, 2019 )

Introduction

Traditionally, school-taught geography has focused on studying the relationships between physical and cultural factors in the organization of the environment (Capel, 1981 , 1984 ; Graves, 1985 ). Climate change and the environmental impact are two representative examples that have had an impact on how the research group S ocials Footnote 1 has planned educational activities.

In this vein, the sixth Global Environment Outlook report (GEO 6) declared that climate change is a matter of priority that affects both human (including human health) and natural systems (the air, biological diversity, freshwater, the oceans, and the earth) and alters the complex interactions between these systems (UNEP, 2019 , p. 10).

Furthermore, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development expresses, through Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13), the need to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” (United Nations, 2015 , p. 16). All of this leads us to reflect on the way in which we learn about and understand the concept of climate and its impact on the landscape, and vice versa, in order to take measures, as a critical and active citizen, which could reverse the current emergency situation facing the planet’s climate.

Within the group Socials (University of Valencia, Spain), we are developing a line of didactic research related to socio-environmental education to analyze the obstacles which hinder learning about the climate and landscape in an academic setting. This includes the following: (1) The lack of an interdisciplinary approach to understand the impact on socio-ecological systems from a glocal perspective; (2) The disconnection between scholarly academic knowledge related to the climate/landscape and the reality experienced by students, which allow for geographic conceptualization and an understanding of the world from school-taught geography (Cavalcanti, 2017 ); (3) The absence of analysis of the influence of social representations (Moscovici, 1961 ) on the perception of the environment (Reigota, 2001 ) related to the interaction between climate and landscape; (4) The need to boost active participation (Hart, 1993 ) in order to implement strategies and measures related to climate change mitigation and adaptation; and (5) The accuracy of using active territoriality (Dematteis and Governa, 2005 ) to create emotional links with the territory we must manage (Morales, Santana and Sánchez, 2017 ), due to its particular impact on climate and landscape factors.

All of this leads us to re-evaluate the importance of analyzing cultural perceptions of the environment to determine the factors which have an impact on environmental transformation, starting from the paradigm Education for Eco-Social Transformation. The aim is to encourage the inclusion thereof in the academic curriculum (González, 2018 ). This is a line of study we have already tackled through the analysis of the trialectics of spatiality, where we reconsidered the Piaget taxonomy of lived, objective, and conceived spaces (Hannoun, 1977 ). We aimed to further our understanding of space through lived emotions, the cultural perceptions which create spatial stereotypes, and the conceived space, a result of the actions taken by political and economic leaders in the country (Souto, 2016 , 2018a ). This conceptual modification helped us understand the environment as a process of intellectual construction, like a reflection of a physical reality conceived with emotions and social filters. In other words, this is coherent with what we consider in our research proposal.

Our approach to the problem

Local geographical studies are methodologically similar to what are known as case studies in educational research. To this effect, it is worthwhile recalling that a local case is specific, but it is not unique or unrepeatable. That is to say, there are aspects particular to the social and territorial context, but the explanatory factors refer us to theories that have been developed around other comparative analyses. In this vein, the work we are presenting here, as a case study of climate and landscape education in Ontinyent (Spain), answers three basic questions which outline the problem.

Firstly, what is the role of the academic system in explaining everyday issues? If climate change and the perception of changes in the landscape are of social concern, we must specify whether the academic system should codify aspects of these expectations in a conceptual corpus. This can be done through a series of educational activities and by seeking answers to events that may be communicated with explanations in a public sphere. This will be the main objective of this study.

Secondly, we wonder what specific disciplinary knowledge can contribute? In the case of geography, due to its interdisciplinary links, it will be useful to determine its impact on academic knowledge and, consequently, the construction of a public opinion regarding everyday issues. How can an understanding of geography affect the development of a critical theory which questions the practical meaning of everyday life?

Finally, a significant contribution to this study: what conclusions can we draw from the social representations of spontaneous knowledge in developing social arguments? We want to know to what extent representations of daily practicality present an obstacle to developing independent knowledge and thus render conceptual disciplinary knowledge useful for arguing in public opinion debates influencing common sense and determining our everyday practicality. We wanted to exemplify this with ideas provided by students and teachers from schools in the region.

When looking at the relationships between stages, from global phenomena to local measures with eco-geographical dynamics and where anthropogenic activities are included as explanatory factors, school and university students’ ideas about the climate and the lived and conceived landscape do not tend to be included in a subjective way. This fact contradicts the definition itself of the landscape set out in the European Landscape Convention, by not taking into account the territorial perception of the population (Council of Europe, 2000 ).

The central idea of our line of research points to using students’ personal and social perceptions as a starting point to develop basic knowledge about the climate and landscape. We question spontaneous concepts to explain the landscape in terms of the climate and create a certain environment (microclimate, evapotranspiration, sunlight…).

In this vein, students taking the Research in Social Science Didactics: Geography postgraduate programs (University of Valencia) have produced several master’s and Doctoral Theses which deal with the existing relationship between social representations and environmental education Footnote 2 . Some of this research is related to the EcoRiba Footnote 3 project, with the aim of understanding the importance of linking this didactic research to integral education about the local environment, in order to promote more sustainable and supportive interactions both in a local and global setting (Morales and García, 2016 ; Morales, 2017 ; Morales, 2018 ). It is a way of integrating academic studies into social and civic renown, an academic construction of an educational public space for the local community.

The research context

Studies about “marginalised students” Footnote 4 as examples of the realities of academic failure, but also of second chances, present arguments about what happens in the teaching and thus the didactics of geography. Analyzing this set of school students provides evidence linking failure with teachers’ and students’ personal narratives to understand what is concealed (Campo, Ciscar, and Souto, 2014 ; García Rubio and Souto, 2020 ). As such, it was possible to carry out an assessment, using social representations, of academic knowledge which facilitates improvement options at different educational stages, including the experiences of marginalized students (Campo, 2014 ). These representations also challenge academic traditions and routines, presenting obstacles and causing difficulties teaching and learning geography (Canet et al., 2018 ; Campo et al., 2019 ). These studies represent the instruction and methodological arguments that are part of the rational and personal reasons for taking on this research: learning difficulties at school, social representations in educational research of geography didactics, and the question of innovation as a requirement for educational improvement.

We have pinpointed these principles for a research topic. Learning about the climate and landscape is fundamental for students to understand environmental changes and problems and, moreover, is part of geography didactics both in basic education (Tonda and Sebastiá, 2003 ; Jaén and Barbudo, 2010 ; García de la Vega, 2014 ; Martínez and López, 2016 ; Olcina, 2017 ; Martínez and Olcina, 2019 ), and in the work of students training to become teachers (Valbuena and Valverde, 2006 ; Boon, 2014 ; Souto, 2018a ; Morote et al., 2019 ) who highlight the dilemmas and perceptions of geography or climate change (González and Maldonado, 2014 ; Chang and Pascua, 2016 ). In our case, we are mainly concerned with observing what is happening in classrooms. Students make explanations about climate problems which are full of mistakes and stereotypes produced by the trivialization of some scientific concepts shared by the mass media (Olcina and Martín, 1999 ; Martín-Vide, 2009 ). In order to analyze students’ education about the climate and landscape, we must identify teaching practices (Souto, 2013 , 2018a ) and reveal what students know. In both cases, we are guided by various studies focused on conceptions, ideas, and representations (Gil, 1994 ; García Pérez, 2002 , 2004 ; Kindelan, 2013 ; Bajo, 2016 ; Santana, 2019 ; García-Monteagudo, 2019 ) which, stemming from research and interest in the psychology of learning, aim to understand student mistakes and make constructive suggestions based on models focused on student learning. This starts with their existing knowledge, moving on to what students have been taught, and finally observing the impact of the media on their education. In this way, theoretical tenets of social representations will allow us to interpret what is happening, based on referential systems and enabling categories that classify contexts, phenomena, or individuals (Jodelet, 1991 ). We use these educational research theories with the pertinent epistemological awareness (Castorina and Barreiro, 2012 ) which proves the representations observed in school geography (Souto and García, 2016 ) among the population as regards climate change (Heras, 2015 ; Alatorre-Frenk et al., 2016 ) and the landscape (Santana et al., 2014 ) or among students and teachers in the practice thereof (Domingos, 2000 ).

This objective corresponds with a line of research Footnote 5 linked to doctoral research Footnote 6 , which outlines its idiographic, explanatory, and applied nature (Bisquerra, 2009 ). First, it is idiographic due to the approach for understanding and interpreting the unique nature of school geography lessons on the climate and landscape as curricular content. Secondly, it is explanatory because it claims to clarify what is happening in teaching-learning processes. Finally, it is applied in nature because it aims to transform the conditions of didactic activities and introduce improvements in the teaching-learning process of geography using real-life experiences from schools in Ontinyent (Spain). This research will include two parts: the first aims to identify problems in geographical education of the climate, and the second applies to didactic suggestions for improvement.

In this article, we will develop the first part—assessing the topic we outlined above. Our hypothesis indicates that geography lessons about the climate, school traditions, and the mass media lead to knowledge shaped by stereotypes and conceptual mistakes which are exposed in children’s education and remain present in higher education.

Methodology

This study involves qualitative, non-experimental, research-oriented toward change, which purports to understand the educational reality. As such, an open and mixed design is most suitable, which adapts to the knowledge observed during the study. This justifies the analytical study we propose for this research. We selected the case study (Stake, 1999 , Álvarez and San Fabián, 2012 ) as a way of analyzing how students in Ontinyent (Valencia) learn about the region’s climate and landscape. Given the study’s characteristics and the objective of making the quantity of information manageable and systematizing the analysis (Goetz and Lecompte, 1988 ; Miles and Huberman, 1994 ; Rodríguez et al., 1996 ; Rodríguez et al., 2005 ) we have used a combination of quantitative techniques, which make statistical analysis possible (Gil, 2003 ), and qualitative techniques, which facilitate content analysis, for the data analysis. This combination of techniques is used in case studies to further explore explanations for the phenomena analyzed, with the aim of making the quantity of information manageable (Bisquerra, 2009 ).

It is worthwhile outlining the sample in context for assessment purposes. The sampling technique used is non-probabilistic for convenience and accessibility (Bisquerra, 2009 ; Otzen and Manterola, 2017 ). We chose the municipality of Ontinyent due to adjustment reasons and opportunity criteria. On the one hand, the population of Ontinyent assures a sample size that is representative of a concrete population: the innovation program Footnote 7 provided access to school and university settings in this municipality which has a population of 35,534 Footnote 8 (2016) and boasts educational centers across the different educational stages: Kindergarten, Primary, Secondary, and University. In other words, we can carry out a transversal study of children’s education about the climate throughout the different educational stages, with different chronological ages, at the same time and encompassing the entire school and university education of one person. On the other hand, Ontinyent, as shown in Fig. 1 is a municipality in the Community of Valencia (Spain) with specific climatic conditions due to its location 47 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. It has a typical Mediterranean climate or, according to the Koppen classification, a semi-arid cold climate with mild winters and hot summers (Guerra, 2018 ).

Ontinyent is located within Valencian Community (Spain). Self-elaborated map based on Google Earth data.

During the 2015–16 academic year, between May and December 2016, we gathered data from different school classrooms in Ontinyent, including 5 Kindergartens Footnote 9 and Primary Schools (4 public schools and 2 private schools with state-funded financial support), 3 Compulsory and Baccalaureate Secondary Schools Footnote 10 (1 public school and 2 private schools with state-funded financial support) and the headquarters of the University of Valencia in Ontinyent (2 classes of the Teaching Diploma). In total, 202 first-year primary school pupils, 204 fifth-year primary school pupils, 135 second-year secondary school students, and 92 university students taking the Teaching Diploma participated.

As such, our sample included a total of 633 students, covering a range of the academic population, from both school and university, in Ontinyent which has a total of 6185 students Footnote 11 . If we take the demographic numerical data in Table 1 Footnote 12 as a reference, it represents a Confidence Interval (CI) of 0.52% which indicates that the academic population in Ontinyent is representative of the academic population in the Community of Valencia. This represents a level of reliability equaling 95% of the academic population, typical of Social Sciences statistical studies (Campo and Martínez, 2017 ). But this does not mean that the study sample is in turn representative of the population in the Community of Valencia.

In order to define the context of academic knowledge, qualitative tools were developed. These tools are unique to research in Social Science Didactics and include a semi-structured interview and questionnaire (Banchs, 2000 ). These tools have been validated by experts in the fields of knowledge associated with this research (Physical Geography, Regional Geographical Analysis, Social Science Didactics and Didactics, and School Organisation) from four universities, three of which are in Spain (Seville, Alicante, and Valencia) and one in Chile (La Serena). Footnote 13

Furthermore, this research draws on previous studies Footnote 14 , using the action-research method which puts the participating students and teachers at the heart of the study (Stenhouse, 1990 ; Elliot, 2000 ), reflecting on their own practice (Teppa, 2012 ). This distinctly includes the model of a research professor in the research (Stenhouse, 1975 ; Sancho and Hernández, 2004 ). In order to improve the curriculum, teachers and other professionals are in the best conditions to carry out this type of research.

The questionnaire is a versatile technique that facilitates the collection of information regarding the objectives of the research. In January and February 2016, teachers and students were asked to participate in the study, obtaining a commitment of wilfulness for this investigation. This is done through specific questions which gather specific quantifiable information for the study (Cohen and Manion, 1990 ), thus allowing for direct comparison between groups. In our case, this is a comparison between the variable of educational stages or the co-variation of students’ ideas in the different educational stages when learning about the climate. Its design focuses on the evaluative considerations of a questionnaire about geography didactics (Alfageme et al., 2010 ) and follows the process itself for the creation of questionnaires: following the research objectives, creating a first draft of the questionnaire for assessment and validation by experts, carrying out a pilot test and delivering the final version of the questionnaire (Del Rincón et al., 1995 ). For the proposed analysis, we used three of the sections which make up the questionnaire: the first section, item 1, covers information sources for students about climate change; the second section, items 2 to 6, looks at the difference between the climate and the weather; the third section, items 7 to 10, tackles the causes of climate change. The questionnaire was created based on content that appears in the textbooks used by participants, containing the same questions/items in order to maintain homogeneity among the 431 participating students, representing Primary Education (10–12 years old; 105 girls and 99 boys), Secondary Education (13–15 years old; 63 girls and 72 boys) and University (82 women and 8 men with 21–23 years old). The design covers a mixed structure of closed and open questions which appear in sections with the corresponding items.

