Background: Humanity's current use of resources is not in line with the goal of sustainable development. Climate change impact scenarios appear worryingly pessimistic. The agricultural and food production accounts for a particularly high share of the impact, and this also holds for consumption of food. Transforming food consumption plays a crucial role in tackling the challenges, and sensory consumer science can contribute to this.
Inclusive policies that attend to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) are associated with more supportive school environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. We use the 2013–2015 California Healthy Kids Survey (n = 113,148) matched with principal reports of school policies from the 2014 California School Health Profiles to examine differential effects of SOGI-focused policies for LGB and transgender youth.
There is worldwide concern about the environmental costs of conventional intensification of agriculture. Growing evidence suggests that ecological intensification of mainstream farming can safeguard food production, with accompanying environmental benefits; however, the approach is rarely adopted by farmers. Our review of the evidence for replacing external inputs with ecosystem services shows that scientists tend to focus on processes (e.g., pollination) rather than outcomes (e.g., profits), and express benefits at spatio-temporal scales that are not always relevant to farmers.
Although wetlands are known to provide vital ecosystem services, the current state of wetlands in Ethiopia in terms of their ecosystem service components remains poorly understood. Wetlands located in the UNESCO Lake Tana Biosphere Reserve have been highly degraded, but possess highly valuable resources. Therefore, this study sought to assess the major ecological states and identify the main ecosystem services (ESs), along with local people's perceptions of wetland management. Nine wetlands were selected from pristine/reference, agricultural and urban land uses of the Lake Tana area.
Working mothers often find themselves in a difficult situation when trying to balance work and family responsibilities and to manage expectations about their work and parental effectiveness. Family-friendly policies such as maternity leave have been introduced to address this issue. But how are women who then make the decision to go or not go on maternity leave evaluated?
Existing studies on adaptation to climate change mainly focus on a comparison of male-headed and female-headed households. Aiming at a more nuanced gender analysis, this study examines how husbands and wives within the same household perceive climate risks and use group-based approaches as coping strategies. The data stem from a unique intra-household survey involving 156 couples in rural Kenya. The findings indicate that options for adapting to climate change closely interplay with husbands’ and wives’ roles and responsibilities, social norms, risk perceptions and access to resources.
Uncertainties in evaluating bioenergy projects have lead policymakers to adopt a restrictive approach or even refuse to evaluate projects when the available information is limited or a clear perception of its benefits and impact is lacking. Indeed, despite its potential advantages, a bioenergy system poses several conceptual and operational challenges for academic as well as practical scrutiny because the inherent relationship and the intersection of areas related to energy production and agricultural activity requires a deeply integrated assessment.
Access to water in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continues to be a challenge to the extent that there are more people without access to water in 2015 than in 1990. This indicates that current approaches to water provision have been ineffective. Governments have failed to provide a structure, mechanisms or approaches that guarantee water for ALL, resulting in a vacuum which has been ‘filled’ by a number of social actors (NGOs, Faith Based Organisations, Donors).