The semi-structured interview , conducted with teachers in schools and universities in Ontinyent, is a substantial part of the research. The teachers were selected according to accessibility and interest in the research. This convenience-based option was chosen due to the possibility of being able to interview them and the relevance to the project framework on the study of the climate and landscape Footnote 15 . Fourteen teachers were interviewed, including two who participated as research professors in the action-research method. The questions were chosen for the study related to their ideas (Saraiva, 2007 ) before participating in the project and covered teacher training, methodology and practice, and their explanations of environmental problems—how they explain environmental changes in Ontinyent to their students. Ultimately, we wanted to find out what the teacher knows and what they do to help their students learn about the climate.

Of the 14 teachers, 8 are women and 6 are men. Three of them are over the age of 56, 2 are between 46 and 55 years old, 6 between 36 and 45, and 3 between 25 and 35 years old. They teach in public (6), private (7), and privately managed public (1) schools. They teach at different educational levels, 1 in Kindergarten, 2 in Primary, 9 in Secondary School, and 2 at Baccalaureate level. They teach different subjects: 2 teach Social Sciences, 4 teach Biology, 2 teach Physics and Chemistry, 1 teaches Mathematics, 1 teaches Language and Literature, 1 teaches Social Integration, 1 teaches Administration and 1 teaches Kindergarten.

Results and data analysis

The data gathered using the questionnaire and interviews are shown, in a quantitative setting, through the already processed conversion into percentages of the participants’ responses per educational stage. The qualitative data has been categorized in line with the desired objectives.

Students’ perception of climate and landscape

In the first section of the questionnaire, related to the hypothesis and objectives of the study, we wanted to know what the students’ favorite source of news on climate change was in order to analyze the trends among students regarding the information they obtain about climate change in the communication society, and the impact on their academic knowledge (Souto, 2011 ). The items in this section questioned the participants about where they get information on climate change, establishing an order of preference. In order to understand what information, they get and the extent to which they receive it from the sources mentioned, we asked a multiple-choice question, the percentages of which established a percentage median of the students’ priorities per educational stage. The data were quantified using a statistical median of the participants’ responses per stage, reflecting the order of importance of the sources they selected in the first step. We differentiated online social networks from the internet, due to their renown and growth. Although the first requires the second, we distinguished that the essential use and function of social networks is communication between people who are active in social relationships, while the internet is a source of information with multiple uses and possibilities. Thereafter, we will detail the number of students who chose each source as their top source and the percentage of the sample. As such, as shown in Fig. 2 , of the 423 students we can see how sources evolve from the family environment (37.7%) in Primary School to the Internet (39.3% in Secondary School and 79.8% at University). We also observe that social networks are used more in Secondary School than at any other educational stage.

The bars represent the percentage in each educational stage.

When analyzing the data, we started with the premise that traditional information sources for learning over the last century such as school, family, friends (social relations), and the media (the press, television) have been expanded by this society of information, communication and technology and the globalization of information and news, because we are now in a network society (Castells, 2006 ). Surveys by official bodies about the information society in Spain and in Europe (Eurostat, 2016 ) show that in 2016 95.2% of students in Spain used the internet, 58.8% used it every day, and 25.7% almost every day for between one and three hours. Among those over the age of 15, around 90% used the internet for e-mail and social networks. The data obtained allowed us to qualify these figures, which are reduced into percentages about more generic sectors. In this way, we established four large categories of information sources that have an impact on knowledge: school, family, the media (Internet, television, and the press), and social relations (friends and networks).

The trend shift towards the media as an information source for students was confirmed. This preference, especially from secondary school onwards, corresponds with the exponential trend for the use of the media by society. However, this suggests a problem and a risk for learning about the climate as it is subject to errors and stereotypes. The liquid modernity we live in comprises the transience, use, and access to a large quantity of data. From the perspective of cognitive psychology and as proven, people find it difficult to retain more than seven units of information. When building our knowledge, quality is more important than quantity. This liquid society produces a series of habits that make it difficult to learn geography (Sebastiá and Tonda, 2017 ). The need for information to learn collides with the sheer quantity of data available which spreads on technological motorways and platforms, motorways of information in the informational technological revolution. The so-called technological revolution hangs over new informative engineering like a cloud and is of great concern for data verification and codes of best practice (Goldenberg and Bengtsson, 2016 ; Wardle et al., 2018 ). Fake news is generated to create states of opinion about climate change (Maslin, 2019 ) and we have observed how these factors have a harmful impact on students’ geographical literacy (Campo, 2019 ). In other words, data shows us that students do not look at social media from a critical perspective.

In addition to understanding the attitudes to climate and environmental knowledge, we wanted to find out what knowledge students had in relation to two main aspects of climate education : the difference between the climate and the weather, and understanding the causes of climate change. We dedicated a part of the questionnaire to these issues.

For the first aspect, we analyzed students’ understanding of the differences between the climate and the weather, identifying whether they knew how to distinguish them. To do this, we provided different statements which they had to match up with climate or weather. This gave us some clues as to their cognitive level (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001 ; Biggs and Tang, 2007 ; Granados, 2017 ) and what the students had learned because the act of matching up indicates subject knowledge and the identification of relationships. The data was obtained through a closed polytomous question in which they could choose which statement referred to the climate, the environment, or unsure. The statements were included in the following items of the questionnaire: item 2, “Last year, the annual average temperature in Ontinyent was 16.2°C” (climate); item 3, “In the summer, the Clariano river is drier than in the winter” (climate); item 4, “The Ontinyent landscape is the Mediterranean” (climate); item 5, “It’s very hot today” (weather); item 6, “Yesterday, the historical center of Ontinyent was flooded” (weather).

As shown in Fig. 3 , the students in each educational stage who correctly matched the concepts with the statements were measured. In addition to the responses from students who answered incorrectly, there were the students who indicated that they did not know.

The colors of the bars represent the student’s answers per item. Right answers are represented by “RIGHT”. Wrong answers are represented by “WRONG”. Not answered questions are represented by “DON’T KNOW”. We have combined the “WRONG” and “DON’T KNOW” answers to represent the degree of confusion regarding each item at each educational stage.

In general, throughout the three stages, more than 25% of students matched the items up incorrectly, making mistakes with all the suggested statements, except for university students who answered item 3 correctly at a rate of 76.2%, item 4 at 92.9%, and item 6 at 77.4%. The high proportion of students who answered item 2 incorrectly stands out, with at least 53.3% answering incorrectly. This percentage corresponds to the secondary school pupils. The average annual temperature was not associated with the climate and the time event “last year” confused them. Primary pupils and university students were further off-the-mark for item 2 with 67.6% and 72.6% respectively, responding incorrectly. As regards the weather, for item 5 at least 36.9% of the students surveyed (this percentage corresponds to university students) did not connect that the weather happens at a certain time while the climate is a succession of weather conditions; for item 5, 53.9% of primary school pupils and 46.7% of secondary school pupils were also incorrect.

We have noted that mistakes about the concepts of climate and weather carry through from primary school to university. If we calculate the average of wrong answers to all items for students from each educational stage, the degree of confusion per participating stage is 55.5% for primary education (113 students out of 204), 41.4% for secondary education (56 students out of 135) and 32.32% for university (27 students out of 84).

Ultimately, students from all educational stages make mistakes or display a lack of knowledge about the climate and weather. This is proven by the incorrect answers to questions about the average temperature and climate (item 2), knowledge of the local climate, characteristics of the climate and its implications for the landscape (items 3 and 4), or identifying the fleeting nature of weather as the climate (item 5) or indeed other phenomena, such as a temporary flood (item 6).

Furthermore, using the questionnaire we wanted to find out if students recognized some of the causes of climate change which were presented in the questions, relating them to gas emissions or the increase in the greenhouse effect. The items were dichotomous: the participants had to select whether the statements were true or false. In line with the taxonomies established by the educational stages, the questions asked aimed to distinguish causes from events, truths from falsehoods, which is interesting given the confusion that surrounds climate change. The statements corresponded with the following items in the questionnaire: item 7, “Thanks to the greenhouse effect, we can live on Earth”; item 8, “Deforestation doesn’t have an impact on climate change, it only has an impact on ground erosion”; item 9, “One of the causes of climate change is the global warming of the Earth”; item 10, “One of the causes that contribute to the process of climate change is the excessive burning of fossil fuels”.

In Table 2 , we note how items 8 and 9 maintain a line of progression of wrong answers in correlation with the age of students and their cognitive level per educational stage. For item 8, 31.9% and 32.9%, and for item 9, 18.6% and 15.6% of primary school and secondary school pupils responded incorrectly. Although they are almost the same, for item 8 around 32% of both groups had difficulties relating deforestation processes with the climate, as indicated by IPCC reports Footnote 16 . The loss of wooded areas produces a rise in carbon emissions, gases which increase the greenhouse effect (IPCC, 2013 ) because they are not absorbed by tree leaves and trunks. In parallel, deforestation leads to land desertification (IPCC, 2019 ) which hinders the processes of afforestation and reforestation. This chain explanation is an example of seeing the world and its problems in a holistic way, working on comprehensive thinking (Morin, 1990 ). This is more difficult to integrate with various fields of knowledge for certain levels and education.

As regards the answers to items 9 and 10, there is visible controversy. For item 9, most students recognize the link between global warming and climate change. But it is concerning that the link is not as clear in the answers to item 10 to which 54% of primary pupils, 33.3% of secondary pupils, and 26.2% of university students answered incorrectly. This data supposes that 41.06% of the surveyed population (see Table 3 ), in other words, 177 of 431 students between the ages of 6 and 24, do not identify the causal relationship between human activities and global warming. They do not associate the increase in burning fossil fuels with climate change (IPCC, 2014 ).

The item which reveals the most mistakes is item 7. Some of the experts consulted when validating this item already indicated that it is a complex question given the origin of the gases because there are those of natural and human origin.

The analysis of the results shows us that there are different levels of confusion among students across all the educational stages to explain the relationships between physical factors (items 7 and 9), humans (items 8 and 10), and climate change. However, there is further confusion regarding the effects of human activities, which lead to deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, on the climate and its evolution.

Teachers’ opinion about climate and landscape explanation

The semi-structured interview allowed us to expand on certain aspects. Once the questions on learning had been asked and the students’ ideas about the climate and landscape gathered, we wanted to define a more precise scale for analysis. In other words, we wanted to see how learning happens in real life in school classrooms. The questionnaire confirmed our hypothesis that there some conceptual problems and corresponding mistakes. The interview allowed us to dig deeper into these assumptions through teachers’ disciplinary and practical training. The design of a personal interview makes it easier to repeat questions to teachers, related with concrete aspects that we had already found proof of thanks to the students’ answers to the questionnaire.

For the study, four categories related to teachers’ ideas were established, allowing us to elaborate coherent explanations for the analysis of students’ education and the vulgar representations of climate change theories. This followed patterns shown by different authors regarding problems in learning and teaching geography, related to students and teachers (Horno, 1937 ; García Pérez, 2011 ; Liceras, 2000 ; Martínez and Olcina, 2019 ).

Teacher training: the academic background of the teachers interviewed is apparent in the basic statistical data we gathered. We asked them when they complete their continuous teacher training, how long it takes, at what time of day, where, and what topics they study. Given the inaccuracy of some responses, we asked them again to specify when they studied, if it was in their free time, in the evening after class, during summer courses, a Cefire course Footnote 17 etc.

Student difficulties regarding the topic of the climate. We tried to understand what the main difficulties are which hinder the effectiveness of the explanations they bring to the subject matter and the problems they encounter when trying to explain topics to their students when teaching about the climate, climate change, and the Ontinyent landscape. To be more precise, we asked them again about knowledge gaps and the procedures and didactic learning difficulties they encounter when explaining these topics.

Teaching methodologies: classroom strategies. We wanted to identify what teachers’ perceptions are regarding how to explain the climate in order to understand their opinion as a teacher on education about the climate and landscape, the relationship between the climate and landscape in the Clariano river landscape in the municipality of Ontinyent, and by which means they explain the problem of climate change to their students in the class. We aimed to understand how they lay out the topic with the textbook in addition to their own explanations using local data or any other means.

which Concepts teachers value and believe necessary to their explanations: climate, weather, climate change, minimum average temperature, night-time irradiation, sunlight, greenhouse effect, albedo effect, cold drop, and landscape. The scale is designed for them to evaluate the concept in line with their use or evaluation of it, with 0 being “nothing” (I don’t use it or deem it useful), 1 “little”, 2 “quite” and 4 “a lot”.

For this article, we will present a summary of the analysis for each category in line with the questions asked and answered by the teachers.

If we analyze the results of the interviews regarding teacher training , most participants, 12 out of 14, revealed that they completed their training outside working hours. Only two teachers answered that certain times were set aside in their work timetable for training purposes. In general, training takes place in the evening or summer, at the cost of their free time. The Cefire courses Footnote 18 were the most common option for continuous training. In the end, their training was reliant on the personal availabilities of teachers who had to bear the responsibility of their training outside school hours and its costs. This infringes the challenges highlighted by different international geography partnerships and the IGU’s Footnote 19 declarations where they recommend geography training as a necessity for primary and secondary school teachers (De Miguel et al., 2016 ; De Miguel, 2017 ). However, it cannot be denied that nowadays, with regard to work and school organization and structure, the school system and political decisions on education result in scarce teacher training to the detriment of teachers’ intentions. It is a pathway that presents too many obstacles for them to be able to commit to potential interests including didactics, innovation, and scientific knowledge about climate change. Rather it relies on the individual will and sense of responsibility of teachers, as reflected in this teacher’s answer Footnote 20 :

“Outside of school hours, through the completion of courses such as Cefire, reading scientific articles published in journals, watching documentaries, TV programs, etc.”

As regards students and the main learning difficulties when it comes to the climate and landscape, teachers understand and outline 25 problems in total which have been categorized into five groups, and the problems which appear in Fig. 4 are broken down into percentages according to the frequency with which they appeared in teachers’ answers, which was in this order: Field of Study (5 problems, 18 references), Student Characteristics (7 problems, 14 references), Didactic Materials (5 problems, 9 references), Teaching Staff (5 problems, 9 references) and School Context (3 problems, 5 references).

The inner ring represents the relative frequency of each difficulty within its group. The outer ring represents the absolute frequency of each difficulty within the whole array of difficulties.

The problems which are identified the most and repeated most frequently are the need to experience the topic outside of the classroom and the theoretical complexity of the content, the spread of data to be used on the topic, the lack of basic education among students, and inter-disciplinary coordination. The rest of the factors highlighted by one or more teachers included the conceptual ideas and errors already held by students, the lack of continuity in the educational stages to tackle curricular topics or the objectives of the school. The teachers’ answers justify the importance of taking them into account when making changes for innovation, the integration of subject matters, and working on projects and problems relevant to the student. Geography is a science explained through other sciences; these ideas, as well as those previously mentioned, were expressed by the teachers interviewed, as summarized by this teacher:

“On the one hand, the content is approached in an isolated way in some subjects and, in my opinion, it should be studied in “all” subject areas. There should be coordination among teachers, as well as continuity between stages and courses, providing a contextualised approach applied to their surroundings. Consequently, their families, the authorities and the rest of the community should participate in their studies. If, furthermore, we don’t get out of the “ordinary classroom” scenario in order to observe, evaluate, analyze, apply knowledge, etc., the student ends up viewing a real problem which affects them directly as an abstract foreign concept, “something we talk about but has nothing to do with me”.

Geography is a science that requires practice, so the main problem mentioned is the need for contact with the environment. It is relevant for the student to study the climate and landscape. The theoretical complexity of the topic combines with the education received by the pupil, the materials used, and the academic context, but how do teachers tackle the subject to give answers and explain the problems of school geography lessons with climate problems and the environmental consequences? (Santiago, 2008 ).

We will now look at how teachers organize and handle their explanations to respond to these difficulties. The methodological aspects outlined in Table 3 demonstrate the 27 aspects the teachers associated with their teaching and the study of the climate. These factors belong to three main groups: materials and resources (13), methodologies (7), and type of activities (7). Most teachers use the textbook (10), documentaries and videos (7), local articles and data (6), illustrations, and the internet (5) for support, as a basis for the information to be studied in the classroom. In addition, but to a lesser extent, they use information about extreme weather events, climograph, or personal experiences related to the climate. The second group relates to the methods used. Environmental experimentation and research appear as the main strategy for learning alongside democratic training, the development of knowledge using previous ideas, cooperative learning, and interactive methods. Finally, the third group encompasses the activities undertaken in tandem with the methodology: brainstorming, understanding of reading materials, presenting projects, debates, and data analysis.

Some methodological aspects about resources, activities, and strategies coincide with those regularly used for teaching and learning about the climate (Romero, 2010 ; Martínez and López, 2016 ; Olcina, 2017 ), such as the textbook, the use of data and graphs, maps and activities for the interpretation and analysis of data. However, although there are aspects which could be included generically, there are no references to specific or innovative aspects for the study of the climate such as thematic maps, satellite images, the creation of monthly rain diagrams, constructing a laboratory, gathering data about the weather on a daily basis (Cruz, 2010 ) or learning based on projects or interdisciplinary projects (Rekalde and García, 2015 ).

The contrast between the difficulties that teachers observe among their students and the teaching they practice indicates that, without specific continuous teacher training, teachers’ thoughts and intentions do not correspond with their practice to a large extent. In other words, teachers are aware of the difficulties, but they cannot utilize methods such as methodological changes and specific resources for the design of activities related to the improvement of climate study at school.

In the end, we are interested in finding out what value teachers attribute to their explanations of independent and necessary concepts to explain climate and climate change. Here we have to highlight, as can be observed in Fig. 5 , the result obtained regarding the frequency of use for its evaluation. Teachers use, with a frequency of over 50%, the concepts of climate change, landscape, the greenhouse effect, climate, and weather compared with, at less than 50%, the minimum average temperature, cold drops, and sunlight. Night-time irradiation and the albedo effect were practically mentioned by one teacher.

The graph bars show how teachers make use of these concepts. The frequency of use of these concepts, represented by colors, shows the percentage of use of each notion by teachers on a scale from 0 (never) to 3 (very frequently).

The results show that teachers identify some concepts as more important to explain climate change in class. Thanks to the analysis carried out with the questionnaire, we were able to demonstrate the confusion experienced by students about the climate and weather, the mistaken identification of the average temperature as a piece of data that explains the climate, or the confusion about the causes of climate change. Teachers attribute relative value to minimum average temperatures, night-time irradiation, the albedo effect of sunlight. Science, on the other hand, explains and draws links between climate change and the increase in night-time temperatures to explain global warming, one of the causes of climate change, as expressed in a report and evaluations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Houghton; Callander and Varney, 1992 ):

“Average warming over parts of the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude continents has been found to be largely characterized by increases in minimum (night-time) rather than maximum (daytime) temperatures.” (p. 7)

“A notable feature over considerable areas of the continental land masses of the Northern Hemisphere is that warming over the last few decades is primarily due to an increase in night-time rather than daytime temperatures.” (p. 21).

The school geography curriculum in Spain prescribes the complexity of curricular content, in line with the cognitive level of the pupil, to be studied during primary and secondary education. Studying with a progression of knowledge is important. During primary education, the curriculum is based on the physical environment, studying the air, then the atmosphere, atmospheric phenomena, weather elements, measurements and recording, the difference between weather and climate, the characteristics of different climates, and explanations for climate change (Martínez and López, 2016 ). During secondary education, they expand on causal and complex thinking, physical and human geography, and ecology from an analytical and later scalar perspective (Romero, 2010 ). Here lies the problem in properly understanding knowledge development processes on the topic of the climate. The teachers we interviewed mentioned this when they identified students’ learning difficulties, identifying their lack of basic training, their idealization of concepts, or the discontinuity in the curricular development of the topic. However, this contrasts with how the teachers evaluated basic concepts used to explain the climate, which is more or less the same as those found in the textbooks, related to the curriculum, rather than those necessary for a comprehensive causal explanation, such as that of climate change. As such, sunlight is only valued by one of the teachers interviewed and used very little. In Ontinyent itself, data over the last 30 years reveals the progressive increase in annual temperatures (Souto, 2018b ), which is not caused so much by sunlight—the same percentage of sunlight hours at certain times of the day is maintained—but rather by night-time irradiation. This concept was only mentioned by two teachers who use it very little.

As we can see, teachers mainly follow the topics in the curriculum as embodied in the textbooks, with the exception of the local reference to the Clariano river. They agree on the importance of this element of the landscape and understanding the significance of its dynamic relationship with the climate. The teachers observe the difficulty students have when studying the climate without leaving the classroom and speak of the need for more commensurate strategies. However, they maintain school traditions and routines, the use of the textbook, and standard curricular content.

Conclusions

The conclusions of the statistical study we carried out confirm the representativeness of the sample, while the analysis of responses verifies the substantiality of the surveyed population in tracking certain stereotypes in the “practical sense” (Domingos and Diniz, 2019 ) and the mechanic reproduction of climate and landscape concepts.

The results endorse the use of “practical sense” ideas Footnote 21 when it comes to everyday explanations regarding the climate, climate change, and its relationship with the landscape. We expected to explain the traditional method of learning about the climate, conditioned by students’ social representations. In this way, we concluded that the mistaken stereotypes and perceptions of a part of the academic population in primary, secondary, and baccalaureate, as well as higher education, are related with the assumption of “common sense”, derived from an everyday practical sense, to which authority is granted when “the facts” are reflected in social communication media.

The study revealed that students’ conceptual and stereotypical errors in the different educational stages vary according to the type (climate, weather, climate change, landscape) and stage (primary, secondary, university). They are persistent and continuous, given that they are repeated and appear anchored in the ideas and knowledge development of students regarding the problems and the study of the climate throughout their education.

We highlight the continuity regarding the manner of reasoning, although representations of abstract thinking are distinguished among secondary school and university students. In these stages, representations of concrete thinking, characteristic of lower cognitive levels and stages, are considered in the school curriculum for the teaching of the climate (Martínez and Olcina, 2019 ).

In the mind maps drawn by students about the climate and learning about the climate, we ascertained that the media and education are the most important factors in the development of knowledge among students. As regards the first, the influence of the internet and digital social communication media grows every day on students as a source of information, whilst other traditional sources of learning and knowledge such as school and family fall behind. As regards teaching, we highlight the role of the teacher in classes: how they teach, the obstacles of the school system, methodology, and the selection of conceptual aspects, procedures, and attitudes which predispose a certain education of the climate, its materialization on the landscape and the evidence of climate change.

Ultimately, the representativeness of the study helps us decipher one of the initial conjectures of this research: “stereotypes and conceptual errors about the climate and landscape are repeated in different statistical demographic cohorts” . This means that the educational system reinforces the ideas derived from common sense and those who transform these stereotypes into alternative arguments as a result of academic education (basic and university) are scarce.

In terms of the students and given the considerable degree of confusion between the weather and climate or about the causes of climate change in the educational stages, we showed how social representations have had an impact on children, teenagers, and young adults developing their knowledge about the climate and landscape, influenced more by the presence of vulgar theories on the topic than by the understanding and application of school concepts.

As regards the teachers, we showed how teachers’ intentions for methodological change collide with difficulties in specific continuous professional development. The obstacles to developing different methodologies, resources, and innovative activities are not overcome by teacher training in order to provide comprehensive explanations about climate change to their students. The increase of the influence of the media on students’ education about climate change facilitates students’ development of knowledge about the climate and environmental changes filled with errors and stereotypes. Some situations cannot be compared or analyzed in a classroom environment, either due to a lack of time dedicated to these topics or due to the obstacles inferred by teaching practice, such as the absence of specific training.

Failing to contest these spontaneous conceptions and academic traditions and routines leads to academic concepts being overshadowed by an incomplete explanation of the climate, resulting in a partial explanation based on vulgar and superficial ideas.

Data availability

The article directly contains the data used to carry out the analysis pertinent to the study. If you are interested in the rest of the data gathered for the research, it can be made available by reasonable written request to the authors.

The Social(S) group is recognized by the University of Valencia as a research group, including teachers from the non-university educational system as collaborators. For more details on the educational background of the group, you can check http://socialsuv.org/educacionsocioambiental/ .

Accordingly, we can highlight the doctoral theses by Diana Santana, “School participation and environmental governance: an educational dialectic” and Diego García, “The social representation of the rural environment: an analysis of school geography”, both presented in 2019, alongside more than ten Master’s theses developed between 2011 and 2019 which tackle the line of research related with Socio-environmental Education.

EcoRiba is a program local to Riba-roja de Túria in Valencia, Spain, which aims to showcase the landscape in order to invigorate the territory. It was presented to society in February 2016 and underpins all the objectives of this sustainable strategy for socio-environmental education.

This is what we call students who have obstacles and hindrances to achieving the objectives and basic skills set out in the school curriculum for a certain age. The book “La invisibilidad de las periferias escolares” [The invisibility of marginalised students] by J. García and X. Souto ( 2020 ) contains a compilation of a research project, thesis, and innovative educational proposals for use in classrooms by teachers who carry out this work with their students.

Group subsidiary dedicated to research and innovation in the education of history and geography at the University of Valencia, Socials group which refers to the understanding of social and environmental problems when teaching and learning about the climate and landscape. https://www.uv.es/uvweb/servicio-investigacion/es/grupos-investigacion/grupo-1285949714098.html?p2=GIUV2015-217 .

The work we referred to pertained to research carried out within the Research in Specific Didactics Doctoral Programme at the University of Valencia, in the line of research of Geography Didactics. Namely, the doctoral thesis entitled “Knowledge of the climate and landscape: from analysis to a teaching proposal”.

The Educational Innovation Project, “teacher training entrenched in the environment from the perspective of school practice” by the Generalitat Valencia with the code UV-SFPIE-GER18-85040, was developed during the three academic years from 2016 to 2019 by teachers in Ontinyent and the Department of Experimental and Social Science Didactics at the University of Valencia. This facilitated relationship-building with teachers, schools, and local bodies which was a guarantee for the sample and data collection.

Data about the Ontinyent population from the year 2016 extracted from the 2019 municipal sheets which can be found on the Generalitat Valencia’s Statistics Portal: http://www.pegv.gva.es/auto/scpd/web/FITXES/Fichas/46184.pdf .

Representations held by Kindergarten pupils were studied, but the explanation thereof is not reflected in the article, because it was a specific study of drawings.

Hereafter, we will use the term Secondary Education to refer to Compulsory Secondary Education.

For this article, pictorial representations were not analyzed.

Census data from the Valencian Statistics Institute (IVE).

The procedure to validate the questionnaire consisted of sending a first model of 84 questions so that the five experts could evaluate it. With the comments and assessment of each item, we have selected the most relevant questions to be able to analyze the students’ learning results; an exchange of views that have been archived, but not published. 10 questions have been selected from these results in this article.

See note 8, an Educational Innovation Project created with the objective of both students and teachers improving the teaching and learning about the climate and local landscape.

See note 4 of this article.

IPCC is the acronym for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of an international group of experts and part of the UN, which generates periodical reports with studies and recommendations about climate change.

In the Community of Valencia, the Cefire is responsible for providing state-run courses for the continued professional development of teachers.

See previous note.

IGU is the acronym for the International Geographical Union.

Response received to the question regarding when and on what topic they take classes, given by a biology teacher from a public school which provides compulsory secondary education.

We follow the theories of Moisés Domingos regarding Pierre Bourdieu and Sergi Moscovici’s ideas.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of the project: The social representations of school content in the development of teaching skills , R&D Projects on Knowledge Development and Scientific Consolidation and System Technology R + D + i (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities), reference PGC2018-094491-B-C32, and co-financed with EU FEDER funds. This work was supported by the research project “The social representations of educational content in the development of teaching competencies” [PGC2018-094491-B-C32], funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities of Spain and co-funded by the ERDF.

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Campo-Pais, B., Morales-Hernández, A.J., Morote-Seguido, Á. et al. Environmental problems and Geographic education. A case study: Learning about the climate and landscape in Ontinyent (Spain). Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8 , 90 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00761-6

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Editor’s pick: 7 case studies on environmental cooperation

We know environmental changes and dwindling resources can lead to conflicts and inflame grievances among societal groups or even states dependant on nature. But how often do we speak about the role of environment as a catalyst for cooperation? In honour of this year’s World Environment Day, we bring to you 7 case studies in which the need to share a common environment and its resources has led adversaries to – despite hostilities and even ongoing conflict, and with the help of several resolution mechanisms – work in cooperation.

Turkey-Armenia: Water Cooperation Despite Tensions

Armenia and Turkey have been sharing the water of the Arpacay River – which forms the border between them – equitably, despite their lack of bilateral diplomatic relations. Before Armenia became independent in 1991, the former USSR had signed a number of treaties with Turkey over the Arpacay (or Akhourian) River. Although relations between Turkey and Armenia have been at an impasse since the 1990s, both countries have continued to implement the old treaties brokered before the collapse of the USSR and share the Arpacay River equitably to this day. 

DISCOVER THE CASE STUDY

Jordan and Israel: Tensions and Water Cooperation in the Middle-East

The rivers of the Jordan system all have a transboundary nature, a configuration which requires cooperation amongst all co-riparians to achieve sustainable water management. Yet the tensions which have prevailed between Israel and its Arab neighbours since 1948 have limited cooperation until today and at times escalated to war. However, one country, Jordan, distanced itself from the other Arab countries in the region and signed a peace agreement with Israel in which cooperation over water played an important role.

Transnational Conflict and Cooperation in the Lake Chad Basin

Since the beginning of the 2000s, growing claims of an urgent need to protect and restore Lake Chad have led the riparian states and the Lake Chad Basin Commission to engage in a number of joint water management initiatives with the support of a number of international organisations. These include a major project to transfer the waters of the Congo Basin (Oubangui) to Lake Chad in order to replenish the lake – the “Transaqua” project and a sustainable development programme for Lake Chad, which was launched in 2009. The Lake Chad Water Charter adopted in 2012 seeks to define water management and wetland management objectives based on shared concerns.

EU Influence on the Euphrates-Tigris Conflict

From the 1960s to the 1990s, tensions among the co-riparian states of the Euphrates-Tigris Basin hampered cooperation over the rivers. Since 1999, when Turkey was granted the status of candidate country for membership to the EU, the country started transposing and implementing the EU body of legislation, including the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). The renewed cooperation which was observed among the three co-riparians in the 2000s reflects the influence of the WFD.

Lower Mekong Basin: Challenges and opportunities for early cooperation

To promote peace, regional cooperation, and development in the Lower Mekong Basin, the United Nations (UN) encouraged the creation of an intergovernmental agency for joint water management. In 1957, the Mekong Committee was created. After an initial period of enthusiasm, momentum began to subside during the 1970s. Nevertheless, the Mekong’s early institutional architecture provided a forum for dialogue that was sustained even in times of regional hostilities. It also laid the groundwork for contemporary Mekong governance in times of rapid development.

Transboundary Water Disagreements between South Africa and Namibia

Following the independence of Namibia in 1990, a number of water-related disagreements have emerged between the Orange River riparians South Africa and Namibia. These revolve around the demarcation of a common border, water allocation and water pricing, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP). Existing water scarcity in the lower Orange River Basin is likely to be further aggravated by the impacts of climate change. Despite the conflict potential harboured by existing disagreements, the basin’s high level of institutionalised cooperation and the possibilities for intra- and inter-basin water transfers could help alleviate water stress and resolve bilateral disagreement over shared water resources.

Iraq-Iran: from Water Dispute to War

The Shatt al-Arab River forms the boundaries between Iran and Iraq before flowing into the Persian Gulf. Due to its strategic importance for both Iraq and Iran, for centuries both countries have defended their sovereignty rights over the river. The Shatt al-Arab dispute was an important cause which led to the outbreak of the 1980-1988 war between Iraq and Iran. In recent years – and particularly since the beginning of the war in Syria –, relations between Iraq and Iran have majorly improved. This has been reflected on the Shatt-al Arab issue. In 2014, Iraq and Iran’s Prime Minister met to discuss how to delimit the river in a mutually acceptable way and to put an end to the status quo. Water-protection aspects took also a major space in the talks. Today both countries have restored bilateral diplomatic relations and reached agreements on a mutually satisfying delimitation of the river. They are also jointly working towards the protection of the river. 

130+ case studies on environment, conflict and cooperation

The Factbook is a knowledge platform that provides an overview of environmental conflict and cooperation from around the world. It does so by offering a select number of case studies that reflect instances of conflict, resolution and peacebuilding processes that are related to environmental change.

The Factbook seeks to help policy-makers, experts, researchers and any interested members of the public to better understand and compare the drivers behind environmental conflict and cooperation. The ultimate goal of this project is to contribute to the prevention and sustainable transformation of such conflicts using lessons learned from earlier (non-) interventions.

                Discover the ECC Factbook

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Transportation activities accounted for almost 30% of US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. (See Figure 2). For a company like UPS, which distributes goods across regions, transportation activities make up the bulk of GHG emissions. As a result, enhancing transportation efficiency is crucial for organizations like UPS to remain sustainable.

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Figure 2: US GHG emissions.

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Figure 3: How digital twins can optimize wind turbine productivity.

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Swire Properties was able to cut GHG emissions intensity throughout their portfolio by nearly 20% because of the usage of digital technologies and low carbon integrated materials.

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In 2021, we consumed 1.7 times more resources than Earth generates annually because our economic outlook is based on production, use and disposal. Such an economy is not sustainable and that is the reason why the concept of circular economy (CE) is trending nowadays.

The most basic principles of CE is to use trash as a raw material for production through innovation, recycling, or repairing and reusing existing products.

H&M’s “Let’s Close the Gap” project began in 2013 as a CE best practice that collects and categorizes discarded clothing from customers. If the garment is in decent condition, they will restore it and find a new owner for it. If a garment reaches the end of its useful life, H&M will recycle it and reuse the material in new goods.

Customers who bring in their old clothes are rewarded with tokens that can be used to get a discount at H&M shops. Incentivizing customers creates a complete CE loop.

In 2019, 57% of H&M’s raw materials were sustainable, according to Forbes. By 2030, the company hopes to improve it 100 percent.

6. Gusto: Hiring female engineers to close gender inequality gap

Gender inequality remains a major social issue despite all the improvements. There are two common types of gender disparity in the workplace. The first is gender pay disparity, which occurs when companies pay male employees more and provide better working conditions than female employees in the same position. 

The second is occupational segregation, in which women are hired for non-technical jobs while men hold the majority of leadership roles. This was the situation at software firm Gusto, where female engineers made up slightly more than 5% of the engineering team at the beginning of 2015. 

Julia Lee , one of Gusto’s first female engineers, claimed that other engineers did not accept her ideas because she was a “female engineer.” Gusto initiated an HR drive to reduce gender inequality by prioritizing the recruitment of female engineers, prohibiting female workers from scrolling, and deleting masculine job ads like “ninja rockstar coder.”

Gusto was able to improve its female engineer ratio to roughly 20% by the end of 2015 thanks to the campaign. The average ratio among software businesses’ engineering teams was 12% in 2013, therefore this was a significant improvement in a short period of time.  

7. HSBC: ESG concerned green finance

Finance companies can help speed up the transition to sustainable business practices by supporting initiatives run by responsible businesses. By the end of 2025, HSBC has committed to investing $100 billion in sustainability projects. HSBC already has funded sustainability projects that require more than $50 billion in investment as of 2019, indicating that the corporation is on track to meet its objective.

HSBC created an ESG risk evaluation framework to assure funding for green projects in 2019. Since then, the framework has been improved. In 2021, HSBC’s ESG practices were rewarded with an AA rating by MSCI.

HSBC is also working toward a goal of using 100% renewable energy as their source of electricity by 2030. Company reduces its consumption of paper, and single used plastics for coffee and beverages.

For more information about best ESG practices you can read our Top 6 ESG Reporting Best Practices article.

8. Signify light-as-a-Service: Enhance production stewardship

The product-service system ( PSS ) is a business model in which producers acquire a product over its lifetime and rent or lease it to the users. PSS ensures product stewardship since the product always becomes the asset of the company. It encourages producers to provide high-quality, repairable items in order to extend the product’s useful life. As a result, it helps to close the circularity gap by ensuring better use of natural resources.

Signify, a luminaire producer, adopts such a business strategy where it demands a subscription fee according to usage period of their lightning systems. PSS allows Signify claims that PSS allows them to produce 0 luminaire waste and drops maintenance costs around 60%.

9. Airbus additive manufacturing: Manufacture lighter planes with 3D printing

AIMultiple expects that additive manufacturing will disruptive for the airplane manufacturing since:

• It speeds up the manufacturing of parts compared to traditional molding techniques.
• It is cheaper due to effective use of raw materials and time reduction of production.
• It enables the manufacturing of lighter parts by up to 45% , resulting in lighter planes that burn less fuel. According to Airbus, additive manufacturing technology can reduce an A320 plane’s annual GHG emissions by around 465,000 metric tons, which is roughly the same as eliminating 100,000 automobiles from the road for a year. (An average car emits 4.6 tonnes of GHG per year). 

To effectively use 3D printers Airbus partnered with Materialise , a Belgium-based technology company  that specialize in additive manufacturing.

For more information regarding improving corporate sustainability by digital transformation you can read our Top 4 Digital Technologies that Improve Corporate Sustainability article.

10. Tata Power: Solar plants on the roofs

Rooftops offer a lot of empty space that can be used to install solar panels. Such initiatives have been taken in various parts of the world. Tata Power does it in India and generates green electricity by using idle places of buildings.

In 2021, Tata Power was able to spread their program throughout 90 Indian cities, producing 421 million watts of electricity, which is equivalent to nearly 40 thousand homes’ yearly electricity use in the US. (The average annual power usage for a residential utility customer in the US was 10,715 kWh in 2020, according to the EIA .).

We expect that in the near future the cooperation between energy and construction companies will enhance the use of idle places in buildings in a more effective way. Such an industrial symbiosis reduces both sectors’ ESG risk.

For more information on the top carbon footprint calculators, check our article, Top 7 Carbon Footprint Calculator Software/Tools for Businesses .

To learn more about corporate sustainability you can contact with us:

This article was drafted by former AIMultiple industry analyst Görkem Gençer.

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Top 7 carbon footprint calculator software/tools of 2024, top 10 sustainability ai applications in 2024, top 10 metrics to assess the circularity of businesses in 2024.

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A wonderful collection of case studies on corporate sustainability. I enjoyed the read. I am convicted to delve into promoting sustainability in Africa.

Hello, James! Thank you for your feedback. Awesome! That’s a great cause to pursue.

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Case Studies: Creating a clean, safe environment

Accurate data is essential for monitoring and managing the environment and enabling the design and implementation of effective environmental regulation. Recognising the hazards posed by pollution, the EU has developed an extensive body of legislation which establishes health-based standards and objectives for pollutants in air, water and soil. Key to the successful implementation of these policies is an underpinning measurement infrastructure that ensures that environmental data is robust and consistent across monitoring networks, across national borders and over time.

As allowable pollutant levels decrease, and new types of pollutant are identified, measurement capabilities must be constantly improved to support robust and fit-for-purpose pollutant monitoring and mitigation. This requires both improved measurement accuracy across the measurement infrastructure – at National Measurement Institutes, in accredited laboratories and in environmental monitoring networks – and the development of innovative, practical and cost-effective measurement technologies.

New measurement capabilities to protect the marine environment

Underwater noise from man-made activity, such as shipping or construction work, can have a profound effect on marine organisms such as whales, damaging their hearing or driving them from their native habitats. European directives are in place to protect the most vulnerable species, but no validated calibration methods were available for underwater measurement instruments in the sound range of greatest environmental concern.

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Improving inner city air quality

Small particles from petrol and diesel engine exhausts create major hazards in city air, especially for those with asthma or other breathing problems. The EU’s Air Quality Directive requires monitoring of airborne pollution which is important for assessing the effectiveness of strategies such as London’s ultralow emission zone. Ensuring the accuracy of instruments used for measuring vehicle particle emissions in city air relies on introducing standardised aerosols and testing regimes.

Supporting the Water Framework Directive

Water pollution has a significant negative impact on human health and the environment. Increasing demand from citizens and environmental organisations for cleaner rivers and lakes, groundwater and coastal beaches has led the European Commission to make water protection one of its priorities. The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) was established to protect and improve water quality and prevent further deterioration through legal limits on a wide range of known pollutants.

Protecting Europe’s water resources

Improving the quality of indoor air

Air pollution is harmful to public health, damages biodiversity and contributes to climate change. The EU has developed legislation to improve health and environmental quality. However, while significant progress has been made in improving outdoor air quality, indoor pollutants have received less attention. Given that many people spend the majority of their time indoors, research is urgently needed to enable the regulation, assessment and improvement of indoor air quality.

Accurately measuring indoor pollutants

Many manufactured products in homes and offices, such as building materials and furnishings, can emit chemical vapours which make people feel ill. EU directives require samples of these materials to be tested to ensure emissions stay within safe limits. But this process is complex, and testing labs need more sophisticated reference materials to confirm their instruments are accurately measuring the wide variety of chemical vapours that these materials can emit.

Formaldehyde emissions monitoring

Formaldehyde, emitted from furnishing and construction materials and from the combustion of organic materials, can cause health problems. Regulations govern safe limits, and monitoring systems check these are not exceeded. Gas standards – cylinders with accurate formaldehyde amount fractions – are used to calibrate these systems, but as air quality limits become stricter, new methods are required for producing standards with lower, stable amount fractions to confirm the performance of monitoring instrumentation.

Accurately monitoring trace pollutants

Man-made and naturally occurring volatile organic compounds, such as methanol or acetone, affect air quality and the climate by the formation of ozone and aerosols. The World Meteorological Organization’s Global Atmosphere Watch monitoring network tracks these trace compounds and aerosols to increase our understanding of climate trends and the success of mitigation strategies. Improving the accuracy of networks monitoring data requires improved links between lab-based calibrations and networked instruments.

Supporting reduced exhaust emissions

Air pollution continues to be responsible for more than 430,000 premature deaths each year in Europe. Automotive vehicles are a major source of air pollution, particularly fine and ultrafine particles emitted by diesel engine exhausts. To improve public health and environmental quality the EU regulates pollution from road vehicles.All new passenger cars must meet European emission standards for particle number (defined in the Euro 5b and Euro 6b regulations) before they can be type approved for sale in the EU.

Measuring roadside air pollution

Air pollution, such as that generated by road vehicles, is known to harm public health, damage biodiversity and contribute to climate change. In response, Europe has made air pollution one of its main concerns and developed an extensive body of legislation, establishing limit values for major air pollutants such as NO 2 and particulate matter, to improve human health and environmental quality.

Improved air pollution monitoring

Air pollution, such as that generated by road vehicles, is known to harm public health, damage biodiversity and contribute to climate change. In response, the EU has made air pollution one of its main concerns and developed an extensive body of legislation to improve human health and environmental quality. Central to this regulatory framework is the European Air Quality Directive (2008/50/EC), which establishes limit values for major air pollutants such as NO 2 and particulate matter.

Improved exhaust monitoring

Air pollution continues to be responsible for more than 430,000 premature deaths each year in Europe. Automotive vehicles are a major source of air pollution - of particular concern are the fine particles emitted by diesel and direct injection petrol engines. To improve public health and environmental quality, the EU regulates pollution from road vehicles and new passenger cars must meet the European emission standards (the standard currently in force is known as Euro 6 ) before they can be type approved.

Improving gas plant leak detection

Supporting global efforts to reduce greenhouse and polluting gas emissions, the EU’s Industrial Emissions Directive introduces new limits and reporting rules. Europe’s gas plant operators are expected to identify and measure leaks, but tougher limits require greater measurement accuracy beyond that of current authorised methods. Advanced optical measurement techniques exist but these need robust performance evaluation and protocols for use before consideration as methods for demonstrating compliance with the Directive.

Industrial emissions mapping

The EU’s Industrial Emissions Directive, which aims to protect human health and the environment, requires pollution reporting from oil and gas plant operators against regulated emissions limits. Strict standards are being established for monitoring total plant emissions, but current measurement techniques lack the required accuracy to meet new lower emission limits. Optical measurement techniques can meet requirements, but to be authorised for use, must first be rigorously validated.

Traceability for mercury measurements

Mercury, a highly toxic metal, can be released into the environment from human sources. European and international treaties are in force to limit its emission, introducing the need for reliable mercury monitoring. Cheap and easy to use sensors that can be deployed anywhere in the world and capable of operating without power supplies are needed for monitoring atmospheric mercury levels.

Better digestion for mercury analysis

Mercury is highly toxic and once released into the environment bioaccumulates into fish and seafood. Released from burning fossil fuels and broken fluorescent light fittings its emissions are regulated by international treaties and EU Directives. For industrial polluters to demonstrate regulatory compliance mercury emissions are carefully monitored. But the continuing use of an empirical equation for calibration and non-optimised chemical analysis methods hinder a robust measurement hierarchy.

Detecting contaminants in soil

Companies building on sites contaminated by previous industrial use, must first perform soil analyses to identify pollutants. Measurement traceability is underpinned by reference materials that need to closely match real-world samples. Increasing the capability of National Metrology Institutes (NMI) in emerging EU member states to produce these materials and perform proficiency exercises is essential to harmonise SI traceability in environmental monitoring throughout Europe.

Detecting new pollutants in the air

Atmospheric greenhouse gases are driving global warming. Amongst the most damaging are those containing fluorine and other halogens, frequently used as refrigerants. Per molecule, these are many times more potent than carbon dioxide. Whilst international treaties regulate many of these gases, new variants are continually entering use. To determine their source and atmospheric trends, networks of monitoring instruments need robust calibration standards for measurement accuracy.

Monitoring ammonia

Ammonia is a harmful pollutant, which damages ecosystems, harms human health and contributes to global warming. The EU has set targets for its reduction and introduced Directives for its regulation, verifying compliance requires accurate ammonia sensors that do not interact with the gas they measure. Improved material test and calibration facilities with robust links to SI units are needed to support the development of sensors based on ammonia inert materials.

Ammonia monitoring networks

Agriculture is responsible for 94 % of all ammonia emissions, 75 % of which is from intensive livestock farming, contributing to wide-ranging environmental problems. The EU’s National Emission Ceilings Directive sets ammonia reduction goals, and the UK is developing strategies to support farmers to reduce emissions. To assess their effectiveness and track reductions against targets, with high measurement accuracy are needed.

Greater accuracy for ammonia monitors

Ammonia is a harmful pollutant produced by intensive farming which damages ecosystems. Monitoring networks assess environmental ammonia levels and the success of strategies for meeting EU emissions targets. Performing spot checks and ensuring test exercises supply specified ammonia concentrations to the samplers used requires accurate real-time measurements. Optical gas measurement technologies could provide these, but first ways to compensate for effects created by water vapour in the sample are needed.

Monitoring exposure to UV radiation

The World Health Organization estimates that a 10 % increase in surface UV radiation could cause an additional 300,000 skin cancers and at least 1.6 million more cases of cataracts worldwide every year. Balancing the risks and benefits of solar UV radiation is a challenge for policymakers and health advisors, and improved UV measuring instrumentation is needed to produce reliable measurements on which to identify long-term trends and base decisions.

Better optics for UV monitoring

The ozone layer protects us from the harmful effects of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation, such as increased incidences of skin cancer and cataracts. International treaties such as the Montreal Protocol have been put in place to reduce the use of ozone depleting chemicals such as CFCs. Changes in ozone and UV radiation are monitored across Europe to improve understanding of the recovery of the ozone layer and the effects of UV exposure.

Fingerprinting nuclear waste

Nuclear power accounts for more than a quarter of the EU’s electricity supply and will continue to play a major role in the energy sector as Europe tries to meet growing energy demands while reducing carbon emissions. Over the next 25 years, around 250 nuclear facilities across Europe are scheduled for decommissioning. To protect public health and the environment, the millions of tonnes of waste generated needs to be sorted and appropriately stored according to the level of radioactive contamination.

Download the full case study  

Nuclear incident alerts

In the event of a nuclear incident, authorities need to know how to respond to protect the public. A pan-European monitoring network, using Geiger-Mueller counters, stands ready to detect sudden increases in ionising radiation. These counters measure radiation levels accurately, but cannot distinguish between different photon energies, originating from different radionuclide. Modern instruments can make this distinction but need better characterisation before they can be deployed in monitoring networks.

Fibre-optics for structural integrity

Ensuring the integrity of large nuclear structures such as waterways supplying coolant or geological disposal facilities for high level long lived radioactive waste is important for our safety and that of the environment. Temperature measurements based on optical sensing could provide key information on long-term structural integrity but generating confidence in a monitoring system that will operate for tens of years relies on rigorous testing of all its constituent parts.

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Case Studies

The program’s portfolio of situational case studies presents narratives of real-life events and asks students to identify and analyze the relevant legal, social, business, ethical, and scientific issues involved. Playing the role of protagonist in each case study—such as a private attorney counseling a biotechnology company facing hazardous waste issues, or a federal official seeking to develop an effective fishery management plan—students formulate appropriate strategies for achieving workable solutions to conflicts, then discuss and debate their recommendations in class. This interactive approach to learning bolsters students’ acquisition of skills in critical areas: factual investigation, legal research, counseling, persuasive oral communication, and recognition and resolution of ethical dilemmas, to name a few.

The Stanford Law School Case Studies Collection is an exciting innovation in law school teaching designed to hone students’ problem-solving skills and stimulate creativity. The Collection includes situational case studies and interactive simulations (collectively referred to as “Case Materials”) that place students in the roles of lawyers and policy makers and teach fundamental lawyering skills such as investigating facts, counseling, and resolving ethical dilemmas.

In June of 1997 the  Environmental and Natural Resources Law Policy Program  hired an experienced environmental lawyer to develop “situational” case studies for use in classroom instruction to better prepare students for the practice of law in the real world. Most of the case studies have been field tested in the classroom and evaluated for effectiveness in increasing student mastery of fundamental lawyering skills and increasing student participation in classroom discussion. Feedback from students has been excellent. Stanford Law School plans to unveil case studies collections in the areas of Law and Business in the coming years.

You can use this site to download Case Materials for examination. With prior permission from Stanford Law School, instructors can also obtain copies of Case Materials they want to use in the classroom for free. This Case Studies Collection will be updated regularly as we add new Case Materials and revise existing Materials, so visit the site from time to time for new developments!

As used in our website, the phrase “case materials” refers to case studies and simulations, as well as accompanying exhibits and teaching notes. While both case studies and simulations can be used as tools in the “case study teaching method,” they are different in form and manner of use. A case study is a narrative that recounts the factual history of an event or series of events. It is typically used as the basis for in-class analysis and discussion. A simulation is a set of facts, roles and rules that establishes the framework for an in-class participatory exercise.

Research has shown that existing law school teaching methods and curricula do not adequately teach students the full complement of “lawyering” skills they need to competently practice law. The traditional appellate case method assumes that a problem has reached a point where litigation is the only alternative, and presents students with a scenario in which all relevant issues have been identified, the questions of law narrowly focused, and the questions of fact resolved. Skills-oriented courses and clinical programs (such as law clinics and externships) have made significant contributions to law schools’9 ability to teach lawyering skills. Their reach, however, has been limited by a combination of factors, including their high cost and the relatively few law students who actually take advantage of these programs.

While we do not envision the case study method displacing the appellate case method or clinical programs, we do believe that the case method can be used in conjunction with existing teaching methods to add considerable educational value. Case studies and simulations immerse students in real-world problems and situations, requiring them to grapple with the vagaries and complexities of these problems in a relatively risk-free environment – the classroom.

Incorporation of case studies and simulations into environmental law school curriculums can bolster student skill acquisition in the critical areas listed below. Based on a 1990-1991 American Bar Association questionnaire, the MacCrate Task Force concluded that traditional law school curricula and teaching methods fall short in teaching these fundamental lawyering skills:

• problem solving
• legal research
• factual investigation
• persuasive oral communications
• negotiation
• recognizing and resolving ethical dilemmas
• organization and management of legal work

The case study teaching method is adapted from the case method developed and used successfully for many years by the nation’s leading business schools. The method uses a narrative of actual events to teach and hone the skills students need to competently practice law. Students identify for themselves the relevant legal, social, business, and scientific issues presented, and identify appropriate responses regarding those issues. Suggested questions for class discussion are prepared in connection with each case study, itself the product of long, probing interviews of the people involved in the actual events. These narratives, or case studies, may be long or short, and portray emotion, character, setting and dialogue. Students present their thoughts on key issues during class discussion, usually from the viewpoint of the key protagonist in the case study.

Simulations are typically used to reinforce and synthesize concepts, skills and substantive law already covered in a course. The simulations are designed for limited instructor and maximum student involvement during the exercise itself. However, once the exercise has drawn to a close, ample time should be allotted for a debriefing session. During the debriefing, instructors and students can engage in a candid discussion of the relative effectiveness of different approaches used during the simulation, clear up any lingering questions about substantive issues, and probe ethical and/or policy issues raised by the simulation.

Requesting Permission to Copy or to Use Materials

Send your request for permission to use or copy Case Materials to  [email protected] . To assist us in reviewing such requests and tracking the actual use of our Case Materials, please provide a description of the course (of up to 500 words) for which the Case Materials will be used. In addition, please include a brief description of the kind of course for which the Case Materials are intended, including:

• Whether the course is an elective or required course, undergraduate, graduate, or continuing education.
• The nature of the academic program and institution in which the course will be taught, such as law school, business school, Earth Sciences department, public interest law firm, etc.
• The number of times the course has been offered.
• Expected enrollment for the course.
• The history of the course’s development.

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Case studies in environmental geography: a cse special collection.

Introduction to the Special Collection

Geography and environmental case studies are regularly one and the same. Unpacking environmental case studies requires a geographic framework, examining how flows—economic, environmental, cultural, political—intersect in an absolute location and define the uniqueness of place. Geography and case studies are inherently interdisciplinary. Most case studies are inherently geographic (and everything happens somewhere).

The case studies in this collection, drawn from articles published in Case Studies in the Environment between 2022 and 2023, demonstrate the diverse ways that geographic theories and methods can assist in the analysis of environmental cases, and equip readers with better problem-solving skills. These manuscripts demonstrate the way in which space and place are active actors in creating environmental problems, and perhaps provide a map for navigating potential solutions.

Upholding geography’s cartographic tradition, Müller and colleagues chronicle the use of participatory mapping with respect to wind turbine planning in Switzerland. A winner of the 2022 Prize Competition Honorable Mention, Participatory Mapping and Counter-Representations in Wind Energy Planning: A Radical Democracy Perspective shows how the cartographic process could demonstrate multiple discourses and intersections of protest. In addition, it includes a number of beautiful maps which show a sophisticated understanding of cartographic principles.

In Barriers and Facilitators for Successful Community Forestry: Lessons Learned and Practical Applications From Case Studies in India and Guatemala , Jamkar et. al propose an analytical framework for evaluating community-based forest management projects using community capital, markets, and land tenure. They demonstrate the robustness of this framework at study sites in India and Guatemala.

In The Bronx River and Environmental Justice Through the Lens of a Watershed , Finewood et al. look at environmental justice using a multi-scalar place-based approach. Using the Bronx watershed as a case study, the authors demonstrate how environmental harm caused upstream aggregates in the downstream flow to less-enfranchised communities, causing disproportionate harm.

In a lyrical and unique contribution, Cherry River: Art, Music, and Indigenous Stakeholders of Water Advocacy in Montana , Davidson narrates the story of a music performance designed to bring awareness of drought conditions in Montana. On a deeper level, the performance fostered community engagement, particularly between indigenous and non-indigenous communities. The manuscript casts the arts as a space of collaboration and advocacy.

Turia et. al, in Monitoring the Multiple Functions of Tropical Rainforest on a National Scale: An Overview From Papua New Guinea (part of the special collection, Papua New Guinea’s Forests ) evaluate the effectiveness of national forest inventories in Papua New Guinea, ultimately using rigorous sampling methods to recommend an expanded approach.

The urgency of today’s environmental problems demands interdisciplinary approaches and broad ways of linking together seeming disparate pieces. It involves looking at individuals not in isolation but as parts of networks, and at multiple scales. Geography exemplifies these approaches. We are proud to feature articles from the field of geography, physical and human, wrestling with environmental cases for the good of humanity and nature.

Featured Articles Müller, S., Flacke, J., & Buchecker, M. (2022). Participatory mapping and counter-representations in wind energy planning: A Radical Democracy Perspective. Case Studies in the Environment , 6 (1), 1561651.

Jamkar, V., Butler, M., & Current, D. (2023). Barriers and facilitators for successful community forestry: Lessons learned and practical applications from case studies in India and Guatemala. Case Studies in the Environment , 7 (1), 1827932.

Finewood, M. H., Holloman, D. E., Luebke, M. A., & Leach, S. (2023). The Bronx River and Environmental Justice Through the Lens of a Watershed. Case Studies in the Environment , 7 (1), 1824941.

Davidson, J. C. (2022). Cherry River: Art, Music, and Indigenous Stakeholders of Water Advocacy in Montana. Case Studies in the Environment , 6 (1), 1813541. Turia, R., Gamoga, G., Abe, H., Novotny, V., Attorre, F., & Vesa, L. (2022). Monitoring the Multiple Functions of Tropical Rainforest on a National Scale: An Overview From Papua New Guinea. Case Studies in the Environment , 6 (1), 1547792.

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Population and environment case studies: local approaches to a global challenge.

Chih-Hsien (Michelle) Lin, Detbra Rosales, Melanie Jackson

It is apparent that we now live in a new epoch, the Anthropocene (IGBP, 2001), in which Earth’s environment and climate is mainly controlled by human activity. Environmental damage is accelerating on a global scale. As the world’s population increases, improving standards of living without destroying or degrading the natural environment becomes a challenge. Water shortages, sea-level rise, air pollution and degradation of coastline afflict many areas all over the world.

The larger the population, the more complex the environmental problems become (Fig. 1). The challenge is to build synergies between members of separate disciplines and between scientists, policymakers and the public within and between nations that can accomplish collaboratively what none are capable of doing alone for global climate change. A number of case studies in the coastal zone, based on population density gradients, from Palau , Maryland Coastal Bays, Moreton Bay in Australia and Chesapeake Bay to Pearl River in China will be reviewed to understand the population dynamics, environment issues, and management services. Importantly, through this case study discussion, we can learn from different perspectives between nations and the mistakes in terms of the environment and quality of living.

Palau is not letting the overwhelming climate change impacts slow them down. The Pacific country of Palau (with a population of only 21,000) has made significant environmental inroads to a pristine ecosystem protection and a sustainable tourism-based economy. They are looking for ways to increase the resilience of their diverse mangroves, seagrasses and coral reefs to promote high-end ecotourism and manage development to protect its unique ecosystem. However, managing conflicts between conservation, tourism and traditional practices are inevitable in Palau. For example, how do we push to develop education awareness of ecological processes and sustainable development to the public? How do we overcome the knowledge gap, culture differences and language barriers before educating local people about global climate change? How do we spread awareness of the environmental problems when it brings people into closer contact with nature via ecotourism? It is obvious that Palau needs international support and lessons from different experiences and perspectives for management, monitoring and research. A comparison between regions (such as tropical versus temperate environments) is necessary, but it should be careful not to extrapolate too much. Culture bias on nutrient pollution and marine impacts on different systems must be taken into account when making environmental decisions.

The Maryland coastal bay, Chincoteague Bay lagoon system is a wave-dominated environment. The changes impacting water quality, land use and the ecosystem have been associated with intensification of anthropogenic stressors (Fertig et al. 2013) Non-linear ecosystem level changes are due to the complexity of the phenomena occurring in this system. Therefore, management of coastal ecosystems requires a strong interaction between managers and researchers (Dennison 2008). Problem-oriented research is an effective way to examine the sustainable use of coastal zones, and targeting proper species that can affect human health directly is also important for implementing research. The aim of research is to translate it into meaningful information for the decision-making process or its evaluation.

The Moreton Bay system in Australia is known for seagrasses, mangroves and coral diversity. The bay is special in that wildlife is close to city skyline. The health of the bay had worsened over the past year due to the growing population along the coastlines. A significant component of nitrogen pollution from sewage discharge leads to marine eutrophication (Costanzo et al. 2001). Scientists researching water quality issues have developed an ecosystem health index for assessing the health of Moreton Bay. Functional zones based on habitats are also well defined to process effectiveness assessment. On the other hand, the scientists working in Moreton Bay have had good support from politicians, which has enhanced the communication with the public. The Queensland government and mayor are big advocates of the idea that the more people hear the problems, the more they get behind the actions. Currently, they yield good result: the receiving sewage discharge used to be seven times higher than the water quality standards in Queensland; however, it is currently only about two times the standard.

The drivers-pressures-state-impacts-responses (DPSIR; Fig. 2) framework provides a standard framework for site assessment and evaluation on the effect of human activity on environment. The framework has been applied to study the complex interactions in Chesapeake Bay and China’s megacity around Pearl River. The rapid rate of population growth around Chesapeake Bay watershed has changed the land use and expanded urban areas. Harmful algal blooms, declines in oyster population, land erosion and invasive species have become major environmental issues here. Although the Chesapeake Bay is extremely well studied; effective communication between science and management is required to bridge the barriers to integration (Boesch 2006). While the Chesapeake Bay is extensively managed with multiply branches; the community involvement and partnership are commonly separated. People do not feel a sense of ownership for the bay.

Population growth in China is formidable. The economic imbalances within the country itself result in a huge and constant influx of migrants to the coastal megacity (defined as a city with more than 10 million people in search of better jobs and quality of living). China’s Pearl River Delta region has overtaken Tokyo as world’s largest megacity. Large population pressures on resources cause devastating effects on natural environments and human health. As megacities grow, the boundaries expand. It is difficult to manage efficiently when cities reach unprecedented scales and complexity beyond population models. Although the urbanization rate of this coastal megacity has been slowing down, there are a number of uncertainties in terms of nutrient contaminants and future climate change.

Governments around the world are moving to integrate their efforts to address complex environmental issues, such as the Kyoto Protocol . However, there are many challenges we must face in order to make this possible, and to working together across-boundaries can range from technological applications, such as data to culture bias in science and organization. Science may have good networking through peer review, but integrative management is not easy to conduct.

References :

• IGBP (2001) Global Change and the Earth System: a Planet Under Pressure . In: IGBP Science, No. 4. International GeosphereeBiosphere Programme, Stockholm, Sweden, p. 32.
• Boesch DF (2006) Scientific requirements for ecosystem-based management in the restoration of Chesapeake Bay and Coastal Louisiana . Ecological Engineering 26:6-26 [ pdf ]
• Costanzo SD, O’donohue MJ, Dennison WC, Loneragan NR, Thomas M (2001) A new approach for detecting and mapping sewage impacts. Marine Pollution Bulletin 42:149-156
• Dennison WC (2008) Environmental problem solving in coastal ecosystems: A paradigm shift to sustainability . Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 77:185-196 [ pdf ]
• Fertig B, O'Neil JM, Beckert KA, Cain CJ, Needham DM, Carruthers TJB, Dennison WC (2013) Elucidating terrestrial nutrient sources to a coastal lagoon, Chincoteague Bay, Maryland, USA . Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 116:1-10
• Sekovski I, Newton A, Dennison W (2011) Megacities in the coastal zone: Using a driver-pressure-state-impact-response framework to address complex environmental problems. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science xxx (2011) 1-12

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Stephanie Siemek 9 years ago

I agree with the statement, “The larger the population, the more complex the environmental problems become…”, as this idea can be supported within our own personal experiences on how difficult it is to accommodate a large group of people. For instance, how difficult is it for a large group of friends to all agree on what to do on Friday night? Each person has different ideas, needs, and opinions. Therefore, how can it be possible for multiple leaders, states, countries etc. to form an agreement that will restore and sustain the Earth’s ecosystems?

Worldwide collaboration and understanding is necessary for conservation and recovery of ecosystems, as nature has no boundaries. Therefore, it will be up to our leaders to enforce policies that will not lead us into total destruction as human population continues to grow. This may mean that they will eventually have to take measures that will not make every big corporation “happy” and cause burden on the economy and society, but it will keep us from completely destroying our resources, planet, and ourselves.

Whitney Hoot 9 years ago

I think you bring up some really excellent points. You've made me start thinking a lot about the relationships among human population size, growth, and density and how these factors influence conservation and management of marine resources. For instance, Palau actually has a higher population growth rate than China (0.8 percent per year vs. 0.5 percent per year), but we are talking about population sizes that are almost incomparable (21,000 vs. 1.36 billion) and hugely different land masses (458 sq km vs. 9.6 million sq km). Even though China is a huge country, it is much more densely populated than Palau; the density in Palau is about 45 people per sq km vs. 142 per sq km in China. (That being said, I imagine that population density is a more useful figure when managing marine resources in Palau than in China, because the density will inevitably be less variable in a small island country.)

We think a lot about population growth in large countries such as China and India - but what about tiny nations like Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia? Obviously, the global implications of population growth in these small countries are much less significant, but locally, population growth can place serious pressure on resources. Should global concerns always outweigh local concerns? China's per capita fish consumption is over 26 kg per year (http://www.greenfacts.org/en/fisheries/l-2/06-fish-consumption.htm) - not a small amount if you multiply it by more than a billion. So, we have to think a lot about Chinese fisheries. But what if there's an endemic species in Palau that could be wiped out by adding just a few more people to the island who are eating reef fish every day? As always, in conservation, we have to prioritize. And there are two ways to look at it - we could spend a lot of money and a lot of time addressing a massive issue (e.g. China's impact on fish abundance) or a lot less time and a lot less money (and we might even be successful) addressing a smaller, locally-scaled conservation issue in Palau. Just fish for thought.

Atika 11 months ago

Worldwide collaboration and understanding is necessary for conservation and recovery of ecosystems, as nature has no boundaries. Therefore, it will be up to our leaders to enforce policies that will not lead us into total destruction as human population continues to grow.

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17 case studies about sustainable sanitation projects in the philippines, caps (2011).

Published in: 2011

Publisher: Produced for UNEP with funding by KOICA, Center for Advanced Philippine Studies, Quezon City, Philippines

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This pdf file contains the following 17 case studies: 1. Ecosan Projects in San Fernando City, Province of La Union 2. Integrated waste management scheme for small and medium scale slaughterhouses Case of the Bureau of Animal Industry Plant in Valenzuela City, Metro Manila 3. Integrated waste management system for Bayawan City Ecological Sanitation Experiences in Periurban and Rural Communities 4. Local initiatives for affordable wastewater treatment (LINAW Project) Case of Dumaguete City (Public Market and Septage Treatment Plant) 5. Builiding communities... empowering communities Case of Gawad Kalinga Villages 6. Preserving the water quality of Iloilo City DEWATS of the Public Abattoir and Iloilo Mission Hospital 7. Laguna de Bay Institutional Strengthening and Community Participation Project DEWATS of the Slaughterhouses of Sta. Cruz and Nagcarlan, Laguna 8. Closing the loop between sanitation and food security Ecological Sanitation Case of the Municipalities of Initao,Libertad and Manticao, Misamis Oriental 9. Compliance to environmental standards to abate further violation DEWATS of Selected Slaughterhouses and Public Markets; and a University 10. Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Facility for the Lilo-an Public Market: A Pilot and Demonstration Activity of the Asian Development Bank 11. Decentralized Wastewater Treatment “Eco Tanks” for the Riverside Communities of Barangays Catbangen & Poro, & the Seaside Community of Barangay San Francisco A CITYNET-funded Pilot and Demonstration Activity in the City of San Fernando, La Union, Philippines 12. Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems for the San Fernando City Slaughterhouse A BORDA DEWATS Project in the Philippines 13. Biogas for the Cagayan de Oro City Jail An ICRC-Funded Environmental and Livelihood Project in the Philippines 14. Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System for LORMA Medical Center – San Fernando City A LORMA-funded Project to Better Manage its Wastewater 15. Biogas Wastewater Treatment Systems by the Philippine Center for Water and Sanitation A Community-Managed Potable Water Supply, Sanitation, & Hygiene (CPWASH) Project 16. Ecological Sanitation for the Municipality of Bauang, La Union An ISSUE2-Funded Program with CAPS in the Philippines 17. Small-Scale Wastewater Treatment Systems for 3 Markets USAID Philippine Sanitation Alliance Projects in the Philippines

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CAPS (2011). 17 case studies about sustainable sanitation projects in the Philippines. Produced for UNEP with funding by KOICA, Center for Advanced Philippine Studies, Quezon City, Philippines

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Case Study - 28: Environment v/s Development

• 12 Nov 2022

Industrial chemicals are produced on a big scale by a conglomerate. It suggested establishing a second unit. Due to its negative impact on the environment, many states rejected this proposal. But one state government acceded to the request and permitted the unit close to a city, brushing aside all opposition. Further, the unit was set up 10 years ago and was in full swing till recently. The pollution caused by the industrial effluents was affecting the land, water, and crops in the area. It was also causing serious health problems to human beings and animals. This gave rise to a series of agitations demanding the closure of the plant. In a recent agitation, thousands of people took part, creating a law-and-order problem necessitating stern police action. Following the public outcry, the State government ordered the closure of the factory. The closure of the factory resulted in the unemployment of not only those workers who were engaged in the factory but also those who were working in the ancillary units. It also very badly affected those industries which depended on the chemicals manufactured by it.

As a senior officer entrusted with the responsibility of handling these issues, how are you going to address it?

• Briefly introduce the ethical issue involved in the above case.
• Discuss about various stakeholders and ethical dilemmas involved in the case.
• Discuss your course of action as a senior officer.
• In conclusion, choose a way forward to resolve the issue.

Introduction

• The case involves the conflict between public health and environment safety v/s livelihood of people. It requires proper balance between environmental ethics and developmental ethics.
• Me as a senior officer who is responsible to solve this case,
• People living in the area,
• Employee of the closed factory,
• Ancillary units,
• State government which gave permission to set up industrial unit,
• MLA/MP of the area
• Emotional Intelligence: It would help senior officer in handling the difficult situation arising from the above case.
• Empathy: It is an awareness of the needs and feelings of others both individually and in groups and being able to see things from the point of view of others.
• Environmental responsibility v/s development: There is a conflict between development and saving nature from degradation due to setting up of industrial unit.
• I would firstly visit the factory to analyze what were the issues that led to the factory closure. I would try to see if the factory could be modified with advance equipment that does not harm the nearby environment.
• If the conditions are good for modification, I would request for a special group of experts who can look for solutions for developing the factory under acceptable conditions.
• When the plans of modification worked well and environmental degradation is reduced, then I would need to convince the people for their approval for this project to go ahead. I would then provide them with proof so that they trust the administration.
• The factory administration would need to make the changes according to the environmental standards. If the factory does not have any funds, I would consider providing them with necessary resources in short term as a loan so that they can go ahead with the approved plan.
• In a scenario where no modification can be undertaken, then I would brainstorm alternative plans, so that people do not suffer. This can be done through setting up of another industry that is less polluting.
• If no such industry is set up, I would have to take steps that can allow the job losers to attain financial security. This can be done through transferring them to other industries as per their requirements and further, supporting them with self-employment opportunities by providing them with loans to set up small cooperative industries or small business.
• I would be conducting an investigation to find out whether environmental rules were flouted while giving permission to set up factory ten years back or there are any loopholes in the state’s Environmental Impact Assessment norms which were used by company. At the same time the inspection should be done to find out that other companies are not flouting norms and polluting the environment.
• However, this option is not viable and best course for action.

Thus, my final course of action would be combination of the first and second option where both people’s employment and environmental pollution are given focus. Further, if both the issues are addressed then I would consider this a successful operation.

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The comparison of the wind environment adaptability and the street space of the traditional coastal villages and the new villages: A case study of Qinjiang Village in Fuzhou City

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Tianyu Chen , Qiqi Liu , Xin Wu; The comparison of the wind environment adaptability and the street space of the traditional coastal villages and the new villages: A case study of Qinjiang Village in Fuzhou City. AIP Conf. Proc. 19 August 2024; 3203 (1): 020002. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0223131

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At present, most of the existing studies on traditional residence are focused on conservation and reuse, discussion on their environmental adaptability, and the design wisdom of traditional villages in terms of disaster prevention and mitigation and environmental adaptability has not been fully explored. Traditional villages along the coast of Fujian are divided into two categories: one is the traditional villages that were coastal defence guards in the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty; the other is the traditional villages that have been transformed defence functions. The new villages designed after the 1980s are different in terms of street layout and architectural forms, with stronger wind in the village. A comparative study of old and new villages can help us understand the wisdom of traditional villages and preserve and utilize them better. This paper thus takes Qinjiang Village in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province as a case to quantitatively summarizes the relationship between street layout and spatial morphological characteristics of historical villages and their adaptability to wind environment, by comparing the spatial integration of the village and its adaptation to the sea wind environment are analysed by CFD software simulation with Depthmap of Space Syntax. concludes that crossroads have better wind protection than T junctions for street layout under the same wind effect; the street height to width ratio is inversely proportional to the average wind speed; the activity plazas properly interspersed between streets are conducive to optimising the wind environment.

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Willimantic river, ct, little floyd river, ia, long creek, me, presumpscot river, me, groundhouse river, mn, bogue homo, ms, little scioto river, oh, touchet river, wa, lake washington, wa, clear fork watershed, wv, elk hills, ca (terrestrial), upper arkansas river, co (terrestrial), birds of prey (terrestrial).

These fourteen (14) case studies illustrate how assessors have developed and interpreted evidence to determine causes of biological impairments. They provide examples of how to organize an assessment report, analyze data, and present results. Most of the cases assess rivers and streams, but a few assess terrestrial ecosystems.

The process for identifying causes of biological impairments continues to improve. As a result you will note differences among the case studies. In some examples, comments have been inserted by the U.S. EPA editor or the authors. These comments are not meant to indicate errors in the analyses. Rather, they suggest alternative approaches that users may apply in future assessments.

The full list of case studies are listed in the box to the right. The dots displayed in the map below show the approximate locations of where these case studies occurred.

Many of the following links exit the EPA web site

This case study used several evidence lines to show that metal exposure impaired benthic macroinvertebrates.

Effect : Altered benthic invertebrate assemblage Sources : Mining wastes Probable causes : Mixed metals Report : Arkansas River Case Study: Using Strength of Evidence Analysis. p. 4-11 in U.S. EPA (2000) Stressor Identification Guidance Document . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC. EPA/822/B-00/025. Guidance, presentations, other : Clements WH (1994) Benthic invertebrate community responses to heavy metals in the Upper Arkansas River Basin, Colorado. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 13:30-44. Clements WH, Kiffney PM (1994) Integrated laboratory and field approach for assessing impacts of heavy metals at the Arkansas River, Colorado. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 13:397-404. Clements WH, Carlisle DM, Lazorchak JM, Johnson PC (2000) Heavy metals structure benthic communities in Colorado mountain streams. Ecological Applications 10:626-638. Kiffney PM, Clements WH (1994) Structural responses of benthic macroinvertebrate communities from different stream orders to zinc. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 13:389-395. Kiffney PM, Clements WH (1994) Effects of heavy metals on a macroinvertebrate assemblage from a Rocky Mountain stream in experimental microcosms. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 13:511-523. Nelson SM, Roline RA (1996) Recovery of a stream macroinvertebrate community from mine drainage disturbance. Hydrobiologia 339:73-84.

A screening assessment from a one-day workshop led to additional sampling. This sampling discovered an illicit toxic source, remediation of which led to improved aquatic life. This experience led the State to develop a causal assessment program. In turn, this program led the State to address impervious surface effects on stream condition.

Effect : Altered benthic invertebrate assemblage Sources : Impervious surfaces, upstream impoundments, concrete channels, waste water treatment facility, industrial outfalls Probable causes : Primarily a toxic effluent; secondarily sediment, altered food resources, increased temperature Report : Bellucci C, Hoffman G, Cormier S (2009) An Iterative Approach for Identifying the Causes of Reduced Benthic Macroinvertebrate Diversity in the Willimantic River, Connecticut . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH. EPA/600/R-08/144. TMDL : CTDEP (2001) Total Maximum Daily Load Analysis for the Upper Willimantic River (PDF) (16 pp, 382 K, About PDF ) . Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, Stafford CT.

This case study illustrates the difficulties of assigning specific cause to biological impairment. Challenges included data collected in different ways, small discrimination between acceptable and impaired streams, and the presence of multiple stressors. This case study demonstrates several strategic techniques to address these challenges.

Effect : Altered fish and benthic invertebrate assemblages and a fish kill Sources : Row crop agriculture, hog production, wastewater treatment facility Probable causes : Primarily substrate alteration; secondarily nutrient enrichment and episodic toxic ammonia concentrations Manuscript : Haake DM, Wilton T, Krier K, Stewart AJ, Cormier SM (2010) Causal assessment of biological impairment in the Little Floyd River, Iowa, USA. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment 16(1):116-148. Report : Haake D, Wilton T, Krier K, Isenhart T, Paul J, Stewart A, Cormier S (2008) Stressor Identification in an Agricultural Watershed: Little Floyd River, Iowa .  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH. EPA/600/R 08/131. TMDL : IA DNR (2005) Total Maximum Daily Load For Sediment and Dissolved Oxygen, Little Floyd River, Sioux and O’Brien Counties, Iowa (PDF)   (32 pp, 378 K, About PDF ) . Iowa Department of Natural Resources, TMDL & Water Quality Assessment Section.

This detailed assessment illustrates the complexity of urban systems affected by many causes.

Effect : Altered benthic invertebrate assemblage, extirpated brook trout fishery Sources : Commercial and industrial area, airport, dairy Probable causes : Decreased dissolved oxygen, altered flow regime, decreased large woody debris, increased temperature and increased toxicity due to ionic strength Report : U.S. EPA (2007) Causal Analysis of Biological Impairment in Long Creek, a Sandy-Bottomed Stream in Coastal Southern Maine (Final Report) . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC. EPA/600/R-06/065F.

This is one of first two Stressor Identification case studies. The study was performed prior to development of the SI Guidance, and it informed guidance development. The weight of evidence was heavily influenced by the lack of co-occurrence of the effect with other candidate causes and by manipulations at a pulp mill on the Androscoggin River. Reductions in total suspended solids at the pulp mill led to recovery.

Effect : Altered benthic invertebrate assemblage Sources : Impoundment, paper and pulp mill Probable cause : Total suspended solids with floc Report : Presumpscot River, Maine. Ch. 6 in U.S. EPA (2000) Stressor Identification Guidance Document . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC. EPA/822/B-00/025. TMDL : U.S. EPA (1998) New England’s Review of the Presumpscott River TMDL Memo (PDF)   (12 pp, 14.1.Mb, About PDF ) . [Last accessed 02/03/10] Guidance, presentations, other : Presumpscot River Plan Steering Committee (2002) Cumulative Impacts to Environmental Conditions on the Presumpscot River and its Shorelands (PDF)  (DRAFT – As distributed at the June 2002 Public Meetings) (102 pp, 1.3 Mb, About PDF ) . [Last accessed 02/02/10]

This screening assessment was done during a two-and-a-half day workshop. Findings were used to mount a more extensive watershed-scale assessment with additional data collection. Results of the screening assessment were confirmed and additional causes were characterized. The State adopted the Stressor Identification process and developed their own guidance and training materials.

Effect : Altered benthic invertebrate assemblage Sources : Waste water treatment facility, agriculture Probable causes : Sediment, nutrients Report : Lane C, Cormier S (2004) Screening Level Causal Analysis and Assessment of an Impaired Reach of the Groundhouse River, Minnesota. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati OH. TMDL : Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (2009) Groundhouse River Total Maximum Daily Loads for Fecal Coliform and Biota (Sediment) Impairments (PDF)   (377 pp, 9.3 Mb, About PDF ) .  [Last accessed 01/31/10]  Guidance, presentations, other :  Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (2009) Brown's Creek Impaired Biota TMDL - Stressor Identification  (229  pp, 1.9Mb, About PDF ) .[Last accessed 03/31/12]

This assessment was one of the first cases undertaken by the State. It resulted in the State's streamlined stressor identification process. The State performed more than 700 court-ordered causal assessments for total maximum daily load (TMDL) development. A standard candidate cause list and screening levels developed at the program's beginning increased assessment speeds.

Effect : Altered benthic invertebrate assemblage Sources : Forestry, agriculture, reservoir Probable causes : Primarily dissolved oxygen and altered food resources Report : Hicks M, Whittington K, Thomas J, Kurtz J, Stewart A, Suter GW II, Cormier S (2010) Causal Assessment of Biological Impairment in the Bogue Homo River, Mississippi Using the U.S. EPA's Stressor Identification Methodology . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati OH. EPA/600/R-08/143. TMDL : MDEQ (2005) Phase 1: Total Maximum Daily Load Biological Impairment Due to Organic Enrichment/Low Dissolved Oxygen and Nutrients: The Bogue Homo River, Pascagoula Basin, Jones County, Mississippi (PDF)   (44 pp, 681 K, About PDF ) . Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, Office of Pollution Control, Jackson MS. Guidance, presentations, other : MDEQ (2004) Draft Stressor Identification for the Bogue Homo River, Forrest and Perry Counties, Mississippi. Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, Office of Pollution Control, Jackson MS.

This is one of the first two Stressor Identification case studies. In addition to the original case, alternate formats for organizing data are presented in CADDIS.

Effects : Altered fish and benthic invertebrate assemblages Sources : Channelized stream, creosote plant and treatment facility, industrial waste site, waste water treatment facilities Probable causes : Altered habitat, PAHs, metal and ammonia toxicity in different segments Manuscripts : Norton SB, Cormier SM, Suter GW II, Subramanian B, Lin ELC, Altfater D, Counts B (2002) Determining probable causes of ecological impairment in the Little Scioto River, Ohio, USA. Part 1: Listing candidate causes and analyzing evidence. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 21(6):1112-1124. Cormier SM, Norton SB, Suter GW II, Altfater D, Counts B (2002) Determining the causes of impairments in the Little Scioto River, Ohio. Part 2: Characterization of causes. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 21(6):1125-1137. Report : Little Scioto River, Ohio. Ch. 7 in U.S. EPA (2000) Stressor Identification Guidance Document . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC. EPA/822/B-00/025. Guidance, presentations, other : Ohio EPA (2008) Biological and Water Quality Study of the Little Scioto River (PDF) (59 pp, 1.04Mb, About PDF ). Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Columbus OH. [Last accessed 02/02/10]

This screening causal assessment was a novel application of the Stressor Identification process for several reasons. It involved a long river stretch, in an arid watershed of the northwestern U.S. It also marked the first use of endangered salmonids as a Stressor Identification endpoint. Specific alteration of the invertebrate assemblage aided analysis.

Effect : Altered benthic invertebrate assemblages and extirpation of salmonids Sources : Wheat and irrigated agriculture, impoundments, logging, cattle raising Probable causes : Primarily water temperature and sedimentation; secondarily toxics, low dissolved oxygen, alkaline pH, reduced detritus, reduced flow and reduced habitat complexity Manuscript : Wiseman CD, LeMoine M, Cormier S (2010) Assessment of probable causes of reduced aquatic life in the Touchet River, Washington, USA. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment 16(1):87-115. Report : Wiseman CD, LeMoine M, Plotnikoff R, Diamond J, Stewart A, Cormier S (2009) Identification of Most Probable Stressors to Aquatic Life in the Touchet River, Washington . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati OH. EPA/600/R 08/145. TMDL : Washington Department of Ecology. Walla Walla River Basin TMDL Water Quality Improvement Report (2007) and the Walla Walla Watershed TMDL Water Quality Implementation Plan (2008) with links to stressor-specific TMDLs. [Last accessed 05/27/18]  Guidance, presentations, other : Adams K (2010) Guidance for Stressor Identification of Biologically Impaired Aquatic Resources in Washington State . Washington State Department of Ecology, Olympia WA. Publication No. 10-03-036.

This is a brief synopsis of a historically important causal assessment of a eutrophic system. Evidence of world-wide consistency of association established general causality. Modeling was important in establishing specific causality.

Effect : Cyanobacteria blooms Sources : Waste water inputs Probable causes : Phosphorus Report : Lake Washington Case Study. p. 4-13 in U.S. EPA (2000) Stressor Identification Guidance Document .  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC. EPA/822/B-00/025. Guidance, presentations, other : Summarized from Lehman JT (1986) Control of eutrophication in Lake Washington: Case Study. pp. 301-316 in Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Problem-Solving: Concepts and Case Studies. National Academy Press, Washington DC.

This case addresses a moderately sized drainage with several tributaries. Stressor-response relationships derived from field data prior to the assessment provided the primary evidence.

Effect : Altered benthic invertebrate assemblage Sources : Mining, logging, agriculture, and residential development. Probable causes : Sulfate/conductivity, organic and nutrient enrichment, acid mine drainage, residual metals (particularly aluminum) at moderately acidic pH, excess sediment, and multiple stressors Report : Gerritsen J, Zheng L, Burton J, Boschen C, Wilkes S, Ludwig J, Cormier S (2010) Inferring Causes of Biological Impairment in the Clear Fork Watershed, West Virginia . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, National Center for Environmental Assessment, Cincinnati OH. EPA/600/R-08/146. TMDL : WVDEP (2006) Appendix 1. Clear Fork (PDF)   (14 pp, 372 K, About PDF ) in Total Maximum Daily Loads for Selected Streams in the Coal River Watershed, West Virginia. Prepared by Water Resources and TMDL Center, Tetra Tech, Inc., Charleston WV. Guidance, presentations, other : WVDEP (1997) An Ecological Assessment of the Coal River Watershed. West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Water Resources, Watershed Assessment Program. Report number - 5050009 – 1997, pp. 93.

This case study deals with a contaminated terrestrial site and an endangered wildlife population. This study illustrates the importance of spatial and temporal scales of causes and effects. Based on mathematical modeling to link causes with population changes, it reverses a prior assessment’s findings.

Effect : Decline in abundance of the endangered San Joaquin Kit Fox Sources : Petroleum drilling, wastes, vehicles and drought Probable causes : Predation and accidents Report : U.S. EPA (2008) Analysis of the Causes of a Decline in the San Joaquin Kit Fox Population on the Elk Hills, Naval Petroleum Reserve #1, California . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati OH. EPA/600/R-08/130.

This case study applied Stressor Identification to a highly mineralized area of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Evaluated impairments were reduced vegetation, plant growth and species richness in meadows irrigated with Upper Arkansas River water. This study demonstrates aspects of the assessment process that may differ between aquatic and terrestrial systems.

Effect : Reduced plant growth and plant species richness Sources : Mining, smelting, agriculture Probable causes : Extrinsic metal with decreased pH (floodplain); extrinsic metal (irrigated meadows) Report : Kravitz M (2011) Stressor Identification (SI) at Contaminated Sites: Upper Arkansas River, Colorado . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati OH. EPA/600/R-08/029.

This synopsis explains that the link between DDT and peregrine falcon decline was not initially recognized. The connection was made by re-examining the impairment description. Eventually it was recognized that the specific effect was reproductive failure due to eggshell thinning.

Effect : Decline of birds of prey Probable causes : DDT/DDE Report : Revisiting the Impairment in the Case of DDT. p. 5-2 in U.S. EPA (2000) Stressor Identification Guidance Document . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC. EPA/822/B-00/025. Guidance, presentations, other : Blus LJ, Henny CF (1997) Field studies on pesticides and birds: unexpected and unique relations. Ecological Applications 7:1125-1132.  Grier JW (1982) Ban of DDT and subsequent recovery of reproduction in bald eagles. Science 218:1232-1234.

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Zoning and density - case study examples for article

Linda C. Reeder FAIA 03-27-2024 10:13 AM

Ivan contreras aia 03-28-2024 05:36 pm, daniel gerard steger aia 03-28-2024 06:05 pm, matthew s. hutchins aia 03-28-2024 07:17 pm, mark mcdonald assoc. aia 03-30-2024 03:51 pm.

Robert B. Ross AIA 03-29-2024 10:54 AM

Matthew s. hutchins aia 03-30-2024 05:04 pm, emily a. hagen aia 04-01-2024 07:04 pm, 1.  zoning and density - case study examples for article.

Municipalities around the country are revising zoning regulations to increase density in an effort to address housing shortages. Have you designed an ADU or other residential project that takes advantage of zoning revisions that increase density? Have you discovered unintended consequences of these zoning revisions related to residential projects? In either case, I would like to hear about your project or experience at  [email protected] . I am collecting case studies and information for possible inclusion in a magazine article. Thank you!

2.  RE: Zoning and density - case study examples for article

As a residential Architect / Builder, I am very interested in this topic. It is a great opportunity to mitigate shortages in housing, by effectively increasing allowed density, as well as reducing suburban sprawl.

In the US, municipalities are only slowly starting to adopt the mixed-use concept. It will be long before they start discussing minimum density (not maximum).

For some weird reason, I was drawn to learn about the finance side of things. 

At a housing summit in Washington DC, last year, I spoke with someone from Fannie Mae, to try to understand how an ADU gets financed. The answer was, whether attached or detached, unequivocally, the ADU cannot be a second mortgage, it must be a refi. It was also said that this refi would take into account the credit of the applicant, as well as the economic viability of the ADU. 

So, on one hand, you now have an opportunity to make a part of your house an income-producing property, yet on another, you would have to relinquish your favorable mortgage rate to a new higher rate

Once again, we see policies that do not favor the middle class or below. The policies could/should be an integral part of fighting gentrification and being able to stay in your neighborhood.

Another idea came up: someone could rent an empty piece of his/her lot to have a tiny home installed, which did not belong to the homeowner, but to a third party, who could rent the home and pay rent to the homeowner for using the land.

------------------------------ Ivan Contreras, LEED AP, AIA CONTRERAS MUNOZ & CO Miami FL ------------------------------ Original Message Original Message: Sent: 03-27-2024 10:12 AM From: Linda Reeder Subject: Zoning and density - case study examples for article

Municipalities around the country are revising zoning regulations to increase density to address housing shortages. Have you designed an ADU or other residential project that takes advantage of zoning revisions that increase density? Have you discovered the unintended consequences of these zoning revisions related to residential projects? In either case, I would like to hear about your project or experience at  [email protected] . I am collecting case studies and information for possible inclusion in a magazine article. Thank you!

------------------------------ Linda Reeder FAIA New Haven CT ------------------------------

3.  RE: Zoning and density - case study examples for article

Linda, I have not designed an ADU...yet!  However, I think you may find what Boston is doing rather interesting.  Check out their ADU zoning program here -   Additional Dwelling Unit Program

Boston.gov		remove preview
Additional Dwelling Unit Program The Additional Dwelling Unit Program allows owner occupants in the City of Boston to carve out a new space within their homes. They can create smaller, independent units, known as Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) once the design has been approved. For those who qualify, we offer loans to build approved ADU designs. The city is attempting to expand the program as well - Expanding ADU Access in Boston Boston.gov remove preview Expanding ADU Access in Boston The Additional Dwelling Unit (ADU) is a self-contained residential living unit. They can provide additional income for homeowners and flexible, separate living arrangements for families to age in place, or support relatives or children while still maintaining their privacy. 4.  RE: Zoning and density - case study examples for article We have designed 50+ We also have a pre-approved plan that has been used in Seattle 15-20 times. We also help cities and towns recognize barriers and rewrite their ADU code to reduce those barriers. Washington state allows ADUs to be sold independently of the primary residence if you create a condominium association which we've done.  Big fan and I'm happy to talk.  Email me at [email protected] 5.  RE: Zoning and density - case study examples for article At the most fundamental level, zoning changes allowing ADU's and similar additions, reduces affordability for first-time and low-income buyers. Zoning that allows higher density on a property and the ability to rent spaces, increases the value of the property to investors, who price out first-time buyers and low-income. It increases available rental opportunities which only slow rental price increases. All of the proposed housing solutions have the same effect. When rental income restrictions are enacted, investment in rental properties drop, reducing the quality of housing. Too many times the complexity of problems is ignored in favor of single-point actions that cannot achieve the desired outcome. 6.  RE: Zoning and density - case study examples for article I've designed ADU's but think there application to create affordable housing is minimal at best. Most of the ADU's that I'm aware of actually end up as short term rentals, further exacerbating the problem. The size requirement imposed by most municipalities would not support a small family. Families are the ones most being affected by a lack of affordable housing options. I would look to the revision of single family zoning to include small 6-8 unit apartments within a single family district as a step in the right direction and a more impactful way to address the issue.  7.  RE: Zoning and density - case study examples for article Linda--Seattle builds nearly 1000 ADUs per year--It is one of the most popular forms of new housing here because: New residents can live in excellent established neighborhoods, with walkable access to neighborhood amenities like parks, schools and local businesses that need new customers.  They can be rented or purchased at a lower price point than a traditional larger new detached house. I would never call ADUs 'affordable' per se, because they cost more per foot than other types, and aren't subsidized or have fixed rent typically, but they are way less than houses. It is silly to demand ADUs be price controlled for lower income folks when we'd never do that for adjacent single-family houses on the open market.   There is very little impact on neighboring properties. In 15 years of building ADUs, I've never had a complaint, however I have had tons of neighbors inquire about building one themselves!  Today's household sizes are getting smaller (Seattle's is 1.83 people), and smaller DADUs serve many people who don't need as much house. They serve multigeneration households really well, as well as those aging in place (the AARP has been a huge proponent of ADUs for a decade because the smaller houses in often more walkable neighborhoods are better for the lifestyle needs of our silver wave of downsizing seniors). About 1/4 of our ADUs were built for the grandparents, sometimes by the grandparents on the adult kid's parcel.   Because zoning changes to allow them are citywide, property taxes don't increase just because cities institute ADU programs. Cities do get to leverage those new residents to make other contributions to the tax base like sales tax etc.  Honestly for me, the only downside is that ADUs are not the vehicle for addressing housing crisis--they're just a little too bespoke, and as one-offs don't have enough impact given the scale of the challenge. We actually need way more flexibility with middle housing types like multiplexes and townhomes if we want to scale up urban housing production beyond what we see in the current large apartment building market.   8.  RE: Zoning and density - case study examples for article I have designed a few in Seattle and the surrounding area, but I've also run into current zoning issues that are limiting in the design of ADUs (both attached and detached units). I'm personally super excited about a WA state house bill that passed and is making it's way down into jurisdictions to allow for more models of residential density (up to six units per lot!) and would hopefully not restrict zoning for these additional units to only be sized for 1-2 bedroom units. Have a look - https://www.commerce.wa.gov/serving-communities/growth-management/growth-management-topics/planning-for-middle-housing/.   Final Model Ordinance for cities 25,000 and over (PDF) It's a fun read that I'm excited about! :)  New Best Answer Related content, lessons learned about designing for density. California Accessory Dwellings: A Webinar for Design Professionals AIA Cincinnati CRAN Meeting - New Design Considerations for Manufactured Fireplace Units Architects and ideas. AIA CRAN® Chapter Committee Leaders AIA speaker & media requests Privacy & Terms Privacy policy Terms of use Code of ethics More From Forbes Why vertical integration is the path to strategic advantage. Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Marc Emmer is president of Optimize Inc. and an author, speaker and consultant specializing in strategy and strategic planning. Tesla's ascent in the automotive world is a story of innovation, not only because of technology and engineering but also because of a shrewd business strategy. Spearheaded by Elon Musk, Tesla has not just revolutionized the automotive industry but also provided a masterclass in vertical integration. In a world where supply chains have gone from being long and slow to short and agile, Tesla controls almost every facet of production. Tesla's Strategic Mastery: A Case Study in Vertical Integration Tesla's approach to vertical integration —owning as many aspects of production as possible, from raw materials to final assembly—is a stark contrast to the traditional automotive industry model of outsourcing key components and relying heavily on global supply chains. 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This aspect is increasingly important to consumers, who are more likely to support brands that demonstrate environmental responsibility and ethical sourcing. The Road Ahead: Challenges And Opportunities While the move toward shorter supply chains is promising, it is not without its challenges . Establishing a controlled supply chain requires significant investment and expertise. Companies must be willing to invest in infrastructure, technology and talent to manage this transition successfully. As industries increasingly adopt this model, the competitive landscape could shift. Companies that are slow to adapt could find themselves at a disadvantage, struggling to keep pace with more agile competitors. The New Era Of Supply Chains The Covid-19 pandemic was as a significant disruptor across industries, underlining the fragility and complexities of extended global supply chains. It’s particularly crucial in an era marked by frequent and unpredictable global disruptions. 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Top 10 Sustainability Case Studies & Success Stories in 2024 For more information regarding improving corporate sustainability by digital transformation you can read our Top 4 Digital Technologies that Improve Corporate Sustainability article. 10. Tata Power: Solar plants on the roofs. Rooftops offer a lot of empty space that can be used to install solar panels. Case Studies: Creating a clean, safe environment Case Studies: Creating a clean, safe environment. Accurate data is essential for monitoring and managing the environment and enabling the design and implementation of effective environmental regulation. Recognising the hazards posed by pollution, the EU has developed an extensive body of legislation which establishes health-based standards and ... Case Studies The Stanford Law School Case Studies Collection is an exciting innovation in law school teaching designed to hone students' problem-solving skills and stimulate creativity. The Collection includes situational case studies and interactive simulations (collectively referred to as "Case Materials") that place students in the roles of lawyers ... Case Studies in Environmental Geography: A CSE Special Collection The case studies in this collection, drawn from articles published in Case Studies in the Environment between 2022 and 2023, demonstrate the diverse ways that geographic theories and methods can assist in the analysis of environmental cases, and equip readers with better problem-solving skills. These manuscripts demonstrate the way in which ... Case Studies and Best Practices Below are examples of the types of environmental benefits that result from lean implementation. Click on each link to view a full case study of the organization's lean activities and the environmental implications of those activities. Apollo Hardwoods Company. Uses fewer trees and less energy to produce the same amount of product Environmental Management Case Studies & ISO 14001 Articles Many have seen increases in revenue, quality, and cost savings after implementing quality and environmental management system standards with an eco-friendly focus. Please note: These environmental management case studies are provided as examples of how companies have improved using ISO 14001, not ISO 14001:2015. PDF Case Studies From the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem Collaborative problem-solving simply means that various partners, or stakeholders, agree to work together to address a particular issue or concern. These stakeholders often must come to a "meeting of the minds" in order to address the numerous environmental, public health, economic, and social problems in local communities. Population and Environment Case Studies: Local Approaches to a Global A number of case studies in the coastal zone, based on population density gradients, from Palau, Maryland Coastal Bays, Moreton Bay in Australia and Chesapeake Bay to Pearl River in China will be reviewed to understand the population dynamics, environment issues, and management services. Importantly, through this case study discussion, we can ... 17 case studies about sustainable sanitation projects in the Content - Summary. This pdf file contains the following 17 case studies: 1. Ecosan Projects in San Fernando City, Province of La Union 2. Integrated waste management scheme for small and medium scale slaughterhouses Case of the Bureau of Animal Industry Plant in Valenzuela City, Metro Manila 3. Integrated waste management system for Bayawan ... PDF Case Studies on Environmental Due Diligence: Examples From ... This case study provides examples of how the Company is implementing supply chain due diligence and is. working to embed OECD standards on Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) into its policies and management systems. It focuses on two environmental risks commonly identified across the electronics sector - climate change and chemical pollution. Environment Case Study Examples That Really Inspire In this free collection of Environment Case Study examples, you are provided with a thrilling opportunity to explore meaningful topics, content structuring techniques, text flow, formatting styles, and other academically acclaimed writing practices. Implementing them while composing your own Environment Case Study will surely allow you to ... Air quality forecasting and smoke messaging to protect priority BACKGROUND AND AIM[|]Landscape fires are increasing in Australia, likely as a consequence of a changing climate. There are currently no well-established smoke warning systems to provide people, particularly priority populations, with early advice so that they can take actions to reduce their exposures to smoke. Establish and pilot a communications framework to ensure all populations receive ... Case Study Case Study - 28: Environment v/s Development. 12 Nov 2022. 7 min read. Industrial chemicals are produced on a big scale by a conglomerate. It suggested establishing a second unit. Due to its negative impact on the environment, many states rejected this proposal. But one state government acceded to the request and permitted the unit close to a ... The comparison of the wind environment adaptability and the street This paper thus takes Qinjiang Village in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province as a case to quantitatively summarizes the relationship between street layout and spatial morphological characteristics of historical villages and their adaptability to wind environment, by comparing the spatial integration of the village and its adaptation to the sea wind ... Environmental Risk Factors for Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Over We compare associations between environmental exposures from birth to diagnosis with the risk of SCZ and BD, adjusting for genetic risk.[¤]METHOD[|]We conducted a Swedish register-based nested case-control study using 4,184 SCZ and 18,681 BD cases. Cases were matched to five controls by birth year, region and sex. Exposure to herbicide mixtures and hypertensive disorders: a nested BACKGROUND AND AIM[|]Given the lack of epidemiologic evidence on the association between herbicide exposure and hypertension (HTN), we aimed to examine the association of HTN risk with single and mixture exposure to multiple herbicides.[¤]METHOD[|]We conducted a nested case-control study in Henan, China, including 560 hypertensive cases and 560 controls. Gas chromatography-triple quadrupole ... Case Studies These fourteen (14) case studies illustrate how assessors have developed and interpreted evidence to determine causes of biological impairments. They provide examples of how to organize an assessment report, analyze data, and present results. Most of the cases assess rivers and streams, but a few assess terrestrial ecosystems. Zoning and density Have you discovered unintended consequences of these zoning revisions related to residential projects? In either case, I would like to hear about your project or experience at [email protected]. I am collecting case studies and information for possible inclusion in a magazine article. Thank you!-----Linda Reeder FAIA Why Vertical Integration Is The Path To Strategic Advantage 1. Enhanced quality control: With more control over their supply chains, companies can improve quality standards, as this direct oversight can allow for immediate rectification of issues and help ... essay homework paper phd project resume review speech thesis